The Queen Mother Part 13

Social science and social research became new disciplines; advertising firms made more use of 'market research' which meant sending young women (because they were treated more politely than men) from door to door asking people questions about their likes and dislikes. From Dr Gallup in America came the innovation of asking people, over time, to tell pollsters their changing views on a wide range of subjects. A more ambitious project was Ma.s.s Observation, which proposed to involve ordinary people in surveys and observations about pretty well everything. It was to be the science of everyday life. It was ridiculed by newspapers 'Ma.s.s Eavesdropping' was one description, and, although the zoologist Julian Huxley supported the scheme, the Spectator declared of its methods: 'Scientifically they're about as valuable as a chimpanzee tea party at the Zoo.'28 There was a lot to discover, particularly in regard to the lives of the poor. The Depression of the early 1930s had ended and economic recovery was well under way by the time of the Coronation. Industrial share prices doubled in value between 1932 and 1937. But it was a slow process and in 1937 there were still over 1,600,000 people unemployed. Conditions were especially harsh in the so-called Special Areas of the country in some mining and industrial areas more than half of the workforce was still without jobs.

The King and Queen found their tours, especially of deprived areas, tiring but rewarding. They imposed an especial strain on the King, who knew that he had to try to disprove rumours that he was sickly and could barely speak. Nonetheless they both began to realize that they could do the job, and with that realization came enjoyment. Lord Harewood, the King's brother-in-law, said to him, 'You're getting through a lot of work, and I've never seen you looking better, or seeming happier.' To which the King replied, 'I am working hard and I am liking my job ... It makes such a difference now that when I come home I'm not for certain going to be told that I've done whatever it may be all wrong.'29 The two Princesses accompanied their parents on part of the Scottish tour. In Edinburgh the Queen was installed as the only Lady of the Order of the Thistle. She went shopping in the rain in George Street and enthusiastic crowds broke through the police and surged around her car. They had 'two very strenuous, and inspiring days in Wales', the Queen wrote. 'The courage of the people in itself is inspiring when one thinks of the terrible times they have been through, & still are, in the mining valleys of S. Wales. But Hope is in the air, and I saw more [coal-]black faces, & saw more smoking chimneys than when I was there a few years ago, which pleased us very much.'30 In Northern Ireland also they received a warm welcome, despite threats of IRA violence. Newspapers on the continent carried an account of an a.s.sa.s.sination attempt against them. In fact a customs post was set on fire, some railway trucks were mined and a land mine exploded in Belfast. But the crowds were large and bubbling with enthusiasm.31 The trip was considered a great success. According to Commander Oscar Henderson, the Governor's Private Secretary and the man who had organized their visit to Northern Ireland in 1924, the King had 'firmly cemented the feelings of the people of Ulster to himself and The Throne. For The Queen all our people now have a love which it is impossible to put into words.'32 In the course of this summer the Queen became colonel-in-chiefof two regiments, the Black Watch and the Queen's Bays. The relations.h.i.+ps she built up with many different units of the armed services meant a great deal to her and to those units. She never liked to be seen to have favourites but perhaps the most important to her was the Black Watch, in which her brother Fergus had served and died in the 191418 war. The previous Colonel-in-Chief had been King George V; she was appointed at the time of the Coronation and remained close to the regiment all of her life.

In July 1937 she made her first visit to the Queen's Bays at Aldershot, soon after her appointment as their colonel-in-chief. This former cavalry regiment had recently become fully mechanized, a process which caused much anguish among many of the men. The Queen seems to have had an extraordinary impact. The regimental commander, Lieutenant Colonel E. D. Fanshawe, was grateful for her support, writing that until now there had been such shortages of men and equipment that it was difficult 'to keep the "spirit" really going. Ever since Her Majesty's appointment as Colonel an entire change has taken place. Now, after the visit on Sat.u.r.day, I have no fear for the future She has done more good than it is possible to imagine.'33 Their main tours complete, the King and Queen were able to leave for a holiday at Balmoral, their first visit there since their Coronation. Instead of taking the train as usual direct from London to Ballater, the nearest railway station to the Castle, they alighted in Aberdeen and drove with their daughters the sixty miles to Balmoral. The road was lined with hundreds of people in all the villages through which they pa.s.sed. They drove under scores of welcoming arches and swathes of bunting; even remote cottages and hamlets flew whatever flags they could muster. When they reached the Balmoral estate, they exchanged their car for a carriage which was pulled not by horses but by scores of estate workers, with pipers marching at the head of the column; 'altogether the cavalcade looked like a rather gay funeral!' the Queen wrote to Queen Mary. 'It was very delightful to be welcomed like that, but also very amusing.'34 At last they were able to relax with their daughters, even though the constant turnover of guests made the Castle often seem more like a hotel than a home. For the King and Queen outdoor life was the most important just as it had been in their respective childhoods. The hills, rivers and gardens dominated everything except on Sundays. There was stalking for the men, more gentle walks for women, picnics by waterfalls for adults and children, with a kettle boiled on a fire between four stones. There were friendly games of cricket on the lawn. Days were warm but there was already a frost at night. Those who had known the Castle before thought the best of times had come again; those for whom this was a first visit were enchanted.

Their guests that summer included some of the traditional figures spurned by King Edward VIII, among them the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Prime Minister. Neville Chamberlain liked both the King and the Queen. He had said of the then d.u.c.h.ess of York that she was 'the only royalty I enjoy talking to, for though she may not be an intellectual she is always natural and moreover appears always to be thoroughly enjoying herself'. Since becoming prime minister in May he had made it his business to see as much as he could of the King.35 On his visit to Balmoral he went shooting, fis.h.i.+ng, picnicking with the King and Queen, and even gooseberry picking with the Queen. The King told his mother, 'he is getting over his natural shyness which makes me the same'.36 As for Cosmo Lang, he was overjoyed to be back at Balmoral after the unhappy hiatus of Edward VIII's reign. Writing to the Queen afterwards he said, 'When I remember last year, with all its anxieties, how can we fail to see the hand of G.o.d in the changes which have been so marvellous wrought, in the wonder of the Coronation, in the rapid but secure establishment of Your Majesties in the confidence and affection of the people.'37 The Queen invited her own friends she wanted Balmoral to be fun as well as formal. Osbert Sitwell loved the landscape, the gaiety, the comfort and the charming atmosphere that the Queen created. The King teased him for not being able to walk, like him, twenty-five miles over the hills. Sitwell greatly enjoyed the Ghillies Ball. 'Such fun', he told one friend. 'The most complicated reels, valetas and odd dances, like Elizabethan times, quite devoid, the whole thing, of cla.s.s feeling.'38 James Stuart's American sister-in-law Barbara, Countess of Moray, stayed as well; she enjoyed herself 'wildly' her only complaint was that no one asked her to dance the Spanish Gavotte at the ball. That aside, she told the Queen, she felt 'one hundred times the better for seeing you'.39 So did the Queen's friend d.i.c.k Molyneux and the artist Rex Whistler, who decorated his thank-you letter with a Scottish trophy and a thistle and rose bouquet. Molyneux behaved with his usual exuberance, and afterwards sent an appropriately nonsensical bread-and-b.u.t.ter letter, written in pidgin French. He closed in English, 'Oh! Madam, besides all the fun, it was good to see you and the King so well and everything I've prayed for.'40 *

