Power and Glory, page 17
Murphy, meanwhile, was less impressed. Fearing that the duchess would destroy the project – ‘her disruptiveness grew by the week’20 – he begged Luce to be allowed to escape the madhouse and return to the relative sanity of Truman-era America.* He was denied his wish. Murphy would be stuck with the increasingly demanding couple for a further two years; a Sartrean vision of damnation, complete with better tailoring. He began to suspect that the duchess did not want the book to be finished, partly because of the further opportunities it would create for malicious gossip to be directed towards her, and also, as he put it, because ‘she wanted to deny the Duke the satisfaction of finally carrying something – anything – through to completion’.21
At this stage, the ghostwriter hid the worst of his irritation. He headed to London to interview Monckton, and the duke wrote happily to the lawyer on 8 December that ‘[Murphy] enjoys your company and the stimulation of your conversation.’ As well, no doubt, as much-needed variety from the company of the duke and duchess. Edward now announced his planned deadline for finishing the book – Labour Day, the first Monday of September 1949 – and alluded to Longwell’s restlessness at its slow progress. Nonetheless, the duke seemed impressed by Murphy – ‘he is a good egg and quite a brilliant journalist’ – who, presumably, did not reciprocate such feelings.
When Edward was not bothering someone – whether it was his literary collaborator, an old acquaintance such as Monckton or Churchill, or the royal family – or forcing himself to write, he played golf, gardened and complained about the state of the world. Those who encountered him were struck by an attitude that lay somewhere between naïvety and a complete lack of interest in any aspect of modern life that did not concern him. He once sat next to an American journalist, Marietta Fitzgerald, at dinner, and she asked him how George I’s ascent to the throne had come about through his relationship to the Electress Sophia. The duke looked at her blankly and said, ‘I think my mother would know that. I could send her a telegram, if you wish.’ Fitzgerald tried a simpler question: was the Irish Republic a member of the British Commonwealth? The same near-panicked expression, and then a moment of clarity. ‘I think my mother would know that, too.’22
It was left to Wallis to attempt to keep matters buoyant. The letters she wrote to her aunt during the second half of 1948 were by turns pessimistic (‘people here are quite resigned to war in a year or two’), snippy (‘there is a lot to be said against as well as for royalty – there is no doubt their upbringing makes them hard with no understanding’)23 and, when it came to describing the terminal illness of her friend Katherine Rogers,* profoundly sad. ‘It is all heartbreaking and their courage you could not believe … nobody really knows about this dread disease … I feel so upset over the poor things.’24
The duke was often away in London, visiting Queen Mary or cajoling memories from his friends and acquaintances for his memoir, and Wallis alternated between stoicism (‘I seem to have plenty of friends to prevent me from being lonely’)25 and misery. She complained on 1 December that ‘there is nothing to do here and no-one to see … I don’t see how my friends live in the grande luxe and pay those taxes.’ As ever, matters financial dominated her thoughts. ‘Americans are certainly rich and have the opportunity of making money – whereas the Duke has none and [investment] incomes nowadays are not much good.’26 They were caught in the difficult position that their capital was tied up in Britain, and it could not be taken out of the country due to post-war restrictions on currency importation, and so the need to make money, always looming large in both their minds, was now doubly pressing. It was with some bitterness that the duchess wrote on 18 December that ‘I think I should go down in history as Wallis the home maker. I am fed up with my movie star and his house decisions.’27
As the decade approached its end, both the duke and duchess were in a state of flux. The memoir offered him, at least, some interest and distraction, but the endless frustrations of their lives meant that neither of them was able to look to the future with anything resembling optimism. Still, if they were in a rut, it had the virtue of being lined with diamonds and other baubles. And as events in England changed dramatically, perhaps there was something to be said for dull consistency after all.
