The Queen Mother (22 page)

At this stage in his life Prince Albert was particularly close to his brother the Prince of Wales. Indeed they shared romantic secrets. At first both had seemed attracted by girls of good family of whom their parents might have approved – the Prince of Wales by Portia (Lady Sybil) Cadogan, daughter of Earl Cadogan, and Lady Rosemary Leveson-Gower, daughter of the Duke of Sutherland, and Prince Albert by Lady Maureen Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Lord Londonderry’s daughter, one of the girls Queen Mary had invited to Ascot.

In 1918, however, the Prince of Wales fell deeply in love with a married woman, Freda Dudley Ward. She was pretty, amusing and intelligent, married to a man sixteen years her senior from whom she had drifted apart. As if in emulation of his brother, in 1919 Prince Albert became infatuated with a close friend of Freda, another unhappily married woman, whom he had met at a ball at the end of 1918.
³⁸
She was Lady Loughborough, née Sheila Chisholm,
^*
a beautiful Australian whose marriage to Lord Loughborough, eldest son of the Earl of Rosslyn, had suffered because of his alcoholism and gambling. According to Lady Loughborough’s memoirs, she and Freda often danced with the two Princes at balls, ‘which annoyed some of the dowagers. However, we didn’t care. We knew no party was complete without us – and them!’
^39
†

News of Prince Albert’s friendship with Sheila Loughborough eventually came to his parents’ ears, and it added greatly to the worry their eldest son’s liaison was already giving them. The King had intended to make Prince Albert a duke in June 1920, when his year at Cambridge was over, and at the same time to give him his own establishment and financial independence. But Prince Albert’s relationship with a married woman, and the risk of a scandal if she divorced, threatened to undo much of the good work, to which the Prince himself had contributed so much, in consolidating the monarchy and winning over disaffected public opinion.

In April 1920 the King confronted his second son. ‘He is going to make me Duke of York on his birthday provided that he hears nothing more about Sheila & me!!!!’ wrote the Prince to his elder brother, now away on his second tour, to New Zealand and Australia.
⁴⁰
He felt trapped, for at twenty-four he longed for his independence. Although he privately railed against his father and declared to his brother that Sheila was ‘the one & only person in this world who means anything to me’, it is evident that his feelings were not as deep as his brother’s for Freda. He explained the situation to Sheila, who was understanding and promised to remain friends, and in May he accepted his father’s terms.
⁴¹

The King created him duke of York on 3 June, and wrote him a letter that, like many of his letters to his children, expressed
the affection which his gruffness so often concealed from them in person:

The Prince had written to his father the day before, saying that he was proud to be duke of York and hoped that he would live up to the title. He added, ‘I can tell you that I fulfilled your conditions to the letter, and that nothing more will come of it.’
⁴³
However, Prince Albert was not entirely happy. He had not been looking forward to June and July, he wrote to his brother; he would be spied upon at dances by people longing to carry gossip back to his parents. He was not going to give them any chances; but ‘Oh! if only one could live one’s own life occasionally.’ He added incredulously, ‘You wouldn’t think it possible but Mama actually talked about marriage to me the other day!!!!!!!’
⁴⁴

With the dukedom came an independent household for the Prince. Louis Greig became his comptroller; James Stuart, who had been with his army unit in Brussels in November 1918 when Prince Albert had been on an official visit there, and had helped entertain him, was appointed his equerry.

*

M
EANWHILE
,
FOR
Elizabeth the end of the war had brought more suitors. Among the proposals of marriage she received were yet more from Commonwealth soldiers who had stayed at Glamis. She sometimes found it hard to compose letters of rejection and asked Beryl for help with one which had to be sent ‘thousands of miles’.
⁴⁵
She had
become friendly with a Captain Glass in 1918; in March 1920, however, to her consternation he asked her to marry him. ‘Awful thing happened on Thursday!’ she told Beryl. ‘C … n G … s proposed to me!! Oh Gosh, I couldn’t help it, wasn’t it
awful
?’
⁴⁶
He continued to write to her, but she was unmoved. ‘My dearest old egg,’ she remarked to Beryl, ‘it never had the
slightest
tinge of Romance about it at all, at any time, I hated it all!’
⁴⁷
She had to grow accustomed to deflecting suitors. ‘People were rather inclined to propose to you in those days,’ she recalled many years later. ‘You know, it was rather the sort of thing, I suppose. And you said “No thank you”, or whatever it was.’ As for the rejected suitor, she said, he would often reply, ‘Oh, I thought you wouldn’t,’ so she felt ‘it was all very nice and light-hearted.’
⁴⁸

