The Queen Mother

by William Shawcross

  The press managed to upset the family by reporting that ‘twilight sleep’* was used for the birth. Patrick Hodgson, the Duke’s Private Secretary, wrote to the editor of the Sunday Express ‘to protest emphatically’ that such stories were ‘absolutely without foundation and have caused Their Royal Highnesses the greatest possible annoyance’. Simson also issued a statement declaring, ‘I desire to emphasise the fact, which has been noted in all the Bulletins, namely, that everything was and continues to be absolutely normal.’95

  Anxious to be closer to their new grandchild, the King and Queen travelled from Sandringham to Balmoral. Rather against his wishes, the Duke left his wife, daughter and new baby to visit them. His mother thought he looked ‘pleased & relieved’.96 He found the discussions at Balmoral a little frustrating and wrote at once to his wife:

  My own darling Angel Elizabeth,

  How I hated going away yesterday & leaving you my Angel, & that lovely precious new born baby of ours, to say nothing of our adorable Lilibet. You don’t know how happy I am about it all, & how thankful that you my Angel are going on so well & strong. I don’t mind at all that it’s a girl. I would have liked a boy & you would too I know, but at last Lilibet has a playmate in the nursery. We still have plenty of time, we are still young, though I think in London in the Spring for the next one.

  He said that he had been irritated by his father telling him that he should have dealt differently with the press, the doctors and everyone concerned. ‘The dear man does not & never will understand the present day Press & I told him so. 30 years ago when we were born things were very different, but he cannot grasp that.’97

  The reporters outside the Castle gates would have been delighted to learn that the naming of the King’s new granddaughter was proving contentious within the family. The Duke and Duchess wanted to call her Ann but, for reasons which were not clear, the King did not like that name. From the start he and the Queen wanted Margaret, ‘after Margaret of Scotland, our ancestress’.98 Without acknowledging that she knew that the King and Queen had this preference, the Duchess wrote to the Queen to thank her for two little pill boxes she had sent her as a present. She went on to report that her baby was ‘nice & round & neat I am glad to say. I do hope you will be pleased with her.’ Then she broached the name. ‘I am very anxious to call her Ann Margaret, as I think that Ann of York sounds pretty, & Elizabeth & Ann go so well together. I wonder what you think? Lots of people have suggested Margaret, but it has no family links really on either side, & besides she will always be getting mixed up with Margaret the nurserymaid.’99

  The King and Queen were not swayed even by this argument, and the Yorks reluctantly bowed to parental will and decided to call their daughter Margaret Rose instead of Margaret Ann. ‘I hope that you will like it,’ the Duchess wrote to the Queen.100 The Duke took Princess Elizabeth to Balmoral and reported to his wife that his parents liked the names. He included a letter which he said Lilibet had dictated:

  Darling Mummie,

  I miss you very much. I came over the Devil’s Elbow [the dangerous pass at Glenshee] & we stopped twice on the way, & arrived here safely at half past four. Grannie & Grandpapa were please to see me & I fed Snip at tea with biscuits. Papa came to see me in my bath & put me to bed in my big little bed. It has no sides & I am very quiet in it.

  The Duke added that she was ‘very proud of her bed. She is terribly sweet & was in my room the whole evening.’ In her own hand the child sent a page of pencilled kisses – half ‘For Mummy’ and the rest ‘For our new baby’.101

  The Duchess, sitting in a chair in the sunlight at Glamis, wrote back to her husband, ‘It’s such a lovely day, I do wish you were here duckie.’ She told him that she had thought of a new exercise for him – when he returned to Glamis he could ‘lug’ her around the garden in a bath chair. ‘I miss you horribly.’102 The Duke sent her another letter from Lilibet:

  My darling Mummy,

  I am looking forward to coming on Saturday to see my Mummy & my baby. I have been missing my Mummy very much indeed. I drove in the carriage to the gate of Birkhall but we did not go in. It has been raining all day & I walked in the puddles this afternoon. Best love to Mummy & Baby Margaret Rose.

