The Spy Who Painted the Queen

by Phil Tomaselli

  He was in a very excited state, so I gave him the money and told him to go away.

  I am very sorry. I understand now that I did wrong in giving him money, but I beg you to consider the situation. Being a Hungarian subject, I had so many unpleasantnesses. This man came absolutely unexpectedly and I knew I had to give him up. It is not a pleasant thing to see a fellow in that situation, being a Hungarian, and speaking Hungarian (he wrote a very good letter) it would have been very difficult for me to give nothing at all. (László then spoke of the feeling against himself in Hungary, and continued) Now I thought that if I gave that man up, he would let it be known in Hungary after the war that I had done so, therefore, I did not want him to know it. It was very cruel of the man to put me in that position.

  Then I was unhappy all the afternoon. It was a very unpleasant experience for me, as I did not know what to do and had no address.

  Before the man left, he said to me ‘Is there any other Hungarian whom I could see?’

  He pressed me and, knowing I had to give him up, I said ‘Yes, there is another Hungarian here, whom you could see, a man called de Boyser, the brother in law of Hughes Hughes, one of the Directors of the Musical Department at the British Museum. His wife and brother are Hungarian.’

  Miss Joyce, and the Baroness van Linden, both of Austrian nationality, are great friends of ours, and they gave me the address of de Boyser, writing it down on that very paper. I could not tell them what had happened, as it would have put me in an unpleasant situation. So I gave the man that bit of paper and said ‘You can go there.’

  These two ladies saw that letter, and I said ‘It is an Austrian officer who has come to beg for money.’ They looked at the address and said ‘It is a good hotel.’

  I said to my wife in the evening ‘That man came to me, and I have to give him up.’

  As soon as I got to the studio the next morning I told the girl to look for the envelope, as I had not been able to find it the previous night, after the sitting of the two ladies was finished at about 5.30.

  The girl went down to the kitchen, and found the envelope amongst the rubbish and brought it to me. By that I knew the name of the hotel.

  Thomson then turned to László’s letters to his family, asking whether he had a good many relations in Hungary.

  De László replied that yes, he did, and corresponded with two brothers and a sister through Holland. When he was asked about his loyalty, he said:

  I cannot explain what the feeling is, because they behaved so very badly at home. Everything is exaggerated. My pictures, one of which is known world-wide, have been taken down from the Museum. A little while back I had a letter from my brother to say that this picture, which I painted for the Government and sent to the Pope, has been reinstated, but amongst the pictures in the Foreign Section. Now I thought that if I gave that man up, he would let it be known in Hungary after the war that I had done so, therefore I did not want him to know it. It was very cruel of the man to put me in that position.

  Asked about friends in Europe he had painted he replied:

  I stayed three times with the German Emperor – I was first invited in 1889 – I painted nearly all the Princes. Now I have no correspondents except my own people. I have great friends in Holland, in the Hague Madame van Riemsdyk and others are great friends of mine and the letters go through them to Hungary.

  Asked whether he wrote to friends in Italy he said he had some but did not write to them, only to friends in the USA and to his family in Hungary. He did not correspond with friends in Spain, visited France for five months every year and had no friends in Switzerland. In Holland he was great friends with the van Riemsdyks and confirmed that Madame van Riemsdyk was the sister of the Dutch foreign minister, but that he himself wasn’t related to her.

  Thomson then turned to the use of the diplomatic bag and the questions became tougher:

  ACC

  I suppose that it is on account of her relationship to the Foreign Minister that you occasionally have had the advantage of sending letters through the Legation Bag?

  PAL

  Yes. I have not sent many letters that way, but Madame Riemsdyk wrote to me at the beginning of last year that I could get letters that way, because she knows how attached I am to my people. She asked me if I would go to Mr van Swinderen, whom I knew a little, and he promised to send letters for me, but I have not sent letters that way any more than probably five times at the most. In August of last year I went to see Mr van Swinderen and while I was there someone rang him up on the telephone and I heard him say ‘O, about those letters – they do not like it at the Foreign Office.’ After he had finished speaking on the telephone I said to him ‘That means you do not care about forwarding my letters.’ He replied ‘I will send this letter for you, and any others you forward to me, unless you hear from me to the contrary.’ However I never sent him any letters after that.

  ACC

  I suppose you got letters from Madame van Riemsdyk by the same route?

  PAL

  Yes, and I wrote to her twice not to send me any more letters through the Dutch Minister because the authorities did not like it. When I was staying in Holland we became great friends. I have painted the du Toits, Lewis van Lowden. I know her brother-in-law. He is a director of the National Museum in Amsterdam.

  ACC

  But you were writing to her by the ordinary post pretty often?

  PAL

  Yes. But I have not done it more than four or five times through the Dutch Minister, and I wrote a letter to her every month.

