Queen's House (31 page)

The King's aim was to modernize the Palace, which had scarcely been touched for thirty years, and to bring some glamour to the throne. Although he was reluctant to move from Marlborough House, which he and the Queen loved and considered home, he was determined to take possession of the Palace as soon as possible.

Cust took up his new position as Surveyor of the King's Pictures on 5 March 1901, keeping his directorship of the National Portrait Gallery. Then he began to make a careful survey of all the royal palaces. Together with Sir Arthur Ellis, Lord Farquhar and Lord Esher as Secretary of the Office of Works, he accompanied the King and Queen on an exhausting tour of each Palace ‘from end to end'. Like George III, the new King liked to be personally involved in the work. Queen Alexandra confined her attention to the private rooms, but gamely limped after the ebullient King for most of the tours. Strangely, she had never been in Queen Victoria's private rooms in Buckingham Palace, although the old Queen had been very fond of her lovely daughter-in-law.

At the start of their tour of Buckingham Palace the great entrance hall struck chill and gloomy. The scagliola was peeling, the painted
walls were shabby and the lighting dim with dirt. Cust wrote, The great entrance Hall had originally been decorated with painted imitations of marble which had darkened with age and the atmosphere of London so that Edward VII spoke of it as the “sepulchre”.'

Upstairs in the Picture Gallery the gas-lit chandeliers had to be taken down and cleaned. Not only were they thick with dust, but ‘the pictures which had been hanging for years on a level with, or even above, the chandeliers … were found in parts to be coated with a thin dark film of dirt, in some places amounting to opaque black'. Fortunately Cust knew a restorer, F. H. Baines, who was now commissioned to clean the pictures.

Cust found Buckingham Palace the most neglected of all the royal palaces. The State Rooms were ‘in fair working order', but had been untouched since Prince Albert's death in 1861. The Queen's suite needed modernizing; Cust noted that ‘the apartments on the North Side, destined for the occupation of their Majesties, had to be gutted, in some places altered in actual structure, provided with new bathrooms, electric light, and all the innovations for modern comfort'.

Since he was responsible for the care of all the ‘Pictures, China, Sculptures, Bronzes, Tapestry, and ornamental furniture', and since the workmen were already creating havoc, he began with the greatest urgency.

The King trusted Cust's discretion completely, knowing that he would handle his responsibilities with infinite care and sensibility. But otherwise, as Cust remembered,

King Edward liked to supervise everything himself, enjoying nothing so much in the intervals of leisure as sitting in a roomful of workmen and giving directions in person. ‘Offer it up,' he would say, ‘and I will come to see,' and when he came he said Yes or No at once. It was no use asking him to suggest this or that, as he had little imagination, though a quick trained eye and instinct for what was right and what pleased him.

The efforts of Prince Albert and Stockmar had not been in vain: he had absorbed much of the cultural heritage which they had considered so important. ‘I do not know much about Art,' he would say with a character-
istic rolling of his r's, ‘but I think I know something about Arrangement.'
⁹

It took all Cust's tact and sensitivity to deal not only with the King but also with his sisters, to whom the break-up of the familiar scenes at Buckingham Palace must have been painful at times in view of the almost sacred memory of Queen Victoria. His task was eased by their ‘uniform courtesy'.

Cust's most delicate task was to collect carefully all the ‘personal objects' belonging to Queen Victoria which were not specifically mentioned in her will. There were rows of marble busts and statues, including a collection of statuettes of John Brown. At Windsor, Cust heard the King's booming reply to his deaf wife when she asked the identity of a marble baby: ‘If that child had lived, you and I would not have been here.' It was Princess Elizabeth, the baby daughter of William IV and Queen Adelaide who, in 1820, had lived only a few months. There were hundreds of gifts from foreign visitors and jubilees, stored away at Windsor – elephant tusks and oriental boxes: even, unidentified, in a box of assorted relics, a codpiece from the armour of Henry VII.

