Queen's House (34 page)

This was only the beginning of the King's constitutional worries. The Parliament Bill was crucial to the Liberal government's campaign to introduce Home Rule for Ireland – and this complicated argument, in which the King was deeply involved, was to carry on right until the outbreak of the First World War.

The other problem, of the attention needed to the exterior of the Palace, was more swiftly solved. After the death of Queen Victoria, a committee had been set up, directed by Esher, to decide on a memorial. Architects were invited to submit proposals and Sir Aston Webb, whose design for Admiralty Arch had already been accepted, was chosen. He planned the siting of the statue of Queen Victoria by Thomas Brock in front of the Palace. Attention was now drawn to the shabby east front of the Palace, which, the First Commissioner of Works told Parliament, needed refacing. There had been many complaints that, as one contemporary put it, Tor fifty years the existing front has been a reproach to London and the Empire'. Now the new, sparkling white marble memorial made the Palace look even more dingy. The Caen stonework was crumbling, since, as Cubitt had earlier warned, it was unsuitable for sooty London, and was now quite dangerous. Fortunately there had been a magnificent response to the appeal for funds for the Queen Victoria Memorial and there was now a surplus of
£
60,000, which the committee for the fund decided to use for the rebuilding of the east façade.

Parliament was told that Blore's Caen stonework had perished so badly that it needed replacing. Therefore it was decided to bring the façade more into keeping with the surroundings created by the memorial, and with the rest of the building. It was also resolved to use Portland
stone, the material which had come once more to be recognised as ideal for London, as it had been during the era of Wren.

Webb was at this time a successful architect, much esteemed for his public buildings. The son of an engineer, he had worked himself up from humble beginnings. He had trained as an architect in the firm of Banks & Barry, where he won an RIB A travelling studentship. By 1891 he was undertaking a number of commissions in Kensington, including the completion of the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Webb's aim to simplify the outline of the building was achieved by raising the parapet to hide ugly roofs and chimneys; the centre and wings were emphasized with pediments and the whole front was designed on simple, severe lines.

There was little disturbance at the Palace during the work, since the stone was prepared a year in advance at the yards of the contractors, Leslie & Co.
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The actual refacing took only three months, but there were difficulties and tragedies. On 12 September 1913
The Times
reported that the workmen, 250 on day shift, and 150 on night shift, were threatening to go on strike. That was resolved, but twelve days later ‘a number of men lifting a roll of roofing lead weighing 30 cwt … when one Charles Clark slipped, the lead fell on his head and killed him. On 14 October a painter, Morris Woodhouse, fell 20–30 ft to his death from the scaffolding in front of the Palace.'
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By the end of October, in under thirteen weeks the work was finished, to the delight of the King, whose insistence on punctuality was legendary – and not a pane of glass was broken. It had been efficiently planned, and competently and quickly executed, at no cost to him or Parliament. He made little attempt to interfere, except that he insisted that there
should be no unnecessary ornament, and that the balcony should be kept. Undemonstrative though he was, King George V realized the importance of royal appearances on the balcony as a focus for the demonstration of national unity.

On Friday 31 October 500 workmen in their Sunday best filled the King's HallHolborn restaurant for a dinner given by the King. According to
The Times
a letter from him was read out, congratulating them ‘on an achievement remarkable both in handicraft and in rapidity of execution and he had words of sympathy for the families of workmen killed during the work'. Apparently the menu was ‘Scotch Broth, Boiled Turbot with Hollandaise Sauce, Roast Saddle of Mutton, Roast Beef, baked potatoes, Brussels sprouts and Cauliflower; followed by Saxon pudding and dessert'. There was ‘an abundant supply of good ale' but,
The Times
noted with surprise, ‘quite a considerable number of men drank water or mineral water',
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after which the men sang lustily ‘For he's a jolly good fellow'. A year later many of those men were in khaki, singing ‘Goodbye Piccadilly, Farewell Leicester Square', as they marched to the mud and blood of the trenches of the First World War.

