Power and Glory, page 10
Philip therefore found himself in an unusual and frustrating situation. His career, potential marriage and perhaps even continued residence in Britain all depended on his being allowed to obtain citizenship, but he lacked an obvious sponsor. While he could count on a degree of warmth and good feeling from the king and queen, they were unable to exert themselves on his behalf, thereby creating a precedent in the process. Even if he had unofficially proposed to, and been accepted by, their daughter over the summer, their hands were tied by issues of protocol. What he truly needed was a maverick, someone who was willing to go against convention and stand contra mundum, if needs be. Cometh the hour, cometh the Mountbatten: step forward Uncle Dickie.
* * *
‘Dickie came to lunch and we discussed everything.’16 So the king wrote in his diary on 14 October. Lascelles had wearied of how what he saw as a family matter was occupying his time, and so had suggested to Mountbatten that he should deal with the question of his nephew’s naturalisation himself: the implication was that he was doing so with royal complicity, even if it was made entirely clear that the monarch’s name was to be kept away from any shenanigans of this nature. ‘Nothing would suit me better’,17 Dickie cheerfully replied.
The full force of the Mountbatten charisma was therefore unleashed, and all around him could not resist, even if one enemy of his, Lord Thorneycroft, grumbled that he was ‘an elephant trampling down the jungle rather than a snake in the grass’.18 His intriguing had been more limited in the first half of 1946 because he had been in South East Asia overseeing the transition from war to peace, but the newly created rear admiral had now returned, and his intention was twofold: to see that his nephew was granted the British citizenship he desired, and, by extension, to make sure that there could be no obstacle to a marriage between Philip and Princess Elizabeth.
Mountbatten had been typically active since his arrival in the country. He had cultivated a friendship with the Labour MP Tom Driberg, who he saw as a useful conduit to get anything through Parliament, and attempted to ensure that Driberg was on good terms with Philip. He introduced the two of them over lunch at the House of Commons on 14 August, and later wrote to the politician to say that Philip was ‘was tremendously thrilled by his day in the House, and very favourably impressed by you’, before suavely reminding Driberg of what he had agreed to. ‘It is most kind of you to say that you will help to give the right line in the press when the news about his naturalisation is announced.’19 He did not allude to whether the flamboyant Driberg had taken a liking to the handsome young naval officer, but he was swift to reassure him of Philip’s British credentials, saying, ‘he really is more English than any other nationality … he had nothing whatever to do with the political set-up in Greece’.20
Mountbatten was right to be cautious about Philip’s Greek roots. Although the country’s monarch, King George II, was restored to the throne shortly after Driberg’s meeting with the prince, on 28 September, the country was seen as unstable and diplomatically problematic, which meant that the idea of a prince of that nation obtaining British citizenship – and, by necessity, renouncing his Greek nationality – was one that would scandalise.
Yet Dickie was not wasting his time. On 14 November, he was able to convince both Attlee* and Bevin that not only should Philip be a naturalised British citizen, but that he should take the title ‘HRH Prince Philip’. Had the Duke and Duchess of Windsor known of the relative ease with which this had been accomplished, given their own – or, to be exact, his – scheming for Wallis to be granted such a distinction, there would have been great anger. In the event, Philip turned down the honour, preferring to retain his naval rank instead.
Eventually, on 5 December, Mountbatten and Philip’s wishes were granted, when the Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede, was able to confirm in the House of Commons that ‘Prince Philip of Greece’ had begun the appropriate bureaucratic rigmarole for a foreign-born citizen who had served in the country’s armed forces to be granted naturalisation. Underneath the dry official language, the implication was clear: there was now little, if anything, standing in the way of a potential engagement between Prince Philip and Princess Elizabeth. So inevitable did the match now seem that the News Chronicle wrote on 10 December, ‘the moment is approaching when the public should be given some explicit information … this is not a trivial issue. The British throne has never been held in such good esteem as it is today. It is of the utmost importance that the strong links of mutual confidence should be preserved.’21
Mountbatten now, disingenuously, put out a press statement to the effect that ‘the Prince’s desire to be British dated back several years before the rumours about the engagement’ – as with the palace’s denial, the use of the word ‘engagement’ simply served to exacerbate the stories – and that, unbelievably, ‘[I] had no possible connection with such rumours’. Yet there was no pushback from the papers, who seemed happy to accept Mountbatten’s half-truths as documented fact.
