The Queen Mother

by William Shawcross

  After they had finally embarked in Renown for home, one man in the crowd in Perth wrote to the Duchess to say that he had heard the remark of a twelve-year-old schoolboy who had seen her pass: ‘ “She looked at me and I got a smile too” … I could judge by the tone of his voice you had won his little heart.’ He ended, ‘Hoping that if one day the people of the British Empire are fortunate enough to have you as our Queen, you will not lose the power of your winning smile nor your happy service of kindly thought and deed.’104

  *

  IT WAS AN appropriate tribute to the Duchess and to her husband. They had each discovered qualities and powers within themselves of which they had scarcely known. Sir Tom Bridges, Governor of South Australia, wrote to the King, ‘His Royal Highness has touched people profoundly by his youth, his simplicity and his natural bearing, while the Duchess has had a tremendous ovation and leaves us with the responsibility of having a continent in love with her.’105 Other reactions were similarly enthusiastic. Lady Strathmore told the Queen that she had received many letters from ex-soldiers who were veterans of Glamis showing the impact her son-in-law and daughter were having.106 Harry Batterbee wrote to Lord Stamfordham, ‘We are all feeling rather tired after our strenuous time, but I do not think that there can be any doubt whatever that the Australian Tour has been a great success and done a great deal of good. A nail has been driven into the coffin of Bolshevism, which will securely hold it down, I trust, for some time to come.’107

  On board ship, the Duke had time to start a long letter to his father. It was with some pride, as well as relief, that he could tell the King that his Canberra speeches had gone off without a hitch. He paid credit again to Lionel Logue and added:

  I have so much more confidence in myself now, which I am sure comes from being able to speak properly at last.

  It is a great relief to me that the object of our mission is now over, & more especially when I played my part successfully, at least I think & hope so … Elizabeth has done wonders & though I know she is tired she never had a return of her tonsillitis & went about with me every day. I could never have done the tour without her help; that I know, & I am so thankful she came too.108

  Both his parents wrote to the Duke in terms which must have pleased him. Queen Mary said, ‘We have had such delightful letters from various people about the Tour, telling us of your & E’s popularity & of the trouble you both gave yourselves to make the Tour the success it has been. You must both of you feel rewarded for all the trouble you have taken & for the fatigue you have undergone. Of course the whole thing has been too strenuous & people have been too “exigeant” & wanted you to do too much, it is always difficult to make people realise that their “show” is not the only one!’109

  They had hardly had time to start to relax in the heat of the Indian Ocean when, three days out from Fremantle, on Queen Mary’s birthday, a serious fire broke out in Renown’s engine room. It was caused by an overflow of fuel oil between tanks; the engine room soon became an inferno and four of the boiler-room staff were gassed and burned as they tried in vain to douse the blaze. There was a grave risk that the ship’s principal oil tanks could explode, in which case Renown would almost certainly have been totally destroyed. Plans to abandon ship were readied, but as a result of the storms through which she had passed on her journey many of her lifeboats were out of action. The firefighters continued to struggle and after about eight hours they finally managed to extinguish the flames. It was a near-disaster, but the Duke was laconic when he told the King about it: ‘Oil is a dangerous substance for a fire & it might have been serious.’110 Harry Batterbee was perhaps nearer the mark in observing, ‘It was really great luck that we didn’t go up sky high. What a sensation it would have caused if we had just disappeared.’111 Years later Queen Elizabeth recalled that ‘the nearest ship was a thousand miles away. Totally empty sea. So we had to prepare to leave. The deck got quite hot and I couldn’t think of anything to take in the boat except a bottle of Malvern water and my [book of] prayers. I couldn’t leave them behind.’112

  They broke the journey home in Mauritius, where the Duke enjoyed a rather exotic chasse or gigantic deer drive with more than sixty beaters, and the next day they attended the races, which enabled a lot of islanders to see them. Le Mauricien declared that the people of the island had been simply swept off their feet by the royal visit. Two cases of dolls’ – house furniture were sent from the island as a gift for Princess Elizabeth. They had one more stop before the Suez Canal, at Great Hanish Island in the Red Sea, a strategic oiling station for the British navy. The Duke hunted and shot an Arabian gazelle, but Lord Cavan enjoyed it less, writing to Stamfordham: ‘if ever you have a public man to get rid of – send him to Great Hanish Island where we stopped for 24 hours to oil. I have never seen or smelt anything more awful! & temperature is never under 95° & no shade!’113

  Now that they were finally nearing home, the Duchess wrote to the King to say how much they were looking forward to seeing him and the Queen again.