  ACC

  But since you were writing to her almost voluminously by the ordinary route, why should it be necessary to send other letters through the Minister’s Bag?

  PAL

  In the beginning of the war I asked her if she could help me to get letters. Then she offered to send letters this way, because they arrive sooner. She simply said, ‘I have the opportunity through my brother, to send you letters quicker, through the bag.’

  ACC

  You were writing practically once a fortnight?

  PAL

  It happened now and then that I was lucky and received three letters in succession, which were forwarded to me: one from my sister one from a great nephew of mine and one from my brother, so I answered within a week.

  Thomson then asked a question that must have given the game away that the correspondence was being monitored, asking ‘Who was Madame G in those letters?’, to which De László (as MI5 noticed) replied, ‘I do not remember who it can have been. It may have been someone in the Corps Diplomatique.’ He did not deny her existence. He gave a couple of Dutch names (neither of which began with G), and Thomson expanded, ‘I think the lady in question was supposed to be of Jewish extraction originally.’ De László replied, ‘It is so against my custom to use an initial in a letter – I do not know what it can be. It must have been a long time ago.’ Thomson admitted it was. Madame de Youngichaen, a Hungarian lady related to the Rothschilds and living in Switzerland, was briefly discussed and discounted before Thomson turned to the criminal regulations regarding corresponding without going through the censored channels:

  ACC

  Of course, Mr László, you have been perfectly open about having sent letters that way, but I ought to read you this Regulation [Thomson then read out DORA Regulation R24 with regard to transmitting letters without lawful authority by means other than through the post].

  PAL

  I have no answer to give. It is unfortunate, but I did not know it was against a regulation. My conscience is absolutely clear I never said anything in a letter that I ought not to have said.

  ACC

  That is not the point. The thing is you ought not to have sent the letters that way.

  PAL

  My position is such as an artist and the father of five boys that I give you my word of honour that I never in my life have written a word that was against my feeling as a man, or that I ought not to have done.

 
The position having been made clear, Thomson turned again to his loyalty and whether he desired peace:

  PAL

  Certainly I do, for Hungary always was friendly to England. If you ask me as to political matters, it is a very sad situation for the Hungarians – they have to fight. They were very ambitious to fight when Roumania attacked them, but Hungary up to now was always devoted to England. I talked with a Prime Minister in Hungary whom I painted some time ago about these things, because I visited a young Hungarian who is interned here. This man came over to give a concert with his wife and children at the Queen’s Hall, and he was here when the Lusitania went down and they interned him. I said to him, ‘Page, you ought not to be interned, because no British subject is interned in Hungary. All British subjects are regarded as honorary guests there.’ So far as my knowledge goes, there is no British subject interned in Hungary. The feeling between the two nations was very intimate. We lived there only a year after we were married. The Hungarians are a sporting people like the British and live in the same way.

  There was a brief discussion over the treatment of prisoners of war and Thomson turned back to correspondents abroad:

  ACC

  You said just now that you had no communication with anybody in Switzerland or Spain. Is that quite correct?

  PAL

  I have no communication at all. I received one letter from my brother-in-law via Switzerland at the beginning of the war. I remember now the name of that lady whose daughter was married to an Englishman; it was Mr Michaels. They wanted a separation, and she wrote a letter to me from Switzerland on this matter to explain to me her situation. Then she sent another letter to my wife – a very long letter, like a book (I cannot understand how the censor had the patience to go through it). We destroyed it immediately because we did not want to have anything to do with them. Mrs Michaels sent a letter twice, but received no answer from us. I received one letter from my brother-in-law and these two from Madame Michaels.

  ACC

  But was there not a proposal at one time that you should send money to your brother through some friend in Spain?

  PAL

  Yes, Baron Mayendorff.

  ACC

  That led to some correspondence?

  PAL

  Yes.

  ACC

  That is a correction of your original statement?

  PAL

  No, nothing came via Switzerland. Baron Mayendorff was here at the Russian Embassy and I made his acquaintance through Miss Warrender, whose life sized portrait I painted. Then I did some painting in Paris in January 1914, and then we went to Italy and I was invited by the King of Greece to paint the whole family. The Baroness wanted me to paint her husband’s portrait; I commenced this but was not able to complete it, so, as I told them I always come to London twice a year, it was arranged that I would finish it in my London studio. Then of course the war broke out and I heard nothing of them until August or September of last year when I had a message from the Ritz Hotel where they were living. ‘Would I finish the portrait now?’ I agreed, so he came, and his uniform is still at my studio. I asked them to lunch with me, as they had been here for a long time, seven years, and I had lunched with them a few times. They were going back to Zurich where they always lived in the summer. His wife has property there, and his brother is, I think, in the Russian Embassy there … He asked me if he could do anything for me. I said ‘Yes, I cannot send money to my brother. If you could send it over for me, I should be very pleased if you would.’ He said ‘Certainly, with the greatest pleasure.’ I gave him a letter. He took the letter and the cheque, and promised that the money should remain here. He said ‘They talk so much about you, so, if you can; if not, send it back.’ I gave him my cheque on the London County and Westminster Bank.