It was just as well that matters moved fast. A poll in the Sunday Pictorial on 12 January 1947, asking whether Philip and Elizabeth should marry, saw the country supporting such a match, albeit by a slim majority: 55 per cent were in favour, 40 per cent against, and the remainder had no opinion either way. But Philip’s standing as a foreigner did not endear him to xenophobic elements of the public, and it was also acknowledged that nothing could occur until after the conclusion of the royal family’s South African trip, which was scheduled to depart from Portsmouth on 1 February 1947.
It was felt right that Philip should take a new name. His dynastic surname, Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, was not an easy mouthful, and so it was decided that he should be called Mountbatten: both a nod to his uncle’s unstinting efforts on his behalf, and an attempt to place him within the aristocratic lineage of his adopted country. Philip himself later expressed a mild antipathy towards his nomenclature,* saying, ‘I wasn’t madly in favour [of it] … but in the end I was persuaded, and anyway I couldn’t think of a better alternative.’22
As for the much-rumoured engagement, it seemed that the king had made a deal with Philip. While he had not wished to stand in the way of what was more a love match than any kind of hard-headed dynastic union, there were two conditions to his assent, in addition to Philip’s naturalisation as a British citizen. The first was that no formal engagement could take place until Princess Elizabeth came of age, on 21 April 1947 – during which time she would be coming to the end of her South African trip – and the second was that the trip, which would last for three months, would allow for reflection and a calm consideration of the couple’s future. It might not have been romantic, but it was practical. Such considerations temporarily trumped any idea of ‘true love’.
In any case, the prime mover behind the machinations was to depart shortly. In December 1946, Mountbatten was offered the position of viceroy of India by Attlee, which, after much careful consideration, he finally accepted in February 1947, pronouncing it an honour to be the man who would be responsible for handing power and responsibility back to the Indian people. He may have felt some reluctance to leave the country behind just as it seemed his greatest opportunity was about to come to fruition, but he could take solace from the knowledge that he had played the hand that he had been dealt exceptionally well. Surely, he mused to himself, there was now an opportunity for something unprecedented to occur: for house Mountbatten to establish itself upon the throne of Great Britain.
Chapter Six
‘The Old Values Have Disappeared’
The despairing telegram from Duff Cooper to Ernest Bevin on 5 July 1946 said it all. ‘Some Paris papers carry story July 4th that Duke of Windsor sold cigarettes in the streets of San Remo to get Italian money to buy meat.’ The denial the duke put forward was unconvincing. ‘Although the Duke of Windsor, knowing the shortage of tobacco in Italy did make a few gifts of cigarettes to people who had been of assistance to him, he did not (repeat not) sell any cigarettes.’ Cooper’s telegram ended with the written equivalent of a sigh. ‘You are obviously best judge of whether publication is desirable.’1
A decade earlier, Edward had been king-emperor, and one of the most famous, even idolised, men in the world. His every movement had been reported by the press with fascination – even if the details of his relationship with Wallis had been kept out of the British papers, thanks to a gentleman’s agreement between Buckingham Palace and the newspaper magnates – and he was believed to have inaugurated a new, more accessible style of monarchy.
This was proved to be half correct, at least: his abdication was unprecedented, just as his marriage to the now Duchess of Windsor had been. But now, jobless, stateless and rootless, the duke was cutting an increasingly pathetic figure, reduced either to selling or giving away cigarettes in the Italian streets. Yet even as his former friends and country seemed content to cut him adrift and forget about his embarrassing presence, a former king with nothing to lose could be a troublesome liability.