  Your very loving daughter

  LILIBET103

  There was still the question of where the new baby should be christened. The Duchess was keen for the new Archbishop of Canterbury, her friend Cosmo Lang, who was coming to stay at Balmoral, to perform the ceremony in the family chapel at Glamis. She wanted her daughter to be received into the Church as soon as possible; she worried about taking her on the long journey back to London while still ‘a pagan’.104 Sadly, the official advice was that the established (Presbyterian) Church of Scotland might not view with enthusiasm the senior Anglican prelate performing the christening in Scotland.* The Duchess was upset and she also felt that too much fuss was being made of her second daughter. ‘After all,’ she explained to Queen Mary, ‘the little angel is not of supreme importance at the moment, and I do hate the way that the papers make it of such moment. I always hope & pray that David will marry someone suitable – he ought to have some nice children.’105

  She wrote to Cosmo Lang to say how disappointed she was that he could not conduct the service quietly at Glamis.106 Perhaps realizing the Duchess’s nervousness about the delay in administering the sacrament, he suggested that when he came to lunch at Glamis, ‘if I see the little Princess … may I be allowed to give her my Blessing – anticipating the Christening which will come later’.107 The Archbishop did come to lunch at Glamis to bless the new Princess; they agreed that the christening should be at the end of October in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace. The Duchess was still quite weak and she did not move much outside her room until the end of September.108 When she finally came back south with Margaret Rose she told the Queen, ‘It really does take a whole year to have a baby, and I cannot manage much standing yet.’109

  Princess Margaret Rose’s christening took place at 3.15 p.m. on Thursday 30 October. Her godparents were the King’s sister Princess Victoria, the Prince of Wales, Princess Ingrid of Sweden,* Rose Leveson-Gower and David Bowes Lyon. The Duchess knew already that her second child had a very different character from her first. She told Archbishop Lang, ‘Daughter No. 2 is really very nice, and I am glad to say that she has got large blue eyes and a will of iron, which is all the equipment that a lady needs! And as long as she can disguise her will, & use her eyes, then all will be well.’110

  *

  BY NOVEMBER THE Duchess felt strong enough to resume her public engagements: she attended the reopening of the newly restored St George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle on 4 November, the annual sale of war-disabled men’s work at the Imperial Institute a week later, and she was again at Queen Mary’s side for the Armistice Day service at the Cenotaph. She also went on several shopping expeditions with the Queen – one of the ways in which she fostered good relations with her mother-in-law. They went to Fortnum and Mason, the General Trading Company and favourite antique shops. She and the Queen planned a birthday lunch for the Duke on 14 December, but the day before he was kicked in the leg while out hunting.

  He had to have the wound stitched and he was given an anti-tetanus injection which itself gave him great pain for over a week. He was attended by Dr Varley of 21 Cadogan Place but, like many members of the Royal Family, the Duke believed in homeopathic medicine. The Duchess later came to be convinced by homeopathy but at this stage she seems to have been rather suspicious of it. She wrote to Dr Varley, saying she was ignorant of etiquette but she wondered if he would mind if Dr Weir* came and saw the Duke as well. Her husband, she said, ‘has great faith in his little homeopathic powders, & Dr Weir is a homeopathic doctor … If it is alright, my husband thought that he might look on whilst you are looking at the leg, and then he can swallow down his powders with joy.’111 She thought that ‘the idea even of these little doses will make him feel more cheerful.’ Dr Varley raised no objection
– he could hardly do otherwise – but neither conventional nor homeopathic treatment produced a quick cure. The Duke continued to suffer considerable pain.

  On Christmas Eve they travelled up to Sandringham and that evening – as was their custom – the family celebrated with Christmas tree and presents. ‘The children delighted with their toys. Baby Margaret very composed and sweet,’ Queen Mary recorded in her diary. Christmas Day was spent as always – church in the morning, presents to the servants after lunch. After tea they went to the ballroom, where the children played.112 Over the rest of the holiday the Queen, the Duchess and Princess Elizabeth amused themselves by having dancing lessons in the ballroom. The Duchess later wrote to the Queen that ‘Lilibet and I miss our evening “hops” very much, & often wish that we were marching or polkaing in the ballroom with you!’113 Instead they were in Northamptonshire, so that as soon as he was fit enough the Duke could once again indulge his passion for hunting.

