The Queen Mother

by William Shawcross

  Among the hundreds of letters and telegrams they received was one from Beryl Poignand. The Duke wrote to thank her and to tell her how overjoyed they were with their baby. ‘You have known Elizabeth for so long & I can tell you how very proud I am of her for the way she has gone through this last week.’55 Lady Strathmore also sent a letter to Beryl saying, ‘The baby is a lovely, healthy little creature … Eliz is getting on but is still very tired & weak – but the Drs are pleased with her progress, so all is well. She often talks of you & the old days & is exactly the same as ever.’56

  The most urgent task was the choosing of the new Princess’s names. On 27 April the Duke wrote to his father to say that their choice was Elizabeth Alexandra Mary – the names of the baby’s mother, her great-grandmother and her grandmother. ‘We are so anxious for her first name to be Elizabeth as it is such a nice name & there has been no one of that name in your family for a long time. Elizabeth of York sounds so nice too.’57 The King approved the choices at once.58

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  THE BIRTH OF the Princess provided a welcome diversion in troubled times. Indeed a few days later Britain appeared to some (particularly in sections of the press) to be on the cusp of revolution. Both the King and the Duke had been preoccupied with the danger of a general strike, threatened by the Trades Union Congress in support of the coalminers.

  Coal had for over a century been the basis of Britain’s industrial power and, to a significant extent, of her imperial expansion. Mining was the biggest industry in Britain, the only one employing over a million people. It had been temporarily nationalized during the war – now it had become a symbol of class struggle.59 In summer 1925 the owners gave notice that they intended to lower wages and enforce longer hours. The Miners’ Union was led by a charismatic former Baptist lay preacher, A. J. Cook, who saw himself as ‘a humble follower of Lenin’. He decided to take the government and the owners’ ultimatums as a challenge to join a class war. His ambition was at the very least to refuse all concessions.60 The King was worried, writing in his diary in July 1925 that a strike ‘will play the devil with the country. I never seem to get any peace in this world. Felt very low & depressed.’61

  At the last minute the government surrendered, deciding to continue the subsidies pending the report of a Royal Commission. The report in March 1926 recommended complete reorganization of the industry, the end of the subsidies and a smaller reduction in wages than the owners had wanted. This last Cook refused to accept. The miners’ slogan ‘Not a minute on the day, not a penny off the pay’ was supported by many other unions. They felt that at last organized labour should show its strength. The TUC announced a general strike for 3 May; it was to include all workers except those in the public health services.

  Such dread swept the country that it might have seemed that the Day of Judgement was nigh. Many government ministers, and many members of the upper and middle classes, their concerns whipped up by the Daily Mail and other papers, feared that this was the start of the British Bolshevik revolution. Duff Cooper recorded in his diary, perhaps with irony, that his wife Diana had asked him on 5 May how soon they could with honour leave the country. ‘I said not until the massacres began.’62

  Facing the threat of a national strike, the government formed an Organization for the Maintenance of Supplies and enlisted volunteers from the middle and upper classes as drivers to move food between cities. On 3 May itself Hyde Park was closed to the public and used as a milk depot. Troops were moved into Whitehall and used to convoy food. There was no public transport but people walked or hitch-hiked to work. Power plants were taken over by the government but illuminated signs were prohibited. Fog made life more confusing. Amateur train and bus drivers managed to get some buses and trains running, but such ‘scabs’ risked having the windows of their vehicles broken. Members of the gentlemen’s clubs in St James’s turned up for lunch in policemen’s uniforms.63

  Newspapers were published only with difficulty in Britain. Winston Churchill, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, expressed government demands for the ‘unconditional surrender’ of the unions with his usual forthrightness; he published a government broadsheet, the British Gazette, which declared that the General Strike was a threat to the constitution and warned that the army might have to assist the government more robustly. The King made it clear that he thought this imprudent.64 In the event troops were needed only in the London docks, where violence was never far distant.65

  The Daily Mail, the government’s principal cheerleader, printed editions in Paris and flew them over to London. It brandished headlines such as ‘The Pistol at the Nation’s Head’ and under the headline ‘For King and Country’ (the paper’s slogan) on 3 May it printed an editorial which declared, ‘A general strike is not an industrial dispute. It is a revolutionary movement intended to inflict suffering upon the great mass of innocent persons in the community … This being so, it cannot be tolerated by any civilised government, and must be dealt with by every resource at the disposal of the community.’

