Undeterred by official opposition, Edward continued his fight to get to France; in November 1914 he was attached to the staff of Field Marshal Sir John French, commander-in-chief of the British Expeditionary Force. His days were taken up with paperwork and delivering dispatches. Exasperated by his non-combatant role and finding that most of the men on the staff were twenty years older than him, he complained that he was the only man without a job. He hated living in relative comfort and safety while his contemporaries were being killed on the front line. His closest friends understood how damaging his lack of a role was to his self-esteem. On the prince’s birthday Lord Desmond Fitzgerald wrote to him, commiserating, adding that unfortunately he could not give him the only present he really wanted – to become an ordinary person.19
At Givenchy in March 1915 the prince came under shellfire for the first time and saw the horrifying aftermath of a battle. A few months later he was attached to the headquarters of the First Army Corps and from there he often cycled to the front to visit his friends. In September 1915 he was appointed to the staff of Major General Lord Cavan, who commanded the Guards Division. In his new role, the prince experienced danger first hand. After visiting the front line during a lull in the battle of Loos, he had to jump into a trench to avoid an explosion; 50 yards away his car was riddled with shrapnel, killing his driver. That night Edward wrote in his diary: ‘It’s an absolute tragedy […] I have seen and learnt a lot about war today, having been forward during a fight; how exceptionally bloody it all is!!’20
When Sir John French heard what had happened he tried to get the prince transferred to a safer posting, but Edward resisted and remained where he was. The worst danger the prince faced during the war was when he was in an observation post on top of the ruins of Langemarck church. There were two explosions nearby and then the third shell fell even closer. The prince crouched for an hour in a dugout with the Welsh Guards while a French battery shelled them, thinking that they were the enemy.21 He was frightened but at the same time he felt glad to be sharing the risk experienced by other young men.22 Although the prince always felt inadequate about his war record, refusing to wear war decorations he felt he had not earned, the public recognised his courage and his desire to share the danger faced by his fellow countrymen. If there was a bad shelling he would always rush to the site and rally the troops or visit the wounded in hospital. Like Rosemary, he made a lasting impact on the soldiers he met, partly because he was so modest and naturally friendly but also because his compassion was genuine. This quality was most clearly illustrated when he visited a hospital for the treatment of English soldiers suffering from facial disfigurement. These patients were extremely sensitive – they were very aware if a visitor recoiled at the sight of them. After the prince had met twenty-seven out of the twenty-eight patients who he knew were being cared for in the unit, he asked to see the final one. The medical officer in charge explained that his case was of ‘such a frightful not to say repulsive character’ that it had been decided not to include this patient with the rest. The prince firmly replied that he refused to have anyone deprived of his sympathy and that this man had the greatest claim of all to it. He was then immediately taken to the patient’s room, where he went straight up to him and kissed him. As Sir Almeric Fitzroy, who recorded this scene, wrote afterwards: ‘He who can so bear himself in the dread presence of extreme misery must have a genius for pity.’23
The meeting between the Prince of Wales and Rosemary Leveson-Gower seemed to be a case of meeting just the right person at the right time. In so many ways Rosemary fitted the criteria for a post-war future queen. Inevitably the First World War had changed the royal family’s attitude about who was suitable as a marriage partner. For centuries, the British royal family had been expected to marry other royalty rather than commoners. Since the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, a formal declaration of the king’s consent, signed by him at a special meeting of the Privy Council, was needed before a prince could marry. The last heir to the throne to receive the monarch’s consent to wed a subject was James II. Since the time of George I, if any prince in the line of succession chose to do so the marriage was not held to exist officially and so his wife and children had no position. This rule was made law by George III.24
In the years leading up to the First World War, Prince Edward’s name had been linked to several foreign princesses. When the Kaiser of Germany’s only daughter Princess Viktoria Luise visited England with her parents in May 1911 there were rumours of an engagement to the Prince of Wales. However, there was no truth in the gossip. Edward was only 17 at the time and the German princess was just a year older. Although the princess thought he was ‘very nice’ she felt he looked ‘so terribly young, younger than he really was’.25 A more serious contender for royal bride was Caroline Matilda of Schleswig-Holstein, who was known as Princess May. When the prince visited Gotha during a visit to his German cousins in 1913, he got on very well with her. Although her teeth needed some work done and her nose was rather red, she was tall and very slim. Their initial reaction to each other seemed so promising that her brother-in-law August Wilhelm, who was the son of Kaiser Wilhelm II, wrote to the prince in June 1914 suggesting he should marry Princess May. At just 19 years old Edward was not keen on the idea and, helped by Queen Mary, wrote a tactful reply.26
The royal marriage market was changed forever by the war; after the prolonged conflict with Germany, alliances with other European royal dynasties no longer seemed such a good idea. Ironically, in the same month as the royal visit to Rosemary and Millicent’s hospital took place, at a meeting of the Privy Council at which George V gave up all his German titles and announced the establishment of the House of Windsor, the king made another momentous decision. He informed the council that he and Queen Mary had decided that their children would be allowed to marry British aristocrats.27 It was as if the prince’s meeting with Rosemary was meant to be; just as centuries of royal precedent was swept away, the ideal bride appeared on the scene.
