The Queen Mother

by William Shawcross

  In October 1940 Neville Chamberlain, who had suddenly fallen gravely ill and had had to resign from the War Cabinet, was near death. The King and Queen drove to visit him. Chamberlain was very touched, and his wife Anne wrote to the Queen to thank them for their characteristic kindness.148 Chamberlain died on 10 November; Churchill was a pallbearer at his funeral and was generous in his tribute in the House of Commons, saying that all Chamberlain’s noble hopes for peace had been disappointed and cheated by a wicked man.149

  Although by the autumn the threat of imminent invasion had receded, London was still under constant attack. The King and Queen’s first married home in London, 145 Piccadilly, was destroyed. Kensington Palace was bombed and then a land mine exploded just opposite Buckingham Palace in St James’s Park, blowing out all the windows and frames in the front of the Palace. By now there was scarcely a pane of glass left intact – the windows had to be boarded up with cardboard.150 The Queen was dismayed that the beauty of Georgian and Regency London was being smashed – and concerned that the eventual rebuilding would be without taste. (She was right.) ‘It really makes one wild with rage to see all the insane destruction of beautiful & often dearly loved buildings.’151 She wished the German Embassy had been bombed instead. ‘I believe the interior had been made very vulgar by that horrible Ribbentrop, & it would have been no loss.’152

  In Stoke Newington in mid-October 1940 the King and Queen watched as people were being dug out of flats which had collapsed upon them. The horror was compounded by the fact that a bomb had burst a water main and many who survived the bombs were then drowned. She and the King knew that such expeditions were essential, but ‘I do hate these visits so desperately Mama,’ she wrote to Queen Mary. ‘I feel quite exhausted after seeing and hearing so much sadness, sorrow, heroism and magnificent spirit. The destruction is so awful, & the people too wonderful – they deserve a better world.’153 She was determined, however moved or upset she was, not to show her emotions. ‘Sometimes even Chief Constables wept, but she never broke down,’ one lady in waiting said.154 But the Queen felt it all intensely. ‘It makes one furious seeing the wanton destruction of so much,’ she wrote to her sister May. ‘Sometimes it really makes me feel almost ill. I can’t tell you how I loathe going round these bombed places, I am a beastly coward, & it breaks one’s heart to see so much misery & sadness.’155

  In their visits around the city, there were often air-raid warnings ‘and I think we must have taken refuge in every single police station in London. We were always given a cup of very, very strong tea.’ On the trips around the country, they lived a lot on the train and when it stopped at night she would walk up to the cab to chat with the engine drivers – ‘they were nearly always the most delightful people, great characters, with proper engines. Such nice men.’156

  She tended to wake early in those days and to lie in bed worrying. She thought of all the blows that had already befallen Britain and all those which could still come. But she had hope. ‘We have had to take such great reverses, as only a truly great people can take disasters, and possibly so much disappointment & horror will steel our people, & take them to great heights of sacrifice and courage.’157 She also felt, as many did, that the war was bringing out the best in people. Before the war materialism held sway, but now, as she wrote to Queen Mary in October 1940, ‘the people are living a truly Christian life – being good neighbours & living for each other as never before; which, with the things of the spirit, seem to me to be real Christianity.’158

  The national ordeal continued. In November 1940 British aircraft sank most of the Italian fleet at Taranto, and then the Eighth Army drove the Italians out of Egypt and most of Libya. But it was a false dawn. Hitler sent Lieutenant General Rommel and the Afrika Korps to North Africa and Rommel reversed the British victories, threatening the Allied oil supplies in the Middle East. The second six months of the real war were, if anything, worse than the first.

  In December 1940 Lord Lothian, the British Ambassador to Washington, died en poste of food poisoning. A Christian Scientist, he had refused to call in a doctor. He had been a superb ambassador, a friend of Roosevelt for twenty-five years, and was admired throughout America. It was imperative to replace him quickly and within a week Churchill chose Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary. The King and Queen were both sorry to see Halifax and his wife go – the Queen found Dorothy Halifax, still one of her ladies in waiting, ‘a real pillar of strength’, but she felt sure the Americans would like and admire them as much as she and the King did.159 She was right.