  *

  NINETEEN-THIRTY-ONE opened with the death of the King’s eldest sister, the Princess Royal.† ‘A bad beginning for a New Year,’ he wrote in his diary. ‘I feel very depressed.’ Only two weeks later, his oldest friend Sir Charles Cust, with whom he had been a naval cadet in 1877, also died. Cust, his equerry for almost forty years, was the only man who could ever contradict and even criticize the King to his face. In March, perhaps worst of all, Lord Stamfordham, the King’s Private Secretary, died. The Private Secretary to the monarch fills a position of immense importance and trust – none more so than Stamfordham. The King’s official biographer, Harold Nicolson, later wrote, ‘Protective, cautious, imaginative and stimulating had been the guidance which, for more than thirty years, King George had obtained from this wise man. George V was right when he said “He taught me how to be a King.” ’114

  That was not the end of it. In April the King was shocked by the latest turmoil in Europe: revolution forced King Alfonso XIII of Spain and Queen Victoria Eugenia, George V’s cousin Ena, to flee their country. Ferment and unrest were widespread; monarchies were again under threat. The world, and Europe in particular, was still trying to adjust to the way in which the Great War had destroyed the international economic system. Nations attempted to shore up their struggling economies with protectionism. The indefinite reparations imposed on Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, while understandable, seriously restricted the development of the most powerful economy in Europe. The USA was truly the only engine of growth – it produced almost 40 per cent of the world’s coal and more than half its manufactures. When at the end of the 1920s the long American boom seemed to be ending and short-term money became less available, loans to Europe were called back and European businesses began to suffer. The stock market collapse of October 1929 spelled the beginning of the end of American business confidence and of overseas investment. There was a rally in 1930 but then the world fell into slump.

  By the summer of 1931 banks began to close their doors across Europe, foreign deposits were withdrawn from London, the collapse of the German mark appeared imminent and a seven-power conference hurriedly called in London failed to reach a solution, largely because France refused to help the Germans. Many Germans became convinced that they had to have a more assertive policy of national self-sufficiency to preserve themselves from total ruin. Prices tumbled all over the world, the burden of national debts rose, world trade declined, markets shrank, foreign exchanges teetered, and financial crashes followed each other with terrifying speed.115

  Throughout Europe, unemployment rose inexorably. In summer 1931 grim forecasts of a colossal deficit and the need for massive (though temporary) cuts in British government spending, including unemployment benefit, led to a further collapse of confidence. The run on the pound was more like a rout. Ramsay MacDonald’s minority government had to obtain hasty loans from Paris and New York. It was clear that it was incapable on its own of dealing with the financial crisis which was engulfing Britain and the world. The government reached the point of collapse on 23 August. Panic spread and there were fears that the entire financial system might disintegrate. The King knew he had to act quickly ‘to prevent the old ship running on the rocks’116 and he encouraged MacDonald and the leaders of the Conservative and Liberal parties to come together to form a national government. They did so and the new administration pledged itself to economies of £78 million including a temporary 10 per cent cut in government wages and in the dole.117

  The National Government was originally conceived merely as an emergency expedient, but by October 1931 ministers had decided that they needed longer and went to the country asking for a ‘doctor’s mandate’. On 27 October the government won one of the most sweeping victories in electoral history. The King was overjoyed. ‘Please God I shall now have a little peace and less worries,’ he wrote.118 Queen Mary was perhaps more prescient; she thought the majority ‘rather too large for internal peace’.119

  The day after the election the Duke and Duchess went with the King and Queen, the Prince of Wales and Prince George to Drury Lane to see Noël Coward’s play Cavalcade. Queen Mary recorded that the house was packed, and that the Royal Family had a wonderful reception; the audience sang the National Anthem at the end.120

  Very much part of the cultural attempt to overcome the Depression, Cavalcade was a magnificent variety show which evoked the patriotic and progressive values of the Victorian era. It was a remarkable piece of stagecraft – a cast of 400 people were brought up on to the stage on six hydraulic lifts. On the opening night, Coward himself delighted the audience by declaring, ‘In spite of the troublous times we are living in, it is still a pretty exciting thing to be English.’ Theatregoers loved him for it and the Daily Mail ran the script of Cavalcade as a serial.121 The Duchess thought it a marvellous pageant, and very moving.122 Coward later became a firm favourite of hers over many decades.

