The Queen Mother

by William Shawcross

  One of the King’s other early wartime visitors was Joseph Kennedy, still American Ambassador to the Court of St James’s. The King was upset by Kennedy’s defeatism, his dismissal of Britain and her Empire and above all by the impact his views must have in Washington. He immediately wrote a frank letter to remind him that the US, Britain and France were the three great democracies in the world and two of them were now fighting that which they all detested, Hitler and his Nazi regime. ‘We stand on the threshold of we know not what. Misery & suffering of War we know. But what of the future? The British Empire’s mind is made up. I leave it at that.’23 Kennedy replied that the people of America were sympathetic and wanted to help Britain and France economically, but did not want to go to war.24

  On 18 September, the Queen went back to Scotland to see her daughters; she had been concerned about them. A few days earlier she had written to ‘My darling Lilibet’ at Birkhall to say that she and the King had seen the Australian rugby team who had arrived the day before war was declared and now had to turn around and go straight back. She enclosed little kangaroo pins the team had given her for the Princesses. ‘I am longing to see you again my darling – please give Margaret a big hug from me, & get M to give you a big one from me, as you can’t hug yourself very well! Your very loving Mummy.’25 The Princesses, meanwhile, were enjoying an outdoor life in fine weather at Birkhall, under the eye of their French ‘holiday governess’, Georgina Guérin. Their cousins Margaret Elphinstone and Diana Bowes Lyon* came to stay. What made these holidays different from all others, however, were the evacuees. ‘We have got hundreds all around about from Glasgow,’ Princess Elizabeth reported in a letter to Marion Crawford.26

  During the week the Queen spent with her daughters she went to see some of these evacuees, women and children who had been moved out of slums to protect them in case of attack on the city, and who were being cared for on the Balmoral and Abergeldie estates. Many of them did not like country life, she recalled later. ‘Do you know what frightened them most?’ she said. ‘They couldn’t bear the noise of the trees.’27 She discovered that many of the mothers had taken their children back to Glasgow when the threatened bombardment had not materialized, and she disapproved, writing to Queen Mary, ‘I do think that it would be so much better if the wives stayed with their husbands, & let the children stay safely in the country.’28

  She herself returned to her husband after a week. Shortly afterwards Marion Crawford and the Princesses’ French teacher Madame Montaudon Smith came up to Balmoral, and lessons were resumed, partly by correspondence with their other teachers.* They joined a weekly sewing party and knitted for the soldiers; Princess Margaret knitted and played the gramophone alternately, Crawfie reported.29

  While she was in Scotland the Queen had visited the Black Watch at their depot at Perth, where she had a poignant encounter which illustrated the turmoil of emotions that the war had unleashed in her. Among the officers, she suddenly saw her nephew John Elphinstone. She had never seen him in uniform before. ‘It gave me such a shock to see John in his Black Watch uniform,’ she wrote to Queen Mary, ‘for he suddenly looked exactly like my brother Fergus who was killed at Loos, & in the same regiment. It was uncanny in a way, & desperately sad to feel that all that ghastly waste was starting again at the bidding of a lunatic.’30 And yet, she asked in another letter, was it waste? ‘Humanity must fight against bad things if we are to survive, and the spiritual things are stronger than anything else, and cannot be destroyed, thank God.’ She felt as if the last twenty years had been swept away and the last war had joined up with this new one. ‘Perhaps we never finished it after all.’31

  One of the Queen’s early wartime tasks was to make a broadcast to the women of the Empire. Appeals for her to do so had come from home and abroad, sometimes from unexpected quarters. Harold Laski, the socialist Professor of Political Science at the London School of Economics, wrote in early September urging the Queen to broadcast a reassuring message to the despondent British mothers whose children had been evacuated.32 From Canada Lord Tweedsmuir went so far as to suggest a monthly broadcast to the Empire describing what the British people, especially the women, were doing. It would also be heard in the United States, he pointed out, where ‘the Queen has become a legendary figure.’ The idea of a regular broadcast had been pressed upon him by many in the USA, he said. After all, ‘It was the American women who brought their country into the last war.’33 Indeed, the Queen had already been asked to broadcast direct to America, but the British Ambassador in Washington advised against any such attempt to put pressure on a nation which at this stage was determined to keep out of the war.34 Nevertheless, suggestions of a direct broadcast by the Queen to the United States continued to be made. For the moment, however, it was not the American effect that preoccupied her.

