by John Matson
The young Prince of Wales was susceptible and attractive to women and often chose as his companions older, married women. The relationship with Lady Furness did not last but he was certainly deeply in love with Mrs Dudley Ward, the wife of a Member of Parliament who was much involved with Parliamentary affairs. Lord Esher, a relative of hers, had warned the Prince to be discreet, but within society it was widely spoken of. After fifteen years Wallis Simpson, an American and already divorced, replaced Mrs Ward and dominated him by the ease with which she was able to satisfy him – by the use, it was said, of skills acquired in the Far East. It was a relationship that endured for the remainder of his life.
Prince Henry, after preparatory school and Eton, attended Cambridge briefly with his brother before embarking on an army career at Sandhurst. Created Duke of Gloucester by his father, he spent the war visiting army units at home and overseas, afterwards serving a term as Governor General of Australia. As a younger man he had caused gossip by his weakness for drink, but it had not affected the decision to offer him the post. He was supported in his role by his Duchess, a daughter of the Duke of Buccleuch, and they continued to carry out public engagements.
The behaviour of Prince George, too young to have taken part in the war, was worrying; at this time there seemed little direction in his life other than a penchant for the unconventional. He left the Navy in 1929 and briefly became a civil servant. His association with louche young men – and his penchant for living on the fringes of the drugs scene – made it was advisable to remove him from the capital. Accordingly, the Prince of Wales brought him to Sandringham for a respite. In 1934, he married Princess Marina, daughter of Prince Paul of Greece. They, and later their children, played an active part in public life. Tragically he was killed when his aircraft crashed in 1942.
Princess Mary, who had so easily disturbed the composure of Mr Hansell’s classes, somehow acquired fluency in French and German – and a love of horses and horse-racing. Clearly a strong character, she was actively occupied during both world wars, supporting the women’s services, and training as a nurse. In 1922, she married Viscount Lascelles, heir to a titled family in Yorkshire, and bore him two sons. After his death the Princess Royal, as she was known, continued her activities, sometimes representing the Queen and participating in Yorkshire affairs until her death in 1965.
Prince Albert remained compliant and dutiful. His health had improved since the problems encountered during his war service and he enjoyed his golf and tennis and setting up the boys’ camps named after him. He was deeply interested, in a practical and intelligent way, in the welfare of young people, especially those in industry. He had fallen in love with Lady Elizabeth Bowes- Lyon. The King dreaded the idea of their marrying but accepted their choice and was an affectionate father-in-law. It was noticed that he was often at his best, cheerful and good-natured, when the Yorks visited. From King George V’s diary of 15 January 1923: ‘At Sandringham. Bertie with Grieg arrived after tea and informed us that he was engaged to Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, to which we gladly gave our consent. I trust they will be very happy.’ Queen Mary noted: ‘We are delighted and he looks beaming.’229
After his visit the Duke wrote to Queen Mary:
You & Papa were both so charming to me yesterday about my engagement, & I can never thank you properly for giving your consent to it. I am very happy & I can only hope Elizabeth feels the same as I do. I know I am very lucky to have won her over at last.230
Lady Elizabeth, later to become Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, wrote ‘I was never afraid of him (King George) as his children were.’
The penultimate sentence needs a little explanation. The Duke had known Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon since childhood, but fell in love with her in 1920. The children of Lord and Lady Strathmore were a close-knit and loving family. Lady Elizabeth, the ninth of ten children, became a close friend of Princess Mary, the Princess Royal, and was one of her bridesmaids. The Duke of York was not only greatly attracted to his prospective bride, but also to the open and happy family life he experienced at their homes at Glamis Castle in Scotland, and St Paul’s, Walden Bury. It represented a cheerful and unfettered style which he had never encountered at York Cottage – but there were difficulties. Lady Elizabeth understood exactly what would be required of her were she to join the innermost circles of the Royal family, the surrender of that very freedom which she had hitherto enjoyed. In 1921, she had refused the Duke’s proposals, but for two years he persisted and eventually won her hand. For nearly thirty years, and throughout a world war, their marriage represented to the nation an example of comfortable and devoted domesticity.