One of the few people who remained steadfast was his former counsellor and lawyer, Walter Monckton, though his efforts to help the duke were hidebound by his presence in Hyderabad, where he was serving as the adviser to the nizam in the run-up to Indian independence. Writing to Monckton from La Croë on 31 May, the duke made token efforts to recognise his friend’s labours (‘I am sure your advice has been the best he could have for his special problem’), but he soon moved on to his favourite subject: himself.
He alluded to a letter that he had written to Churchill earlier that month in an attempt to find work, saying how the king had failed to intercede with Attlee and Bevin on his behalf, and that while ‘I am not in the least surprised over the negative outcome of this consideration of this project concerning my future … during my two visits to London I could sense definite reluctance to the scheme in Downing Street’, he now had to occupy himself in another way. He had said to the former premier that ‘as it is now evident that the British Government has no need of my services, and as I have no intention of remaining idle, I must look for a job in whatever sphere and country I can find one suitable to my qualifications … I have sufficient confidence in myself to feel that I can still make some contribution towards the solution of some of the complex problems which beset the world today.’
Churchill’s reply, as quoted by the duke, was a masterclass in buck-passing – ‘I am very sorry about this foolish obstruction by Bevin and Attlee, and I wish I had it in my power to overcome it, but we are all under the harrow’*2 – and it then turned to Edward to come to his real point. ‘It has been suggested to me from not uninteresting quarters that the time has come to write my side of the abdication story.’ He justified this by a desire to explode the ‘considerable doubt and conjecture’ that existed in people’s minds about the saga, and sought to elicit Monckton’s help should the book come to be written: ‘It is a subject of such historical and political interest that the lone hand I had to play throughout the negotiations with the politicians, both of church and state, could not be accurately chronicled without the advice and assistance of my liaison officer.’ Describing this as an ‘interesting idea’,3 he asked Monckton to come and stay in France to discuss it further.
Monckton’s presence would have been a useful entertainment. The duke and duchess were bored and frustrated, even if they lived in some splendour. La Croë had a staff of twenty-eight, and Wallis informed her aunt on 24 April that ‘I imagine outside of embassies it is the only house run in this fashion in France and probably England today.’ Yet even as they hosted guests of the calibre of Noël Coward* and Churchill, it was an uneasy and unsettled time, not least because the post-war situation was a grim one. Churchill may have consoled them by saying, ‘I am sure better days will dawn’,4 but they showed no sign of appearing. Wallis summed up pithily the difficulties they faced. ‘The cost of food is breaking us … wages are ten times pre-war … the Duke is very restless for a job … Everyone in Europe is searching for the answer to the future and nearly everyone wants to leave France.’5
They were both prey for flatterers and false comforters, and one of the most persistent figures in this regard was Kenneth de Courcy: a wealthy businessman, editor of the news digest service Intelligence Digest and confidant of the duke. Although he had only been twenty-seven at the time of the abdication crisis, he had felt its effects keenly, writing on 10 December 1936 that ‘I am shocked and appalled … all our efforts have been in vain … They were determined to force him out.’ He concluded, ‘I expect a disaster will follow. First Germany and then of course Russia. I fear for the British Empire.’6
During the war, de Courcy remained a keen correspondent of the duke during his governorship of the Bahamas, and shared his antipathy towards anything related to Russia, Bolshevism or communism; he also knew that it could be in his interests to flatter the duke as to his perspicacity around the world situation. His letter of 21 February 1946 praised Edward, saying, ‘I never hear from anyone a more statesmanlike or realistic view of the foreign situation as I do from Your Royal Highness … It is most deeply impressive.’7
De Courcy now proposed an idea that, had it been publicly revealed, would have been seen as treacherous. On 14 March, he made his intentions explicit. Acknowledging that he had always hoped to see the duke and duchess returned to Britain and living there happily once more, he then stated, ‘I should be a poor friend and a bad advisor to override the higher interests of the Crown.’ He summed up the situation in unambiguous terms. ‘I do not think there is very widespread warmth or enthusiasm towards the Crown at present. There is no hostility; there may be a good deal of detached appreciation for the Crown’s importance but there is nevertheless coolness and indifference which, if it developed, could be serious.’
