In the third instance Eddy was successful. His choice was inspired, for the young woman was eminently suited to be a queen. Victoria Mary, Princess of Teck, was nicknamed ‘May’ after the month in which she had been born. She was his second cousin once removed and related to the Dukes of Württemberg, an archetypal German dynasty. She had, however, grown up with her mother at the British Court. By the peculiar standards of royalty she was impoverished and obscure, overlooked by members of more illustrious families. Nevertheless she was extremely personable – lively, clever, charming and pretty – and observers could see that she would provide a useful counterweight to the prince’s natural inertia. In December 1891 Eddy proposed to her at a house party, to her considerable surprise, and she accepted. Queen Victoria was delighted. Eddy, it seemed, had made a very wise decision.
But his time was running out. Less than two months later, in January 1892, he caught influenza at Sandringham from his sister, Princess Victoria. He rapidly developed pneumonia and within six weeks was dead. It was a tragic loss for the entire royal family. It has been suggested by some writers and conspiracy theorists that Eddy was an imbecile rather than merely slow-witted, and that he was either murdered or his death faked so that he could be removed from the succession to make way for his brother. This is not the way royal families tend to behave, however, or at least not in modern times. His death was witnessed by his parents, his brother, his fiancée and a number of others, so we must assume it really happened; he was known to be suffering from the symptoms of pneumonia. The grief of those he left behind was genuine and lasting – his mother, Queen Alexandra, had his bedroom preserved as he had left it, an echo of Queen Victoria’s homage to Albert. George was now the heir. Created Duke of York, he had to quit active service and begin the study of constitutional history that would be important to him in the future.
And he inherited not only his brother’s place in the succession but Eddy’s betrothed. Princess May was taller than George, by half an inch, but with the piled-up hairstyle of a lady of that era she was to overshadow her husband physically all his life. George and May genuinely liked each other, and a period of mourning for someone whom both of them had loved gave them a significant amount in common. Queen Victoria approved of the princess and felt she would still make a useful consort. Suitable girls of the right background and religious beliefs were not so plentiful that they could be allowed to go to waste. It was with pleasure and approval rather than any sense of impropriety that George’s family watched him grow closer to his dead brother’s fiancée. Such a match was considered perfectly respectable, and indeed there was a recent precedent. In 1865 the Russian tsarevich, Nicholas, had died. The next-eldest brother had taken his place in the succession and had become Tsar Alexander III in 1881. He had married his dead brother’s fiancée, the beautiful Princess Dagmar of Denmark, who was the younger sister of Queen Alexandra. Family affection for a young woman, not to mention dynastic interests, were what mattered most.
It was a year after Eddy’s death that George proposed, and the couple were married in the Chapel Royal in the summer of 1893. They remained devoted to each other for the rest of their lives. Their history demonstrates two things. First, that even within royal circles, governed by duty and expectations and with so much arranged by others, there could still be rejected advances and unsuccessful marriage proposals. Secondly, that in such a world there could be genuine romance, mutual passion or close companionship, and lifelong attachment. Though these young people had met within the narrow confines of the Court, their marriage was as successful as that of any couple who had encountered each other by chance and had had no obstacles to contend with. George was, by his own frank admission, inarticulate in expressing tenderness verbally. His letters to his wife, however, give adequate proof of a sensitive and appreciative nature that is surprisingly at odds with the bluff and bad-tempered naval officer that others perceived. This was entirely understandable, however. Among royalty affection was considered to be a private matter, and no hint of it should be displayed in public. That view is still held by many members of the royal family today.
