by Diana Mosley
The stay at Balmoral lasted ten days. ‘We have seen a great deal of May and Dolly Teck during their ten days visit here and I cannot say enough good of them. May is a particularly nice girl, so quiet and yet cheerful and so carefully brought up and so sensible. She is grown very pretty,’ wrote Queen Victoria to her daughter the Empress Frederick. The Empress was unimpressed. ‘I am so glad to hear you are pleased with May and Dolly Teck. I wonder whether Eddy will ever marry May … Some people said there was not much in May—that she was a little oberflächlich [superficial]’ she wrote.
Queen Victoria replied: ‘I think and hope that Eddy will try and marry her … she is the reverse of oberflächlich’, and she wrote to the young Tecks’ mother: ‘I never had an opportunity before of knowing May well or Dolly either… they are so well brought up and have such good manners which in the present day is not too frequent. May is a dear, charming girl.’
The Duke and Duchess of Teck were overjoyed, and the prospective bridegroom’s father the Prince of Wales seemed to think Prince Eddy would come up to scratch; he wrote to the Queen: ‘You may I think make your mind quite easy about Eddy and that he has made up his mind to propose to May but we thought it best de ne pas brusquer les choses as she is coming to us with her parents after Xmas to Sandringham.’
However, to the surprise of all, Prince Eddy proposed that very evening, 3 December 1891. At a country-house party he took Princess May into his hostess’ boudoir and asked her to marry him. Everyone was delighted, the Tecks, Queen Victoria, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and ‘the country.’ Princess May, shy but happy, was cheered at St Pancras Station on her way home.
Man proposes, Fate disposes. While Princess May and her parents were staying at Sandringham early in the New Year 1892, Prince Eddy became ill with influenza. He was not robust. He developed inflammation of the lungs and pneumonia; many doctors were sent for. While raging fever made him delirious Prince Eddy’s family crowded into his little bedroom; his mother sat at his bedside holding his hand and fanning his brow. Princess May shared a chair with ‘Harry’, Princess Maud of Wales. Early on 14 January he died.
There is no doubt that Prince Eddy was deeply mourned by everyone who knew him. ‘Il était si bon!’ as his former love Princess Hélène said to Queen Victoria. Bon he was and charming, but with his flaccid, easilyinfluenced nature he might not have made the very best of kings even with sensible Princess May to support him. At the time, however, people were stunned by the tragedy of his sudden death. Letters and telegrams flew to Sandringham from all over the Europe. ‘This is an overwhelming misfortune … The poor Parents it is too dreadful for them to think of! and the poor young Bride!’ wrote Queen Victoria. A popular ballad composed for the occasion had the refrain:
A nation wrapped in mourning
Shed bitter tears today
For the noble Duke of Clarence
And fair young Princess May.
While Prince Eddy was dying the excitable and overwrought Duke of Teck, to the embarrassment of his family, was heard to say over and over again: ‘It must be a Tsarevitch.’ The Princess of Wales had a sister, Princess Dagmar, who had been betrothed to the Tsarevitch Nicholas, heir to the throne of Russia. Nicholas had died and the following year Princess Dagmar married his brother Alexander. This pattern was now to be repeated in England.
Soon after the death of the Duke of Clarence, Queen Victoria made his brother Prince George, the new heir presumptive, Duke of York. His marriage now became a matter of urgent concern to the royal family. Queen Victoria was fond of him and thought him ‘so nice, sensible and truly right-minded’, but none of the Wales children was very strong,* and Prince George had been seriously ill with typhoid fever. It was essential that he marry without delay. One or two cousins were considered, but Queen Victoria still hoped that Princess May would be the future Queen consort of England.