Chapter Eleven
‘An Unkind Stroke of Fate’
British monarchs have often suffered from less than robust health. One thinks of Henry VIII, grotesquely overweight and riddled with leg ulcers, diabetes and hypertension, or Charles II, who apologised for being ‘an unconscionable time dying’ after what was believed to be a fatal apoplectic fit. Edward VII, the so-called ‘Edward the Caresser’, was afflicted with severe bronchitis in between bouts of (surprisingly athletic) lechery with actresses, and George III’s mental illness has led everyone from doctors to playwrights to attempt to diagnose what was truly the matter with him.
Yet these ailments have passed into popular consciousness because of their dramatic nature. The decline in George VI’s general well-being was nowhere near as attention-grabbing as any of his predecessors as king, but in its own way, it was an even sadder fate, not least because it would eventually result in the untimely death of a comparatively young man, and thereby plunge the monarchy into its second succession drama in less than two decades.
Compared to his elder brother, whose gilded youth seemed a carefree one, the then Duke of York struggled with a crippling stammer, and was beset by everything from severe seasickness to debilitating gastric problems. In 1916, he was diagnosed as suffering from a duodenal ulcer, which was eventually successfully operated on in November 1917, and the following decades saw him undergoing everything from a poisoned hand to rumoured fainting fits and epilepsy.* Yet it was the Second World War that led to the greatest strain on his health, as he began smoking heavily to cope with the stress and exhaustion he felt. Had he been able to rest in 1945, as Churchill eventually did when he was defeated in the election, he might have been able to recover at least some of his constitution. But kings do not have the luxury of being able to take holidays when they choose, and as his official biographer, John Wheeler-Bennett, put it, ‘his temperament was not one which facilitated a rapid replenishing of nervous and physical reserves’.1
Although the success of his daughter’s wedding in November 1947 brought personal comfort to the king, his already fragile health had been strained during the South African tour earlier that year, and by the beginning of 1948, he began to complain of severe cramp and numbness. Queen Mary sighed to the Duke of Windsor on 12 February that ‘Politics as usual are very depressing and I am so sorry for poor Bertie, & it is all such a worry.’2 The monarch was suffering from Buerger’s disease, which had been brought on by his heavy smoking; the blood vessels in his lower feet and legs expanded, making it difficult for him to walk. By August, he was said to be ‘in discomfort most of the time’,3 something that he tried to relieve by violently kicking his foot and leg against his desk, in a vain attempt to restore the circulation. The only place where he found even fleeting peace was Balmoral, which he visited late that summer; the steep hill walks made him feel more energised and gave him hope that he was recovering. Yet even so, while walking with Peter Townsend towards Arthur’s Seat in Edinburgh, he kept muttering, ‘What’s wrong with my blasted legs? They won’t work properly!’4
Unfortunately, upon his return to London in October 1948, the pain had become even more agonising. He found himself unable to sleep, thanks to his left foot feeling perpetually numb and the right one going in a similar direction. He was examined by the splendidly named Manipulative Surgeon to the King, Commander Sir Morton Stuart, who pronounced himself ‘gravely alarmed’ at the monarch’s condition. Yet something – protocol; concern at making too hasty a diagnosis; ignorance, even – meant that although Sir Thomas Dunhill, Serjeant Surgeon to the King, and Professor James Lear-mouth, Regius Professor in Clinical Surgery, were also consulted, Learmouth did not examine the king until 12 November.
Between his arrival in London and Learmouth’s examination, the king had undertaken the state opening of Parliament on 26 October, and was preparing to head to New Zealand and Australia on a visit that would mirror the previous year’s trip to South Africa. There had also been a Remembrance Day service at the Cenotaph to attend, the Territorial Army to review, and the usual round of receptions, investitures and the general business of monarchy to attend to.
His diminished state was obvious. Channon, who had seen him on 20 October, wrote in his diary that ‘I shall remember the King looking sunburnt but snarling and I thought far from well – his figure remains young but I thought that all youth had left his drawn face.’ The diarist pronounced the monarch ‘utterly charmless’, which may have been sour grapes: ‘I thought that he glared at me and so did not approach him.’5 The idea that someone might not have wanted to talk to the ever-waspish politician seemed beyond him. Others were more concerned. The queen, who had been worried about her husband for some time, suggested to Lascelles that ‘I am not at all happy’ about the way in which his health was not being attended to, and impressed the necessity of ‘making a real break’6 for him.
