A Brief History of the House of Windsor

by Michael Paterson

  During the tense months of 1939, the king and queen set about building relations with those who would be their allies in the coming conflict. They exchanged visits with the French Premier. More significantly they made a journey, in May and June, to Canada and the United States. In the former country George was, of course, the head of state. In the latter, he and Elizabeth were simply official visitors, the first British royalty seen by the American public since Edward had been there as Prince of Wales almost twenty years earlier. Their sojourn was brief, lasting less than a week. They visited Niagara Falls, New York and Washington, and the welcome they received was ecstatic. Despite its republican ideals, the United States has always had a fascination with royalty. The American public took to this shy and good-natured man and his pleasant, elegant wife. Surprisingly, perhaps, George and Elizabeth discovered a rapport with President Franklin Roosevelt, who staged for them a supposedly typical ‘hot dog picnic’ at his home, Hyde Park. Roosevelt, a member of an old Dutch-American family and thus of America’s aristocracy, was genuinely friendly, and somewhat paternal, in his relations with the king. George, for his part, responded to this warmth with sincere admiration, and wished his own politicians had more of Roosevelt’s personable manner. At home, the visit established George and Elizabeth as what might be called ‘players on the world stage’. They were seen to have hit it off with the leader of the world’s most powerful nation, winning the affection of the American public and delighting their own subjects in Canada with their interest and enthusiasm. George, it seemed, could charm crowds in other countries just as his brother had done. The public standing of both king and queen measurably increased as a result of their travels. ‘That trip made us,’ she was later to recall.

  They returned home less than three months before the catastrophe. Autumn, when the harvest has been collected, is the traditional time for wars to begin. This one started at 11 a.m. on Sunday 3 September. Hitler had invaded Poland two days earlier, and had ignored a request from Prime Minister Chamberlain to withdraw his troops from a country that Britain had guaranteed to defend. Naturally, nothing could be done to help a nation that was far away on the other side of Germany, but a stand had at least been taken. George, the reluctant and untrained king, now found himself in a situation that few monarchs have faced – that of head of a nation facing absolute disaster. His father had also led the country at the outbreak of war, but the previous one had begun with a sense of optimism, a belief that the conflict would be swift and that Britain was going into it with massive strength. It was now obvious that once again Germany had planned the war for years, though as before its rulers had expected Britain to be willing to stay out of a matter that concerned Continental Europe. The country had acted too late in re-arming and introducing conscription to be a match for the enemy now, especially a Germany bloated by adding Austria and other territories to its human and material resources.

  The United Kingdom was, of course, not alone. Between the British and their enemy lay the whole width of France. Their ally had a huge, largely conscript army, and the seemingly impregnable Maginot Line – a chain of underground fortresses that faced the German frontier (in the event, the attacking Germans simply went round it.) The empire also rallied. Australia and New Zealand both declared war at the same time as Britain. South Africa took a few days longer, for there was an ingrained sympathy for Germany among many Boer citizens and it was their remarkable prime minister, Jan Smuts, who influenced his people to enlist in the Allied camp. Canada, intent on showing that it made its own decisions rather than merely following London’s lead, entered the conflict last, its declaration of war signed by the Governor-General, Lord Tweedsmuir. Only one part of the Commonwealth refused to be drawn in. This was the Irish Free State, which had held Dominion status since 1922. For the Irish, the United Kingdom was traditionally the enemy. They had been fighting the British Army less than two decades earlier and, though thousands would enlist as individuals in British units, there was no general desire for involvement in a conflict that put their poverty-stricken country, with its vulnerable coastline, at risk of attack by Germany.

  The Phoney War ended with awful suddenness on 9 and 10 May 1940. German armies, in a well-planned and coordinated attack, invaded the Low Countries, Denmark and Norway. The same day Neville Chamberlain, whose leadership since the war began had been heavily criticized, resigned. As the chief appeaser, he had naturally lost all credibility when his agreement with the German dictator proved to have been worthless. The king was obliged to summon Winston Churchill, a renegade member of Chamberlain’s party who was de facto war leader but was at the time First Lord of the Admiralty. The king and queen did not care for Churchill. It is said that his championing of King Edward during the abdication crisis had irritated them, though it is difficult to see why this should be so – after all, if he had persuaded the king to stay on, the Yorks could have kept their cherished private life. Nevertheless, the king acknowledged that Churchill was the sole viable leader. ‘There was only one man whom I could send for who had the confidence of the country, and that was Winston,’ he wrote.

  This was significant for the king would very much have preferred Lord Halifax, an urbane and patrician man who was serving as Foreign Secretary. Halifax, whose health was not sound, knew he did not have the makings of a wartime premier and declined, however. One thing that the king admired about Halifax was his belief in the possibility of a compromise peace with Hitler. George was not the only one in his family who thought this notion sound, if not vital. His mother felt even more strongly on the matter. If war must come, it was surely essential to buy time for further rearmament. Negotiations were preferable to outright hostility, and the German leader had made it clear he had no grudge against Britain. Provided he was left a ‘free hand’ in Europe, he was willing to leave the country and its empire alone. Was that not evidence of a reasonable attitude?

