King Edward VII An Intimate Biography

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KING
EDWARD VIII

MY HECTOR

ALBERT THE <K>Ot>
VICTORIA THE \VIIU>W ANt>

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'BIOGRAPHY

BY

HECTOR BOLITHO

trim

J. E. LIMNCO'IT

LONDON

COPYRIGHT* Ml7r **Y

HECTOR noi,n no

MA1>K IN THI"

THIRD IMI'RKSSfON

TO
J. S.

C O N T K N T S

I Till'", CLOSE OF QUEEN VICTORIA'S REIGN, BIRTH AND

BOYHOOD OK EDWARD VIII IS

II CORONATION OF JUNG GEORGE V, HIS CHARACTER,

FRINGE EDWARD OF WALKS. THK DUCHY OF CORN*

WALL 27

III A STUDENT IN FRANCE ffi

IV OXFORD 4!
V GERMANY 51

VI THE WAR 57

VII A SOLWKR IN FRANCE to

VIII WAR ON ITALIAN FRONT 7$

IX THE END OF THK WAR H7

X CANADA AND THE UNITED STATKS 95

XI THK I1ARUAIK)K.S, HONOLULU AND FIJI iiMI

XII NEW ZEALAND III

XIII AUSTRALIA I'M

XIV LIFE IN ENGLAND, RETURNED SOLttlMW LW
XV KING GEORGE AS A FATHER 147

XVI INDIA 1W

XVH SOUTH AFRICA 18,1

XVIII THE TRANSVAAL Wl

XIX ST HELENA, THK ARGENTINE AND CHILE ?>

XX WORK AMON(; THE 1*OOR 21$

7

CONTRNTS

XXI I JFK IN ENGLAND 211
XXII KINO GEORGES JUBILEE, THK PR INCHES FRIKNItti 817

XXHI THE DEATH OF KINti CiEORCiE 2i

xxiv THE RKK;N OF EDWARII vtn s$

XXV THE KJNG AND HIE PRIMK MINISTER W

XXVI THE ABDICA110N 80S

APPENDIX SIS

INDEX m

ILLUSTRATIONS

KING KDWARI> VHI, VR0M TUK PORTRAIT BY JOHN ST HKUKfc
LANOK.fi Frontispiece

C; I',I)WARD VIH AT THE AOK OF ONE YEAR M

WN ViOHHUA ANI> KI>WARI>, l8<)(> M

KINO HDWARJt VII WITH THE yW'tlRK K1N<; KUWARD VIII, !t)C)l Ifl

THE FEINCIEVH ttOYAl KINCJ MWARI> VUI AN!> "HIE DHEK OF YORK IH

EINCi KX>WAR!> WlI'll FATHER AND DROTUKRS AT A1IKRC;EIMK SJO

THK HtKSKNTATION OK ttt)WARt> AH URINOK TO THK
NATION, Jtlt.Y, I()It

fWWARIl, i*RINCK 01' WAIXS, LFADtNC HIS <X)MI*ANY
TUH <RFAr WAR

HOWARD, f^RINCK OF WAL1, INSPKCrW AM^RKJAN 'I1(C)C)I% HYI1K

FEINCK OK WAI,F*S, ON HI.S CANADIAN RANCH. IJ)8 !IH

THK I*RINCK OK WALKS AT MT. VEENON IW

i, t*RINCK OK WAf.KH, AT PHfcTIf, W^HTKRN AUSTRAI 14, KJftO 1S3

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KtlN MARY, MUNCK KOWARh ANt> 111K IHIRK OK KKNT, It)8<> HH

IWWARI*, l*RINCiK OK WAli;% KICKING KK AT A VOOTHAX.I,

MAtai t !<)3U 1M

IRtNC:E KIWAKP WITH TWO NA11VIC1, AKEIC^A, t{)JO 190

KDWAKtt, PRINCE OK WAI.KH, VIMITINO A MtNVR\1 HOWE, tc)ft<) 21H

iwwARtt* IEINC:E <n f WAf, TAKING A HTONK

VIWARI), I*RINK <VK WAt.W* At A <?OM' TIWT,

, I*RIN<:K OK WAI*F,S, IN H.VINC; KIT AT cic:i,f.wcK
IRNC:K OK WAI.KH, AT voun u^<

CE 01'' WAl,K#i ANt> TUK HOY MX

9

PRZNCK KI>WARl ItKAJMNti THE ROYAt.

MRS. WAI. US SIMPSON IN A WHIIT. flI,on%E 28$

KING EDWARD AND MR.H. SIMPSON AT A.SCOI, JlNK tj^f, 1!08

AN AIR VIEW OK FORT ItKIiVI'tWKK,. Nf:AR WINHSOH 2<>i

KINO EDWARD VIII IN THK STAIK <!OA<*It| MAY, U^'lO ftW

THE KING IN tiiotianri'iti, MOOS*. Visinw; SOIUH WAI FA nts-

TEK4EI) AUKASf lyjfi 211

MR8. WAU.IK SIMPSON IN A f>ARX (MWN X7li

TOE K1NCS COWING OW* OF A ?iitllMAE!NK AT THE IKWF M I'f i;

19S6 SWH

EING KDWARI) VIU AS

K1NCJ KDWARI> VIU TIUKS HIS IIAHI) Al' MtXINU WMINI', I{|J[<i ^HH

RING ia>WARII HKOAOCA8nNf; TO 11IK t*,MPtRfr <Jf> 810

CHAFFER I

THE CLOSE OF QUEEN VICTORIA'S RKIGN

BIRTH AN11 BOYHOOD OF EDWARD VII!

Antl hfctftnt ho{y

flint for /UT own.

TttOMAK (JRAV

CHAPTER I

THE CLOSE OF QUEEN VICTORIA'S REIGN
BIRTH AND BOYHOOD OF EDWARD VIII

IN THE SUMMER OF 1897 THE DUKE AND

Duchess of York went to stay with Queen Victoria. She
was delighted by their visit. "Every time I see them I love

them more and respect them greatly," she wrote in her
Journal "Thank Gocll Georgie has got such an excellent,

useful and good wife/ 1 There was much to talk about to

her grandchildren while they were staying at Windsor,
Their eldest son, David, was now three years old, and he
was running about the lawns of White Lodge, lively as a
rabbit.

The Queen had ruled the land for sixty years, and the
century she knew was coming to its end. When she
ascended the throne in 1837, England had been a fair
agricultural country. Now it was given over to industry:
factory chimneys had risen on the edges of the fields, and
steamers moved clown the once placid rivers, laden deep
with manufactured goods. In the 'thirties the talk in the
inns had been of crops and of beasts. Now, when the day's
work was over and when Englishmen sat over their tank-
ards of beer, they talked of inventions and of new ma-
chines. The smocks of the farm worker had given place to
the overalls of the mechanic and the artisan.

How remote the tranquil evenings with Prince Albert
must have seemed to Queen Victoria in 1897 as s ^ e dozed
over her papers: the games of whist and the sentimental
ballads which they used to sing at the pianoforte, away
back in the 'forties. There was so much to remember and

KING EDWARD VIII

marvel over in the long years of chance and discovery,
The gas-lamps at the gates of the Castle had been a nov-
elty in the early days, when she used to drive down with
Prince Albert from smoky London. Soon the rooms at
Windsor were to be wired for electric light and she had
been able to speak over the telephone with Lord Salis-
bury in his room in London, twenty miles away. A low
weeks before she had written in her Journal:

"At twelve went down to below the terrace near
the ball-room, and we were all photographed by
Downey by the new cinematograph process, which
makes moving pictures by winding ofE a roll of films*

We were walking up and down and the children
jumping about/ 1

The time had almost come for her to leave the quick-
ening world. She was very tired, and when the papers ar-
rived in the red despatch boxes from Whitehall she had
to fortify her sight; with belladonna before she could read

them. Her secretary used special broad nibs to write his
reports for her, and the sheets of paper were dried in a
little copper oven beside his table so that the ink should
be thick and black, to save her eyes.

She was a little old woman, nearing death. But there
were wonderful signs to comfort her as she was wheeled
from room to room in her rolling chair* Three years be-
fore she had driven over to White Lodge to see her first
English great-grandchild. "After tea/' she* wrote, when
she had returned to Windsor, "I went to see the baby, a
fine, strong-looking child/*

Prince David was born in June, when the walls of
White Lodge were hidden behind masses of magnolias,
The house, which was set in Richmond Park, was not
vast and grand. It had been built by George I as "u place
of refreshment after the fatigues of the chase." The ele-

14

THE CLOSE OF VICTORIA'S REIGN

gant words might still have been used to describe its
amenities in June of 1894, when the Prince was born.

Queen Victoria went to White Lodge again in July,
when her great-grandson was christened. The carrying
cloak which she gave him was made from her own wed-
ding veil. Again it is in her Journal that one reads of the
day. "The dear fine baby/' she wrote, "wearing the
Honiton lace robe . . . was brought in . . and handed
to me. I then gave him to the Archbishop and received
him back, . . . The child was very good. There was an
absence of all music, which I thought a pity. . . . Had
tea with May, and afterwards we were photographed, I
holding the baby on my lap, Bertie and Georgie standing
behind me, thus making the four generations."

When Prince David was almost eighteen months old,
his brother, Prince Albert,* was born at Sandringham,
and eighteen months after this time his only sister was
born- White Lodge was now too small to hold the grow-
ing family, and the Duke and Duchess divided their year
between Sandringham arid London,

Of the many stories told of the ex-King as a little boy,
there are two which allow us to see the lines along which
his character was to grow. One afternoon the two Princes
had to listen to a long story, told to them by an old man.
Prince Albert yawned, without shame, and his older
brother nudged him and whispered, "Smile/' The other
story shows us the first young sign of the compassion
which became one of the guiding forces of his life. One
day when he was talking to Lord Roberts of the time
when he would be King, he said that he would "pass a
law against cutting puppy clogs* tails" and prevent
"them" from using bearing reins on horses. '"These are
very cruel/' he said,

Queen Victoria died in January of 1901, when the

* Now King George VI.

KING EDWARD V11I

Prince was almost seven years old. He went down to
Windsor, in his sailor suit, and he stood above the tomb
of Charles I, in St. George's Chapel, while his great-
grandmother's coffin was lowered into the vault.

Queen Victoria had not wished to be buried with her
wicked Hanoverian uncles, and the next day her relatives
followed her coffin on its last journey to the mausoleum
at Frogmore, Light snow fell as they walked down the
slope "as it had fallen two hundred and fifty years before,
when the Cavaliers carried the coffin of Charles 1 into the
dark, silent chapel at Windsor."

A new age began and a new monarch ruled in the
Castle which Pepys had described as the "most roman-
tique" that "is in all the world/' Up to this time the
Princes had not been steeped in the history of their fam-
ily. A few romantic stories had gathered about White
Lodge, but Windsor held the record of our kings from
the time of the Conqueror. When King Edward Vli went
to live in the Castle, his son and his daughter-in-law
opened Frogmore, a quiet, unassuming house in the
Park: a house set in an English water-colour scene of
ponds and lawns, daffodils and singing birds,

English boys of twelve years are not very different in
their aims and dreams. At the age when the warpath of
the Red Indians and the hazards of capture by cannibals
fire the average imagination, boys are happily free from
introspection and they have a good appetite for mischief*
Prince Albert was more prone to adventure and pranks
than his older brother, Prince David was shy and this
shyness stayed with him until the war came, to wear it
away. His life was simple and his education was hard,
His father was heir to the Prince Consort's stern sense of
duty, and he believed in the thoroughness of tutors and
the cautionary air of schoolrooms*

Prince David had a friend and champion in the new

16

BOYHOOD OF EDWARD VIII

King. When he was very young he had been taken in
great awe to see his great-grandmother at Windsor.
Queen Victoria had been a matriarch in whose presence
children spoke in whispers and walked on their toes.

Now that King Edward ruled in the Castle, everything
was different. His mother's apathetic afternoon teas gave
place to gay evening parties. Sir Sidney Lee tells us that
"the best and most interesting personalities in the coun-
try were to be found at the Court of King Edward VII,
whatever their birth and upbringing/' The King had not
lost his love of fun in gaining his crown, and, as Prince
David grew older, he turned to his grandfather more and
more, with the strange and secure confidence which ex-
ists between older people and their grandchildren. King
Edward had also been the object of a rigorous educa-
tional scheme and he knew, with all his heart, the perils
of authority and the pain of censorship. One day, at Sand-
ringham, when King Edward arrived, his grandson
rushed out, like a wild thing, past family and servants.
He kissed his grandfather's hand and then kissed him
again and again on the cheek. The King was his escape
from the discipline which was wisely maintained at home.

When Prince David was ten years old his grandfather
gave him a party at Buckingham Palace, The Prince re-
ceived his guests so solemnly that King Edward described
it all as "infernally bumptious/' It seemed for a moment
that the dignity of princes was appearing too early in the
boy, especially when, at another children's party, he made
a short and grand speech. He had been given a sword,
and somebody advised him in a whisper to say "Thank
you/' He climbed on to a chair and said: "Thank you
for giving me such a beautiful sword. I shall always keep
it and remember this night/'

There was respect: but little fear in the young Prince's
love for his grandfather. One day a seamstress called at

17

KING EDWARD VIII

York House, Prince David opened the door and called to
her: "Come in, there is nobody here . . . there is no-
body that matters, only Grandpa/'

The Prince began his London life in York House in
St. James's Palace. Few of the street scenes of London are
more enchanting than the view of the gates and the tur-
rets of the palace when you see them from the descending
slope that leads from Piccadilly, The facade of St. James's
is a sixteenth-century dream, surviving in busy twentieth-
century London. Within the old walls earnest secretaries
and quick-footed messengers are about their business*
While he was a boy in St. James's Palace, Prince David
was given his first glimpse of State affairs. He saw the
boxes which came every day from Whitehall, and he
peered around the corner at the ambassadors and com-
missioners who came to see his father. Sandringham and
Frogmore had given him a dream or two, but York House
gave him realities. He could hear the whir of trail ic
from his bedroom window and he could see the chimneys
of Westminster, with their moving flags of smoke. He
could hear the click of soldiers' heels in the courtyard
and the metallic thud of rifle-butts upon the flagstones*
He learned to play with his first sword; he drilled his
brothers and he enrolled even his sister into his games of
war- The soldiers who guarded his father's palace were as
magnificent to him as they were to the grubbiest Cockney
boy meandering past with his thumb in his mouth.

When he was thirteen years old Prince David went to
Osborne as a naval cadet. Any other boy might; have felt:
that he was embarking upon an adventure as lie steamed
over Southampton Water, among the ships that smelied
of Colombo, Hong Kong and the Indies. Hut there was a
tutor at Prince David's elbow to remind him of his pur-
pose.

Fifty years before, Queen Victoria's "marine villa" hud

18

BOYHOOD OF EDWARD VIII

been the pride of the Isle of Wight. The Italian facade
of Osborne had looked out upon a garden inhabited by
marble Dianas and bronze sea monsters, with cupids rid-
ing upon their backs. Bay-trees had formed a guard of
honour down the path which led to the sea, and near by
had been the gigantic cedar under which Queen Victoria
used to take tea with her ladies or talk over the troubles
o the world with her ministers. Wych elms and pines
grew between the house and the beach, and a clock in the
tower told the time to the four corners of the park, mark-
ing the hours with a lazy, melodious bell. Life at Osborne
had been elegant and safe in the 'fifties, but the Victorian
picture was torn from its frame when Prince David went
there as a cadet in 1907. The shawls and teacups of his
grandmother's day had been packed away and the cedar
was lonely on the lawn. Long, dull buildings marred the
grace of the old gardens, for King Edward had given his
mother's house to the nation, and the noise and bustle
of the naval college had chased the Victorian ghosts away.

When the Prince had been at Osborne a week or so a
young cadet asked him: "What is your name? 71

"Edward/* answered the Prince, for this was his name
to the world.

"Edward what? 1 ' he was asked*

"Just Edward, that is all/' he said.

His princely responsibilities meant little or nothing to
the other cadets, and he was soon drawn into the normal
life of Osborne* He was given the nickname of Sardine,
for no apparent reason, and his slightest offence against
the ethics of his contemporaries was punished by guillo-
tining him in the dormitory window, as a cruel and boy-
like reminder of what had happened to Charles I, whose
prison had been at Carisbrooke near by. Once the Prince
revolted against the traditions of the college. When
senior cadets entered a room it was usual for the despised

19

KING EDWARD VIII

juniors to retire and leave them in possession* Prince
Edward obeyed the law at first. He stepped into the gut-
ter when his betters passed him in the street, and he ran
out of common rooms when they appeared at the door.

There came a time for faint protest. One day, instead of
hurrying out of the presence of the seniors when they ap-
peared, he sauntered slowly away. One of them grabbed
him and said: "You are the Prince, are you? Well, learn
to respect your seniors/* A bottle of red ink was poured
down his neck and he left the room.

The historical lessons of the Isle of Wight could not
have been encouraging for Prince Edward. At every point
he was reminded of his inheritance. If he went to Os-
borne House he could see the white marble busts of his
ancestors, arranged in niches along the corridors; in the
neglected gardens he could see the miniature fortifica-
tions among which the Prince Consort had taught his
sons to be soldiers. Everywhere were signs of discipline,
The incessant voice which whispered in his ear was of
duty. The word enveloped him and there was no escape,

Although Prince Edward's training was the same as
that of the other cadets, he sometimes stepped out of the
mundane picture. One day, twenty-four battleships, six-
teen armoured cruisers, forty-eight destroyers and more
than fifty other vessels moved across the Solent in celebra-
tion of the visit of the Tsar of Russia. Three days after-
wards Prince David was allowed to show his illustrious
cousins over the naval college, and in the afternoon the
rooms of Osborne House were opened for them. Prince
Edward answered the Tsar's questions, he talked with
the gentle little Tsarevitch, and he walked with the
Tsarina, who, it was said, already seemed to wear her
fate in the sad expression upon her face,

As the Prince learned more of the life of the sailor he
came to a new field of understanding with his father*

so

BOYHOOD OF EDWARD VIII

Prince George, who once said, "In the Navy we have a
motto, 'Keep your hair on/ " had not outgrown the bluff
heartiness of the wardroom. Even when he was King, one
of his chief delights was to talk with the friends of his sea-
faring clays. He watched his son with daily concern as he
trod in his footsteps. There were letters from York House
almost every morning, and during the Prince's weeks of
leave, father and son found much to talk about. At little
more than Prince David's age King George had been the
youngest cadet in Britannia. The fierce light of inherit-
ance had not yet beaten upon him, for his elder brother
was still alive. He had been able to enjoy the spells of
careless ease in his ship, without any worry about the
prospect of a crown. He had been a boisterous cadet, not
above putting marlinespikcs in the bed of a First-lieu-
tenant. Prince David's life at Osborne was not very hilari-
ous. He was more prone to self-analysis than his father
had been, and he carried his responsibilities seriously.
Once he took his place in the chorus, wearing a wig and
dress, when the college produced HM.S. Pinafore, but
somebody who saw him as "a sister, a cousin or an aunt"
said that he wore a wistful and unhappy expression. Even
In the gay atmosphere of amateur theatricals he was not
able to shake himself free of his shyness.

Osborne contributed to the Prince's knowledge and no
doubt made him more aware of the Intricacies of human
nature. But the machinery of the College system did not
change the main lines of his character. That the Prince
learned something while he was a naval cadet, and that he
remembered what he had learned, was shown some years
afterwards when he was in America. He visited the Ford
Motor Works, and the proprietor was surprised because
his "royal guest had such an intimate knowledge of en-
gineering/" Major Vernay, who recalls the incident, says

KING EDWARD VIII

that the Prince had not forgotten Osborne, the "grease
on his face" and the "steel filings in his hair/'

From Osborne the Prince went to Dartmouth, He
worked hard, completing his five years of training, and
he passed his examinations without favour. Whenever he
went to London people said that he was growing "to be
just like his grandfather/' The friendship between the
King and his grandson had grown with years, and the
guileless stories of childhood gave place to serious talks as
they walked together at Balmoral. In Scotland, Prince
David was able to shoot with his grandfather and to talk
with him more peaceably than in London. It was during
one of these summer holidays beside the Dee that the
Prince met the Emperor and the Empress of Germany.
It has been said that one day, when Prince David was
walking away, King Edward turned to the Emperor and
said: "There is the last King of England/'

In May of 1910 King Edward died at Buckingham
Palace. The nine years of his reign were over, and the
Prince, now a boy of sixteen years, went once more to
Windsor. Again the rulers and princes of Europe came to
England and walked in the funeral procession to St.
George's, where King Edward and Queen Alexandra had
been married forty-seven years before. The gay and pros-
perous interlude of King Edward's Court ended. He had
ruled the land in a time of richness, self-indulgence and
social upheaval, and he handed on a changed kingdom
from that which he had inherited at the beginning of the
century. The new King had a different and more terrible
role to play, and it was well, as we have learned, that he
inherited his grandfather's sober character and moral
courage to sustain him in the years that lay before him.

Prince David was now heir to the throne, and he was
soon to be known as Edward, Prince of Wales. On the
twenty-fourth day of June he was confirmed in the small

BOYHOOD OF EDWARD VIII

private chapel at Windsor. His father, his mother, Queen
Alexandra, the Empress of Russia, his aunts, his uncles
and the Prime Minister celebrated his admission to the
Sacrament by singing 'Tight the good fight." It was a sign
that his boyhood had ended,

In August of 1910, three months after his grandfather's
death, the Prince sailed away in Hindustan as a midship-
man. All the old authorities in his life were left behind,
He enjoyed his first holiday, although a new governor
was sent with him to add to the ordinary discipline of the
ship. The Prince was supremely happy during the tour,
which lasted two months, and he left Hindustan with
a stab of regret "'Not the smallest exception or discrimi-
nation has been made in his favour/' wrote the naval au-
thorities when the cruise was over, "The Prince of Wales
has taken part in every duty that appertains to the work-
ing of a great battleship, and has cheerfully and effi-
ciently discharged the less agreeable as well as the most
agreeable of his tasks. The day before yesterday, for ex-
ample, he was bearing his share in 'coaling ship/ and you
know what that means. He has worked hard in the gun-
room and at drill, and has, among other things, been as-
sociated with the landing of small armed parties.
Throughout the whole period of his training on board
he has been an extremely hard worker, and has struck
all those about him, high and low, as what we call 4 a live
thing/ It was obvious that he liked the life, and earnestly
endeavoured to do credit to himself and to those en-
trusted with his tuition in various departments. Every-
body in the Hindustan will be sorry to lose so good a
comrade and so intelligent a 'man/ I say 'man' advisedly,
because he has shown application and aptitude beyond
that which might have been reasonably expected. He was
a thoroughly hard worker, and is in many respects ahead
of his years/'

KING EDWARD VIII

The Prince's career as an active sailor came to an end*
He said good-bye to Dartmouth with a pretty gesture. He
restored to the Corporation the silver oar which they had
formerly held as "a symbol of the rights of the Bailiwick
of the water of Dartmouth/' His first public speech was
brief, and his voice showed that he was nervous,

The friends and the circumstances of the Prince's life
changed once more. Osborne and Dartmouth faded into
history, and with them the friends he had gathered about
him. Oxford was before him, and he had to adjust his life
and change his society accordingly. It was the inevitable
fault of his training that his background was for ever
changing. People crowded in on him and then they de-
parted, making him feel that life was a whirl in which no
person and no scene was stable. This disadvantage must
always be remembered in the young King's favour by
those steady and docile people who live upon the rock of
certainty. Most people have the opportunity of living in a
chosen community, and those who join the, Services or
who go to universities carry some of their friends with
them from one sphere to the next, The Prince never en-
joyed this privilege. Nothing seemed permanent to him
except the responsibilities of his inheritance. He made
his friends at Osborne, but they went to sea while he
stayed ashore. He sailed in Hindustan, but he left the
ship's company to go to Oxford He was unable to enjoy
the influence which growing friendships would have been
for him. The lessons in personal loyally which he would
have learned through friendship seemed to pass him by,
In considering the years of his education it is important
and just that one should remember the many changes
of which he was the victim, and understand, therefore*
why it was not easy for him to remain loyal to a central
purpose in the development of his mind and character.

CHAPTER II

UUKUJNA1ION OF KING GEORGE V. HIS CHARACTER
PRINCE EDWARD OF WALES
THE DUCHY OF CORNWALL

An age touched by the spirit of Hope in~
cvitably turns to the young^ for with the young
lies fulfilment.

LORD MORLEY

CHAPTER II

CORONATION OF KING GEORGE V. HIS CHARACTER
PRINCE EDWARD OF WALES
THE DUCHY OF CORNWALL

GEORGE WAS CROWNED IN JUNE. THE

Prince knelt before him, took off his coronet and said:
"I . . . do become your liege man of life and lirnb and
of earthly worship; and faith and truth I will bear unto
you, to live and die, against all manner of folks/" When
he had kissed his father's cheek the King leaned forward,
drew the Prince nearer to him and kissed him in return.
We are told that he was seriously conscious of the impor-
tance of the Coronation, and that when one of his
younger brothers became mischievous in the carriage on
the way to the Abbey, the Prince disposed of him beneath
the seat until he promised to behave more sedately.

King George's character and interests were to bring
many changes into the thought and policy of his country.
He was to become the greatest of the essentially English
sovereigns, combining some of the qualities of Alfred the
Great with the domestic virtues of George III, who was
also "pure in life, honest in intent/' and for whom the
heart of Britain beat kindly "because according to his
lights he worshipped Heaven/' The changes which came
with King George must be considered, for they were an
important influence upon his son's character. With King
George the last drop of German blood was drained from
the Royal Family; no man could have been more English.
His opinions, his prejudices and his habits were those of
an English squire. He hated wearing the robes of great

KING EDWARD VIII

occasions and liked best to tramp through the park at
Sandringham in tweeds. He had been bred in Norfolk,
and the great Lord Leicester himself had not loved its
earth more than the new monarch. King George declared
his own insular loyalty when he said that he regretted the
time he had spent in Heidelberg "learning their beastly
language." This Englishness was his own creation, Queen
Victoria began her reign with natural love for Germany,
which was fostered by her family ties and her idolatry
for her husband. In the closing years of her life this love
for the Germans soured, and she wrote in 1 870 that it was
"merciful the beloved Prince was taken, for had he lived**
she "could never have prevented him from joining the
German armies/' As she grew wise she came to dislike
the aims of Bismarck and then of her strident grandson.
One o her ladies wrote of a day when she "pitched into"
her daughter, the Empress Frederick, for being too Prus-
sian in her notions. But Queen Victoria enjoyed her ex-
periments in foreign diplomacy, and she liked her pres-
tige as matriarch of all the Courts of Europe. King Ed*
ward brought a change into European friendships, lie
closed his heart against Germany from the time of the
Schleswig-Holstein invasion, when his wife's country was
menaced by the aims of Prussia. The division between
mother and son was bitter then.

Some years after, when the Emperor William left Sand-
ringham after a visit, King Edward turned to his guests
upon the doorstep and said: "Thank God he has gone/ 1
He disliked his nephew and the Prussian spirit which he
exalted. His gay nature as well as his prejudices caused
King Edward to give his heart to the French, as opposed
to the ent stes Deutsches gtffuhl of his father.

None of these European affections disturbed King
George, and he came to the throne with no compelling
interests beyond those of his own Empire, He was ill at

28

PRINCE EDWARD OF WALES

ease with the "foreign" outlook, and this limitation be-
came his strength. Living and thinking within his king-
dom, he was not harassed by ambitions among the na-
tions. He set a new standard of behaviour for himself and
his people and he pursued it, with his grandfather's
single-minded determination, from the beginning to the
end. The King favoured respectability and he was embar-
rassed by the rich vulgarity of Edwardian society. He
was intolerant of mischievous gossip, which had been the
delight of social life in the twenty years preceding his
reign. He kept early hours and he was abstemious. King
George was a good man, and his religion lay in his con-
science. Glimpses at this inner power which guided him
were rare, but he once revealed his simplicity of faith
when he said to one of his cousins: "I become very un-
happy about the young people in the country. I feel that
they do not say their prayers/' Such were the motives
which guided him as a sovereign and a father.

Now and again during his life King George allowed
himself to be lured into pageantry, much against his will.
He did not mind the long, monotonous hours of labour
over his desk, but he shunned ceremonies and disliked
the panoply of kingship. When the glory of the Corona-
tion had passed he divested himself of his grand robes
and returned to the sober clothes which suited his char-
acter. Now it was the Prince of Wales who took on the
old glamour of princes. When he walked across the
greensward of Carnarvon Castle, to be invested as Prince
of Wales, he might have been a legendary figure straying
through the scenes of one of Scott's novels. Carnarvon is
not as old as Windsor, but its roofs have tumbled in and
its towers yawn open to the sky* There is no life about
these old walls, within which Edward the First offered his
son to the Welshmen to appease their discontent. Car-
narvon is a ruin now, with one great wall facing the sea

KINO EDWARD VIII

and another casting shadows over the inland stretches
where the Romans made the camp of Scgontium a thou-
sand years ago. The Prince o the twentieth century
walked here. Dressed in his velvet surcoat and white
breeches, he seemed to be a messenger from the dark cen-
turies, bringing his Herald and Arch-Druids and Druids
at his heels. He was the nineteenth Prince of Wales, but
he was the first to speak to the Welsh people in their own
language, described by themselves as "the language
spoken In Heaven." He was conscientious from the be-
ginning, and it was a graceful gesture for him to learn
a few phrases of Welsh so that he could say to them:
"Mor o gan yw Cymru i gyd" ("All Wales is a sea of
song"). His young, fresh voice gathered strength as he
conquered his shyness. "The great title that I bear/ 1 he
said, "as well as my name David t all bind me to Wales/*
In the language of the records, he was "presented before
the King in his surcoat, cloak and mantle of crimson
velvet, and girt with a belt of the same; when the King
putteth a cap of crimson velvet, indented and turned
up with ermine, on his head, as a token of Principality,
and the King also putteth into his hand a verge of gold,
the emblem of government, and a ring of gold on his
middle finger, to intimate that he must be a husband to
his country and a father to his children/ 1

The King's eldest son bears many titles and honours,
and of these two are of importance to him as heir to the
throne. The eldest son of a sovereign is Duke of Corn-
wall the moment he is born* The title is his by virtue
of his position as heir. He also receives the badge of three
feathers, wrongly called the Prince of Wales's feathers, as
a sign that he is the Sovereign's eldest son. The King is
not obliged to make his heir Prince of Wales, although
this has always been the custom. The title Prince oE
Wales is not hereditary, but is the subject of a new grunt

3

PRINCE EDWARD OF WALES

under each new King and is conferred at the will and
discretion of the Sovereign. The illusion about the badge
of three feathers belonging to the Prince of Wales has
continued for many centuries. It is a legend which sur-
prises all the more because the first prince who ever used
them in their present form, Edward VI, was never even
created Prince of Wales. King George was at liberty to
make any of his sons Prince of Wales, had he wished to
ignore tradition, but he could not have taken the badge
of three feathers from his heir.

Although the Duchy of Cornwall was formed to enrich
the eldest sons of kings, for almost half the time since its
creation the Duchy has been in the possession of the
Crown when there have been no princes to enjoy it.
There are records which show that Queen Mary bought
herself "silks and velvets" with the Duchy revenue. The
two most exciting chapters in the Duchy history were
provided by Cromwell and George IV, "His cursed High-
ness" sold the Duchy lands to private individuals, but
they were easily bought back again during the Restora-
tion. George IV shattered the Duchy's security by sign-
ing a bond which gave Coutts' Bank the right to all its
revenue during his lifetime. Thus a banker became Duke
of Cornwall in all but name. It must be added, in the
King's favour, that much of the money was spent on
works of art and gold plate which now adorn Bucking-
ham Palace and Windsor Castle,

While King Edward VII was a minor Prince Albert
governed the affairs of the Duchy, and, with his usual
care, he lifted the shaky estates into safety. When his son
was old enough to use the riches of the Duchy as his in-
come a fortune had been saved for him, and Prince Al-
bert had nursed the finances so cleverly that they pro-
duced an income of about 70,000 a year. Prince Albert
brought one amazing change into the policy of the raan-

KING EDWARD Fill

agers. He built seventeen buildings of flats in the Ken-
nington estate, which belongs to the Duchy, Each flat had
its bathroom. This was in 1847, when bathrooms were
rare even among the rich, and before there was one in
Windsor Castle. It was this policy which has endured to
this day,

King George was the first monarch who made the ten-
ants of the Duchy care for him personally as a landlord
and not only as a King. On Dartmoor to this day there
are older people who will tell you of when he went to see
them and of the spontaneous speech in which he called
them "my friends."

It was not until he returned from his Empire tours that
King Edward VIII was drawn into the detailed interests
of his estates. He decided to devote more money to re-
building schemes, although at that time his income from
the Duchy was about half what was paid to King Edward
VII and to King George when they were Princes of
Wales* The ex-King's unselfishness in regard to the
Duchy is not fully realised. He developed the schemes
introduced by his father, and in the years 1909-14, no less
than "300,000 were poured back into the estates for re-
building and improvements. The Duchy continues to
prosper for its own good as well as for the Crown. The
Labour Council in Kennington smiled upon King Ed-
ward VIII and declared him to be one of the best land-
lords in the kingdom. The Home Farm in Cornwall, the
oyster fisheries, the experiments in stock-breeding and
the rebuilding of the residential areas were solid proofs
of his ability to govern the vast lands under his control.

CHAPTER III

A STUDENT IN FRANCE

I travelled among unknown men,

In lands beyond the sea;
Nor, England, did 1 know till then

What love I bore to thee*

WORDSWORTH.

CHAPTER III

A STUDENT IN FRANCE

JLHE VITALITY OF THE EX-KING ALWAYS
amazed and sometimes alarmed those who watched his
progress. Mayors of small towns were walked off their
feet because of his exuberance, and faithful servants have
sometimes found their physical endurance long spent
while he went on, eager with questions, prying into cor-
ners and storing his astonishing memory with fresh in-
formation. He inherited this fierce enthusiasm from his
mother. Queen Victoria was also blessed with tireless zeal
and stamina; she was never tired and she pooh-poohed
draughts and rain. Her ladies used to moan over the cold
of Balmoral and they often shivered in the frigid sitting-
rooms, clinging to the circle of the fire while the Queen
sat at the far, frozen end of the room over her game of
patience. Her love of carriage exercise in heavy rain and
her shocked protest when she found fires lighted in the
bedrooms of her ladies caused many a sad letter to be
written late at night by one or other of the members of
her Court, who poured out her misery to a trusted sister
or friend. Queen Mary has been equally tireless all
through her life. After a long day of duties she has always
been able to approach some new and sudden plan with
the vigour of the morning. One day, in London, she was
driving back to Buckingham Palace after opening a new
building somewhere in Campden HilL There had been
engagements in the morning, and her lady-in-waiting
might have been forgiven if her thoughts moved towards
her sitting-room and her tea. As the Queen left the build-

35

KING EDWARD VIII

ing she said that she wished to drive back along a new
way. There was a part of London she did not know, They
travelled through miserable slums, and in one street the
Queen saw a number of men sitting on a staircase outside
a house. She wished to know why they were there, and
somebody was sent to enquire. The answer was terrible.
The men were waiting, in turn, to occupy a bed upon
which they could sleep for a penny an hour. The Queen
drove on. The day did not pass without a practical at-
tempt to change the miserable lot of the men she had
seen, and within a little time the right machinery was set
to work and the horror of the slums was removed There
was no sentimentality only the practical decision which
removed a blemish in the life of London, without osten-
tation or fuss.

This untiring eagerness and interest in the burdens of
humanity first stirred in the Prince of Wales (hiring the
months after he left Dartmouth, when he began to work
among social Institutions. But his first view of his re-
sponsibilities was brief, for the next step in his education
was being prepared for him- He was to go to France to
polish his languages. From the moment the Prince of
Wales arrived in Paris his charm earned the good opinion
and favours of; the French people. He was among "for-
eigners" for the first time, and the experiment; benefited
him because every man he spoke to and every scene
which was spread before him was examined through a
note of interrogation. He embarrassed people by his in-
cessant questions; his eagerness unlocked all doors.

One's thoughts travel back to 1903, when the Prince's
grandfather arrived In Paris, during one of the dark
seasons when Englishmen were unpopular with their
fickle neighbours. lie arrived in Paris in the morning
and found the crowd "sullenly respectful/' Somebody
had shouted, "Vivent les Boers!" at him as his carriage

86

A STUDENT IN FRANCE

rolled past. One of his suite murmured, "The French
don't like us/' and he answered, "Why should they?" He
waited until the evening to make his first gesture of
friendliness. He went to a theatre and he was greeted
coldly. Sir Sidney Lee tells us that while the King was
standing in the lobby of the theatre he "espied a great
and charming artiste whom he had seen act in England.
Holding out his hand, he said: 'Oh, mademoiselle, I re-
member how I applauded you in London. You personi-
fied there all the grace, all the esprit of France/ " The
words were loud enough to be overheard, and the pretty
compliment of the evening became the breakfast-table
gossip of Paris next morning. The French discovered
"that the King of England was determined to be the
friend of France."

Prince Edward of Wales went to France in a less
troubled time. He was dynamic and charming, although
he was still almost irretrievably shy. The people of Paris,
who gathered at the station to see him, asked no more
than this. His frank smile won their applause. The im-
portant weeks of his visit to France were spent at the cha-
teau of the Marquis de Breteuil, a beautiful house which
looks out over a well-bred garden with valeted shrubs
and stone vases. In a book of snapshots taken at the time
of the Prince's visit to Breteuil, one catches occasional
glimpses of the Marquis himself, a straw hat on the back
of his head, sitting on the edge of a table; another of the
Prince, looking very English, with his hat worn at a re-
spectable angle and a carnation in his buttonhole. If
photographs are to be believed, the discipline was not too
heavy upon him at Breteuil, for even his English tutor
unbent and was photographed, looking gay and human,
in a little boat. We find the Prince at Maintenon: a slim
boy with his hands raised in the air, preparing to dive
into the water. And then, triumphantly, the Prince on

37

KING EDWARD VIII

the terrace, with the fourth roebuck which he had shot
while in France*

A French scholar had been called in to assist in the
Prince's education, and the choke of M. Maurice Kscof-
fier was a stroke of good fortune. There is a charming
snapshot of him, with cigarette, gallant: beard and a hat
worn at a rakish angle to assure us that he did not make
his instruction alarming. The Prince's energy was sur-
prising, even to the busy French. At this time he began a
diary, in the manner of his father and Ins great-grand-
mother, setting down almost every incident and impres-
sion of his days. One naturally knows nothing of these
pages, but there are further snapshots to show him en-
joying himself at picnics in the hills or walking through
the scenes of the country. From Breteuil he went south
and we see him watching the life on board a French
cruiser. He photographed the statue of King Edward at
Cannes, Marseilles from the hills, the door and the clois-
ters of the church at Aries and stretches of the Italiau
coast. He went far and he came home with a fresh store
of impressions and information. There was only one de-
pressing note, from the public point o view, Before he
left Paris he was painted by Francois Flameng. The por-
trait appeared in the English newspapers in celebration
of the Prince's return. People were distressed to find him
frowning, as if the weight of his young life were already
too much for him. It: seemed that he was taking his re-
sponsibilities almost too seriously and being deprived of
the mischief and delights of being young. His face was
melancholy in repose. England had no wish to exact such
a debt from him before his time.

CHAPTER IV

OXFORD

When all the world is young, lad,

And all the trees are green;
And every goose a swan, lad,

And every lass a queen;
Then hey for boot and horse, lad,

And round the world away;
Young blood must have its course, la

And every dog his day.

CHARLES KINGSLEY

CHAPTER IV

OXFORD

1 HE FRINGE OF WALES TRIED TO LOSE HIS

frown when he went to Oxford. He was less manacled by
rules than any other royal undergraduate had been, and
he had much to be thankful for in his freedom. King Ed-
ward VII had matriculated as a nobleman, and he had
not been allowed to live in college. His parents had sent
him up to Oxford with warnings and rules that might
have been framed for a penitentiary. He was allowed to
"wear nothing extravagant or slang/' and he was to avoid
"foolish and worthless persons." He had been allowed to
read a novel only "as an indulgence/' even if it was by
Sir Walter Scott. He had not been allowed to smoke. He
had to wear a special gown when he attended debates,
and everybody rose as he entered a lecture room. He ate
his meals with his staff, in his own house. Queen Victoria
and Prince Albert had built every possible wall between
him and his temptations, which had already manifested
themselves. They were haunted by their fear that he
would walk in the way of his Georgian great-uncles, and
this anxiety drove them to extremes of caution. The royal
parents of the last three generations have often been
criticised for the way in which they have trained their
heirs, but it is not easy to realise or understand the
unique problem of a monarch who is forced to equip his
son to take his place. The responsibility is unnatural and
tremendous. Estrangement between parent and son seems
to be inevitable. In 1901 the leader writer for The Times
summed up the difficulties which harass an heir-apparent

41

KING EDWARD VIII

"There is no position In the world more difficult
to fill than that of Heir-Apparent to the throne. It
is beset by more than all the temptations of actual
royalty, while the weight of counteracting responsi-
bility is much less directly felt. It must be with a
feeling of hopelessness that a man in that position
offers up the familiar prayer, "Lead us not into
temptation/ Other men may avoid much tempta-
tion, but the heir to a throne is followed, dogged,
and importuned by temptation in its most seductive
forms."

Oxford had changed when Prince Edward went there
as an undergraduate at the age of eighteen, Germans and
Americans had brought a more cosmopolitan note into
the life of the old University, and the Rhodes Scholars

who mingled with their English contemporaries talked of
life in New Zealand and of sheep-farming in Australia.
As the Warden of New College had said, Oxford became
"part of the great world/'

King George's discipline for his sons was always strict,
and his natural, kindliness was confused by his sense of
duty, but he did not repeat the mistakes of the Prince
Consort when he sent; his eldest son to Oxford, lie al-
lowed the Prince to live as an ordinary undergraduate.
If the Prince had not already been enriched by experi-
ence at Osborne, service in Hindustan and study in
France, the sudden freedom might have unbalanced him,
for he was still very young. He was the superior of his
contemporaries in experience of life and of people. It is
pleasing, in tracing the story of his time at Oxford, to
note the growth of his poise. He was fickle as a sports-
man, and he did not plod on with any one form of exer-
cise. Hunting; shooting, tennis and golf each held his
devotion for a time, for he was inclined to experiment

OXFORD

with new diversions. He had not liked riding when he
was young, but, under the influence of Major Cadogan,
he soon found pleasure in hunting.

