Royal Sisters

by Anne Edwards

  Despite Crawfie’s best efforts to cater individually to the educational needs of children four years apart, the basic nature of the classes, held in the Duchess of York’s pale-blue private sitting room, made this impossible. With a precocious and competitive child like Margaret, it was hopeless to say, “Now, Lilibet is to memorize the names of all the British Colonies and their capitals while you practice writing your a,b,c,’s.” Invariably, Margaret would keep one eye on the map being used and the pointer in Crawfie’s hand and memorize the geography lesson along with Lilibet, the alphabet seeming a dull alternative.

  To Marion Crawford’s credit, she did not allow Lilibet’s studies to be held back by the younger child but chose instead to let Margaret shoot ahead. The system propelled Lilibet to her full potential and kept Margaret’s more curious intellect well fueled.

  According to Crawfie, “Margaret’s imagination led her along strange paths. Her dreams were appalling.” To postpone some unwanted chore she would often say, “Crawfie, I must tell you an amazing dream I had last night,” and Lilibet would listen with me, enthralled, as the account of green horses, wild-eyed elephant stampedes, talking cats and other remarkable manifestations went into two or three installments. Margaret was never at a loss.”

  Normally sisters with their age difference would not be raised with such closeness. They were being treated as twins might be. Lilibet did have certain privileges. There were her French lessons, she rode alone with her father or riding instructor, she did not take an afternoon nap and she was allowed to remain up, although in bed, a half hour after Margaret’s “lights out.” Since Margaret was up and down and roaming about the nursery (to Alah’s distress) long after everyone else in the house was asleep, this curfew did not mean much.

  Seldom were other children asked to tea. Neither, at this stage of her life, had her own friends, although their cousin Margaret Elphinstone (who was ten months Lilibet’s senior) visited occasionally from Scotland, and they saw their older Lascelles cousins on holidays at Windsor or Balmoral. But, mostly, adults peopled their world—Crawfie, the nursery staff or their parents and grandparents. They had a vast storehouse of toys and at Royal Lodge a thatched-roof playhouse (large enough to entertain adults for tea) presented to Lilibet by the Welsh people in 1932. But they longed for expeditions that other children took as a matter of course: a ride on the underground or on the top of a bus, a shopping trip to Woolworth’s (where they purchased sweets and pages of colored stick-on scraps and transfers.) Crawfie initiated these excursions, but for security’s sake they were accompanied not only by their governess but also by a lady-in-waiting and two detectives. The outings were not without their problems: crowds gathered or the press had been surreptitiously alerted. The few attempts to use public transportation ended in emergency calls to the Yorks to send along the car to save the girls from being overwhelmed by cameramen, well-wishers and the strictly curious.

  At Christmastime they were allowed to attend the theater to see Peter Pan or other children’s plays. They always sat, accompanied by Crawfie and perhaps their parents (but also with a Royal entourage), in the Royal Box, where the management left them a large container of candy (colored jelly babies were their favorites). In every London theater, the Royal Box is on the side of the grand tier, a position that provides only partial viewing for the occupants. In order to see, Margaret, who was not only younger but small for her age, would hang over the railing, held securely around the waist by Crawfie or her father, who was always frightened that she would fall.

  Religion was included in their education but was not dominant. Their mother read them Bible stories and taught them the old Scottish paraphrased versions of psalms. Queen Mary had insisted that they study the Bible, but only one fifteen-minute weekly lesson was allocated. This did not please their grandmother, who was further disconcerted that the custom of family prayers, “still upheld at the Palace, was not kept at 145 Piccadilly.” Perhaps to compensate for this lack, the more devout Alah shared her devotion to the Bible with Margaret.

  While the Prince of Wales smoked in public, wore loud sweaters, frequented nightclubs and went from one glamorous mistress to another rather than settling down to marriage, his brother Bertie and his family presented “a more rooted royal style.” Disapproving as always of his oldest son’s behavior, the King made it very clear that he felt “David was heading down the wrong tracks” and that the Yorks represented the image of the Monarchy (“a model of dreamlike domesticity”) that should be perpetuated.