In temperament, George was the opposite of his father, who had in 1901 became King Edward VII. From early manhood Edward was given to keeping raffish company, and indulging freely in games of chance and sexual licentiousness. Respectable people had dreaded the moment he became head of state, though once he was on the throne he managed – without altering his habits in the slightest – to gain a somewhat wider popularity. Though his morals, and mistresses, were to earn him the nickname ‘Edward the Caresser’, the new century was less censorious than the old, and he fitted surprisingly comfortably into the position of father – or grandfather, for he was almost sixty when he succeeded – of the nation. He clearly enjoyed being king. He had a benevolent charm, and was perceived by his subjects as kindly. His son George, who of course became Prince of Wales, promised however a different and far more widely acceptable style of rule once he succeeded. Both George and May were by nature shy and private. The son had little of the father’s outgoing charm. Though George was fond of horses and attended races, he was nothing like as enthusiastic about the Turf as Edward was, and was never linked with the sort of ‘fast set’ that had surrounded his father. The Yorks in fact derived little pleasure from going out in Society.
They lived a modest country existence on the Sandringham Estate. York Cottage, their home from their marriage until 1926, had been George’s dwelling when he was a bachelor, and he seemed happy to remain there as father of a family. The rooms were small and poky, though this endeared the house to him. They reminded him of shipboard cabins, and all his life he was to prefer accommodation of such limited dimensions. The house looked like any large suburban villa, and was remarkable only for its ugliness. A structure of mock-Tudor beams, tacked-on gables and crazy angles, it displayed the worst excesses of contemporary suburban historicist pastiche (it now houses the Sandringham estate offices). The house was to become increasingly cramped as George and May added more and more children to their family (there would be six in total, plus all the servants necessary to look after them). Despite having the treasures of the Royal Collections to choose from, they had their home furnished from Maple’s store in London’s Tottenham Court Road, a place synonymous with middle-class taste, and hung the walls with reproductions of pictures from the Royal Academy. They resembled, in every way, a family of the upper bourgeoisie. While Victoria and Albert had adopted the values of the middle class, their lifestyle had been that of the senior aristocracy. George and May not only thought like the middle class, but lived like them too.
George was interested in farming the estate and, in an age that had invented so many new forms of leisure, he excelled at sports and games. He played golf and tennis well enough, but his real passions were sailing and shooting. He was both a fanatical and a highly accurate slaughterer of game birds – one of the half-dozen best shots in Britain. His record bag would be achieved in 1913: over a thousand birds in six hours. He also continued with – surely the most suburban of hobbies – his stamp collecting. Harold Nicolson lamented that, as Duke of York, ‘he did nothing at all but kill animals and stick in stamps’. Perhaps so, but the collection he built, of stamps from all over the world but specializing, understandably, in his own various realms, became by far the most complete and valuable of its kind, and is still kept in its own room at Buckingham Palace. This proved to have been time wisely invested.
As for his wife, she provided him with a settled and tranquil domestic life that was to be the foundation of much happiness. Like her mother-in-law, Queen Alexandra, she was quiet, dutiful and supportive. Upright in bearing, she appeared wonderfully regal – everyone’s idea of what a queen should look like – and when in the course of time she became one, would set standards of dignity that would influence the family for generations to come. For example, she never, never laughed – at least not in public – because she said it made her look like a horse. She shared to a l
arge extent the unworldliness of royalty, as demonstrated when she visited East End slums and asked the inhabitants: ‘Why do you live here?’ She was to prove a highly useful confidant and counsellor to George, however, throughout his life. She did not share his rigid conservatism, believing that ‘one must move with the times’, but she would never have defied her dogmatic husband who was, after all, also her sovereign. One unusual aspect of the Duchess of York was that she smoked (in private), but then so did her mother-in-law, Princess Alexandra. May’s parsimonious upbringing, as well as her preference for a modest, unostentatious life, would cause her as queen to do without ladies-in-waiting. Though this was an economy measure as well as a matter of personal preference, it might also have been a gesture of revenge against those aristocratic families that had snubbed or sneered at her during her impoverished upbringing. It was the senior aristocracy whose families traditionally provided the candidates for such posts and she was thus denying them the chance to enjoy the associated prestige. Nevertheless the simple domesticity of the royal couple would win widespread approval, expressed by one peer, Lord Esher, who said: ‘We have reverted to the ways of Queen Victoria.’ After the extravagances of Edward VII, this was indeed welcome.