NOT EVERYTHING was light hearted. The short time that they had to reign before war engulfed their kingdom and Empire seems at least in retrospect to have been filled with tensions, if not crises. The most painful for the family arose from continuing problems with the Duke of Windsor. This was not surprising. His predicament was unprecedented and complicated. Almost alone in Austria, while he waited for Mrs Simpson's decree nisi to become absolute, he grew distressed. In mid-January 1937 he had written the King a long letter in which he said he wanted to do all he could to help and support him. But he begged the King to help stop the attacks upon himself and Wallis emanating from government and Court officials: 'you and the family can help us so much by giving us your support just now and creating a dignified background for our marriage and our married life.'41 The Duke followed this letter with many others and, more painfully for his brother, with the constant telephone calls in which he laid out his advice, his problems and his demands. The King came to find the calls so upsetting that after a time he actually refused to take them. The Duke of Windsor was horrified to have his access cut off.42 Money was a source of endless argument, especially when the Duke's lies about his financial situation emerged. In early 1937 opposition to a pension for him grew in the House of Commons and the King wrote to him to say he must now tell him the truth. 'I understood from you when I signed the paper at the Fort that you were going to be very badly off.'43 Agreement was not reached until 1938. In the meantime much bitterness accrued.

Even more important than money to the Duke and his future wife were the manner of their marriage and the matter of her t.i.tle. They were both determined that at least some members of his family should attend their wedding in order to give it the royal seal of approval. The Duke believed he had failed the woman he loved instead of the throne she so obviously deserved, she was imprisoned by the hounds of the world's press in an ignominious villa in the south of France. Their marriage must make amends. It must be as grand and as official as possible. Mrs Simpson's decree absolute was expected to be granted on 27 April 1937, and she decided that they should wait till after the Coronation for their wedding. Then, she thought, the world's attention could turn from that 'event' to them.44 As so often, the burden of seeking a solution fell upon the able shoulders of Walter Monckton. The couple were set upon having a Church of England service, and the Duke instructed Monckton to find a suitable member of the priesthood to officiate. Mrs Simpson thought that the King should be able to depute a bishop to conduct the ceremony, notwithstanding the fact that the Church did not countenance divorce. Monckton suggested that one of the King's chaplains could officiate. But that was out of the question. Lord Wigram, the King's Private Secretary, told Archbishop Lang that he would 'hound out' of the College of Chaplains any one of them who agreed to such a thing.45 In the event a 'scallywag clergyman', as Owen Morshead described him, a parish priest from Yorks.h.i.+re, volunteered his services.46 Wigram also took the view that for any member of the family to attend the wedding 'would be a firm nail in the coffin of monarchy'.47 The King, the Queen and Queen Mary agreed absolutely: quite aside from their personal feelings, they were concerned about public opinion. 'I suppose you get endless letters as I do,' Queen Mary had written to the King, 'imploring us not to go out for the wedding as it wld do great harm, especially after the terrible shaking the Monarchy received last Decr.'48 The King informed Monckton that no member of the family would attend the ceremony and none of his chaplains would undertake it. With great difficulty, the King composed a letter to the Duke setting out the bad news, and adding, 'I can't treat this as just a private family matter, however much I want to.'49 The Duke became even more embittered.

More contentious still was the matter of the future d.u.c.h.ess's t.i.tle. The Royal Family decided early on that she must not be granted the t.i.tle of Her Royal Highness (HRH). This was a difficult and controversial decision if only because of the precedent of the Queen herself. Upon her marriage to the Duke of York in 1923, in accordance with the general rule that a wife takes the status of her husband, she had become 'Her Royal Highness the d.u.c.h.ess of York'. In early 1937 the King's Private Secretary was advised by Parliamentary Counsel that the same rule applied for Mrs Simpson, and that it would not be possible for her to hold a different rank from her husband. That was what the Duke a.s.sumed. He also believed that the t.i.tle was essential. Mrs Simpson considered that the t.i.tle HRH was 'the only thing to bring me back in the eyes of the world'.50 Queen Mary was horrified. She wrote to the King in early February, 'It is unfortunate that he does not understand our point of view with regard to the HRH and that this rankles still, but there is no doubt you must stick to this decision as it wld make great difficulties for us to acknowledge her as being in the same category with Alice & Marina.'51 Wigram wrote to the Home Secretary, Sir John Simon, 'His Majesty hopes that you will find some way to avoid this t.i.tle being conferred.'52 The family did not expect this marriage to last and if the Duke married again, then the next wife would have to be an HRH too so would any of his children. 'This would mean that instead of confining the Royal Circle to those in the lineal succession all sorts of outsiders might be admitted and this would lower the dignity of the Crown.'53 The King told Baldwin the question was simple: 'Is she a fit and proper person to become a Royal Highness after what she has done to the country; and would the country understand it if she became one automatically on marriage?' He thought not, and his family agreed with him they thought that the monarchy had been degraded quite enough already.54 A solution was devised, with some reluctance, by the politicians and lawyers, who feared the King might be seen to be kicking his brother when he was down. It was for the King to issue new letters patent based on the argument that the abdication created a situation entirely without precedent, that the Duke had renounced the throne not only for himself but also for his descendants and that the style and t.i.tle of HRH had hitherto been attached only to members of the Royal Family who were within the line of succession.