  It seems such a long time since we left you in January, & I cannot believe that we are really getting home at last – older, & I hope wiser!

  I hope you will not think me looking old & ugly, but a week in the Red Sea in June does not help the complexion to look its best! It has been very hot, & my cabin (sleeping) has been 105, which is most uncomfortable …

  I am looking forward more than I can say to the Baby & a good rest. I have missed her all day & every day, but am so grateful to you & Mama for having been so kind to her. It will be wonderful to see her again.

  With much love dearest Papa,

  Ever your affect. daughter in law,

  Elizabeth114

  After they had passed through the Suez Canal into the Mediterranean the weather grew much more agreeable, but their work was not yet finished. They stopped for a fairly formal three-day visit in Malta, to find that Lord Louis Mountbatten was also there in his yacht Shrimp. After a brief stop at Gibraltar they finally approached Portsmouth on 27 June 1927. The King was, as throughout their trip, meticulous in his instructions on the dress required. On their arrival, he told the Duke, he should wear ‘Frock coat & epaulettes with star’ and he added, ‘We will not embrace at the station before so many people. When you kiss Mama take yr. hat off.’115

  Queen Mary had been busy at 145 Piccadilly, where the Duke and Duchess and their daughter were now to live. Together with Lady Strathmore she had been furnishing the Princess’s nursery and had provided the baby with a cupboard for her toys. The Princess and Alah moved into the house just before her parents returned and Queen Mary suggested to Lady Strathmore that they both go to the house ‘with some flowers to arrange the rooms & just put a few finishing touches to make the rooms look homely’.116

  The Duke and Duchess had travelled 30,000 miles by sea and several thousand miles by land around the world. At Portsmouth they were greeted by the Duke’s three brothers and together they boarded a special train to Victoria station where, on a platform bedecked with flowers, they met their families again. Cecilia Strathmore had requested ten platform tickets. Tortor Gilmour’s two children and their nanny were there to greet their mother. Despite the King’s strictures, the families all embraced warmly.

  The Yorks drove in an open carriage through cheering crowds down Whitehall and up the Mall to the Palace, to be greeted again by their parents more privately and – most importantly – to be reunited with their daughter. The whole family, including Princess Elizabeth, then appeared on the Palace balcony. The crowds were ecstatic and the newspapers were generous in their praise of the ‘envoys’. They commented on the Duchess’s sense of duty in leaving her baby behind for so long; almost all of them remarked upon her obvious joy on her return. The Daily Mirror described ‘Britain’s affectionate welcome home for the Duke and ever smiling Duchess’ while The Times recorded, ‘Twice the Duchess, her face radiant with smiles, brought the Princess forward.’

  The voyage had been of immense significa
nce to them both. The exuberant loyalty of so many millions of people to Britain and to the Crown was impressive, as well as moving. It gave each of them a real feeling for the strength of the Empire – perhaps it seemed to them more resilient than it really could be. Above all the voyage gave the Duke new confidence in his ability to confront the world with his wife at his side. And it gave the Duchess the knowledge that, wherever she went, she was able to use her personality to win immense affection for herself and, more importantly, for her husband and her country. The experience and the lessons were not forgotten.

  * Field Marshal Frederick Rudolph Lambart, tenth Earl of Cavan (1865–1946).

  * The Hon. Mrs Little Gilmour (1901–91), née Cadogan, fifth daughter of Viscount Chelsea, and granddaughter of fifth Earl Cadogan; she married in 1922 John (‘Jock’) Little Gilmour, later second baronet; the marriage was dissolved in 1929. They were the parents of Sir Ian Gilmour MP, who became a minister in the Conservative governments of Edward Heath and Margaret Thatcher.