But Cust's most moving experience at Buckingham Palace was to find himself ‘alone in the rooms once occupied by Prince Albert, still apparently much the same as when he last used them, one of them containing his private library, another, the organ, on which he had played himself and on which Mendelssohn had performed'.
¹⁰
There were family letters in a desk, which he handed over to Princess Beatrice as her mother's executrix. To Esher's profound irritation, Princess Beatrice rewrote and expurgated her mother's journal, and then had the original burnt, in accordance with the old Queen's instructions. Biographers and historians have gnashed their teeth at this piece of literary vandalism ever since.

Cust remembered that ‘it was a long business to get Buckingham Palace into working order so much being needed in the way of structural alterations, bathrooms and general decoration …' There was

a constant and vigilant warfare with the myrmidons of H.M. Office of Works, especially electricians who all too frequently when a nice spot was available …
for hanging pictures in a good light, selected that spot for an electric light fitting which could quite as well be placed elsewhere.
¹¹

Unfortunately he never quite defeated them; nor could he always prevent radiators being placed next to priceless furniture. Cust does not mention the decorators who, in 1902, were busy covering Prince Albert's polychrome walls of the Grand Hall with gallons of white paint, but they must have been disturbing.

The King had commissioned the interior decorator C. H. Bessant of the firm of Bertram & Son to transform the entrance to the Palace. So the Grand Hall, the walls of the Grand Staircase and the Marble Hall now gleamed – an expanse of white and gold.

Besides Bessant, the King also commissioned the architect Frank T. Verity to modernize the Palace. The son of Thomas Verity, who designed the Criterion restaurant in London, he was at this time a favourite of the King's fashionable Mayfair friends. Trained in Paris, he appealed to the King's love of all things French, and his experience in theatre design was to be useful in dealing with the dramatic State Rooms. It may have been Lillie Langtry who drew the King's attention to Verity: he had designed the improvements of the Imperial Theatre, Westminster, for her. Verity's main challenge was to transform the Ballroom, but his work there was not undertaken until 1907. With the help of these professionals, Edward VII brought the Palace up to date and created the ‘Edwardian' style, suitable for his kind of life.

On 20 February 1902 Cust took his wife on a tour of the Palace, now almost finished, except for the Ballroom. He had done his duty with great sensitivity and was rightly proud. His experience at the National Portrait Gallery had been invaluable in the restoration and rehanging of the pictures. The King wanted them where he could see them, so Cust had placed the superb paintings of the Dutch School back in the Picture Gallery, but he considered them still too high. At least the substitution of electric light for gas made them less liable to damage by heat and dirt. He rearranged the pictures in the Belgian Suite on the ground floor (this was the suite that Leopold, King of the Belgians, had
always occupied in Queen Victoria's reign). Here he hung the collection of French and Spanish portraits bought by the Queen at the sale of King Leopold's pictures.

Cust was particularly proud of his suggestion for the improvement of the background to the throne. ‘By utilizing some of the rich crimson damask curtains which abounded in the state rooms, it might be possible to produce a suitable canopy and curtained background.' It was a dramatic setting for ceremonial occasions for years to come.

With customary generosity, Cust gave most of the credit for the reorganization to Sir Arthur Ellis, whose long experience as

Equerry and Comptroller to the King before his accession, his acquaintance with the palaces in foreign countries and his natural gifts of culture and artistic temperament made him wonderfully fit for the post. … If at times he rather over-rated the virtues of economy, he kept prices down in a ruthless fashion, and few of the pleasant and time-honoured abuses in the royal household survived his accession to office.
¹²

On 14 March 1902, the King gave his first Court – before he and the Queen had actually moved in. On 27 March he and Queen Alexandra left Marlborough House for ever and took a tour on the royal yacht,
Victoria and Albert.
On 12 April they took up permanent residence in Buckingham Palace, now made ready for the brilliant celebrations planned for the Coronation on 26 June.

In early June preparations for the Coronation were well in hand, thanks to the tireless work and efficient organization of Lord Esher and his colleagues. By mid June London was filled with foreign dignitaries and their followers. Every member of the Household was on duty; Cust described the excitement and traumatic experiences of the time. The King held his first reception for a foreign delegation, that of the Sultan of Morocco, in St James's Palace, but after that these too were held in the newly decorated Buckingham Palace.