  The Queen’s one wish was that David would find a suitable wife, a desire she confessed frequently to her closest friend, Lady Airlie. She knew of his longtime liaison with Mrs. Freda Dudley Ward and his newer attachment to Lady Thelma Furness, an American whom the Queen considered too fast and unstable for a Royal mistress. Although she had been a cold and distant mother, Queen Mary prided herself on the aura of domesticity that surrounded the Crown and, along with the King, encouraged the extent to which the Yorks were ever-present before the public, exuding the image of “a neat, hardworking, quiet husband, an adoring mother with a lovely smile, and the well-behaved little girls, just two of them in ankle socks ... for all the world ... like the characters in an Ovaltine advertisement.”

  If the King and Queen believed the cozy example of his brother’s life would convince the Heir to the Throne to follow suit, they were sorely mistaken. David was only too happy to let the Yorks propagate for him this idealized Royal family portrait, while he enjoyed the pomp and circumstance of his position, the wearing of uniforms and medals, the goodwill tours that gave him a chance to be on his own, to travel, to be entertained, to charm, and to seduce and be seduced. Perhaps because of this, he was, in fact, the best salesman Britain had ever had.

  Although he envied Bertie his loving wife, he seemed either unable or unwilling to find a suitable bride for himself. If the Prince of Wales was not happy with his private life, its circumstances were entirely of his own making.

  Small-boned and conscious of his lack of height, he was never sure of himself with women; and according to some of his conquests, he was a man with sexual difficulties. From Tanganyika and other stops on his Royal tours came rumors that he suffered premature ejaculation. Lady Furness confessed to friends that he often could not “rise to the occasion.” His title and Royal “mystique” overshadowed his sexual problems, and he was only too aware that the women he won were often more drawn to the mystique than the man.

  Nevertheless, he possessed tremendous charisma. “He came and left unpredictably, lonely, excited, nervous, melancholy, jaunty, a pint-sized Prince or elderly gamin but never in his father’s terms, anyway, a man.”

  The famous Socialist, Beatrice Webb, wife of Sidney Webb, Lord Passfield, noted in her diary after dining with the Prince of Wales in his apartments at St. James’s Palace on July 4, 1930: “He is neurotic and takes too much alcohol.... If I were his mother or grandmother I should be very nervous about his future. He clearly dislikes having to go to the Anglican Church.... I felt sorry for the man; his expression was unhappy—there was a horrid dissipated look as if he had no settled home either for his intellect or his emotions.

  “In his study there were two pictures of the Queen, one over the mantelpiece and the other on his desk, but no symbol of the King. On one side of the wall hung a huge map of the world; on another side there were shelves with expensively bound library editions, obviously never read—there were no books ... in general use. Like all those royal suites there was no homeliness or privacy—the rooms and their trappings were well designed for company and not for home life.

  “But it was ... the odd combination of unbelieving and hankering after sacerdotal religion, the reactionary prejudice about India and the morbid curiosity about Russia revealed in his talk that interested me ... he seemed like a hero of one of Shaw’s plays ... was it the Dauphin in St. Joan or King Magus in The Apple Cart that ran in my head? Not so mean as the first, not so accomplished as the second of GBS�
�s incarnations of kingship!”

  He relaxed in the company of his two young nieces. Crawfie reported that he looked “youthful and gay” whenever he stopped by to see them. He generally did so upon his return from a tour, bringing them tokens from his travels. But once he was involved with Wallis Simpson, his visits were rare.