  † Terence Edmund Gascoigne Nugent (1895–1973), Comptroller, Lord Chamberlain’s Department 1936–60, extra equerry to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II, created Baron Nugent of West Harling 1960; permanent lord in waiting to the Queen 1960–73.

  ‡ Harry Batterbee (1880–1976) was an assistant secretary in the Dominions Office. Created Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order in 1927, he served as UK high commissioner in New Zealand from 1939 to 1945.

  * On 22 January 1927 the Prince of Wales attended the last performance (Lady Be Good) at the Empire Theatre, Leicester Square, before it was demolished and replaced by a cinema. The promenade was a broad corridor running behind the private boxes at the back of the Grand Circle.

  † Dr Still reported on 15 January on the Princess’s weight gain; her increased alertness (listening to his watch, holding out her arms to be picked up, beginning of teething); he said that Queen Mary had been very disappointed that he had advised against the baby yet going to Sandringham. ‘I hope Your Royal Highness will not be bored with all these details, but I expect you may not hear all you would like to hear in the cable.’ (RA QEQM/PRIV/PAL)

  * Truby King (1858–1938) was one of New Zealand’s foremost physicians and a prominent medical reformer. He received worldwide recognition for his pioneering work in the feeding and management of infants, but also made important contributions to knowledge in fields of psychological medicine, health education and plant acclimatization.

  * Australian military slang for Australian soldiers. The term originated in the Great War.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THE LONG WEEKEND

  1927–1936

  ‘The world is in such a bad way’

  IN THE LATE 1920s the world was nearing the middle of what later came to be called ‘the long weekend’ between the two great wars.* Fear may not always have been present, but it was always in the background. The future seemed constantly under threat as traditional systems of government and long-standing social arrangements attempted to adapt to the vast changes imposed by the industrialization of the last century, the destruction of the war and the extension of the franchise.

  At first the most obvious external danger came from the growth of the new empire of Soviet communism. Ever since the triumph of Bolshevism in Russia and the murder of the Tsar and his family, all European states had seemed at risk, if not living on borrowed time. Not for nothing did King George V and many around him worry constantly about the impact of communist ideology and subversion by communist agitators, particularly as millions of men were demobbed after the Great War and unemployment grew.

  Perhaps almost as alarming, notions of republicanism if not outright revolution were attractive and fashionable among the intellectual elite of Britain. To many in the ‘smart set’, monarchy symbolized the failures of the past, and Bolshevism was the promise of the future. At the end of the 1920s, Joseph Stalin began the forced industrialization of Russia by herding the peasants into collectives. This meant in effect a new civil war, in which this time the party fought the peasantry and killed or transported millions of them.1 Russia’s ‘success’ became an example to Western idealists and intellectuals who were ignorant of, or chose to ignore, the appalling sacrifices by which industrialization was achieved.

  To combat the siren song of revolution, the King and his advisers had, as we have seen, sought from the start of the long weekend to strengthen the engagement of the monarchy with working people. New relationships with trades union leaders and Labour politicians were forged. At the same time members of the Royal Family continued reaching out to people through the welfare monarchy, their network of philanthropic patronages.

  On her return from her long voyage, the Duchess felt a conflict of emotions. There was, above all, the longed-for reunion with her daughter, Princess Elizabeth, which was not easy after such a long separation at the Princess’s age. With perception, the King wrote to the Duke soon after their return: ‘I trust yr sweet little baby begins to know her parents now & likes them.’2 She did, and the Duchess rejoiced in that. As she wrote to Nannie B, her daughter was ‘too delicious, and was nice to me at once, which was a great relief!’3

  On the other hand, she now lost the intimate intensity which she and her husband had shared throughout their voyage. The tour had been gruelling, but it was their own tour; their days were often exhausting, but they and they alone were the principals, they were far from parental supervision, and everything they did was new, exciting and shared. Back in London they had to play their supporting roles in formal Court rituals in which they were only pieces of an elaborate jigsaw, presided over by the King, who could be kind but was often critical and irritable.