  The second Christmas of the war came. The royal Christmas card that year was a photograph of the King and Queen standing in the bomb-damaged Palace. The two Princesses took part in a nativity play at Windsor Castle organized by Hubert Tannar, the headmaster of the primary school in Windsor Great Park. Princess Elizabeth was one of the three kings. According to Marion Crawford, she ‘looked like Edward V in her Coronation Crown and tunic of pink and gold’ as she walked the length of St George’s Hall with her gift to the infant Jesus; Princess Margaret took the part of a child whose gift was herself, and sang ‘Gentle Jesus’ at the crib.160 Her proud father recorded that she ‘played her part remarkably well & was not shy’. He was overcome by the emotions the play evoked. ‘I wept through most of it. It is such a wonderful story.’161

  On 27 December they motored up to Norfolk to have a few days’ rest on the Sandringham estate. The big house had been closed for the duration of the war; surrounded as it was by barbed wire, and with many shrubs and trees cut down on the orders of the King, the Queen thought it looked forlorn and uncherished.162 They now lived in Appleton, a small house near by which had been the home of Queen Maud of Norway, who had died in 1938. It was a less obvious target for German bombers than Sandringham itself. They were protected by an armoured-car unit and four Bofors guns, and there was a reinforced concrete air-raid shelter in the trees close by. The staff had filled Appleton with carpets and furniture from Sandringham House. It was warm and comfortable and the Queen and her daughters were happy to be there intimately en famille. ‘The children are looking quite different already,’ she wrote to Queen Mary in early January 1941. ‘I am afraid that Windsor is not really a very good place for them, the noise of guns is heavy, and then of course there have been so many bombs dropped all round, & some so close.’163

  The snow was thick on the ground but the King went out shooting every day and, his wife said, looked much the better for it. The Queen tried to relax.164 In the fresh chill of Norfolk, they could all reflect on the terrible year that Britain had endured. Thanks largely to the encouragement of Churchill and the mistakes of Hitler, Britain had survived – just. The King summed up 1940 in his diary as ‘a series of disasters for us’. But ‘Winston coming in as PM & Labour serving with him in his government stopped the political rot … Then the Blitzkrieg by the German Air Force by day & night against aerodromes & London which we countered magnificently. Civilian defence services & morale of people splendid … The 2nd six months have certainly shown the world what we can stand … Hitler has not had everything his own way.’165

  Through Christmas and New Year the air raids over London were particularly destructive. The Queen was ‘enraged beyond words’ by the bombing of the Guildhall and many of the other landmarks of the City of London on the night of 29 December 1940.166 That one night of attack caused about 700 fires; fire crews rushed into the City from all over the Home Counties. As well as the Guildhall, eight Wren churches, five railway stations and sixteen Underground stations were damaged or destroyed.167 ‘I am beginning to really hate the German mentality – the cruelty and arrogance of it.’168

  Before returning to London the King and Queen visited many of the airfields in the Sandringham area. Blizzards and ice on the roads made their journeys slow and perilous, ‘and everywhere we arrived there was a “Jerry” overhead! It became quite a joke in the end,’ she wrote to her niece Elizabeth Elphinstone. But it was worth while; she was, as always, m
oved and encouraged by the modesty and the calmness of the men she met. She contrasted their calmness with her own fear. ‘I am still just as frightened of bombs, & guns going off, as I was at the beginning. I turn bright red, and my heart hammers – in fact I’m a beastly coward, but I do believe that a lot of people are, so I don’t mind! Well darling, I must stop … Tinkety tonk old fruit, & down with the Nazis.’169

  She enjoyed the Sandringham Women’s Institute party where the ladies put on patriotic tableaux. ‘If only you could see them,’ she wrote to the Duke of Kent. ‘Dear Mrs Way, as Neptune, glaring furiously through a tangle of grey hair and seaweed, & Miss Burroughs (the Verger’s daughter) as Britannia were HEAVEN. The words were spoken by Mrs Fuller’s cook, who was draped in the Union Jack, and it was all perfect.’170

  The prospects in early 1941 – the second year of Britain’s standing alone – were terrible. While the bombing continued, the Battle of the Atlantic became ever fiercer as German U-boats stepped up their campaign to sink the convoys bringing supplies from North America. America was, as always, the key. The King and Churchill had a shared concern to draw the United States more firmly to Britain’s side. Indeed that was one of Churchill’s principal ambitions. It took a long time to achieve.