  The sisters, with their parents, spent the summer of 1935 at Birkhall on the banks of the River Muick just outside Ballater, Scotland, close by the King and Queen, who were in residence for part of the time at Balmoral. Birkhall is pure Victorian in its decor, “with pine-wood furniture and masses of Landseers [Queen Victoria’s drawing teacher.]” Caricatures of every great statesman during Victoria’s and Edward VII’s reigns lined the staircases and were used by Crawfie in illustrating her English history lessons. At this time Birkhall was still lit by oil lamps, “and very smelly oil stoves were carried up to the bedrooms in bitter weather.” The Yorks spent much time at neighboring Balmoral, where, in the King’s bathroom, hung a framed, hand-printed sign: CLEANLINESS IS NEXT TO GODLINESS. And, as in his private quarters at his other Royal residences, there were “three basins in a line, each with hot and cold water. One marked ‘teeth’, one ‘hands’, and one ‘face.’ ” Those present that summer in Birkhall and at Balmoral could not help but see that he was failing. Crawfie noted “a vagueness about him. His booming voice had quieted.”

  The Queen attributed her husband’s declining health to his concern over David’s continuing difficult behavior. Not only was he seriously involved with Mrs. Simpson, in June he had given a much-criticized pro-German speech at the Annual Conference of the British Legion. (He had taken to writing some of his own speeches.) Immediately following this “indiscretion,” the King, in an angry confrontation, ordered the Prince of Wales to “never again speak on controversial matters” such as politics and foreign affairs “without consulting the [Prime Minister].” In direct defiance of his father’s orders, a fortnight later the Prince of Wales made a second speech at Berkhamsted School decrying a ban by the London County Council on the use of guns by boys in the cadet corps of schools within their jurisdiction.

  So serious were these infractions considered that the Prince of Wales was placed under the surveillance of the security service, who also suspected that Mrs. Simpson, because of her many German friends, might be pro-German and could, therefore, compromise the Prince. King George was given and read the security reports on his heir apparent’s pro-German sentiments, freely expressed, often in public and generally with total disregard for his own position, his father’s orders, and the Government’s policies. By now, King George no longer considered David simply as a defiant son, but as a man dangerously in love with a woman who was leading him up the wrong path.

  That summer the King was greatly disturbed. To those close, he reiterated his hope that Lilibet might one day inherit the Throne. But there seemed no way that this could be possible without what he feared would be a double tragedy. Although David had accumulated considerable monies from the Duchy of Cornwall and was one of England’s richest men, the King suspected he saved little and would not be able to live in his accustomed style if he renounced the Throne before his (the King’s) death. (This would mean he would not only forfeit the income from the Duchy of Cornwall, but forfeit the Crown palaces, the money for their upkeep and the scores of staff and servants paid for by the Government.) The King, therefore, believed he would wait until after his death so that he could collect his share (which as the oldest son he would believe to be the largest) of his father’s vast estate. Once having received these monies and assets, he might well abdicate, leaving Bertie to ascend the throne. But Bertie was frail, suffered from lung congestion and extreme nervousness. King George feared the weight of the Crown would bring him an early death. Then who would be regent for Lilibet until she was of age?

  At summer’s end, the King came to the decision, perhaps with Queen Mary’s counsel, to rewrite his will, to disinherit David financially and to redistribute what had been David’s share of his private wealth among his brothers, sister, nieces and nephews. Once King, David would be totally reliant on the Crown for his support, a fact that King George obviously deemed would keep him on the Throne and Mrs. Simpson at bay. He either knew, or strongly suspected, that David would never have an heir, which meant Lilibet’s future would still be secure.

  In October 1935, Alan Lascelles, who for five years had been secretary to Lord Bessborough, the Governor-General of Canada, returned to England. Immediately after his arrival he was approached by the King’s Private Secretary, Sir Clive Wigram (“distinguished by his rasping voice, old-fashioned courtesy and irrepressible penchant for spotting metaphors”) with a view to his becoming the King’s Assistant Private Secretary. Lascelles refused, for he felt that he had already spent too much of his life in palaces and Government houses, and also considered that he would be in a queer position if the King were to die and the Prince of Wales to succeed. “Clive,” he wrote his wife, “assured me that I need have no anxiety on that score. ‘The old King,’ he said, ‘was never better in his life than he is now. He’s good for another seven years at least!’ ” So, in the end, Lascelles had yielded.