One vice that May possessed, however, which was to become more pronounced as she became older, was her insatiable desire to acquire antiques, bibelots, and items of furniture. She bought these – she was a well-established customer of London dealers in such things – but she was also ‘given’ them. On visits to her friends, or even to strangers, if she took a liking to something she would make it increasingly clear that she wished to have it. If hints were not enough, she might ask outright or use some honeyed phrase such as: ‘It’s so kind of you to give me this!’ Hostesses made a point of hiding their best pieces before she arrived, and some found themselves engaged in unseemly verbal tussles as they tried to save family heirlooms. May’s single-minded determination usually won, and she would return to the Palace, in some instances, with her Daimler car filled with treasures. The present queen has, in cases where the original owner of an object can be traced, made a point of having these prizes returned.
Just as George and May defied the stereotype of an arranged marriage by being genuinely in love, they were to do so also by being affectionate parents in an age when the aristocracy was renowned for keeping its children at a distance. The Yorks had, of course, a staff of nurses and governesses to deal with the more mundane chores of looking after their offspring, but both were very fond of them and the duke, in particular, loved to bathe them or sit them on his knee (‘I make a very good lap,’ he boasted). As his children grew, he took to marching them round the estate for exercise.
Once his father succeeded to the throne, George, now Duke of Cornwall and York and, from November 1901, Prince of Wales, began to train in earnest for the task he might expect to inherit before many more years had passed, for King Edward was over sixty and given to both heavy smoking and overeating. Because Edward had been denied the chance to learn about kingship while his mother was alive, he was intent on leaving his own successor better informed. As soon as he succeeded, he had George’s desk placed beside his own at Windsor and the two of them often worked together, examining the contents of dispatch boxes and discussing the procedures for getting through a sovereign’s paperwork. As well as administration, George continued to learn more about the public side of royal duty.
He went, on his father’s behalf, on a tour of the Empire. His task was to thank the Dominions for their support in the Boer War, and he visited all of them: Australia, New Zealand, South Africa itself, Canada and Newfoundland. He was very good at the protocol and formality that went with his duties. Vintage film of him in Canada, handing out medals to a seemingly endless line of recipients, shows him ramrod-straight throughout. He cut an equally impressive figure when opening the first Australian Parliament. He had mastered the art – essential for members of his family or ‘profession’ – of standing for long hours without looking either tired or bored. If he did not look bored, however, neither did he look happy. He very rarely smiled in public. ‘We sailors never smile when on duty,’ he said. (This was an attitude that would also often characterize his granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II, during official engagements.) George made speeches fluently and well, and he actually sounded English, for he had not inherited his father’s Germanic accent. Had he done so, it would no doubt have proved another grave disadvantage once the Great War had broken out.
He made another tour – of India – in 1905–6, gaining personal insight into the British Empire’s most important overseas territory. Curiously, one of his most marked impressions was of indignation at the treatment of educated Indians by the British rulers. In this he was both right – the later universal understanding of racism had not of course yet become manifest – and prescient. For some generations the British had been providing education of a high standard to Indians. This meant that many thousands of talented, intelligent and ambitious local men aspired to better themselves and to take a hand in governing their country. There were no avenues to enable them to do so, or to make best use of the training they had received. Within a generation it would be these men who would spearhead the movement for independence from Britain. They had nothing to gain by keeping the connection, and George could see this.
His father sought to ensure that George was gaining equally useful experience for his future role at home. A major reason for Edward’s own youthful dissipation had been that he had no constitutional function to fulfil. Pleasure-seeking had therefore become his chief purpose in life. This was a not uncommon experience for those waiting their turn to fill the thrones of Europe. The Italian monarchy, for instance, believed that pertinent knowledge should not be provided until the prince actually succeeded. (‘Here in the House of Savoy we rule one at a time!’) The result was a dysfunctional dynasty, of which Italians would rid themselves by plebiscite after less than a century of rule.