Among the young men who constantly sought her attention several stood out. One was Prince Paul of Serbia.
^*
The Prince, born in St Petersburg in 1893, had had a rather miserable childhood, abandoned by his parents. His Oxford career, reading Greats at Christ Church, was happy but interrupted by the war. He became a popular member of young London society, and a close friend of Elizabeth’s brother Michael. He praised Elizabeth’s prettiness ‘with her shining, lively eyes and beautiful smile’.
⁴⁹
Many thought he was keen to marry her.

Prince Paul and Michael Bowes Lyon shared a flat in London with Lord Gage,
^†
whose family had long lived in a beautiful house, Firle Place, on the South Downs near Lewes in Sussex. A slightly dour man whose nickname was Grubby, George Gage had great hopes for his friendship with Elizabeth. Their mutual friend the diarist Chips Channon
^‡
later noted, ‘Poor Gage is desperately fond of her – in vain, for he is far too heavy, too Tudor and squirearchal for so rare and patrician a creature as Elizabeth.’
⁵⁰

There was also Bruce Ogilvy, son of Lord and Lady Airlie and
Elizabeth’s neighbour at Glamis. He was an amusing companion, ‘very “norty” ’, as she described him; but she dismissed him, along with Captain Glass, as ‘silly nice fools’, in comparison with real friends like Charles Settrington.
⁵¹
A more dependable, older friend was Arthur Penn,
^*
a charming, witty and kindly man who had been her brother Jock’s contemporary at Eton; Elizabeth had met him during the war and had found him entrancing. Penn had fought heroically, winning both the Military Cross and the Croix de Guerre.

The suitor who came closest to winning her hand, however, was James Stuart. Born in Edinburgh in 1897, Stuart was still at Eton when war began; he immediately joined the Royal Scots, despite being under age. He trained with Michael Bowes Lyon and they became lifelong friends. Stuart fought with great courage during the war and was awarded the Military Cross and bar. His heroism added lustre to his enormous personal charm. There were those who said that the war had induced a depression in him, as in many other young men. But he was very attractive to women.

James Stuart had been one of the guests at that first post-war house party at Glamis in September 1919, when Elizabeth had been grieving over the death of Charles Settrington. He was engaged to Evelyn Louise Finlayson but broke off the engagement in the second half of 1920, and around that time became romantically involved with one of Elizabeth’s friends, Mollie Lascelles.
^†
It is not clear when Elizabeth was first drawn to him, or he to her, but her letters to Beryl Poignand contain only passing references to him until the end of 1920.

The London season of 1920 was filled with events and dances galore. For Elizabeth, it was sadly interrupted when she and her family had to move out of their home in St James’s Square
^‡
in mid-June, into
a rented house in Eaton Square, a neighbourhood she disliked.
⁵²
(Later the family moved permanently to Bruton Street in Mayfair.) Soon after the move to Eaton Square, she went to Ascot and Henley, and then to the RAF ball at which, it seems, Prince Albert lost his heart to her.