  ACC

  To the police officer who visited you, you said ‘The Baron owes Mr P de László £1,000 for portrait painting , and Mr de László wrote asking him to send £200 to his brother, Marczel, but he has since heard that this wish has not been complied with.’ Is that right?

  PAL

  No, when he was in my studio I could not finish the picture so I did not ask for money. He owed me £1,000.

  ACC

  But in this case you said you had written to him asking him to send £200 to your brother.

  PAL

  That is wrong. I could not have said that. I never wrote to him … I said ‘I give you a cheque for £200, but the money must remain in England.’ I asked him how he would send it to my brother, and he said ‘If I cannot send it though the Minister my wife is going to Switzerland to see my brother. She will stay there several weeks and she will arrange it, or I am expecting my brother here and I will ask him to forward it.’ At any rate, I had a letter from my brother about a month ago, in which he said he had not received any money.

  ACC

  Why did you say anything to the police officer about Mayendorff owing you money unless it was to imply that he was to pay what he owed you? As a matter of fact, was the cheque ever cashed?

  PAL

  That I do not know. I have not looked out my pass book.

  ACC

  You have not satisfied yourself as to whether the money was drawn?

  PAL

  I think it was, because Mr Williams {the accountant appointed by the Home Office earlier in the year} looked through my books.

  Thomson then produced a copy of a letter that does not appear to be extant on the surviving file:

  ACC

  Did you ever see that letter? (Exhibit A – Photograph of letter to Mayendorff.)

  PAL

  I really do not remember that letter.

  ACC

  I suggest to you that it was delivered or posted by someone in London. It came through a man named Taylor.

  PAL

  I have never heard that name.

  A further question about De László’s exact relationship with Madame van Riemsdyk established that her daughter Daisy called him Uncle Philip, but that she was no relation really.

  Thomson then turned back to more intercepted correspondence, asking, ‘Do you know a young woman called Miss Lundquist?’ It was established she was Anna Lundquist, Swedish and his housekeeper, having previously been his wife’s maid. She had left because of problems with the other servants, but had recently returned to look after the house while the family were in Datchet. De László did not know where she had been in the interim. It was also established that she, too, was corresponding with someone in Holland, though De László denied any knowledge of this:

  ACC

  Well, I will tell you what happened. A postcard was received for her addressed to your house on the 14th July (that would be all right if she went to you on the 6th) except that it is a little difficult to know how her correspondent in Holland should have known. After this postcard was received, the police asked her to call, and she then gave her address as 14 Holland Park, and said nothing about ever being employed by you.

  PAL

  That is very strange. I know she has a friend in the Army who she knew years before the war broke out who sends her postcards and letters. He is an Englishman.

  ACC

  (Postcard in question read to him.) Who is L?

  PAL

  I do not know.

  ACC

  The writer of this is known to us and very unfavourably known, and he addresses it to your house. How could he have known that she was at your house if she had not been there for years before now?

  Quite who the mysterious writer was, or why he was unfavourably known to MI5, is not stated on the files. Thomson then turned again to De László’s attitude to Hungary, and in the course of the interrogation things turned very serious. It is given here verbatim:

  ACC

  I understand you have a hereditary title granted by the Emperor of Austria?

  PAL

  By the King of Hungary really.

  ACC

  Yes, and I suppose that on naturalisatio
n as a British subject you parted with that title did you not?

  PAL

  I do not think so. I applied first of all for naturalisation before the war. Mr Balfour, Lord Devonport, my brother-in-law Howard Guinness are my sponsors. I intended to become naturalised two years before the war broke out, and many people knew of it. Then it happened that I went to Balfour just before the war broke out, and we talked about things. I said that I had very great esteem for the old Emperor Joseph who was very nice, and that I preferred postponing my naturalisation until after his death. When the war broke out a Hungarian who I had never seen before came over to England because he thought it was the safest place for a Hungarian to be. He brought me a letter of recommendation from an old friend of mine. I was so pleased to learn from this letter that my mother was still alive that I gave him a letter to take back, which was, however taken away from him. He was the very man whom I invited to lunch with me. He went home and made a big story out of it. He asked me what my position was and I said ‘I am a British subject.’ (This was not then known in Hungary, it came out afterwards.) Then this man went back to Hungary and made a terrible row in the papers, and only one man stood for me, a very reliable good friend of mine from whom I have had four or five letters during the war – Baron Forster – who looks after art matters in Hungary. He wrote that there was a meeting at the Art Academy called together on my account. He said ‘They were all down on you and I stood beside you, and brought it so far that they said they would not go against you altogether.’