Philip Ziegler - King Edward VIII

When reports began to come in of the strain the Prince was under, the King was unsympathetic. ‘Papa naturally said it was all your fault doing too much,’ wrote Prince Albert, or as he had recently become, the Duke of York, ‘but he doesn’t understand how difficult things are now.’ 96Grigg and Halsey also argued the perils of sticking to the original schedule – ‘The Prince … is only a human being and not a machine,’ wrote Halsey, ‘and he cannot continue at high pitch indefinitely.’ 97The King began to feel alarm. From Adelaide Weigall wrote to say that the Prince was ‘weary in mind and body’. Milner saw the letter and told Lloyd George that he had not mentioned it at court ‘because I happen to know that the King is very touchy about the Prince’s possibly not going to India’. His own view was that unless the Prince were given a decent rest at home before his next tour, ‘we shall have a disaster’. 98Lloyd George braved the wrath of the King and found that his opposition had already crumbled. At the end of July, to his immense relief, the Prince was told that his visit to India was postponed until the autumn of 1921.

The King made it plain he expected a quid pro quo. In the period between the tours the Prince should lead a ‘strictly normal life’, rest, more food, more sleep, less exercise; otherwise ‘you will give cause to numbers of people who are disappointed, to say that the plea of health is not genuine’. 99To this not unreasonable condition the Prince responded with an indignation which showed how overwrought he must have been. ‘The lecture you gave me in your last letter made me rather sad,’ he told his father. His health was perfectly good, the strain was only mental. ‘You may find it very difficult to see my point of view, perhaps you never will, but such is my case.’ What he needed was a normal life, but not the normality that the King envisaged; his life must include much sport and exercise, ‘and after a month or two lots of work, which every man should have!!’ 100To Philip Sassoon he ranted about his father’s ‘foul’ letter. ‘It’s odd how inhuman a lot of people (and big people) are, and I haven’t much use for them.’ The King was determined to treat him like an invalid but ‘You know just as well as I do that invalids don’t go down with the British public, there’s no room for them nowadays so forget them!! Nobody is going to make me play the invalid!!’ 101

The Prince reacted with the same intemperance to relatively mild rebukes from home. The King deplored a photograph of his son and Mountbatten in a swimming pool – ‘You might as well be photographed naked , no doubt it would please the public.’ He objected to the wearing of a turned-down collar in white uniform with a black tie, ‘anything more unsmart I never saw’. 102‘His father’s letters might be the letters of a Director of some business to his Assistant,’ commented Mountbatten. 103The remark was not wholly unjustified, George V did find it hard to communicate affection. But the affection was there, and the Prince must have known it was. Nor did the letters contain only criticism. Three weeks before Mountbatten made his comment, the King had written to say how the Queen and he rejoiced ‘at the splendid success of your tour and the way in which you have won all hearts by your hard work and your own personality. I must say we are very proud of you. You are doing untold good for the Empire.’ 104

Not everything went to plan on the tour, nor was the Prince’s behaviour always impeccable. He caused offence to several ladies of eminence by preferring to dance with the prettier of the – evidently not so hen-faced – Australian girls. He upset one family who had taken endless pains to prepare for his reception by brusquely cancelling a visit at the last moment on the flimsy pretext that the roads were impassable. 105He sometimes looked bored at the stuffier public performances or snapped angrily at slow or incompetent servants. But these were minor blemishes on an otherwise almost flawless performance. The visit had been a tumultuous success.

There had been moments when his staff had doubted whether he could carry it through. Grigg told Lord Cromer what an immense relief it was to have reached the end of the Australian programme: ‘HRH has done splendidly from first to last, though working hard against the collar for the better part of the time.’ 106Any minor complaints were forgotten in the paean of praise that greeted the accomplishment of his mission. More important than the views of his own staff were the feelings of the Australians. Billy Hughes, the Prime Minister, had been determined not to be impressed by any mere princeling. The fact that the princeling was English was an additional reason for suspicion. Yet he had succumbed totally to his visitor’s charm and simplicity. His valedictory letter to the Prince of Wales might be ascribed to politeness, if almost on the same day he had not spoken to Grigg ‘most touchingly of the Prince’. 107There is no reason to doubt that he meant what he wrote:

When you first came amongst us we welcomed you as a Prince who is one day to be our King; but we part from you as a dear friend who has won our affections and whom we love. Your visit has provoked demonstrations that in their spontaneous enthusiasm are unique in our history.

The Australian people see in you all that our glorious Empire stands for, that deathless spirit of liberty, of progress, that distinguishes it from all other Empires, ancient or modern …

Come back to us, Prince, as soon and as often as you can. 108

‘I AM DELIGHTED AT THE PROSPECT OF AN UNINTERRUPTED twelve months in the Old Country,’ declared the Prince of Walesat a Guildhall luncheon shortly after his return from Australia; ‘– a treat I have not had for several years.’ 1His parents’ view was that he should now have a badly needed rest, ‘free from functions and photographers’ and occupied by ‘ordinary country pursuits’. 2The Prince was delighted to dispense with functions and photographers and by no means averse to country pursuits – with the emphasis on hunting and steeplechasing; but nothing was going to make him go early to bed, or away from London if that was where Freda Dudley Ward was to be found. In fact his freedom from functions proved illusory; the Guildhall luncheon was only one of many such occasions. It was also typical in that it involved an acrimonious exchange with the King, who wanted his son to drive to the City in cocked hat and scarlet tunic. The Prince argued that, with fifteen thousand men still unemployed, this was the wrong moment for a display of military pomp. 3He carried his point. Lloyd George was due to speak at the same occasion. Grigg noted that his draft speech contained no reference to the King and, knowing how sensitive things were between father and son, urged that one be included: ‘As the happiness of the Prince does depend a great deal on keeping all well between the King and him, I feel you will forgive this reminder.’ 4

This year at home was an unhappy one for the Prince’s relationship with his father. It was tolerable in London, where they met only occasionally, but cooped up in Balmoral or Sandringham and cut off from Mrs Dudley Ward the Prince found the court routine more than he could endure. ‘It’s all terribly irksome and it’s such a gloomy atmosphere.’ 5There was an explosion at Balmoral in October 1921. ‘I’ve turned Bolshie tonight,’ he told Freda, ‘as H M has been the absolute limit, snubbing me and finding fault sarcastically on every possible occasion. It really isn’t fair, darling, particularly as I’ve been playing up to him all I can since I arrived.’ 6The Prince’s doubts about the forthcoming tour of India provided an extra cause for wrangling between the two. Once the Prince threatened to ask Lloyd George whether he really felt the visit essential. ‘I don’t care whether the Prime Minister wants you to go or not,’ retorted the King. ‘ I wish you to go and you are going.’ 7