  That autumn the political and economic crisis dominated everything. The King decided to reduce the Civil List, the sum voted by Parliament to meet the official expenses of the Royal Household, by £50,000 a year. The Duke of York gave up hunting and sold his horses, Lord Strathmore debated whether he should shut up Glamis. ‘I really feel rather worried about everything Mama,’ the Duchess wrote to the Queen. ‘The world is in such a bad way, & we seem to be going from bad to worse here too.’123 She realized that her engagements had to reflect the difficulties of the times. This applied to private as well as public events – she even worried that the press would find out about a small dance being given for the wedding of Lady May Cambridge, the Queen’s niece, to Henry Abel Smith at which Princess Elizabeth was to be a bridesmaid for the first time. ‘Not that there is the slightest harm in a small dance, it is only the vulgar way that papers put such items before the public.’124 In fact the press coverage was kind. The Times described the Duchess at the wedding as a smiling and attractive figure in a golden-brown lace frock matched by a fine cloth coat finished with a luxurious roll collar of blue fox fur; the Telegraph reported that the most excitement was caused by the appearance of Princess Elizabeth in her bridesmaid’s dress of blue velvet with a little Juliet cap.

  Both Duke and Duchess found that the deeper the Depression bit the more charities and other organizations needed their support in raising funds, and it was an indication of their growing workload that they had to take on more administrative help. Their office moved from 145 Piccadilly to a rented flat near by. The Duke had appointed Commander Harold Campbell* assistant private secretary in 1929, partly to help with the Duchess’s engagements. This relieved the pressure on the Duchess’s sole lady in waiting, Lady Helen Graham, who had managed most of her employer’s official correspondence since her appointment in 1926.† She was joined by a second lady, Lettice Bowlby,‡ in 1933.

  One of the charitable causes strongly supported by both Duke and Duchess was the Housing Association Movement, which aimed to provide affordable housing; it grew strongly in the inter-war years. In December 1931 the Duchess attended a fundraising even
t for the London branches of the movement.* She and the Duke continued to choose their engagements carefully: the Duke, for instance, decided that he should not attend the dinner of the Merchant Taylors’ Company ‘in view of the state of the country’. As his Private Secretary explained, ‘the actions of the Royal Family are very carefully watched by the public, and the Duke feels it might be misunderstood if he attended a City Company’s Dinner at a time when unemployment and consequent distress were rife.’125

  The power of the Duchess’s presence was already clear. She acquired a reputation for responding warmly to the lives of ordinary men and women. At the end of 1931 the Mayor of Cardiff pleaded for the Duchess to come on her own for just one day to raise people’s spirits.126 (In the event she made a joint visit with her husband the following spring.) After she opened the Post Office Exhibition of Arts at Mount Pleasant in north London, the organizer reported that hundreds of people had expressed their gratitude to him ‘and it seems that Her Royal Highness has captured the hearts of all, men and women alike’; she agreed to become patroness of the Post Office Arts Club.127

  She took all the hardship inflicted on the country seriously, but she retained her sense of humour and tried to see whatever silver lining there might be. Writing to D’Arcy Osborne in Washington she said, ‘This country seems to have settled down to being poor, & everybody is quite cheerful, but only because it is inevitable to change one’s circumstances.’ Everything was simpler now and ‘it is quite fashionable to be sentimental, you may like music – weaker cocktails, less food, & a slight very slender streak of patriotism starting again’. She thought people were less brittle and more serious. ‘I forgot to tell you that conversation is becoming the fashion. Isn’t it fun – conversation & Beer & eggs instead of Embassy & champagne & twitter.’128