George’s working relationship with his father, who instead of formal training for his role had at least had a lifetime of observing the monarchy at close quarters, gave him considerable wisdom. When Edward died, in May 1910, after more than nine years on the throne, his son would write that: ‘I have lost my best friend and the best of fathers. I never had a [cross] word with him in my life. I am heart-broken and overwhelmed with grief but God will help me in my responsibilities and darling May will be my comfort as she has always been. May God give me strength and guidance in the heavy task that has befallen me.’ Though these private sentiments were not of course known to his subjects at the time, they demonstrate to posterity that his was a deeply fulfilling marriage.
The era over which Edward VII had presided as king was not one of complacency. In Britain the advance of socialism was obvious in the presence – and increasing numbers – of Labour Members in the House of Commons (the Party had been founded in 1900). The suffragettes, although one can understand their frustration and their cause, left an ugly scar on the Edwardian age through acts of public vandalism. It was a time of militant labour unrest, strike chaos, confrontations with police and with soldiers. Struggling to pay the massive costs involved in the arms race against Germany while simultaneously financing a huge and innovative programme of social reform, the Liberal government imposed punitive taxes on land and income that drove the aristocracy to fury. The ‘People’s Budget’, rejected once by the House of Lords but passed after a general election had returned the Liberals to power, served to emphasize that the era which had begun on 1 January 1901 would be known to history as ‘the century of the common man’.
Internationally these were extremely dangerous years for monarchies. With the rise of anarchism – a pointless, violence-for-its-own-sake creed that sanctioned acts of murder against heads of state – the crowned heads of Europe paid a heavy toll. There were no attacks on the British royal family in Britain itself – an indication of their people’s comparative moderation and hatred of extremes – thou
gh an attempt had been made to kill King Edward in Brussels in 1900, and George witnessed for himself the agonies undergone by his fellow sovereigns while attending the marriage of his cousin, Princess Ena, to King Alfonso XIII of Spain. On the way to the wedding ceremony through the streets of Madrid in May 1906, a bomb was thrown from the crowd. It failed to kill any royals, but the death-toll included a number of their servants as well as members of the public. The bride’s dress was spattered with blood.
George’s coronation was held in June 1911 and was followed by a Durbar in India, to acknowledge him as emperor. He used the occasion to announce that the capital would move from Calcutta to a designated site at New Delhi. The vast red sandstone complex, planned and built by the English architect Sir Edwin Lutyens, would prove to be by far the greatest architectural legacy of George’s reign, though it would represent British power for an extremely short time.
As king during a time of unpleasant social and political upheaval, George saw his principal role as that of peacemaker between warring factions. He deplored extremes of any sort. Though he disliked the suffragettes for the violence of their protests, he was genuinely horrified by the force-feeding to which hunger-striking members of the movement were subjected in prison. While unsympathetic toward those who caused industrial unrest, he sought nevertheless to promote compromise between management and labour. He also saw it as vital to encourage moderation between the opposing factions in Ireland. He and his wife, now known by her regnal name of Queen Mary, went on a series of visits to the various regions of Britain so that their people could have some sense of personal contact with them, a significant populist gesture that would become habitual with their descendants.
While British society was riven by the bitterest class conflict within living memory, the United Kingdom was in imminent danger of disintegration over the issue of Home Rule for Ireland, which Campbell-Bannerman’s Liberal government was hoping to push through during 1912. The threat of rule from Dublin rather than London was enough to cause Irish Protestants to form a paramilitary organization – the Ulster Volunteer Force – which stockpiled arms and trained its members to use them. The nationalists in the southern counties made similar arrangements, and civil war became increasingly likely. While posterity knows that the United Kingdom could survive the division of Ireland and the loss of its twenty-six southern counties, contemporary opinion could not view without alarm the notion that a country that was the centre of a worldwide empire would itself be torn asunder. This was the gravest problem imaginable for a British government.
A Brief History of the House of Windsor Page 5