2
THE PERFECT PARTNER
Rosemary was the perfect partner for the prince: the daughter of a duke, she was one of the most eligible girls of the era. The Sutherland family was certainly a match for royalty. The earldom dated back to 1228 and was linked to Scottish royalty by the marriage of the 5th Earl to Margaret, daughter of Robert the Bruce. The Dukes of Sutherland were treated in their own country as virtually uncrowned kings.1 Rosemary’s grandfather was reputed to be the largest landowner in Europe, owning well over 1,250,000 acres, including the entire county of Sutherland in Scotland and coal mines in England. Throughout the year Rosemary and her two brothers, Alastair and Geordie, moved with their parents between the family’s four stately homes, spending Easter at Lilleshall in Shropshire, winter at Trentham in Staffordshire, August at Dunrobin Castle in the north of Scotland and part of the spring and summer at Stafford House in London.
The Sutherlands’ extensive possessions had at times made even the royal family envious. When in 1873 the Shah of Persia saw Trentham, which was modelled on an Italian palace, he said to the then Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) that when the prince came to the throne he would have to have the owner of Trentham executed as a possible rival.2 Stafford House, in the Mall between St James’s Palace and Clarence House, was also a residence worthy of a royal owner. It had been built for George IV’s brother, the Duke of York, and was held by the Sutherlands on a ninety-nine-year lease from the Crown. It had been designed by the architect Sir Jeffry Wyatville as ‘a home fit for a prince’. Filled with period furniture and priceless works of art, it was so palatial that, on visiting Stafford House, Queen Victoria said to her friend, Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, ‘I come from my house to your palace.’3
Dunrobin was equally regal; a fairy-tale turreted castle standing high above the Moray Firth, it descended in a series of terraces to the seashore and had been inhabited by the Sutherland family since the eleventh century. During the Victorian era, Rosemary’s grandfather had
his own railway built from Golspie to Helmsdale. He laid down 17 miles of private line and had his own locomotive that he drove himself, while wearing a red shirt. When Edward VII visited Dunrobin in 1903 he was so taken with the engine that he had a replica of it made for the royal train. As one navvy said when he saw the Duke of Sutherland set off from Dunrobin on his train: ‘There, that’s what I call a real dook – there he is a-driving his own engine, on his own railway, and a-burning of his own blessed coals.’4
The royal family and the Sutherlands had socialised together for generations. Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland, had been Queen Victoria’s mistress of the robes. In 1846, she added a new wing to Dunrobin Castle to provide a royal suite for the visit of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort.5 In the next generation, Edward VII and Queen Alexandra were good friends of Rosemary’s parents and they also stayed at Dunrobin several times. In 1895, Princess May (the future Queen Mary) and Prince George (later George V) visited. Princess May was very kind to the Sutherland children and suggested that they should visit her and her two sons, Edward and Bertie, when they were next in London.6 When Princess May became Queen Mary, Millicent was one of the four duchesses to carry her canopy at the coronation. A few days later the Sutherlands put on an enormous party at Stafford House for all the foreign royalty and their representatives who were attending the coronation. The traffic in the Mall was so dense that evening that some guests did not arrive until 1 a.m. Among the thousand guests to attend were the Crown Prince and Princess of Germany, the Crown Princess of Sweden and the Prince of Siam. It was one of the most glittering events of the season. Ablaze with lights that illuminated the priceless works of art, Stafford House was full of flowers from the Sutherlands’ estate at Lilleshall. The long gallery on the first floor and the great drawing room and octagon room were used for dancing and sitting out, while the ground-floor rooms were supper rooms. The red drawing room, which opened onto the terrace, was reserved for royal guests. As dancing to Gottlieb’s band began at 11 p.m. the duchess, dressed in white, and Rosemary, in pink lace layered over a blue dress, were the centre of attention.7