The Prince began his Oxford foxhunting career in
February of 1914 with the South Oxfordshire Hounds,
and on the first day, as if conscious of the occasion,
hounds killed five foxes. The Prince played Association
football for the Magdalen second eleven, and he beagled
with the New College, Magdalen and Trinity pack. He
shot a little, though not with his father's zest, and he be-
gan soldiering with the O.T.C. These energetic diver-
sions kept him busy, but not at the expense of his life
within the College. The unique character of social life
at Magdalen must be remembered if one is to appreciate
the democratic Influence which surrounded the Prince,
In other colleges clubs and societies were inclined to be-
come cliques because no member could join them ex-
cept by election. This was not the rule at Magdalen.
Undergraduates could join any society they wished, with
out election, and they therefore shared each other's in-
terests more readily. A writer in the spring number of
Oxford,, 1936, recalled this aspect of the King's life in the
University, and added: "It is well to have this picture In
mind, otherwise to say that His Majesty took a full part
In the general social life of the College would not mean
as much as It actually did."

After some months had passed Oxford accepted its
royal undergraduate without fuss and surprise. Tourists
gaped at him and visitors were shown the windows of his
rooms in the cloisters. The "frozen music" of Magdalen's
lovely tower became a secondary attraction when Amer-
icans were able to look across the cool green lawn of Mag-
dalen towards the old wall behind which the heir to the
throne was studying, or practising his banjo* When the
guide was able to lure them away to the quiet of Addi-

43

KING EDWARD VIII

son's Walk and to the rails of the deer park, he completed
their delight by telling them that the park had been
fenced oil and stocked so that the Prince could enjoy a
little stalking before breakfast.

A contemporary wrote in The, Times of the Prince as
an undergraduate:

"We found that he was In no way different from
any other undergraduate, except that he looked
rather more youthful than most. , . * Oxford took,
perhaps, a fortnight before it settled down entirely
and got over the novelty of having a Prince of Wales
going In and coming out daily. There were tiresome
photographers and reporters, and a tendency for
crowds to collect at likely places for him to pass. But
his fellow-undergraduates did not take long to learn
the necessary lesson. Members of Balliol signified
their opinion of an inquisitive crowd by pouring
water from the upper windows on their heads.*"

When winter came the tourists had flown, and the
Prince was no longer a curiosity to the people of the
town. He walked among the silver-brown walls of the col-
leges and he rode out In the morning, an eager, restless

figure, moving against the winter trees and liquid blue
sky, just as any other undergraduate might walk or ride,
The students who wrote of the Prince in The Times
said;

"Everything was made easy for him to take an
immediate place in college life and interests. And he
plunged at once into an almost bewildering catholic-
ity of Interests and amusements. He was entertained
and gave entertainments in return, and those pres-
ent found that, though he was at first rather shy, he
was a delightful addition to a dinner-party, most at*

* 44

OXFORD

tractive In the quiet and humble part he took in the
conversation, but full of humour and with opinions
at once decided and sane. His laugh and smile are
perhaps particularly attractive."

As his shyness passed, the Prince took the initiative in
making friendships, and the adventures which ensued all
added to his knowledge of human nature. One evening
he picked up his banjo and wandered around the cloisters
of Magdalen to call on a friend. Major Verney tells us in
his book that the company which he found in his friend's
room included a "rampant, tearing Socialist from the
Midlands who had commenced life in a nail factory at the
age of eight, educated himself and arrived at Oxford at
the age of thirty-three with a red tie/' A test for the
Prince's charm had come, "He picked up a glass of beer
from the table and said, 'Here's luck, everybody/ and
then played a tune on the banjo/' When the Prince had
returned to his rooms the nail-maker rose to his feet and
said to those who remained: " 111 give you a toast/ He
raised his glass and said: 'The Prince of Wales, God bless
him! 1 "

The Prince's banjo was the first of a number of musi-
cal instruments to which he was devoted. He was an in-
dulgent musician, because he gave his heart to the banjo,
the ukulele and even the bagpipes. Many people suffered
during these interludes, and his diligent practice upon
tEe banjo, at all hours of the day and night, was such a
pain to his neighbours in Magdalen that they organised
a protest beneath his window. He won the day, for he
produced bagpipes and drove them away, with their fin-
gers in their ears. Some years afterwards, he diverted his
talents to the ukulele, and he confessed in a public speech
that if he had taken "a single day longer to learn Clem-

45

KING EDWARD VIII

entine" he believed that he would have "been murdered"
by his staff.

The Prince was not over-sentimental as a youth, and he
never allowed his kindliness to lead him into false feel-
ing. When he was still young he was able to guard him-
self against these dangers. He was stubborn when neces-
sary, and when his time at Oxford came to an end he had
enough will-power to cope with the thick-skinned and
the pompous. Servants and little people were safe with
him, but humbugs were likely to suffer at his hands.

One turns to a story of his first visit to South Africa to
show that there was an iron will to guard his sympathies.
One day he stood in front of ten or twelve thousand
children while they were singing a hymn. Major Verney
has written: "There was a quality about it that was deeply
stirring, almost sacred. ... As the last notes of the hymn
died away in the sunlit air there followed a pause, tense
and breathless. It was dramatic and full of feeling. In the
middle of it a woman rushed up to the Prince and thrust
an autograph book at him. 'Won't you please sign your
name in this for me, sir?' she gushed. Prince Edward
stared at her for a few seconds, then he spoke: 'No, I will
not sign your book/ "

In the less exciting fields of scholarship Prince Edward
was not brilliant. The Dons sometimes grumbled with
disappointment because their royal pitpil did not eat up
the intellectual meal which they had prepared for him*
He seemed to be devoted to the present and the future
and to be lacking in veneration for the past. He did not
sit back in a deep chair to listen to the lordly language in
which they told him the story of his inheritance. He
usually sat on the edge of the chair, anxious to escape and
make his own history. He was not unlike his grandfather
in this impatience with the past. When King Edward
was faced with the antiquities of Egypt, he "treated the

OXFORD

pillars and sculptures with well-bred courtesy/' and Dean
Stanley, who was with him, was so depressed over his
failure as a tutor that he wrote: "I cannot bring myself
to pour out words into unwilling or indifferent ears/'
Gladstone also complained that King Edward VII knew
"everything except what is written in books." The Presi-
dent of Magdalen made a similar comment on Prince Ed-
ward when his time at Oxford was ended. "Bookish he
will never be/' wrote the President, who had planned the
Prince's curriculum. He was not to learn through lec-
tures or the printed word. He belonged to the generation
which was destined to bear the burden of the Great War.
It was well, no doubt, that he turned to human nature
and contacts with his neighbours rather than to books
for his lessons. He did not accept the example and views
of his elders with blind obedience, nor did he willingly
inherit their prejudices. He began to frame his own
philosophy, through experience.

The President of Magdalen said that the Prince would
never be a "British Solomon/' but he wisely added that
this was "not to be desired." "The Prince of Wales will
not want for power of ready and forcible presentation/'
he said. "All the time he was learning more and more
every day of men, gauging character, watching its play,
getting to know what Englishmen are like, both indi-
vidually and still more in the mass."

Thus armed, the Prince of Wales came down from
Oxford and prepared to face the world.

CHAPTER V

GERMANY

, . . there was never a rumour

Of asking Hohenzollerns for a sense

Of humour.

SIR OWEN SEAMAN

CHAPTER V

GERMANY

IN THE SPRING OF igig THE PRINCE OF

Wales went to Germany. The links between the two
countries were already weakened. Every now and then
there was feverish talk of war, but the generation which
governed and prospered in England in 1913 was slack
and confident, and when the Emperor spoke of his "shin-
ing armour/' and when he paraded the finest army in
Europe and boasted of the second navy of the world,
Britons warmed themselves at the fire of their own smug-
ness and accepted the reassurances of the pacifist press.
King Edward VII had never been hoodwinked over the
ambitions of the Prussians, nor had he been gentle in
telling the Kaiser what he thought of the boasts of Ger-
many. When King George was about to visit Berlin as a
young man, King Edward had written to the Kaiser: "In
sending my son to Berlin ... I intended it as a personal
mark of my affection and friendship towards you, but
after reading the violent accusations which have been
made in the Reichstag against England I think it might
be better for him not to go where he is liable to be in-
sulted."

A lull came to the anger and suspicions between the
two countries in the spring of 1913, and the journey
made by the Prince of Wales could not have been more
gay and friendly. The choice of his tutors was once more
fortunate. Major Cadogan went with him, to represent
the best characteristics of an English soldier. Major Cado-
gan was also more dependent upon experience than

KING EDWARD Fill

books for his learning, and no better guide could have
been chosen. Professor Fiedler had been appointed Ger-
man tutor to the Prince. He was a scholar who had not
grown less human in the process of learning. The Prince
once described him as "a jolly old chap/' but he was more
than this. He soon became so fond of his pupil that he
was able to show him the most gracious and cultivated
side of German life, without the fierce glare of Prussian
enlightenment. More and more as these years of adoles-
cence passed, the heir to the throne made one hope that
unselfishness was to be one of the chief traits in his char-
acter. His deference for his tutors was almost embar-
rassing. The best beds were for them because they were
older; the comfortable chairs and the least draughty cor-
ners. This consideration was one of his chief characteris-
tics until the strange changes which came before his abdi-
cation, when he seemed to turn against his own kindly
instincts.

The joy of this German holiday is best understood
while looking over a book of snapshots which the Prince
made while he was abroad. There are photographs of him
on the edge of pine forests, on the terraces of grand Ger-
man castles and standing on parade grounds. One sees
him in a white peaked cap at Friedrichshafen and walk*
ing with Count Zeppelin. This was a great year in the
conquest of the air. Pegoud had 'looped the loop/' and
Lord Fisher had appealed to Mr, Churchill: "For God's
sake trample on and stamp out protected Cruisers and
hurry up Aviation." The Prince was already excited by
the prospect of flying, and he watched the experiments
in Germany and talked to Count Zeppelin with delight*
He went to Stuttgart and stayed with two of the most
charming of his cousins in Germany, the King and Queen
of Wiirttemberg. They closed their eyes and their hearts
to the plans of the Prussians, and there was no hint of

GERMANY

"shining armour" in their hospitality. But the peaceful
scenes o their palace were no more than an interlude.
The Prince saw also a river of helmets shining in the sun
during a field day at Stuttgart; he saw infantry sweeping
across the ground and a squadron of aircraft resting on
the snow.

Perhaps the horrible portent of these scenes escaped
him. When he went to Germany again in the summer he
photographed old women dozing over their baskets in the
market-place at Nuremberg, and laughing flower-girls be-
neath their umbrellas. His camera was always busy, catch-
ing his cousins at work and at play. Sometimes they stood
in starched groups, conscious of their uniforms. But there
were the older ones, who were not restless with ambition.
There were his "Aunt Augusta" in her bath chair, his
"Uncle Adolphus" at Neu-Strelitz, and his "Auntie Elie"
in a stiff silk dress of her time. He shot wild boar in the
park and he drove one of his aunts in an automobile. The
most picturesque part of his journey was when he came
to Thuringia, his great-grandfather's country. He went
to the palace from which the old Duchess had waved her
handkerchief to Prince Albert in the winter of 1839, cry-
ing, "Albert, Albert/' as he drove away to be married in
England. Every acre of this lovely country was steeped
in the history of the Prince's family. He flew into the sil-
ver air over Gotha, to look down upon the forests in
which his great-grandfather had shot, and over the dusty
Thuringian roads, with their borders of apple-trees. It
was the old, cultivated life of Germany which embraced
him during these visits to country places; the sweet and
gentle life which was slowly withering away under the
heat of Prussia's pride.

The Prince dined in Berlin with the Emperor before
he returned to England. His grandiose cousin was im-
pressed. When the dinner was over, the Emperor said

53

KING EDWARD VIII

of his guest: "A most charming, unassuming young man
such as one would expect from such a family but a
young eagle, likely to play a big part in European affairs
because he is far from being a pacifist/ 1

As he grew older the Prince's energy increased. In
route marches with the O.T.G. he smiled when others
were limp. At Oxford he ran to his lectures, and in the
ballroom he was always the last dancer to leave the floor.
During his visit to Germany in 1913 two officers were
delegated to guide him for part of his holiday. They were
motoring one day when the Prince became restless. He
asked the driver to stop the car. He felt stiff, he said, and
he wished to walk home* One of the German officers
meekly explained that fifteen miles lay between them and
"home."

"Never mind, I can manage that distance all right/' he
answered.

The officers had to follow, in the cause of good man-
ners, but only one of them faltered at the Prince's side at
the end.

One more story comes from Mr. David Williamson,
writing of the Prince's holiday in Norway* "His tireless-
ness in ski-ing was most noticeable. He went long expedi-
tions at Fjnse day after day, and the distances he covered
were far greater than the average man cares to go- On
one occasion two well-known army skiers went for a trip.
About two hours after their departure the Prince fol-
lowed, and met the officers returning. They lunched to-
gether on the contents of their haversacks, and then the
return journey began. The Prince and his friends soon
eclipsed the officers, ski-ing at great speed, and he had
been busy answering letters for some time before the
arrival of the other members of the party/'

CHAPTER VI

THE WAR

* , . a new mistress now I chase,
The first foe in the field;

And with a stronger -faith embrace
A sword, a horse, a shield.

RICHARD LOVELACE

CHAPTER VI

THE WAR

A WARM DAY OF JUNE, 1914, A HOT

and dusty khaki-clad youth/' gripping his rifle, went up
to a civilian who was standing on the All Arms Bridge
which spans the Basingstoke Canal at North Camp. He
frowned at the landscape before him. Then he smiled at
the stranger and asked him which of the several spurs
before him was Furze Hill. A reporter from the Daily
Chronicle was standing near by, and he wrote the story.
The scene was Aldershot, and the O.T.C. were in train-
ing. A ''battle" had been arranged between Cambridge
and Oxford, and the Prince of Wales was in charge of
the scouts of his corps. "The civilian unceremoniously
gripped the youth by the sleeve of his jacket and swung
him round to follow the direction of his outstretched
finger. He was ignorant of the fact that he was holding
the Prince of Wales, who, as a lance-corporal, was in
charge of the scouts of the Oxford University Battalion of
the Officers' Training Corps.

"They were seeking to get into touch with a hostile
force of the Cambridge University Corps on the Fox
Hills. The Cambridge force had heard of the march of
the Oxford men and had prepared a trap for them, the
object being to 'annihilate* the Oxford men as soon as
the decoys on Tunnel Hill had brought them into the
trap. Thanks to the skill of their scouts, led by the Prince
of Wales, the Oxford force were able to turn the tables
on their opponents. At the foot of the Fox Hills the Ox-
ford scouts got into touch with the Cambridge Cyclist

57

KING EDWARD Vlll

Corps. . . . The information was promptly conveyed to
Colonel Stenning, commanding the Oxford force, and he
kept clear of the trap/'

The Prince's first training as a soldier was as simple as
his life as a young sailor had been. He did all the dis-
agreeable duties as well as the pleasant ones. His sensibili-
ties were not spared the experience of an issue tin wash-
basin and a bell tent, which he shared with five other
cadets. Nor was his digestion spared the strain of army
rations.

In no sense was the Prince nursed through his training,
and he displayed his eagerness when he said to the mus-
ketry instructor one day, when he had been asked to
name the parts of a rifle bolt: "I'm hanged if I remem-
ber, but I'll soon learn."

The problems of the Prince's education increased, for
King George realised, perhaps too seriously, that the
training of his heir was one of the most frightening o his
responsibilities. As a father, King Edward VII was always
careful that there should be "no noise or fuss of direc-
tions" in training his sons. King George viewed his duty
as a father more sternly than this, and his affectionate
care of his son was mingled with watchfulness and the
unbending code of duty which guided his own life.

The Prince of Wales had been a sailor for a little time
so that he might know the ways of the sea. He was modest
as to the amount of learning he had gathered in the Navy-
"I hold the very high rank of Admiral/' he said some
years afterwards, "but I would never advise anyone to
sail in a ship in which I had charge of the navigation/*
Now he was being trained as a soldier, with the help of
enough learning from the Dons to allow him to take his
place in intelligent society. He was an Englishman, with
an Englishman's sober devotion to sport. Yet he was to be
a cosmopolitan, with the grace and language to carry him

58

THE WAR

into favour with foreign Courts. He had to mind the dig-
nity with which to walk valiantly among princes and yet
keep the free unself-consciousness with which to attract
the affection of his people.

The plans for the Prince's training were shattered in
1914, and two months after the "hot and dusty khaki-
clad youth" stood on the bridge over Basingstoke Canal
war was declared between England and Germany. The
dreadful summer passed, and when winter came, London
was used to the melancholy scenes of stretchers arriving
at Victoria, of ambulances, of parks changed into train-
ing-grounds, of darkened houses and the menace of raids
from the air. The Prince of Wales went into training
with the first battalion of the Grenadier Guards, and at
Warley or on the parade ground of Wellington Barracks,
the "hot and dusty khaki-clad youth" was turned into a
soldier. The war grew in magnitude and became more
horrible. The glamour passed and the long monotony
began. The Prince's heart thumped the same battle tunes
as those of his father's people. The pathetic ecstasies and
the new hates of war pressed in about him, and, in com-
mon with the millions, he felt that his duty lay in active
service. He went to Oxford and saw the Belgian soldiers
lying in their cots. He spoke to them in their own lan-
guage, and, with the deepening of his compassion, there
grew also a wish to go to France with his battalion. The
days of training at Warley came to an end; the date of
sailing was fixed. At the last moment the Prince was told
that he would not be allowed to go. It was his second
disappointment, for only a few months before, when he
said that he wished to return to the Navy, the Admiralty
had refused the responsibility of turning any warship into
such a glorious target for the enemy. Lord Kitchener was
working at the War Office at Whitehall. It was his re-
straining hand that kept the Prince back.

59

KING EDWARD VIII

One morning early In October of 1914 the Prince of
Wales, wearing the uniform of a subaltern, hurried up
the vast marble stairs of the War Office and asked if he
could see the Secretary of State for War. He found
Kitchener sitting in the famous oak-panelled room which
looks out into Whitehall and towards the arches beneath
which the Life Guardsmen were mounted upon their
horses. Kitchener and the Prince sat on opposite sides of
the great table, and they called each other "sir," the one
voice calm and strong, the other eager and young.
Kitchener had always been fond of the Prince, and he
had said how striking it was to see "King Edward's most
attractive traits . . . reproduced in the youthful Prince
of Wales." The subaltern pleaded, but Kitchener would
not change his mind.

"What does it matter if I am shot? I have four
brothers/' asked the Prince of Wales.

Kitchener answered: "If I were certain that you would
be shot, I do not know if I should be right to restrain
you. What I cannot permit is the chance, which exists
until we have a settled line, of the enemy securing you as
a prisoner."

Sir George Arthur has told us that Kitchener clung
"tenaciously to the theory that death on the field of battle
can never be matter for lament, but that capturehow-
ever unavoidable spelt triumph for the captor and some
indignity for the captured/' This was the theme of
Kitchener's argument, and the Prince walked out of the
War Office with no more satisfaction than Kitchener's
assurance that he would be allowed to go to France only
when there was a settled line.

The Prince found little sympathy for his cause- Most
of the officers with whom he had trained at Warley were
devoted to him. One of them has said that when the
Prince's shyness had passed he was an influence for hap-

60

THE WAR

piness and a stimulating companion. Their sympathy
with him was silent, and they had not encouraged him
when he moaned over Kitchener's decision. He was alone
in his disappointment, and he turned to an old friend of
his grandfather's, Sir Dighton Probyn, and entreated him
to plead with Kitchener. In the room at Marlborough
House, where the Prince had played with his grandfather
when he was a little boy, he pleaded with his grand-
father's friend. Sir Dighton said afterwards that tears
came into the Prince's eyes as he begged to be allowed
to go to France.

A month passed and the Prince went to Kitchener
again. The Field-Marshal was still certain of his decision,
and he only repeated his promise that when there was a
stable line the Prince would be allowed to join his bat-
talion in France. A few days afterwards Kitchener was
able to keep his word. Within forty-eight hours after the
first battle of Ypres he made arrangements for the Prince
to sail. The Prince hurried off to Marlborough House
with the good news. Sir Dighton Probyn described the
scene in a letter to Sir George Arthur. "I saw the dear
. . . Prince of Wales yesterday. He came to wish me
good-bye and it really was delightful to see the change
that had come over him since he had last been in this
room. On the last occasion he really cried with sorrow
at the idea of 'being disgraced/ and he said he was not
being allowed to go to the war. Yesterday his face beamed
with joy. Do let Lord Kitchener know this."

At half-past twelve on the morning of November i
the young soldier leapt up the stairs of the War Office two
at a time to say good-bye to Kitchener before he left for
France.

CHAPTER VII

A SOLDIER IN FRANCE

Their deed, from age to age,
Shall voice and verse engage,
Swelling the splendid page
Of England's story.

ALFRED AUSTIN

CHAPTER VII

A SOLDIER IN FRANCE

JLHE FAMILY TIES AND ASSOCIATIONS BE-

tween the Prince o Wales and the countries of Europe
were slight. The Empress Frederick was dead, and there
was little sympathy between the English Court and her
son. The family links with Bulgaria had been severed,
and the strange case of the Russian Royal Family, living
apart from their subjects, had little in it to appeal to
English thought. An English princess had once attended
a reception while she was visiting Russia, and as she was
standing near to the door, she had seen a servant hurry
in to tell a Grand Duchess that her coachman had been
frozen to death while waiting on the box of her carriage.
All that she had said was: "But how am I to go home?"
When this story was brought back to England it served
only to emphasise the gulf which existed between the
English Court and survivals of eighteenth-century mon-
archy in Europe. The phrase The English Royal Fam-
ily had now come into fulness of meaning. In the old
days of Queen Victoria's diplomacy there had been
many relationships with Europe to be considered because
of marriage or tradition. These had passed by 1914, and
when war was declared, the people had no need to look
anxiously towards Buckingham Palace, wondering which
way sympathy might stray. The King and his family were
the sponsors of Britain's causes and they were the shrine
of Britain's loyalty. Theirs was almost the only solid
power among the shifting tides of government and opin-
ion during the war. Statesmen rose and fell and generals

65

KING EDWARD VIII

were changed, but the influence of the King was perma-
nent. There was no cleavage of feeling and loyalty in the
Prince of Wales when he crossed to join his regiment in
France. Nothing mattered to him but his own adventure
and the valour of his father's people.

Up to this time King George had not suffered anxiety
from having a member of his family in danger from the
enemy. Now he became one of the anxious parents in a
country at war. His son went to France under the per-
sonal direction of Lord Cavan, and all the King said to
him was: "I want you to look after him." Lord Gavan's
task was not easy, for the Prince threw himself into his
new life with so much energy that those who watched
him were continually alarmed. As early as February the
officers of his regiment used to say; "A bad shelling will
always produce the Prince of Wales or Llewellyn Jones/'
Jones was a raw-boned Welsh chaplain who had met the
Prince on the road one day outside Armcnti&res. Llew-
ellyn Jones was walking when the Prince stopped his
car and "gave him a lift" Jones did not know until after-
wards that his friend was the Prince of Wales. Sometimes
the Prince's energy ran away with his discretion and he
caused unnecessary anxiety to those in command Sir
Charles Monro has written of a morning when he was
told, rather early, that the Prince was missing. He had
left for the front trenches with his old company of Grena-
diers without orders. The General asked, for his car and
followed. "When he came abreast of the company he
beckoned to the Prince, who somewhat reluctantly came
to the side of the car/*

The Prince mumbled as he came near to the General
"I heard what you said, Prince/' said Sir Charles-** Here
is that damned old General after me again!* Jump into
the car, or you will spoil my appetite for breakfast/ 1

The Prince's inherited energy made him impatient,

66

A SOLDIER IN FRANCE

He had arrived in France before the dulness of war had
set in. The peasants were still "stripping their gardens
to pelt our soldiers with flowers as they passed/' and the
Tommies were still giving away their badges and buttons
as souvenirs, so that they had to tie their clothes on with
string. The Prince hurried away from these zones of pic-
turesque safety. It would not be right to insist too much
upon his courage, for he did what was expected of him.
But in the light of his later relationship with his people,
before his abdication, it is important that we should note
how closely he tried to identify himself with the condi-
tions of battle, A private wrote of him: "He is among the
keenest and hardest soldiers/' One day he was in a house
which was "rocking and shaking all night under the con-
stant detonation of bombardment/' It is in these letters
of soldiers to their relatives that one finds the simple pic-
tures of his life in France. "The Prince is always in the
thick of it/' wrote a private in the Coldstream. "Only
last night he passed me when the German shells were
coming over. ... I hope, please God, he will come
home safe and sound without a scratch." One day the
Prince brought a German officer down in his car. When
the prisoner was handed over an Irishman wrote: "Never
saw anyone look so well as the Prince of Wales. He is sim-
ply full of vim and has a real weather-beaten look, and is
as wiry as a cat/' In brief, the Prince was "a handful" to
those who were responsible for him, and they often be-
came impatient with his impetuousness. He would not
accept authority blindly, and his revolt against the dis-
cretion o the old was significant. He belonged to the new
generation which was to stand strangely alone when the
war was over: independent and inclined to resent all
fetters.

The Prince would walk six miles alone, before break-
fast, as if the demands of the day were not enough for him.

KING EDWARD VIII

One day Sir Philip Gibbs forced his way through some
brushwood on a slope to reach the crest of a hillock. He
saw two Generals and several staff officers on the hillside.
Two other figures climbed the slope and joined them.
One of them arrested his attention. "Who was that young
officer, a mere boy, who came toiling up through the
slime and mud, and who at the crest halted and gave a
quick salute to the two Generals? He turned, and I saw
that it was Edward Prince of Wales; and through the
afternoon, when I glanced at him now and again as he
studied his map and gazed across the fields, I thought of
another Edward Prince of Wales, who, six centuries ago,
stood on another field of France/'

The Prince's service was scattered over many areas. In
January of 1915 he was A.D.C. to Sir John French at
St. Omer, and in February and March he was attached
to the Second Division, under General Home, at
Bethune, In April and May he went to the First Corps,
and then, after brief leave in England, he went back to
the Guards Division.

In April of 1915 the Prince came back to England for
a few days to carry a despatch from Lord French to Lord
Kitchener. "I am sending another despatch by the Prince
of Wales," wrote Lord French, "May I appear at your
breakfast-table at 8.30 a.m. on Wednesday, the i^th? I
can get over late on Tuesday. I am telling the Prince of
Wales to tell the King I can go to see him on Wednesday
if he wishes to see me, but I have asked him to tell no
one that I am coming, and I am sure you will also keep
my secret, I don't want the P.M. or Winston or anyone
but you and the King to know I am in London. I will
bring maps and copious notes and tell you everything,
but I don't want to have anything in writing, I am in
strong hopes of a great advance. I hope you agree in all
this, A wire in answer will do; put 'Yes' or 'No. 1 "

68

A SOLDIER IN FRANCE

On the evening of his arrival in London with the des-
patch, the Prince dined with Lord Kitchener at St.
James's Palace. The little party was robbed of any official
air by abandoning uniforms in favour o dinner jackets,
and it is an interesting reflection on the sturdy discipline
of Kitchener that he served no wine to his guests. The
King had banned alcohol at Buckingham Palace for the
duration of the war, although this total abstinence was
against the advice of his doctors. Kitchener likewise dis-
missed wine and spirits from his table in York House,
and from 1915 until the day of his death, the rule was
not broken.

Kitchener was very happy to see the change in the
young subaltern, the increased poise and self-confidence.
He said afterwards that he felt that he had given the
Prince the first big adventure in his life. This time
Kitchener played the role of listener, and he encouraged
his guest to tell a host of stories of his months in France.
The Prince went to Windsor when the dinner was over,
to see his father, and a few days afterwards he returned
to France.

Although the Prince enjoyed the society of the great
people during his service in France, his youthfulness and
his love of company often guided him away into the less
grand company of junior officers and men. One persist-
ently traces his grandfather 's character and tastes in him:
the wish to know everybody, the natural taste for cos-
mopolitan society and the impatience in the presence of
pompous or magnificent people! Already he seemed to
turn away from conventional society, as if it bored him.
One day he went to the Hdtel du Grand Cerf, which had
been spared when the Rue de la Republique was bom-
barded. It happened that M. Marcel Laurent, the French
novelist, saw him and wrote a pleasant account of the
scene.

69

KING EDWARD VIII

"In the common dining-room" Marcel Laurent found
a party of British officers at luncheon. He wondered if
they were really officers, for their khaki uniforms showed
no distinguishing marks. "They are conversing in low
tones, ancl do not break off in their talk at the appearance
of a soldier who, pipe in mouth, advances towards them
and stands listening to them, He, too, is distinguished by
no ribbon, no officer's stripes, no badge, no insignia. He
is not tall, very slender; he would even appear a little
frail if his firm carriage did not undeceive one. The peak
of his cap drawn low over his forehead, a crook-handled
walking-stick hanging from his arm, his wrists protected
by warm woollen mittens, he pleases by his graceful
bearing,

"Is he a junior officer, this young man, eighteen at the
most, blue-eyed, fresh-cheeked, clear-complexioncd? One
guesses him to be a recruit of the previous day, but where
will one meet a more youthful voluntary recruit?

"He goes away for an instant, he inspects a large grey
automobile which is standing before the door, and he
returns, still standing, talking and laughing, with his
companions. Someone says: 'No, it is not a party of Brit-
ish officers, or this soldier would speak to them at a
greater distance/

"However, the meal over and the bill settled, the trav-
ellers get their things together, betake themselves to the
car, consult a map slipped behind a sheet of glass, and
take their places. The young soldier of eighteen jumps in
and takes the wheel; then, as the motor drones and moves
off, the hotel proprietor, knowing something of the se-
crets of gods and kings, certain of no longer committing
an indiscretion in raising an august incognito, points to
the unassuming fair young man who, pipe in mouth, is
driving the grey automobile; "His Royal Highness the
Prince' of Wales/*'

70

A SOLDIER IN FRANCE

Early in 1916 the Prince went into training with the
first battalion of the Grenadier Guards at Calais. But he
was impatient with training, and news from Egypt made
him wish to go farther afield and see the campaign in the
Near East, The King was anxious when the plan was
suggested to him, because the submarines added an awful
danger to ships crossing the Mediterranean. Again it was
Lord Kitchener who sponsored the Prince and encour-
aged the King to allow him to go. The secrecy in which
he made the journey is a tribute to the silent service, for
even the destroyers Acorn and Sheldrake, which escorted
the light cruiser in which he crossed from Marseilles to
Alexandria, were not aware that they were guarding him.
The officers of the escort were surprised when, in the
safety of Alexandria Harbour, the Prince signalled them
his thanks.

The Prince met Australian and New Zealand soldiers
for the first time in Egypt. Their vitality and frankness
were the first influences which came to him from the far-
away countries of the Empire. After he had bathed with
them in the Canal, near to Ismailia, eaten with them and
shared their jokes, he was a Little Englander no longer.
A new interest came into his life, and he wished to under-
stand the life of the new countries. A fresh theme had
begun for him, and it was to grow in strength and equip
him for the mission which was given to him after the war,
when he became his father's greatest ambassador among
the people of the Dominions.

There was business for the Prince while in Egypt. He
was entrusted with the drawing up and writing of a re-
port on the Suez Canal defences. He went as far as Khar-
toum, and then he set out on his journey home again,
with the long report, written in his own hand.

As the days in Egypt passed, those who were with the
Prince saw a change in his manner. His journey away

7*

KING EDWARD VIII

from England and the affairs of Europe no doubt gave
him the perspective he had always lacked, and the result
of this was increased confidence iu himself. The historical
monuments and ancient appeal of Egypt did not draw
him into the past. It was already apparent that his heart
and mind were with his own century. One is reminded
of the journey which King Edward VII made over the
same country in 1862, and the likeness between grand-
father and grandson is sharpened when we turn back to
Dean Stanley's letters, in which he recorded his failure
to interest Prince Albert Edward in the "tumble-down
old temples/' The scene in Jerusalem also might have
had the Prince Edward of this century as its central figure
instead of his grandfather. Dean Stanley wrote of the eve-
ning when Prince Albert Edward went to his tent to ask
for the names of all the places he had seen so that he
could write them clown in his Journal: "The Prince
paused at the door of the tent as he was leaving, and,
turning to Dean Stanley, he said, in his most engaging
manner: Ton see that I am trying to do what I can to
carry out what you said in your sermon . . . Gather up
the fragments/ "

The wish of the twentieth-century Prince was much
the same. It was through his sense of duty that he tried
to learn, but he expressed his real feeling for the past
when he hit a golf ball from the summit of one of the
Pyramids. The voices of his own time were more stimu-
lating and important to him than the voices of the dead
centuries. He was spurred to interest in the building of a
new empire, through meeting Australians and New Zea-
landers on the banks of the Canal, but the memorials of
old empires were one with the dust into which they were
crumbling.

CHAPTER VIII

WAR ON ITALIAN FRONT

Happy is England! I could be content
To see no other verdure than its own;
. . . Yet do I sometimes feel a languishment
For skies Italian, and an inward groan
To sit upon an Alp as on a throne.

KEATS

CHAPTER VIII

WAR ON ITALIAN FRONT

i HE PRINCE WAS REFRESHED BY NEW IN-

terests when he sailed away from Egypt. He had enjoyed
his brief experience of the raw-boned Australians, and
through their physical bravado and their frankness they
had given him his first lesson in the colonial point of
view. He has never turned from candour when it was
within the bounds of good manners, and he liked the
people of the new country, who dealt in neither compli-
ments nor idle words. He was bored by the report which
he had to prepare on the Suez Canal, feeling that the
mission was invented to give him a reason for going to
the Near East. But the time in Egypt had not been
wasted; he had seen a new country and he had met new
men; his horizon was now widened, and from this time
he talked of Australia with growing interest. When he
arrived in Egypt he had seemed tired and disgruntled,
but he left for Italy in May with his old spirit alive once
more. This was well, for he was on the edge of an interest-
ing adventure.

The King of Italy sent the royal train to carry the
Prince from Spezia to Udine, then the Italian Headquar-
ters. They were to be together for four days, on the
Austro-Italian front. The simplicity of their meeting and
the frankness which soon made them talk like father and
son prompts one to turn back to the story of two of the
Prince's ancestors who were received in Rome in vastly
different circumstances. At the same age as his great-
grandson, who was now travelling towards Udine in his

75

KING EDWARD VIII

drab khaki uniform, the Prince Consort had been to
Rome and he had sat with the Pope, talking sedately of
Etruscan art. King Edward VII had also visited Rome
when he was young. King Victor Emmanuel had been
at Windsor a little time before, and he had shown Queen
Victoria a photograph of his royal children, with the
exclamation: "Ah, this is nothing; you should see my
other family/' She was so alarmed that she wondered
whether it was wise for her impressionable son to go to
Rome at all He left for Italy with many cautions, and,
taking no chances, Queen Victoria instructed Colonel
Bruce to be at hand even when her son went to see the
Pope, "God knows" what they might pretend had been
said by the Prince if Colonel Bruce were not present as a
witness.

Neither Etruscan art nor Queen Victoria's fear of the
"purple papal people" disturbed the pleasure of the
meeting between King Emmanuel and the Prince of
Wales in 1915. The friendship between the House of
Windsor and the House of Savoy scorned the doubts of
the 'fifties, and it did not anticipate the rifts of igjjfi. The
Italians still sang "In guerra con tutto il mondo, ma in
pace con 1'Inghil terra" ("With all the world war, but
peace with England").

Only three years before, during the Turko-Italian
War, the King of Italy had abandoned hostilities as the
Medina passed through the Mediterranean on the way to
India with King George and Queen Mary on board. The
official record of the Medina's voyage says: "The next five
days were smoothly spent in crossing waters that were
troubled in another way, for Their Majesties were now
within the zone of war between Italy and Turkey; but it
was remarkable testimony of respect to the British Sov-
ereign that, although the Medina might at any moment
have been within earshot of a seat fight, both belligerents

WAR ON ITALIAN FRONT

agreed that the passage of the King should be completely
peaceful, and they made their dispositions accordingly.
, . The navy . . . did no less honour to the royal
travellers. The mariners' lights along the coast . , . were
all temporarily relighted as Their Majesties passed by."

An eminent British soldier who served with the Italian
forces has described the simple life which King Emman-
uel led with his troops. During all the years of the war he
never left his soldiers except for his annual leave of two
weeks. "The King would receive his visitors in a tiny bed-
roomthe visitor sitting on the only chair, the King on
the end of the camp-bed. Books were his only luxury.
This simple monarch, who collects coins with as much
eagerness as King George collected stamps, brought none
of the paraphernalia of royalty with him to the front.
The stories of his simplicity were always stirring smiles
among the British officers who knew him. Once, when
he had to spend a night in the open, the officer accom-
panying him showed the King a small attache-case and
said that it contained all his luggage. 'I have done better
than that/ said the King, producing a small parcel
wrapped in an old newspaper. He would spend the day in
the trenches, unrecognised, dressed as a private, and hold
councils with his Generals in the evening/*

The Prince was given a small cottage within the war
zone. The unhappy strain which came to the friendship
between Italy and England in 1935 must awaken regret
in us when we look back upon the simple scenes of 1915.
A little time before, Queen Mary had been told of King
Emmanuers daring, and she had charged a British of-
ficer going to Italy to ask him to be more careful. The
King's answer was like the plea of the Prince of Wales to
Lord Kitchener. "The Queen is very kind very kind.
But what does it matter? I am but one link in a chain,
and if I am killed there is somebody younger and more

77

KING EDWARD VIII

able to take my place. But thank the Queen. She is very
kind/'

The same British officer has said of the meeting be-
tween the King and the Prince: "They were all the time
warning each other not to take risks. The King was afraid
of the Prince's daily habit of going too near to the Aus-
trian lines. When the Prince went back to Italy again in
1918 to stay with the King, he broke away from all warn-
ings and control and Hew over the Austrian trenches. The
aircraft were stationed near to the front, and on a hot,
sunny day the Austrian airmen would lly up into the
sun's direct rays and swoop down, with the protecting
light behind them. On such a day the Prince flew off with
Barker, the Canadian airman, and they went over the
Austrian lines. The King was perturbed and almost angry
at the bravado of his guest. But he was equally indiscreet,
and one day he went up to the lines himself and sat down
under a tree to eat his luncheon. A shell exploded and
carried the tree away while the King was resting, after his
meal was ended.

The Prince of Wales came back to England having
made a new friend. The line of Gymbcline rang true for
him. "Let a Roman and a British ensign wave friendly
together/'

In May of 1916 the Prince was attached to the Four-
teenth Corps at Lovie Chateau, again under I x>rd Cavan.
He remained with them during June and July, moving
with them to the battle of the Sommc. The war had now
got into his blood. His experiences on the scattered
fronts had made him wiser, but: they had also bereaved
him. His friend, Major Cadogan, had been killed early
in the war. During the battle of Loos in the autumn of
1915 he had come grimly near to death himself. He ar-
rived at a village and left his chauffeur in the car while
he went up to the lines- When he returned the car was
smashed and the driver was dead at the wheel He was

78

WAR ON ITALIAN FRONT

an old retainer and he had been a servant to the Prince
when he was an undergraduate. The Prince gathered the
man's belongings into his handkerchief and carried them
back to Headquarters.

Through these experiences the will and the knowledge
of the Prince were increasing towards the time when he
was able to say: "In those four years I mixed with men.
In those four years I found my manhood." In this search
he did not become more docile, nor was he more inclined
to accept judgments of his elders without question. He
tried to stand upon his traditions as upon a hill and not
to be engulfed by them. Perhaps he suspected the ances-
tral voices which had prophesied war and was already
listening intently for the voices which were to speak of
peace. His thoughts were his own, but his actions were
enough for us to judge the way these thoughts were
straying. The Emperor of Germany was wrong when he
said that Prince Edward was "far from being a pacifist."
He was not a sentimentalist over man's need for self-
protection, but he did not forget the lesson of his four
years on service. In 1929, when he spoke at the British
Industries Fair, he said that he hoped for a day when,
"if two nations want to fight, there will be some power
which will say, 'Move on!' the same as a London police-
man would say if he found two men fighting in the
street."

The Prince's impatience with his superior officers did
not abate. General Maude said that the Prince was always
"anxious" to be with him when he went to the front
trenches, and another officer who was asked to watch him
sighed with relief when the Prince was transferred.
"Thank Heaven he's going," he said. "This job will turn
my hair grey. ... He insists on tramping in the front
lines." In the history of the Welsh Guards, Major Dudley
Ward writes of an occasion when the Prince "came up to
the line and the guns started to drop shells all around

79

KING EDWARD VIII

him, so that he and General Gathome-Hardy had to
double across to some pill-box.es in the Grenadier lines/*

Two more pictures of the Prince's war service are im-
portant to us in a search after the growth of his character.
A soldier who was present during King George's accident
in 1916 tells one of them. The King was inspecting the
Flying Corps at Hesdinguel Airdrome, and after riding
down the company he turned to inspect a new machine.
Without any warning the men gave three cheers. "The
King's horse, which had up to this time taken no notice
of the cheering, suddenly reared up and slipped back-
wards, falling on the King/'

It was the Prince who stayed with his father during the
awful drive back to the chateau at Airc, anxiously watch-
ing the King's face growing paler and paler. When the
King was safe in bed the Prince hurried back to England
"to report all details to Their Majesties the Queen and
Queen Alexandra." The same oflicer has said that "the
older staff officers and officials who were at Aire were
greatly impressed by the way the Prince grappled with
the situation, anxious but excited, efficient although he
was deeply sympathetic/' The other story is of his com-
passion. One day he went to a hospital, where he was al-
lowed to see only the more happy and presentable pa-
tients. He knew there were others, and he asked to see
them. These were men in another ward who had been
deformed by their wounds. He spoke to them, and when
he came to the end of the ward he was asked not to go
into the next room, where there was a man misshapen
beyond recognition. The Prince insisted. He went into
the room and found a man, horribly torn, lying upon the
bed. He leaned over the bed and touched the soldier's
cheek with his lips.

When the war passed the Prince of Wales was one of
the few of our leaders who did not turn from its ugliness.

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WAR ON ITALIAN FRONT

His care for the wounded was a passion with him, when
it had become little more than an expensive duty to
others.