In fact, the decision did not cause much concern in Britain. Winston Churchill, the Duke's erstwhile supporter, was surprisingly emphatic in his support for the King's position, saying no government would wish to create Mrs Simpson a royal highness. Clive Wigram lunched with the editor of The Times, Geoffrey Dawson, and was delighted when Dawson agreed that this was the proper course the paper endorsed the arrangement as 'a logical appendix to the events of last December'.55 The Duke and his fiancee were predictably angered and the Duke wrote harsh letters to his mother and brother. They chose 3 June as the day for their wedding this was King George V's birthday. Queen Mary told the Queen that the choice of date hurt her very deeply; 'of course she did it, but how can he be so weak, I suppose it is out of revenge that none of the family is going to the wedding.'56 Inevitably the British papers were now dwelling at some length on the forthcoming ceremony. Queen Mary told the Queen that she found it all 'sickening'.57 The Queen agreed with her that the bad newspapers were 'too horrible' and 'so mischievous' about David. But she gave him the benefit of the doubt, saying that he could not realize the harm that the newspapers were doing. As for the wedding, 'It must be too ghastly for you, and I feel so enraged when I think of June 3rd that I can hardly speak.'58 On the day of the wedding the Queen wrote a line to her mother-in-law: 'My darling Mama, We have been thinking so much about you today, with your memories of past days, and all the new anxieties added, and just send this little line of love to say how much we are with you in thought and sympathy & loving admiration.'59 Queen Mary could not bear to spend such an emotional day doing nothing and so she drove down to Suss.e.x to see Lady Loder's garden at Leonard's Lee, where she found quiet and some peace. The Duke of Windsor sent her 'a nice telegram' but she was disgusted by the stories in the evening papers and by the fact that any clergyman, even a 'scallywag', had gone out to conduct the ceremony without permission. She took comfort in the fact that the family was of one mind over it all.60 Worries about the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Windsor continued to preoccupy both King and Queen. One concern was that the Windsors might soon try to return to Britain. Lord Beaverbrook was campaigning for this through his Express newspapers. The entire family was against it at the very least it would cause controversy around the monarchy and, worse, it might well lead to demonstrations, perhaps some in favour of the Duke and some against the d.u.c.h.ess. Either way the prospect did not please. The King still felt vulnerable and informed Queen Mary that he had been worried about his brother's return 'for ages' and had told Chamberlain and other ministers 'that I did not wish to be let down, & that after all [is] said & done, I did step into the breach & that I was not the culprit for what had happened'. He thought they had understood the strength of his feelings and realized 'how important it is to prevent any untoward & premature return'.61 In this, as in all such matters, the Queen agreed with her husband. Much later, in talking about the drama of the abdication, she identified the core of King George VI's anxiety about his brother's return to England. 'He couldn't come back. You can't have two Kings.' She knew that the King had to 'take hold'.62 Queen Mary was sympathetic. 'Poor Bertie,' she wrote to the Queen, 'I fear D. still gives him & us all great trouble, he is terribly selfish & only thinks of his & her point of view & of their position in life, not a bit of this Country & of all of us of course we know she is at the back of it.'63 Quite apart from fears over the Duke's return, there were still complicated negotiations about the financial settlement to be made for him and a specific concern was a libel suit which the Duke had brought against the author of a book, Coronation Commentary. This alleged that Mrs Simpson had been his mistress and that he had been drinking too much before the abdication. The King, the Queen and their Household were appalled at the thought of the Duke being cross-examined in court. But the Duke was c.o.c.kahoop, believing that he might make a considerable sum of money.64 Walter Monckton, who was still negotiating on behalf of the Windsors, wrote to the Queen in mid-September 1937 to say that he was 'distressed to hear how much the King is worried over His brother & I do want You to know that nothing will be too much trouble to me if I can help in any way & at any time'. He wanted to rea.s.sure her and the King that there was no immediate cause for anxiety and suggested that 'until these troubles are overpast', he might send regular reports to the King indicating whether or not there were any troubles ahead.65 The Queen appreciated Monckton's efforts. She said that she was 'most touched that you should think of writing so sympathetically and with such understanding and I appreciate your thought most deeply. I think that it would be an excellent thing if you were to write to the King at fairly regular intervals, for I feel that one of the main sources of anxiety of mind is the difficulty experienced of getting authentic news from abroad.' The possible libel case she thought degrading and damaging to the monarchy.66 In the end, with Monckton's a.s.sistance, the libel case was settled without the Duke being cross-examined and he did indeed win substantial damages.67 But anxieties about the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess were always present, as the Queen told Queen Mary at the end of their Balmoral stay.68 Understandably so at the beginning of October the Duke sprang another unwelcome surprise, and also committed a fundamental mistake. He went to Germany and met Hitler. The German trip was to be followed by a similar tour in the United States, and both were, according to the press statement he issued on 3 October, 'for the purpose of studying housing and working conditions'. Innocent sounding, but tensions with Germany were already high over Hitler's expansionist ambitions. The news came to the King and Queen at Balmoral as 'a bombsh.e.l.l & a bad one too'.69 'He never sent a word to me about his plans,' the King complained to Queen Mary, '& I have told my Amba.s.sadors that the Emba.s.sy Staff cannot help him in any official sense ... The world is in a very troubled state, & there is plenty to worry about, & D. seems to loom ever larger on the horizon.'70 The British Amba.s.sador in Was.h.i.+ngton, Sir Ronald Lindsay, happened to be on home leave at this time, and was summoned to Balmoral to discuss the matter with the King. He argued that the Duke should be offered the full courtesies of the Emba.s.sy. But the King, together with Alexander Hardinge and Alan Lascelles, his Private and a.s.sistant Private Secretaries, all disagreed, arguing that the Duke was behaving abominably, embarra.s.sing the King and trying to stage a comeback. Moreover, 'his friends and advisers were semi-n.a.z.is'.

'But the Queen was quite different,' Lindsay recorded.

While the men spoke in terms of indignation, she spoke in terms of acute pain and distress, ingenuously expressed and deeply felt. She too is not a great intellect but she has any amount of 'intelligence du coeur'. Her reactions come straight from her heart and very strongly and a heart that is in the right place may be a very good guide. In all she said there was far more grief than indignation and it was all tempered by affection for 'David'. 'He's so changed now, and he used to be so kind to us.' She was backing up everything the men said, but protesting against anything that seemed vindictive. All her feelings were lacerated by what she and the King were being made to go through. And with all her charity she had not a word to say for 'that woman'. I found myself being deeply moved by her.*

In the end, the agreed compromise was that in Was.h.i.+ngton the Windsors would not be invited to stay at the Emba.s.sy but would be given a dinner party there.71 When the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess arrived in Germany, they were escorted everywhere by n.a.z.i officials, who made a point of calling the d.u.c.h.ess 'Her Royal Highness', and the Duke was granted an interview with Hitler at Berchtesgaden, the Fuhrer's Alpine retreat. As his biographer has pointed out, the trip was not a crime, but it was ill advised, and the most serious and damaging result was that it convinced the n.a.z.is that he was sympathetic to their cause.72 Moreover, his apparent endors.e.m.e.nt of National Socialism aroused widespread criticism in the United States, in the face of which he lost his nerve and cancelled his visit there.73 *

AFTER THEIR Scottish holiday ended, the King and Queen continued their Coronation tour with visits to Hull, York, Saltaire, Bradford, Halifax, Batley, Leeds, Wakefield and Sheffield. This part of the tour was made easier because they could stay with the Princess Royal and the Earl of Harewood at Harewood House.