In May 1893 the Duke of York proposed. A girl like Princess May, imbued as she was with reverence for the Throne, with her strong sense of duty, and conscious of her mother’s fond ambition to see her on the way to becoming Queen consort of England, could never have refused such an offer even had she felt less than enthusiastic about her cousin the Duke of York. Fortunately she liked him, and the tragedy of Prince Eddy’s death had linked them together in a common sorrow. It may have been duty, it may have been something akin to love; nobody will ever know and it is more than possible that the Princess hardly knew herself. She accepted without demur and they were married in July. The newspapers, determined upon a romance, pretended that Princess May had been ‘in love’ with Prince George all along. However that may be, their letters to one another during their engagement speak of love; after they married they became an ideal couple and a pattern of domestic behaviour for the rest of their lives. Not quite everyone was pleased at the news of the betrothal. ‘One can only think of the engagement with very mixed feelings,’ wrote the Empress Frederick to her daughter.
The honeymoon was spent at York Cottage, a little house near Sandringham which has been variously described as ‘a glum little villa’ and ‘an ornate hutch.’ Moreover, Prince George had not waited for his bride to choose the furnishings but had summoned ‘Maple’s man’ with dire results for the interior. Small and inconvenient as it undoubtedly was, however, York Cottage was loved by the Duke of York. He had the royal predilection for what was ‘cosy’ and ‘snug.’
Queen Victoria did not approve of the choice of venue for the honeymoon; everything at Sandringham must have reminded the newly wedded pair of the tragedy they had lived through together eighteen months before. ‘The young couple go to Sandringham to the Cottage after the Wedding which I regret and think rather unlucky and sad,’ she wrote to her eldest daughter.
Eleven months later, on 23 June 1894, their eldest son, the future Duke of Windsor, was born at White Lodge, Richmond Park, the Tecks’ house. The Duke of York noted in his diary: ‘At 10 a sweet little boy was born. Mr Asquith [the Home Secretary] came to see him.’ The child was christened Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David. Queen Victoria, as usual, wanted Albert to be the first name, but the Yorks had determined to call him Edward ‘after darling Eddy.’ The Queen wrote: ‘You write as if Edward was the real name of dear Eddy … while it was Albert Victor which Papa again and again said was his real official appellation.’ Queen Victoria was destined to be frustrated in her ardent desire that the hallowed name of Albert should be the name of future kings of England, Although Edward VII and George VI were both called Albert and known in the family as Bertie, they changed the name when they came to the throne.*
York Cottage, Sandringham, the honeymoon choice and subsequent family home of the Duke and Duchess of York. Origin-ally used as the Bachelors’ Cottage for Sandringham, it was given to the Duke by his father as a wedding present. Although the Duke loved it, Sir Harold Nicolson was later to describe it as ‘a glum little villa, encompassed by thickets of laurel and rhododendron … separated by an abrupt line of lawn from a pond, the edge of which a leaden pelican gazes in dejection.’
On 23 June 1894 ‘a sweet little boy’ was born at White Lodge, Richmond. The infant Prince Edward, admired by his mother, Princess May, and his grandmother Princess Mary, Duchess of Teck.
A christening photograph was taken of Queen Victoria holding ‘the dear fine baby’ on her lap with her son Bertie and grandson Georgie standing behind her—four generations, all four of them monarchs. Amid the rejoicing over the birth the Scotch Socialist, Keir Hardie, made a speech in the House of Commons: ‘From his childhood this boy will be surrounded by sycophants and flatterers by the score, and will be taught to believe himself of a superior creation. A line will be drawn between him and the people he might be called to rule over. In due course … he will be sent on a tour round the world, and probably rumours of a morganatic marriage will follow, and the end of it will be that the country will be called upon to pay the bill.’ Quoting this sour pronouncement more than half a century later the Duke of Wi
ndsor described it as ‘uncannily clairvoyant.’