One service which has grown out of the Prince's ex-
periences in France is the Toe H movement. The story
of the birth of Toe H is well known. Talbot House,
named after the Prince's Oxford friend, was first opened
in December of 1915. It was in Poperinghe, and the
Guards Division came to the salient in the spring of
1916. The Prince had been withdrawn from his own
regiment, and he was now with the i4h (Lord Cavan's)
Corps Headquarters. In April he went to Talbot House
for the first time, and after this he visited Mr. (Tubby)
Clayton many times and became interested in the work
he was doing. Mr. Clayton has said to the author: "The
Prince's natural shyness and reserve no longer impeded
him. He had in 1916 won a place of his own in the esteem
of all ranks in or near the line; he knew what he could
do, and did it with a cheerful tact and most unfailing
energy. He learned to love the wayside conversations, and
he found men most refreshing. To him a pair of shou-
ders in a tavern, a laden figure picking its way up a duck-
board track, a man upon a road or a soldier writing
home meant someone to be talked to as he passed. And
what he said was never strained or formal. This was the
beginning of his development as a conversationalist, and
now I think he is the most accomplished conversationalist
in the world. Think of the hundreds of people to whom
he speaks, people with strong prejudices. They may be
social, political, intellectual or racial prejudices. A phrase
askew in the Prince's conversation would be a disaster; a
friend of England lost and perhaps an enemy created.
And yet, with this art which makes it possible for him to
talk to almost anybody on the subject which interests
them, he is never merely "All things to all men/

81

KING EDWARD VIII

"It is not generally fluidity which makes his talk so
versatile. It is because of his undhnmed, never-wearying
attempt to find out facts, which he sorts discerningly and
puts in his astonishing memory. From this store the facts
have an odd habit of popping out at the right moment,
months or even years later. All sorts of conditions of men
thus become attached to the Prince with a kind of loyalty
and appreciation which is essentially personal and has
nothing to do with his unique position/*

The purpose of Toe H in peace time is to conquer
hate. This aim appealed to the Prince, and when Mr.
Clayton remodelled Toe H to suit the needs of the young,
after the war, the Prince gave his name and his support
to the plans. In 1919 Toe H was poor and its future was
dim and uncertain. But it was doing work which no other
society attempted. The war was ruthless in combing out
the ardent and sincere social workers from the sentimen-
tal bunglers, and the Prince soon became aware of Mr.
Clayton's disciplined sincerity. He said that the Scout
movement gave a stimulus to the life of the very young
and that the War Associations guarded the old soldiers.
In between, Toe H found a new field of influence. Mr.
Clayton has told the rest of the story, "The Prince has
led the building of Toe H, and he guided it in many
overseas developments. He has visited houses of Toe H
in every part of London, in Birmingham, Manchester,
Sheffield, Newcastle, Halifax, Hull, Southampton and as
far off as Buenos Aires. On his way back from Melton he
has twice turned aside for a friendly glimpse of the house
at Leicester. He has lit every lamp from his own, and
never missed a chance of showing kindness to great or
tiny meetings/"

The Prince's unusual fervour over the work of Toe H
touches one of the mainsprings in his nature. "All prob-
lems at bottom are human problems/' he once said. I4 1
have often called upon Toe II to serve. I call upon it now

WAR ON ITALIAN FRONT

to serve with its mind as well as with its hand. Under-
standing comes not from the heart only, but from the
head."

As far as is humanly possible, Toe H aims at the death
of prejudice and the fostering of opinion. The Prince's
enthusiasm over this law of living, which was revealed to
him in France, caused him to nurse Toe H from the day
when it was a struggling thing, with no money in the
bank, to its present power, spread over the world.

The war ended, and the Prince came back to England.
Four years before the King had allowed a young man to
face the hazards of war, much against his will. Now a man
came back in place of the boy: a man who was to be iden-
tified with all the strange changes born of peace. The war
created a wide gap between the generations, and it was
exemplified in the differences of character in King
George and his son. Fathers who belonged to the old gen-
eration and sons who had been through the anxiety and
unsettling experience of France lived in different worlds,
and many soldiers returned from the war to find that
they were uncomfortable living among people who did
not understand them. Even when heroics faded and the
mundane affairs of living came into order once more, the
difference persisted.

From the time of his return to England the Prince of
Wales chose an independent way. It led him far from the
traditions of his father's Court. He resented the old or-
der, and conventional society did not amuse him. Like
his grandfather, he found pleasure in a small coterie of
friends, chosen for their amusing qualities rather than
for their position or their intellectual gifts.

In time, the dwindling ranks of society resented the
originality of his choice of friends. He seldom went to
stay in great country houses, where he might have met
and known his contemporaries, and, as independence in-
creased, he was almost stubborn in his habit of turning

83

KING EDWARD VIII

his back upon the conventions of polite society. The

Prince was not alone in this reaction. In the restless years
after the war, when the Hie of restaurants swelled and the
old-fashioned notions of home life were neglected, the
young of every class liked to boast of their independence
and to fly in the face of convention. It was not consoling
to be told that this was an inevitable state after war. It
did not make King George's problem as a father any less
menacing, nor could it console him or any other parent
in the land for the fact that the young were lost to the
old as no generation had been before.

If the Prince of Wales disappointed his father and
those ranks of society which expected their Prince to be
their leader, there was another field in which the heir to
the throne performed unique service. His judgment
sometimes erred, but his compassion brought the poor
close to his heart. The final battle of his life as King was
to be between his heart and his judgment, and it was to
be his judgment that failed. But it should be remem-
bered by those historians who come to our problems ia
later years that King Edward's final renunciation of his
crown must be judged in the light of the years when he
lived a restless,, tmccrtain life: a life which gave him little
chance of developing those serene qualities of mind
which might have guided him into higher spheres of
moral conquest when the hour of his temptation came,

If King Edward failed in the high offices forced upon
him as a sovereign, he did not fail as Prince of Wales.
The pain and humiliation of his exile must always be
remembered as the tragic end of a great mission among
the poor people of his father's kingdom. II is compassion
guided him to nobleness among them, and that compas-
sion was already strong in him when he returned to Eng-
land in 1918 and began to identify himself with the stark
and uncertain life of a people who were trying to re-
cover from the disaster of the war.

CHAPTER IX

THE END OF THE WAR

. . . and horror

Drifted away . . . O but everyone
Was a bird; and the song was wordless; the
singing will never be done.

SIEGFRIED SASSOON

CHAPTER IX

THE END OF THE WAR

ALTHOUGH THE AREA OF QUEEN VICTORIA'S
Empire was almost doubled during her reign, it was to
Europe that she looked for her interests rather than to
the new countries of the south. Her Ministers inclined to
view colonial problems as a nuisance, and as late as 19025
there were complaints from the permanent officials in
Whitehall, who were "a goqd deal bored . . . with Co-
lonial Premiers in general and Mr. Seddon * in particu-
lar/' Queen Victoria had allowed her eldest son to open
a bridge across the St. Lawrence in 1860, and in the same
year Prince Alfred had laid the foundation-stone of a new
breakwater in Cape Town. Her effigy had been made in
snow by her loyal subjects in the west of Canada, and the
main streets of colonial towns had been named after her.
But Queen Victoria's thoughts and affections were too
closely tied to Europe for her to comprehend the prob-
lems of her own Empire. King Edward, who was the first
sovereign to use the title of King "of the British Domin-
ions beyond the Seas/' broke down some of these prej-
udices when he came to the throne. But it was not until
his son, Prince George, toured the world that an English
prince was able to understand the aims of the Dominions
and Colonies. King George's final command over the
hearts and fidelity of his people in the Dominions had a
tangible beginning. Perhaps he guessed at the survival
of Englishness in the countries at the bottom of the world
when, on going down to his first breakfast in Australia,

* Premier of New Zealand.

87

KING EDWARD VIII

he found a wreath of roses around his plate, placed there,
his hostess told him, "for Sunday morning and in mem-
ory of England." His journeys as a cadet allowed him to
gain at least a hint of the colonial point of view. When he
returned to England after his second tour of the Empire,
he revealed the convictions which had come to him in the
speech which he made at the Guildhall. He had sensed
the perils of widening the gulfs between the parent Eng-
land and her colonial children. "The old country must
wake up," Prince George had said, "if she intends to
maintain her old position/' When he became King; when
the torments of war and the chicanery of diplomats drew
his attention to Europe, he did not forget the lesson of
his journeys to the young countries. His almost inhuman
capacity for storing knowledge was centred in the Em-
pire, no matter how often his Ministers talked of the old
enmities of Europe. The Lieutenant-Governor of West-
ern Australia said * in 1934 that of all the officials he had
met in London, none knew as much of the life and in-
dustry of his part of Australia as King George, The de-
tail and certainty of his Sovereign's knowledge astounded
him.

It fell to Prince Edward of Wales to complete this
bond between Britain and her Dominions, not by appeal-
ing to old sentiments, but through practical interest
which has never weakened since he made his first journey
to Canada after the close oC the last war. Perhaps his
encounter with the Australians in Egypt first made him
realise that the strength of his father's Empire depended
more on friendship with the new countries than by med-
dling with the old feuds of Europe. The theme of in-
terest in the Dominions persisted, and it grew. When
news of the Armistice came to him he was in billets with
the Canadian Corps. The Armistice was to be declared at

* In conversation with the author,

88

THE END OF THE WAR

eleven o'clock next day, and he hurried to Mons and
arrived in the market-place in time to hear the clock
strike the hour: the hour when "horror drifted away/'
He took his place in the scene and he saw the aircraft
flying back to Mons after firing the last shots of the battle.
From this time his Interests were diverted to the positions
controlled by Dominion soldiers. He was attached to the
Australian Corps Headquarters at Ham, and in January
of 1919 he was attached to the New Zealand Division at
Leverkusen. No other soldier had seen the war from as
many angles, but the abiding impression which he
brought back to England was of the part played by the
soldiers of Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zea-
land. He had shared the emotions engendered by the
Armistice with them, and when he returned to London
and made his home In York House it was of the countries
of the Empire that he thought. There was no need for
him to depend upon sentimentality in attaching himself
to what was to become one of the great causes of his life.
He was among the first of the country's leaders to see
that the Empire could be bound together as an economic
unity, Independent of the rest of the world. This great
vision may not have been clear to him in 1918, but he
was already beginning to see it upon the horizon.

While the Prince's Empire journeys were being ar-
ranged he had to become a Londoner again. He was al-
lowed the privilege of his own house and establishment.
He was a man now, with his own public engagements and
his own staff. He slowly imposed his identity upon Eng-
lish people to whom, before the war, he had been merely
the eldest of their Sovereign's sons. Up to 1914 King
George and Queen Mary had guarded their heir from
too much limelight. The sons of kings are in greater dan-
ger of being spoiled by adulation than the sons of other
people, and King George was haunted by the dreadful

89

KING EDWARD VIII

possibilities of allowing Prince David to appear too often
in public when he was a boy. The Prince had driven
through the streets for the Coronations of his grand-
father and his own father, and he had captured the stage
for his investiture at Carnarvon. But for the most part
he had been kept in the shade, and his growing person-
ality had not arrested public attention before 1914. The
first time he emerged from this dimness was when he
appealed for funds in aid of National Relief. He began
his speech in a nervous, hesitating voice. For two or three
minutes it seemed that he would fail, but his sincerity
burned brightly behind his indecision, and he spoke so
fervently towards the end that the women who listened
to him took off their jewels and the men emptied their
pockets in aid of the fund. This was a little beginning
to his popularity*

When the war ended and when the mass of people no
longer had the trenches as a focus for their emotions,
they turned to find new altars. The Prince of Wales soon
became a public hero and a lion. He became also a ro-
mantic figure, like a prince of old. When he paused to help
an old soldier, to be kind to the sick or to aid charitable
objects, he satisfied the public craving for peaceful chiv-
alry, to take the place of the filth and misery of war. The
Prince's photograph was in every house. "God Bless the
Prince of Wales** became a popular anthem, and the
newspapers, fumbling for grand words with which to de-
scribe him, called him Galahad. At first he was not made
dizzy by this praise. He tried to escape from the flattery
and cheers. But no man except one formed through ob-
scurity and disappointment could have withstood the
temptation to vanity when all the world had set out to
make him vain* Although the Prince did all that was
asked of him, his modesty was slowly shaken. Every day
he moved among cheering crowds; every speech made

90

THE END OF THE WAR

before him was a compliment. His slimmest platitude was
printed in big letters in the newspapers. It is little won-
der that he fell into the harmless conceit which after-
wards grew dangerously, so that it destroyed his self-
judgement and made him over-assured; which made him
lose all capacity of knowing the difference between wild
popularity and calm esteem.

Nevertheless the Prince worked hard and he assumed
more and more of the duties which were part of the
penalty of being heir to the throne. King George did not
make the mistake Queen Victoria had made in keeping
the affairs of State back from her son. She thought him
indiscreet, and he had to wait until he was fifty-one years
old before he was allowed to know all that was happening
between his mother and her Ministers. King Edward did
not repeat the error. "Let my son know, but no one else/'
he often said when a document or despatch was placed
before him. As far as was consistent with his prestige and
duty as a constitutional monarch, King George followed
his father's plan, and he slowly admitted his son to more
and more of his confidence.

In his new home within St. James's Palace, the Prince
of Wales built up the structure of his independence. His
will became his own, and he made every attempt to gov-
ern his household according to his own wishes. The man-
hood which he had discovered in France urged him to
make his life according to his own standards. These
standards were distressing to his father and to older prel-
ates and statesmen, but they seemed to be in harmony
with the aims of the mass of younger people. Sick of war
and broken by its miseries, they became merciless with
humbug, suspicious of the guidance of the old, and cyni-
cal about many of the lessons they had learned at their
parents' knee. The disillusioned and independent young
believed in the Prince of Wales, and from this time he

9 1

KING EDWARD VIII

was able to stir the public conscience. On Peace night the
thousands of people who pressed against the railings of
Buckingham Palace were not satisfied with seeing only
their King and Queen. They would not go home until
the Prince came out to speak to them. On that night he
became a Londoner and the Prince of his father's people.
Uncertain of most things, they believed that they were
justified in being certain of him. As much trust in heroes
as was left to them was given to him, with all England's
heart.

CHAPTER X

CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES

I came to a new world in which men lived
topsy-turvy lives. They bathed in the sea at the
hour when Englishmen slept; they spoke always
of the future., whereas Englishmen usually
speak of the past. Btit they were mighty men,
these whose bodies were browned by Colonial
suns and whose thoughts turned to originality
and enterprise.

PHILIP STONE

CHAPTER X

CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES

JM.ANY ENGLISHMEN FAIL TO UNDERSTAND

the people of the Dominions and Colonies. They take the
loyalty of the new countries for granted, but they make
little effort to foster these emotions or even to deserve
them. On the eve of the war there were gaps between
the life and thoughts of Britain and her Dominions. The
early settlers had been bound tightly to England. The
books on their shelves had been English, and the pictures
on the walls of their wooden houses had been landscapes
of Sussex or Cornwall, the Cheddar Gorge or the view
of Westminster across the river. Letters exchanged be*
tween brothers and sisters kept the old loyalties alive.
But when a new generation tilled the colonial earth, they
were merely the cousins of their relatives in England,
and letters were no longer exchanged between them. The
parents of this new generation of Australians and New
Zealanders had understood the jokes in Punch; the
pompous squire, the Cockney wit and the Scottish ghillie
were all tangible to them, but not to their sons. The
younger colonials created their own humour out of the
life about them. They caricatured their own types the
squatter, the aboriginal, the Red Indian and the Maori.
They no longer whistled "John Peel" and "Widde-
combe Fair/' They had their own songs and their own
muscular poets. Their diet changed. Pineapples and
grapes were on the working man's table in Australia.
They put stuffing into mutton and called it colonial
goose. In New Zealand the townspeople ate oysters as

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KING EDWARD VIII

nonchalantly as their forbears had eaten winkles. They
evolved their own slang. All these apparently superficial
changes were important, for gradually it meant that Eng-
land and the new countries no longer spoke the same
language.

By 1914 the gap in habits and interests was wide, and
when the Australian came to England, like a son coming
home to pay his respects to his grandparent, he was not
wholly acceptable to the English. He was shown the
Houses of Parliament and he was allowed to walk on the
lawns of Buckingham Palace. To the subdued Briton, he
seemed to be raw. The Australian was still loyal in his
heart, but he visited England as a healthy child might call
upon a grandfather who was losing his faculties. The
Englishman responded by patronising the "colonial."
When England was a Roman colony, Sallust wrote:
"Poor Britons, there is some good in them after allthey
produce an oyster/' The Englishman had his revenge for
this slight by thinking: "Poor Australians, there is some
good in them after all they produce sheep/'

The war came in time to recapture and strengthen the
English emotions of the Dominions before they died.
Loyalty was strong as ever, but the vision of the Home-
land had become dim. Every fine old tie was strength-
ened when the test of patriotism came. The most distant
New Zealander believed blindly and passionately in the
wickedness of the Emperor and the stupidity of his son.
They were caricatured in the Dominion newspapers and
given tails and tridents. The raping of Belgian women,
the myth of the brutal Hun, and the martyrdom of Edith
Cavell; these were no less horrible when news of them
reached the Antipodes, The troopships passed from the
South to the Northern Hemisphere for destinations un-
known. There were no questions or doubts to mar the
loyalty and the faith. At first the war had been more ro-

CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES

mantic than terrible to the new countries, where neither
hunger nor actual danger was known. It was not until
the hospital ships retraced the way of the troopships that
the first stink of war came to the southern countries.
Many little white hospitals flowered on the green colonial
hills. If there were threats of Socialism and hints of inde-
pendence in Australia in 1914, they had died in 1918.
When the war ended the thoughtful people of the new
countries felt almost as Englishmen again.

Perhaps the Prince of Wales sensed this devotion and
the great opportunity which it brought to England. Then
would have been the moment to talk of Empire Eco-
nomic Unity of the great links of trade and commerce.
But England was bored by the war, in 1918, and she
turned to the old gods of insularity and safety: Instead
of worrying about how she could continue to hold,
through enterprise, the love her colonial sons had given
her during the war, she busied herself about Turkey and
Hungary and Greece. The quarrels of her neighbours
were more interesting than the devotion of her own chil-
dren. The new countries were allowed to slip back into
their old life, and the stories of the gaucherie of Aus-
tralian soldiers in London drawing-rooms were told more
often than the stories of their valour in the trenches.

There were exceptions in this wave of apathy which
came to England in regard to her own Dominions. These
exceptions were mostly young men, free from the old
burrs of prejudice and insularity; none of them was more
zealous and sincere than the Prince of Wales. When the
war was over and he went to live in York House, he was
still unsettled and anxious. He could not find the repose
which was a blessing to the old, who were the custodians
of the past. The Prince did not care about the haggling
of the European Powers over territory and booty. Bigger
issues had been revealed to him since 1914, and it was

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KING EDWARD VIII

largely through his own wish that he began the great ad-
venture and duty of visiting all the countries of his
father's Empire. As far as he could judge then, their aims
were nearer to his own than those of the jealous Powers
of Europe. He chose the way of trade and of peace among
his own people.

There was nothing unreal or aloof about the good-
looking boy who sailed for Canada on August 5, 1919.
The cheerful chronicle of H.M.S. Renown, tells us that
"the Prince of Wales himself" xvas "all that has ever been
said of himvery young-looking, he is nearer seventeen
in appearance than his correct age of twenty-five; he is
almost crazy about exercise. . . . The Atlantic crossing
was quite uneventful, although we did do a little shoot-
ing at an iceberg as we were getting near Newfoundland,
, . , Every day H.R.H. inspected some part of the ship,
and we had some of the officers to lunch or dinner; very
enjoyable, informal meals they were, too, without any
special ceremony. . . . H.R.I I. kept up the old naval
custom of proposing the health of "Sweethearts and
Wives/ - . . The Prince and his staff dined in the ward-
room, and we had a semi-organ isccl "rag' afterwards
quite the leading spirit being ILR.IL, who finished the
evening about; 13.30 a.m. looking very hot and dishev-
elled, rather dirty about the shirt-sleeves and with some-
thing round his neck that might once have been a
collar:'

On August 15 the Duke of Devonshire welcomed him
at St. John's. A little more than two months afterwards
he was back in Montreal, having travelled no less than
10,000 miles by railway, car and steamer, lie visited fifty
towns; he attended hundreds of receptions and made
hundreds of speeches. This was the strain put upon a
young man who knew no world of experience beyond
Osbornc, Oxford and the battlefields. He attended In-

98

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i I '^Mv* - s* *

08 I *** W?' n
Pi^a 1 ^*"'f**%^ *

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CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES

dian pow-wows, cowboy stampedes and dances, and he
won the hearts of everybody in Saskatoon when he
jumped on a broncho's back and remained there, in fierce
conflict, for several minutes. He shook hands with mayors
and he inspected Scouts and veterans. At Banff, the last
frail remnant of the Indian people came and danced
about him. Their chief, Young Thunder, addressed him
in a few picturesque phrases and elected him as the white
chief, Morning Star. "Accept this Indian suit, the best
we have," he said. A headdress of rich and beautiful
feathers was placed on the Prince's head. He smiled at
them and he shook Young Thunder's hand.

Out in the west the Prince found the new prairie towns
which had sprung up so quickly that they seemed unreal
and unsafe. It was summer time when he went there on
the tremendous train which carried him to the feet of
the Rockies. He paused at Calgary, where, soon after-
wards, he was to own a ranch and therefore become a
Canadian. In the years that followed Calgary became in-
nocently vain because the nearness of the Prince of
Wales's ranch turned it into a royal town.

"This is the Prince of Wales's town, you know/' they
used to say. "His ranch is here, sixty miles out. It's his
retiring-place, you know. He loves riding out over the
rolling Alberta hills. He comes here to rest with us when
you English have worked him to a frazzle. He comes right
out here, and he just crawls under a fence if a photog-
rapher happens to find him, and he makes friends with
everyone, and he just buys his big hats in our stores, and
well he's one of us."

In Montreal he addressed the French Canadians: "The
union of the two races in Canada was never a matter of
mere political convenience. . . . The union of England
and Scotland has been in existence for nearly two cen-
turies. . . . Who can doubt that the union in Canada

99

KING EDWARD VIII

will produce as great, as powerful and as united a nation
as the British nation itself. . . /'

At Quebec the Prince came upon the supreme test of
his visit to Canada. One likes to view only the sunny side
of the Empire achievement and forget the griefs and an-
tagonisms which had to be buried after war in both
Canada and Africa. To say that those griefs and antago-
nisms are completely dead would be absurd, for, espe-
cially in Africa, the enemy of yesterday still groans under
the yoke of our rule. In both countries the groans died
away for the Prince's coming. Even the faint resentment
that may have stirred among the old French patriots in
Quebec by the sight of Renown., grey and secure, lying
in the river, was not directed to the Prince. There was
only one harmless note of discord. The Renown Maga-
zine tells us: "'We gave one official reception to the peo-
ple, mostly French, on the Government House list. It was
quite successful as shows of that sort go, and provided us,
at any rate, with one source of amusement. We did not
know, of course, to whom invitations should be sent for
the *At Home/ so the printed cards and envelopes were
sent ashore to the Lieutenant-Governor's French aide-de-
camp, with a request that he should send them out for us;
this he did very readily and efficiently, but subsequently
sent us a bill, not only for the postage, but also for an
item of five dollars for the clerk who addressed the en-
velopes/'

The Prince made a pilgrimage to the Heights of Abra-
ham and he planted a Union Jack on the battlefield.
When the splendid tour of Canada was over his right
hand was so sore that he could barely touch anything
with it. His left hand was also strained by the shaking it
was called on to do. Perhaps the memory of that first
unending labour of Canada sprang to him when a stupid
man in the East End of London once muttered, "Idle

100

CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES

Rich!" as the Prince's car stopped near him. The Prince
turned around and snapped out: "Rich, maybe, but not
so very idle."

"I feel about my position and the responsibility it en-
tails," he said before he left Toronto, "I can only assure
you that I shall always endeavour to live up to that great
responsibility and to be worthy of your trust."

Canada was not the end of the Prince's first adventure
among the new countries. News of his charm had trav-
elled south, and hundreds of Americans had already
crossed the border to see the Prince who reduced people
to smiles or tears, as he willed. The fine, transparent
hero-worship of the Americans was not to be denied, and
he was prevailed upon to visit their country before he
returned to England. The King willingly gave his con-
sent. More than half a century had passed since a Prince
of Wales had visited the United States. When Prince
Albert Edward came back from his American journey in
1 860, he showed that he had learned much from his con-
tact with the Americans. The members of his mother's
Court had been delighted over the changes in him. He
had "grown" and he had become "much more manly."
But he had not lost the "youthful simplicity and fresh-
ness" which gave his manner "such a charm." The Prince
of 1918 came through the fire of America's kindness with
similar good results. Americans were not strangers to
him. He had stayed with the American Army Head-
quarters Staff in Coblenz and he had danced with Amer-
ican nurses on the Rhine. He had also stayed with Gen-
eral Pershing at American G.H.Q. Only on Armistice
Day had there been such a demonstration in New York
as on the morning of the Prince's arrival. They "show-
ered down upon the bewildered, delighted boy a verit-
able rain of confetti until the streets were a gay carpet

101

KING EDWARD VIII

beneath his motor-car/' He hated few things as much as
confetti, but he continued to smile and to woo the spon-
taneous Americans into friendship. A writer who de-
scribed the scene added: "And it was not entirely because
he was Prince of Wales, but more particularly because we
liked him/' The tumult was kept up for days. American
enthusiasm is an embarrassing and overwhelming experi-
ence to a Briton who has been nurtured in repose and
restraint. But the great, wild delight of a New York
crowd is something of which Roman emperors might
have dreamed on the way home from war, and the Prince
could not fail to be surprised and happy, no matter how
tired he became. There is none of the "pregnant silence"
of an English mass when Americans are gay. Their hearts
burst and their voices ring in a moment of ecstasy. New
York was amazing to the Prince. He became the focus for
all their wasted hero-worship and romantic notions. Of
his inner sensations we know nothing. One guesses
shrewdly at his alarm, when one reads that he "fingered
his tie, smoothed his hair and moved about in his chair."

Out of this first visit a great friendliness was born in
the Prince. America, with all its unchained enthusiasms
and love of show, was nearer to his sympathies than the
prejudice-ridden countries of Europe. Anglo-American
friendship became one of his enthusiasms after this first
taste of American kindness. "The Atlantic Ocean has
grown noticeably smaller/' he said some years afterwards.
"The people of these two great countries are growing
ever more anxious to join hands across it/'

At eleven o'clock on Armistice Day the train in which
the Prince was travelling ran through Baltimore. It halted
at the time when the two minutes' silence was being ob-
served in England. It was a happy chance that here,
where the train stopped, there was a group of British;
soldiers who were able to join him in the silence. After-

102

ral Presi Agency, Ltd , photo

THE PRINCE OF WALKS AT MT VERNON

CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES

wards, the Prince went out and shook their hands. He
went on to Washington and made his first call at the
White House. President Wilson was ill and he could not
see him, but, next day, the Prince went again, and he was
received by the President, who was lying in bed propped
up with pillows. The bed was the same that Lincoln had
slept in during his anxious days at the White House, and,
Wilson told the Prince, it was "the very bed" in which
his grandfather had slept when he was in Washington in
1860. He went from the rarefied atmosphere of the Pres-
ident's bedroom to speak to the members of the National
Press Club. Here, indeed, he came upon the hard-boiled
Americans who were not to be gulled with the dim ap-
peal of history. His success was astonishing. He said to
them: "You ... are very highly trained critics on pub-
lic writings and public speech, and I am not at all your
equal in that respect. . . . Your institutions, your ways
of life, your aims are as democratic as ours, and the at-
mosphere in which I find myself is the same invigorating
and familiar atmosphere I have always noted in Ameri-
can friends/'

"It's the smile of him, the unaffected, modest bearing
of him, the natural fun-loving spirit that twinkles in his
blue eyes," one of them wrote. Some of the pressmen saw
deeper than this, and they realised that he was earnest
and intelligent in what he said. The seed of respect was
sown as he spoke to them. In the years that followed,
thoughtful American writers usually spoke kindly of his
achievements, and even in the disastrous months of 1936,
when he was the focus for the world's criticism, American
journalists tried to comprehend and not merely deride
him. They revealed their appreciation of his sympathy
when he visited the distressed areas of the North in 1 929.
A writer in the American Nation said: "Condescension
was not, we are sure, in the Prince's heart. And what he

103

KING EDWARD VIII

did no ruler, no statesman, no party leader at present
active has ever done. The President of the United States,
in the face of the conditions among Pennsylvania miners
only a shade better than those in Wales, sat comfortably
at home in the White House and did not even make a
gesture of sympathy towards those in distress."

The Prince came back to England from the United
States, assured that travel had opened his eyes and cleared
his brain. He had completed the first important mission
as his father's ambassador. He had captured the affection
of the Americans, whose friendliness for England was
strengthened through his conquest. And he had thanked
the Canadians for their service during the war. He re-
vealed the effect of the Canadian visit in a few phrases.
He said that he was "filled with admiration for what
three or four vigorous and energetic generations" had
"achieved in establishing the great Dominion." "I did
not feel a stranger when I first landed in Canada," he
said. "I have come back with a much clearer idea of what
is meant by the British Empire." The last sentence was
important because It was deeply true. He added, with
suitable modesty: "I am not so foolish as to think that
the wonderful welcome given me in Canada and again
to-day are mere tributes to myself, I realise that they are
given to me as the King's son and as his heir."

The success of the Prince's visit to Canada pleased the
authorities in England. Now the old country had a pleni-
potentiary second to none. No grandiloquent politician
or tactful official in Whitehall could ever hope to achieve
the special kind of success which was vouchsafed to the
Sovereign's heir. He was not allowed to rest now that he
had proved his value, and early in the new year he left
England again for the Barbadoes, Honolulu, Fiji, New
Zealand and Australia.

There was one pleasant ceremony which tied him to

104

CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES

England before he sailed. In February the Prince was
made a Freeman of Windsor. The royal town put on its
most splendid clothes in his honour, and, as part of his
pledge as a Freeman, he promised not to "do anything
whereby this town or the freedom thereof may be damni-
fied." And he further promised that if he happened to
"know of any conspiracy or mischief" against the bor-
ough he would "speedily disclose the same to the Mayor."
After his picturesque pledge was made he stayed a little
longer in London and then he sailed away again across
the world.

CHAPTER XI

THE BARBADOES, HONOLULU AND FIJI

But though from court to cottage he depart
His saint is sure of his unspotted heart*

GEORGE PEEL

CHAPTER XI

THE BARBADOES, HONOLULU AND FIJI

1 HE FIRST PAUSE IN THE PRINCE'S JOURNEY

towards the Southern Hemisphere was made at the Bar-
badoes. One phrase from the record o his visit intensifies
the contrast between the warm and colourful country and
the colder England which was then far behind him. In
the Barbadoes he walked along roads which led through
"pillared aisles of stately sago-palms, past dense groves of
green mahogany and bread-fruit trees or brilliantly red
flowering devil-trees, hibiscus and silk cotton . . . blue
sea and white, surf-swept beach/'

Like his grandfather, in whose likeness he grew more
and more, the Prince was more interested in people than
in things. He soon turned from the natural charms to the
social problems of each new country he came to: he soon
opened his battery of questions. In the Barbadoes he was
able to give good news. The people had been disturbed
by a rumour that some of their islands were to be sold to
America. "I need hardly say that the King's subjects are
not for sale to other governments," he said. "Their des-
tiny, as free men, is in their hands. Your future is for you
yourselves to shape." His ship steamed from the Barba-
does to the Canal. Every pause as he crossed the great
spaces of the ocean brought him in touch with new as-
pects of life. At one end of the Canal he was heralded by
three aircraft bearing the stripes of the American Air
Service, and at the far end the natives addressed him in
wild and glowing phrases. "In frantic supplication we
fling ourselves at the feet of Almighty God to shower His

109

KING EDWARD VIII

blessings upon Your Highness ..." they pleaded. And
at the close they said: "If we be allowed another para-
graph, may we then be permitted, in this final gasp, to
express our desire that Your Royal Highness will greatly
enjoy your visit to this port?" Their wishes were not in
vain. He enjoyed everything.

In his book Down Under with the Prince, Everard
Cotes wrote many fine descriptions of the scenes of the
voyage: of the "yellow turtles, as big as footballs," which
stuck out their little pointed heads to watch the ship as
it passed, of the "schools of glistening porpoises" leaping
in the sun, the houses of San Diego, "set among masses
of roses, geraniums, hibiscus and purple salt grass in full
bloom." Nor was there a lack of humorous notes in the
grand progress. At San Diego the Prince was serenaded
by the biggest open-air organ in the world. "The organist
sat by the roadside, and the pipes of his instrument
pointed unprotected to the sky."

In Honolulu the Prince went to the palace of the old
Queen of Hawaii, where busy typewriters and all the
paraphernalia of the American administration had sup-
planted the dreamy state of the closing years of Liliu-
okalani's reign. There was an official ball for him at
night. He wandered on, from one startling scene to an-
other, like a bewildered character in a pantomime, and
when the ball was ended he crossed the island to see a
hookupu gathering. The flood of Japanese and Chinese
and American intruders was forgotten for a little hour.
The old, fading dream was shaken into life again, and the
Hawaiian soldiers passed before him in their yellow
robes. An unseen choir sang somewhere so that their
voices filtered through the branches of the banyan trees,
to the accompaniment of music from gourd lutes. There
were dancers, gorgeously decorated with feathers, and, in

no

THE BARBADOES, HONOLULU AND FIJI

a hole dug into the well-kept lawn, the carcases of four
pigs, quantities of chickens, fish, and sweet potatoes
wrapped in green leaves, were roasted by the Hawaiian
cooks.

Another day he saw an ingenuous tribute to the work
of the English missionaries. The new-fledged Christians
threw their native idols to the ground before him as
proof of their conversion. "There was a tense moment
when the first image, had to be flung upon the ground,
for superstition dies hard . . . but the image was flung
and went into fifty pieces at the feet of civilisation/'

H.M.S. Renown moved into the sultry waters of the
tropics. Neptune came on board, and he demanded the
royal victim with glee. The good fellowship of Osborne
was called on now: the British capacity to grin through
five minutes of discomfort. The Prince was docile while
the courtiers of the Equatorial king sang:

Shave him and bash him,
Duck him and splash him,
Torture and smash him
And don't let him go.

The orders were carried out with brutal precision.

Once across the Equator, the Prince of Wales was in
the Southern Hemisphere for the first time. The first
port in the new world was Suva, in Fiji. These lovely
islands, whose clock was once the sun and whose cur-
rency was the shells of the seashore, before the white men
came, have lost a little of their charm in becoming out-
posts of the British Empire. The vigour has gone out of
the dark-skinned Fijians, who were once bold eaters of
the missionaries and traders who invaded their shores.
The Fijian now plays a gramophone and he eats tinned
salmon. He has to drown much that is noble and pic-
turesque in exchange for the right to sing "Rule, Britan-

111

KING EDWARD VIII

ma!" But there was enough of the old beauty left to
please the Prince of Wales while he stayed in Suva. He
steamed into the harbour, past the island upon which the
natives dance upon red stones, in deference to old and
more fierce gods than ours. For a day or two he lived
among the Fijians, to their immense delight, and then
he sailed on, towards New Zealand.

CHAPTER XII

NEW ZEALAND

He has proved his royalty to be something
better than a birthright.

Los ANGELES "TIMES"

CHAPTER XII

NEW ZEALAND

N,

lEW ZEALAND IS YOUNG IN ENGLISH HIS-

tory, but, through the legends of the Maoris, its story
can be traced back to about the time of William the Con-
queror. While the Norman was planning his conquest
across the Channel, another adventurer stood on the
shore of Tahiti and dreamed of unfound islands in the
southern oceans of the world. This Tahitian made his
brave journey in a canoe, and he landed on the wild
shore of New Zealand, killed a bird twice as tall as him-
self, ate his fill and sailed away again. Two hundred years
afterwards his descendants crossed the ocean, and those
who survived the horrible journey became the first
Maoris of New Zealand.

Seven hundred years passed before the first European
settlers made their settlements in the harbours of the new
country. That was in the 'forties of the last century. Less
than a hundred more years had passed when the Prince
of Wales arrived in Auckland in April of 1920. In this
time the straggling settlements had grown into the
strength of a Dominion. More than a million sturdy New
Zealanders waited to greet their King's son. Their char-
acter had not been disturbed by the menace of vast spaces
or the influence of strange climates. They had made an-
other England in the south. Ninety-eight per cent of
their trade was done with the old country, and when they
spoke of England they still called it Home. Their emo-
tions were not likely to be confused when they saw the
silvery-grey hull of Renown moving into the sanctuary of

Auckland Harbour.

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KING EDWARD VIII

The Prince came on a glowing, sunny day. Hundreds
of quick white yachts sped out over the blue water to
meet him, and aeroplanes, juggling with the sunlight,
swooped down over the cruiser as she moved in towards
the wharves. The street through which he drove, now a
buzzing thoroughfare, flanked by tall stone buildings,
had been the bed of a dribbling creek not more than
eighty years before. It was a dark and mighty river of
people as he moved on in his car at the beginning of his
conquest. Near to the wharf upon which he landed there
had been a little group of Labour agitators, gloomy with
discontent. When one of them saw him, a radiant, smil-
ing boy standing in his car, he said: "Well, I am no
bloody royalist, but he looks such a decent sort we must
give him a cheer.' '

The Prince's progress was slow, for his eyes were busy.
He paused when there was an old soldier, his breast gay
with medals, or a child clutching a bunch of flowers.
These gestures were simple enough to warm the coldest
heart. In the afternoon he moved among thousands of
children in the domain, and the people surrounding the
ground went mad with delight. Hundreds of them were
sitting on top of a galvanised iron fence, and they kicked
its corrugations out of shape when they saw the Prince,
actually standing in his car, but apparently moving over
the heads of the mass of children.

Those who were older realised his nervousness; the in-
cessant clutching at his tie and the continuity of ciga-
rettes. But if within himself he was anxious and be-
wildered, he did not give in to his own feelings. Day after
day he faced the crowds. There was no cessation. As the
days passed he went from town to town, and in each of
them the people came very near him. Girls patted his
pillow when they were shown through the royal train,
and little boys stole the toothpicks from his table, as sou-

116

NEW ZEALAND

venirs. Farmers stopped their ploughs and waved as the
train passed between the isolated country towns. Some
brought flags with them into the fields so that they could
greet him, and women ran out on to the verandahs of
their small wooden houses to wave their bed sheets.

The great spectacle was at Rotorua, the strange inland
town where the earth is torn by holes of. boiling mud,
geysers and boiling streams. It is in this fantastic country
that the Maoris still live as near to nature as civilisation
will allow. These graceful, valiant natives have suc-
cumbed to most of our notions of comfort, but some of
them remain in the little houses of their ancestors, carv-
ing pipes, sun-baking on their verandahs or cooking their
food in the natural ovens of the hot earth. The Maoris
are poets and they adore the legends of kings. In the
midst of their steaming town they have built a memorial
to Queen Victoria, and the stiff, severe monarch holds
her sceptre over hissing pools and gurgling mudholes.
The Maoris flocked about the Prince like excited chil-
dren. They understood when he said: "It is Queen Vic-
toria's great-grandson who speaks to you to-day/' They
watched him in silence as he spoke of his father. The
King had seen their bravery and sacrifice; he had bidden
the Prince praise them for their ' 'faithfulness and val-
our." They understood when he said: "I will ever keep
before me the pattern of Victoria, the great Queen, whose
heart was with the Maori people from the day on which
they swore allegiance to her rule." Some of them cried
when the day was over, and there were groups of wonder-
ing Maoris outside his hotel, staring up at his window
long into the night. Next day many of them walked in
the streets, with postcards of their new hero pinned to
their clothes.

Eight thousand Maoris danced for him. Their back-
ground was the Lake of Rotorua, shining like polished

117

KING EDWARD VIII

steeL The brown men sauntered into the arena, wearing
their gorgeous feather mats. They carried big jade orna-
ments, and their heads were decorated with plumes.
They beat the earth with their naked feet, and the
women lashed the ground with green branches. They
danced until they were tired: the dances of peace and
the dances of war. Then one old man came forward with
a great mat made of a million kiwi feathers. This was
placed about the Prince's shoulders.

From Rotorua the Prince travelled south, through the
pasture country and over the great mountains, to Wel-
lington. Here was none of the spaciousness of Canadian
life, the stark differences between east and west; the hard-
ship and the isolation of the white stretches of the Arctic.
New Zealand seemed to be a prosperous, gracious little
country, sedately British and asking no more of the world
than the opinion that it was "just like England/' The
Prince found people who spoke affectionately of the
counties from which their grandparents came: they
showed him the few objects which had been carried
across the world in the wind-jammers of one hundred
years ago; the old prints, the clocks and the pictures, be-
cause these were their tangible bonds with the parent
England. In Taranaki he walked where Charles Armitage
Brown landed in the 'forties, carrying with him the
pencil portrait he had made of Keats, who was his friend.
In Wellington he was told the story of Alfred Domett,
Browning's friend, named Waring in his poem, who went
to New Zealand and wrote the first considerable verses
owing their Inspiration to the Maori people. At every
step the Prince was reminded of the clear Englishness of
New Zealand's story. And he might have marvelled at
the intensity of sentiment which makes these southern
people celebrate their Christmas with hot turkey, and
plum pudding, and cards, with robins and snow and holly,

118

NEW ZEALAND

although Christmas Day with them is usually one of
broiling summer heat. New Zealand did not present any
subtle problems of race for the Prince; there were no
alarming undercurrents of political chicanery to disturb
him. His smile, his graciousness and his indefatigable in-
terest were enough to satisfy all who saw him.

In almost every town some little incident relieved the
monotony of splendour: some incident which allowed the
New Zealanders to discover the anxious heart of the grow-
ing man . . . and sometimes the remaining mischief of
the boy. One day he drove the engine of the royal train,
and in Rotorua he rode on a merry-go-round. One eve-
ning he crept downstairs in the hotel in which he was
staying and wrote on a slate: "Call Lord Louis Mount-
batten at five o'clock/* When Lord Louis Mountbatten
was awakened at five next morning he was very angry,
until the slate was brought to him and he recognised the
writing on it.