  In the inter-war years of high unemployment she had disapproved strongly of women taking men’s jobs, as she saw it.35 But now women were needed to do essential work in support of the armed services and industry, and the Queen was keen to give them all the encouragement she could. This was the theme of her first wartime broadcast. It was not easy to choose the right words. She wanted her message to be simple, but was then concerned that the draft might be ‘too homely’ and that it did not mention God. She asked Cosmo Lang to suggest what she might say ‘about our faith in divine guidance’.36

  The day chosen for the broadcast was Armistice Day, 11 November 1939. She began by referring to the significance of the day, to the sacrifice it commemorated and to the peace which after only twenty years had been broken. ‘I know that you would wish me to voice in the name of the Women of the British Empire, our deep and abiding sympathy with those on whom the first cruel and shattering blows have fallen – the women of Poland. Nor do we forget the gallant womanhood of France, who are called on to share with us again the hardships and sorrows of war.’ War had always called for the fortitude of women in bearing anxiety and bereavement, but in this war ‘we, no less than men, have real and vital work to do’. Not simply in new and interesting duties in various fields of National Service, but also in ‘the thousand and one worries and irritations in carrying on War-time life in ordinary homes’. She sympathized with the women separated from husbands and children. ‘The King and I know what it means to be parted from our children.’* She went on to praise those who had taken in evacuees, and assured them and all those working to keep their homes going that they were giving real service to the country.

  Women of all lands yearn for the day when it will be possible to set about building a new and better world, where peace and goodwill shall abide. That day must come. Meantime, to all of you, in every corner of the Empire, who are doing such fine work in all our Services, or who are carrying on at home amidst the trials of these days, I would give a message of hope and encouragement.

  She ended, ‘We put our trust in God, who is our Refuge and Strength in all times of trouble. I pray with all my heart that He may bless and guide and keep you always.’37

  The speech was well received, not only by the Archbishop.38 Many more letters came from members of the public and Lord Wigram told the Queen that the Chairman of the BBC, Sir John Reith, considered that it was ‘one of the best broadcasts that have ever gone out to the world’.39 One mother wrote with emotion of how the broadcast had helped her out of her despair when her young son joined the army, leaving her alone and ill. ‘When your quiet words echoed in the room you seemed to be speaking direct to me, and gradually I saw how much a little home meant, and how important it was to keep on carrying on … I now feel I have had a new lead and know exactly what to do. Without that lead one little home might have faded out, and if that was the case with one, how many more must have cause to bless and thank you.’40

  The Queen settled at once into the busiest period of her life, constantly visiting factories, hospitals, schools, first-aid posts, branches of the Women’s Voluntary Service (WVS) and other workplaces and talking to as many people as she could. ‘I f
eel that it is so important that the people can feel free and able to tell me anything they like,’ she said. In her view people were settling down to a war which they loathed: but they were determined to resist aggression.41 She had noticed one way in which the people’s cheerfulness showed itself: people were beginning to make jokes about Hitler. ‘That is rather a good sign, for they usually joke about things when they are too serious to be taken seriously – if you know what I mean. He is usually known as Old Nasty. Very childish!’ she wrote to Prince Paul of Yugoslavia.42

  She had not lost her own sense of humour. Prince Paul had written asking her to send him one of the photographs Cecil Beaton had taken of her in the summer – the first time he had photographed her.* She promised to send the Prince one. ‘Mr Beaton, who is mincing away at some light war work, will execute my order as soon as possible. I believe he is a telephone operator. Can you not imagine him saying, “Number darling? 2305? Oh divine, my dear, etc etc.” ’43 She might make fun of Beaton to her friends, but she showed her appreciation of his superb series of photographs of her when, in November 1939, she authorized the publication of a selection of them. They were greeted with delight, and were judged a great propaganda success.