At the end of October the King had to preside over his first opening of Parliament. He was anxious about having to read the speech from the throne, setting out his government's priorities, and so was the Queen, but she felt that it went off well. 'I must admit that I was very very nervous during the whole ceremonial!' she told Queen Mary, but she appreciated the way in which the speech demonstrated the link between the Crown and Parliament.74 November and December brought the Queen more official engagements, a state visit by the King of the Belgians, the Armistice Day commemoration at the Cenotaph, and a few lighter entertainments, including a matinee at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, the Marina Ice Ballet, Macbeth at the Old Vic, and a BBC Concert at the Queen's Hall, after which the composer William Walton wrote and thanked her for coming. If she could attend concerts from time to time, 'it would indeed make all the difference to music.'75 With Princess Elizabeth she went to a performance of Where the Rainbow Ends. At Buckingham Palace, 'Grey Owl', a 'Red Indian' naturalist later revealed to be Archibald Belaney all the way from Hastings, gave a talk on Canadian animals to the Queens and the Princesses.

In early December the Queen had a rare treat: she went to a private lunch party with friends. 'I enjoyed it enormously. My first luncheon party out since Dec 1936.' Hannah Gubbay was the hostess and one of the other guests was...o...b..rt Sitwell, who gave her a book on gardens. Thanking him, she told him how much she appreciated his 'unfailing and loyal friends.h.i.+p'. Reflecting the widespread nervousness about the state of the world, she told him how much she loved his writing and asked him to 'Write us something hopeful & courageous for next year. After all, this is a grand little country, & as we can never be warlike, let us at least have some pride in it we must be serious about something.'76 Christmas 1937 at Sandringham was a relief in 1935 the King had been dying, in 1936 the King had just gone over the water. Now, everyone King, Queens, family, friends, Household, staff could enjoy the end of the first year of a new and optimistic reign which they all hoped would prosper. In the party was d.i.c.k Molyneux, to whom the Queen had sent a characteristic invitation: 'My dear d.i.c.k, Will you come to Sandringham for Xmas and help us with [three drawings of bottles, each larger than the last, labelled Claret, Burgundy and Champagne respectively] pull a few [drawing of a cracker] & help us with that [drawing of a Christmas tree]? I hope that you are free -(not too free of course). Yours sincerely, Elizabeth R.'77 After the King's Christmas Day broadcast, which he did well in spite of his nervousness, both the King and the Queen could relax a little. There was only one slight family mishap. Before Christmas the Queen sent the Duke of Windsor a present, a set of antique dessert knives and forks with porcelain handles. In a letter to accompany them she wrote that she hoped that 'perhaps they might appeal to you, who like old things ... Anyway, they take best wishes for Xmas & the New Year, of health & happiness to both of you. With love, Yours Elizabeth.'78 Unfortunately this letter was not posted with the parcel, and the Duke, evidently puzzled by a set of cutlery with no note, wrote saying he a.s.sumed he must have been sent the present in error he offered to return it.79 The Queen was embarra.s.sed and responded at once: 'Darling David, When I received your little note this morning, I rushed to my writing table, and after hunting about amongst the letters on it, I found the lost letter. I am furious and disappointed, because I left it addressed & ready to post, and have no idea what can have happened ... you must have thought it very odd.'80 The Duke replied that he was surprised to get any gift. 'Since your note of November 23rd nineteen hundred and thirty six, in which you stated that "we both uphold you always", so many things have happened to contradict this statement, things which I know from my own experience as King, lay in Bertie's power to prevent, that it is not easy to believe that we are the recipients of so beautiful a gift. At the same time, we both appreciate and thank you for your thought of us.'81 *

EARLY IN THE new year the Queen was yet again laid low by influenza. So was Princess Elizabeth, and they wrote to each other pencilled letters from their respective sickbeds.

Her Royal Highness

The Princess Elizabeth

In Bed

Sandringham.

My darling Angel, Thank you so very much for your dear little letter ... I believe that I have got the same disease as you have, only I was sick, & you felt sick! I hope that your throat is better, and drink plenty of orange juice with plain water mixed.82 The next day, the Queen's letter was addressed to her daughter at 'Gettingupforlunch, The Nursery'. She was glad that the Princess was feeling better. 'I am feeling much better too, but still a little achy and still living on tea! I hope by tomorrow that I shall be eating Irish stew, steak & kidney pudding, haricot mutton, roast beef, boiled beef, sausages & mutton pies, not to mention roast chicken, fried chicken, boiled chicken, scrambled chicken, scrunched up chicken, good chicken, nasty chicken, fat chicken, thin chicken, any sort of chicken.'83 While she was in bed she read Leo Rosten's Hyman Kaplan stories, which D'Arcy Osborne had sent her. Once more, Osborne had judged his friend well. She found the New York Jewish humour of the stories 'heavenly'. But her relations.h.i.+p with Osborne operated on many levels: as well as exchanging jokes they debated issues of state and morality. He was one of the few people to whom she talked and wrote in absolute confidence. Now, she told him she was worried about the sort of leaders.h.i.+p she and, more especially, the King should provide. The Queen feared that since young people had given up on religion, they look more & more to individual leaders.h.i.+p, or rather leaders.h.i.+p by an individual, and that is going to be very difficult to find. It is almost impossible for the King to be that sort of leader. For many years there was a Prince of Wales, who did all the wise & silly & new things that kept people amused & interested, & yet, because he did not, or would not realize that they did not want that sort of thing from their King well he had to go.

It seems impossible to mix King and ordinary vulgar leaders.h.i.+p so what can we do? We don't want Mosleys, perhaps something will turn up. In the old days Religion must have given the people a great sense of security & right, and now there seems to be a vague sense of fear. Or am I sensing something that isn't there at all. Perhaps it is me ... What a sadness that things aren't going any better in this troubled world.84 Osborne agreed with her.85 On 4 February 1938 Hitler made himself supreme commander of the Wehrmacht (the German armed forces) and later that month he demanded that the Austrian government 'invite' German troops into Austria. 'It was nothing less than the end of Austria's independence,' wrote Duff Cooper in his diary. 'A portentous development in European history about which n.o.body in England seems to give a d.a.m.n.'86 After Austria, Czechoslovakia was the next country threatened by Hitler. Throughout the spring and early summer of 1938 the Sudeten Germans, who had been incorporated into the new Czechoslovak state after Austria-Hungary's defeat in 1918, were instructed by Berlin to make more and more impossible demands upon the government in Prague, in order that Hitler could claim that they were being persecuted. Chamberlain made it clear in Parliament that Britain would not risk war with Germany to defend Czechoslovakia's integrity and, in a vain effort to prise Mussolini away from Hitler, Britain signed the so-called Easter Accords with Italy. The main effect of these was to recognize Italian conquests in Africa. Anthony Eden resigned as foreign secretary in protest and was replaced by Lord Halifax. The dictators marched on.