Rosemary and the prince had mixed together since their childhood. As they were growing up, they had met occasionally at the children’s parties which were among the few times Edward and his siblings socialised with other children. The royal siblings lived a lonely, isolated existence and rarely met children their own age; however, on special occasions they were introduced to carefully selected children. Rosemary was among this elite group. In 1904 Queen Alexandra gave a party for the prince’s tenth birthday; dressed in a white sailor suit and broad-brimmed sailor hat, he greeted his guests, including Rosemary, who was wearing a white dress with a pink bow in her hair. They were then treated to a circus before tea.8 At another party the following year, given by Edward’s aunt Princess Victoria for her young niece and nephews, Rosemary was described as one of the ‘belles of the day’.9
However, although they both came from socially privileged backgrounds, Rosemary and Edward’s childhoods could not have been more different. Rosemary had grown up in a warm, close-knit family. According to her brother Geordie, the future Duke of Sutherland, they had the kindest of parents, and as the only daughter Rosemary was doted on by them both. Her father had a special rapport with her. He was a shy, unostentatious man, who was happiest dressed in shabby clothes shooting and deer-stalking on his Scottish estate. As Rosemary grew older, father and daughter would go sailing together on his yacht the Catania.10 Her mother Millicent was very different; outgoing and beautiful, she was a successful society hostess. From an early age Millicent took Rosemary everywhere with her. There are photos of a bonneted Rosemary sitting next to her mother in an early motor car attending the first meeting of the Ladies’ Automobile Club, helping at her mother’s many charity events and acting as a bridesmaid at weddings.
Rosemary and her brothers were mischievous; the boys were always playing pranks while Rosemary devised escapades of her own. She once joined a procession of soldiers, ‘the Blues’, as they marched around the streets of Windsor. On another occasion, at a society wedding where she was a young bridesmaid, she sneaked off to drink a glass of champagne when no one was looking.11 Rosemary showed no interest in academic work; she simply told her governess that she would not bother. She later recalled that her tutor always thought that she was ‘quite awful’.12 Despairing of ever educating her, the harassed governess gave up trying to teach and instead took Rosemary shopping in the afternoons.
With academic achievement not a priority, the Sutherland children enjoyed a relaxed childhood playing games with their friends and many cousins in the spacious gardens of Stafford House or playing ice hockey on the frozen lake at Trentham.13 Rosemary’s closest friend was Monica Grenfell, the daughter of Lord and Lady Desborough. The Desborough and the Sutherland families were great friends. Millicent and Ettie Desborough were both part of the group known as the Souls – a circle where women were prized for their intellect as much as their beauty. At Souls’ dinners, the leading politicians and intellectuals of the day discussed profound subjects together. The Desboroughs and the Sutherlands often stayed with each other. The Sutherland boys, Alastair and Geordie, were friends with Ettie’s eldest sons Julian and Billy Grenfell. When Monica was in London Rosemary had German lessons with her three times a week, and they went to dance classes, had skating lessons and swam at the Bath Club together.14 Trying to make learning fun for the girls, Ettie Desborough organised a series of twelve lectures for Rosemary and Monica and their friends on English literature. The essayist Edmund Gosse inaugurated the series with an inspiring speech to the students and at the end of the sessions the girls took an examination. More to Rosemary’s taste were the seemingly never-ending holidays. Every summer the two girls paid each other long visits with their governesses at Lilleshall, Dunrobin and the Desboroughs’ estate at Taplow.15
Making sure her children had a social life to rival her own, Lady Desborough put on elaborate fancy-dress children’s parties. At one event, the 180 guests were treated to a ventriloquist act, and live kittens in little hampers were given as leaving presents. Rosemary came dressed as a Sutherland fishergirl and Monica was a snake charmer with silver snakes in her hair. Holidays at Dunrobin were more informal. The girls enjoyed the freedom of bathing every morning before breakfast, then riding all day. Rosemary was a keen horsewoman who was described as ‘something of a youthful hoyden’ by one newspaper because she rode astride rather than side-saddle, as was expected of young ladies in the Edwardian era.16