On 20 January, Lady Elizabeth and her parents arrived at York Cottage to meet the King and Queen and – a much greater ordeal – Queen Alexandra. The Royal parents were enthusiastic as they wrote up their journals that night. ‘Elizabeth is charming, so pretty and engaging and natural. Bertie is supremely happy,’ Queen Mary wrote. The King was quite captivated by her: ‘…a pretty and charming girl & Bertie is a very lucky fellow.’231
The record of the meeting between the aged Queen Alexandra and the future Duchess at the Big House has not been published, but it cannot have been altogether easy. By now Queen Alexandra was extremely deaf: by 1922 she was complaining of ‘everlasting pain and noises in my wretched old head’; her eyesight was seriously impaired. Even the King, who was one of her most frequent visitors, was unable to make ‘Motherdear’ hear the news he would bring her – for she liked to be kept abreast of current affairs. It is certain, though, that she approved of the match, and wished that the Prince of Wales, too, would find himself a wife. Like all elderly people her mind tended to dwell on the past. When the Duke of York’s engagement was announced she clearly recalled the circumstances of her own, though her memory was by now unreliable. More than sixty years ago another Bertie had proposed to her: ‘We were walking together in the pretty garden (at Laeken) following my mother and the late Queen of the Belgians when he suddenly proposed to me! My surprise was great and I accepted him with greatest delight!’232
There remained the matter of a home for the Duke and Duchess after their wedding on 26 April 1923. It was Queen Mary who suggested that they should move into White Lodge, in Richmond Park. It had been her parents’ home for many years and Prince Edward, now Prince of Wales, had been born there. It seemed eminently suitable, and the King, whose gift it was, approved the plan. There was much refurbishing and decorating to be done but Queen Mary, no doubt recalling her dismay on finding York Cottage completely ‘done up’ by her husband and sister-in-law, left the arrangements to the young couple. Later, King George and Queen Mary were invited to see what they had made of it. ‘May & I paid a visit to Bertie & Elizabeth at White Lodge and had luncheon with them,’ the King recorded. ‘They have made the house so nice with all their presents.’
Unfortunately, unforeseen problems arose: with the advent of the motor car Richmond Park had become easily accessible to the public, and the privacy of the Duke and Duchess was threatened. Conversely, it was inconveniently far from London for their numerous public engagements; it was too large and too expensive to maintain. Eventually, another home was found for them in London, at No. 145 Piccadilly. By the time they were settled, Queen Alexandra had died, and the King and Queen moved into the Big House at Sandringham, where there was plenty of room for visiting in-laws, and York Cottage was converted into estate offices and staff flats.
CHAPTER TWELVE
MOVING HOUSE
When, in 1915, Queen Alexandra retired to Sandringham, exclaiming that she would go mad if she could not be alone, she largely turned her back on public life. Her deafness was now more marked than ever, seriously impairing her ability to absorb and assimilate facts: her views on international affairs were less than rational, caused in part by her ‘everlasting pain’ in her ears233 and also to the fixation of ideas in her mind, unalterable by any persuasion. King George used to return to York Cottage from the Big House in despair: ‘I s
imply cannot make Motherdear hear, much less understand, anything at all about Greece,’234 for she was trying to make the King interfere on behalf of her nephew, the ex-King. A broken blood vessel in her eye also left her, for a time, half-blinded. She was deeply depressed by her situation, but could be helped by visits from her family and, though many of her old friends had died, including de Soveral, that tireless member of the Sandringham house parties, there were still others who were made most welcome. Her two faithful companions, Charlotte Knollys and Sir Dighton Probyn, remained with her. Probyn’s death in June 1924 came as a severe blow to her; for more than fifty years he had given all in his power in the service of his ‘Blessed Lady.’
On her eightieth birthday, 20 December 1924, Queen Alexandra wrote, ‘I feel completely collapsed; I shall soon go.’ She was to linger on for another year: she knew she was ‘breaking up’235 – her memory had gone. Very late one night, Princess Victoria became alarmed by the silence in the house. She went downstairs and found the two old ladies sitting on either side of the fire, sound asleep. In March 1925, Queen Alexandra wrote her last letter to King George: ‘You and my darling May are in my thoughts all day long, and all your children.’236 In November she had a heart attack sitting on a settee in her room. She died the next day, the 20 November, with the King and Queen beside her. Two days later her body was taken to the church in the park before being taken to London and Windsor for her funeral. ‘Although the afternoon was cold and cheerless Charlotte Knollys had flung a window wide open, the better to watch the little procession. As the bearers crossed the wintry lawns they heard her crying aloud, like a little child.’237
So at last Queen Alexandra, the life-tenant of the Big House, had left it vacant for its occupation by King George V and Queen Mary. If George V’s move there seems overdue, it must be recalled that he himself had never questioned his mother’s continuing tenancy by the terms of Edward VII’s will, and that he himself preferred the cramped quarters of York Cottage. If his loyalty was sometimes sorely tried, he gave no sign of it to ‘Motherdear’, who had been at once the most generous and most selfish of mortals.
Queen Alexandra had inhabited Sandringham since its earliest days as a Royal residence, regarding it as more completely ‘home’ than Marlborough House or Buckingham Palace, and for more than sixty years had assembled her possessions here. The task of dismantling the contents of the house and the possessions of an acquisitive old lady who ‘loved to have her things round her’ was immense. Even Queen Mary, who had a natural talent for the work, and who had spent half a lifetime gathering together the Royal collections of works of art of every kind, was somewhat daunted – and there was really no one who could be of much help.