In these ominous circ.u.mstances the King and Queen were making plans for their first state visit. President Lebrun of France, which was Britain's princ.i.p.al democratic ally in Europe, had invited them to Paris at the end of June. The purpose of the visit was both to demonstrate the strength of the renewed monarchy and to cement the Anglo-French Entente Cordiale in the face of German and Italian threats.* It would be the first British state visit to France since that of King George V and Queen Mary in April 1914, only a few weeks before both countries were at war with Germany. Many people believed that a similar disaster was inevitable once again. Others hoped that demonstrations of solidarity by the democracies could help to drive away the danger.

The Queen asked her new dressmaker Norman Hartnell to create a collection of dresses for Paris. In his memoirs, Hartnell recalled that the King showed him at Buckingham Palace portraits by Winterhalter of the Empresses Eugenie of France and Elisabeth of Austria, wearing crinolines. The King made it clear to him that this romantic, swaying style was favoured. And so that was what Hartnell fas.h.i.+oned.

While the preparations for Paris were gathering pace, the health of the Queen's mother declined seriously. She had been ill for many months and for part of the time had to stay in a London nursing home, where the Queen visited her frequently. She was able to move back to the family home in Bruton Street but grew weaker through the early summer of 1938. On 22 June her condition worsened. The Queen, her father, the King and other members of the family gathered at Lady Strathmore's bedside. At two o'clock in the morning of 23 June she died.

Her daughter Elizabeth had often said that she had been 'dreading this moment' since childhood; now that it had come, she found it hard to grasp.87 'We are all feeling very unhappy,' she wrote at once to the Archbishop of Canterbury; 'my mother was so much the pivot of the family, so vital and so loving and so marvellously loyal to those she loved, or the things she thought right an Angel of goodness & fun.'88 Her mother had indeed been an extraordinary matriarch; she possessed a genius for family life, as The Times noted. The loss of four children, especially her firstborn, Violet, at the age of eleven, left wounds which never healed, but also gave her unusual understanding of others. She never felt self-pity; she was a person to whom everyone, within and without the family, turned for advice or consolation. The Queen received hundreds of letters of condolence from people all over the world who had been touched by her mother. The Duke of Windsor sent a telegram from Antibes: 'Sincerest sympathy in your great loss. David'.89 It was just five days before the state visit to Paris. Both governments were anxious not to cancel the visit. There was some discussion about whether the Queen should stay at home and the King make the trip alone. But she was determined to accompany him as promised. President Lebrun suggested the visit be postponed for three weeks, which was agreed. Writing to thank Neville Chamberlain for his condolences, the Queen said she was sorry about the postponement 'but as it was all Galas and Banquets and garden parties, it would have seemed rather a mockery to take part so soon, and the French have been very good about it, do you not think so?'90 Lady Strathmore's funeral was arranged at Glamis for 27 June and the family asked Arthur Penn, as one of their oldest friends, to arrange a simultaneous memorial service in London. Penn was deeply affected by Lady Strathmore's death. He recalled in a letter to the Queen the 'incomparable devotion between mother & daughter'. He had so many 'perfect pictures' of her mother 'in days long ago at St James Square, when you were coming out & we were all friends together at St Paul's Walden in summer days, & most of all at Glamis'. He pictured Lady Strathmore sitting at the head of the dining-room table, at her piano playing Scarlatti and Bach by candlelight, '& most of all in her white sitting room, which seemed from every corner to radiate the kindness & character of its occupant'. The last time he was at Glamis he found her in the evening 'alone, sitting quietly by herself resting contentedly after the exodus of a tribe of her grandchildren ... I thought then how happy a picture she presented, surrounded by those who loved her, & of these I know you were always foremost.'91 The Queen treasured this letter.

She concealed her misery from most and travelled with the King up to Glamis overnight on 25 June. In her childhood home she and other members of the family sat together for a time in her mother's sitting room and, she told Penn, 'found comfort even in that'.92 The funeral began with a short private service in the chapel where the family had wors.h.i.+pped all their lives. She found it 'exquisite in its simplicity and beauty'.93 Then the coffin was borne by farm-cart to the burial ground half a mile away, followed by a long line of mourners, including the King. The Queen and her father, who was calm and buoyed by his religious faith, came in a car. When the cortege was at the graveside the heavens opened and torrents of rain soaked the mourners. The King persuaded his wife and father-in-law to remain in the car while he helped carry the wreaths to the graveside, including the cross of white carnations and blue irises from Princess Elizabeth and Princess Margaret, who remained in London. The Queen and her father then joined the King, and they stood in the las.h.i.+ng wind and rain for the service of committal taken by the Bishop of St Andrews.94 The Queen liked the wildness 'The elements taking a part made the whole mournful affair less agonizing.'95 Afterwards she and the King went north to rest not to Balmoral but to Birkhall. Alone with her husband in the mountains and woods, she received and wrote many letters. She told Queen Mary that her mother had had a real sense of perspective 'she gave things their due importance, and the things that did not matter were relegated to the background that is so rare in women, & a great gift'. She a.s.sured her mother-in-law, 'You have it very strongly darling Mama.'96 The Queen received reports of the memorial service, held at St Martin in the Fields in London at the same time as the funeral in Glamis. Cosmo Lang sent her his own address, in which he had said of Lady Strathmore, 'She raised a Queen in her own home, simply, by trust and love, and as a return the Queen has won widespread love. Her charm and graciousness were not due to any conscious effort but the simple outflow of her spirit.'97 The Queen wrote to thank him, saying his words were 'perfect ... Thank you, thank you, dear friend & good counsellor.'98 Arthur Penn wrote in more intimate fas.h.i.+on about the London service. He thought the music had lifted it out of the melancholy which Lady Strathmore would have hated. The congregation was both distinguished and diverse and included 'a considerable number of what Lord Curzon used to term "the rascality" ' which just went to show how widely she was loved. The church had been filled; Penn drew a moving portrait of Barson, the family butler, 'who advanced down the aisle with his battered old face full of grief, making apologetic & deprecatory noises at being given the place to which his long & faithful service so amply ent.i.tled him'.99 The Queen thanked Penn 'from my heart'. Birkhall had brought her solace, she said. 'I have climbed one or two mountains, & spent my days amongst them, and feel very soothed they are so nice & big & everlasting & such a lovely colour.'100 She picked a spray of bell heather to send to her daughters.101 After only a few days the peace had to end and it was back to London to rush through the preparations for Paris. The Queen had to make serious decisions about her wardrobe. She was in mourning and the coloured dresses that Hartnell had made were quite unsuitable. She was confronted with the possibility of having to wear only black and purple. According to Hartnell's own account, he then pointed out that there was an alternative: white was also a colour of royal mourning after all Queen Victoria had insisted on a white funeral.102 White was a bold proposal. But after some discussion the King and Queen agreed instead of black, the Queen would be all in white. The couturier gathered all his seamstresses and in a fortnight all of the princ.i.p.al outfits had been remade. The Queen had to have endless new fittings and wrote to Queen Mary, 'I am nearly demented with rus.h.i.+ng up & down & trying to order & try on all my white things for Paris!'103 It was worth all the trouble. The new dresses were exquisite and their effect was mesmerizing. As a result, Hartnell became official Court dressmaker to Queen Elizabeth, designing all her important outfits for the next four decades.