  Churchill had warned Roosevelt as early as summer 1940 that ‘the voice and force of the United States may count for nothing if they are withheld too long.’171 But, despite Roosevelt’s sympathy for the embattled democracy of Britain, it was not easy. Americans were indeed impressed by the courage of the British in resisting Hitler – the radio broadcasts of Edward R. Murrow during the Blitz gained Britain enormous admiration. But the great bulk of the American people, to say nothing of the political class, showed no enthusiasm for being dragged into another European war. When Roosevelt was re-elected in November 1940, the King wrote to say how thankful he and the Queen and all Britons were. The President replied, ‘I am, as you know, doing everything possible in the way of acceleration and in the way of additional release of literally everything that we can spare.’172 But this was provided only on the strictest commercial terms. By the end of 1940 Britain’s orders were already in excess of her gold and dollar reserves, and the country had to promise to liquidate her remaining assets in the United States to guarantee future deliveries.

  In January 1941 Harry Hopkins arrived in London as the personal representative of President Roosevelt. The King and Queen met him and the Queen commented that he was ‘very helpful, and all out for our cause. A very nice American.’173 Hopkins thought well of her too; they took cover together during an air raid and he wrote afterwards, ‘The Queen told me that she found it extremely difficult to find words to express her feeling towards the people of Britain in these days. She thought their actions were magnificent and that victory in the long run was sure, but that the one thing that counted was the morale and determination of the great mass of the British people.’174

  Hopkins arranged with Churchill a new basis for the purchase of American material, which was intended to make arms and supplies available to governments whose defence was considered vital to the defence of the United States. The Lend-Lease Act, passed by Congress on 11 March, gave Britain extended credit, allowing the country to buy equipment, oil and other supplies, which would not have to be paid for until the end of the war. This was as generous as the United States could be, but it meant that Britain was now, in effect, mortgaged to the United States. (The war debt was finally paid off in 2007.)

  There was a renewed fear of invasion. The King talked to Churchill about the risks to his family, and to the government. The Prime Minister told him that he planned to stay in London as long as possible. The King knew that he would have to remain with the government – he could not delegate his powers. But the Queen and the Princesses would be rushed to the country.

  The Queen had a frightening experience in February 1941. One evening she went into her room at the Castle and a man sprang out at her from behind the curtains and grabbed her ankles. According to her biographer, Dorothy Laird, she said afterwards, ‘For a moment my heart stood absolutely still.’ She understood that the man was mentally disturbed and worried that if she screamed he might attack her. So she said quietly, ‘Tell me about it.’ The man began to recite his troubles – he was a deserter and his family had been killed in the Blitz – and as he spoke, she moved calmly and quietly across the room to ring the bell. ‘Poor man, I felt so sorry for him,’ she said later. ‘I realised quickly that he did not mean any harm.’175 Harmless or not, it was an alarming breach of security. The intruder had been taken on as an electrician from the Ministry of Labour and his references had not been checked. The Office of Works gave him a pass and he was able to walk straight into the Castle, into the private rooms – and out again. Lord Wigram, who as Governor of the Castle was responsible for security, was horrified and ordered that regulations be tightened.176

  That month the King and Queen visited Manchester after a particularly heavy air raid. She saw that the little homes which had clustered around factories had collapsed ‘like packs of cards’. As always, she was impressed by the people’s spirit, despite all that had happened to them.177

  The British reaction to suffering moved Robert Menzies, the Australian Prime Minister, who paid a visit to London at this time. He stayed the night at Windsor and dined alone with the King and Queen. They impressed him. ‘He shows no trace of stammer and speaks often loudly with a kind of excitement. She looks older but as fascinating as ever,’ he wrote in his diary. ‘She is as wise as possible and has the shrewdest estimate of all the Cabinet.’178