  The strike caused the King great anxiety; he came to London on the morning it began and stayed there throughout. He had consistently shown his sympathy for the poor of his kingdom as well as his affinity with the rich. Just before the strike began he told Lord Durham, a mine owner, that he was sorry for the miners. When Durham complained that they were ‘a damned lot of revolutionaries’, the King retorted, ‘Try living on their wages before you judge them.’66

  The Duke of York, with his specific interest in industrial matters, was also worried and attended five of the debates in the House of Commons during the strike; on 11 May he went to see the food transport organization in Hyde Park. The King urged the government to protect those who were trying to maintain essential services but was opposed to anything that might make the strikers desperate.67 He discouraged the government from introducing legislation or even orders in council that might be seen as confiscating money from strikers and thus provoke more fury. However, while the King was sympathetic to the plight of the poor, he was absolutely opposed to intimidation or any other breach of the law by strikers.68 At one stage during the General Strike he urged new legislation to prevent intimidation of those who were trying to break the strike. The Prime Minister thought this unwise.69 On the other hand, he subtly and successfully discouraged the government from legislating to control trades union funds. As his Private Secretary Lord Stamfordham recorded, on 9 May he told the Home Secretary and the Attorney General that the situation so far was ‘better and more peaceful than might have been expected. The spirit of the miners was not unfriendly, as shown by such instances as Saturday afternoon’s Football Match at Plymouth between the police and the strikers: but any attempt to get hold of or control the Trades Union Funds might cause exasperation and provoke reprisals.’70

  There was not much support for the miners among the well-to-do, who found that they were able to get by surprisingly well. They rallied to voluntary organizations, as they had during the war, and paid attention to the BBC, which now had around two million regular listeners and which urged them to ‘do their bit’.71 After the strike had continued for eight days it became clear that the strikers would succeed neither in intimidating the public nor in coercing the government. A rift grew between the TUC and the Miners’ Union over terms for settlement and the TUC called off the General Strike on 12 May. The Daily Mail was triumphant: ‘Surrender of the Revolutionaries’ and ‘A Triumph for the People’ were among its favoured headlines. The King wrote in his diary, ‘our old country can well be proud of itself, as during the last nine days there has been a strike in which four million people have been affected, not a shot has been fired and no one killed. It shows what a wonderful people we are.’72

  Not everyone returned at once to work. The dockers, printers and transport workers remained out for another five days and some of the abandoned miners held out for another six months. By then they were utterly impoverished, winter was closing in and they were compelled to drift back to work
. The coal strike finally came to an end only in November 1926.

  The trades unions realized that they had been beaten and did not voice any strong objection when, in 1927, much more draconian legislation made general strikes illegal.73 Instead they began to cooperate with industrialists and took part in a new National Industrial Council formed in 1927. But many workers remained suspicious and gradually the feeling grew that the miners had not been fairly treated. Coal remained the largest single employer in the country until the Second World War and nationalization of the mines was one of the first acts embarked upon by the Labour government elected in 1945. Harold Nicolson, King George V’s official biographer, put it well when he wrote that the strike ‘was felt to be a common tragedy and not a purely class tragedy; there was little heresy hunting and no victimisation. Every section of the community felt sorry for the other sections, as well as for themselves.’74

  But at the same time the strike seemed to reduce militancy. The Communist Party had doubled its membership during 1926 – it lost large numbers of recruits afterwards. And many middle-class ‘blacklegs’ suddenly realized for the first time how difficult manual labour could be, and began to harbour a new respect for workers. The historian A. J. P. Taylor was surely exaggerating when he declared that ‘The general strike, apparently the clearest display of the class war in British history, marked the moment when class war ceased to shape the pattern of British industrial relations.’75 But perhaps he was right in the sense that 1926 showed that Britain might be able to deal reasonably with the issues of industrial discontent and thus avoid the totalitarian responses which began to scar Europe.