ON 19 JULY THE King and the Queen, who was still dressed in black, embarked at Dover on the Admiralty yacht, Enchantress. They crossed the Channel in thick mist, escorted by eight E-cla.s.s destroyers Electra, Escort, Express, Esk, Escapade, Eclipse, Echo and Encounter and an air escort of eighteen Anson planes. In mid-Channel they were received by seven French destroyers, all flying the Union flag at their masthead, and the fleet made its way to Boulogne. From there the royal party took the train to Paris, a city the Queen had loved since her first adventurous visits as a young woman.

They stepped into the heart of the city at the restored ceremonial railway station in the Bois de Boulogne. On the train the Queen had changed and appeared in the first of Hartnell's dazzling white creations, a two-piece dress and coat edged with silver fox. From that moment, she captured Paris. Throughout, her dresses seemed to suit her personality exactly and were deemed to be lovely even by the fas.h.i.+on-conscious French. A 101-gun salute welcomed them and thousands of white doves were released. From the Eiffel Tower flew what was possibly the largest Union flag ever made, measuring 1,500 square yards.104 Public buildings were lavishly decorated and tens of thousands of shops and homes displayed the flags of the two countries and photographs of the King and Queen. In deference to the Queen's ancestry, even the Loch Ness monster made an appearance on the Seine.105 Special apartments had been decorated for them at the Quai d'Orsay, the French Foreign Ministry, overlooking the river, at a cost of some eight million francs. Paintings, furniture and tapestries were brought from the Louvre and from the palaces of Versailles, Fontainebleau and Chantilly; the Queen's bed had belonged to Marie Antoinette, the King's to Napoleon. Silk had been specially woven the Queen was even asked what colour she would like for the walls of the Queen's room. The chef from the Hotel Crillon came to cook for them in an electric kitchen built for their visit.106 Luxurious modern bathrooms had been installed, one silver and the other gold. (Only a few years later, during the n.a.z.i occupation, Field Marshal Goring was reported to have filled what had been the King's dressing room with cupboards for a hundred uniforms.)107 Although the French took security very seriously King Alexander I of Yugoslavia had been a.s.sa.s.sinated during his state visit to France in 1934 the atmosphere was joyous and seemed to some of the English officials not unlike the Jubilee or the Coronation. Cheering crowds greeted the King and Queen everywhere they went. Lady Diana Cooper wrote, 'Each night's flourish outdid the last. At the opera we leant over the bal.u.s.trade to see the Royal couple, s.h.i.+ning with stars and diadem and the Legion d'Honneur proudly worn, walk up the marble stairs preceded by les chandeliers two valets bearing twenty-branched candelabra of tall white candles.' The Queen was wearing a spreading gown of oyster-coloured satin, the skirt draped in festoons held by cl.u.s.ters of cream velvet camellias. The Dowager d.u.c.h.ess of Rutland, standing with Diana Cooper and the Winston Churchills (who had been invited by the French government), said, 'I felt proud of my nation. The French went mad about the King and Queen. Winston was like a school boy he was so delighted.'108 President Lebrun and his wife were charming. At one occasion the Queen noticed the President looking askance at her: she was wearing the Legion d'Honneur, which he had just conferred on her, on the wrong shoulder. She hurriedly changed it.109 She said later she was overwhelmed by the welcome they received everywhere, and she was struck that the French hardly talked to her about the English. 'It was all Scottish and Scotland that they seemed to be interested in.' She talked as much as she could in French, 'but when I was stuck for a word I just put my hand upon my heart and they supplied me with one.'110 The visit was a triumph for them both, but in particular for the Queen. One French newspaper exulted, 'We have taken the Queen to our hearts. She rules over two nations.'111 Another paper, L'Oeuvre, published a humorous article, 'Hors d'oeuvre', with the subheading 'Honni soit qui mal y pense'. The writer expressed regret that protocol meant that the King & Queen had separate bedrooms, for otherwise perhaps the good food and wine and hospitality of France might have led to the birth of a 'dauphin' on 20 April 1939, and the Princesses would have been told, 'C'est un pet.i.t frere que papa et maman ont achete a Paris et qui arrive aujourd'hui.'112 There was much to rejoice about in the present because there was so much to fear in the future. The overarching theme of all the events and of the constant applause was of two democracies embattled but united against brutal threats. Every opportunity was taken by both the hosts and the visitors to emphasize their alliance and their commitment to peace. At the Elysee banquet in their honour, the King said, 'It is the ardent desire of our Governments to find, by means of international agreements, a solution of those political problems which threaten the peace of the world and of those economic difficulties which restrict human well-being.'113 On the final day of the visit they were entertained at Versailles. The Queen was wearing another floor-length spreading dress of white organdie, embroidered all over with open-work broderie anglaise. Her white leghorn hat was trimmed with a ribbon of black velvet.114 At Louis XIV's magnificent Palace, they reviewed 50,000 French soldiers as they marched past the King. Churchill was much moved and spoke of the French troops as the bulwark of European freedom.115 Unfortunately, the fly-past by the French air force was delayed until the afternoon and took place during a concert in the chapel of the Palace. Suddenly the music was interrupted by the roars of wave after wave of military planes pa.s.sing overhead. Rather than rea.s.suring, the display was macabre and unsettling certainly that was how the experience remained in the memories of the King and the Queen.116 That last night, the royal couple enjoyed many curtain calls on the balcony of the Quai d'Orsay as thousands of people in the streets below demanded, by enthusiastic cheering, to see them. Lady Diana Cooper joined the throng and wrote, 'I can never forget it. To the French the Royal Visit seemed a safeguard against the dreaded war. That at least is what they told me but I could see nothing to allay my fears.'117 She was right. The uninvited guests, Hitler and Mussolini, loomed over all those enchanted evenings. On the last day of the visit, in a reminder of why another war seemed too terrible to contemplate, the King and Queen visited Villers-Bretonneux to unveil a memorial to the 11,000 members of the Australian Imperial Forces who fell in France during the 191418 war and had no known grave. After the King had laid his official wreath, the Queen spontaneously approached the memorial and laid on it a bunch of red poppies from the surrounding fields which had been given to her that morning by a schoolboy.118 The French love affair with the Queen and her husband was intense. Neville Chamberlain wrote to the King, praising him and saying, 'the Queen's smile as usual took every place by storm'.119 Duff Cooper congratulated the Queen, quoting a friend in Paris who had said that the visit had had an extraordinary effect in increasing French confidence. 'Never since Armistice night have I seen such vibration of happiness and relief from an unknown nightmare ... Everyone says that the Queen has something magnetic about her which touches the ma.s.ses as well as the lucky few who know her.'120 In his diary, Cooper wrote that the French enthusiasm for the King and more especially for the Queen surpa.s.sed description. 'This at least is good, but I view the near future with great disquiet and if we are at peace when Parliament meets on November 1st I think we shall be fortunate.'121 *