In contrast to Rosemary’s idyllic upbringing, Prince Edward had a less happy childhood. His parents, the future George V and Queen Mary, loved their five sons and one daughter but they both had trouble expressing their affection. According to the queen’s lady-in-waiting and lifelong friend Mabell, Countess of Airlie, the problem was that they lacked any understanding of how a child’s mind worked and mistook childish behaviour for naughtiness.17 Queen Mary, who was then the Duchess of York, was not maternal and found it hard to bond with her children when they were small. Finding the demands of a baby distasteful, she handed her eldest son over to a nanny, Mary Peters, who it was later discovered was mentally unstable. The divide between the children’s nursery and their parents’ domain was rigid. When the prince was brought downstairs once a day to be with his parents at teatime, Nanny Peters would pinch or twist his arm before he saw them so that he appeared sobbing or bawling and was immediately handed back. An orphan and spinster, Nanny Peters became obsessed with her charge. She was so possessive that she did not like anyone else even holding the little prince and therefore she never took a day’s leave in three years. The Duchess of York only discovered her son was being abused when the second nanny, Lala Bill, reported it. Nanny Bill had found bruises all over the 3-year-old prince. Miss Peters was then immediately dismissed. A week later she was in hospital with a nervous breakdown from which she never recovered. As Queen Mary’s biographer explains, the potential effects of t
his early experience on the prince’s future relationships with women has been the subject of much discussion. Whether he was sexually as well as physically abused cannot be known but the fact that his first three years were spent in the care of such a mentally unstable woman must have been damaging.18 From infancy he had a wistful, melancholic look in his large blue eyes. He became an insecure, nervous child, who frequently fidgeted or cried and was shy and hesitant with adults.19
Although she found it hard to express her emotions, Queen Mary loved her eldest son very deeply and he always loved her. He relished the hour he and his siblings had alone with their mother in her boudoir before she went down to dinner. As she reclined on a sofa in her negligée, her children sat around her in a circle on little chairs. In this cosy atmosphere, they would laugh and joke together, or she would talk to them about literature, art and history in her soft, steady voice.20 Practical by nature, she taught her sons and daughter how to embroider and crochet. His mother’s boudoir became a place of sanctuary for the young prince. However, ladies-in-waiting and nursery staff were always stationed nearby to remove any child who was naughty. The prince later recalled that he could not remember ever being alone with his mother.21
For the duchess, her eldest son was a constant concern. Brought up with an overwhelming reverence for monarchy, she was very aware that she had the responsibility of raising a future king. When he was a teenager she worried about all aspects of his behaviour from his bad spelling to his sudden shyness. She confided in the courtier and politician Reginald, Lord Esher, who advised her to talk to her son on equal terms as though he were an adult. However, her reserved nature made such openness difficult. Esher believed that in her unsentimental way she was very proud of her eldest son, but she was unable to communicate this to him.22 Reading the letters between Edward and his mother during the First World War, it seems that as he got older their relationship became more relaxed and intimate. In 1916 the prince told his mother that he wrote what he felt to her rather than to his father because he knew ‘you understand that I do have feelings of my own and it does me so much good to express them’.23 Although she found it hard to say what she felt face to face, Queen Mary’s letters to her son were very loving. She wrote frequently to her ‘Most darling David’ and signed off ‘lots of love bless you most darling David, Ever your loving Mama’.24 Her letters are full of family news and show the concern any mother might feel for a beloved son. While he was in France, she worried that he was in danger and she wrote about how much she longed to see him. This developing intimacy was very important to them both. After they had spent time together in 1917, Edward wrote enthusiastically to his mother, ‘Tons and tons of love and again millions of thanks for those wonderful talks we had which have made all the difference and you know what I mean!!’25 Queen Mary replied:
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