  Cecil Beaton wrote a sharp but admiring account of the audience at which she made her selection. He thought her clothes ugly and dowdy and her jewellery messy, but concluded that it did not matter what she wore: nothing could detract from the impression of goodness, sympathy and overwhelming charm which she conveyed. She looked engagingly wistful but was businesslike; she made ‘quietly witty remarks with every breath’, and was humorous, full of fun and very shrewd. He described her as ‘a genius’, like a great artist, with an infallible instinct and an ability to make an asset of her own limitations. She could get on with all kinds of people by being genuinely interested in them, and she recognized the ‘excitement’ that painters or writers felt in their work. ‘She is ideal as Queen of England for she is the personification of all that is best & a “real” Lady.’44

  A very different project for a portrait of the Queen, which gave her much amusement, was about to begin at this time. She liked the work of Augustus John and had already bought several of his pictures.* In October 1939, John wrote to Mollie Cazalet,† a mutual friend, saying he would like to paint an informal portrait of the Queen. ‘I would stay in some pub and no doubt there’s a suitable room in the castle for painting. If she had a pretty costume with a hat I’m sure it would be a success … Please, please propose it to Her Majesty.’45 The Queen agreed, and began sitting to him in December – although in evening dress with a tiara rather than day dress. He found her ‘a perfect sitter, she never asks questions & talks of all sorts of interesting things. If only I can please Her Majesty as much as she pleases me then I shall be a happy man.’46 John had a habit of tinkering endlessly with his pictures and the sittings continued, sometimes with musical entertainment.

  ‘I loved sitting to A. John,’ she wrote later.

  He was such fun & never drew breath except when the Griller Quartette came & played next door and put him off completely. He quite rightly said that he couldn’t possibly listen and paint. Myra Hess‡ came and played one day, & that was so delicious that it put him off even more! The day that the Griller Quartet was coming to play, I was sitting to A. John & he was painting hard, when my page came into the room and said in rather a trembling voice ‘The gorillas have arrived’, which terrified us both, and I expect that poor A. John had a vision of several shambling baboons coming in to say how much too long my nose was, & wasn’t one eye higher than the other.47

  The painting was never actually finished but the Queen was delighted when, in 1961, she was presented with the work, and wrote to tell the artist so. It hung in her drawing room for the rest of her life.48

  At the same time the King and Queen were both having much more formal state portraits painted by Gerald Kelly, a distinguished portraitist and later president of the Royal Academy. Kelly had been lodging at Eton while he worked at Windsor Castle, but after the outbreak of war he gratefully accepted an invitation from the Queen to move into Windsor Castle until he finished his work.49 The Royal Family were rather surprised that the artist ended up living for much of the war with them in the Castle. Fortunately he was witty and entertaining. The historian Kenneth Rose noted, ‘It was said that to prolong his stay he would steal down to the studio at dead of night to erase the previous day’s work.’50 The paintings were finally ready to go on show after the war ended in 1945. That year he was also given a knighthood – the band at the investiture played ‘Anybody Here Seen Kelly?’

  *

  THE KING AND Queen, like almost everyone else, were surprised that, once Hitler’s Polish campaign was over, the first six months of the war should be so quiet. There were tragic exceptions: on 13 October 1939, just a week after the King had been to visit the fleet at Scapa Flow in Orkney, a skilful U-boat commander penetrated the boom defences and sank the battleship Royal Oak, with considerable loss of life. But the so-called Phoney War lasted through the winter until the spring of 1940. The Allies conducted very few offensive operations on the ground and somewhat more in the air. At sea, however, the Battle of the Atlantic was already under way: Allied convoys bringing vital supplies from North America were so often devastated by the German navy that Britain’s survival was threatened.