BACK HOME THERE was a heat wave. The King and Queen and their daughters went first to the Solent where the King attended Cowes Week briefly unlike his father, he was not a yachtsman. The Queen took her daughters picnicking in the New Forest and to visit Osborne, Queen Victoria's home on the Isle of Wight. Then, more slowly than usual, they made their way to Scotland, in the Victoria and Albert. The sea was calm and they could all relax; the Queen thought the officers were charming; they 'devised all kinds of amusing things to entertain us!' They stopped off at Southwold in Suffolk for the King to make his annual visit to his Duke of York's Camp. He was rowed to the sh.o.r.e and carried aloft by the boys for a happy meal around the campfire, before returning to the yacht. North they continued, arriving at Aberdeen on a perfect hot day; the Queen remarked how pretty the harbour looked with the gaily painted trawlers bobbing on the blue sea.122 At Balmoral they did their best to have a holiday despite the deepening political darkness on the continent. Georgina Guerin was there again for the Princesses they had lessons every morning and then rode their ponies; afterwards the women and children usually joined the men out on the hill for lunch. After tea back at the house, the Princesses sometimes played the radio-gramophone in the drawing room, or there was cricket on the lawn for anyone who wanted to join in, and at about seven o'clock the house party changed for dinner.123 Life was a little less formal than under King George V. Etiquette was nonetheless imposing and at dinner, white tie was still de rigueur. A typical evening meal that August was clear soup, fish, beef, grouse, chocolate pudding, iced pudding, cheese souffle, peaches, plums and grapes, with several different wines. Seven pipers played around the table at dessert. Afterwards cigarettes were smoked, by women as well as men. Sometimes there was a film show.124 The peaceful hills and heather could not conceal Europe's march towards the war which everyone feared. Although many people regarded Hitler with horror, it was from their memories of 191418 that their anxiety derived. People tried to rea.s.sure themselves that Germany was too complex and had too rich a culture to be reduced to simple black and white, good and evil. They could agree that some of the decisions made about Germany at Versailles were unjust, or at least unworkable. The Sudeten Germans had indeed been incorporated without consultation into the new state of Czechoslovakia after the First World War. Their problems under the social democrat government in Prague were grossly exaggerated by the n.a.z.i propaganda machine, but some problems did exist.

Those who argued for compromise, or appeas.e.m.e.nt, in both France and Britain had a fundamental belief which was both decent and compelling. It was that even the enemies of reason must in some fas.h.i.+on be susceptible to logic and persuasion. It was hard for men and women of goodwill to believe that the n.a.z.is were 'a political movement whose animating principles were paranoid conspiracy theories, blood-curdling hatreds, medieval superst.i.tions, and the lure of murder'.125 But that is what they were.

By August 1938 Hitler was declaring that the condition of the Sudeten Germans under their Czech rulers was intolerable. German troops began conducting extensive manoeuvres around the Czech border. The danger that Germany would use force was growing every day. The French had made clear that they would abide by their treaty commitments to Czechoslovakia. If France went to war Britain would be dragged in. Neville Chamberlain took the train up to Balmoral to see the King at the end of August, still believing that peace could prevail. Back in London he wrote to the King that matters were developing only slowly and that he had a 'hunch' that the use of force might be avoided.126 But on 12 September Hitler made a vicious speech at Nuremberg, laced with contempt for the Czechoslovak state and its ministers and demanding a revolt in the Sudetenland.

Thousands of people began to flee London and Chamberlain decided on a dramatic move he, who had never been in an aeroplane, would fly at once to see Hitler. The King decided that he should return to the capital and on 14 September he took the night train from Ballater. Queen Mary approved, writing to him that the public took confidence in seeing the Royal Standard flying over the Palace and thus knowing that the King was in residence. She, like almost everyone, had been shocked by Hitler's speech. 'I was horrified at his voice & shouting & at what he said, so theatrical & awful.' But she thought it 'a brilliant idea' for the Prime Minister to fly to see the German dictator, 'for even if nothing comes of it, he will have made, in England's name, the beau geste for peace'. If war did come, she said, 'it will be to prevent Germany from dominating most of Europe, not to back up the Czechs for their foolishness in treating the Sudetens so badly.'127 Over the next ten days Chamberlain made not one but three visits to Germany to Berchtesgaden, to Bad G.o.desberg and finally to Munich, in ever more desperate attempts to propitiate the dictator. In this he had the grateful support of the vast majority of the British people, and of their King and Queen. On 19 September, after Chamberlain's first meeting with Hitler, the King wrote to the Queen in Balmoral. 'My own darling Angel, I fear you must be feeling anxious as to how things are developing here.' He did not like to use the telephone, so he was sending her a lot of papers to read. Knowing that she felt she should be with him, he wrote, 'Please don't think of coming down here yet, as it might make people feel nervous. We will keep you well informed as to the daily progress of the situation, & just carry on as usual.'

Among the papers he sent were the minutes of Sunday's Cabinet meeting in which Chamberlain gave his impressions of Hitler. 'I wish he could have got more out of him,' the King told the Queen; but perhaps that would happen when Chamberlain returned the following Wednesday. He added, 'I don't much care for our new guarantees of the new Czechoslovakian frontier against unprovoked aggression, as again how can we help them in this event. What we want is a guarantee from Hitler that he won't walk into it in 3 or 4 months' time. However, the French & ourselves are in agreement on this point.' At the end of the letter, the King wrote, 'All my love Angel & I miss you too terribly.'128 The Queen missed him too; she felt miserable and thought she ought to be in London at such a time. On 21 September she did travel south, leaving the Princesses at Balmoral. She meant it to be only a short trip, but she found her husband under such strain that she stayed away longer than she had planned.129 London was grim. Air-raid precautions were put into effect on 25 September, cellars and bas.e.m.e.nts were commandeered, hospitals were cleared for war-wounded, schoolchildren crowded the railway stations for evacuation to the countryside. Trenches were dug in Hyde Park, to give some notional shelter from air raids, Londoners were registered for gas-mask distribution, anti-aircraft guns were mounted on bridges and close to Buckingham Palace.