Learmouth’s diagnosis a few weeks later was both alarming and depressing. He confirmed that the king had arteriosclerosis, brought on by years of heavy smoking, and suggested that it was possible his right leg would need to be amputated. The news was horrifying; as the queen wrote to Queen Mary, telling her that the trip to New Zealand and Australia would now need to be cancelled, ‘I have been terribly worried over his legs, and am sure that the only thing is to put everything off, and try & get better. I am sure that Australia & NZ will be desperately disappointed – but what else could one do – I do hope they will understand that it is serious.’7
A statement had to be issued to explain both the king’s temporary withdrawal from public life and the possibility of his health declining further, and so, on 23 November, a bulletin was released to the press. It stated that the king was suffering ‘from an obstruction to the circulation through the arteries of the legs’, and that this had ‘only recently become acute’. Although the general tone of the message was as upbeat as could be expected in the circumstances, it concluded that ‘the strain of the last twelve years has appreciably affected his resistance to fatigue’.8 It was now public knowledge, amid the various other tribulations that the country faced, that its monarch was unwell. Channon remarked witheringly in his diary that ‘[the King’s illness] is the result of his restlessness and inability to sit still … he never sleeps in the afternoon, never rests – now he is an invalid’.9 The statement may have been inevitable, but it was no less humiliating for the national prestige. Or what remained of it, anyway.
* * *
There had been happier news recently, as well. Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip had settled into married life with great pleasure, despite their first home being in Buckingham Palace: the necessity of their having an independent household had to be weighed up against the inevitable expense that such a move would require.* Elizabeth was sufficiently enraptured with her new husband to write to the queen that ‘Philip is an angel – he is so kind and thoughtful, and living with him and having him around all the time is just perfect’, and even went so far as to say that it seemed ‘as though we had belonged to each other for years’.10 Her mother professed her delight, saying not only that she and her husband already adored Philip as if he was their own son, but ‘that you and Philip should be blissfully happy & love each other through good days and bad or depressing days is my one wish’, as she praised her ‘unselfish & thoughtful angel’11 of a daughter.
Philip, meanwhile, regarded his marriage with a mixture of genuine happiness and concern for the future. Jock Colville described him as ‘a shade querulous’,12 even as he acknowledged that this was an intrinsic trait of his character. When the queen’s new son-in-law wrote to her a few weeks after the wedding, it was with a mixture of genuine love and determination. ‘Lilibet is the only “thing” in the world which is absolutely real to me, and my ambition is to weld the two of us into a new combined existence that will not only be able to withstand the shocks directed at us but will also have a positive existence for the good.’ In response to the queen’s desire that he should ‘cherish’ her daughter, the prince took issue with the term, albeit light-heartedly. ‘Cherish Lilibet? I wonder if that word is enough to express what is in me. Does one cherish one’s sense of humour or one’s musical ear or one’s eyes? I am not sure, but I know that I thank God for them, and so, very humbly, I thank God for Lilibet and us.’13
Nonetheless, although he was very much consort rather than master in public, in private it was another matter. His wife acknowledged that Philip needed to be ‘boss in his own home’,14 and this was made difficult by the constraints of married life in Buckingham Palace. The two had separate bedrooms – faintly ridiculously for a young, newly married couple – that were linked by a sitting room, and although the Duke of Edinburgh had been given a role at the Admiralty, where he now worked as an operations officer responsible for, in his words, ‘shuffling ships around’, he felt frustrated and compromised. Lord Brabourne later said of Philip’s difficult relationships with the palace staff that ‘it was very stuffy. Lascelles was impossible … They patronised him. They treated him as an outsider. It wasn’t much fun. He laughed it off, of course, but it must have hurt.’15