The Prince crossed from the north island of New Zea-
land to the south, over the water by which a sailing ship
had carried letters to Charlotte Bronte from her friend,
Mary Taylour, after she had joined the little colony. The
Prince went among the mining towns of the west coast,
and then he crossed the Alps and came to the country
from which Samuel Butler conjured up the fanciful
world of Erewhon. He passed through Butler's "millions
on millions of acres of the most beautiful grass country
in the world," he followed the "broiling stream which
descended from the glaciers/' and he came to Christ-
church, the most English city in New Zealand. The
cheering went on. There was never a moment of quiet.
Day after day, fresh thousands of people sang "God Bless
the Prince of Wales/' Sometimes he would halt the pro-
cession of cars to step down and speak to some old woman
in her bath chair beside the road. Windows of cottages

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KING EDWARD VIII

were wide open so that he could hear gramophones inside
playing "God Save the King" as he passed. Every simple
device was tried to show the happiness of the people.
Even the prisoners in gaols were allowed to sit on top of
the high walls and cheer him. Behind all this marvellous
noise of happiness he carried the burden of days of strain.
One incident shows that his natural kindliness was not yet
soured within him. In one town his servant's hand was
cut while he was closing the door of the Prince's motor-
car. This was early in the morning. During the day he
met hosts of officials in several towns, and he spoke to
perhaps five different gatherings of people. He arrived in
the last town in the evening, tired and only wishing to
rest. But his first question was for the servant. Was he
badly cut? The Prince saw to it that the man's hand was
bandaged before he went to bed.

Towards the close of the journey through New Zealand
those who lived near to the Prince were able to observe
the changes which experience was bringing to him. In
one sense he was deceived as to the value of his travels.
Forever meeting new people, he gathered a superficial,
photographic view of human nature. He stored informa-
tion, and his kindliness guided him to a sympathetic con-
cern for all who came before him. But the knowledge
was transient and disconnected. He was like a camera,
catching fresh faces and views. The hurry in which he
lived made it impossible for him to enjoy the deeper,
valuable experience of the portrait painter, who concen-
trates upon an individual and learns to seek into char-
acter and to know men's hearts. He was never still long
enough to experience the difficulty of making a friend or
of digging beyond the surface. This speed of living was
to affect all his life and his judgement of human nature;
it was also to contribute to his unhappiness, when the test
of his character came, in the winter of 1936.

NEW ZEALAND

The fairest field of his influence was among the chil-
dren. They naturally adored him because he did not dis-
appoint their story-book conception of what a prince
should be. More than this, their untroubled instincts
guided them to see immediately the quality of his sym-
pathy. He was equally delighted by the thousands of chil-
dren who threw their hearts to him. When he returned
to England he spoke to a company of Londoners at the
Guildhall. "I did not see one single child who did not
reflect in Its healthy, happy little face that spirit of well-
being which is the pride of both these countries/' he said.
He added, of the New Zealanders: "You have here in the
city of London a very sound and powerful notion of pa-
triotism, but I can assure you you would have your work
cut out to feel it and show it more than they do in New
Zealand/'

The Prince returned to England from each of his Em-
pire journeys with a fresh store of information. He be-
came more practical, and the newspapers which described
him as his father's greatest ambassador soon talked of him
as England's best commercial traveller. He became more
and more interested in the fresh ideas about Empire Eco-
nomic Unity, and he used his inherited talent for accu-
mulating information to learn more of his country's
trade. "I would wear a different suit for every man I meet
if it would help British trade/' he said. Older people
were almost shocked by his business-like air, and they
sometimes hinted that his dignity was risked when he
made so many practical efforts to catch business for Brit-
ain in the countries which he visited. They might have
turned back to a letter which was written by Charles II
to the Shogun, who ruled Japan under the Emperor:

"England affords such great varieties and quanti-
ties of woollen clothes and stuff fit for the clothing

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KING EDWARD VIII

of all sorts of persons, which not only tends to ye
great health and fortifying ye spirits of and delight
to them to wear them, especially in such climates as
your Empire, but are much more lasting and
cheaper than other clothes/'

The Prince of Wales was not the first of his line to
beat the drum in the name of British trade. In New Zea-
land, his patronage of a little-known food turned it into
a prosperous industry. On the coast of New Zealand there
is a shellfish called toheroa, which makes soup more
subtle in flavour than oyster soup. He liked it and he
asked for more. It became the Prince of Wales's soup
overnight. Its fame spread, and now New Zealand has a
small but solid industry, for toheroa soup has become
fashionable in England. It was a small beginning to the
Prince's influence in trade, but greater ways of help were
to be opened for him. In March of 1933, the Express
called him the Prince of Salesmen, when Messrs. Vickers,
Ltd., made a contract worth three million pounds with
the Central Railway of Brazil. Lord Dudley announced
that the order "was due to conversation between the
Prince of Wales and Rio de Janeiro authorities." Al-
though the Prince soon became astute in pouncing upon
such opportunities in foreign countries, it was trade
within the Empire which interested him most. At the
time when the Commons smiled at Edward Marjoribanks
for talking of Empire Free Trade, the Prince of Wales
was already busy prying into every market in which his
hopes could be realised.

CHAPTER XIII

AUSTRALIA

The splendours that belong
Unto the fame of earth are but a wind,
That in the same direction lasts not long.

MRS. RAMSAY

CHAPTER XIII

AUSTRALIA

1 HE TASMAN SEA SEPARATES THE AUS-

tralians and the New Zealanders as definitely as the At-
lantic divides the English from the Americans. It is as-
tonishing that two countries can be so near, drawing
their colonists from the same parent stock, yet growing
up so different in aims and character. The New Zea-
lander is still in love with the past, but the Australian,
bred more hardly, is inclined to question tradition and
to insist upon greater freedom. Mrs. Gaskell wrote of the
Yorkshireman what might also be said of the Australian:

"The affections are strong and their foundations
lie deep. . . . Their accost is curt; their accent and
tone of speech blunt and harsh. . . . They have a
quick perception of character and a keen sense of
humour: the dwellers among them must be pre-
pared for certain uncomplimentary, though most
likely true, observations, pithily expressed. Their
feelings are not easily roused, but their duration is
lasting. Hence there is much close friendship and
faithful service/'

English people still cling to the foolish legends of
Botany Bay and they sometimes imagine that the early
criminal colony casts a shadow over Australian affairs
to-day. You may sail up Sydney Harbour and be told that
the prisoners penned on one of the little islands did not
dare attempt escape because of the sharks. You may be
told that in another place the prisoners were flogged and

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KING EDWARD VIII

made to walk Into the sea with quicklime burning in
their wounds. These pictures, still surviving in foolish
English novels, may be terrible and picturesque, but the
life faded from them long ago. Australia has its own char-
acter, of fortitude, courage and independence, and its
loyalty is as lively as that of the other Dominions, in spite
of its experiments In Labour government.

The Prince of Wales did not miss the difference be-
tween the two countries. When he returned to London
he spoke of the "old country character of the people" in
New Zealand, but when he talked of the Australians he
recalled their "genius for sport and enjoyment/' their
"courage and self-confidence" and their "happiness."

The Australians were loyal after the war, but, as one
of their writers confessed, they had become apathetic
about "crowns, thrones and all this monarchy business."
The Prince broke down this apathy in a day, and the
Sydney Sun., a brave and independent newspaper, wrote
of him: "Before the Prince landed the popular idea of
princes was of something haughty and remote, but this
smiling; appealing, youthful man . . . smiled away the
difference which Australians believe lay between royalty
and the commonalty."

Melbourne's harbour was so deep In fog when Renown
turned in from the open sea that the Australian destroy-
ers had to steam out to meet the Prince, and one of them,
H.M.S. Anzac, came alongside and took him on board.
She carried him Into Melbourne at forty knots, against a
ten-knot tide. The fog politely lifted before such a
splendid performance, and the Prince saw Melbourne
suddenly freed of its mist. From that moment Australia
accepted him and loved him.

Australia repeated New Zealand's welcome: the same
crowded streets, the same high buildings with people
clinging to every window-sill and cornice; the same mul-

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AUSTRALIA

tltude of flags and banners, and the vast company o
school-children, spelling the word WELCOME in human
letters, across a great lawn. The mayors smiled and en-
joyed the glitter of their chains in the sun, and the poli-
ticians bowed and smiled and handed the crumbs of their
success on to their shy, proud wives. When the Prince's
carriage passed along the streets the shouting was wild
and happy, but the Australians did not forget their
homely political differences when the politicians came
along in his wake. The amazing Mr. Hughes was chaffed,
cheered and damned within the space of a hundred yards.
There was also Mr. Storey, described as "red all
through/' The Prince's chief personal victory was with
him. Mr. Storey became his liegeman within half an
hour, and never to the day he died did he cease to speak
of the royal visitor with affection.

But it was about Mr. Hughes that the vital interests
were centred. This picturesque little man, who had
begun life in humbleness and poverty, was the most dy-
namic Australian the Prince could meet. Only Australia
could have produced this ruthless, clever politician, with
the imagination of a poet and the vitality of a comet. He
was a strange guide for the royal visitor, but, through
their talks together, the Prince was able to learn much
from him. Mr. Hughes revealed the Australian character
to him: the difference between the old world and the
new. That he was aware of this difference was shown
when he said of the Australians, on his return to London:
*'We must do our utmost to ... appreciate their point
of view and to enter into their dreams."

When the Prince's easy conquest of Melbourne was
over he went to the hinterland from which the city draws
its prosperity. He walked over the rich earth, with its
crops of oats and its thousands of sheep grazing at the feet
of the low blue hills. He walked on the edge of the im-

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KING EDWARD VIII

penetrable forests of eucalyptus, the sad and beautiful
tree which fills the valleys and covers the lower slopes of
the Australian mountains. The Australian painter has
turned to the eucalyptus as Crome did to the oak. The
sight o one carefully nursed eucalyptus tree in an Eng-
lish garden can awaken a vision of all Australia to those
who have been in the South. There are retired governors
and officials who treasure one delicate tree in their Eng-
lish garden just as jealously and with as much sentiment
as an Englishman exiled in a colony tends the oak which
he has planted on the edge of the bush.

Slowly, the strange new sights and smells of Australia
added to the Prince's understanding of the country. He
went to the deserted gold mines of Ballarat, where the
fields are scarred by the holes dug by the early pros-
pectors. The girls of Ballarat gave him a suit of yellow
silk pyjamas to which each one of them had contributed a
stitch. There was imagination in all the tributes. In Ben-
digo he travelled under an arch of girls who dropped
flowers on his car as he passed. There was no rest and he
had to face enthusiasm which might have killed him had
his will been weaker or his pleasure less intense. As he
went from town to town the Australians themselves be-
came anxious. "Human strength is unequal to the tasks
which have been set/' one of the reporters wrote. Aus-
tralia showed that there was sensitiveness as well as en-
thusiasm in its heart by abandoning some of the plans
and allowing him a rest. His hands were swollen from
greeting so many people and he was very tired, but good
rewards came for all that he did. A new arch had been
built on the wharf while he was in Melbourne, and as he
walked under it to go on board Renown again, he looked
up and read the words: "Australia is proud of you/'

Every day, during the long journeys across new
stretches of country, cables were sent to the King and

1*8

AUSTRALIA

Queen. The stories of their son's success were written
into glowing messages from the governors who enter-
tained him. The descriptions were always o his charm,
his smile, his popularity. On the surface, King George
and Queen Mary had every reason for being proud. But
they wondered, many times, over the wisdom of this hap-
hazard travelling, this roaming, suitcase existence, in
which nothing was permanent for him. It is said that
Queen Mary was most concerned over the effect upon
her son, and that she once said that he would lose all
power o ever settling down if the restless career went
on. But the acclamation was too loud and the superficial
signs of success were too convincing for doubt and reason
to be of use. The King and Queen were forced to dismiss
their own doubts and to accept the reports of the growing
epic. They were asked to believe that their son was win-
ning his spurs and to excuse the trouble of his spirit in
favour of the popularity of his name.

The Prince left Melbourne in the shadows of evening,
and the last sounds which came to him as Renown
steamed out to sea were of the aeroplanes overhead, flying
out so that their farewell would be prolonged as long as
possible.

Again the welcome began at sea, near to the great
heads of Sydney Harbour. The cruisers and destroyers
guided the Prince in to the broad, lovely water upon
which five hundred yachts dipped their flags and five
hundred launches marked their courses with skirts of
foam. Here the landing was more simple, for the Prince
stepped ashore upon the beach and he entered Sydney
under arches of wool bales and corn sheaves. The most
splendid scene was at the dinner in the Town Hall. Seven
hundred men sat down to dine on the floor of the hall,
but, in the galleries, three thousand women sat. They
did no more than whisper and shuffle as they looked

129

KING EDWARD VIII

down on the feast. They were there on sufferance, they
felt, and they could only gape at the stretches of linen,
the glittering silver and the heads of the great. But their
moment came. The Prince stood up and proposed the
toast of "The Ladies." Three thousand flags were sud-
denly raised, and the heights of the Town Hall shivered
with colour and rang with cheers. It was one of the most
startling and beautiful scenes of all his journey. As the
dinner went on, thousands more people waited outside,
a dense mass stretching down the side streets. As the
toasts were proposed the words were repeated from
within to without and then down each avenue of watch-
ers. It seemed that all the million people in the city of
Sydney were dining with the Prince that night.

Politicians had to be tactful as the Prince passed
through their countries. They had to remember the after-
math when every word they had spoken would be danced
in front of them again. One can therefore believe that
Mr. Hughes was speaking for his country when he said at
the Commonwealth dinner: ''Times, circumstances and
the age-long struggles for freedom by men who held lib-
erty dearer than life have fashioned the constitution
under which we live. The monarchy is an integral part
of it. If Britain decided to adopt a republic form of gov-
ernment, that would be the end of the Empire as we
know it to-day."

The man in the Sydney street may have said, "I am not
so keen on kings," but this was perhaps not what he
meant in his heart. The Australians' revolt has never
been against monarchy, but against decadence and signs
of death. It is only because they have so often been the
victims of Englishmen who have departed from their
country for their country's good that they arc sceptical
of the value of an old civilisation. The Australian who
has not travelled may be excused for imagining the non-

130

AUSTRALIA

sensical fellow who arrives in Australia full of airs to be
a true Englishman, and his prejudices are easily under-
stood. The Prince of Wales gave Australia a new light
upon royalty, but he also gave many people in the South
a new conception of the English aristocracy. They mar-
velled at his energy, his reasonable interest in industry
and, above all, his inability to patronise. This was, per-
haps, one of his greatest treasures in character. Upon his
example Australia revised its opinion of the ruling classes
of England, and the people of the Antipodes saw, through
him, that the monarchy stood for the perpetuity of na-
tional life and not for the transient phases of its political
existence. This impression of the Prince did not fade as
the years passed, and it was a reason why Australians ex-
pressed their concern in sorrow rather than indignation
when King Edward decided to abandon his throne in
1936.

The Australian liked the Prince most of all for the way
he behaved after his train was overturned through a car-
riage leaping from the rails. He had been to the west to
see the orange and apple country, the sawmills and log-
ging camps, and he was on his way back to Perth. The
carriage in which he was travelling left the rails, and be-
fore the engine-driver could stop the train, the two rear
carriages had turned over, with their wheels in the air.
The horror did not last for very long, but the sensations
of the officials who hurried towards the royal carriage are
terrible to imagine. As they came near to his overturned
carriage, members of the Prince's staff appeared, one by
one, crawling out of the windows. Some were hurt, and
one had his shin badly cut. The Prince was the last to
appear. He had stayed behind, he said, to gather his
papers together. His genius for managing awkward mo-
ments was now in full flower. He thanked the officials for
at last arranging something which was not on the official

131

KING EDWARD VIII

programme and then went on to Perth by car. He arrived
at the luncheon party which had been arranged for him,
apologised for being late and did not even mention the
reason for the delay. Now he was Australia's friend. The
toughest station hand read the story of the accident and
felt that the Prince could never disappoint him.

The Prince went on and he came to South Australia.
In some places the aborigines walked a hundred miles to
see the royal train crossing the desert. He drove under
arches of fruit and vegetables, and beds were carried out
of hospitals on to the pavements so that the patients could
see him pass. He went to the wine country and then he
crossed to Tasmania. One of the most interesting experL
ences of the tour was in Queensland, where the Prince
was the guest of a Labour Government. The tune did
not change, and when he left Brisbane, "everybody
waved something; if it were not a handkerchief, a flag or
a hat, it was the nearest thing at hand/' Mr. Everard
Cotes, who was with the Prince, wrote: "I saw a vegetable
hawker flourishing his biggest cabbage, a housewife ex-
citedly using a tablecloth as a signal of affection, a com-
pany of railway carriage cleaners throwing their dusters
upon the wind/ 1 He went south once more, and when he
came to the border between Queensland and New South
Wales the Prince travelled "over a carpet woven of yel-
low wattle flowers/*

Then Australia gave him his reward. He was allowed
to leave the crowds and the noise and to rest in the coun-
try. His father had also rested in this way when he went
to Australia as a boy. The Prince crossed the Blue Moun-
tains, and out in the sweet, sunny spaces beyond he
chased emus and kangaroos and he rode over undulating
hills. He went into the Australian homesteads and he
shared the food of the squatters he found there. He stayed
on the Canoubar run, and, losing the tiredness and

132:

Topical Press //gtncy, Ltd., photo

EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, AT PERTH, WESTERN AUSTRALIA, 1940

AUSTRALIA

nerves which had conquered him towards the end of his
travelling, he became fit again. Australia gave him back
his health and colour, and, as the squatter who rode with
him on the last day said, he returned to Sydney "as fresh
as a daisy/'

There was no end to the imagination of the Aus-
tralians in their entertainment. Just after Renown had
sailed from the wharf in Sydney, on the way to Fiji, the
Prince's letters arrived from Adelaide, by air. They were
letters from England and they could not wait. A fast
cruiser, which was already under steam, sped out in the
wake of Renown and reached her in time to hand over
the Prince's letters at the Harbour heads. "I refuse to say
good-bye/' he said on the last day in Sydney. "I have
become so fond of Australia now that she can never be
far from my thoughts, wherever I may be/'

The Prince steamed away towards the tropics once
more. First came Fiji and then Samoa, where the natives
presented him with roasted pigs and island beer. The
kaleidoscope kept on tumbling new shapes before his
eyes. The sleepy and charming Samoans, so recently
snatched away from German rule, begged him to ask his
father, the King, not to forget "this small branch of the
great tree of the Empire/' He climbed up the flank of
Mount Vaea, upon which Robert Louis Stevenson is
buried. From beside the grave he was able to look down
upon the silver-blue expanse of the Pacific and the nearer
white fringe of foam where the water broke upon the
coast. The world called to the Prince, and he hurried
down Vaea, through the warm, tropical forest and to the
shore line. The ship was waiting to carry him back to
Europe. He paused for a little time in the town, to ob-
serve the awkward new machinery of British government
which was trying to spin a network of law and order for

KING EDWARD VIII

the islanders. He went to Vailima, whence Stevenson's
ghost has long been chased away by the noise of type-
writers and busy official pens. Then to the sea.

The Prince crossed the Equator once more and he re-
turned to Honolulu, to the hot sands of Waikiki and the
sophistication of American life. He went to Acapulco
Harbour and then through the Panama Canal to Trini-
dad. The grey shape of Renown steamed on from island
to island, but the dreams became thin, for the Prince was
coming nearer and nearer to England. The West Indians
danced for him and they sang for him. They put in a
little word of protest about the laziness of British traders.
The Americans were so clever and the British were slow,
they said. But their tongues were not sharp when they
complained. They sang at the end, and they showered
flowers on him as he drove to the pitch lake and to the
plantations of cocoa and sugar.

British Guiana followed Trinidad and then came
Grenada. As he travelled nearer home his ancestral voices
were heard in place of the new songs of the South. At
Castries he climbed to the fort over which the Duke of
Kent had hoisted the British flag one hundred and
twenty years before. No figure could remind him of duty
more than that of his great-great-grandfather, who loved
parades, punctuality, clocks and efficiency.

Columbus had also sailed this way, and when the
Prince came to Antigua he was able to look out over the
water on which Cromwell's ships had been attacked three
hundred years before. Here, too, Nelson had refitted his
ships before Trafalgar. The voices of the new countries
of the South were drowned for the traveller now. He
came nearer to the Old World, and only the Bermudas
lay between him and England. The greeting In Bermuda
was as picturesque as the landscape. The Prince drove

134

AUSTRALIA

around the island and he passed under an arch which
had been specially made for him from blocks of coral
rock. Early in October he steamed over the last stretch
of sea in his long journey, and on the i ith, Portsmouth
put on a thick fog and welcomed him home.

CHAPTER XIV

LIFE IN ENGLAND. RETURNED SOLDIERS

And they made sacrifice to the eternal gods
and prayed that they might escape from death
and the evil of war.

ILIAD, BOOK II

CHAPTER XIV

LIFE IN ENGLAND. RETURNED SOLDIERS

1 WO YEARS HAD PASSED DURING THE

Prince's journeys to Canada and the Antipodes, and
when he returned to London he was almost a stranger.
His brothers were creating their own interests, and the
friends he had made at Oxford or during the war were
caught up in their own affairs. He was already paying
the penalty of his unique position, for he was more like a
colonial coming home than an Englishman who had just
returned from his travels. His interests and his viewpoint
were wandering from the English path, and the gap be-
tween the Prince and his family was widening in conse-
quence. He made his own way and his own friends, and,
as he took up new interests, he became attached to two
problems which stirred his sympathy almost to the end.
He devoted himself to Empire trade and to the care of
the returned soldiers.

The Prince of Wales realised that there was a wide gap
between British business men and the trade of the new
countries, and just as his father had told his contem-
poraries at the Guildhall after his world tour that the
"old country" must wake up, so the Prince was frank
with his warning. "You have to go away from the old
country and see it from a distance," he said. He told them
of the Dominions "watching with intense anxiety" the
ways by which England was facing her "grave social and
economic problems." In every speech which he made, no
matter for what cause, he hinted at the sleepiness of Eng-
land and the need for a quickened understanding with

139

KING EDWARD VIII

the Dominions. When he went to Oxford to "receive the
highest honour the University can give," he talked of the
"much shorter gown" which he had worn as an under-
graduate, of his pride at being an Oxford man and of the
happiness which he had found there. But he soon came
upon the real field of his knowledge, the countries of the
Empire. He suddenly realised that he was "apt to be long-
winded" on the topic and he talked again of Oxford. But
there was no doubt as to where his anxiety and interests
lay.

By this time the Prince had become a good speaker.
The halting phrases and shyness had disappeared after
he had made five hundred speeches in the Dominions.
The Dons who had known him as an undergraduate were
especially pleased. Even if he had not become "bookish,"
he had become vastly interesting as a talker. He had a
talent for crowding information and thought into a thou-
sand words, a talent for balancing ideas, humour and
sense. His thoroughness helped him. Secretaries gathered
facts for him, but it was always his own hand which gave
the final form to what he wished to say. His address to
the Royal National Lifeboat Association, running into
almost four thousand words, can still be read with in-
terest, for it is lively with information. The Prince did
not show great imagination, nor did he employ lordly
language in these early addresses. He revealed an average,
practical mind, and he often made the boast, "We are a
people of common sense." His speeches were impressive,
even without imagination and fine words to commend
them, for he always fired them with his own sincerity and
lightened them with touches of simple humour and, most
effective of all, his engaging smile.

As he went from one audience to another the Prince's
interests naturally grew. His royal gift of zeal and energy
illuminated every occasion. He became more at ease with

140

AUTOGRAPHKD PORTRAIT OF EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, PRESKNTED TO THE AUTHOR

LIFE IN ENGLAND. RETURNED SOLDIERS

his little jokes and more confident of his thought. He
spoke at the farewell dinner to Mr. Davis, the departing
American Ambassador, and he opened the new building
of the Chamber of Horticulture. He spoke at Cambridge,
and he shook his listeners into laughter when he began,
in a quiet, rather plaintive voice: "I am an Oxford man."
He stood beside Admiral Sims to receive his degree, and
he was made Chancellor of the University of Wales.
There he turned the tables on Mr. Balfour, who had
addressed him at Cambridge in Latin, The Prince said
that it was a tongue with which he was not as familiar
as he should be. But he retaliated brilliantly by address-
ing Mr. Balfour in Welsh. He could not help thinking
that Mr. Balfour "understood considerably less" of his
remarks than he did of what Mr. Balfour had said to
him at Cambridge the week before. But there was no
sentimental nonsense or mere word spinning as the
Prince increased the field of his influence. When he
spoke to the London Chamber of Commerce he remained
loyal to his simple toast. He asked the guests to drink to
"The British Empire and British Common Sense/'

There "was another problem which went deeper with
the Prince than his interest in the trade and life of the
Empire. His natural anxiety made him turn, again and
again, to the returned soldiers. To a nature which was
appalled by suffering, the problem of restoring health,
security and self-respect to the men who were broken by
the war was so terrible that the Prince was almost dra-
matically unhappy. He was naturally affectionate and
gentle, but he was denied experiences which would have
satisfied this side of his nature. Those who observed him
have said that, lacking a focus for his natural affections,
he developed what might be described^ as an obsession
about those in want. He did not consider them in rela-
tion to other classes, which was necessary from the point

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KING EDWARD VIII

of view of the State. He could not tread quietly or work
cautiously, which was the true and helpful way with the
poor. Sometimes he helped causes less than he would
otherwise have done because of his exuberance and emo-
tion. But he was unique in the way that he guided public
thought from the dangers of pure veneration of the dead
at the expense of the maimed and workless. In this his
practical sense guided him. When he spoke at the Man-
sion House he said: "In six days we are celebrating the
second anniversary of Armistice Day, when the whole
nation will pay a solemn tribute to the glorious dead.
This tribute, however, must not end there. . . . Some
20,000 officers, 20,000 disabled and 250,000 fit men are
seeking work. ... It is up to us/'

The Prince threw himself into the cause of the re-
turned men, sometimes to the exclusion of his rest and
often at the expense of his brief pleasures. Once when he
was away hunting he learned that the ex-Sei'vice men's
exhibition at the White City was languishing for want of
support. Without a moment of hesitation he abandoned
his hunting and hurried up to London. He went to the
White City and did not rest until he had made the exhi-
bition into a success through his patronage and encour-
agement. His feelings were simple and strong. "I want
all ex-Service men throughout the Empire to look on
me as a comrade/' he said. The words were not empty,
and, as long as he was Prince of Wales, he did not weaken
In his promise.

The busy heir to the throne lived a second, rather
secret life during the brief spells in London. He was not
content to dispense pity and help from his place near to
the throne. He became like a young father to many suf-
fering people, and he bestowed his kindliness and sym-
pathy from his own doorstep. One day when he was in
France he had come upon a stretcher-bearer who was

LIFE IN ENGLAND. RETURNED SOLDIERS

serving with the Canadians. The Prince had spoken to
him as he passed, some little phrase of kindness which
the man did not forget. Life had been harsh with the
stretcher-bearer, and the sudden smile and good word
must have come at the moment when they were needed.
The man was shot in the spine during the battle of the
Somme in 1916, and for ten years he lay on a bed in Lon-
don, a living but motionless body in a framework of
plaster. Sheet after sheet was placed under his withering
body until he was lying in a mass of plaster three feet
thick. His great pride during these horrible years was
that he had once been spoken to by the Prince of Wales.
When he knew that he was dying, the Prince became the
focus for the man's tired brain, and he talked of little
else but the scene in the trenches. The story reached
York House, and in the morning, when he was told, the
Prince wrote a message upon his photograph and sent
it before he was even dressed, in case it should not arrive
in time to please the man before he died.

CHAPTER XV

KING GEORGE AS A FATHER

Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and
princes shall rule in judgement.

ISAIAH xxxii. i

CHAPTER XV

KING GEORGE AS A FATHER

1 HE PRINCE WAS SETTLING DOWN TO THE

comparative orderliness of his English life, and he was
beginning to use his energies of mind and body with
fixed purposes. But the Government did not forget the
success of his visits to Canada and Australia and New
Zealand, and it was suggested that he should be sent
across the world once more, this time to attempt the con-
quest of India. The tragedy of these restless years in-
creases as the story of King Edward is unfolded. It seems
to lead on, with growing tempo, to the state of mind in
which he signed his abdication in 1936. It is doubtful
whether the Government was justified in making this
fresh demand upon him so soon after his return to Eng-
land. Queen Mary had been the first to protest against
these dangers, and now that the journey to India was
proposed she spoke once more. But Government policy
and political usage could not wait upon the subtleties of
a growing character. All the fixed principles upon which
his nature might have grown were shaken once more.
Even Queen Mary's infinite tact and wisdom could not
survive these gaps of separation, when her son moved
like a comet, beyond her control and beyond the kindly
and wise influence which she exercised. For most British
people the estrangement of King Edward came suddenly,
during the dark month of 1936, but for his mother it be-
gan ten years before, when an eager and shortsighted
Government exploited her son's charm and talents to the
full, sending him hurrying when he should have re-

147

KING EDWARD VIII

mained with his parents to grow more and more into the
strength of their family example. The theme bears re-
iteration, for it is like a mournful chorus in a Greek
tragedy, warning us of the destruction with which the
story ends.

The love which might have sustained Prince Edward
was constantly interrupted and confused by Government
plans, and it must be an added reason for remorse when
we realise what the loss of his mother's influence must
have meant to him. At Osborne, at Dartmouth and Ox-
ford Prince Edward had not strayed too far from this
quiet, wise counsel. One recalls the refreshing scene at
Oxford when Queen Mary went through her son's ac-
counts with his servant. Simple domestic questions were
not beyond her ken, and when she saw an item for one
penny appearing in each day's accounts she asked what it
was for. It was, the servant told her, "for His Royal High-
ness's morning apple."

The Prince of Wales showed more of his mother's qual-
ities as he grew older; above all, her social conscience.
Queen Mary has one strength in common with Queen
Victoria. She has never attracted people of inferior char-
acter about her. She has never suffered the danger which
besets so many royal persons of falling prey to the soft
voices of sycophants. One of the Queen's ladies-in-waiting
once said of her: "It is not only that she attracts people of
character. It is more than that. One could not be near to
the King or Queen without developing character. No-
body could serve them without growing. They give the
best that is in them, and, somehow, one finds oneself giv-
ing the best that is in oneself. The Queen makes charac-
ter in those who are near her. It is a privilege to serve her
and be near her. One realises, slowly, that only the best is
good enough for her, and she inspires one to grow in
capacity to give the best in return."

148

KING GEORGE AS A FATHER

At this time and during the years that followed the
King and Queen came to represent a new power in Eng-
lish life because of their simplicity and their devotion to
duty. Foreign writers no longer belittled the strength of
constitutional monarchy, because King George had
proved character to be as powerful as prerogative in
guiding his Parliament. He had never failed his people,
and a genuine affection, in no sense passive, went out to
him and to his Queen wherever they went. Londoners,
going home past Buckingham Palace, would look at the
simple stone facade and feel more safe and contented for
the life which went on inside it. The King was never
spectacular, but he had given England the complete ex-
ample of what a gentleman should be; not a gentleman
dependent upon class consciousness, but a good man, in
the way his grandfather had been.

At a time when no Englishman had a great personal
influence in the country, when Mr. Lloyd George's war
service and brilliance were forgotten, when Mr. Wins-
ton Churchill was mistrusted in spite of his great talents,
when Mr. Ramsay MacDonald was already a platitudi-
narian and Mr. Baldwin seemed to be an honest shade,
when we were so immersed in the second rate that we
had almost forgotten what a great man looked like, the
King became necessary to our faith in English character.
Some time afterwards an anonymous writer in an Ameri-
can magazine * described the "paradox" of "the small
man" who "filled a great throne more completely than
that throne has been filled in 250 years." The writer fa-
miliarly said: "George may not be criticised, for he is
England." And then: "George V is the most successful
of modern British kings because he is the King for whom
the British Constitution has been waiting from its earliest

* Fortune, June, 1935. It has been said that the King read this article and
preferred its frankness above any tribute that had been paid to him in print.

149

KING EDWARD VIII

days." The writer was allowed more liberties than his
English contemporaries, and he went on to discuss King
George's life as a parent. He rightly decided that after
the King was married, the "retired naval officer had be-
come the stern Victorian father whose word was law.
The exemplary commander of the Thrush had become
the exemplary Victorian husband with a dislike for the
unfamiliar, a routine as regular as the sun's and a rigid
sense of duty. Children did not speak unless spoken to-
and the parental voice was a voice which could be heard
and obeyed even by an eldest son. , . ."

It is true that King George was an exacting parent. His
discipline made it difficult for him to comprehend the
shaken generation which matured through the war. He
had deep respect for those who had been brave and com-
passion for those who were maimed or in sorrow, but his
own insistent self-government did not help him to esti-
mate the psychological distress of the generation which
returned to England, only to find that they no longer
spoke the same language as the old. The Sovereign's in-
fluence therefore lay in his example rather than in sensi-
tive understanding. King George was a critical father,
but he never weighed his sons down with the sentimental
appeals about parents and children, which had been the
family stronghold of the Victorians. He disliked humbug
and the melancholy habits of Victorian mourning; the
bogies of memorials and public grief were anathema to
him. His view of life and death was sane and healthy, and
he did not allow his sons to suffer from the black-edged
devotion to the past which had menaced his peace of
mind when he was young. He no doubt felt very keenly
the memory of his own boyhood, when he had been
obliged to attend memorial services to relatives he had
not even known. This view of death went with a sublime,
devotional character. His faith was not clogged with the-

150

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Central An Library, photo

EDWARD, PRINCF OF WALES, KICKING OFF AT A FOOTBALL MATCH, 1921

KING GEORGE AS A FATHER

ology, neither did it condone weakness. It was the steady
star of his example which was the chief strength of his in-
fluence over his sons. It was not always easy to live up
to his example, but there was never any doubt as to the
quality of his standards or the resolve with which he
kept them.

One misfortune of sending the heir to the throne on so
many expeditions lay in the separation from these two in-
fluences in his life. The new countries gained something
through fuller comprehension of the English spirit, and
the Prince learned much by information and through
knowledge of the habits of the men he met. But the
knowledge was gathered too quickly and in choking
quantities, so that it did not have the opportunity of
growing into wisdom. The wonder of his achievement as
Prince of Wales is increased when we remember these
circumstances. We still lack the perspective down which
we might see him clearly and value his success and his
failure. But we are far enough away from the events of
1921 to realise what an enormous task was put upon him
when he sailed for India; a task from which the most
sophisticated diplomat might have shrunk in alarm.

In 1921 the Prince went to Brighton and dedicated a
memorial to Indian soldiers who had been killed in the
"fire and stress of Flanders." He spoke of the wounded
Indian soldiers who had been brought to England. "In-
dia never forgets kindness and sympathy/' he said, "and
from this chateri ja wave of goodwill will pass to India."
Then he expressed his hope that the memorial, which
was "instinct with compassion and mutual regard/'
should "strengthen the ties between India and our
country/'

Early in October the Prince went to India to test the
ties of which he had spoken at Brighton some months
before. He had crossed the Atlantic and the Pacific; he

KING EDWARD VIII

had gone by the ways of Columbus and Tasman and
Cook. Now he went in the wake of Marco Polo. Canada
and Australia and New Zealand had been new and shin-
ing countries with no history of civilisation beyond what
French and British people had given them. Now the
Prince travelled over water and to lands with stories
older than Christendom. He was to travel forty-one thou-
sand miles, by ship, by train, by motor-car and by ele-
phant.

He went by the oldest way in the world, but the fash-
ion of his going belonged to the twentieth century. The
story was still of soldiers in khaki, clicking their heels on
the parade grounds of Egypt, of grey cruisers dipping
their flags and of dignitaries reading their addresses of
welcome.

Gibraltar came first. More than a hundred years before
the Prince's great-great-grandfather had walked up the
slopes of Gibraltar and had come upon a gipsy fortune-
teller., who asked him to cross her palm with silver. She
had told him that he would marry and that his daughter
would become queen of a great country.

Moors and Spaniards, sailors, nuns and priests joined
with the English in making the day in Gibraltar gay for
the Prince. Their houses were covered with banners of
red and white and blue . . . the sky between the nar-
row, bustling streets was hidden by the flags they had
stretched between their houses. They sang and cheered
until ten o'clock at night, when Renown steamed into
the Mediterranean. Hundreds of men stood upon the
harbour walls, swinging red, white and blue lights upon
the water's edge, giving the dark, lofty rock a hem of
jewels.

The next place was Malta, where the Prince walked
towards the Palace to the sound of clapping instead of
cheering. The widows of Maltese soldiers, wearing huge

15*

KING GEORGE AS A FATHER

black hoods, smiled sadly at him. He opened the first
Maltese Parliament, and he went to the gymkhana, where
he "had first to run in a sack for twenty yards, then ride
one hundred yards on a bareback mule, then be carried
fifty yards on a stretcher, mount a pony and ride fifty
yards, be wheeled in a barrow another twenty yards and
then be driven for a final one hundred yards in a native
vehicle known as a carosse! 3 He did not win the race, but
his triumph with the Maltese was now complete. That
he had opened Parliament did not matter very much
after such a gallant performance. Their best memory of
him was of a rather untidy figure being rushed along the
ground in a wheelbarrow pushed, a little uncertainly, by
Lord Louis Mountbatten.

H.M.S. Renown steamed into the mouth of the Canal
at Port Said in the evening just as the jumbled, noisy
streets of the town were darkening. The Prince went
ashore: he rode along the waterfront, and then he re-
turned to Renown to entertain the great men of Egypt
at dinner. At dawn the ship moved into the Canal; in
some places the rusting barbed wire of the Turkish de-
fences still lay in twisted heaps in the sand. The Egyp-
tians came to the water's edge; little, black-dressed women
with their babies in their arms, and their thin, sharp-
eyed men, who shouted to the white Prince as he passed.
Hundreds of soldiers lined up on the edge of the Canal
in their smart khaki shorts to cheer. The Prince came to
Ismailia, where he had stayed during the war. Renown
moved on slowly through the narrow waterway to Suez.
She passed through the Red Sea, within sight of the
gaunt, brown-gold peak of Sinai, piercing the hot sky,
and on November 12 the Prince went ashore at Aden.
The gaunt, flowerless little town greeted him splendidly,
and over the wharf on which he landed was spread a ban-
ner asking him to "Tell daddy we are all happy under

153

KING EDWARD VIII

British rule/* White men jostled brown men on the kerb-
stone. The exalted of Aden came to swear their allegiance
to him; they wore gold brocade and they carried jewelled
swords. The old Sultan o Lahej, heavy with his hundred
years and almost blind, also came, dressed in rich purple.
Another Arab wore green silk and his feet were dyed
with henna. The Prince was leaving the Northern Hem-
isphere and the glory of the East had begun.

CHAPTER XVI

INDIA

You have lived and are living true to the
letter and spirit of the classic motto of your
royal rank . . . t I serve"

From the Address of Welcome to
the Prince by the University o
Bombay

CHAPTER XVI

INDIA

JLJLM.S. "RENOWN" MOVED INTO THE INDIAN
Ocean. The vultures and swallows of Egypt no longer
flew over the ship. Porpoises gleamed in the undulations
o warm, blue water. The Prince came nearer and
nearer to the most difficult and subtle problem of his
travels. There was a stain upon the face of India's loyalty,
for, as the Prince travelled on, Gandhi was perfecting his
plans to boycott him wherever he went. On November
1 7 the Prince stood before the Gateway of India. In front
of him were the people of Bombay, certain of their own
loyalty, but afraid of the menaces that waited for him in
the hinterland. He wore a white uniform and the broad
blue ribbon of the Star of India. He walked towards the
people over a crimson carpet, and beside him were the
Indian Princes, shining with embroidery and jewels.
Gorgeous as peacocks, they had moved over the carpet
to meet him. The white men cheered and the brown men
clapped their hands. His first words were a simple ap-
proach to the problems and dangers which were before
him. "I want you to know me and I want to know you/'
he said. "I want to grasp your difficulties and to under-
stand your aspirations. ... I feel some awe at the diffi-
culty which I may experience in getting to know India."
The scene before the white gates of India was beauti-
ful, secure and happy, but in another part of Bombay
Gandhi was celebrating the day by a public burning of
foreign clothes. The clever little man had done his best to
cast a shadow over the Prinqe's arrival. He had spread

157

KING EDWARD Fill

posters over the city and he had told the people to stay
within their houses and give the city an air of gloom.
Even if loyalty was not strong, love of splendour and ordi-
nary human curiosity spoiled Gandhi's plan. "From the
earliest dawn/' wrote a journalist in the Statesman,, "de-
spite the thousands of placards displayed in every nook
and corner of the city appealing in the name of Mr.
Gandhi for a boycott of the Prince's visit, people of every
class and community began to flock towards their chosen
points of vantage along the route . . . providing a fit-
ting answer to the appeals of the placards, contemptible
in their discourtesy, vain in their effects/'

The placards may have been contemptible, but they
were powerful, and it was too much to expect that the
Prince's charm and simplicity could work a miracle. But
it is true that wherever he went there were converts. He
was so unlike the officials of the British Raj. Here was no
striding or high-minded talk of Britain's responsibility
towards the dark races. The Prince had said, "I want you
to know me and I want to know you/' and this naive
wish coloured almost every scene of his visit. The great
event in Bombay was the military display, when twenty-
five thousand people crowded into the stadium. The
Prince did not add to the theme of militarism. He ap-
peared in a light fawn suit. When the display ended "the
Prince's car moved slowly round the whole arena . . .
he stood up in the car during the veritable triumphant
progress, and his khaki topi never returned to his head
until he passed out of the gates, and then the crowd
poured forth once more to take a last glimpse and give
a final cheer to the object of its ovations." The writer of
this paragraph in the Pioneer added a personal note for
his editor: "This is no exaggeration, it is the literal truth.
The cheers were real cheers, and they came as heartily

158

INDIA

from the humble classes of Indians, from the clerks, as
from the soldiers and sailors. . . ."

The instincts of people ruled by princes die very
slowly, and even if Gandhi's voice had been wise and just
it would not have stemmed the natural enthusiasm of the
mass of the people. The glamour of a great occasion was
more delightful to them than the cold light of Gandhi's
reason, and on the last night in Bombay there was a scene
so extraordinary that one is incredulous as one reads the
account in Katherine Mayo's Mother India. The Prince's
car began the three- or four-mile drive from Government
House to the railway station, unguarded "save for the
pilot police car that went before." When it came to the
city

"a cordon of police lined the streets on both sides.
And behind that cordon pressed the people the
common poor people of the countryside in their un-
countable thousands; pressed and pushed until, with
the railway station yet half a mile away, the police
line bent and broke beneath the strain.

"Instantly the crowd surged in, closing round the
car, shouting, fighting each to work nearer nearer
still. What would they do? What was their temper?

". . . The police tried vainly to form again
around the car. Moving at a crawl, quite unpro-
tected now, through an almost solid mass of shouting
humanity, it won through to the railway station at
last."

Miss Mayo describes the scene within the railway sta-
tion, the royal train waiting, the dignitaries waiting to
make their formal farewells, and the Prince listening
anxiously. He turned to his aide-de-camp and asked:
"How much time left?" "Three minutes, sir," he was

KING EDWARD VIII

told. The Prince answered: "Then drop those barriers
and let the people in."