  But the crucial point was that the Yorks’ success had impressed the King and Queen. This alone gave the Duke a new confidence in his own abilities and as a result his stammer had improved. He told his voice coach, Lionel Logue, ‘I have been talking a lot with the King, & I have had no trouble at all. Also I can make him listen, & I don’t have to repeat everything over again.’4 His father was very happy. ‘Delighted to have Bertie with me,’ he wrote to Queen Mary from Balmoral; ‘he came yesterday evening, have had several talks with him & find him most sensible, very different to D[avid]’.5

  The King was still not prepared for the Prince of Wales to have access to confidential information.6 The Prince was a charismatic and popular figure, but he seemed to the King, and to many of his own staff, to be increasingly careless of the duties of his office. There were those who considered that adulation and a café-society lifestyle had warped him. Throughout the late 1920s and early 1930s these fears grew. By contrast, the stock of the Duke of York was rising and he had acquired a new sense of purpose. He was eager to acquire more understanding of Commonwealth affairs. The day after he and the Duchess returned, the Duke called on the Prime Minister and the Colonial Secretary, Leo Amery, and he gave Amery a longer report on the tour over lunch at 145 Piccadilly a few days later.7

  For her part, the Duchess had by now won herself a rather remarkable role within the family – everyone seemed to confide in her, especially her brothers-in-law. Her letters from the Prince of Wales were full of affection, gossip and sometimes mischievous comments on his parents and his duties. On a voyage to Canada with his younger brother Prince George in August 1927, the Prince of Wales wrote a birthday letter to his sister-in-law promising that ‘we will drink a toast to you. (We aren’t as tight as we seem altho it is cocktail time!)’ They were bored with the ‘bromidic’ first-class passengers – ‘We long to probe into the 2nd class where we have already had opportunity to mark down some choice pieces from the Middle West. Pity we can’t travel 2nd class – Yes a pity!’8 Prince George, too, regarded her as an ally and, knowing how well she got on with the King, occasionally asked her to intervene with his father on his behalf.9

  Meanwhile her own success on the tour meant that public demands on the Duchess were growing too – often indeed, she, rather than the Duke, was the foc
us of attention. That summer was marked by the first of many biographies to be written of the future Queen Elizabeth. The author was Lady Cynthia Asquith, whose most celebrated book was her wartime diary.* The Duchess agreed to assist her on condition she was allowed to see the manuscript before publication. Asquith asked for help from many of the Duchess’s relations and friends, including Beryl Poignand and Sergeant Ernest Pearce, the former patient at Glamis who had remained in touch with her. Asquith told Pearce that the Duchess had described him as ‘a very old friend’ and asked him ‘if you could tell me any little incidents or impressions of her in the old hospital days at Glamis’.10 Pearce was flustered and flattered and wrote to the Duchess saying that Asquith’s request for an interview put him ‘in a juice of a fix’.11 After receiving the Duchess’s approval he gave the author a vivid account of his time at Glamis and of his acquaintance with the young Elizabeth Bowes Lyon. The biography, later updated, was useful for such first-hand recollections.

  The Duke and Duchess had a pleasant summer relaxing in Scotland with the eighteen-month-old Princess Elizabeth, who was now walking, which her mother at first found nerve-racking.12 In the third week of September she and the Duke left their daughter at Balmoral to undertake two days of public engagements in Glasgow. On this occasion she was very much the centre of attention, and he was her support. In pouring rain, she visited Ralston Hospital for paralysed ex-servicemen and the Elder Park Child Welfare Centre at Govan. She was made a guild sister of the Trades Guildry of Glasgow and she opened the Health and Housing Exhibition in the Kelvin Hall; the Girls Guildry provided a guard of honour. She was also given the freedom of the city and in the presentation speech she was praised for her interest in movements for social and educational advancement. Afterwards she sent a personal donation towards the fund being raised to establish a Scottish academy of music in Glasgow.13