His point, however expressed, was not inaccurate. If George VI’s standing had never been higher than on VE Day, less than a year earlier, it had undeniably lessened subsequently, as grim, grey normality returned to Britain. The royal family had stood for hope, and the nation had looked to them to provide stability and an exemplar of behaviour in exceptional times, which had mostly been delivered upon. But public gratitude was not an infinite resource, and de Courcy articulated something that had been mentioned more than once privately: a concern that the monarchy was flailing, and that, amid the progressive change that Attlee and Labour had implemented, it was beginning to look anachronistic and irrelevant.
The solution was uncertain, but de Courcy had his own ideas. As he suggested to the duke, ‘You are very much loved … There is some contact between Your Royal Highness and the minds of the people which … is one of those mysterious things which one cannot explain but which is exceedingly powerful.’ Hinting that Edward’s return to Britain, with this level of public popularity, could lead to the establishment of two separate camps, each with its own loyalties, de Courcy instead suggested that the best idea would be for the duke to maintain a private residence in the country, to be visited ‘for very short, sharp and brief periods for business and private purposes only’, and that this would bring about a greater sense of normality for his and Wallis’s eventual reception in his home country.
De Courcy then combined flattery with realpolitik in a prediction as to what could then ensue. ‘Your Royal Highness is young* and extremely able, and … possesses talents of the highest kind, and that spirit of service which has been a notable characteristic from the earliest years. There is every reason therefore for wise handling of the problem, for patience, and for watching and waiting so that the best service may be rendered in the most effective way in the right sphere.’ This was superficially couched as patriotism – ‘Your Royal Highness may later be called upon to perform tasks in the foreign or imperial field which will add immense prestige to the Crown and thus be of the greatest assistance to King George VI and to the whole Royal Family’ – but de Courcy’s next sentence made matters plain. ‘We have to feel our way towards that phase very carefully.’8
The duke was delighted with his friend’s suggestions, although his response a few days later was appropriately circumspect. ‘It certainly is a situation of great delicacy, but, at the same time, one in which it would seem I hold fifty per-cent of the bargaining power in order that the Duchess and I can plan for the future in the most constructive and convenient way … For obvious reasons I prefer to say no more in this letter but look forward to another talk with you … As you say, it needs very careful thought.’9
De Courcy subsequently visited the duke and duchess at La Croë in early May, and then again in June, and the correspondence between him and Edward takes on a more conspiratorial hue thereafter. On 17 July, de Courcy was sufficiently emboldened to offer a character sketch of George VI, after ‘a long and interesting talk with an ex-Cabinet minister who is very friendly to Your Royal Highness’. It was an unflattering portrait, if not inaccurate. ‘I am a simple man, not very clever, awkward in speech, lacking my brother’s personality. I never wanted the Throne. I took it reluctantly, it is a difficult job, I am doing my best without the natural gifts that make for great success … My already difficult position would be made ghastly if there were the least competition from my brother, who has a special charm and powerful personality.’
He attempted to dissuade Edward and Wallis from putting out a press statement suggesting that they would never take up permanent residence in Britain again, on the instructions of the king. De Courcy described this as something that would do ‘immeasurable harm to yourselves, the Crown and England’, and again stressed his belief that a roving ambassadorial role was the ideal one for the duke. ‘Everyone wants to see you and the Duchess, every door opens automatically … Your letters home could be of the utmost importance to the King and of value to the Government, and would live in history as diplomatic documents of the first importance.’ Concluding that this self-created position would make the king ‘much, much happier’, de Courcy presented himself as the duke’s trusted consigliere. ‘No one will ever advise with more anxiety to secure the interests of the Windsors than your Highness’s ever-dutiful [servant].’*10