The barriers went down, and 'like the sweep of a river
in flood the interminable multitudes rolled in and
shouted and adored and laughed and wept, and, when the
train started, ran alongside the royal carriage till they
could run no more."

Miss Mayo's book is rich in words, and, while we may
accept her facts, we must guard ourselves against her
ecstasy. But there is another document to which we may
turn for a record of the effect of the Prince's stay in Bom-
bay. During his tour a number of confidential reports
were made by the Political Secretaries in the various cen-
tres, and these were afterwards forwarded to the Political
Secretary to the Government of India. They were not
written for publication, and their value is certain. Mr.
A. F, Kindersley wrote, in June of 1922, when the first
excitement had passed:

"In Bombay perhaps the principal political result
of the visit has been indirectly to strengthen the tra-
ditional loyalty of the Parsee community. . . . The
general effect has been that the great bulk of the
Parsee community and all their responsible leaders
have definitely recognised that their interest as a
community lies in opposition to the forces of dis-
order and of non-co-operation. . . /'

After Bombay came Baroda, the first of the girdle of
cities stretching from Bombay to Calcutta. Again the Po-
litical Secretary received a comforting report from the
Resident, who telegraphed:

"Reception accorded was considered exceptionally
enthusiastic by people of long Baroda experience.
Large number of Gandhi caps was only sign of dis-

160

INDIA

satisfaction, but at times people so clad could be
seen cheering wildly. . . . Gaekwar . . . expressed
to me his extreme delight at complete success of visit
and his warm appreciation of unfailing charm and
sincerity of manner of His Royal Highness. . . .
Politically, both in respect of State and general situa-
tion, visit has been triumphal success, of which His
Royal Highness's personality has been outstanding
feature and main cause/'

The people of Baroda and their Gaekwar gilded them-
selves and all that they touched in honour of the Prince's
visit. The elephants were painted with gold, the carriages
were made of silver and the Prince was housed in the
delicate white Laxmi Vilas Palace, with its fifty domes
and towers. The bouquet which was given to him was
sprinkled with attar of roses. The nobles who salaamed
before him moved over a golden carpet; they wore apple
green dappled with gold, and their robes were laden with
jewels and orders. In the afternoon the Princes and the
people moved, like fabulous butterflies, over the lawns
and marble terraces and in and out of the six miniature
theatres. In these were acrobats in pink tights, little par-
rots riding bicycles and firing guns, and nautch girls
dancing and singing. There were fireworks at night, and
next day there was a cheetah hunt for black buck. The
trained cheetahs were brought up in wooden carts, to
which they were fastened with red and yellow cords.

The royal train travelled north towards Udaipur, the
town of palaces, upon the shores of the lakes. Donald
Maxwell has described the scene in his book: the waters
from which the lazy turtles came out in lazy companies to
rest on marble steps, the trees with green parrots and
glades with peacocks, and a boat with rowers in turbans
of pale turquoise blue. The Prince crossed the lake.

161

KING EDWARD VIII

"Wall upon wall, gate upon gate, and palace upon palace
was lit by little lamps with floating wicks/' He was "car-
ried up to the banqueting hall in a golden chair lighted
by torchbearers/*

The voice of Gandhi did not sound as far as this. The
tales of old India were still told among the palaces, and
the aged Maharana, a gorgeous and frightening figure,
still held his people with the old cords of power. No train
came within three miles of his immense marble palace,
and Gandhi's name was not even whispered in the ba-
zaars of Udaipur. The Maharana was too ill to walk out
and greet the Prince, but before the banquet he appeared
for a moment, "a tall, straight figure in silver grey/* He
did not eat with his English guest, but afterwards he
came to the banqueting hall once more and sat beside
him. The princes and nobles of Udaipur watched them
as they talked: the noble old Maharana, descendant of
the sun, and the shy young Briton who was heir to half
the world. The Princes of Udaipur were pleased when
they noted the deference with which the young man an-
swered his host. "I am sure Your Royal Highness's popu-
larity will exercise a soothing and healing effect on the
present situation in India/' said the Maharana. "My
pleasure knows no bounds. . . . The British Govern-
ment has always entertained the greatest possible regard
to maintain the dignity and privileges of my State/' Then
the Maharana told the Prince of the words inscribed on
the coins of his State, "Dost-i-London," which mean
"Friendship with London/'

The Prince answered: "I am on the soil where the
flower of chivalry sprang to life. In sight of the hall in
which we are now banqueting lies the island where, in
the days of the Mutiny, the Maharana of Udaipur kept a
number of my fellow-countrymen in safety and preserved
them from imminent death/'

162

INDIA

The scenes In Udaipur were heavy with beauty and
they moved In slow dignity, but the undergraduate of
Magdalen was still alive within the gracious traveller.
Mr. Donald Maxwell allows us to escape from the splen-
dour in the story of a night when the Prince returned
from shooting, very tired and asking for sleep. He went to
his room, and orders were given that no noise should dis-
turb him. " Imagine, therefore, the horror of the Prince's
attendants to hear loud singing just outside his room.
Equerries rushed hither and thither, but the serenader
could not be located. Finally, it was discovered that the
Prince himself, completely pleased with life in general
and Udaipur in particular, was the bold performer."

Mr. Maxwell told the story to two or three people.
They told others and it reached the palace. A Secretary
of State called upon him and asked to hear the story.
Then the Prime Minister came and he had to tell the
tale again. Then the Maharana's son came and this time,
wrote Mr. Maxwell, he was compelled, "out of sheer
necessity, to make the story a bit longer/' At last the
Maharana himself sent for Mr. Maxwell. He wished to
hear the wonderful story first hand. With "great kind-
ness and courtesy" Mr. Maxwell was summoned to the
palace. He arrived "in great pomp on an elephant." "I
kept more or less to the original story, with a few artistic,
but imaginary, details thrown in," Mr. Maxwell has writ-
ten. "A murmur of approval ran around the Court. . . .
The Maharana congratulated me, expressed his warmest
thanks and presented me with a magnificent ruby."

The Prince went from city to city. He crossed the des-
ert, guarded by camel patrols. There was danger behind
the old beauty, and as the train moved on toward Bikaner
he was able to look out of the window of the carriage
and see the men upon their camels, perhaps two hun-

163

KING EDWARD VIII

dred yards apart, with their backs toward him. They did
not turn to look at him as he passed.

Bikaner is the desert State o the north; the home of
the famous Camel Corps which served in Egypt and Pal-
estine. The Maharajah recalled their service in his greet-
ing. "My troops . . . they will always remember with
delight that Your Royal Highness rode on Bikaner camels
with some of them on several occasions during their four
and a half years' active campaigning in Egypt and Pales<
tine/' The glorious story of Udaipur was repeated in
Bikaner; again the robes and the coaches were of glitter-
ing richness. But the Prince's conscience was not silenced
by the splendour. When he was able to escape from the
pageant, his enquiries were the old enquiries. Were the
returned soldiers being cared for? He did not fail to com-
ment upon a fault when he found one. Some of the re-
turned men at Bikaner paraded without their medals.
"Why?" he asked.

"They have not arrived yet/' he was told.

There were reprimands and telegrams and the medals
were delivered in Bikaner within a few days.

The Maharajah of Bharatpur took up the story of rich-
ness and colour. He rode to the polo ground in a silver
carriage harnessed to eight elephants. At night, standing
upon a new mountain which had been built for the occa-
sion, the Prince watched the soldiers, the golden ele-
phants, the camels, the scarlet infantry and the cavalry.

The fabulous tale of the Native States ended and the
Prince returned to British India. He crossed the Ganges
and came to Lucknow. Once more Gandhi's malicious
plans had to be reckoned with. Sir Harcourt Butler was
too old in the tricks of government to be thwarted by the
refusal of the Indians to join in the University Sports.
He enrolled the Anglo-Indians, who shared the prizes
and saved the day from disaster. But Gandhi had laid

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his plans far beyond the University. The Indian shops
were shut and the gharri drivers refused to work. Even
the loyal Indians had no way of travelling into Lucknow
from the outlying country. British humour and sense
eased the situation. The army lorries paraded the city
bearing notices, "Come and see the Prince and have a
free ride." The cumbersome lorries were soon crowded,
for the Indians did not relish being shut in their dark-
ened shops all day, alone with their frigid principles.
The Prince went on smiling. His courage was tremen-
dous. Most of the time he was travelling in danger and
the guards which surrounded him were necessary. In the
columns of the Indian newspapers one does not find stor-
ies of an anxious traveller, looking this way and that as
he wrestled with the hartals which Gandhi had prepared
for him. The stories are mostly of fun when the day of
duty was over.

"He never fails to add to the delights of the functions
he attends by some distinguished act of courtesy/' some-
body wrote in the Times of India. "The Prince . . .
feels intensely the fascination of modern dance music.
. . . He assists on occasions in its production. . . . Yes-
terday evening he performed coram populo, as it were, at
the dance given by the Governor at Government House.
. . . The Prince worked his shoulders as he smote the
cymbals, his feet shuffled in time to the music and his
head nodded rhythmically." During the day a gymkhana
had been arranged and he had ridden in four races "with
overwhelming success." Only those whose blood ran bit-
ter against England could withstand his charm and sim-
plicity.

Before the Prince left Lucknow he presented new col-
ours to the grd Battalion of the Worcestershire Regi-
ment. The regimental slow march which the band played
for him had been composed by his great-great-grand-

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KING EDWARD VIII

mother, the Duchess of Kent, who had been so fond of
playing upon her pianoforte during the winter evenings
at Frogmore.

Mr. Gandhi's greatest success was in Allahabad. It was
here that Lord Canning had read Queen Victoria's proc-
lamation in 1858. It was a background against which the
Prince might have appeared at his best. He was the first
English Prince who had ever paused here, for Allahabad
had been passed, by both his father and his grandfather.
Only a few people came out to greet him and the shops
were closed. Within the houses the discontented Indians
obeyed Gandhi's orders and hid their faces. The few
people who addressed the Prince apologised for the shut
doors and the empty streets. But, as evening came, human
curiosity conquered: many of the little doors opened and
a few of the Indians shed their theories and went to the
station to see the Prince leaving for Benares.

The city beside the Ganges was divided in its love. The
Prince went out upon the river in the afternoon, past the
temples and the hordes of pilgrims and, upon the Benares
side of the river, he passed animated hordes whose cheers
rang out across the water. But the lively menace of
Gandhi had conquered many thousands of people in
Benares, although the chief agitators had been arrested
before he arrived. The Chief Secretary wrote:

4 'They had thrown down an open and flagrant
challenge in defiance of Government and there was
no option but to arrest them. ... It is noteworthy
that where the ringleaders were arrested before His
Royal Highness' arrival i.e.j in all provinces except
Bombay and Madras there was no rioting. . . . The
visit to Lucknow was an unqualified success except
with regard to the attitude of the students. ... In
considering the effect of His Royal Highness' visit,

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INDIA

allowance must be made for the political conditions
o the time. Certain facts, however, stand out. First,
wherever His Royal Highness spent more than a
day, the non-co-operation movement broke down.
Secondly, the countryside is eloquent of His Royal
Highness' interest in and kindness to the pensioners
and all those who suffered in the war, while men on
leave tell the same story. Thirdly, all those who came
in contact with His Royal Highness succumbed to
the magnetism of his charm, and the fact that he had
sufficiently mastered the language to be able to talk
simply to the people has impressed itself on all.
Fourthly, the remarkable energy of His Royal High-
ness in carrying through his programme, his punctu-
ality, and his earnest desire to learn and to exchange
views with all conditions of people gave great pleas-
ure to, and excited the admiration of, all concerned.
The effect of his example will, it is hoped, remain
long after the particular incidents of the tour have
receded in point of time, and has already produced
some diminution in the acerbity of the relations of
those who before his visit were extremely hostile to
each other."

From Benares the Prince went to shoot big game on
the Nepal border. No reporters disturbed him for seven
days and he returned to his duties "bronzed and perfectly
fit" and with several trophies, including a ten-foot king
cobra which he shot on foot.

The struggle against Gandhi went on. At Patna the
vehicles were all laid up, so that the Indians had to tramp
in from their country towns if they wished to see him.
The officials who knew India well began to wonder more
and more at the Prince's tact and good humour. Then
came Calcutta, one of the most bitter tests of the illus-

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KING EDWARD VIII

trious journey. The loyal newspapers described his entry
as "a triumph without a discordant note/' This was true,
but there were many thousands of people who stayed in
their houses in obedience to Gandhi's wish. The cries in
the streets were mixed. "I saw him, I saw him/' cried a
little Indian girl, but her older neighbour called,
"Gandhi ka jai." The Chief Secretary to the Government
of Bengal waited three months before he wrote his report
of the Prince's visit.

"The vernacular papers, both Hindu and Mu-
hammadan," he wrote, "expressed the view that the
reception accorded to H.R.H. fell far short of the
standard set at similar royal visits. The visit in its
detail received very meagre treatment in these pa-
pers. ... It was, however, generally admitted by
these papers that the crowds at the functions were
increasingly Indian . . . the visit must be regarded
as very successful . . . the enthusiasm towards His
Royal Highness* person continued to grow through-
out the visit. . . . Since His Royal Highness' de-
parture there has been a marked improvement in the
political situation/'

The plans to boycott the Prince had simmered in
Burma long before he arrived there, but when the nine
most ardent leaders had been spirited away to prison, the
people of Rangoon put on their rich gold and fine linen
and they smiled and sang as they wished. To quote the
official report, "the people . . . poured into the streets.
From that moment the visit was a political and social
success/* Ten weeks after the Prince had left Rangoon
the Chief Secretary wrote that the "seditious movement"
had not yet recovered "the prestige that it lost" during
his visit.

The Burmese know the sweet pleasures of idleness.

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INDIA

They laugh and they dress In gay colours; they smile at
the morning sun and they smile at it again when it sets.
The Prince could not have stayed with these charming
people without complete success. He went to the races,
where thousands of Burmese girls peeped at him from
beneath big, gay paper umbrellas. He went to Mandalay,
where the people came in from the hills and gave him a
Shan entertainment. Dragons thirty feet long, birds
which were twice as tall as men, and fabulous bulls, ele-
phants, tigers, peacocks and llamas danced madly for
him; a vastly amusing Noah's Ark, let loose in the fiery
night, dancing to music from instruments so heavy that
three men were needed to lift one of them.

The Prince returned to Rangoon, and the Commis-
sioner of Police reported that "the political atmosphere"
had "never been quieter'* since he arrived there. The
Chief Secretary wrote to Sir John Wood, in London,
"The visit was a splendid success; socially because it
brought so many in close contact with their future Em-
peror, and politically because it showed decisively that
Burma had not strayed far from the path of loyalty/' One
of the Divisional Commissioners wrote: "At Pyu all were
greatly impressed by the Prince walking the whole length
of the station platform to go and see the school children
and the persons who were at a distance from the officials
meeting the Prince, and who were not able therefore to
see him at close quarters. But here too it was the personal
element that came into play. The East likes personal
government, and it was from the Prince's personality that
sprang the effects I have tried to describe above/'

India had been crossed. Now the Prince was to travel
north, from Madras to Karachi. There are newspapers
and reports from officials in which the scenes are painted,
but the identity of the Prince himself seems to be lost
in the splendour. He saw too much and he did too much:

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KING EDWARD VIII

the demands made upon him were Inhuman. Yet he did
not complain. One of the few records there are of any
personal comment is in Lord Rawlinson's Life. Lord
Rawlinson saw him at Delhi and the Prince confessed to
him that he went to bed "dog-tired every night/' The
Prince entered the harbour of Madras. His grandfather
had laid the foundation stone of the harbour in 1875, and
there was a stone to commemorate the landing of his
father in 1906. Mr. Gandhi chose impudent and foolish
ways of demonstrating the anger of his followers. They
did not emerge into the happy streets until the Prince's
carriage had arrived at Government House. Then they
tore down the palms and decorations and smashed the
flower pots in the road. They removed pictures of the
Prince from a near-by theatre and stamped on them.
Then they fired a cinema, but this was the end of their
display of temper, for the Leinsters cleared the streets
at the point of the bayonet and armoured cars were
placed at the corners. While these excitements were be-
ing brought into control, the majority of the people in
Madras were surrounding the Prince with happiness and
affection. His willingness did not abate, and some who
travelled with him marvelled more than ever. His cour-
age wore down the demonstrations, and even if he could
not turn malcontents into loyalists he at least assuaged
their spite. At the races he walked down from the stand
and strolled into the public enclosure. This was a daring
thing to do and the mass of people were amazed. They
parted to make way for him. For a moment they could
not believe that he was among them; then the air rang
with cheers.

In Mysore the Prince and the Maharajah sat upon gold
thrones, they passed under an arch decorated with pea-
cocks and doves, and when the Prince drove into the
country the farmers left their work in the fields and ran

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INDIA

to the roadside to salaam and to kneel in the dust as he
passed. Here was peace as well as beauty, for Mysore is
within the Native States, and Indian Princes are not as
patient as the British Government with Gandhi's in-
surgents. The Prince drove out to Karapur to shoot ele-
phants, bison and tigers in the jungle. From a platform
within a stockade, he saw twenty-eight wild elephants cap-
tured and herded, fighting, screaming, charging the beat-
ers and tearing trees up by their roots. He moved on to
Hyderabad, where the Nizam's subjects held their little
babies in the air so that they might grow up with the
blessing of having seen him. For one brief day Nagpur
salaamed and clapped hands. Gandhi had tried to start
his hartal here, but, in the official report, one is told that
"all the functions were most successful and not a single
untoward incident marred the pleasure of the visit." At
Indore the Maharajah of Dhar had placed his eleven-
year-old daughter astride a horse, and thus she led the
Light Horse past the saluting base. The Prince hung
garlands about the necks of eighteen Princes, and then
he left by the royal train to be the guest of the Begum
of BhopaL

This little old lady, living behind a veil, but making
no mystery of her power and charm, came to the railway
station to meet him. One remembers the Begum in Lon-
don, sitting in her hotel, looking a little incongruous in
her English setting. In her own State she sat upon a silver
throne and her head was ornamented with diamonds.
Painted elephants saluted her with uplifted trunks; their
mahouts were dressed in gold. The Begum made her
speech in English, and she chose the day of the Prince's
arrival to announce to her subjects "the formal conces-
sion ... to participate in the moulding of its destinies/'
Then she said, "I will bring my imagination down from
the giddy heights of politics to the pleasanter ground of

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KING EDWARD VIII

the forests." She wished her guest good sport and pleasure
during the three days he was to shoot in her jungles.

BhopaFs neighbour is Gwalior, and here the Prince
travelled to the palace at the head of a procession of
jewelled elephants; the one upon which he rode was a
hundred years old, and when it moved its colossal gold
legs a hundred silver bells tinkled on its crimson mantle.
When the Maharajah appeared he wore a belt of pearls
over a mauve robe, and when the great men of Gwalior
came to the Prince they carried trays of precious stones,
and the table upon which the banquet was served was a
stream of silver and gold. The people tore down the
decorations after he had gone and kept them as talismans;
they gazed at the chair on which he had sat and sought
blessings by touching the earth upon which he had
walked.

The greatest occasions of the tour were no doubt those
of the welcome in Delhi, which the Prince entered
"amidst a hurricane of cheers." A few days before, he had
been at Agra where the sign "No Welcome to the Prince"
was painted across the doors of the closed shops. Here
Gandhi's white caps had succeeded, but they had little
power in Delhi. There is a frank comment on the recep-
tion in Delhi in Lord Rawlinson's journal. He viewed
the visit to Calcutta as "a fiasco," but of Delhi he wrote:

"The Prince's visit has gone off splendidly, which
... is a tremendous relief. He has worked very
hard. . . . His winning smile and extraordinary at-
tractive manner won the hearts of all. He had an-
other great success with a speech in Hindustani,
which he learned by heart, to the i ith and i6th Raj-
puts, to whom he presented colours. The men were
delighted and cheered him to the echo."

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The adjectives of the journalists were spent when the
Prince arrived in Delhi. When they looked upon the
grandest scene of all, the Durbar, with the Prince, Lord
Reading and fifty ruling Princes on the dais, one of them
described it as a "flashing effulgence/' The laurels for
speaking went to the Maharajah of Nawanagar, who said:

"In my happy and, I trust, not unfruitful earlier
days in England, I was once vastly astonished to find
myself described in cold print as a conjurer. ... I
surely need, and sadly lack, some magic power in
order ... to attempt a tribute of welcome to Your
Royal Highness. . . . You come . . * bearing on
your shield, fostering in your heart, realising in your
work and actions, the noblest and most princely of
all mottoes, / serve. . .You come to us as our
friend and benefactor, willing to help us bear our
burden, willing to know and love us as we would
know and love you/'

The most dramatic occasion during the visit to Delhi
came as the Prince was driving away after laying the
foundation stone of the Kitchener College. He came to
the camp in which twenty-five thousand Untouchables
were waiting to see him. Their spokesman walked to-
wards him humbly, and begged for the Prince's interven-
tion on their behalf. The twenty-five thousand were
amazed and they cried with joy when the Prince stood
up before them. They were so used to persecution that
they could not believe their eyes as they looked at him.
The effect of this one gesture was extraordinary. In his
notes upon the Prince's visit, the Chief Commissioner of
Delhi wrote: "I am informed by non-official workers
among these depressed classes that this recognition has
had a most remarkable effect in stimulating their self-
respect and in strengthening their determination to lift

173

KING EDWARD VIII

themselves out of the thraldom which custom and caste
regulations have hitherto assigned to their lot."

The Prince moved on. He played polo, he went pig
sticking and he danced at Patiala. He was no doubt
pleased to find that the Maharajah had not dressed up his
programme with quite as much formality as his neigh-
bours. He went on to Jullunder and then he faced the
long, splendid programme at Lahore. Half a million
people were packed into the streets to welcome him. On
the surface Lahore was gay and pleased, but Gandhi's
attempts at a hartal were not easy to break. Three thou-
sand troops guarded the way, three aircraft flew low over
the city, five motor-lorries filled with armed infantry,
three tanks and three armoured cars warned the Mahat-
ma's followers. The precautions were necessary and the
vigilance of the troops was not relaxed for a second. A
writer in the Statesman said that "sentries, with fixed bay-
onets, constantly patrolled the edge of the footways be-
hind the cordon of infantry, even during the passage of
the royal barouche." Nowhere else, except in Bombay,
was there "such a dense pack of humanity."

Once more the Prince's fearlessness won the day. When
he went to the big native gathering he rode slowly
through a crowd of thousands of Punjabis and made
"many of the pessimistic observers of his tour stare with
amazement." He insisted upon the most simple appear-
ance, and even when he was greeted by Sirdars in gold
coats he wore ordinary riding kit. The twenty thousand
Indians who watched him were surprised. When King
George went to them he had been urged to wear robes
and crown wherever possible, and they did not under-
stand that the heir to a throne could move among them
so simply and with so little show. He must have been
right in this decision, for when he left Lahore in the eve-
ning, darkness "loosened the tongues of the Indian

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INDIA

crowds." The platform was a seething mass of excited
and gesticulating humanity . . . the white saloon slowly
moved out. * . . It was a triumph.

He moved north to Jammu, nearer and nearer to the
frontier. He met the caravans which had come over the
mountains, camels laden with shawls and carpets and sil-
ver; and he met the Thibetan monks who had left their
monastery five months before, in donkey carts, so that
they could travel four hundred miles to dance for him.
He turned west again and came to Peshawar. The fron-
tier was tranquil then, but he was able to see the ways
over which the ceaseless watch is kept. He was able to
look out over the plains of Afghanistan, the earth of in-
vasion and war. Gandhi had caught the imagination of
the townspeople, but he had failed with the tribesmen
who came in from the hills. They found, when they ar-
rived in Peshawar, that the malcontents had v closed their
shops, so they begged the Chief Commissioner to allow
them to take the law into their hands. They suggested
that five thousand of them could easily reopen the shops,
for all time, by removing their roofs. The gallant gesture
was forbidden, but when somebody interrupted the
Prince's speech by crying, "Gandhi ki jai/' the tribesmen
were so incensed over the blot upon their hospitality
that the police who were protecting the Prince had to
abandon him and guard Gandhi's followers from attack.

Again one is able to find a calm record of the visit in
the report of the Chief Commissioner, who wrote: "Effect
of visit on trans-border population has been to rekindle
personal interest in the Royal House. The gathering of
the clans both in the Khyber and the Malakand was a
spontaneous and striking demonstration of loyalty and
goodwill. . . . Summing up, we must put the city hartal
and the hooliganism on the debit side."

The Prince turned east again. His journey was almost

KING EDWARD VIII

ended. He accepted the salute of ten thousand troops at
Rawalpindi; he went on to Dehra Dun, the hill station
on which the Gurkhas are trained; and he went to Hard-
war, where his hosts threw thousands o flowers into the
air so that they rained upon him as he walked. He crossed
the Empire once more, and, too tired to contemplate the
size of his own success, he boarded Renown at Karachi
and steamed south towards Ceylon.

The morass of India's political issues has no place in
this story. To keep the Prince of Wales as the central
figure one must turn from the glory of the Indian Princes
and the beauty of the welcome which they prepared for
him: turn also from the rights and wrongs of British rule
in India, and search into the story of the effect upon the
Prince himself. The reports of the Commissioners, writ-
ten in the cool afterglow of the Prince's visit, provide the
best answer to the challenge which Mr. GancLhi had pre-
pared for him.

The newspapers used grand phrases to describe the
final result of the tour. The Englishman described the
Prince as "the greatest ambassador of his time/' and
added that "he did more to establish the relations be-
tween the masses of India and the Crown on a solid basis
of personal contact in four months than edicts could have
done in a generation/' If this is true it was because of
Ms good nature and because of his democratic manner
that the Prince succeeded. His easy address, which would
have been impossible in a permanent official or in a
Viceroy, was engaging in an illustrious visitor who passed
quickly by. King Edward VII had referred to the British
people as his subjects and King George spoke of his
people. King Edward VIII stepped down still further and
usually addressed his fellow-men. This freedom of man-
ner, which sometimes alarmed conventional governors as
much as it delighted the mass of people, soon brought

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INDIA

him popularity. Men of a philosophic turn of mind might
have commented on this; they might have said that popu-
larity is a fleeting sensation and that it has nothing to
do with respect and stableness. But it was not until the
end of King Edward VIII 's life in England that this truth
showed itself. While King George slowly amassed a great
bulwark of respect about him, because of his character,
his son gathered the gayer rewards of popularity which
were to sustain him while he was heir to the throne,
although they were not enough to sustain him when he
became King.

It has been said that the Prince was sometimes de-
ceived as to the value of his success; that he mistook the
gay accident of popularity for calm esteem and that his
self-confidence flourished accordingly. If this is true he
cannot be blamed, for the tumult in which he was forced
to live was beyond human endurance, and an old, cynical
philosopher could not have passed through similar ex-
periences without over-valuing his own talents and
success.

There were no frowns for the Prince of Wales in Cey-
lon. He needed no guarding upon the lovely island, as he
stood in the burning sun to greet a thousand old soldiers,
or as he walked out at night into streets which were rivers
of light. He travelled to Kandy by train, and out o every
little hut, cooled beneath palms, there came smiling
women and children. The peasants in the rice fields ran
towards him and waved, and when he came to the moun-
tain stronghold of the old Kandyan kings he went into
the temple where Buddha's tooth is guarded within seven
gold caskets. Silent monks in saffron cassocks moved
across the floor of the temple to receive him, and a priest
took him into the tiny sanctuary which is built into a
cage of steel. The golden reliquary was opened. The
priest lifted out a casket of gold. Within this was another

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KING EDWARD VIII

casket, and within this a third, a fourth, a fifth and a
sixth. In the last box, which burned with the little flames
of jewels, was the sacred relic. The priest moved the oil
lamp until its light shone down upon the lid. Then he
opened it and the Prince saw the tooth of Buddha inside.

The Prince went down to the sea again and he steamed
on to Malaya, where the friendly people tore blossoms
from the trees to throw at him, and then to Japan. The
Prince taught the Japanese to behave like a London
crowd. They threw away their old prejudice against
cheering as he drove from Yokohama to Tokio between
nineteen miles of eager people* Special theatres were
built for him, and at the Opera he sat with six Imperial
Princesses in a theatre so brilliant that even the Japanese
nobles blinked before the splendour. Two thousand
school children sang "God Save the King" for him in
English, and the Japanese Government threw away con-
vention to the extent of allowing an armed guard to come
ashore from Renown to take part in the unveiling of the
Allied War Memorial.

Sir Percival Phillips records a scene at the garden-party
where the Prince met Admiral Togo, standing "apart
from the other guests, a silent, shy little man in naval
uniform, his eyes fixed meekly on the ground." The stiff
woodcuts of Japanese life to which we are accustomed
in the West came to life during the gay journey to the
cities of temples and shrines. Through them all the slim
English figure moved, sometimes sitting upon the floor to
eat Japanese dishes with chopsticks, sometimes watching
the fishing with cormorant at Gifu, sometimes moving
over the water of the inland sea, while thousands of Japa-
nese formed an animated shore line, waving little flags
in the daytime and, at night, setting thousands of tiny
lanterns afloat upon the lake so that they drifted towards
his boat "like coloured flowers."

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INDIA

There was no political chicanery to harass the Prince
in Japan. He lived through a month of beauty, and when
he returned to England in June he had added still an-
other conquest to his story. He had scattered many fears
in India and he had shown regard for an old friendship
by shaking hands with Japan.

CHAPTER XVII

SOUTH AFRICA

The people of South Africa admire and respect
the Prince very much. They love his simplicity >
his human ways, his sincerity. . . . He has
lived a life of duty from his earliest days.

GENERAL SMUTS

CHAPTER XVII

SOUTH AFRICA

JLHE

PRINCE WAS NOT ALLOWED TO STAY IN

England very long. The interlude of London life soon
ended and he was once more on a battle-cruiser, which he
described as his "second home/' bound for South Africa.
He was to travel 35,000 miles on this journey, to add
South Africa and South America to his store of knowl-
edge. The people he was to meet numbered thousands.
This time the Prince travelled in Repulse; there was
one splendid hour on the way to the Cape when she met
the Atlantic Fleet of thirty-eight vessels coming home.
The Prince steamed down the avenue of cruisers, battle-
ships and flotillas; twenty-one guns saluted him and a
whaler came alongside for his letters. The fleet moved on
towards the colder north and the Prince steamed on to-
wards the Gold Coast. He went ashore at Gambia,
"whence baboon skins were carried off to Carthage by
Hanno and his explorers 5 ' twenty-five centuries before.
The chiefs drew white gloves over their fingers before
they dared to touch his hand, and some stroked his sleeve
when they overcame their shyness. At Sierra Leone the
dark aristocrats were carried to him in hammocks, borne
on the heads of their nimble little bearers; savage men
from the hinterland whipped themselves with snakes be-
fore him until their arms and legs were bleeding. The
pageant of strange countries and customs had begun
once more; the speech-making, the long hours of travel-
ling and the cruel demands upon the Prince's temper and
strength.

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KING EDWARD VIII

At Takoradi lie left the sea and his train travelled into
the gorgeous forest of "teak and camwood and ebony,
tall rubber trees and mahogany giants/ ' and when he
slept at night, during his journey across Ashanti, the
darkness was lively with the piercing alarms of the
crickets. The Ashanti chiefs placed a cloth upon the
ground for him and on it was embroidered the word
"Okoasa/' which means "No more war." The company
turned towards the coast, and at Accra the Prince saw
Repulse again. She lay, grey and formidable, in the sea
below the high town. A few fifteen-inch guns were fired
into the water, so that the people of Accra could know
the amazing strength of British order. But the natives
did not mind these shows of power. They liked King
Piccin, as they called him, and at night, when he slept
in Christianborg Castle, they dozed over their refresh-
ments and recalled the days when their grandfathers were
once herded in the castle to be sold as slaves. Their
thanks for the freedom which they enjoyed were to King
Piccin rather than to the booming guns. Also, through a
fortunate accident, they discovered that he shared their
sense of humour. To the childlike nature of the Gold
Coast natives, laughter is a sweeter tie than any palaver
of power and dull government. When so many of them
climbed a tree that it broke and scattered them on the
ground, the natives laughed and the Prince smiled with
them. They saw him laughing and from that moment
their friendship was secure. All that they felt was written
into an ode by the Gold Coast Court poet and sung to

" im: Best gratitudes to the King,

And to your mother, the Queen,
Gratitudes to House of Lords,
To Governor of Best sorts,

Who all good provided

That the Prince here guided.

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SOUTH AFRICA

He Is the real Prince of Wales,
Born in the diamond Palace,
Dear son of King George the Fifth,
But he oft the palace leaves,

Wanders in dominions,

To know himself Nations.

The dusky loyalists were required to sing their ode to
the melody of Sankey's "Jesu, Lover of my soul." From
the Gold Coast the Prince went to Nigeria for the great
Durbar on the Kano Plain. Twenty thousand horsemen
rode before him, mile upon mile. There were chieftains,
their calm, dark faces shaded beneath gay umbrellas, with
dancers and jesters prancing at their heels. Their ap-
proach was heralded by trumpets twelve feet long. The
horsemen, stretching from horizon to horizon, had come
from the farthest corners of the land to herald the son of
the English King.

When the wild beauty of the Nigerian welcome was
ended, Repulse steamed south; and after a few days at
sea the Prince stepped ashore in Capetown.

A stroke of good fortune had already sent the Earl of
Athlone and Princess Alice to South Africa. The new
Governor-General had brought a refreshed conception of
English life and ideas to the South African people. When
he went there, with Princess Alice, many South Africans
had come to look upon the appointment of a Governor-
General as an expensive survival of old and threadbare
customs. The sense of duty, the charm and the example
of family life which Lord Athlone and Princess Alice
gave to South Africa had already stimulated a new belief
in English standards, and when the Prince of Wales ar-
rived at the Cape, in 1925, he benefited from the friend-
liness which his cousins has inspired.

Capetown had copied Melbourne and was hidden
modestly behind a fog as the Prince approached the har-

185

KING EDWARD VIII

bour. Table Mountain was so heavily veiled that search-
lights were thrown upon it to penetrate and reveal its
broad crest. The Cape is a melting place of human -races,
and the chattering, jostling crowd which waited for him
in the streets was not single-minded with delight. There
were critics as well as friends climbing the boughs of the
trees to see him pass. He faced his duty with grim energy
and shook hands with two thousand people in one day.
Some who travelled with him thought that his smile was
less spontaneous than in Australia and New Zealand, as
if he were conscious of the old hates and suspicions which
still disturb the peace of South Africa's daily life. If he
doubted his own powers, these doubts must have been
quickly and pleasantly scattered when, during the first
day, he was kidnapped by the students from the Uni-
versity. Here, at the southernmost gate to their country,
they swept down upon him at Government House in a
vast voor-trekker's wagon. They were dressed in crazy
clothes, some in lion skins and plumes. Behind the wagon
hundreds of girl and boy students formed a mad tail,
holding each other and running in his wake up the hill
to the University. Again the player of the bagpipes in the
cloisters of Magdalen came to life. He was surrounded
by affection and young nonsense, and even the burden of
the past three years had not withered his power to throw
himself wholeheartedly into their fun.

When the Prince met the old, serious leaders at dinner
in the evening, he had to talk with Dutchmen who had
once fought against England. He had to listen to clever
men who were still inclined towards secession and who
had already woven the design for their own separate
South African flag. His speech won their first applause.
He did not speak grandly, nor with phrases cunningly
written to catch their favour. "I come to you as the King's
eldest son/' he said, "as heir to a throne under which the

186

SOUTH AFRICA

members of that Commonwealth are free to develop
each on its own lines but all to work together as one. . . .
My travels have taught me this, that the throne is re-
garded as standing for a heritage of common ends and
ideals/' It was the sincerity and the smile which went
with these conventional words that warmed his audience.
At the end he ventured into Afrikaans. "I am very
pleased to meet you to-night, and thank you again for
your warm welcome/' When the dinner was over the old
Dutchmen gathered about him, and one, we are told,
pressed his hand and said that it would be very nice if he
could remain in Africa and be their first President.

The problems of the new countries are not all the
same, nor has their history of struggles and chicanery
been alike. The protest of the Maoris was faint when the
white men went to New Zealand, and when the wind-
jammers of the 'forties sailed into the harbours of
Australia the aboriginals scattered like animals into the
Bush. The Indians of Canada were a finer race to con-
quer, but they soon allowed their old brave arrows to
rust in their quivers. Africa was the only country whose
natives were mighty in their fight against European
civilisation. Their hordes had measured millions, and
they still measured millions when the Prince of Wales
w r ent to see them in 1925.

The Maoris and the aboriginals and the Indians are
subdued for ever, and even their old habits and their
rude culture have withered away because of the new and
exciting life which the white man has taught them. But
the lithe black boy who walks down the street of Johan-
nesburg, with his wonderful European boots slung over
his shoulders, to save their precious soles, is still un-
tamed. He is making his way towards a cinema and he
likes his European clothes, but he is one of the horde of
black people w r ho are a nation still. Nor is this the end

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KING EDWARD VIII

of the Briton's problems in South Africa. The dour Boer
has not forgotten Mafeking and Ladysmith, for all his
apparent peacefulness. His strength has also to be reck-
oned with, and he does not always fe$l at peace with the
world when he sees the Union Jack fluttering upon his
horizon.

In South Africa the Prince's duty was different from
that in any other country in which he travelled. He was
certain of the welcome of the British colonist. But the
Dutchman Is a Dutchman still, nor have the Kaffirs and
the Zulus been scratched very deep by the pin of British
culture. One town in the Cape Province soon showed
how willing the Dutchmen were to succumb to the
Prince's friendliness. The long white train drew into the
station, which is two miles away from Oudtshoorn. A
commando of Dutch farmers had ridden out to meet
him; heavy, strong men, used to adversity. In the town,
two miles away, twenty-five thousand people were wait-
ing on the recreation ground for the Prince and the com-
mando. The horsemen had brought a spare stallion with
them, and when the Prince saw it he rejected the car
which had been sent for him and he rode into the town
at the head of the astonished farmers. The guest arrived
at Oudtshoorn at the gallop, with the commando in the
dust cloud behind him. When the Prince went to Stellen-
bosch, where the students have had time to spin theories
about freedom and the leisure in which to make dreams
of ideal republics, it was a young Dutchman who stood
up and said, "We cheered because we know a man when
we see one. Our presence here is intended as a tribute to
your manliness which the most persistent attempts of the
whole world have not been able to spoil." It was, per-
haps, the most frank and sympathetic tribute which had
ever been paid to him in a public address.

By this time the Prince of Wales was almost sadly used

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SOUTH AFRICA

to speeches. The harmless vanity of mayors was not to be
denied and he had listened to many thousands of sincere
but weary tributes to his excellence. His manner of deal-
ing with mayors became more and more clever as he
travelled on, and there were many occasions on which he
gently imposed his own will. In one South African town
where he had to listen to a long speech, he rolled up his
reply, handed it to the mayor, and told him he could
read it afterwards. One enjoys the story of his visit to
the mayor of a town in Canada where His Worship had
mixed the pages of his speech. He fumbled with the con-
fused sheets of paper. He had read as far as "Not only do
we welcome Your Royal Highness as the representative
of His Majesty the King, but we . . ." and there the
mayor paused, for the next page was missing. The Prince
knew the formula well by then and he was able to
whisper, "we welcome you for yourself.' 3 The Prince's
white coach threaded its way through the fertile valleys
of the Cape Province. He paused in towns beside the sea;
he ate oysters and he talked to the fishermen; he turned
inland and nodded to the drivers of the great wagons
that passed him, drawn by teams of eighteen oxen. Little
brown children came to the roadside and threw ferns and
flowers on to the parched dust so that his coach should
run over them. When he came to the mountains he
passed a place where his great-uncle, the Duke of Edin-
burgh, had hunted elephant, almost sixty years before.
Sometimes he stayed to shake hands with soldiers who
had fought in the Matabele War, and in one place two
old men held their still older father in the air, a man
who had passed his hundredth year, so that Prince and
centenarian could wave to each other as he passed. Some-
times the fields were rich with orchards, with peaches
and oranges which lent their colour to the green. Os-
triches strutted across the open country, and in one town

189

KING EDWARD VIII

the Prince danced in a hall which was almost covered by
feathers: canopies o gold and yellow and blue plumes
trembling from the agitation of the dance. As he travelled
he gathered more and more information. While people
cheered and smiled he asked questions and he made
notes. He wished to know the costs of production and the
methods of manufacturing. Like his mother, he seemed
to have an inexhaustible appetite for facts, and what he
was told he usually remembered.

Sometimes the white coach paused and the Prince
stepped down and went out over the veld to shoot spring-
bok and guinea fowl. The richness of the land through
which he was passing was proved in arches of produce
which had been built across the roads. On the way to
Port Elizabeth the train stopped while a group of eager
Kaffir minstrels played and sang to him. One of the songs
he knew. Again the boy of Magdalen stirred: he jumped
down from the train and joined them with his ukulele.

Port Elizabeth is the Melbourne of South Africa. Here
are the descendants of the 1820 settlers to whom England
is "home." Their welcome was glorious, particularly
when the Prince went out to the crusaders' ground, upon
which seven thousand white children and seven thousand
brown children joined in singing his anthem. As they
sang, silver aircraft pierced the clouds or dipped down
to salute the son of "the great White King over the seas."
Hordes of natives came over the hills, dressed in skins,
and they called him

The beloved of the young children,
He who can be stern as the mountain,
Yet dances as the young wind.

He was wise in his replies to these dreamy phrases.
When he spoke to the ten thousand Bantus who danced
before him at King William's Town, until the dust at

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SOUTH AFRICA

their feet was muddy with their sweat, he said: "I would
caution you against tendencies to mistrust those in au-
thority, or to turn to those whose smooth promises have
yet to be translated into performance. To fight these
dangers you should learn to manage your own affairs."

In Southward Ho! Mr. Ralph Deakin gives many good
pictures of the Prince's journey through Africa, In a
sentence, one catches the scene of the luncheon in the
Valley of Perpetual Spring, where "Baboons chattered
among the aloes on the opposite bank and a few natives
were silhouetted in all their blackness above the topmost
crags. " Then the scene with the chiefs in the Transkeian
territory, where twenty thousand natives came with their
shields, their elephant tusks and chests of stinkwood,
their assegais and corn to place at his feet. The Prince
had brought imposing silver-topped walking sticks as
presents for the chiefs, and when they advanced towards
him they were "trembling so violently with emotion that
they could scarcely trust themselves in mounting the
steps. Two of them had to be assisted across the dais.**
One old Basuto chieftain who knelt before him paused
when he stood up. Then he came closer and stared deep
into the Prince's eyes. The Prince accepted the startling
examination without moving.