  There were lighter moments. At the beginning of March 1941 the King and Queen journeyed north to visit the Scottish cities. At Glamis’s tiny railway station they were pleasantly astonished to be met by a Polish guard of honour. As the King said, ‘No one in their sanest moments would have thought such a thing possible a very few years ago.’179 They lunched with General Sikorski at Forfar and inspected his troops. ‘They were very nice,’ the Queen told Princess Elizabeth, ‘& we walked along miles of coast which they are guarding. We were asked occasionally to go down what looked like a large rabbit hole, & how we did it, I don’t know! But we did, & came out again very nearly doubled up!’180 She was impressed by the Poles’ exquisite manners: ‘what with extremely good-looking young Counts and Princes loose in the countryside, I tremble for the love-stricken young ladies of North East Scotland!’181

  While she was at Glamis, Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret wrote to give her the news from Windsor. There, their education continued under the care of their governess. Princess Elizabeth, now rising fifteen, was still being taught history by Henry Marten. In February 1941 Marion Crawford wrote a long letter to Queen Mary reporting on the Princesses’ progress. Mr Marten, she said, tended to forget who his audience was, and would occasionally bark, ‘Is that quite clear to you, gentlemen?’ But he saw ‘great stuff’ in his pupil, and thought she could compare very well with Etonians a year older than her. She had given a very competent hour’s lecture on explorers from Columbus to the present day, and had just finished a course on American history on which she had an essay to write.

  Both Princesses loved playing the piano and often entertained the Household with duets, Miss Crawford wrote. She thought that Princess Margaret had developed ‘wonderfully’; she was more of a companion for Princess Elizabeth, and she was ‘a joy to teach – always asking questions’. The two Princesses were making excellent progress in French, and at family lunches they spoke only French to their governess. All in all, Marion Crawford assured their grandmother, ‘The children are happy and well; and are having knowledge poured in as fast as I can pour it in.’182

  At one stage the Queen became concerned lest the visits she and the King made to bombed towns were actually attracting more German attacks. On 20 March 1941 they took the train to Plymouth, which had been heavily bombed. That night as they were on the train back to London, ‘the foul Germans made a very heavy at
tack on the town & dockyard. What brutes they are – I am certain that they first go for the working class houses, hoping to break the spirit of our people.’183 Once back at Windsor she wrote to Lady Astor, MP for Plymouth, to say that since hearing of the bombing she had been ‘thinking of you all without ceasing … That is one of the hard things about being King and Queen of a country that one loves so much. Every time this sort of murderous attack is made, we feel it, as if our own children were being hurt. All we can all do, is to do our very best, and leave the rest in God’s hand.’184

  The war continued badly. The German U-boats in the Atlantic sank half a million tons of British shipping in March 1941 alone. Louis Mount-batten lost his destroyer, HMS Kelly, in the Mediterranean during the evacuation of Crete. The cruisers Gloucester and Fiji were sunk. The Blitz continued – particularly against the ports where convoys berthed – and against London. Shortages grew worse and worse. One egg and a few ounces of meat a week were now the standard ration. Cigarettes could still be bought but alcohol was hard to find. Heating fuel and petrol for cars were short, clothing was rationed, people shivered. Even Churchill sometimes succumbed, privately, to the black dog of despair.185

  The Balkans became a new area of great concern in the spring of 1941. Hitler demanded that Prince Paul, the Regent of Yugoslavia, allow German troops to march through Yugoslavia to subjugate Greece. Despite appeals from King George VI, the Prince felt he had no alternative and at the end of March 1941 he signed a pact with the Axis powers – Germany, Italy and Japan. The Germans advanced inexorably through the Balkans and by the end of May the entire peninsula was in fascist hands. Prince Paul and Princess Olga went into exile first in Greece, then in Kenya, and spent the rest of the war in South Africa; King George II of Greece escaped and, via Cairo, came to London.