As the spectre of war approached, the greater grew the sense of urgency to avoid it. The King felt strongly the need to help in any way he could. His Private Secretary Alec Hardinge, although himself opposed to appeas.e.m.e.nt, suggested that the King send a personal appeal to Hitler, 'as one ex-Serviceman to another', urging him to spare the youth of Europe another terrible war. It might have no effect, but it would be 'the only real contribution that Your Majesty could make to a peaceful solution by approaching the question from an entirely non-political angle'.130 The King put this idea first to the Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax, on 15 September when Chamberlain was on his first trip to Germany. Halifax advised waiting for his return.131 On 26 September the King told the Prime Minister of his proposal. He had prepared a draft, with Hardinge's a.s.sistance. But Chamberlain considered that such an advance would be unwise; he feared that Hitler might send an insulting reply.132 On 27 September the King and Queen had a long-standing engagement to launch the world's largest pa.s.senger liner, her namesake, the Queen Elizabeth, sister s.h.i.+p to the Queen Mary, on the Clyde. At the last minute the crisis prevented the King from leaving London. The Queen had to go on her own; worse still, she would have to make the speech at the launch ceremony. She left London by train on the evening of the 26th; all the stations were filled with children being sent out of the capital. Fears of an imminent German attack were very real. At Glasgow she was joined by her daughters, who had been brought down from Balmoral, and together they toured the Empire Exhibition. According to The Times, 'A great mult.i.tude of people gave them a welcome which the tension of the moment seemed to charge with a deeper and more personal feeling than would have coloured enthusiasm at a less critical time.'133 At John Brown's s.h.i.+pyard the great new liner lay, over a thousand feet long, ready to run out to sea at the Queen's command. Piled beside the vessel on each side were ma.s.sive drag-chains, weighing more than 2,000 tons, to slow her impetus as she took to the water for the first time. The Queen's speech was broadcast live by the BBC and heard by millions of people across the country. She told them of the King's deep regret in having to cancel his journey to Clydeside and said that she had a message from him. 'He bids the people of this country to be of good cheer, in spite of the dark clouds hanging over them and, indeed, over the whole world.' She spoke confidently and clearly, describing the s.h.i.+ps that plied across the Atlantic 'like shuttles in a mighty loom, weaving a fabric of friends.h.i.+p and understanding between the people of Britain and the people of the United States'.134 The last props holding the s.h.i.+p in place were removed. Very slowly she began to move to cries of 'She's off!' The Queen quickly stepped forward to say, 'I name this s.h.i.+p Queen Elizabeth and wish success to her and all who sail in her,' and released the bottle of champagne to break against the bow. As the great s.h.i.+p's stern hit the water, a riot of steam whistles mingled with the roar of the drag-chains as they rushed out into the sea after her.135 'I was so proud of Elizabeth taking on that ordeal of broadcasting the speech at a moment's notice, when I could not do it myself,' the King wrote to May Elphinstone afterwards.136 To Neville Chamberlain, the only way to peace seemed to be to allow Hitler to occupy the Sudetenland. On the night of 27 September, exhausted, he made the broadcast for which he would ever be remembered 'How horrible, fantastic, incredible it is that we should be digging trenches and trying on gas masks here because of a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing.' Duff Cooper considered the speech 'the most depressing utterance', expressing more sympathy for Hitler than for Czechoslovakia.137 Churchill also was indignant. But millions of people agreed with Chamberlain. The King himself was moved and sent him a message of sympathy and praise.

In both Paris and London there was a sense that the next day, 28 September, would be the final day of peace. The King held a Privy Council meeting to declare a state of emergency and to agree the mobilization of the fleet. That afternoon, as Chamberlain was recounting to the Commons the doleful events of recent days, he was handed a piece of paper containing an invitation from Hitler to an immediate four-power conference with Mussolini and the French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier in Munich. The House was ecstatic.

In Munich the dictators received the two dark-suited parliamentary leaders of France and Britain. They offered scant improvement on the terms for the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia, but Hitler gave Chamberlain a solemn undertaking that these were his last territorial demands. The Prime Minister chose to accept this a.s.surance. He persuaded Hitler also to sign a piece of paper stating that their agreement was 'symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war again'. When Chamberlain landed at Heston aerodrome outside London he waved this paper to wild applause and read its words aloud; at Downing Street later he declared that it brought 'peace and honour' and 'peace for our time'.

The King had sent him an invitation to come straight to Buckingham Palace, where his wife Anne had also been invited. The King and Queen then took the Chamberlains out on to the balcony overlooking the Mall. They were given an emotional ovation. Crowds sang 'For He's a Jolly Good Fellow' deep into the night. Queen Mary wrote to congratulate the King. 'What an excellent photo of you two with Chamberlains in the papers ... The paper the P.M. & Hitler signed is most interesting, let us hope that at last our 2 countries will come together.'138 For her part, the Queen wrote to Anne Chamberlain saying that she had been thinking of her 'during these last agonising weeks, knowing & understanding something of what you must be going through. It is so hard to wait, & when it is on the shoulders of your husband that such tremendous responsibilities rest, then it is doubly hard. But you must feel so proud & glad that through sheer courage & great wisdom he has been able to achieve so much for us & for the World.'139 Anne Chamberlain replied, thanking her for her letter 'so full of understanding'.140 Chamberlain's Munich agreement was welcomed wholeheartedly not only in Britain but, as the historian Andrew Roberts has pointed out, by 'the vast majority of the English-speaking peoples'. Chamberlain received telegrams of congratulation and relief from the Prime Ministers of Canada, South Africa and Australia along with tens of thousands of letters and other messages from around the world. 'Appeas.e.m.e.nt was not simply a political phenomenon. The Church of England supported it on spiritual grounds, ex-servicemen's organizations supported it as a way to avoid war, and the management of corporate Britain embraced it as the best way to avoid damaging Britain's economic strength.'141 The stock market leaped. The press was almost united in praise.

Given such euphoria, the Royal Family's enthusiasm for Munich was understandable. But the extent to which the King and the Queen so publicly embraced Chamberlain and his policies, on the balcony of the Palace, was imprudent, if not unconst.i.tutional. The Queen herself later acknowledged the mistake.* The monarch must always be above party politics and the Munich agreement was, despite its popularity, controversial and was still subject to a debate and vote in the House of Commons. Indeed Labour and the Liberals voted against it. One minister, Duff Cooper, resigned in protest.

On the night of 2 October the King and Queen were able to return to Balmoral. The Queen wrote to Queen Mary praising the King's calm and courage. He was helped by his complete confidence in Chamberlain, 'but the consequences are so vast, of even Peace, that one's brain is in a whirl'.142 To Osbert Sitwell she said that the recent terrible days were a nightmare of horror and worry that had made her feel years older. 'But one good thing is the fact that it was possible for sanity and Right to prevail at such a moment, and another, the marvellous way that the people of the country played up. They did not know very much of what was going on, and their courage & balance was (as usual) wonderful.'143 In another lette