In 1913 and 1914 there was much cause for worry: the perennial problem of Ireland; the constitutional argument over the power of the Lords; the reports of growing German aggression; and the domestic disturbances caused by the suffragettes and their campaign for votes for women. Frustrated by the refusal of their opponents to listen to their reasonable arguments, and maddened by the deafening silence of some of their male supporters in Parliament, the suffragettes had become increasingly violent. Their last hope was to take their campaign to Buckingham Palace.

In March 1913 Queen Mary reported that ‘tiresome suffragettes rushed out in the Mall and tried to present petitions, of course the police caught them, but it caused a scene and looked undignified'.
²²
The Queen was at the sensational Derby in 1913, when Miss Emily Wilding had thrown herself in front of the King's horse and was killed. Sympathetic though Queen Mary was to many women's causes, she had little patience with uncontrolled behaviour. She found it difficult to understand the women
who threw bricks through windows and set fire to houses, especially since they were well-dressed, well-bred ladies, not revolutionary mobs.

In the spring of 1914 police patrolled the Palace grounds day and night; even so two ladies evaded them and chained themselves to the railings. On 22 May 1914 the suffragettes marched up the Mall, attempting to storm the Palace to deliver their ‘Votes for Women' petition. The police were ready for them. That day fifty-seven were arrested including their leader, Mrs Pankhurst, newly released from gaol. In prison they went on hunger strike and were subjected to the pain and humiliation of force-feeding.

On 4 June 1914 one young woman managed to take her protest to the steps of the throne itself. Miss Mary Blomfield, the 26-year-old daughter of a distinguished architect who had worked at Sandringham, managed to get an invitation to an evening court. Elegantly dressed, she demurely proceeded in her turn in the prescribed manner to the King and Queen on their dais. As the newspapers reported, she curtsied, but did not rise, lifting her arms and crying, ‘Your majesty, won't you stop torturing women!' With her customary restraint the Queen reported in her diary,

George and I received three Maori Chiefs at 11. Sat out in the garden most of the day. We held our 3
^rd
court in the evening and a tiresome suffragette came and fell on her knees before G and held out her arms in a supplicating way, saying ‘Oh! your majesty stop'. Then she was gently escorted out by Douglas Dawson and John Hamilton. Very unpleasant.
²³

The Queen was not completely unsympathetic; she and the King disapproved of force-feeding, but she disliked disorderly conduct and was embarrassed by passionate appeals to the emotions.

Now that the exterior was completed, Queen Mary persuaded the King that there were repairs and redecoration needed within the Palace. He recognized that there could be no better supervisor for such work than Queen Mary herself. So, for the rest of his reign, the care and reorganization of the Palace was her major concern.

*

It was fortunate that, during their reign, Queen Mary had her own work and her own inner resources; for King George V was preoccupied by affairs of state: the interminable flow of red boxes, the long meetings with ministers. He was more than happy to leave Queen Mary to sort out the confusion within the Palace. She welcomed a task for which she was uniquely qualified; besides, she was lonely now that the King was so busy. They rarely entertained, and hardly ever dined out – much to the surprise of the Prince of Wales, who could not imagine them enjoying a life that seemed to him to be of such stupefying boredom. In fact, the regular rhythm at Buckingham Palace suited them both.

As Kenneth Rose has described: the King followed ‘the clockwork routine of a ship's captain. First thing in the morning and last thing at night he consulted the barometer.'
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He did two hours work before breakfast, tackled his red boxes and business all morning, and took a brisk walk round the Palace garden; then came lunchcon and afterwards exactly fifteen minutes sleep, before tackling the red boxes again. Dinner was almost always quietly
en farnille,
but even so the King always dressed formally.

Their sons, the Prince of Wales and Prince Albert, froze in this rigid pattern of life, and in their father's insistence on punctuality and on exact correctness in dress and behaviour. They were terrified of the fusillade of questions he would rap at them during dinner. It was not surprising that, given the opportunity, the Prince of Wales would break out into loud check suits and a rackety lifestyle; or that Bertie would find it difficult to control his stammer.