The tour of Cape Province ended and the Prince
moved on. Even in the train he seldom rested. His pen
was busy, or he would sit at the window of the carriage,
hour after hour, waving to the little clusters of natives
w r ho had gathered beside the shining rails to wait for
him. He came to the Free State Province. He sang hyrnns
in the church at Jagersfontein in Dutch as well as Eng-
lish; at Bloemfontein a commando of two thousand
horsemen came out to meet him, and as the Prince rode
in beside the leader, a man who had fought as a rebel
under de Wet, they talked in Afrikaans. The overflow

KING EDWARD VIII

of their conversation was heard by the horsemen behind
them. "He is talking in Afrikaans/' they whispered. The
wonder was whispered by one to the other of all the two
thousand, and if any of them had come unwillingly, their
unwillingness died before the gesture he had made. He
had bothered, as he had bothered in India, to learn the
language of his hosts, so that he could speak with them
in their own tongue. On the borders of Natal and the
Free State he was thanked for this thoughtfulness. An
English child and a Dutch child were waiting for him on
the frontier, holding a chain of flowers across the track
as the train hurried on.

The most splendid meeting of the Basuto natives was
on May 29, when more than one hundred thousand of
them gathered into a great basin of earth. They came,
still panting and sweating from the long and terrible
journeys which had brought them there. Fifty thousand
of them were mounted. The others came on foot. They
crowded into the great valley, legions of them, pressing
in towards the place where he was to appear. The outer
fringe of the multitude watched from the rock hills; stiff,
hefty dark figures, mounted on their horses. The Prince
often disappointed the natives by wearing dull clothes.
This time, he dressed grandly: when he approached them
he was wearing the blue ribbon of the Garter, the symbol
of Edward Ill's Order of Chivalry, across his scarlet
tunic. A murmur of worshipful approval sounded in the
hot valley. A hundred thousand dark heads craned for-
ward to watch the old chief, the "one about to die," who
spoke for them. "I rejoice/' croaked the old voice, "as
old Simeon of the Holy Scriptures rejoiced when he was
privileged to set eyes upon the Lord Jesus." The Prince's
answer was gentle, but its note was of common sense.
"To-day you live in peace and prosperity under British
rule. The King continues to watch over you with fatherly

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SOUTH AFRICA

care. You will show yourselves worthy o his protection
by listening to the words of the officers appointed to
guide and instruct you. They will educate you to bring
up your children, to make best use o your land, to free
your cattle from disease and to restrict their number so
as not to tire out the land."

From the Basutos the Prince went to the leper colony.
He walked down among the withered victims and he
talked with them. And then to Durban, to be there in
time to celebrate his father's birthday. It was in Durban
that Gandhi had first raised his voice in the cause of se-
cession, but the twenty-three thousand Indians in Dur-
ban did not seem to remember what the Mahatma had
told them. There was a Natal Indian Congress which
tried to create a hartal, but their efforts were niggardly
and their success negligible. The mass of Indians ignored
the agitators. They placed garlands about the Prince's
neck, and when he offered to speak to them in Hindu-
stani they begged him, instead, to speak in English, be-
cause this was now their tongue. At Maritzburg the Zulus
shouted before him, "Thou whose loveliness surpasses
the loveliness of butterflies ... we bow down to our
adorned ankles before thee in homage/'

Then came Zululand, where the great dark men rode
in to greet "the Lord of the Great Ones/' A chief who
was a hundred years old had ridden eighty miles on a
donkey to see the Prince. Legions of big, proud Zulus
danced and yelled in front of him, their cow-hide shields
waved in the air and the fountains of ostrich plumes on
their heads moved wildly as they jumped upon the earth.
"There is only one House/' they shouted, "and that is the
King's House/* One young warrior stepped out from the
vast company and danced alone. His body was decorated
with feathers and beads. He danced like a great flame, a
flame that leapt until it was subdued by its own strength

193

KING EDWARD Fill

and fell at the Prince's feet. Through all this primitive
ecstasy the Prince moved quietly, advising them to edu-
cate themselves, to work and to bury their old lazy
dreams.

The royal train passed from the coast to the Transvaal
between miles of immense bonfires. Again the com-
mandoes rode out to meet him; again the chiefs led their
black followers up to salute him as he passed on to the
goldfields, without which the Transvaal would be a poor
and desolate place.

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TRANSVAAL

We thought that we were conquered, that we
were crushed and finished, but we have lived to
learn that it is not the British way. Having ex-
perienced the mildness of British rule^ we re-
joice the more because it subdued us.

The Zulu chiefs speaking to the Prince
on behalf of the Zulu people

CHAPTER XVIII

THE TRANSVAAL

JL RETORIA AND JOHANNESBURG ARE NOT

more than thirty miles apart, but the thirty miles might
be the Atlantic for the difference one finds in the people
of the two cities. Johannesburg is rich and noisy and it
is the home of millionaires. In Pretoria there are touches
of Cheltenham; there are old ladies who make needle-
work covers for their chairs, who read the Cornhill and
smile over English jokes. If there is this difference be-
tween Babylon, the city of gold, and Cheltenham, the
town of culture, their voices were one in greeting the
Prince of Wales when he came to them from the little
towns and the open country, heralded by artillery and
droning aircraft. Three hundred people, each more than
sixty-five years old, lunched with him; thirteen thousand
children sang to him and twenty thousand natives per-
formed their frenzied dance before him.

The most interesting hours during this part of his
journey were those which he spent with Mr. Hofmeyer,
the Administrator. Mr. Hofmeyer's Dutch blood was
cooled in an English university. He seems to be free of
old prejudices, unvain, humorous and simple. He lives a
domestic life which is so unpretentious that it is not easy
to believe in his importance during the first moments in
his house. When he spoke to the Prince he said, "You
have shown that you understand us; you have spoken to
our people in their own tongue, thus giving recognition
to their language. In doing so you have touched a chord
in our hearts which will continue to vibrate. We recog-

KING EDWARD VIII

nise In you, sir, if I may say so, a certain kinship ot
character with our own people. Ours is a simple people,
big-hearted and frank. ... In you, sir, we recognise
that the keynote of character is sincerity." The Prince
replied in Afrikaans, and next day he placed a wreath of
white carnations on Kruger's grave. Then he went on to
Johannesburg.

At night the Prince of Wales climbed on to the roof
of the Rand Club, the powerful core of the goldmining
interests of the Transvaal. He saw rockets and fireworks,
a stream of dancing light, stretching for thirty miles
along the lofty reef which gives the world half its gold.
When it was almost twelve o'clock he was dancing with
the young and fair of Johannesburg. Suddenly the elec-
tric lights failed, and he was left to dance with his partner
while the others hurried forward with candles. They
made a way for him, moving with him so that he was
always waltzing in a pool of candlelight. As the clock
struck twelve somebody near to him said, "Many happy
returns of the day/' It was his thirty-first birthday.

Johannesburg was jubilant and kind. The Chamber
of Commerce gave him a casket to which every mine of
the Witwatersrand had contributed an ounce of gold.
They brought him bars of gold and silver boxes, travel-
ling rugs of fox fur, lion skins, dogs, flowers and fruit.
One old lady sent him a cheque for two thousand pounds
and begged him to buy a horse for himself. He pleased
everybody, especially the old man of one hundred and
three years who brought his son, aged eighty-five, and
apologised for the absence of his grandson who had been
driven to his bed by the weakness of age. The Prince
pleased them all more than even when the mayor had
said, "This hall has very bad acoustic properties." "Well,
in that case/' said the Prince, "why have any speeches?"

Although Johannesburg is six thousand feet above the

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THE TRANSVAAL

sea, some of its mines go down to the level of the coast.
The Prince descended into one of these, travelling
through the labyrinth of tunnels and asking questions of
the miners whom he saw at work. When Johannes-
burg was spent by its own pleasure the Prince left for
Rhodesia.

The flowery streets of Bulawayo were roofed with flags
and banners. The story was the old story lived again.
Natives came out in their thousands. "Royal Bird, come
out and let us see thee/' they cried, heaping karosses and
shields and treasure at his feet. But his common sense
was not shaken. "The loyalty of the mouth is not equal
to the loyalty of the spear," he said. He climbed the
Matapos, the roof of the world, where Rhodes is buried.
When he drove through the streets of Salisbury, half-
hidden girls threw violets down upon him from high
windows. But it was not all picturesque and gay. He
spent long busy hours enquiring into the lives of the
tobacco growers. He heard the old Rhodesians thank him
for the stimulus that Wembley had given their trade, and
in the evening, after dinner at the Governor's house was
over, he invested Sir John Chancellor and others with
honours from the King. The natives brought more leop-
ard skins and so many pairs of elephant tusks from which
gongs could be made that one shudders at their number.
He went out to the citrus orchards and then, as a unique
gesture, he went to Gatooma and laid the foundation
stone of a Masonic temple.

The Prince left Southern Rhodesia behind him. At
Livingstone he danced in the open air. Just as he was
going in to supper he saw a company of natives walk on
to the dance floor. They carried mealie sacks and ropes,
which they placed on the floor. Each sack was weighted
down by a black boy and then the older men dragged
them over the floor to polish it for the dancers. Again

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KING EDWARD VIII

the bagpipes were playing at Magdalen. The Prince
formed the natives, their sacks and their black boys into
a line and offered a prize if they would sprint-race around
the dancing floor. The Prince was starter and the Gover-
nor acted as judge. They whirled about madly, round
and round the dancing floor, so madly that they crashed
into the Governor and brought him to earth.

When the dance was over the Prince went on to the
Zambesi in a long boat, and next day he saw the Victoria
Falls. He walked through the rain forest, where a million
pearls of water fell about him; he held out his hands so
that they played with the little rainbows. Hundreds of
white moths flew about his head. He climbed up to a
high place where he saw the whole magnificence of the
falls. Then he went up the river beyond the thunder of
the water. Crocodiles blinked at him, natives tapped
drums in the forest, and in the afternoon, far up the
Zambesi, he met the great Yeta, chief of all the Barotse.
Yeta had come three hundred miles downstream. For a
week his company of canoes had threaded their way
through the jungles, through the rapids. Yeta travelled
with great ceremony: his ambassadors came in a flotilla
of dugouts; his retinue were about him in long, slim
barges, each with a white awning under which the chiefs
of the Barotse sat. Forty oarsmen, lively with coloured
feathers, brought Yeta's barge in to the bank of the river.
Yeta himself came ashore, elegant in a uniform of black
and gold. Drums crashed. Still the Anglo-Saxon common
sense did not miss an opportunity. "The Governor has
told me how you, Chief Yeta, and your counsellors re-
cently agreed to give up one of your old customs, that of
making your people work for the chiefs without pay-
ment. I am glad to hear it. You have adopted two of the
great principles of civilisation that a man is free to give

200

THE TRANSVAAL

his labour where he will, and that the labourer is worthy
of his hire/*

The Prince came to the northernmost place in his
tour. Here, at Broken Hill, the diligent Governor of the
Katanga had travelled many miles to greet him. The last
company of natives danced in front of him. Some of them
had walked four hundred miles through the forest. His
last meal at this northern point was an odd luxury to find
in such a setting. More than forty miles from the nearest
white man's house, with deep brown valleys and im-
mense blue mountains rising and falling between him
and the horizon, he sat down to a meal of caviare, iced
consomme, chicken, partridge, and strawberries. The
luncheon was served in a pavilion of thatch and grass
and flowers. Mr. Deakin, who describes so many of these
occasions in Southward Ho!, says that in the midst of all
this sophistication the Prince sat down and ate nothing
but an apple and a piece of toast.

CHAPTER XIX

ST. HELENA, THE ARGENTINE AND CHILE

I have called the New World into existence to
redress the balance of the Old.

GEORGE CANNING

CHAPTER XIX

ST. HELENA, THE ARGENTINE AND CHILE

JLROM THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE "REPULSE"

steamed north-west towards St. Helena. The little island,
of which one cannot think without recalling the exile
of Napoleon, was proud and hospitable, but the Prince
was allowed a respite from the usual speeches and busy
hours. For a moment he was able to forget the present
and to contemplate the past. As a boy at Windsor he had
spent many hours over his history books. When these
were closed he was able to play in the park which held
the story of a thousand years within its glades and
shadows. He had been used to the sight of a tree which
was grown from the willow beneath which Napoleon sat
when he was at St. Helena. There are many trees and
memorials at Windsor; some are oaks which grew there
in Elizabeth's day one stands in the place where Herne's
oak once grewand there is a cedar under which Queen
Victoria's dog used to wait for her holding her gloves in
its mouth. But none of the great company of trees
awakens a more vivid and melancholy picture than
Napoleon's willow which the Prince knew as a child.
1 He went to the glen where Napoleon was buried; he
planted an olive tree beside the empty grave and he
drank from the stream beside which the exile used to sit
in the summer evenings. When he returned from his
graceful pilgrimage he was shown the records of the
island for the year 1821, and he read the brief sentence,
"Saturday the 5th, died General Napoleon Buonaparte/*
From St Helena Repulse changed her course south-

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KING EDWARD VIII

west, and on August 4 she came to Montevideo. Uruguay
gave the first sign of the depth of its pleasure -when the
President stepped forward and welcomed the Prince by
extending both hands.

The first hours after the arrival were dignified and
beautiful, and the Prince, wearing his scarlet tunic and
his bearskin, set the fashion for grandeur and pomp.
But pleasure soon conquered the day and there was a
programme of receptions, dinners, dances and opera.
This visit to South America was important to the Prince
for he was to make many secure and profitable friend-
ships with South American leaders during the years that
followed. He chose the country as a fresh field for his
campaign for British trade, and he planted the first good
seed of this cause when he said to the President of Uru-
guay, "If we penetrate outward forms and appearances
we find, in the essential trend of thought and policy,
nothing inconsistent in the larger aims which animate the
peoples of Uruguay and Great Britain/'

When Montevideo had cheered itself hoarse the Prince
travelled to Buenos Aires, which is as beautiful as its
name. The cry was the same in every country, even if it
was in continually changing tongues. "Viva el Principe
de Gales/* the two million people of Buenos Aires cried
with immediate delight. In place of the sober sincerity
of the Dutchmen who had ridden with him in South
Africa, the Prince found careless, noisy, Latin fun. The
black horses which drew his landau through the streets
were harnessed in gold, and as he passed he bowed be-
neath a rain of roses, daffodils and lilies. The country
which owed much of its security to British capital and
enterprise overwhelmed its guest with kindness.

Once more the Prince showed that he had been a busy
student, and he surprised those who were used to his
versatility by introducing phrases of Spanish into his

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ST. HELENA, THE ARGENTINE AND CHILE

speeches. The note which he played upon persistently
was of friendship between Argentina and Britain, but
he avoided high-sounding phrases and moralising in
favour of statistics and facts; he talked also of democracy
and of "equal opportunity." Mr. Ralph Deakin wrote in
Southward Ho! that the "Argentine treatment of the
Prince of Wales stood quite alone.*' He described the
arrival at the Naval Dockyard: "It was not the mere wel-
come of a single city; it was an extraordinary tribute
that came spontaneously from the citizens and seamen
of half a hundred different lands, including Germans,
who were here in full force. It is doubtful, indeed,
whether anybody has ever listened to such a volume of
sound as they combined to make. It was a nerve-racking
experience; one wanted to escape, yet wanted to stay and
witness the almost barbaric effect of it all/*

The Prince turned from the acclamations whenever
he could. He demanded time for his journeys of enquiry,
and one day he went to one of the vast freezing works.
"He saw experts fell the animals at a blow, without a
sound and with never a second blow. From butcher to
butcher each carcass glided on the overhead cable until
it hung in sides of beef, wiped and cleaned by hands
provided with damped and sterilised hot cloths. One of
the floors of the establishment is 330 feet long and has
a capacity for 25,000 carcasses. There and on the sheep-
killing floor, where 4,000 are dealt with at once, he asked
questions by the dozen while standing over the srnock-
frocked dressers, each doing his allotted task, and ex-
amined the methods of sorting the all-important by-pro-
ducts. He took keen interest in the cooking and canning
departments and spent some time in the hides depart-
ment, in which some 60,000 skins are stored." Every
chapter of Mr. Deakin's interesting record of this tour
gives us such side lights on the Prince, pursuing

207

KING EDWARD VIII

knowledge with his now famous earnestness. When he
was driving back to Buenos Aires from the freezing plant
he looked up and saw thousands of pigeon which had
been released flying over him. Their wings had been
dyed red, white and blue in celebration of his presence.

Buenos Aires almost killed the Prince with kindness,
but there were simple scenes wedged in between the
pageants. One evening he was expected at a Toe H
gathering. He was late, and while the members were
waiting for him they gathered about a pianoforte and
sang songs. During the day somebody had told the Prince
of an old Englishwoman, sick and bedridden, who was
unhappy because she could not see him. He had gone
to her on his way to the Toe H party and he had stayed
beside her bed for half an hour. When he arrived at the
Toe H building he could not find the main door, He
entered the hall alone and found himself at the end
where the group of men were standing about the piano-
forte. He joined them, unnoticed. One by one the singers
turned, discovered the Prince, and fell away. The sing-
ing thus became fainter and fainter until the pianist
turned and said, "Why the hell don't you sing?" He saw
that he was alone with only the Prince leaning over his
shoulder, trying to follow the music.

One of the most delightful incidents of the Prince's
stay in Buenos Aires was when a young Argentine
Britisher, named Sammy, was chosen to present the
Prince with a rawhide whip on behalf of the members of
Toe H. Sammy was elected because he was the youngest
member. He spent many days in preparing his speech,
and when the great hour came, he had to face a hall
crowded with people and, at the far end, the Prince him-
self, upon a dais. Sammy was to walk the length of the
hall to make his speech, but he could not move. He
fumbled with his tie and his pockets, and he seemed

208

ST. HELENA, THE ARGENTINE AND CHILE

almost to be parodying the Prince's early shyness on great
occasions. The Prince saved the moment gallantly. He
walked down from the dais, advanced towards Sammy
and led him back to the other end of the hall. "I can
quite understand," he whispered. "It is exactly how I
used to feel when I had to make a speech."

Early in September the Prince crossed the Andes into
Chile. He might have taken advantage of the journey
into the mountains to rest and read, but he rose in com-
pany with the sun every morning to sit at the window
of his carriage, for ever searching the landscape or asking
questions. He might have pitied himself for the long
months of duty which lay behind him, but his zeal
seemed to grow stronger. Whenever the train rested he
would jump down into the snow, sometimes to tramp
away from the track, sometimes to make snowballs which
he threw at his equerries. If the engines were changed
he would run along the track and watch the men at their
work. At Uspallata, twelve thousand feet above the ocean,
he saw the big bronze figure of the Redeemer rising from
the white slope of the mountain as a signal of peace be-
tween the two republics. He passed on to the ancient
town of Santiago and, as the welcome of the Argentine
faded behind him, the welcome of Chile began. The
grand moment during his stay in Santiago was when he
laid the foundation-stone of the Canning monument in
front of the British Legation. One hundred years had
passed since George Canning "raised his voice to tell a
continent that its political and economic recovery was to
be obtained ... by consolidating the ideals of inde-
pendence/* There had been days of rain before the
ceremony and, sitting in his room, the Prince had im-
proved the hour by learning more Spanish. When he
spoke of Canning, "the Saviour of Chile," he was able to
recall his achievement to the Chileans in their own

209

KING EDWARD VIII

tongue. His Spanish was now so good that he could talk
to the officials with ease. On September 12, the Prince
was near to Valparaiso. The outward journey was now
ended and the noise o the great, free breakers of the
Pacific induced him to sleep. Ralph Deakin writes that
the Prince's stay in Valparaiso was "as a sailor among
sailors." He steamed out to the Chilean fleet, at anchor,
and he boarded Latorre, which had fought as a British
ship at Jutland. The President of the Republic chose the
occasion for an imaginative and charming speech. He
raised his glass towards the Prince and spoke of the "great
honour and satisfaction" it was for the Chilean Navy to
receive its guest on a vessel which had been built in an
English shipyard and which had once flown "the flag of
the British Empire." There were rocks of action behind
these clouds of compliment, and while the Prince was on
board Latorre he talked of the plan, then afoot, to attach
British officers to the Chilean Navy "to advise on matters
of organisation, training, gunnery, submarines and avia-
tion." Before the Prince left Chile the scheme was placed
on the tables of the War Office in London.

On September 1 9 the royal train passed over the crest
of the Andes once more, this time through a terrible
storm. Less than a month afterwards Repulse was back
in English waters. The journey of thirty-five thousand
miles was over and a new phase of the Prince's life was
to begin.

CHAPTER XX

WORK AMONG THE POOS.

/ have done the State some service, and they
know it.

OTHELLO

CHAPTER XX

WORK AMONG THE POOR

JL HE PRINCE CEASED ROAMING THE EARTH

when he returned from South America, but, more than
ever, he was a stranger to England and it was not easy
for him to change the tempo of his life. It was observed
by those who travelled with him that there were hours
of contemplation, touching upon moroseness, when he
was not facing a cheering crowd. The manacles of his
father's Court were unwelcome to him after years of
freedom and hurry. The gap between father and son had
widened, for they thought in different worlds. It is said
that the Prince was distressed by his return to London
and that he wrote a letter to his father asking for greater
Independence. The letter is believed to have travelled
ahead of Repulse to warn King George of the changes
which had come over his son. Rumour said that the
Prince's wish for freedom and the right to choose his own
staff was so fierce that he wrote of his decision to re-
nounce his rights and settle in one of the Dominions if
he was not allowed to follow his own way. The tragedy
of his isolation had already begun. His stubbornness was
alleviated by his great charm, his sympathy and his de-
sire to do what was right. But he discounted his powers
by turning from advice and, whenever possible, playing
a lone hand. His scattered experience of men had not
taught him the value of quiet conference, and his rest-
lessness and superficial view of human nature still de-
barred him from realising the difference between pop-
ularity and respect.

213

KING EDWARD Fill

Despite these private misfortunes, which were naturally
hidden from the public view, the Prince learned to make
a unique place for himself in the public life of England.

He could say that the world was his oyster with more
conviction than any heir before him. He had gone, with
his good heart and his keen, enquiring mind, into the
farthest corners of the earth, and his lively memory held
the scenes and the experiences through which he had
passed. They did not fade. As London interests increased
their hold on him, with pleasure and duty hand in hand,
he did not become a Little Englander and forget. The
field of his interests widened along every way. The
Prince's diary of engagements shows us how in one day
in January of 1926, he received a deputation from the
Society of Apothecaries, visited the Sargent Exhibition
and received the Japanese Ambassador. Each of these
duties called for informed conversation. In one morning,
General Hertzog called on him to talk of South Africa,
the Maharajah of Burdwan climbed the stairs of York
House after Mr. Hertzog to talk of India, and, soon after-
wards, Mr. Coates sat with him for half an hour to talk
about New Zealand. Within half an hour on a morning
in 19^7, the Prince received the Portuguese Ambassador,
the Bulgarian Minister and Sir Thomas Cook. But his
visitors were not all plenipotentiaries and representatives
of foreign Courts. Men of business and artists claimed his
time. In one morning he received Mr. J. H. Thomas, Mr.
Gordon Selfridge, Mr. Henry Ford and Sir William
Orpen. The Prince's manner became more assured as his
thoughts matured, although his nervousness and dislike
of advice persisted. He was not capricious in his devotion
to duty, and when the great strike came, in May of 1926,
he found what was to become the focus for his deepest
anxietythe discontented unemployed. From this time
the Prince of Wales identified himself with the mass of

214

WORK AMONG THE POOR

the people In a way no monarch or heir to a throne had
ever done. He became the prince of the people. In the
years that followed the General Strike, the poor and the
distressed learned to turn to him for encouragement
rather than to their own leaders. His cry on behalf of the
unemployed was so persistent that he broke down every
barrier and turned hard-bitten old agitators like Mr. J.
H. Thomas and Mr. Cook into friends. The American
newspapers, always willing to suspect the merit of
princes, told of his growing friendliness with the Labour
leaders, and one of them admitted that "the age of
miracles" had "not passed/* The first real sympathy be-
tween the Prince and the people of the distressed areas
was stirred. The story begins in 1923, when he went to a
provincial town in which there were awful poverty and
suffering. He had been used to scenes of prosperity dur-
ing his journeys into the great countries of the south.
France had shown him one way of horrible human suf-
fering, but in 1923, the misery of England's poor was not
tangible to him. When he came to the town in the prov-
inces he was taken to a soup kitchen and there he stood
back in the shadows, watching the hungry men being
fed. He was silent for some minutes. Before him he saw a
hundred men who lived in shadows he had never known
before* The first time he spoke, in the surprised way he
did when he was shocked, he pointed to a young man of
perhaps twenty years and said, "That man has no shirt
under his coat." He went from the dismal soup kitchen
to a Toe H party, but his depression stayed with him- In
the little adjoining room he walked up and down, press-
ing his hands together and saying, "What can I do? What
can be done?" His social conscience was awakened and
the most powerful theme of his early life had begun.

The Prince returned to London, complaining that
sympathy was not enough. From this time all other in-

215

KING EDWARD VIII

terests took second place for him. He hammered on every
door for help, and, as patron of the Lord Mayor's fund
for distressed miners, he asked that he might be allowed
to go to the mining areas so that he .could see for himself
how the money was being used. The Prince had appealed
for money for the miners on Christmas night, and the
story of the effect of this plea made over the wireless is
best told in a speech which was made by Mr. Cook, who
had led the strike in 1926. "You, sir," said Mr. Cook,
"have done a marvellous thing. Never was I so impressed
as by your speech on Christmas night/' The Labour
leader who had once cried, "Revolutions will come" and
who had been described by his colleague, Lord Snowden,
as a "raving wrecker/* went on, addressing the Prince:
"I was with two Communist friends, and when your
name was announced to speak on behalf of the Miners*
Fund they undoubtedly scoffed. But they listened to what
you had to say, and when you finished, with tears in their
eyes, they put their hands in their pockets and gave what
money they had on them to the fund/'

In case one's English pride should lead one into a nar-
row view of the Prince's service in going to the mining
areas, it might be well to turn to the columns of an Amer-
ican newspaper for an account of the strange pilgrimage
of March, 1929. Mr. G. Patrick Thompson wrote in the
New York Tribune:

"Curtis Bennett,* a big man with a direct way
about him . . . went across to St. James's Palace
and knocked on the dark polished door under the
low arches. Behind that door are the quarters of Sir
Godfrey Thomas . . . private secretary to the
Prince of Wales. Curtis Bennett and Godfrey
Thomas had a talk. The result of that talk was that

*Now Sir Noel Curtis Bennett.

WORK AMONG THE POOR

the Prince decided to go North and see conditions
for himself. He would go informally, with Godfrey
Thomas and Curtis Bennett. No receptions. No din-
ners with county magnates. No mayors* addresses of
welcome. No organised plan. No equerry and no
police escorts.

"This latter provision upset the chief constables
of selected districts. They couldn't see how the
Prince could get along without police protection,
and one or two rather thought there ought to be
troops around. Otherwise they would have to wash
their hands of all responsibility.

"Off went the trio. They put up at a station hotel
in a northern city. Curtis Bennett had the name of
an elderly miner in the first village to be visited. The
miner shook his head. He had a death in the house.
His wife had died that morning. Curtis Bennett
went back, despondent, to tell the Prince what had
happened and to explain that he scarcely knew what
to suggest next,

" 'I'd like to go in/ said the Prince quietly. He
went in. The miner's daughter was inside, a nice
girl, employed as a domestic servant in a good fam-
ily. The Prince caught her arm and gave it a com-
forting little shake.

" *I understand/

"That broke the ice. It also emboldened the girl
to ask, with the simplicity of a child of the people,
* Would you come up to see my mother, sir?*

"The Prince nodded. They went upstairs.

". . . It chanced that in the early afternoon, in
another village, they came to a row of terrible little
houses. They picked out one by chance and knocked.
Could he come in, the Prince asked the miner who
opened the door. The man recognised him, but

217

KING EDWARD VIII

stood dubiously in the doorway. Then he said, 'Ay,
ye can, sir. But my wife's sick, if ye understand/

"The Prince didn't understand until he got in-
side. And then he did. In that dreadful, little bare
room the miner's wife lay in the pangs of child-
birth. For a moment the Prince stood looking at that
twitching figure under the rough bedding.

" 'If ye wouldn't mind holding her hand just for a
minute, she'd never forget it/ The Prince stepped
up, put down his hand and the mother's sought it
and clutched it."

The Prince tramped through the mud and cold for
four days. Mr. Patrick Thompson reminded American
readers that "King Edward, for all his shrewd tact and
diplomacy, never entered the workshop, never toured the
industrial area, never associated himself with the people
as his son and grandson have done/' The Prince's search
into the life of the miners was penetrating. He asked for
their pay sheets and he asked the cost of their food. And
as he passed from one house to the other he was the ob-
ject of a tribute which was unique in his life. The pho-
tographers and pressmen who usually gathered at his
heels left him almost alone. They waited in the towns
near by to gather the facts for their stories; he had asked
them not to follow him and they obeyed. It is said that
not one of the miners in his long pilgrimage complained
to him. They answered his questions, but they did not
grumble.

When the fourth day ended the Prince's companions
were very tired. They were motoring from Newcastle to
Darlington, hungry and exhausted, and Sir Noel Curtis
Bennett could contemplate nothing but the pleasures of
sleep. On the outskirts of Darlington they came upon a
cluster of tall chimneys. Fearing the worst, Sir Noel Curtis

5>l8

WORK AMONG THE POOR

Bennett diverted the Prince's attention to the opposite
landscape, but he failed. "What are those chimneys?"
asked the Prince.

"They are part o the railway wagon works/' he was.
told.

"Then well get out and see them," was the answer.

The Prince found a small boy who took him to tlj?e
foreman. He asked the man many questions and then
hurried back to his car. Just as he left the factory he told
somebody to telephone to the Mayor of Darlington and
ask him to be at the railway station. When the hurried
talk with the mayor was over the Prince went to his own
compartment, and Sir Godfrey Thomas and Sir Noel
Curtis Bennett at last fell back in their seats and courted
sleep. Ten minutes passed and the door of their com-
partment was opened. The Prince needed their help with
a crossword puzzle. So they had to shake themselves out
of their doze and wrestle with rivers in Brazil, Aus-
tralian birds in three letters and obscure Greek gods. He
left them when the puzzle was finished and they turned
once more to their sleep. Again the door of the compart-
ment was flung open, and the Prince reappeared, carry-
ing his portable typewriter. He was writing a long letter
to the Prime Minister and he wished to know the names
of all the villages he had visited during the four days.

Seven months after the Prince's visit to the mining
areas Sir Noel Curtis Bennett went over the ground once
more, and in a letter * which he wrote on August 28,
1929, he said: "I was in Northumberland and Durham
again last week, and it was very interesting to find that
all these people put the improvement in the coal trade
entirely down to the Prince's visit and, indeed, nothing
would or could persuade them otherwise. Also, almost all
the public houses in the 'red* villages have now hung a
picture of H.R.H."

* To the author.

CHAPTER XXI

LIFE IN ENGLAND

Aviation has made the old nations of the world
young again.

SIR HARRY BRITTAIN

CHAPTER XXI

LIFE IN ENGLAND

AT WOULD BE WRONG TO PRESENT THE EX-

King as a unique character. His position made the clos-
ing tragedy of his reign more terrible than if any other
man had been the victim, but it is to be remembered that
the confusion he suffered was shared by thousands of
young men at the end of the war: men who found that
the problem of living for their country was more terrify-
ing than the threat of dying for it. When the Prince of
Wales returned from his long journeys, many of the re-
turned soldiers had already shaken off their melancholia
and they were fitting into the scheme of English life once
more.

In the darkness of December, 1936, when King Ed-
ward signed his abdication, we did not pause to realise
that the King belonged to the generation which took a
violent view of its problems, perhaps because they had
lived in violence of mind and action from 1914 to 1918.
Psychologists and faddists may swell simple facts into im-
posing theories, but there is no doubt that the Prince
never gained the repose of mind which was taken from
him during the war and in the years of his travels. He was
doubly punished for belonging to his generation, and the
effort he made, from 1927 until the year before his
father's jubilee, is therefore all the more wonderful and
to be remembered in his favour. He must be understood
in this time before he can be understood at the end.

King George's calm sense of duty and his cult for or-
4erliness still prevented him from understanding his

KING EDWARD VIII

son's perplexity. It was his sense of duty which urged
him, perhaps too often, to criticise the Prince, sometimes
quoting the opinion of other, older men in support of
his argument. The name of a prelate or of a statesman
would be brought in to support the King's opinion. Per-
haps King George did not comprehend the care with
which his own father had avoided the same error. He
might have recalled a day when Lady Augusta Stanley
congratulated King Edward upon the good behavior of
his sons, when the King answered, ff We were perhaps a
little too much spoken to and at; at least, we thought we
could never do anything right, anyhow." King George's
son no doubt suffered similar confusion as to what was
right and what was wrong.

Frequent chastening made the Prince of Wales secre-
tive, stubborn and more self-willed than ever. Still in
tune with his generation, he came to look upon his
father, the Archbishop and some of the older Ministers
as a critical and unsympathetic company, designed to
frustrate his natural eagerness. He therefore made his
own life as he wished. It took him into three worlds. One
was in the circle of friends which he gathered about him,
often to the distress of his father, who suspected their
influence.

The second world was that of his father's Court, in
which he was not at ease. The third world was that of his
good deeds and his popularity. Here he let all the charm-
ing aspects of his character flourish at ease. He enjoyed
his popularity and he allowed his self-confidence to pros-
per upon it. But if he enjoyed the privileges of his posi-
tion, he often showed impatience with formality, and he
liked to be hail-fellow-well-met with people, providing
that he still withheld the right to cut off his familiarity
when he chose. It is said that he once allowed a golfer to
call him by his Christian name. When the friend care-

224

LIFE IN ENGLAND

lessly called him David before a crowd of people he
abandoned the game and, it is said, the friendship closed.
On another occasion he retired from a golf club because
the officials remonstrated when he invited the profes-
sional into the club house for tea. These inconsistencies
always had a foundation of good intention, but the foun-
dation sometimes wavered and his judgement of people
was affected. He therefore satisfied himself with a succes-
sion of personal enthusiasms rather than face the experi-
ence of deep-rooted friendship. These facts must be
realised, not in criticism, but as inevitable gaps in his
kind but uncertain nature. Kings are usually afraid to
give their confidence to their friends. Queen Victoria
said, when she was married, that it was a new thing for
her "to dare to be unguarded in conversing with any-
body." Perhaps this fear mixed with the Prince's natural
friendliness and made it difficult for him to create the re-
lationships which would have strengthened him. He
seemed to need affection and to be willing to give it, but
the muddled experience of his life had prevented him
from learning how this could be done.

The Prince had no great desire to read and he was
restless with conversation when it lacked a practical pur-
pose. He was in no sense highbrow, and he once said that
he did not like Russian plays "where they spend three
hours talking about life without bothering to live it."
This comment is a key to his thoughts about art. He was
impatient with the abstract. If he met an author he would
become interested in his work. When he went to see
Thomas Hardy, in Dorset, he returned to London and
read one of his novels. When he met George Moore he
was so charmed by the talk of the celebrated writer that
he read a book of his reminiscences. His approach to
books was therefore more human than literary. It was
natural that a man who lived so busily should have time-

KING EDWARD VIII

tables at his elbow rather than thoughtful literature.

His travels prevented the Prince from becoming inter-
ested in inanimate objects such as pictures, furniture and
decoration until he came to rest in York House. In later
years, when he went to live at Fort Belvedere, the joy of
possession stimulated his interest in his home and he
soon became house-proud.

But any development of taste in the Prince did not
shake his conviction that art should be harnessed to the
practical issues of life. When he spoke at the Royal Acad-
emy, making an appeal for pictorial posters, in 1953, he
said: "I do not believe for one moment that industrialism
and artistic development are necessarily antagonistic, and
that because a man has keen business vision he is artisti-
cally blind. ... A nation's art is the mirror of its inner
mind; the quality of the one is the true reflection of the
other/'

In all the activities which he created the Prince's tend-
ency was towards the practical. He was already playing
an active part in the management of the Duchy of Corn-
wall estates, and he showed himself to be a careful and
even parsimonious master. His house was as modest as the
London house of any well-to-do bachelor, for he disliked
grandness and was apparently not pleased by lavish en-
tertainment. His economies and experience in connec-
tion with Duchy of Cornwall affairs affected his policy in
public speeches, and he was usually able to speak to busi-
ness men in their own language. He never clung to aery
notions, and he consoled the members of the London
Chamber of Commerce by saying, "Commercial educa-
tion is essential in a commercial nation." He said also,
"Commerce is no longer a haphazard affair, but calls for
a cultured intellect and a great power of mental concen-
tration." Two years afterwards he spoke at the British In-
dustries Fair dinner at the Mansion House. "Time and

226

LIFE IN ENGLAND

trade wait for no man ... a trade opportunity missed
is gone for ever/' he said. He sponsored all the modern
devices. "Films are a real aid to the development of im-
perial trade/' he said in November of 1923, and, in the
same year, he told a company of pressmen that "modern
science working hand in hand with modern journalism"
had "put a girdle round the earth/* He talked of the
"science and art" of advertising and of the psychology of
salesmanship. The Prince realised also that his own
power was increased by what was written about him in
the newspapers. He admitted that he had come to look
upon the Press as his "publicity agents" when he spoke to
the Company of Stationers and Newspaper Makers in
February of 1932. By this time the business men of the
country had realised that their cause was the Prince's
cause and that he was their most illustrious champion.
Commercial organisations clamoured for his help. In the
early years it was perhaps because of his name that indus-
trialists sought his patronage. But this compliment was
no longer necessary when he proved that it was no empty
boast which was written beneath his shield. He gave
meaning to his motto, Ich Dien. Once, in a speech to a
gathering of business men, he pressed both his hands
upon the table, leaned over, and said, "I shall always pull
my weight/' The serious promise rings a little sadly after
six years have passed, but he was sincere when he made
it. Freedom from humbug, frankness and energy soon
gave the Prince a position in British industry which had
never belonged to another royalty in our history.

The Prince was inconsistent in his treatment of syco-
phants, sometimes enjoying their manner and sometimes
snubbing them. All kinds of men were admitted to York
House to describe their schemes, but he was seldom de-
ceived if their plans were mixed with self-advancement
or their arguments tainted by humbug. He was quick to

227

KING EDWARD VIII

reprimand. He was slowly bringing a new meaning to
the royal office which he held. Mr. H. G. Wells has said,
"Nowadays . . . the stuffing is out o princes." Perhaps
he saw only Europe and forgot the country at his feet.
The Romanoffs were annihilated and the head of the
Hohenzollerns was an exile at Doorn. The Bourbons
were near their end the Habsburgs lived upon hope.
The House of Savoy was hidden under the shadow of a
dictator. While these fierce changes shook the peace of
Europe, almost more violently than the war which pre-
ceded them, England turned more and more to its Royal
Family for consolation. It moved towards Buckingham
Palace as towards its own conscience, for there lay its ex-
ample in citizenship and its font of moral courage. The
people learned also, as the years passed, to expect a cer-
tain kind of leadership from the heir to the throne. He
spoke for the young and he urged the cause of the prac-
tical. Mr. H. G. Wells was lonely in his pronouncement.
Great minds do not always think alike, and it was pos-
sible to turn to another writer of the time and find Mr.
G. K. Chesterton announcing that "the most popular in-
stitution left is monarchy/'

The popularity was not without reason. It seemed that
in Britain alone life was secure and self-respect a possible
aim for man. While the Prince led us in action, we drew
our inner refreshments from a different kind of example.
This was the example of the King, his father. While the
Prince sounded the bugles of the young, the Sovereign
spoke more gently, with the voice of the old. "With the
ancient is wisdom: and in length of days understanding/'

Foreigners sometimes smiled at the complacency of
English life, and the newspapers of Europe often warned
us that we were living upon a volcano. Perhaps the vol-
cano which was shattering their security in these years
had no influence upon the English earth. The life of the

228

LIFE IN ENGLAND

stolid Briton went on. One turns to a day in 1934 to
understand the difference between our balanced life and
the disasters which unsettled Europe. On one Saturday,
early in December, there was revolution in Spain and a
raid on the Italians on the Abyssinian border. Signor
Mussolini was alarmed over the state of the lire, the Hun-
garians were being expelled from Jugo-Slavia and, in
Russia, Stalin's friend, Serge Kirov, had been assassi-
nated. England's news of the week was not melodramatic
enough to deserve the front pages of its own newspapers.
The first air mail had left for Australia and among the
one hundred thousand letters was one for the King's son,
the Duke of Gloucester, who was spending Christinas in
New Zealand. Within a few days of this event the Duke
of Kent was married in Westminster Abbey. While mon-
archs and dictators in other countries walked, like Crom-
well, with a coat of mail beneath their clothes, in fear
of their lives, the King, the Queen and the Prince of
Wales drove through the streets of London at one with
their people.

In November of 1928 King George suffered his great
illness, and from this time, the duties of his son were in-
creased so that pleasures were lessened for him. During
the ten years since the end of the war, British people had
learned to take their King for granted. It was part of his
example of security and calm that he should always be
with them. He became the symbol of the continuity of
English life. The sudden alarms at the time when it was
feared he might die were therefore terrible. The people's
anthem became their prayer. Seventy years before, the
Prince Consort had lived in Buckingham Palace, slowly
destroying himself with the flame of his own sense of
duty. It had been said many times that King George was
his grandfather's counterpart. He also remained at his
desk when others rested. He was also working in the early

KING EDWARD VIII

morning, when the London labourers were on their way
to work. He was used to the sight of them from the win-
dow of the room in which he sat before his papers. The
fear which gripped the country can be comprehended
only by those who lived through that dark winter, when
rich and poor pressed against the railings of Buckingham
Palace all through the night, wondering if the heart of
England would stop beating. The King emerged from,
the shadows, and he lived long enough to complete the
twenty-five years of his reign. But in the time left to him,
his son was obliged to accept greater responsibilities and
to learn more of the secrets of government.

The Prince of Wales was on safari in Tanganyika
when he learned that the King was ill. During the first
anxious days, while Londoners waited in the rain at the
palace gates for the news bulletins, the Prince left his
hunting camp and hurried towards the sea. He travelled
on Enterprise, at thirty knots, and as he passed through
the Red Sea, merchantmen of every nation, bound for
the East, sent him their messages of hope. The worst time
had passed when the Prince arrived in London, and his
father was half-conscious as he tiptoed into the bedroom
at Buckingham Palace. We are told that the King turned
upon his pillow and whispered, "Did you get a lion,
David?"