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  IN THE IMMEDIATE aftermath of the strike, the Royal Family could afford some happiness. It centred upon Princess Elizabeth who straight away became the focus of attention in her extended family. The newspapers had reported the birth with enthusiasm and reflected the affection in which the Duchess was already held, after three years of marriage. Not only that – they tried to assume the mantle of fairy godparents around the crib, each bearing good wishes and glorious predictions. The Morning Post remarked, ‘For the Royal Family the day was one of congratulation and satisfaction, a feeling which the public cordially shared, because in three short years the Duchess has become universally and outstandingly popular.’ The Daily Telegraph declared, ‘The Duchess has taken a full share in our national life, working for all sorts of philanthropical institutions, and with her husband she has visited many centres of industry.’ The Daily Graphic showed remarkable foresight when it wrote that the family’s happiness was shared by the nation and added, ‘The possibility that in the little stranger to Bruton Street there may be a future Queen of Great Britain (perhaps, even a second and resplendent Queen Elizabeth) is sufficiently intriguing; but let us not burden the bright hour of its arrival with speculation of its Royal destiny.’

  On 26 May (Queen Mary’s birthday) a photograph of the Duchess with her baby was published in the Sketch, and the Daily Mirror reported ‘a charming incident’ outside Buckingham Palace. ‘About noon two nurses came out into the courtyard, and one of them was carrying the Duchess of York’s baby.* The infant Princess was shown to the crowd which lined the railings, and people were obviously delighted to enjoy this homely privilege. Later the Duke and Duchess of York drove up to the Palace and were very cordially greeted by the sightseers.’76

  The baby was christened on 29 May in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace, with water from the River Jordan. She was dressed in the same cream satin and Honiton lace robe which her father had worn at his christening; it had been made for Queen Victoria’s eldest child in 1841 and royal babies had been christened in it ever since. The service was conducted by Cosmo Lang, Archbishop of York, and the godparents were the King and Queen, Princess Mary, the Duke of Connaught, May Elphinstone and Lord and Lady Strathmore. The choir of the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace, sang and the Princess cried forcefully during the service. Afterwards there was a christening tea at Bruton Street at which the Duchess of York cut a cake bearing a single silver candle. The next day her photograph appeared in the papers, smiling broadly.

  In early August the family went up to Glamis as usual, with the baby now in the care of Alah Knight, the Duchess’s own nanny. The Scottish air agreed with the little Princess – she put on weight and she slept soundly in her pram in the open air, in the Italian garden designed by her grandmother, the rhythmic sounds of tennis from the court near by. Queen Mary was anxious that Princess Elizabeth should visit Balmoral too, but this the Duchess parried, writing to her mother-in-law, ‘I am longing for you to see her. She has grown so round and pink [and] merry. The country air suits her marvellously well I am glad to say. I would have so loved to bring her up, but I am sure you will agree that so many changes is not a good thing.’77 When the Yorks made their own trip to Balmoral at the end of September, they left the baby with the Duchess’s mother at Glamis.