‘We have just been lunching with Princess Victoria at the Big House,’ Mrs Wigram wrote to her mother on 10 December 1925.
Really I think she is looking better than she did in October – but what a business to tackle the contents of that House. She took us into the Queen’s sitting-room – I had been in there before, but I had forgotten how impossibly crowded it was – not a single inch of space. Rather pathetic Princess Victoria pointed to such an uncomfortable-looking little settee saying, ‘This is where she was sitting when she had her first heart attack.’ Streaty says that poor Princess V. is perfectly hopeless – doesn’t know how or where to begin to tackle things, just moves them from one table to another and then says, ‘Oh, the Queen would not like that to have been touched.’238
It was clearly a task that would have to be tackled with thought and care, and by degrees. In January 1926, the King and Queen visited Sandringham to see what could be done. ‘Such a bewildering lot of things and pictures,’ Queen Mary noted.239 Having collected up and put aside the Crown Jewels, which the Queen Dowager had kept for her own use during her lifetime, they then divided up her personal jewellery. ‘At 11 to S. where Toria and Maud with George & me divided dear Mama’s jewels – it was interesting but sad.’240
But there was a more urgent concern than mere possessions. Charlotte Knollys lived on in the house, almost alone and bereft of her companion and mistress of more than half a lifetime. In the same letter to her mother Mrs Wigram wrote:
After lunch poor old Charlotte said she would like to see us – and we went up to her overheated, overcrowded room. I don’t think I have ever seen anything so pathetic. She said, ‘Oh dear, isn’t it terrible, for 63 years I have been with the Queen, and now I have nowhere to lay my head. What are they going to do with me – And then my letters’ (and she showed me heaps of them). ‘I can’t answer them; I feel so bewildered – and yet I must answer them.’ The one thing that cheers her is a long string of pearls which she clutches continually. In the Queen’s dressing-table drawer was found a memorandum saying that she wished these pearls to be at once given to Charlotte. They were the pearls she wore every single day of her life – She looks about 1,000 years old – and yet is all there, but she cannot be long for this world.* She kept talking of Sir Dighton and then turning to me and saying, ‘He was always so fond of you.’ Poor old lady. Princess Victoria is going to live in a house near the Teddy Seymours at Iver, near Windsor.241
August 1926 found Queen Mary again at Sandringham, prepared to be busy during the London Season after clearing up Queen Alexandra’s things at Marlborough House. ‘You never saw such a mass of things,’ she wrote. ‘A warning to one not to keep too much as nothing was ever thrown away in those 60 years!’242 Apart from its sheer magnitude, it was a task after her own heart. For the most part she worked alone. There was some irony, and the Queen herself must have been aware of it, in her new responsibility for the Big House when, thirty-three years previously, she had arrived as a bride at York Cottage, which now she was about to leave, to find all the furnishings chosen for her and installed:
You cannot think how terribly I miss you here, yr rooms seem so empty & desolate & make me feel quite sad & lonely. It was a good thing for me that David came down for 2 nights & he was simply enchanted with Sandringham in the summer, and with the lovely flower beds in front of the house and with the garden. I don’t think he had ever been here in the summer since he was a child… Really this place is too lovely just now & I am so glad to see it once in all its beauty.243
The King replied from London: ‘I am delighted you and David were both pleased with the dear place, in summer it is lovely, we must really try & see if we could not go there for a few days in the summer.’244 He agreed that the pictures would require sorting and arranging and, in a sudden access of domesticity, feared that the unfaded areas behind the pictures would show.
Queen Mary worked rapidly, and at the end of the fortnight’s visit she was able to report to the King: ‘…Everything is as nice as I can make it at S. and I hope that all will meet with yr approval… Of course some of the curtains and carpets are faded as well as wall papers but all this can be put right some day and at our leisure…’245
With the Big House now ready for occupation by the King and Queen, they were ready to leave York Cottage. Inconvenient and highly unsuitable as their country residence as it had been, there were real pangs at the moment of parting. ‘I fear this will be my last letter to you from our dear little old home where we have been for thirty-three years,’ the Queen wrote; ‘I am sad at leaving it with all its many memories & old associations.’246
Thus, in August 1926, the King and Queen moved into the refurbished Big House, full of memories as it was of his childhood with Prince Eddy and ‘Motherdear’, and the genial, bluff old King. From here he had set out on the road to Wolferton Station and his journey to HMS Britannia; here he had watched, appalled, the death throes of his elder brother, with the realisation that all the responsibilities of the Monarchy would one day, in all likelihood, be his; and from its doors he had set out to follow his mother’s coffin only the previous autumn on its journey across the park to the church.