There were to be no more months of shooting in
Africa. Even hunting seemed no longer possible and the
Prince gave up his delight in

A gleam of November sun,

The far-spread English counties,

And a stout red fox to run.

When he was younger, the Prince had always enjoyed
both hunting and point-to-point races. He had a lust for
exercise and he loved his horses. Part of the sacrifice he

230

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EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALKS, TAKING A STONE WALL, 1926

LIFE IN ENGLAND

made after the King's illness was to sell his stables and
turn to less hazardous and exacting ways of satisfying his
energy. Miss Sanders, in her book on the Prince, writes of
"a very well-known rider to hounds" who said, " Having
hunted all my life I have naturally been following the
Prince of Wales's fortune in the hunting-field with great
interest. Many are the tales told in clubs of the fences he
had jumped and his fearless riding." Then he went on to
describe a special occasion: "The field was small not
more than sixty people so there was every opportunity
of observing the Prince. ... I can vouch for it that the
Prince rode about as straight a line as a man could take.
. . . The hunting-field is one of the most democratic in-
stitutions in the world, and it is no wonder the Prince has
made himself loved in it. He takes his place quietly, un-
ostentatiously and on his merits. . . . When hounds run
he takes his own line and requires no preferential treat-
ment at gaps."

Riding had given the Prince a release from the duties
of York House, and it was not a light decision for him to
forsake his pleasure. He had won his first point-to-point
race in 1951. From then on he had appeared at many
meetings, and there were times when the members of his
father's Government were worried by his recklessness.
Even the venerable old Maharajah of Udaipur had pro-
tested with him in India. He had said, "I have seen in the
English papers Your Royal Highness's pictures in dif-
ferent games of horsemanship. Sometimes I found them
dangerous and risky. Hence I request Your Royal High-
ness not to take such risks in future, for the safety of
exalted personages like Your Royal Highness is most im-
portant."

The Prince did not heed the Maharajah's picturesque
appeal. When he returned to England he still rode, often
dangerously. But the seed of duty was virile, and in 1928

KING EDWARD VIII

he obeyed the frightening warning of the King's illness
and turned, perhaps sadly, to milder games such as squash
rackets and golf. The same zest hurried him on. If he was
to play golf, he was to play it well. It was exercise but not
a relaxation for him, and he learned the game as if it
were to be his career. The Prince was Captain of the
Royal and Ancient Golf Club, in the wake of his grand-
father. King Edward had performed his duties by deputy.
"Not so the Prince of Wales/' wrote a correspondent in
Country Life. He "gallantly drove himself into office in
the traditional manner, and later in the day played his
medal round despite the too loyal crowds that surged out
on to the links to see him do it." The journalist could not
help adding that "to drive off at a breakfastless hour,
with a crowd of caddies waiting to field the ball, some-
times at insultingly close range, and with the prospect of
a gun going off. with a formidable bang immediately
afterwards, is no mean test of early morning courage."
The adult subjects of his Empire were able to console
themselves with theories and knowledge of the vagaries
of human nature when King Edward abdicated. Their
disappointment was of a different order from the be-
wilderment of the millions of children who had always
accepted him without question. The Prince always had a
special talent with the young. There was great under-
standing between them, and through the years of his
travels he built up a bulwark of child love and loyalty
which was tremendous. In time they would have been his
responsible subjects and they would never have forsaken
him. When he spoke in Bombay the Prince said, "In my
journeys about the Empire it has been my special desire
to meet and mingle with the youth of each country. I
want to understand what is passing in their minds. I want
to know to what they are looking forward/' He never
seemed to talk down to the young or to patronise them

232

Topixal Press sjgency, L/i/., pAota

EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, AT A GOLF TEST 1930

LIFE IN ENGLAND

in his mind. A hundred sentimental and engaging scenes
leap to recollection upon this theme; none more pleasant
than the day in Canada when, after he had spoken to
some children, the teacher said that she would give them
a holiday. "Please don't grant it to-day/' he said, "for it's
half gone. They want a whole day."

These touches of genius with children brought the
Prince success wherever he went. In later years, when he
disciplined this interest into educational schemes, he be-
came a vital force in shaping the thoughts and lives of
the rising generation. The Prince's sensitiveness and
frankness were at their best in the young world. One
traces the wide field of this interest from the thousands
of schools which he saw in the Dominions to the day in
1951, when ninety thousand school children cheered him
in Manchester. When he spoke at the opening of a Bar-
nardo school at Goldings he pleaded for discipline, but
not unkindly. He urged the advantages of education
upon every possible occasion and expressed conventional
views on the progress and training of the young. "Give
us more and more education/' he said to the teachers of
nine foreign countries who had gathered in London for
the Vacation Course. Had he remained as Sovereign there
is little doubt that he would have turned more and more
to this problem. As he grew older, his interests naturally
sorted themselves, but his devotion to youth never fal-
tered, and it must be one of the saddest aspects of his
abdication that the hundreds of promises he made to chil-
dren have been broken and that the millions of young
hearts which he captured with his charm have been sub-
jected to bitter disappointment.

When he was a boy at Windsor the Prince of Wales
had seen aircraft flying over the castle, and when he was
a little older he saw model aeroplanes included among his
brothers' toys. But it was not until 1913 that he was re-

233

KING EDWARD VIII

minded of their military importance, when he saw them
drawn up on the snow at Stuttgart. He talked with Count
Zeppelin and he flew over Thuringia, whence his grand-
father came. These brief views of aeroplanes tantalised
him, and he returned to England eager with questions.
During the war he flew for the first time, and those who
saw him after his escapade over the Austrian lines said
that he showed no signs of fear. One recalls that he was
present at Mons on Armistice Day, when the aircraft flew
back after firing the last shots of the war. When the war
ended and when aircraft had proved themselves to be the
new ships of peace as well as of war, the Prince shared the
excitement of his generation. A new world had been dis-
covered; an aloof, different world of which soldiers and
sailors had never dreamed. At the close of the war the
growth of flying came as a blessing to the young. What
the sea had meant to restless adolescents in the days of the
windjammer, the air meant to them in 1919. The Royal
Air Force was created out of the material and experience
of the war, and Prince Edward was identified with its
growth from the beginning. He wished to know about
new designs, and he was seen reading aeronautical jour-
nals when he travelled in trains; he sought the com-
panionship of pilots and he entertained them at his
house. When Hinkler flew the Atlantic the Prince was
one of the first hosts to receive him on his return to Lon-
don. They dined together at York House, where the
Prince had dined with Kitchener in 1914. Hinkler was
coaxed out of his modesty and made to talk. Sir Harry
Brittain reports in By Air that when "the Prince asked
Hinkler to let him see his maps used on the flight, Hink-
ler blushed and stammered out the fact that he had not
carried any maps at all."

Although the present King was official royal patron of
flying and a qualified pilot, it was his elder brother who

234

LIFE IN ENGLAND

cared most for aviation: he was the only member of his
family who became "air-minded. " The time came when
the Prince could restrain his enthusiasm no longer, and
he begged his father to allow him to fly, if only as a pas-
senger. He used the impressive argument that he could
save time and do more work. The King relented, unwill-
ingly. King George was hot only apathetic about flying;
he actively disliked and distrusted aircraft, and it was
always understood, when he appeared at a review or in a
public place where there were machines in the air, that
they should give the royal dais a wide berth.

The Prince therefore began his flying in an atmos-
phere of frustration. It was about this time that he was
being forced to give up riding to hounds and in steeple-
chases. In 1954 there had been a protest in th*. House of
Commons when a Member expressed "grave concern at
the repeated risks run by the Heir to the Throne/' A
horse had recently fallen on him in an Army point-to-
point and many people were anxious because of his rash-
ness. Now that he contemplated flying there was equal
anxiety, but he had his own way in the end and towards
the close of 1927 he began to fly as a passenger. Early in
1928 Lord Trenchard chose a pilot, Flight-Lieutenant
D. S. Don,* to fly the Prince to his far-scattered public
engagements. His real life in the air began at this time,
He was given a pilot's flying log book upon which was
written, Name, HLR.H. Prince of Wales; Rank, Group-
Captain R.A.F. Within was written the record of the
many flights which followed. On April 27 he made a local
flight over Northolt for thirty minutes, and next day he
kept his first public appointment by air. He was flown
back from Scarborough, where he had been to meet Mar-
shal Foch, in time to keep an appointment in London.

* Now Squadron-Leader D. S. Don, M.V.O.

235

KING EDWARD VIII

He flew over Sandringham House on the way, and the
fact was noted in his diary. His reaction, after the first
excitement of flying was passed, was not romantic. He
liked the speed, the punctuality and the opportunity of
avoiding crowds. But he was impatient on long journeys
and would keep up a busy conversation with the pilot by
telephone. In these days he flew in an open Bristol
Fighter; it was not for some time that he indulged in a
closed and comfortable machine of his own. Squadron
Leader Don was an enthusiast for his service, and he did
not squander the opportunity of catching the interest of
the Prince as they flew. He explained the science of navi-
gation and he induced the Prince to read his maps. He flew
him over the Leicester hunting country which he knew so
well, and he took him for a tour of the Duchy of Corn-
wall, landing in fields and covering the multitude of
Duchy interests as no Duke had done before. This speed
and efficiency fascinated the Prince. He would insist upon
punctuality, to the point of ordering a cruising speed
rather than arrive too early. He was now so delighted
over the advantages of flying that, in 1929, he changed
over to a Wapiti aeroplane with a Jupiter 6 engine,
which assured him a higher cruising speed and longer
range, for Continental tours. He went to play golf at Le
Touquet by air; he flew to Windsor and to Scotland. The
time came when he wished to learn to pilot his own ma-
chine, but King George was still adamant. The Prince
was forced to subterfuge. He bought a De Haviland air-
craft and registered it in Squadron Leader Don's name.
He prejudiced the success of his trick by having the ma-
chine painted in the colours of the Household Brigade.
But his secret was apparently safe and his adventure
began. There still were occasional murmurs against the
risks which the Prince was running and the Air Ministry
was naturally perturbed by its responsibility. It was un-

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EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, IN FLYING KIT AT CRICKLEWOOD

LIFE IN ENGLAND

thinkable that he should ever be allowed to fly alone.

The Prince used his stubbornness well. He worried
Squadron Leader Don until he was at last inveigled into
a plot. If the Squadron Leader took out the rudder and
stick in the front seat, if he had no controls and promised
not to speak a word, then surely they could fly together
and count it as a solo for the Prince. The plot was laid for
Northolt, and one day, when the aerodrome was deserted,
they took off and flew to one thousand feet. It was a briL.
liant, silver-blue day, and the Prince made three perfect
landings. Squadron Leader Don kept his promise and did
not speak once while they were in the air. He hoped that
the Prince would now be satisfied. The secret remained
safe. Neither the King, the Air Ministry nor the eager
newspaper reporters ever heard of the escapade.

But the Prince was not satisfied. He wished to fly abso-
lutely alone and, with good-humoured threats of what he
would do if Squadron Leader Don would not be his ac-
complice, a further plot was made. Again they went to
Northolt when the aerodrome was deserted. Only one
mechanic stood by and he was sworn to secrecy. The
Prince flew to eight hundred or a thousand feet alone.
He made one good landing and then took off again. This
time the landing was not so good and Squadron Leader
Don thankfully saw the end of his half hour of terror. He
has said that the Prince was like a schoolboy who has just
won a race. All the shy delight with which he once started
a merry-go-round beside a road in New Zealand came
back again. "He was as excited as a Cranwell cadet after
his first solo flight," Squadron Leader Don has said.

About this time a newspaper coined the phrase "Flying
Prince." It became one of his new labels. He went to golf
at Sandwich by air and to the Grand National at Aintree.
When the Prince went to Denmark in the summer of
1932 he travelled by an Imperial Airways machine. Sir

KING EDWARD VIII

Harry Brittain has described the scene of the arrival at
Kastrup aerodrome when "tremendous scenes of enthusi-
asm greeted them." "Just as the sun was setting, a flight
of twenty-seven aeroplanes appeared against the crimson
sky. First came the giant air liner Hercules, carrying the
Prince, with all her lights on. Behind her, in perfect for-
mation, came sixteen machines of the Danish Air Force
and eleven other planes. As the air liner came to ground
she parted from the escort, which circled overhead. The
Prince was greeted by the Danish Crown Prince and sub-
sequently driven to the Palace/' Sir Harry Brittain adds:
"In Denmark the Prince experienced flying in Danish
naval seaplanes. While in Sweden he flew from Stock-
holm to Gefle and back in a Junker flying-boat, accom-
panied by the Crown Prince of Sweden." These flights
were good for the reputation of flying. Within England
he made many a tardy corporation air-minded by an-
nouncing that he would arrive at a function by air. Land-
ing grounds were hastily made to receive him and the
towns were thus placed on the air map of the country.
One of the most interesting flights King Edward ever
made was with his younger brother as pilot. This was at
Croydon, when King Edward, while still Prince of Wales,
.suddenly asked the present King to fly him over the aero-
drome, to the consternation of the officials who realised
that they were in part responsible for the lives of two
heirs to the throne.

The Prince was never loyal for long in his enthusiasms,
and once he had satisfied his wish to fly solo his interest
in flying became more practical. By 1932 he looked upon
it as a convenient and hasty way of travel and the element
of adventure faded. But he used the air more and more,
and in one month he flew on eighteen days. In 1931 he
made his commercial tour of the Argentine by air, with

238

LIFE IN ENGLAND

Squadron Leader Fielden * as his pilot. He began his
short, unhappy reign by flying from Sandringham with
the present King so that he could interview his Minister
in London for the first time, and one of the most im-
portant duties of his term as Sovereign was the inspection
of the stations of the Royal Air Force, made by air.

King Edward VIII was not wholly to blame if his
eagerness over flying died some years ago. He had made
every step in aviation against opposition. His father, his
father's Ministers and his advisers were alarmed by his
wish to fly, and the Air Ministry welcomed the transfer
of responsibility to Wing Commander Fielden when he
assumed control of the Prince's aviation in 1929. When
he had wished to be a soldier during the war the Prince
had been discouraged and frustrated, just as he had been
disappointed by the interruption of his career as a sailor.
When he wished to ride, his recklessness was responsible
for protests in Parliament. Every time he manifested an
enthusiasm there were obstacles; voices to remind him
that his life was more precious than his neighbour's. The
Prince disliked empty titles and honorary commissions.
It was his wish to earn his wings the wings which he
already wore by virtue of his honorary rank. He disliked
them for their unreality and many times he told his pilots
how dearly he wished to qualify for them. This was not
allowed. In flying, as in soldiering and hunting, he was
met with a chorus of warning, and he turned away in
disappointment. It was in 1932 that the Prince showed
the first signs of moping and secretiveness which so sadly
tortured him in the end. Perhaps it was that the refusal
to allow him to enjoy aviation to the full completed the
long theme of frustration. He seldom referred to his dis-
appointment, but when he did so it was with extreme
bitterness. A sad end to the story of his flying in this

* Now Wing Commander E. H. Fielden, A.F.C.

239

KING EDWARD VIII

country came in December of 1936, when King Edward
was waiting at Fort Belvedere to complete the miserable
formalities for his abdication. His aircraft was ready if
the weather had been good enough for him to leave the
country by air. As it was, time was the essence of the close
of the tragedy, and every hour he stayed in England was
an injustice to his brother's assumption of the responsi-
bilities of the crown. So he did not fly from his country,
as he had flown down from Sandringham almost a year
before to take his father's place. He turned to his first
love, the sea, as the way to his exile.

Royal persons usually live in strange isolation from the
rest of the world. However much they wish to encourage
confidence, a wall of deference is raised between them
and most people whom they meet. Because of this, they
sometimes act as if there are but two classes in the world
their own and the rest of humanity. This isolation from
the broad stretches of society sometimes confuses the
judgement of princes, and they often imagine qualities
into persons who break down the barriers of reserve by
affecting familiarity. These are usually second-rate flat-
terers, but their manner doubtless comes as a relief in
lives made tedious by formality and impersonal relation-
ships. King George's long experience in the Navy taught
him to appreciate the differences in men, and Queen
Mary, who was brought up with no hint of her future
eminence, has never been bewildered in discriminating
between the wheat and the chaff. For some sad reason
their eldest son was not equipped with this power to
judge, and early in his life he was inclined to gather
about him those people whose familiar manner made it
easy to talk with them, rather than those whose loyalty
and respect made their manner seem reserved. This in-
congruity first showed itself during his American and
Dominion tours. He did not seem to know "the halfway

240

LIFE IN ENGLAND

house between jest and earnest/' and when his official
duties were ended he often sought his pleasure in society
which was unsuited to the needs of the heir to the throne.
It was as if the burden was so heavy for him that when
he needed relaxation he ran to the extreme of gay and
casual people whose objects in life were different from
his own.

It is not possible for princes to lead double lives, if the
second life interferes with the dignity and grace of their
royal responsibilities. With all his free and easy social
pleasures, King Edward VII seldom neglected his high
station in pleasure's name. He worked while he worked
and played when he played, and, during his long term as
Prince of Wales, he was never accused of being casual
over his duties. His grandson seemed unable to uphold
this wise division in his life, perhaps because of the
hustled state in which he lived and perhaps because of
some sad fault in his judgement. While he travelled over
the face of the world on waves of compliment and praise;
while the English newspapers coined fine names for him
and increased the record of his dutifulness and his chiv-
alry, there was a growing undercurrent of discontent. It
left a shadow wherever he went. Everybody loved him,
for it was his nature to attract devotion even from those
whom he hurt in passing. But his talent for making
friends among superficial and unimportant people per-
sisted and grew. It might be forgotten now if it were not
the spring of a river which finally engulfed him. The
story is all the more pitiful because of the innocence of its
beginning. While travelling in Australia, Canada and
India, he would often step on the toes of his hosts by
ignoring official parties and dancing with some shy girl
who pleased him. While in Africa he chose a partner,
already engaged, and danced with her continuously. His
official hostess was ignored, and he did not pause to

241

KING EDWARD VIII

realise that his overwhelming favour might be embarras-
sing to a girl who had to settle back into obscurity after
he had gone. This seems to be but a trivial complaint,
but, once upon the bridge, a captain must observe the
science of navigation or renounce his place to one who
will. The rule is hard, but it is essential in the twentieth-
century machine of State.

It was easy at the time for newspapers to rejoice over
the Prince's democratic habits. When he ignored his
hostesses and chose to dance with some modest girl, who
almost died upon the suddenness of her fame, it made an
engaging story. All contributed to the theme of popu-
larity. But popularity was not enough, and even in
America, where life is more free and class consciousness
allegedly grown thin, there was criticism of his habits
when he went there once more in 1924. The signs on his
arrival were of popularity, but not of respect. He received
the reporters and was obliged to listen to their questions:
"Have you learned to play poker?" "Are you engaged?"
and "Are you going to marry an American?" Although
he performed his duties, the stories which were hurried
across the Atlantic were of his winnings at the races at
Belmont Park and of his dancing until six o'clock in the
morning. American newspapers did not appreciate the
prevailing theme of frivolity, and when the Prince de-
cided to stay longer than planned, thus interfering with
public thoughts over the Presidential Election, the New
York World criticised him calmly but with decision.

"He managed, by his choice of friends and diver-
sions, to provoke an exhibition of social climbing on
the part of a few Americans which has added noth-
ing to his prestige nor to the prestige of royalty in
general. In fact, he managed to demonstrate to
Americans, grown tolerant of the business of royalty,

242

Sport f General Press Agency, Ltd.^ photo

EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, AT POLO, 1921

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SpQfi 6f General Press Agency, Ljd.> photo

EDWARD, PRINCE OF WALES, AND THE BOY SCOUTS, 192

LIFE IN ENGLAND

that it is, whatever his personal democracy may be,
in fact a pyramid of snobbery.

"A good deal of hot fuel is added to the fires of the
old-fashioned republican conviction that civilisation
would survive if the King business were wound up."

On this second visit to America the Prince began to
unravel the good reputation he had made when he went
there after the war. American people were delighted be-
cause he learned to tap dance and to play the ukulele;
because he was deliberately scornful of formality. But the
delight was of a different kind from the first victory of
five years before, when they were able to view his charm
and his royal purpose as one.

From the time of the Prince's return to England, in
1924, the murmurs against him grew louder. They were
always drowned, in the end, by the wealth of his public
success. He was the hero of the masses and he was perhaps
the most celebrated figure in the world. But serious peo-
ple watched him with alarm. Tales of his casual social life
leaked out and depressed those who were too genuinely
fond of him to quicken the harm of gossip. Serious and
conscientious men, who saw him day by day, hoped that
his good gifts would guide him in the end and that the
taste for unsuitable people would pass as a phase. But the
error went on, and when, in 1925, he returned from his
flying tour of South America, stories of his late hours
travelled ahead of him. He lived in pitiless limelight and
there was no escape. That thousands of his contempo-
raries were equally restless did not matter to the gossips.
More was expected of him than of any other man of his
age, and the affection which most people felt for him, was
tinged with disappointment. There was one hint, in an
English journal, that he might mend his ways. With care
and understanding, the Spectator suggested that the

243

KING EDWARD VIII

Prince would "rightly interpret the wishes of the nation
if he made it impossible for people to have any excuse for
saying that he is unduly restless or that he exhausts him-
self in giving to amusements time which might be spent
in preparation for work that is always and necessarily
exacting and tiring."

CHAPTER XXII

KING GEORGE'S JUBILEE. THE PRINCE'S FRIENDS

King George has left the monarchy in England
at a higher standard of respectability and popu-
larity than ever before.

The unquestionable sincerity with which the
late King spoke, the humility of the man in
-fact, his whole attitude was such that it made
us all say y "A man, God bless him/*

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

CHAPTER XXII

KING GEORGE'S JUBILEE. THE PRINCE'S FRIENDS

JL/URING THE YEAR BEFORE KING GEORGE'S

Jubilee, the usual celebrations of loyalty were not enough
for the British people. They were on the threshold of a
great year in their history, a year in which the anniver-
sary of their Sovereign's accession reminded them of the
comparative calm in which they lived and made them
grateful. When Mr. G. K. Chesterton broadcast in De-
cember he talked of the "vast buried inarticulate Eng-
land" which was "deeply and dangerously discontented/'
It was then that he added, "I should guess the most popu-
lar institution left is the monarchy." There may have
been deep and dangerous discontent among the inarticu-
late English, but it was not focussed upon the King.

Mr. Chesterton might have chosen a better word than
popularity in paying his tribute to the monarchy. King
George was not loved because of any wild sentimentality
in the public heart, but because, on the eve of his Jubi-
lee, people realised the significance of the slow, steady
flame of his character, which had burned for twenty-five
years; they realised that neither the theories of scholars,
the cynicism of twentieth-century prophets nor the casual
habits of the younger generation could obscure the
simple fact that the King was a good man, a father to his
people and an example to all who place character above
cleverness and duty above popularity. British people
realised, during this year, that they belonged to the only
considerable European Power which was not governed
by fear.

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KING EDWARD VIII

King George had never possessed the popular gifts, nor
had he ever been a grand king, if grandness lies in man-
ner and outward show. One of the few men who saw his
merit when he was young was his father. King Edward
always said that his son possessed character superior to his
own, and he alone prophesied the strength of his reign.
From the beginning King George was a humble man, and
when the Empire placed its heart at his feet during this
year he was surprised. When he had been young he had
not seemed to be a very interesting person. Some months
before the Jubilee a remarkable article on King George,
already quoted in this book,* appeared in the American
magazine Fortune. The writer described King George as
"the most successful king in the last 550 years of English
history." And then, "he prefers whisky and soda to vint-
age wines, musical comedy to more ambitious theatre,
British boiled dinners and sweet puddings to more so-
phisticated food, Jules Verne and Captain Marryat to
more ardous reading, and almost anything on earth to a
picture gallery ... he lives by the clock like his father
and his grandmother before him . . . his greatest pas-
sion next to punctuality is radio . . . his gramophone
records are Gilbert and Sullivan or La Boheme and never
jazz." Then one reads of the mottoes on the walls of the
study at Sandringham, especially of the one, Teach me to
be obedient to the rules of the game. The writer made
deductions from these simple pieces of evidence and said,
"That a man of George's limitations an almost Pick-
wickian personification of the average should have made
such a monarch is curious enough. But that such a man
should have made such a monarch in such a time is all
but incredible." Perhaps the writer did not understand
that our standard of character is what he conceives to be
the average. In a country which knows neither the dark

*Page 149.

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FRINCH KDVVARI) f.KADING THE ROVAI- PKOCKSSION
KING'S BIRTHDAY CKLKBRATION, JUNK, 1930

KING GEORGE'S JUBILEE

state of peasantry nor the rule of a rich and idle aris-
tocracy, the average, or the normal, is the usual standard.
In a middle-class country, devoted to security, suspicious
of the unusual and distrustful of intellectual theories, it
was inevitable that King George should ultimately come
to be looked upon as the father of his people. The
months passed, and towards May of 1935 the show of af-
fection grew. People who knew the King intimately in
Norfolk had always realised this fatherly aspect and to
them he was a squire rather than a Sovereign. A man
from near Sandringham once said to a friend in the
trenches no doubt when the nip of November was in
the air "Gawd help you if you was a pheasant coming
high over the covers at Sandringham when the old gentle-
man was out with the guns."

In 1935 the old gentleman came into his own. The
wide and well-deserved popularity of the Prince of Wales
was bright and transitory as a rocket compared with the
emotions which his father stirred. "Bless the old man/"
cried somebody in the crowd at Leeds as the King passed
by. All the quiet laws of character were represented in
him; all the laws which are mentioned shyly nowadays,
or not at all. The old-fashioned virtues of sincerity, devo-
tion to duty, fidelity to promises: all the king-becoming
graces flowered in him and impressed themselves upon a
troubled, cynical world. The impression made by King
George in the closing year of his life must be described
If one is to understand the eclipse which it brought to the
popularity of the Prince of Wales. The Prince's own
Changed character was in part to blame for the rift
which grew between him and his father's people. But
there was another reason, and it lay in the fact that the
post-war period was tired of the standards which it had
invented for itself. When the people realised that there
was one man ruling a country who upheld the graces of

KING EDWARD VIII

"justice, verity, temperance, stableness, bounty, perse-
verance, mercy, lowliness, devotion, patience, courage,
fortitude," they thought him good to behold.

Two tributes to King George from foreign newspapers
allow us to realise how far the story of his achievement
had travelled. The New York Times wrote of him: "The
King has always shown himself a good friend of America.
Feeling that the United States and Britain ought to co-
operate for common ends and world purposes is perhaps
stronger here to-day than at any time since the war. As
the King is known to share this belief, it is not improper
or immodest for America to claim a right to take part in
Ids Jubilee."

A writer in Le Jour said: "He is loved as a father of
his people. Everything is dignity, honour, almost a patri-
archal comprehension of life in the glass prison of his
palace/' "He is a ruler who consults, questions and
listens with prudence and discernment. This crowned
bourgeois who has lived without pomp, fulfilling all his
duties, must undoubtedly win over to the idea of parlia-
mentary monarchy many of those who think that people,
like families, cannot do without a father above political
parties to bring them up and love them wisely according
to the laws of God and men."

During the month before the Jubilee, King George
was sublimely calm. His repose in agitated times had
teen revealed in the previous year when a Socialist mem-
ber interrupted the King during his speech at the open-
ing of Parliament. The intrusion was clumsy and the
House gasped before such impudence. There was one
calm man, one voice, continuing. It was not until he was
disrobing that the King made a comment on the incident.
He muttered, in his gruff, abrupt way, "Apparently some-
body else wanted to make a speech, too." His life was still
in keeping with the motto which he had learned as a

25

KING GEORGE'S JUBILEE

sailor and which he so often repeated, "Keep your hair
on." He still appeared at his desk early in the morning.
He still opened his own letters and telephoned his sister
every day, as he had done for twenty years. The habits o
his life did not change while the wide streets of the city
were being festooned, the gardens trimmed, the window-
boxes in the slums planted with geraniums and the
farthest cottage in his Empire bedecked with flags as
tangible proofs of the good feeling of his people.

When the idea of celebrating the Jubilee was first
formed, neither the courtiers nor the members of the
Government anticipated more than a graceful acknowl-
edgement of the twenty-five years of the King's reign. In
the first meetings for those who were to arrange the day,
it was thought that a State drive to St. Paul's and a
thanksgiving service would be all. The final thunder of
excitement and thankfulness, which embraced half the
world, was never expected; certainly never imagined by
the King himself. It was when every little village wove its
own scheme for celebration, when every Dominion made
plans for thanksgiving, that the authorities suddenly
realised that their small ideas were inadequate; that they
were out of all proportion to the wishes of the people.
No Sovereign in our history received his tribute more
clearly from the mass of his subjects. The wave of feeling
did not go out from Buckingham Palace to them; it began
in the remote villages, in the tenements, in the crofts o
Scotland, the shanties on the edges of the Australian bush
and the log cabins of northern Canada. It grew and it
surged towards the King, and it was because of this, not
because of his wish or the plan of his advisers, that the
Jubilee became such a great occasion. It was on the day
of the celebrations that the King revealed his surprise
and thankfulness. The acclamation was splendid, from
the hour when he drove out of Buckingham Palace to the

KING EDWARD VIII

moment when the curtains moved, in the night, for him
to walk out on to the balcony. There had been the deep,
softened thunder of the prayer in St. Paul's, the sunny
drive through the city, the mad dancing in the streets
when evening came. The noises of Cockney good cheer
penetrated into the most sedate retreats of the West End,
and no story of this gay invasion was more pleasing than
that of the father who brought his son from the Mile End
Road to Park Lane to see the decorations. A big painted
portrait of King George caught the youngster's eye and
he asked, "Who's that?" The father answered, "That's
the King, and if I ever 'ear you say a word against him
111 knock your bloody block off."

It was the moment when the King's tired, friendly
voice spoke over the radio, using the phrase My very dear
people, that his subjects turned to silence and to awe*
And then, the dark figure on the balcony, emerging
through the window before which Queen Victoria had
sat for her Jubilee almost forty years before; this mo-
ment, and the one in which he turned while Queen Mary
extended her arms towards the huge tide of people be-
low. They had cried up to the window for a long time,
"We want King George." Cynicism and theory withered
before such emotion. It was towards the end of the eve-
ning, when the vast old trees of the surrounding park
were unnaturally silver from the floodlights and it seemed
that all London was pressing against the railings of the
Palace, that the second cry went up, "We want the
Prince." He was not there to stand by his father, so the
cry died and the people sang God Save the King again
and again until the Sovereign drew to the inner scene,
leaving them alone.

With all the tumult and affection which King George
enjoyed during the last year of his life, private grief made
him an unhappy and disappointed man. He had seen his

KING GEORGE'S JUBILEE

people coming nearer to him In comprehension, but, in
grim contrast, he had seen his eldest son retreating into
a wilderness in which he could not help him. Before be-
ginning on the end of King Edward's story, the theme
of his isolation must be revived in extenuation. He was
without friends, because he had lost, or never seemed
to have, the capacity for making solid friendships. He
was therefore thrown back on a succession of amusing
acquaintances who neither strengthened his character
nor elevated his spirit. This lack of friends was sadly felt
when he came to the throne in 1936. Both his grand-
father and his father had succeeded with a circle of tried
friends from whom they had been able to form their
Courts. King Edward VIII had no such company when his
turn came, and even his old staff had been almost de-
pleted. It was before King George's Jubilee that his son
began to pay the supreme price for the errors in his train-
ing, the hurrying from one place to another, the ever-
changing procession of faces and the loss of home life dur-
ing the years when his special character needed its influ-
ence so much. Uncertain of values in living, confused over
the strength and weakness of human nature and bitterly
resentful of all interference and even affectionate advice,
the Prince became a law unto himself. He built up the
usual defences of a lonely man who is not certain of his
own strength. He became increasingly stubborn and con-
ceited over his popularity. Every incident of fifteen years
of his life had contributed to the weakness of self-centred-
ness, and his fantastic vanity over his own capacity was a
matter for disappointment rather than blame. His natural
graces, his charm, his kindliness, the serious and compas-
sionate note which used to come to his voice when he
spoke to suffering people and the promises he had made,
all seemed to turn sour within him.

Some people have said that if King George had died

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KING EDWARD VIII

two years earlier his son would have come to the throne
prepared to make the sacrifices asked o him. Perhaps it
is true that his apprenticeship had gone on too long and
that his weaknesses had become stereotyped.

One of the first signs of the change in the Prince's char-
acter was in his treatment of servants. Kindness and
consideration for those who serve them have always been
characteristic of members of the Royal Family. Like
many old ladies of her day, indulgence for servants be-
came an obsession with Queen Victoria, and she was
always willing to blame a lady or gentleman for a fault
rather than one of the employees. This extravagance was
typical of Victorian times. King Edward was less ex-
tremist in his treatment of his servants, but he was con-
sistent and kind. King George and Queen Mary always
ruled their great houses with consideration for the least
of their servants; indeed, this might be described as one
of the strongest bonds which held their household to-
gether. From childhood King Edward VIII had shown
the same goodness of heart in dealing with those who
served him. One of the strongest themes in his early story
is of his anxiety lest people should be discomforted
through his presence. In 1928, when he travelled in an
ordinary passenger steamer, the directors juggled with
the cabins so that he was able to occupy a suite of rooms.
He wrote, from the ship, to the chairman of directors:
"If I can make any criticism it is that you've been over-
generous to us regards cabin accommodation which may
have caused some inconvenience to the other passengers.
... I mention it only because of my great desire when
travelling unofficially not to take advantage of privileges
and special arrangements that may be made to the dis-
comfort of others."

The Prince was similarly thoughtful with those who
served him in his private life. One recalls his anxiety

THE PRINCE'S FRIENDS

when he travelled to Germany with Herr Fiedler, his
German tutor. Herr Fiedler was an older man, and noth-
ing would induce the Prince to sleep in the more com-
fortable bed which had been prepared for him. Although
his compassion often ran dangerously near to emotion, it
always guided him to kindness, and when some future
historian comes to reckon with his virtues and his faults,
this gentleness and consideration must emerge as the
noblest aspect of his early life. It was terrible, therefore,
to find this instinct withering, so that he broke down the
affection of his household by his lack of consideration.
His entire nature seemed to change, not in the great field
of which tragedies are made, but with a pettiness which
had always been foreign to his heart.

The Prince's troubled spirit found its focus some time
before his father's Jubilee, when he was introduced to
an American lady, married to a business man who had
made his home in England. Up to this time the Prince
had never seemed to find fulfilment in the people who
had engaged his affection. The bond which holds people
in love is their own, and neither prose nor poetry can
define it. The Prince found that his American friend,
already happily married, gave him the contentment
which he had never known before. Her history is impor-
tant for its contribution to the moral indignation which
was part of England's protest against their union. She
had been born in Baltimore and had been married,
when she was twenty, to a lieutenant in the United States
Navy. She obtained a divorce from her first husband in
1935 on the grounds of incompatibility, which is ac-
cepted in America as sufficient reason for closing the con-
tract of marriage. They had been husband and wife for
eight years. Two years afterwards, she met a shipbroker,
Mr. Ernest Simpson, and some time afterwards, when the
marriage which then engaged him was ended, they were

KING EDWARD VIII

married in London. This union continued, and Mrs.
Simpson's talents eventually brought her into society in
which she met the Prince of Wales. Mrs. Simpson always
appeared in public with her husband, and there was
no indication of want of happiness in their relationship.
The friendship between the Prince and herself neverthe-
less developed, and during the August of 1934 he met
her at Biarritz, afterwards upon the Duke of Westmin-
ster's yacht at Cannes, and later in the year at Kitzbuhl,
the charming little Austrian village which was made fa-
mous through the Prince's patronage. When Mr. Simp-
son was not present, an aunt of Mrs. Simpson was usually
in attendance. Mr. C. A. Lyon wrote of Mrs. Simpson in
the Daily Express at the time of King Edward's abdica-
tion:

"What was it that appealed to the King? . . .
What, in short, charmed him? Mrs. Simpson, first, is
a good hostess. She prefers the drawing-room to the
night club. . . . She ranks among the few hostesses
in London, perhaps fewer than a dozen, who have
a real and deserved reputation for good cooking.
"What of her personal appearance?
"When her face is in repose few people would con-
sider it a particularly beautiful face. But it has char-
acter, and its most notable feature is the fine high
forehead. . . . Her hands are competent and
strong, but her fingers are short and usually she
wears no rings. . . . She is exceedingly tidy, and
has probably never been seen by anyone looking
otherwise than that. . . . Her voice is American
with a strong Baltimore accent. It would never pass
as an English voice. She is good-tempered and with
a sense of justice, but can be determined, not to
say pig-headed, on occasions. She has the American
woman's tendency to reform men in small ways."

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MRS, WAUXS SIMPSON IN A WHITK BLOUSE

THE PRINCES FRIENDS

Royal behaviour is particularly subject to gossip, and
the friendship between the Prince and Mrs. Simpson
soon became the talk of the scandal-loving section of
society. Neither the mass of people nor the newspapers
took up the story, and for many months only a few knew
of the Prince's infatuation. It was an instance when
English journalism showed at its best, voluntarily keep-
ing a barrier of silence between the Prince's private life
and their readers.

The Prince of Wales was already drawing his own so-
ciety about him at Fort Belvedere. This small country
house, on the fringe of the Great Park at Windsor, had
become the Prince's retreat. The garden, the arrange-
ments of the house and the society which moved in it
were all his own creation. Gardening caught his transient
fancy and held it for a long time, and it seems that he
found much happiness and release from his duties while
he was there. It was in this setting, free of royal preten-
sions, that the Prince entertained Mr. and Mrs. Simpson
for week-ends up to the time of King George's death.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE DEATH OF KING GEORGE

And when Jacob had made an end of com-
manding his sons, he gathered up his feet into
the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was
gathered unto his people.

GENESIS xlix. 33

CHAPTER XXIII

THE DEATH OF KING GEORGE

GEORGE DIED, AS HE HAD LIVED, WITH

his mind upon his duty. There was no drama in his go-
ing; he passed slowly, on a crisp, January morning. His
last duty had been performed during the day; a scene
which the Archbishop of Canterbury described some
days afterwards in the House of Lords. "He was propped
up in his chair, looking so grave and thin." The Order
constituting the Council of State was placed before him.
"He gave in his old clear tone the command, 'Approved/
Then he made deliberate and repeated efforts, that were
most pathetic, to sign the last State paper with his own
hand.

"Then, when the effort was too great, he turned with
a kindly and kingly smile to his Council, It was a scene
that those of us who beheld it will never forget . , . in
his last conscious hours his thoughts were for the claims
of duty."

In the seven months of life since the Jubilee, King
George had enjoyed a new kind of happiness. His son's
friendship with Mrs. Simpson was a perpetual grief to
him, and the Prince's presence in his father's house
brought little peace. But the unsuspected devotion which
was shown to the King during the Jubilee seemed to be a
compensation: it had seemed to unlock a new door in
him and release a wistful gaiety which showed itself in
simple ways. He had never cared much for the theatre,
but he went, several times, and once he proposed himself

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KING EDWARD VIII

for a matinee. These closing months provided a great
experience for sensitive people. There was an air of ven-
eration in place of the old expressions of ordinary loyalty.
"The King must be a fine old man/' a West Australian
said to an English visitor in Perth. Queen Mary was asso-
ciated with her husband in the new, calm devotion which
the Jubilee had inspired. She was described in an Ameri-
can journal as "one of the few altogether admirable fig-
ures of our time." This was the closing theme of their
story together. They shared distress and disappointment
over their son, but they were consoled in knowing that
their married life together had taught the world a les-
sona lesson which spread out to the farthest edges of
civilisation. People turned from the exciting figure of the
Prince of Wales, especially when the story of his unfortu-
nate attachment was told in the American newspapers.
The English Press was still silent, but enough alarming
extracts from New York journals found their way into
England for the secret to assume the proportions of a
scandal. This was the only menace to the King's peace
during the last days at Sandringham.

On the morning of Tuesday, January 31, all the world
was stunned by the news of King George's death. Grief
swept over the lands in which his Jubilee had been cele-
brated only seven months before. Thirty-five years be-
fore, when Queen Victoria "died, people had thought it
proof of the width of her Empire when a chief in Zulu-
land said, "Then I shall see another star in the sky." The
limit of reverence for King George was not territorial.
The Speaker of the House of Delegates in Virginia spoke
of him as The King, as if he belonged to them also. Jews
prayed for his rest at the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, and
when the news of his death was received by wireless in an
Imperial Airways aircraft, flying at six thousand feet from

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KFNG EDWARD AND MRS. SIMPSON AT ASCOT, JUNK, 1^

THE DEATH OF KING GEORGE

Calcutta to Akyab, the machine dipped in salute and
then flew on.

So the new Sovereign came to his great opportunity,
and the grief of the people was mixed with anxiety. King
Edward's private life was now the prey of inventive gos-
sips. The long, exacting apprenticeship was over; the
long wandering through experience and doubt and mel-
ancholy; the frustration and the striving. The power in
his hands was terrible to measure, and the Government
and those who knew him well were keenly afraid. The
mass of people were ignorant of his growing tragedy, and
to them his accession meant that he would fulfil the
many promises he had made. On the morning of his
father's death, King Edward flew down from Sandring-
ham to London, with his brother, to see the Prime Min-
ister. No king in the history of the world had ever flown
into his capital to announce his accession.

Two days afterwards, King Edward followed his
father's coffin from Sandringham to Westminster Hall for
the lying in state. A sunny morning followed a cold
night, on January 23, and the lawns of Sandringham
were sparkling with frost. The coffin was carried between
the banks of rhododendrons to Wolferton station, whence
it was taken to London. At ten o'clock, King Edward and
his brothers ended a walk of five milesa slow, agonising
march during which thousands of people watched the
new Sovereign's unhappy face. It was grey and drawn by
emotion and anxiety, and the pity of the people changed
to marvelling over his fortitude. Wherever he walked
in the days that followed, when he stood in the shadows
of Westminster Hall, near to his father's coffin, his face
was grey and grimly set. A reporter who saw him in West-
minster Hall, where the twelve great candlesticks threw
their light on the catafalque and up into the intricacy
of the carved beams, wrote of the glow upon his face as

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KING EDWARD VIII

he stood there, being "so changed with grief that one
turned one's eyes away from it." His hair gleamed "with
the familiar boyish fairness/' but his features were
"drawn and set/' "It was the look of a man who in the
midst of personal grief has taken the strain of a new and
tremendous responsibility on his shoulders. His pale face
looked in that moment as though he could never smile
again."