  At the opening of the first wartime Parliament at the end of November the usual ceremonial was abandoned and, instead of their Parliamentary robes, the King wore naval uniform and the Queen was dressed against the cold in velvet and furs embellished with pearls. Chips Channon thought she had never looked ‘so regal and beautiful’. The King held the Queen’s hand as he walked slowly out of the Chamber. Channon contrasted the quiet solemnity of this occasion with the vulgar fanfare in which the Nazis indulged.51

  In the first week of December the King went to visit the British Expeditionary Force in France. The Queen felt that while he was gone there should be one member of the Royal Family at the Palace, though she knew it would not make ‘the slightest difference to anybody’.52 ‘I am living here alone, & am the only member of the family in London!!’ she wrote to Prince Paul in Belgrade. ‘Keep the old flag flying. Hooray!’53 The King’s trip was timely – morale was not high among troops deployed in bitter cold for action which never seemed to come. Lieutenant Colonel Piers Legh, the King’s equerry (and later Master of the Household), wrote to the Queen that his visit, although strenuous and uncomfortable, was ‘an inspiration in itself’ for the soldiers, and the King ‘showed a vital interest & understanding of the difficulties and problems which confront the highest and lowest of all ranks of the BEF’.54 One member of the Force put it strongly: ‘We feel ready for any number of Hitlers now!’55

  That year the King made his most famous Christmas broadcast. He felt it was his task to try and dissipate the apathy that the quiet stalemate of the Phoney War was creating.56 He related what he had seen of the tasks of the Royal Navy and the RAF whose pilots, he said, ‘were daily adding to the laurels that their fathers had won’. Of the soldiers he had just visited in France, he said, ‘Their task is hard. They are waiting, and waiting is a trial of nerve and discipline.’ He ended by warning his listeners of ‘the dark times ahead of us’ and said,

  A new year is at hand. We cannot tell what it will bring. If it brings peace, how thankful we shall all be. If it brings us continued struggle, we shall remain undaunted. In the meantime I feel that we may all find a message of encouragement in the lines which, in my closing words, I would like to say to you: ‘I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year, “Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.” And he replied, “Go out into the darkness, and put your hand into the Hand of God. That shall be to you better than light, and safer than a known way.” ’* May that Almighty Hand guide and uphold us all.57

  *

  ONCE HIS SPEECH was over, he and his family could relax and enjoy a quiet holiday at Sandringham.
The Princesses had come down from Birkhall on 20 December. There was a joyful reunion; the King had not seen his daughters for four months. The Queen loved having her children back. ‘They do help one to forget the ever present worries & troubles of these horrible days.’58 She wrote to Queen Mary that on Boxing Day, while they were out with the shooting party, ‘3 large bombers came over very low, & the children were thrilled because they thought that they saw black Swastikas on the wings. However, I think they proved to be our own aircraft.’59 The King and Queen decided that the girls should not go back to Scotland after Christmas but stay at Royal Lodge. ‘Birkhall is too far off, & at their age, their education is too important to be neglected,’ the King recorded in his diary.60

  For the first three months of 1940, as the Phoney War continued, the King and Queen carried out engagements specifically intended to boost morale wherever men and women, in and out of uniform, were contributing to the war effort. Every visit brought letters of thanks and evidence of the heartening effect of their presence. The King described in his diary his visit to the 1st Canadian Division at Aldershot. ‘I met many officers I had already met in Canada … I was told that our visit to Canada had made it far easier for the 1st Canadian Division to come over so soon as a Division, & that the French Canadians from Quebec have come to fight for their Queen!!’61

  At the end of February the Queen went to Edinburgh for two busy days of solo engagements, and stayed with the Elphinstones. As ever, her family provided an escape for her, and she left feeling refreshed and revitalized, as she told May. ‘The last few months have been such a ghastly climax to two anxious years, and sometimes one feels very depressed, tho’ not able to show it! … Life in London is so intensely worrying & anxious, that I was really longing for a change of thought & scene.’ The King had come to join her for more Scottish engagements and they were now staying in the royal train. ‘B and I got out of the train this evening, just before dark,’ she wrote, ‘& walked up a stubble field, & along a little road between beech trees. So quiet & refreshing.’62 The next day she and the King went aboard HMS Rodney, the flagship of the Commander-in-Chief of the Home Fleet, Admiral of the Fleet Sir Charles Forbes, on the Clyde.