  The appointment of Churchill represented the rejection of any compromise with Hitler. He now had the confidence of both Parliament and people. George had no choice but to set aside his own inclinations and accept his new prime minister’s view that it was too late for anything but a military response.

  As a prime minister and a personality, Churchill was everything his predecessor was not: excitable, unpredictable, rash, over-emotional. The combative Churchill, a warrior since his youth, veteran of three conflicts and various other campaigns, had been a voice crying in the wilderness throughout the thirties as he warned of the danger from Germany. He had been proved right, he had the force of character and the temperament to match the direness of the situation, and he knew what must be done.

  None of this made him easy to like, or to work with. He was frequently late for audiences with the king, and might simply not show up to dinner when invited to the Palace, though this was hardly surprising considering the other claims on his attention. The queen, accustomed all her life to princely manners, found his rudeness insufferable. The king was unhappy too but, like the rest of the population and the empire, eventually found that Churchill’s management of the war effort – granted with some major errors – commanded respect. He and the prime minister knew that they could not allow personal animosity to interfere with the necessity of winning the war and they worked together with increasing confidence, gradually developing a better relationship. Within twelve months, the king was entirely won over, writing in his diary that: ‘I could not have a better P.M.’

  Unable to speak well in public even after his stammer had been treated, George nevertheless made memorable speeches to his people in these years. During the war – the event that naturally dominated his reign, and which sealed his reputation as one of the most likeable sovereigns ever – his broadcasts could inspire. He did not seek to rouse the public to bellicose determination in the way that his prime minister did. Rather, he had an air of calm reassurance, a measured reasonableness, that was the very antithesis of the posturing and ranting of other speechmakers – such as Hitler and Mussoli
ni – of that time. In September 1940, a week after German bombers had begun their systematic destruction of London, he said: ‘It is not the walls that make the city, but the people who live within them. The walls of London may be battered, but the spirit of the Londoner stands resolute and undismayed.’

  He was upstaged by his wife, who in the same month uttered one of the great quotations to come out of the conflict. Referring to the fact that bombs had been dropped with near-fatal consequences on Buckingham Palace, she mused that: ‘I’m glad we’ve been bombed. It makes me feel I can look the East End in the face.’ The fact that the royal family had refused to leave their people at this fateful time was an immense source of strength to the British public. It also impressed people all over the world.

  At Christmas 1939, in the midst of the Phoney War, the king had made the traditional broadcast to the peoples of the empire. It is difficult today to appreciate the power of the spoken word when broadcast across the world. In a pre-television era, when international telephone communications were primitive, the miracle of wireless enabled the king to be present in sitting-rooms throughout the globe. For those subjects who were separated from the Court of St James by thousands of miles of ocean, and who worried about the safety of the mother country, his encouragement would have been a godsend. He did not disappoint them, for he uttered the most famous words he was ever to speak:

  I said to the man who stood at the Gate of the Year,

  ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’

  And he replied: ‘Go out into the darkness,

  And put your hand into the Hand of God,

  That shall be better than light, and safer than a known way,

  May that Almighty Hand guide and uphold us all.’

  They were not his own. They had been written decades earlier, in 1908, by Minnie Louise Haskins, who was a lecturer at the London School of Economics, and had initially been published under the title ‘God Knows’. It was his daughter, Princess Elizabeth, who had given the poem to George. By his use of it, the poem gained popularity throughout the world, and became so associated with the king that after his death the words would be inscribed in his memorial chapel.

  In spite of their inspirational statements, the king and queen were not to become the symbol of national will and leadership that might have been expected. The prime minister, it was quite obvious, had been chosen by fate for that role. It was he, as Premier and simultaneously Minister of Defence (he had appointed himself to the role), who wielded power, directed the armies and fleets, and hobnobbed with world leaders. He entirely eclipsed the king as a friend of Roosevelt. The two corresponded continuously, spoke frequently on the telephone, and, once the big conferences of wartime leaders began to be held, met several times in person. Theirs was to be the great partnership that dominated wartime events. The king and queen, nevertheless, occupied a key role as builders of public morale, constantly visiting troops, garrisons, cities and, especially, bombed districts. It was a reprise of the role carried out so effectively by King George and Queen Mary in the previous conflict, and it is something that royalty does well.

  When the German armies had invaded western Europe, they saw its royal families as potential hostages to ensure the good behaviour of the populace. These were, almost all of them, highly popular figures in the countries concerned: Denmark, Norway, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. If the monarch were under house arrest, anyone planning acts of sabotage would have to weigh up the possible consequences. The Nazis would not hesitate to execute hostages in retaliation for resistance. If their captive were the head of state, the risk was too awful to contemplate. Some sovereigns managed to escape – King Haakon of Norway arrived in Britain by sea. The queen of the Netherlands came by air, having fled The Hague as German paratroops were dropping there, without a change of clothing but with her country’s gold reserves. Reaching Buckingham Palace, she apologized to King George for her unexpected arrival, and was put in one of the guest suites.