Five more children were born to the Duke and Duchess of York, but the eldest, known to the public as Prince Edward and called David in the family, was the one upon whom attention was focussed. The children were brought up in the ‘ornate hutch’, York Cottage. Their parents were often in London or overseas on official duty, but even when they were at home the Duchess of York saw very little of her children. The Duke’s aunt, the Empress Frederick, wrote of her: ‘May … does not seem to have the passionate tenderness of her little ones which seems so natural to me. She has something very cold and stiff … I like her very much and she and Georgie seem so happy and contented together … I do not think her clever but’, she added more kindly, ‘I should say she would never do or say a foolish thing.’ Perhaps because their own mothers, Queen Alexandra and the Duchess of Teck, were almost exaggeratedly gushing, the Yorks were very reserved and the Duchess of York never got near to having an intimate or loving relationship with her eldest son. As was usual at that time in households with a Nanny and nursery maids, family life consisted only of a visit by the children to their parents after tea. What was unusual was that the nurse gave Prince Edward’s arm a good pinch just as she brought him into the drawing room, so that he should cry and scream and be quickly removed. His mother took some time to discover the reason for this unattractive behaviour and dismiss the nurse, despite the fact that York Cottage was so small that when asked where the servants slept the Duke of York said he supposed it must be in the trees. Lady Airlie, who was often at York Cottage as lady-in-waiting, had a bedroom little bigger than a cupboard. She describes the nurseries as ‘dark and depressing.’ According to her the Duchess of York was ‘tragically inhibited with her children.’
In fairness to the future Queen Mary it must be said that she made a better job of her relationship with Prince Edward than the Empress Frederick did with Kaiser William II, who detested his mother and behaved very unkindly to her as soon as he was able.
Prince Edward (far left) standing to attention with his brothers, Prince Albert (the future George VI), Prince Henry, and his sister, Princess Mary.
Two photographs from the Prince’s own albums, here with his brother Bertie in 1912.
In naval uniform on the bridge of a warship in 1913.
Unlike Prince Albert, who tried to have the future Edward VII stuffed with knowledge (he tried in vain, but the attempt was laudable) the Duke of York gave his sons a minimum of ‘book learning.’ The York children were educated by a tutor at the Cottage until the boys could go into the Navy. The Duke of York was convinced that the Navy would teach his sons all that they needed to know.
Lack of affection is something for which no parents can be blamed. If it is not in them it can hardly be simulated. Not to have given a future King even a chance of learning may seem a grave error; by the time Prince Edward went to Oxford he had fallen far behind his contemporaries. On the other hand it is doubtful whether whatever opportunities had been put in his way the result would have been very different.
Light relief from the drear of the Cottage was provided during their grandparents’ lifetime, or rather until their grandfather Edward VII died, by visits to the Big House when the King and Queen were in residence. The children were welcomed and made much of by their grandparents and the cheerful lords and pretty ladies of the entourage. Even then the Duke of York did his best to make them miserable on their return to York Cottage, where he awaited them, watch in hand, and scolded them for being late. These glimpses of fun and luxury were doubtless an important ingredient in the upbringing of the Prince. He realised that boredom and scoldings were not all that life contained, even for princes. The duties of a constitutional monarch are often less than exhilarating, and in order to be able to perform them with the required enthusiasm a certain amount of amusement during spare time is indispensable. King George V’s favourite relaxation was shooting: he was a first-class shot and he also liked sailing. His other hobby was philately; in London he spent hours ‘playing with his stamps.’2
In the House of Hanover there was a long and almost unbroken tradition of strong dislike of the heir to the throne by the monarch all through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Queen Victoria could not stand the future Edward VII until he was quite old, and he certainly gave cause for complaint on more than one occasion. When George V came to the throne his eldest son, now to be Prince of Wales was sixteen. He was accustomed to his father’s bullying; to the natural dislike that a very conventional man often feels for an adolescent was added in this case an equally natural grain of jealousy of the physical beauty and winning manners of the Prince. As the eldest of the family, Prince Edward had acted as lightning conductor, and his martinet of a father did not scold the other children quite so much. Thinking back to another fierce father of a charming son, King Frederick William of Prussia, the future Frederick the Great in some ways had an easier time of it as a child than Prince Edward, because his mother and sister were his allies and except when the King was actually present they could all laugh together. It is doubtful whether Prince Edward’s next brother and his sister, Prince Bertie and Princess Mary, would have found much humour in their situation, and it is quite certain that Queen Mary would not for one instant have countenanced jokes about her husband.