Nine days later, on 17 July, the Prince went to Bisham, on the Thames near Henley, to spend the weekend in a house party given by Lady Nina Balfour.
^*
It was probably there that he had his next meeting with Elizabeth. Her friend Helen Cecil later wrote, ‘Apparently when they were all at Lady Nina’s he held Elizabeth’s hand under Nina’s very nose in the famous electric launch. Elizabeth says it was quite worth it just to see Nina’s face.’
⁵³
For Elizabeth it was perhaps no more than an amusing game; for Prince Albert it probably meant more. However, three days afterwards he was still writing wistfully to the Prince of Wales about Sheila Loughborough, and reproaching his brother for advising him, as Queen Mary had, to marry and settle down. ‘I haven’t thought about that yet,’ he protested. But he seemed to view the prospect of Sheila’s coming departure for Australia with equanimity.
⁵⁴

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A
S
USUAL
, the Strathmores took the night train to Glamis in early August 1920, and soon guests began to arrive for a succession of house parties. In early September Elizabeth and her brothers Michael and David, the only unmarried members of the family, welcomed a particularly large group of their friends for the annual Forfar County Ball on the 8th. Her dance card for the ball is preserved in the Glamis Archives. She danced with many admirers, Prince Paul, Lord Gage, James Stuart and Victor Cochrane-Baillie. The ball was only half of the fun. A house party at Glamis was always exhilarating, an informal, ever moving tableau with a panoply of entertainments – tennis, cricket, shooting, walking and, in the evenings, dressing up, charades, dancing, cards and singing around the piano.

In all this gaiety Elizabeth was the carefree and enchanting centre. One of her admirers, Lord Gorell, recalled to another biographer,
Elizabeth Longford, ‘I was madly in love with her. Everything at Glamis was beautiful, perfect. Being there was like living in a Van Dyck picture. Time, and the gossiping, junketing world, stood still … But the magic gripped us all. I fell
madly
in love. They all did.’
⁵⁵

At the end of the week Elizabeth reported to Beryl that she was completely exhausted by it all. ‘We dressed up & ragged about, & now that the hard tennis court is finished, we played all day.’ But at one point the fun and games had got a little out of hand. ‘The most awful thing happened. Victor proposed to me the night we all dressed up! He looked
too
awful with great black smudges all over his face! I
did
hate it! Don’t tell anybody. Still a few people here, must fly and dress for dinner.’ As a PS, Elizabeth wrote across the top of the page: ‘Prince Albert is coming to stay here on Saturday. Ghastly!’
⁵⁶

The Prince had invited himself, from Balmoral, where he and Princess Mary were staying with their parents in gloomy isolation, with none but elderly guests and familiar royal cousins for company. It is unlikely that he had yet confided in the King and Queen about his interest in Elizabeth; but the idea of going to Glamis may have occurred to him because Princess Mary had been invited by Mabell, Countess of Airlie, to stay with her at Airlie Castle, only a few miles away.
^*

Elizabeth was nervous and asked as many friends and members of her family as possible for assistance. Helen Cecil wrote to her mother from Glamis, ‘Elizabeth is here & a perfect
angel
as usual … They have the Duke of York coming here & Elizabeth specially asked me to stay & help with him.’
⁵⁷
Helen was by this time engaged to Captain Alexander Hardinge, who had recently been appointed assistant private secretary to the King. He was at Balmoral, and exchanged frequent letters with his fiancée. Quite unaware of Prince Albert’s feelings, Hardinge was ‘
green
with envy’ that he was off to Glamis. ‘Oh the lucky brute – and it means
so
little to him – and all the world to me, and I cannot go.’ Worse still, James Stuart would be accompanying
the Prince. ‘You won’t let James cut me out, will you, Helen!’ Hardinge wrote. ‘He is so attractive that there would be every justification for it.’
⁵⁸

Other friends there to help Elizabeth included Katie Hamilton, Diamond Hardinge,
^*
Doris Gordon-Lennox and James Stuart’s elder brother Lord Doune. Helen’s letters give a lively picture of the atmosphere at Glamis before the Prince arrived. ‘Elizabeth is playing “Oh Hell” on the piano on purpose for me & Diamond is singing it which is most distracting! … It is very nice being here & Elizabeth is the
greatest
darling.’
⁵⁹
The morning of the Prince’s arrival she wrote, ‘There is a
fearful
fuss over tonight & the weekend in general. We are to have reels & all sorts of strange wild things tonight which will be awful.’
⁶⁰