  The British royal family, in other words, knew what their own eventual fate might be if they remained in their country. They had the option of going overseas. Many wealthy Britons had either gone themselves or sent their children to North America, to get them out of harm’s way. The grandchildren of the Dutch royal family were in Canada. Should the Windsors, too, not think of going to safety? After all, they could still be an important rallying point for resistance – a government-in-exile – in exactly the way that the other heads of state were becoming in London, speaking to their peoples by radio and gathering around them an expatriate ‘Court’. In Canada, they would not even be outside their own realm. If the king decided he wished to stay, could his wife, his teenage daughters, or at the very least his mother, not go somewhere out of danger?

  Here again, Queen Elizabeth had a pungent and inspiring retort: ‘The girls would not go without me, I would not go without the king, and of course the king would never go.’ Even the redoubtable Queen Mary would not leave. Her only compromise was to move out of London, and she was to spend the war years comfortably at Badminton, one of England’s grandest country houses. The two princesses were also removed from the capital. They began the war at Balmoral, but moved to an undisclosed location – actually Windsor Castle – where they remained until the return of peace. The king and queen would not have tolerated having their children out of reach. They themselves spent each week at Buckingham Palace, which was twice hit by bombs, and went to Windsor at weekends.

  Their courage in remaining in Britain during that terrible summer of 1940 should not be underestimated. They participated fully in Britain’s ‘finest hour’. Braced for enemy invasion – Hitler had gone so far as to announce that he expected to take the surrender of the country on or about 15 August – they expected to share the fate of their subjects. Both the king and queen – and even Queen Mary! – carried firearms, and practised shooting.

  The king and queen made a point of travelling to wherever there had been air raids. They regularly went to the East End, the part of London that bore the brunt of German attacks because of its proximity to the docks. After huddling in an air-raid shelter, people might come out into daylight to find George and Elizabeth waiting for them. Their presence, and their obvious interest and concern, made a deep impression on the public. It was during one such walk through a recently blitzed area that someone called out: ‘Thank God for a good king!’ George at once called back: ‘And thank God for a good people!’ They naturally went to other cities too, visiting Coventry just after it had been devastated in a raid. This image of royalty, of the king and his wife (he was usually dressed in army uniform, she was in stylish coats and hats, making no attempt to curry favour by dressing down) among their people, sharing their hardship, sympathizing with the loss of their homes, was a very powerful one. It sent the king’s popularity soaring and made the couple part of the heroic legend that the Blitz and the Battle of Britain inspired.

  George appeared in the uniforms of all three Services. He had served both in the Navy and in the Royal Air Force, in whose distinctive blue uniform he had been married. He was Colonel-in-Chief of the Guards regiments too, and held by virtue of his position the highest rank in each of the armed forces. He was shown frequently in the press, dressed as an Admiral of the Fleet or a Field Marshal, emphasizsing the point that he belonged to the same Services as so many of his subjects. The queen wore no uniform but their elder daughter would, by the last year of the conflict, be old enough to enlist in the ATS (Auxiliary Territorial Service, a female branch of the Army) and thus to ‘do her bit’.

  The king awarded medals, and indeed had one named after him. During 1940 it became very obvious that with the country under attack, civilians, or troops far removed from the front line, could display heroism – for example, in defusing bombs or in rescue work – that was just as great as was shown in battle. An award for gallantry was therefore set up, at the suggestion of Winston Churchill, and was called the George Cross. This bo
re no resemblance to the medal established by his grandmother. It was of its time, a sleek silver Art Deco-inspired cross with, in the middle, a medallion of St George and the dragon. It bore the king’s cipher and was hung from a ribbon of Garter blue. It is arguably the most attractive of British medals. When the colony of Malta withstood successfully a massive and sustained air assault by the Axis powers, the king awarded the medal collectively to the whole island, which he visited in 1943. Malta became independent in 1964 yet the George Cross still features in its national flag.

  After the French sued for peace with Hitler, George commented that: ‘I feel happier now that we have no Allies to be polite to and pamper.’ This was hardly the case. The leaders of several foreign governments were now living on his doorstep. Among this group that turned up in London in need of shelter, resources or encouragement was Charles De Gaulle, a maverick and largely unknown French General. He had written a number of books by then, but was not a recognizable public figure outside France. He claimed to represent the spirit of his home country that had not been destroyed by the German conquest. De Gaulle was a prickly, haughty and almost completely unlikeable man, possessed of a Messianic belief that he was France incarnate and that only he could save his country. Though Churchill regarded him with both suspicion and annoyance, the royal family made him welcome, and he got on well with them on a personal level. Whatever he thought of the rest of the British Establishment – and he was notoriously ungrateful for anything done for him – he always retained a sense of friendship for the Windsors, and was later to acknowledge his debt to them for taking him seriously when others did not.