  The Prince of Wales asked the Duchess if he could come and stay with them at Glamis. She was delighted and told her mother, ‘he would love to come unless he’s in the way. Do tell me when I come up. He is so frightfully modest, & is terrified of pushing in where he’s not wanted.’78 He did come, and afterwards wrote euphoric letters of thanks to both Lady Strathmore and her daughter.79 To the Duchess he wrote, ‘Darling Elizabeth, It was fun at Glamis & very sweet of your family to have me stop there & I was sad to leave you all last night … I miss you both & you’ve been so sweet to me these last days – Yes – you really have & I mean that absolutely.’ He gave her the good news that he had received ‘a parcel of new records from N.Y. & there are some peaches of tunes – fine for Charleson – Carleston’.80

  But Glamis was no longer just for holidays – the Duchess had official functions to perform in Scotland. She opened the Dundee Horticultural Society’s Flower Show and, accompanied by the Duke, she enjoyed launching the new Montrose lifeboat.81 In the second week of October, the end of their Scottish sojourn, they went to stay with the Elphinstones at Carberry Tower for a round of engagements in Edinburgh on 9 October, which marked the Duchess’s full return to public life. Their schedule helps to show the role which the Royal Family played in attracting funds for civic institutions which at that time depended on philanthropy and public subscription.

  First the Duke opened the new radiology department at the Royal Infirmary. The Infirmary was maintained entirely by voluntary contributions, and the staff of physicians and surgeons – the leading members of the medical profession in Edinburgh – gave their services voluntarily. Afterwards the Duke was presented with the Freedom of the City, and the Duchess inspected the Edinburgh Company of the Girls’ Guildry, of which she was patron, before a civic luncheon. (This was her first patronage; she had accepted it during her engagement.) In the afternoon, the Duchess unveiled a plaque commemorating the new installation of the Edinburgh Corporation’s gas works. Later they visited the club rooms of the Cameron Highlanders’ Association (the Duke was colonel-in-chief of the 4th Battalion), and finally they went to visit the Royal Soldiers’ Home at Colinton. This last visit was arranged only because of the persistence of a Miss Mina Davidson who had known Lady Strathmore as a girl. Like the administrators of the Royal Infirmary, she knew how important the patronage of members of the Royal Family was to ensure the flow of voluntary support.82

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  THE DUCHESS’S delight in her infant daughter was overwhelming, but she had one cause for serious concern. The Prime Minister of Australia, Stanley Bruce, had asked that one of the King’s sons come out in early 1927 to open the new Federal Parliament buildings in Canberra.

  Australia had become a federation on 1 January 1900. Under the Commonwealth of Australia (Constitution) Act, the colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, South Australia, Western Australia and Tasmania became states federated together under one Dominion government. It was the last great imperial measure of the Victorian era. In May 1901 the first session of the Commonwealth Parliament was
opened by the Duke of Cornwall and York, the future King George V.83 At that time the Commonwealth government had been housed in Melbourne, the capital of Victoria, but in 1911 the government obtained an area of some 900 square miles from the government of New South Wales on which to create a new capital, Canberra. These plans were delayed by the First World War, but the construction of the town finally began in 1923 and the government intended to have the new Parliament buildings ready to be opened in 1927.

  The Prince of Wales had made a very successful tour of Australia in 1920; he had been welcomed with rapture and became known as ‘the travelling salesman of Empire’. Robert Graves wrote of him, ‘He became a symbol of industrious go-ahead youth, fully acquainted with all the world’s problems; having, it is true, no plan by which to solve them, but at least a determination to tackle them and to struggle through.’84

  The Prince would have been welcomed back to Australia. But the Duke of York was keen to go, and had told Leo Amery, the Dominions Secretary, that he had ‘much enjoyed his unofficial visit to Kenya and would welcome an opportunity of obtaining further experience of the Empire’.85 Amery put the Duke’s name forward, but the King was initially sceptical. Lord Stamfordham replied to Amery that ‘the Duke of York is the only one of the Princes who could undertake this duty; and for many reasons His Majesty cannot, at this distance of time, hold out much hope of such an arrangement being carried out.’86 In early April 1926 the Governor General, Lord Stonehaven, wrote to Stamfordham urging the importance of the royal visit, and asking him to help persuade the King: ‘The Crown is becoming more and more the only real link which unites the Empire.’87 In July, finally, it was announced that the Duke and the Duchess of York were to go.