The prince’s response to such condescension and rudeness was much the same as it had been on his summer visits to Balmoral: grit his teeth, refuse to rise to the bait and ignore his persecutors as far as he could. He also knew that as soon as his wife became pregnant, his place within the royal family would be doubly reinforced, and so it was with relief that, early in 1948, he and the princess discovered that she was expecting. It had been a matter of intense national speculation since the wedding – although not before, for propriety’s sake – and the princess had commented drily to Crawfie that ‘Probably we shall read about it in the papers before we really know ourselves.’ When the ‘frightfully pleased’ Elizabeth was able to confide the news to her former nursemaid, the information did indeed make it into the papers. As Crawfie observed, ‘no one knows just how it is these things leak out … there must be some form of jungle or bush telegraph that operates in the Palace and has not yet been discovered’.16
The news was formally announced on 4 June, when the pregnant princess appeared at Epsom Downs racecourse on Derby Day, and as soon as it became public knowledge, she and Philip were inundated with letters offering everything from unsolicited but well-meant advice to almost surreal invocations from the half mad, the desperate and the lonely. One woman wrote, ‘My son is in prison. He has been there three years. You who are now so happy in expecting a baby could have him released for me.’17 While it would have been infra dig for the princess to respond to this and countless other begging letters, she might have responded that her responsibilities, while admittedly numerous, did not include meddling in the criminal justice system.
There was a strange custom relating to royal births that had begun in 1894 and had last been observed in 1926, when Elizabeth was herself born. It was considered obligatory that the Home Secretary of the day – in her case, the thoroughly authoritarian William Joynson-Hicks – should be present to observe the birth of any royal child, something that Lascelles subsequently described as ‘out-of-date and ridiculous’. The private secretary considered that in the post-war world, such an invasion of a young mother’s privacy was an unnecessary and anachronistic imposition. As he later wrote, ‘the Home Office made exhaustive researches and assured me that it had no constitutional significance whatsoever, and was merely a survival of the practice of ministers and courtiers, who would flock to the sick-bed, whenever any member of the Royal Family was ill’.18 The current Home Secretary, James Chuter Ede, a Unitarian and former local government official, was similarly unimpressed by the tradition, writing in June that ‘the custom is only a custom … it has no statutory authority behind it and there is no legal requirement for its continuance’.19
It is unlikely that Ede relished the prospect of being present at the birth of a strange young woman’s first child, nor that he would have enjoyed Prince Philip’s attitude towards his presence there. Yet both the king and queen were initially in favour of this particular practice being maintained, partly out of a sense of duty, and partly because the queen feared that the abeyance of the tradition was nothing less than a threat to the dignity of the throne. After all, little connoted regality more clearly than an uncomfortable-looking middle-aged politician watching as the heir to the throne gave birth. Therefore, Lascelles was directed to inform Ede on 21 August that ‘It is His Majesty’s wish that you, as Home Secretary, should be in attendance when Princess Elizabeth’s baby is born.’ He may have wished to wash his hands, Pilate-like, at the ridiculousness of it all, but ultimately he knew that it was not his responsibility to attempt to affect change. What he needed instead was a higher authority to intervene.
This duly came, in the unlikely form of Norman Robertson, the Canadian high commissioner. On the course of a routine visit to the palace in early November, Robertson asked after the princess, who was due to give birth later that month. Lascelles alluded – probably without warmth – to the necessity of Ede witnessing the event, and the high commissioner pointed out that should the Home Secretary be present, there was a requirement that the equivalent politicians from the Dominions should also attend. It was an inadvertently hilarious image: a septet of grey-suited, grey-haired men, Disney’s Seven Dwarfs raised to bureaucratic respectability, all solemnly observing a young woman’s labour pains. Lascelles was therefore able to say to the king, not without wryness, that ‘as [you have] no doubt realised, if the old ritual was observed, there would be no less than seven Ministers sitting in the passage’.20 It was one of the more admirable qualities of George VI that he was a husband and father first, monarch second, and the idea of his daughter being subjected to this indignity was enough to ensure that on 5 November, a statement announced that the ‘archaic custom’ would no longer be observed.