Queen Mary might have been intimidated too were it not that she knew how much the King loved her and how important she was to him. Nonetheless, she was glad to escape into the congenial work of researching, cataloguing and rearranging.

In these years, visiting museums, art galleries and antique shops became a major interest for the Queen, although she would never allow it to interfere with the King's routine. She would always hurry back from such expeditions to be in time to join him for tea; and she would never neglect any royal duties for the sake of her own interests. King George V was on the whole complaisant – after all, he had his own
obsession with stamp collecting – although occasionally he became impatient. ‘There you go again, May,' he once said. Turniture, furniture!'

It must be remembered that not only had Queen Mary studied history from books and observed with a keen eye life in the countries she had visited as Duchess of York, she had learned a great deal from her mother's sister, her beloved Aunt Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The Grand Duchess had a prodigious memory going back to the Coronation of William IV, and had known every prime minister and almost every European and Russian monarch. She never forgot that as the daughter of the Duke of Cambridge she was the granddaughter of George III. And as Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz she was especially conscious that Queen Mary reigned in the home of Queen Charlotte, also from Mecklenburg-Strelitz; consequently she strengthened Queen Mary's own deep awareness of the continuity of the monarchy. Her aunt's sympathies were high Tory and she was terrified of change, but her sharp mind always stimulated Queen Mary, and right up to her death in 1916 she was a living source of historical information. She kept a home in London and on her frequent visits could bring to life the portraits on the Palace walls, encouraging Queen Mary's own passionate interest in history.

Now visits to Windsor were a joy: Queen Mary could browse in the archives and search the storerooms for old furnishings, neglected furniture and forgotten precious objects. She took advice from Sir Lionel Cust on the hanging of the paintings in the Picture Gallery. A perfectionist, she was remembered, as an old lady, insisting on the correct hang of pictures. When, in later years, she sent one as a present to Miss Crawford, the present Queen's governess when she was Princess Elizabeth, she sent first the picture, then a workman to hang it, and then she came herself to see that it was properly done.

In her reorganization of the Palace Queen Mary worked as no one in the royal family, not even the Prince Consort, had done before. All her love of history, her passion for collecting, her eye for quality and her meticulous care in labelling and cataloguing were brought into action.

There is a record in the Royal Archives of the work done from 1911 to 1935, year by year, ‘under the personal supervision of Queen Mary'
and signed by an Inspector from the Ministry of Works. All the King's and Queen's own possessions were firmly marked as ‘their Majesties' own property' – even the wall hangings.
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As she toured the palaces, her keen eye spotted details. She found an eighteenth-century cabinet and its matching cupboards, which were being used as wardrobes in different parts of the palaces. Antique chairs were rescued from upper rooms, repaired, re-covered and rearranged in rooms of their right period. She found one magnificent council chair, carved and gilded and solid as a Roman chariot, in Kensington Palace, and brought it to join its partner in Buckingham Palace. In the Household corridor she found a handsome piece of furniture, which was later identified as ‘a neat mahogany press of linen with four wooden doors made in 1770 … the whole inside grooved like a bookcase and mahogany sliding shelves'.
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She furnished rooms in different styles and periods. In what she called her Chippendale Room she placed Queen Charlotte's mahogany table with chairs of the same period. There were two satinwood tables made originally for George IV's rooms in Buckingham Palace when he was Prince of Wales, which she placed with other satinwood furniture in one of the smaller, more restrained rooms.

Her work at the Palace continued until the King's death, but her interest lasted until the end of her life. She and her friends searched the sale-rooms for the Royal Collection but she also had her own personal treasures. Much prized was the jewel cabinet that had been made for Queen Charlotte in her first year as Queen. Delicately inlaid with ivory, it had held George Ill's first gift of jewels to his new bride, and had been passed to Queen Mary by her brother, Prince Adolphus, also a passionate collector. Prince ‘Dolly', after 1917 Marquess of Cambridge, had married a wealthy wife, so could indulge his love of fine things. In February 1925 she was to write to him,