Notes
2 One of his courtiers in conversation with the author.
* The Queen had described them to her daughter, then Crown Princess of Prussia: ‘they are such miserable, puny little children, each one weaker than the preceding one, that it is quite a misfortune. I can’t tell you how these poor, frail little fairies distress me… darling Papa [the Prince Consort] would have been in perfect despair.’ Queen Victoria was a keen amateur geneticist, like the Prince Consort who had often wished for an infusion of strong dark blood into the royal family. Princess May was fair and blue-eyed, but there was dark Hungarian blood in the Duke of Teck.
* The author asked the Duke of Windsor how ‘Bertie’ was pronounced in the royal family, was it ‘Bartie’ like the surname or ‘Bertie’ to rhyme with Gertie? He thought for a moment and then said: ‘Neither, it was “Bairty”. Sehr deutsch! But this obviously only applied to his grandfather.
CHAPTER FOUR
Prince of Wales
Courts and camps are the only places to learn the world in.
Lord Chesterfield
WHEN HE CAME to the throne in 1910, George V made Prince Edward Prince of Wales, and this was to be his name for the next twenty-five years. It was Lloyd George who devised what the Prince thought was a rather absurd pseudo-medieval ceremony at Caernarvon Castle, where the King was to present the Prince to the Welsh people. For this much-publicised occasion he was obliged to wear fancy dress, which he minded dreadfully, knowing all too well what his fellow naval cadets would think about his getup. The King was adamant, but this time Queen Mary showed sympathy for her son. She told him that princes often had to do silly things, but that people quite understood it was not their fault. He put on the hated clothes and went through with it. ‘It was a most picturesque and beautiful ceremony,’ wrote Queen Mary, ‘and very well arranged. David looked charming in his purple and miniver cloak and gold circlet and did his part very well. The heat was awful.’
The Prince had been coached by Lloyd George, and taught to say a few words in Welsh, including the sentence: ‘All Wales is a sea of song.’ During these lessons the two of them became great friends; Lloyd George was among the Prince’s most faithful admirers and the admiration was mutual. The same thing applied to Winston Churchill, who as Home Secretary was also at Caernarvon Castle.
The Prince had the good looks, though on a smaller scale, of the Queen’s brother, Prince Dolly, whose golden beauty she had much admired in her youth. Yet Queen Mary was anxious about her son, whose tastes were so unlike her own, who seemed to love what she was later to call ‘rushing about’, an activity disliked by her. She confided her worries to Lord Esher, walking by the river at
Balmoral. They discussed ‘every conceivable detail of the Prince of Wales’ character, education, temptations, etc.’ he wrote, and he promised to send her some notes on ‘l’éducation d’un prince.’
King George now removed the Prince of Wales from Dartmouth and sent him to France to learn the language. He never managed much French, but his German was fluent, for he had cousins in so many of the German courts with whom he stayed the following year. It was Mr Hansell, tutor to the royal children, who persuaded the King that the Prince ought to go to Oxford. The King finally consented and he was sent to Magdalen. Mr Hansell went too. Queen Mary’s Aunt Augusta, the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, wrote to her niece: ‘Why is he to be an undergraduate? Surely this cannot be true! it is too democratic; and why? And why does his Tutor again accompany him?’ Why indeed. It may have seemed unduly democratic to the Grand Duchess, but not only Mr Hansell went to Oxford with the Prince. His valet went too, as well as an equerry, Major Cadogan. For once an equerry justified his name and Major Cadogan taught him to ride; it was through him that for years fox-hunting became the Prince’s favourite sport. There was not very much ‘book learning’, but the Prince made a number of friends, and, as he said himself: ‘Ever since l can remember, it has been from people rather than from textbooks that I have got my education.’
In the autumn of 1913, during his second year at Oxford, the Prince was summoned to Windsor for the visit of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian Imperial throne, and of his morganatic wife, the Duchess of Hohenberg. The Archduke was a noted shot and there was a monster bag at the Windsor shoot. This was only seven months before the ‘elegant couple’, as the Prince later described them, were murdered at Sarajevo. The Archduke had invited George V to shoot with him in the autumn of 1914; another guest was to have been the German Emperor, William II, known in England as the Kaiser. When the date of the shooting party came round, the Archduke was dead and his prospective guests were at war.