Cust had now been made a gentleman usher, in addition to his position as Surveyor of the King's Pictures. All the patience of the royal Household was needed in those crowded days. There were times when all their careful arrangements were thrown into confusion. On one
such occasion, the King had been particularly anxious to welcome a distinguished delegation from Japan with extra courtesy. Unfortunately the delegation's visit coincided with that of one from Korea, a separate country but under the suzerainty of Japan. It was essential that the Japanese should be given special treatment, so the delegation from Japan was to be received in state at the Grand Entrance to the Palace, while the Koreans were to enter by the Buckingham Palace Road door. At the same time the King, enthroned in the Ballroom, was receiving addresses from the Lord Mayor of London and a delegation of civic dignitaries. It was all carefully planned; but, as Cust recorded, he was on duty as a gentleman usher upstairs when he was called down to the Grand Entrance, which seemed to be full of ‘little men in gold uniforms': the Koreans, who had been directed to the wrong door and were now buried in ‘a seething mass of furred and cloaked civic officials'. It was essential to get them out of sight before the Japanese arrived.

It was, however, too late. There was a sound of horses' hoofs, a banging of doors, and of salutes and the Japanese Prince and his suite were shot into the Hall to be swamped in their turn in the ever-increasing crowd of civic dignitaries. Then they had to be extricated, identified, and classified, the Japanese on one side, the Koreans on the other, looking as if they would like to cut each other's throats.
¹³

It was finally sorted out; the Japanese Prince was taken directly to be received by the King. But it had been, Cust wrote, ‘enough to turn the hair white of any Lord Chamberlain'.
¹³

There was worse to come. In mid June it seemed as though there might be no King to be crowned. On 14 June Edward VII was taken ill with what was described as a severe chill. It proved to be appendicitis. During the preceding months the King had not spared himself. Like George III, he rushed at his duties with a frenetic energy, refusing to delegate, insisting on overseeing all the preparations for the Coronation. There were interminable receptions, military reviews and rehearsals in the Abbey, as well as the reorganization of the Palaces and the move
from Marlborough House to Buckingham Palace. At the same time he was eating too much: like George IV he was both gourmet and gourmand. As his biographer, Philip Magnus, records ‘he had put on so much weight that his abdominal measurement – 48 inches – measured that of his chest'.
¹⁴

By 16 June his doctors were seriously concerned: it was clear to them that the Coronation, due for 26 June, would have to be postponed. But though the King was in agony, he insisted that he would soldier on: he would get to the Abbey if it killed him. At least he agreed not to attend the Ascot races: Queen Alexandra went alone, escorted by the Prince of Wales. They returned to London and drove through cheering crowds to Buckingham Palace, where the King was huddled and grey with pain. It took all the efforts of his doctor, Sir Francis Laking, to persuade him that he was suffering from peritonitis and unless he had an operation immediately he would surely die.

The rooms of Buckingham Palace had, in the past, been put to many uses – there had been births, christenings and weddings – but never before had a king undergone a major operation there. A room overlooking the garden had been converted, ready for the unavoidable event. Queen Alexandra, game as always, stood by the King while an anaesthetic was given, and would have held the King's hand throughout if the doctor had not quietly urged her out of the room. Sir Frederick Treves performed a successful operation. The King ‘fell into a healthy sleep, while the Empire was convulsed by a transport of emotional loyalty and of human affection for King Edward which commanded the awed sympathy of the world'.
¹⁵

The postponement of the Coronation, now fixed for 9 August, caused the Lord Chamberlain and Lord Esher many headaches. Some royal visitors left, some stayed on and had to be cared for. The King recovered remarkably quickly and before long was back to his old habits, enjoying enormous meals again. He convalesced with Queen Alexandra in the Mediterranean on the royal yacht and returned for his Coronation bronzed, fit and a great deal slimmer.