  His impression had been that the Prince of Wales had been caught napping and that, like Clive Wigram, he expected the King to live several years more; and that he had, in all probability, already made up his mind to renounce his claim to the Throne and to marry Mrs. Simpson. In fact, he had confided to several American friends that he could never face being King.

  At Christmastime the Royal Family gathered as always at Sandringham. A twenty-foot tree dominated the spacious white ballroom. Lilibet and Margaret, their two Lascelles cousins, George and Gerald, and Edward, the infant son of the Duke of Kent and his beautiful wife, Princess Marina of Greece, contributed the happy sounds of children’s voices. The King’s fourth son, Harry, Duke of Gloucester, was also there with his new bride, the former Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott. David, noticeably on edge, was the last to arrive.

  “My brothers were secure in their private lives,” he later commented, “whereas I was caught up in an inner conflict and would have no peace of mind until I had resolved it.” One wonders in retrospect if he was referring to the possibility of Wallis Simpson divorcing her husband to marry him or if he was thinking about abdicating. The Queen, having just heard that he had given his American mistress another extravagant gift of fabulous jewels, including some prized family heirlooms, was cool and distant to him. After celebrating Christmas and his new sister-in-law’s thirty-fourth birthday, and having spent only two days with his family, he left.

  He attended the first night of Noël Coward’s Tonight at Eight-Thirty at the Phoenix Theatre in London on the evening of January 13, with Mrs. Simpson, Sibyl Colefax, Harold Nicolson and some other friends. Nicolson noted that “Mrs. Simpson is bejewelled, eyebrow-plucked, virtuous and wise. I was impressed by the fact that she forbade the Prince to smoke during the entr’acte in the theatre itself.

  Our supper-party at the Savoy Grill afterwards goes right enough ... the Prince is extremely talkative and charming.... I have an uneasy feeling that Mrs. Simpson, in spite of her good intentions, is getting him out of touch with the type of person with whom he ought to associate .... Why am I sad? ... Because I think the P. of W. is in a mess. And because, I do not feel at ease in such company.”

  On Thursday, January 16, the weather unusually cold, Bertie received a summons from Sandringham. The King’s health had been deteriorating since Christmas and his condition was now grave. Because the Duchess was bedridden with a severe case of flu, Bertie arrived alone the following morning shortly after David, who had also been asked by the Queen to come. Harry, unfortunately, was ill with a bad throat and could not risk travel. The freezing temperature did not daunt the Queen. “It will do us good to get out of doors for a little while,” she told her three sons. Then, as they walked briskly around the grounds four abreast, the Queen, surefooted on the icy paths, deft
ly put into words the grave thoughts none of them had previously verbalized. Their father would soon be dead. David would be King and as soon as possible she would vacate Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Sandringham and move back to the apartments at Marlborough House where she had lived twenty-five years earlier as Princess of Wales.

  The King had slipped into a semi-conscious state. Queen Mary stood almost constant vigil at his bedside, Bertie and David relieving her a few hours each night so that she could get some sleep. On Saturday, January 18, David wrote Wallis from Sandringham:

  My own Sweetheart

  Just a line to say I love you more and more and need you so to be with me at this difficult time. There is no hope whatsoever for the King[. I]t’s only a matter of how long and I won’t be able to get up to London tomorrow if he’s worse. But I do long to see you even for a few minutes my Wallis[. I]t would help so much. Please take care of yourself and don’t get a cold. You are all and everything I have in life and WE must hold each other so tight. It will work out right for us. God bless WE*

  Your

  David

  *  *  *

  There had been no change in the King’s condition on Sunday, and David and Bertie motored together to London to meet the Prime Minister, Stanley Baldwin. David left Sandringham “in a state of desolation, dark circles under his eyes, his face white and drawn. He had not slept much during the time there, always expecting a summons to his father’s deathbed. He had a great deal on his mind. For one thing, the King had not acknowledged his presence.” For another, the moment had arrived when he had to make a decision as to whether he should or should not take the Oath of Accession.