King Edward's grief must have been bitterly mixed
with personal conflict during these mournful days before
King George was buried. He apparently suffered no self-
reproach in staying away from his mother, at Fort Belve-
dere, in the hours when his place was beside her. The
unfortunate friendship was not allowed to suffer in def-
erence to sorrow. The King's conscience seemed to be
able to reconcile the unusual habits of his new life with
his promises to the State. There was no hesitation in his
words when he wrote to the Commons of his father: "I
am well assured that the House of Commons mourns
the death of my beloved father. He devoted his life to the
service of his people and the upholding of constitutional
government. He was ever actuated by his profound sense
of duty/'

The King was able to add, with apparent sincerity, "I
am resolved to follow in the way he has set before me."

People hoped and wondered then. Were the words an
empty formality or did the grey face tell of a struggle
towards greatness? Were the winning characteristics of
years before, the natural kindliness and the wish for
nobleness, to gather their forces together and exalt him
to kingliness? Sometimes in grief words are chosen for
their sound rather than their sincerity. The language of
sorrow and of hope is dangerously near to rhetoric, and
if King Edward threw a fine promise to us to assuage us,
Archbishops and Ministers were likewise rich in good

264

THE DEATH OF KING GEORGE

prophecies. Mr. Baldwin said in the House of Commons
on January 23: "King Edward VIII brings to the altar
of public service a personality richly endowed with the
experience of public affairs, with the fruits of travel and
universal goodwill. He has the secret of youth in
the prime of age. He has a wider and more intimate
knowledge of all classes of his subjects not only at home
but also throughout the Dominions and India than any
of his predecessors."

Mr. Baldwin, knowing the circumstances of his new
Sovereign's private life and doubtless hoping that cour-
age would bring order to his troubled mind, was able to
say that he "looked forward with confidence and assur-
ance to the new reign." "Under God's providence/' he
added, "he will establish the Throne more firmly than
ever on its surest and only foundations the hearts of his
people."

Some time before the King's death his son had quoted
two sentences from Disraeli which the Labour papers
had reviewed in great comfort. He had said, "Once Eng-
land was for the very few. Now we have made it a land
for the many, and we dream and contrive for the days
when it shall be a land for all." A writer in Forward
recalled the quotation when King George died, and he
added, in hope of King Edward's reign, "If this is the
spirit in which he intends acting through his reign he
will be interpreting the mood of the democracy and be
the most popular of kings," The theme of anxiety showed
in some of the newspapers, for it was the theme of public
feeling allied to grief. "What sort of King will he make?"
asked a writer in the Herald, without a balanced answer
to the question. The Archbishop of Canterbury, who was
to play the part of moral judge over his King at the end,
spoke with careful choice of words. His new Sovereign
had been called to a "position so exalted a task so diffi-

265

KING EDWARD VIII

cult/' he said. "Yet he comes singularly equipped for the
fulfilment of that task. He has acquired a unique knowl-
edge of the life of the people of this country and of our
Dominions overseas." There was little hope and no en-
thusiasm from the venerable prelate who had been King
George's friend. Perhaps more than any commoner in the
land, Dr. Lang knew the inner story of divergent opin-
ion, scolding and final disappointment which had marred
the glory of King George's last year of life. He did not
bend his conscience to the occasion for fine phrases, and
his reception of the new King was cold and dark with
presentiment.

King George was buried in St. George's Chapel on
January 28. The bell in the Curfew Tower gave warning
of the procession as it began its march up the hill; the
hill up which the Norman Conqueror climbed almost
nine hundred years before. It was the same bell that
Gray heard from the churchyard at Stoke Poges when
it tolled "the knell of parting day." Within the chapel,
five hundred chosen subjects waited for the body of their
dead King. The dim January light came in through the
robes of the saints in the high stained-glass windows and
sent shafts of rose and green and saffron light on to the
stone tracery. How strange it was, as one sat in anxious
silence, to remember that kings were buried in St.
George's long before Columbus dreamed that the world
was round. Every stone should have been worn deep
with history, but the vast Gothic arches seemed fresh and
young. They spoke also of strength and of to-morrow; of
a future as well as a past. In the choir, the gorgeous ban-
ners of the Knights of the Garter, spreading towards the
altar, reminded one that it was not a great spectacle but
the quiet home-coming to Windsor of a knight who had
kept his covenant.

The congregation which waited, some in the candle-

266

THE DEATH OF KING GEORGE

light of the choir and some in the broader nave, seemed
to be more personal than the procession which was fol-
lowing the coffin up the hill. The old, white-haired ver-
ger who waited by the west door was a sailor once and
he had served in Bacchante under the King fifty-nine
years before. They used to join in sailor talk whenever
the monarch came here. One of the choristers who stood
within the sanctuary sang here at the beginning of the
century, when they brought Queen Victoria from Os-
borne on her last journey. There were others who had
played their part in the life of the dead King. Near to
the west door was the Dean, whose ancestors served the
Royal Family in the time of George the Third. There
were old ladies, dimly seen behind their veils, who used
to dance in the Castle in the gay days before the war. In
front of the altar four candle flames moved gently against
the golden reredos.

From outside came the growing murmur of the proces-
sion. The west window was a vast curtain of stained glass;
a company of saints looking down to the great door of
the chapel. It is said that choristers stood here in the
quiet summer evening of 1916 and heard the boom of
the guns in France.

The form of the coffin darkened the doorway, and one
knew that George the Good was being brought into the
home of his fathers. The Archbishops, the Dean and
Chapter of St. George's, led the procession towards the
door of the choir. One hardly dared to look at the group
of mourners walking behind the coffin: the young King,
his mother and his brothers. As the Bishops and clergy
moved before the coffin the voices of the choir were
heard singing:

I am the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord:
he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet

267

KING EDWARD VIII

shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in
me shall never die.

The procession moved on, past the memorial to Prin-
cess Charlotte, past the memorial to the blind King of
Hanover and then into the shadows of the choir. After
they passed under the low, carved doorway, the words of
the twenty-third Psalm were sung. The coffin passed over
the tomb of Charles I and Henry VIII and then it was
placed on the purple bier over the royal vault.

As the Bishop of Winchester read the Lesson, "I saw a
new heaven and a new earth ..." most eyes turned
towards King Edward. Many who do not make a habit of
prayer must have prayed for him on that day. No man in
the world has ever had so much to decide and yet been
so alone and beyond help in his perplexity. Along both
the ways open to him there lay renunciation. The one
way offered loneliness: the loneliness which made Queen
Victoria cry, at the beginning of her widowhood, "There
is nobody to call me Victoria now." Along this way was
the compensation of great honour and the deeper strength
of courage, which sustains when love is spent. Along the
other way lay the excitement of private happiness, but
also the ghost of failure and no vision or goal at the end.
Grief over the dead was not the chief emotion for those
who thought over the problems of the day. Moses was
dead, but it was of young Joshua that they thought and
of the Lord's words to him, "Only be thou strong and
very courageous."

Some phrases in the Lesson remained in one's mem-
ory: "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes;
and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor
crying." And, towards the end, "He that overcometh shall
inherit all things."

When the Lesson was ended the choir sang the hymn

268

THE DEATH OF KING GEORGE

best loved by the dead King, Abide with Me. For those
who knew Windsor well the old hymn must have had
special importance. It awakened the memory of early
summer evenings when the King used to walk down the
hill to the chapel, always with the Queen and sometimes
with one of his Ministers.

When the singing of the hymn was ended the Arch-
bishop of Canterbury read the burial sentences. The
stillness then was terrible. "Man that is born of a woman
hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He
cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it
were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay. . . ."

The regalia had been removed from the coffin, and
now it bore no ornament but flowers and the King's col-
ours which the young King had placed there. As the
Archbishop spoke, "Forasmuch as it hath pleased Al-
mighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the
soul of our dear brother/' the coffin and the bier slowly
sank into the vault below. There was no movement in
the world, it seemed, except the trembling of the flowers
on Queen Mary's wreath, sinking in to the purple dark-
ness. As the words "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to
dust" were spoken, King Edward took earth from a silver
dish and scattered it upon the coffin.

King George had joined the great company of Eng-
land's monarchs, and, as the eyes of the mourners turned
from the dark vault to the new King, standing beside
his mother, the Garter King of Arms stepped before the
sanctuary and proclaimed the styles of the dead Sov-
ereign. "The late most high, most mighty and most
noble" King was with his God, and the Garter King
raised his voice to proclaim, "God Save the King." The
choir sang once more and, from the altar, the Archbishop
pronounced the Benediction, The Dead March in Saul
was played while the Queen and her son remained be-

269

KING EDWARD VIII

fore the open vault. Then, bowing over the coffin, they
walked out of the south door of the chapel. The short
spell of sunshine which had come an hour before passed
by and the stained-glass windows lost their brilliance.
The new King was walking out among his subjects and
into the world, his grey face sad and frightening. One
remembered Joshua again and murmured, "Only be
thou strong and very courageous/'

CHAPTER XXIV

THE REIGN OF EDWARD VIII

For Princes more of solid Glory gain
Who are thought fit, than, who are born to
Reign.

THO. SHADWELL (1689)

CHAPTER XXIV

THE REIGN OF EDWARD VIII

UuRING THE FIRST WEEKS OF KING ED-

ward's short reign it seemed that he was trying to gather
up the fragments of his life and to fulfil his early prom-
ises. The wide mass of people were still unaware of his
association with Mrs. Simpson, and they were encouraged
in the illusion of security by the stories of the King's
service. The newspapers for this time gave a constructive
record of his busy days, of his continued anxiety over the
poor and his apparent devotion to duty. The interests of
his public life did not change, and there were stories of
his kindliness and consideration which made many peo-
ple hope that his evil spirit was leaving him. When he
went to see the great ship Queen Mary, and then visited
the Glasgow slums, he asked, "How do you reconcile the
world that has produced this mighty ship with the slums
we have just visited?" This was the young Prince of
Wales whom England knew so well. One afternoon he
walked in Oxford, recapturing old pictures of his days
at Magdalen, and he went to the porter, without fuss,
and asked, "May I use the telephone?" There was an-
other story, of the director of a London hospital who
telephoned Buckingham Palace and asked, " Who's speak-
ing?"

The answer was, "The King; can I do anything for
you?"

The director apologised.

"That's all right," answered King Edward. "Tell me
what it's about. I may be able to help you."

KING EDWARD VIII

Those who loved him recognised his true nature in
these incidents, and hope became high again. Britons
were impressed also when he announced generous sacri-
fices in the grants usually made to sovereigns. Working
men and old soldiers still had supreme confidence in the
King. Mr. George Lansbury, the once fanatical Labour
leader, had said of him, "I take my hat off. We do what
we can, but he goes into the houses. We don't/' Every
pleasant sign was treasured by those who watched him,
those who watched him as if he were a patient in fever.
When he attended his first Council meeting at St. James's
Palace, the Ministers and leaders who were there were
comfortably pleased by his dignity and his apparent wish
to do what was right. It did not seem possible that he
could have his tongue in his cheek as he renewed his
promises before them. It was not in his nature to deceive
other men, but it was a sad fault in his nature that he
was able to deceive himself. He said to the Privy Coun-
cillors:

"When my father stood here twenty-six years ago
he declared that one of the objects of his life would
be to uphold constitutional government. In this I
am determined to follow in my father's footsteps and
to work as he did throughout his life for the happi-
ness and welfare of all classes of my subjects.

"I place my reliance upon the loyalty and affec-
tion of my people throughout the Empire and upon
the wisdom of their Parliaments to support me in
this heavy task, and I pray that God will guide me
to perform it."

Many people within the circle of the Court and Gov-
ernment had thought that abdication was already in the
King's mind. But the words he spoke at the Privy Coun-
cil rang sincerely. Promise was being heaped upon prom-

274

't.;;

London AVau dgewy Photos, Lid,

THE KING IN TROUGHTFUL MOOD, VISITING SOUTH WALKS DISTRESSED AREAS, 19

THE REIGN OF EDWARD VIII

ise, and it was reasonable to hope, therefore, that he
would make the decision which the country required of
him. He had always been sincere and ill at ease with
guile. Perhaps scandal had run amok! "The tongue is a
little thing, but it ruins families and overthrows king-
doms/* Human nature leaps quickly to hope, and it wel-
comes signs of confidence. Many people were soothed
when Queen Mary wrote of her son: "I commend to you
my dear son as he enters upon his reign, in confident
hope that you will give to him the same devotion and
loyalty which you gave so abundantly to his father."

Again, in March, King Edward spoke over the air and
repeated the good intentions which he had expressed
before the members of the Privy Council. "I am better
known to you as the Prince of Wales/' he said, "as a man
who, during the war and since, has had the opportunity
of getting to know the people of nearly every country
of the world under all conditions and circumstances.

"And although I now speak to you as the King, I am
still that same man who has that experience and whose
constant effort it will be to continue to promote the well-
being of his fellow-men/'

Foreign journalists, who had doted upon the scandal-
ous story of his private life, were so encouraged by these
earnest promises that they hoped for a change. The
Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung said:

"Wherever he can, King Edward expresses his
wish to come together with the simple people of
the nation. Since his accession, he has fostered, ex-
clusively, the union with them and the union with
the Army. Already, as Prince of Wales, he made no
secret of his social ideas and, as King, he has not
changed his self-willed attitude in this respect in
the least. This makes itself evident in the most di-

KING EDWARD VIII

verse ways. He arranges his private life just as it
suits him and, apart from his official duties, he rec-
ognises no social responsibilities of any kind. He
entertains whom he will. Also, in regard to other
prejudices, he does as he wishes. It would have been
unthinkable, during the reign of King George V,
that a divorced woman should be received at Court.
It is well known that the views of the Church of
England are very strong about divorced women.
. . . The King is only a few months on the throne,
but one has no doubt that it will be an extraordinary
reign. . . ."

King Edward still performed those duties which had
made him popular with the mass of the people. He sang
Tipperary with the bluejackets in H.M.S. Courageous^
and he continued his freedom of manner with people,
but with variations. He had never been a liberal spender
and, with the acquisition of great lands and houses and
fortune, he became curiously parsimonious. Old serv-
ants were dismissed from Sandringham, expenses were
pared, and new, hard economies were introduced, reveal-
ing eccentricity rather than ordinary meanness. There
seemed to be a hint of Franz Josef's iron bed or the
Duke of Wellington's habit of sleeping in his service bed
when the story of King Edward's occupation of Balmoral
was told in the summer. He used one of the rooms ordi-
narily occupied by a major servant, he reduced the num-
ber of canteens from three to one and he travelled with
little more than half the usual retinue of servants. He
ordered the Highland servants not to line the avenue
for his arrival, as they had done in his father's day. If
these economies had been necessary they might have as-
sumed the shape of a virtue. But the King did not seem
able to cope with the new intricacy of problems and he

276

THE REIGN OF EDWARD VIII

avoided decisions whenever he could. It seemed that his
judgment was no longer calm and, instead of finding
peace and grace in his infatuation, he found only a means
of bringing distress to his staff and disappointment to the
servants who had always found him, in the past, to be a
considerate and friendly master. He became a piteous
figure as he estranged himself from those who served
him and who had respected him. Some who saw him
murmured that there was a fault in his reason, and they
wondered how far he was bringing his country to peril.
The campaigns of scandal in the foreign Press slowly
percolated throughout England, and by the end of the
summer a sense of insecurity was spreading into the
country.

An incident in July brought a sudden check to the
growing resentment against the King. He was riding
down Constitution Hill after presenting colours to six
battalions of the Brigade of Guards. He was passing be-
tween two banks of cheering people when a man pushed
his way to the front and threw a revolver, loaded in four
chambers, into the roadway. The reporter for The Times
wrote: " Witnesses of the alarming incident state that
the King saw what happened, reined in his horse and,
after a surprised look in the direction from which the
missile had been thrown, calmly proceeded on his way."

The incident was likely to catch the imagination of the
world. The King had never failed in courage and, for
some days, the Press of all countries spoke of him affec-
tionately. Coincidence gave a romantic twist to the inci-
dent. Ninety-six years before, a miscreant standing on
almost the same stretch of Constitution Hill, had fired
a shot at Queen Victoria. The Prince Consort had de-
scribed the alarming moment in a letter to his brother:
"My first thought was that in her present state * the

* The Princess Royal was born five months afterwards.

77

KING EDWARD VIII

fright might harm her. I put both arms around her and
asked her how she felt, but she only laughed." This story
was recalled and used as a background for King Ed-
ward's happy behaviour. But the comfort from his cour-
age was shortlived. The end had already been prophesied
when, on May 27, the names of Mr. and Mrs. Ernest
Simpson appeared in the Court Circular as guests of the
King. They had dined at St. James's Palace, and the
King had added an incongruous note to his defiance by
inviting Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Baldwin and Colonel and
Mrs. Lindbergh. Six days before the revolver incident,
the name of Mrs. Simpson appeared once more in the
Court Circular, this time without her husband. Now the
talk reached remote places and, for once, widespread
gossip was ahead of the newspapers. With estimable pa-
tience the editors still resisted what was to be the greatest
journalistic sensation of the century.

It must not be imagined that the King wholly neg-
lected his duties. He was harassed, unreasonable and
vain, but he continued to play the role of popular
monarch.

Afterwards, when people guessed over King Edward's
motives, some said that he relied upon this role to sus-
tain him, if a crisis came, and that he played upon the
theme deliberately. It was even said that he imagined a
state of royal dictatorship without a Constitution a giddy
and unreasonable interpretation to put upon his own
powers. But it is doubtful if he came so near to the
megalomania upon which dictators thrive.

It is reasonable to imagine what might have happened
to King Edward had he come to the throne in different
times. He inherited his crown when the country was
sleepy. Neither the Italian campaign in Abyssinia nor
the revolt in Spain had unsettled the true foundations of
British complacency, and the people were free enough

278

THE REIGN OF EDWARD VIII

from national anxiety to spend their feelings in grief over
one Sovereign and in high hopes over the promises of
another. There was no outside stimulus to King Ed-
ward's talents and character at the time of his accession.
Had he come to the throne during a war or in a time of
fierce constitutional crisis, he might have shaken himself
free of the ghosts that haunted him. He might have risen
to magnificence with the ordeal of war or the anxiety of
domestic strife. But he assumed his crown surrounded by
old and comparatively tired men: with a Prime Minister
who stood for the safety and apathy which he could
neither respect nor endure, and with an Archbishop to
whom he was hostile. There were no influential members
of his Cabinet of his own age and experience and, once
more, he suffered the penalty of belonging to the army
that came back from the war. One has insisted upon the
unhappy fact that he had no friends; it was also true that
there were no contemporaries in the Government of
whom he could make both advisers and intimates. He
quickly showed that he was to be impatient with the
old voices that grumbled against him. The first three
acts of his reign his flight to London from Sandringham,
his insistence that the funeral of King George should be
seven days earlier than was usual and his decision to
walk in the processionwere convincing portents. It was
to be a young man's reign. King Edward would not real-
ise that the unconventional ways of a popular Prince of
Wales, the hurry and the spontaneity, did not suit a mon-
arch's stride. He might have imposed them upon his
Government over a period of years, but as it was he
bustled and he failed. Had there been a violent national
distress to inspire him the King might have acted dif-
ferently. It is certain that he would not have spent so
many weeks of his brief reign on holiday, skirting the
Mediterranean and pausing in middle Europe, not to

KING EDWARD Fill

gather experience which might have helped him to esti-
mate the voices which were prophesying war at the time,
but to amuse himself in the way his will and fancy
guided him.

One other interest might have helped to divert King
Edward from his selfish way. It will never be denied that
his devotion to the poor was sincere and calculated to be
of great benefit, and it was well known that one of the
chief objects of his reign would have been to lift the un-
employed and the wretched from their darkness. Many
members of the Government resented his campaigns
among the poor. They found his eagerness discomforting
since it exposed the methods of the authorities and
proved their work in the distressed areas to be slow and
blighted by caution. As Prince of Wales, the King had
been discouraged in his charity. It was clear to him that
he would be similarly frustrated now that he was Sov-
ereign. His eager hands were tied by the red tape of con-
ventional methods. This lack of encouragement in the
one cause which stirred his heart no doubt contributed to
his disappointment and helped his quick and emotional
nature to go its own way. He was accustomed to frustra-
tion, but he had not grown patient with it through ex-
perience.

Early in the summer of 1936 the King chartered Lady
Yule's big and comfortable yacht for a cruise in the Adri-
atic. The consoling figure of Mr. Simpson now withdrew
from the picture, and a party of nine embarked upon
a sunny, beautiful holiday. The pity of it all was that
the photographs showed a happy King. The newspapers
were still discreet, placing the good name of their country
and the sober reputation of the Government before their
own purposes. But those photographs which were repro-
duced revealed the King of ten years ago. The boy who
smiled from the platforms in Canada, from the wharf in

580

THE REIGN OF EDWARD VIII

Melbourne, and from the edge of Mount Vaea when he
was in Samoa, was resurrected. One had known him thus
for a long time. He bought skittles from the fishermen,
he swam, and always he was laughing. Even if one
plunges into the depths of psychology one cannot explain
some of the changes which come suddenly to a man's
nature. One knew only that King Edward had involved
his Government, his Court, his country and his house-
hold in great and painful anxiety and that the reward
for all this was the joy which was written in his face. On
the way back to England he paused in Vienna. He dined
in small restaurants and courted success by his old and
charming familiarity. Everywhere Mrs. Simpson was be-
side him, and if the society which gathered about them
was sometimes of the kind that sparkles but does not en-
dure, there was no denying that the King was supremely
happy.

CHAPTER XXV

THE KING AND THE PRIME MINISTER

His will is not his own;

For he himself is subject to his birth>

He may not, as unvalued persons do,

Carve for himself; for on his choice depends

The safety and the health of the whole state*

"Hamlet/' Act I, Scene 3. Quoted by the
Prime Minister to the House of Com-
mons when announcing the abdication
of the King

CHAPTER XXV

THE KING AND THE PRIME MINISTER

VV HEN MRS. ERNEST SIMPSON'S DIVORCE

action came before the Judge at Ipswich, the newspapers
restrained themselves from a full account of the surpris-
ing evidence, in which she complained that her husband
was guilty of adultery. The case depended upon the evi-
dence of a number of hotel servants, and at the end Mr.
Justice Hawke stated, "Well, I suppose I must come to
the conclusion that there was adultery in the case. Very
well decree nisi."

The modesty of the newspaper reports of the divorce
action did not save the story of Mrs. Simpson's life from
becoming a widespread scandal The weeks of whispered
gossip and rumour were ended. The talk which had
never gone far beyond the ruling classes and the knowl-
edge of the journalists now became the subject of after-
dinner quips; old limericks were remodelled and puns
were invented to suit the occasion. Every ugly device was
used to spread the distressing news. But as the days
passed, a nobleness in the public mind conquered the
cheap aspects of the coming tragedy. While the story
piled itself up towards the inevitable end, there was true
greatness in the reaction of the mass of people. They
were patient and they seemed to respect the King's prob-
lem as a war for his own character. They were too disap-
pointed in him to enjoy moral indignation, and their re-
sentment was not against the throne but against his fail-
ure to fill it with honour.

The constitutional crisis had begun before the divorce

385

KING EDWARD VIII

at Ipswich, On October 13 the Prime Minister had asked
to be received by the King. Someday Mr. Baldwin may
write the story of this first unhappy interview, but for the
moment we know only that for some time previous the
Prime Minister had been beset by letters revealing the
uneasiness of hundreds of people over the King's friend-
ship. Mr. Baldwin was also aware of the impending di-
vorce action, and, in his own words,* he "felt that it was
essential that someone should see His Majesty and warn
him of the difficult situation that might arise later if occa-
sion was given for a continuation of this kind of gossip
and of criticism, and the danger that might come if that
gossip and that criticism spread from the other side of the
Atlantic to this country." "I felt/' he said, "that in the
circumstances there was only one man who could speak
to him and talk the matter over with him, and that man
was the Prime Minister. I felt doubly bound to do it by
my duty, as I conceived it, to the country, and my duty
to him not only as a counsellor but as a friend. I con-
sulted, I am ashamed to say and they have forgiven me
none of my colleagues/'

Mr. Baldwin did not pass through the crisis and time
of abdication without severe criticism. Many Americans
still imagine that both the Government and vested in-
terests pressed King Edward into abdication, and this
crazy view is still expressed in the United States. In such
an imagined plot, Mr. Baldwin naturally appears as a
villain. Also he has been criticised for taking so much
responsibility upon himself. This criticism of the Prime
Minister and the Government remained long after the
abdication of King Edward, in the form of smouldering
resentment. Public opinion upon the matter was divided.
Some viewed Mr. Baldwin's independent conduct as be-

* In his address to the House of Commons, following the King's decision
to abdicate.

286

THE KING AND THE PRIME MINISTER

ing inevitable and wise. Others considered that the
Government had approved of the newspaper campaign
against the King and that they had encouraged it, while
expressing a different view, through the Prime Minister.
It was felt, also, that such a mighty problem should have
been placed before the House of Commons; that the
broad will of the people should have been tested. The
Government was further accused of wishing to be rid
of a King who did not accept their ways of dealing with
unemployment, or adapt himself to their pace. The view
is still held, by many people, that the Government looked
upon King Edward as a young eagle, beyond their con-
trol and likely to act with originality which would be
embarrassing to them. There was also resentment be-
cause King Edward was not given the normal constitu-
tional advice to try and form an alternative administra-
tion, to carry out his wishes, when the Cabinet ultimately
refused to pass legislation permitting him to marry Mrs.
Simpson and at the same time deprive her of the privi-
leges of being his Queen Consort.

When the documents prepared during this time are
made available to some future historian, justice will
doubtless be done to both the King and his Ministers.
In the meantime, until this fuller evidence is made avail-
able, it must be remembered that if Mr. Baldwin and
his colleagues failed to observe the ethics of the Consti-
tution, they also carried the country through the greatest
drama concerning the authority of the monarch since the
time of James II. King Edward was a distraught, unrea-
sonable man during the days before his abdication, and
negotiations with the Cabinet would have been impos-
sible. The outcome of the crisis was dependent upon the
character of the individuals concerned. Mr. Baldwin is
always at his best when he is given a stimulus from out-
side himself, and, in the opinion of his champions, he

287

KING EDWARD VIII

carried off the negotiations with patience and under-
standing, saving the country from violent disruption and
his Sovereign from as much pain as was possible.

The first interview between the King and Mr. Baldwin
was the result of a request made by the Prime Minister
to the Sovereign's private secretary. "This is the first and
only occasion/* Mr. Baldwin has said, "on which I was
the one who asked for an interview that I desired to see
him, that the matter was urgent." The Prime Minister
saw the King on October 20. In recalling the interviews
which he had on this day and on others that followed,
Mr. Baldwin spoke of the King's manner. "Never has he
shown any sign of offence, of being hurt at anything I
have said to him. The whole of our discussions have been
carried out, as I have said, with an increase, if possible,
of that mutual respect and regard in which we stood."
Mr. Baldwin explained his anxiety to King Edward, and,
at the end of their talk, the King answered calmly, "You
and I must settle this matter together; I will not have
anyone interfering."

This, then, was the trend of His Majesty's mind. Mr.
Baldwin did not press the King for an answer. He left
Fort Belvedere and almost a month passed before he saw
his Sovereign again.

Early in November, King Edward announced his in-
tention of visiting the distressed areas of Wales. No phase
of his English life had brought him greater popularity
with the poor than his missions of compassion among
them. His readiness to sympathise, his emotions, which
he never seemed to hide, all showed the true value of his
gentle heart. Once more he caught the imagination of
the mass of the people by his efforts. The emancipation
of the poor advances by reason rather than pity, and the
King's dramatic declarations did not please those who
know the great difficulty of reducing unemployment. He

288

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1

THE KING AND THE PRIME MINISTER

said, at a town in Glamorganshire, "Something ought to
be done to find these people employment." At the end
of his journey he crystallised his interest by making a
promise. "Something will be done/' Cynics have said
that the King made this last effort in charity, to establish
himself in the good opinion of the people. Political the-
orists said that his campaign was part of his wild inten-
tion to begin a royal dictatorship independent of the
Constitution. Neither accusation seems to suit his charac-
ter. But, if these were his intentions, they were cut short.
The Times described his comments and promises to the
miners as part of "a constitutionally dangerous proceed-
ing." By this way he drew attention to the alleged apathy
of the Government in dealing with unemployment, and
if continued such actions on the part of the King would
"entangle the throne in politics/'

There was a fantastic anomaly in the history of these
days in November. Just before going to Wales, before
making his dramatic promise, "Something will be done,"
the King had sent for Mr. Baldwin once more and he had
said, "I am going to marry Mrs. Simpson and I am pre-
pared to go/' Five days after the King's return from
Wales, while the poor of Glamorganshire were still re-
peating his promises and taking hope from them, Mr.
Baldwin was sent for once more. Up to this time he had
obeyed the King's wish. He had not reported the first
interview to the Cabinet. He had perhaps hoped that
there was still time for the King and himself to "settle
the matter together/' During this interview, the King's
mind apparently played with compromise. He desired
the Prime Minister to consider whether he could marry
Mrs. Simpson and, by Act of Parliament, enable her "to
be the King's wife without the position of Queen." An
important point of change thus came to the conversa-
tions between the King and his Prime Minister, Up to

289

KING EDWARD VIII

this moment the King had consulted him as his private
adviser, a role which Prime Ministers have usually
played; a role distinguished by Melbourne, Peel and Dis-
raeli. When the King asked i the Government would
pass legislation permitting a morganatic marriage, he
made his problems into a constitutional issue, and, in his
report to the House o Commons, Mr. Baldwin showed
that he was immediately aware of this moment; imme-
diately aware o the moment in which he ceased to be
private adviser and became Prime Minister, with his duty
to his Cabinet. He said to the King that he would have
to place the suggestion "formally before the whole Cabi-
net" and that he would also be obliged to seek the
opinion of the Dominion Prime Ministers before he
could give his Sovereign an answer. The King told Mr.
Baldwin that it was his wish that this -wider, constitu-
tional field of opinion should be sought; it was his wish
to know the will of the British and Dominion Govern-
ments.

On December 2 Mr. Baldwin went to the King with
his answer. He was certain that no such legislation as
that sought by the King would be acceptable. The plan
was, in Mr. Baldwin's word, impracticable* King Edward
received the news quietly, without protest or complaint.
Mr. Baldwin said that "he behaved as a great gentleman;
he said no more about it. This moment was perhaps the
most poignant in the crisis as far as the King was con-
cerned. He had in his hands the last opportunity of using
his prerogative as a monarch. If he had acted wildly he
might have dismissed his Ministers. This was constitu-
tionally open to him, but in this, the last act of his little
reign, he acted wisely and unselfishly towards the coun-
try. The King seemed to see that to throw the issue into
the arena of politics in a way that would have involved
a general election was unthinkable. It would, indeed,

29

THE KING AND THE PRIME MINISTER

have prejudiced the future of the Crown. He withdrew,
and he wore his defeat with dignity. He stayed at Fort
Belvedere so that he would not stir popular feeling, an
action which made Mr. Baldwin say, "I honour and re-
spect him for the way in which he behaved at that time."

On December i, the day before Mr. Baldwin's third
interview with the King, the Bishop of Bradford spoke to
his Diocesan Conference of his Sovereign's tardiness in
religious observance. "The benefit of the King's Corona-
tion depends, under God, upon two elements/' he said.
"First, on the faith, prayer and self-dedication of the
King himself and on that it would be improper for me
to say anything except commend him, and ask you to
commend him, to God's grace, which he will so abun-
dantly need, as we all need it for the King is y a man like
ourselves if he is to" do his duty faithfully. We hope that
he is aware of his need. Some of us wish that he gave
more positive signs of his awareness."

The King had been criticised for his unconscious con-
demnation of Government methods in going to Wales.
Now he was criticised as a Christian and therefore as
Head of the Church. It was strange that after the long
silence of the newspapers the first breaking of the rule
should come from the provinces. The London news-
papers reported the Bishop's words without comment.
The Diocesan address and the knowledge that a secret
meeting of the Cabinet had been held loosened the
tongues of all. The Stock Exchange showed the growing
fears in a fall in the price o Consols, insurance com-
panies increased the premiums for Coronation risks, and
manufacturers of souvenirs bearing King Edward's head
hurried to protect their investments with policies drawn
up against his abdication. This commercial nervousness
spread quickly, and the word crisis was used in the news-
papers for the first time, to describe the country's anxiety.

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KING EDWARD VIII

On Thursday, December 3, Fleet Street lifted the ban
which had weighed it down for perhaps too long. The
sensational newspapers spread the news of the crisis
across their pages, and when England stirred to its duties
on this exciting day, revolution in Spain, anger among
nations and all world problems were forgotten. Domestic
anxiety held the minds and hearts and tongues of Britons
captive for many days. The newspapers expressed their
concern, each in its own way. The Times talked of the
"paramount importance" of reaching a decision which
would "proclaim afresh the fundamental harmony of all
elements of the State/* The Daily Mail said that abdica-
tion was "out of the question" because of the mischief
that would ensue, and the Daily Express asked, "Are we
to lose the King or keep him? He knows the answer that
the people want to hear." The Daily Herald, the news-
paper of the! working people, declared, "Either the King
is bound to accept his Ministers' advice or else the British
democratic Constitution ceases to work."

In the new countries, comments were loyal but frank.
A Melbourne newspaper said, "Only the King can relax
the tension. His sacrifice might be unreasonable, but it is
necessary for the sake of the monarchy." A Canadian
newspaper hoped that the King would find "duty more
appealing than personal inclinations," and some of the
Indian journalists wrote wildly of his trying to "render a
distinct service to British democracy." New York re-
minded England of her "inexhaustible" gift for compro-
mise, and hoped that it would "avail in this case."

In the British Parliament, Mr. Attlee, Leader of the
Opposition, asked a question of the Prime Minister. He
wished to know "whether any constitutional difficulties"
had arisen, and whether he had "a statement to make,"
The ensuing conversation was guarded and inconclusive,
but the day ended in gloom and the events of the night

THE KING AND THE PRIME MINISTER

made people wait beside their wireless sets or congregate
before the newspaper offices. London was dazed. The
dark facade of Buckingham Palace seemed to fascinate
hundreds of people who stood still, staring at nothing.
Great Britain suddenly declared itself into two camps.
The smaller was all for licence and freedom, at the ex-
pense of security and judgement. The greater was sympa-
thetic, willing to be patient, but certain that the throne
was of more importance than any one man who could sit
upon it. The leaders in the drama lived through a busy
and anxious night. The King saw Mr. Baldwin once
more, and he also waited upon his mother. He had seen
the Duke of Gloucester and the Duke of Kent during the
day. When he went to Marlborough House he saw also
the Duke and Duchess of York.

Whatever tide of criticism there was welling up
against the King, his courage was not at fault. He was
perhaps incapable of conquest within himself, but he did
not avoid the frightening interviews: those with his Min-
ister, which must have tortured his reason beyond com-
mon understanding, and those with his mother and his
brothers, which must have tried his affections. He blun-
dered on, fiercely loyal to his poor ideal, and if the scope
of his conflict seemed small and unworthy, there was no
doubt of his honesty or his sincerity. "He told me his in-
tentions, and he has never wavered from them/' Mr.
Baldwin said.

The sensation of the net day, December 4, was the
departure of Mrs. Simpson for the South of France. The
night before, after his distressing interviews with his
mother, his brothers and Mr. Baldwin, King Edward had
bade Mrs. Simpson good-bye. In the morning she was
already out of England and her car was hurrying south,
pursued by reporters. The newspapers were full of her
photographs, and millions of people saw for the first time

KING EDWARD VIII

a likeness of the woman who had helped to bring such
pain to the country. The public view of her was not wild
or unkind. It would have been easy to heap derision and
cruelty upon her, but there was acknowledgement of her
talents and a concession that she had helped the King, in
less important ways, to overcome some of the faults of
his behaviour. She did not emerge as a great character
or personality, but it was human to hope that she de-
served the devotion which she had let loose. There was
disappointment, a few days afterwards, when she posed
for the Press photographers. It seemed then that she was
insensitive. People examined her oval face and wondered
over the hardness of her mouth. Englishmen loved King
Edward, no matter whither his twisted reason led him,
and they were anxious lest he should destroy himself in-
stead of finding the emancipation and inner peace which
he needed.

Mrs. Simpson's journey towards the South of France
gave a new field to the public imagination. It was hoped,
for an hour or two, that she had withdrawn upon the
strength of her own pride from a position which was
afterwards described, in her name, as "unhappy and un-
tenable." But it was not to be. As the hours of Friday,
December 4, passed by, attention moved once more to-
wards Westminster. In the afternoon, Mr. Baldwin was
to make his first considerable statement upon the situa-
tion. He was to tell the House of Commons that neither
the British Cabinet nor the Dominion Governments
could accept the suggestion of special legislation to per-
mit Mrs. Simpson to become the King's wife and not as-
sume the full dignities of being his Queen.

The behaviour of the responsible members of the
House of Commons during these alarming days is one
of the happy signs left over from a time of great national
humiliation. Mr. Attlee, Leader of the Opposition,

294

THE KING AND THE PRIME MINISTER

showed sensitive consideration for Mr. Baldwin's repug-
nant duty, and neither his questions nor the comments
which followed the Prime Minister's statement were
harassing. When the Leader of the Opposition ques-
tioned the Prime Minister on Friday, Mr. Baldwin
answered:

". . . Suggestions have appeared in certain
organs of the Press of yesterday and again to-day
that if the King decided to marry, his wife need not
become Queen. These ideas are without any con-
stitutional foundation. There is no such thing as
what is called a morganatic marriage known to our
law. . . . The King himself requires no consent
from any other authority to make his marriage legal,
but, as I have said, the lady whom he marries, by
the fact of her marriage to the King, necessarily
becomes Queen . . . and her children would be
in the direct line of succession to the throne/'

The Prime Minister then told the House what he had
told his Sovereign two days before. The only possible way
in which Mrs. Simpson could become the King's wife,
without a consort's prerogatives, was through special leg-
islation, ''His Majesty's Government are not prepared to
introduce such legislation," said Mr. Baldwin. The Com-
mons cheered for so long at this announcement that Mr.
Baldwin had to pause before adding that he was satisfied
that the Dominions would be equally steadfast in re-
fusing their assent to such a solution.

Friday closed with little more to add to the story, ex-
cept a statement from the Archbishop of Canterbury
which was designed to guide the clergy in preparing their
sermons for the coming Sunday. Dr. Lang hoped, he said,
that they would "refrain from speaking directly" on the
matters "which had arisen" affecting the King himself

KING EDWARD VIII

and his subjects. He added, "Words spoken with im-
perfect knowledge of an extremely difficult situation can
give no helpful guidance, and may only mislead or con-
fuse public thought and feeling. Silence is fitting until
the ultimate decisions are made known/'

The Church has since been criticised because it gave
no guide to public thought during the crisis. The reason
is not far to seek. The Archbishop had been a close friend
of King George V, and from the beginning, the King
had called on him to help in trying to persuade the Prince
of Wales that his friendship with Mrs. Simpson was an
error. The Prince rejected the advice of both his father
and the Archbishop, and when the crisis came, all hope
of his being influenced by Dr. Lang was exhausted.

The Archbishop rightly judged that the Church
should be silent upon the question of the marriage, as it
was fully known that the Government and the Press were
opposed to it. There was no need for the Church to em-
phasise this objection. If the Government had legalised
the King's marriage, the Church would have been forced
to speak, as the entire constitutional relationship between
the Church and the Crown would have been involved
and altered. In such circumstances the Church would
doubtless have been obliged to demand her disestablish-
ment.

The sensational week ended in indecision. Mr. Bald-
win had his fifth audience with the King, and, during
these negotiations, he had to reconcile himself to a fresh
kind of attack from some of the newspapers. The accusa-
tion that he was forcing the King's hand went on, and
those journals which were usually opposed to his policy,
described the crisis as an opportunity for keeping "a
good King" and discarding "a bad Prime Minister." But
these opinions were not general, and the Herald, which
showed repose and good judgment all through the con-

THE KING AND THE PRIME MINISTER

flict, said, "Sad as the consequences may be, we cannot
see how the Cabinet could have done other than tender
the advice which seems to it right." One more interesting
voice was raised before the day closed. Mr. Winston
Churchill pleaded for "time and patience/' In a state-
ment to the newspapers, he criticised the Cabinet for pre-
judging the question "without having previously as-
certained at the very least the will of Parliament/'
"Parliament has not been consulted in any way, nor al-
lowed to express any opinion/' Mr. Churchill drew
public attention to the circumstances of the divorce,
which, if made absolute, would not free Mrs. Simpson
until April of 1937. "Why cannot time be granted?*' he
asked. "Surely, if he asks for time to consider the advice
of his Ministers, now that at length matters have been
brought to this dire culmination, he should not be de-
nied. Howsoever this matter may turn, it is pregnant
with calamity and inseparable from inconvenience. But
all the evil aspects will be aggravated beyond measure if
the utmost chivalry and compassion is not shown, both
by Ministers and by the British nation, towards a gifted
and beloved King torn between private and public ob-
ligations of love and duty/'

He used the words, "If an abdication were to be hastily
extorted," but the accusation lying behind them was un-
just. King Edward was no longer "torn between private
and public obligations of love and duty/' He had made
up his mind and he had declared his decision, in favour
of love and against duty. For him to have imagined, for
one moment, that the traditions of British respectability
could withstand the union he proposed showed how far
he had wandered from knowledge of his people.

The leisure of the week-end gave many people the op-
portunity for demonstration in the streets. They had
been fed with surprises in the morning newspapers, and

KING JbDWAKU V ILL

the reporters, hiding in the laurel bushes about Fort Bel-
vedere, told of strange comings and goings. Mr. Baldwin
passed through the gates, in the darkness, for still an-
other interview with the King. In the London streets,
women walked with banners bearing the words, "We
want our King" and "God save the King from Baldwin/'
A newspaper announced that the King was leaving Eng-
land immediately for Cannes, and Mrs. Simpson was re-
ported to have said to a correspondent of the Paris Soir,
"I have nothing to say except that I want to be left quiet.
... I have no plans. The King is the only judge. While
waiting for his decision I am going to withdraw into
silence and rest." These were the outward signs, but it
was significant that most of the churches in the country
were heavily attended. The day of suspense was quiet in
most places.

On Monday, December 7, a member of the Commons
put a question to Mr. Baldwin which contained the
phrase, "the fatal and final step of abdication." The
unanimous protest against the word showed how Mr.
Baldwin had gained and held the confidence of the
House. When Mr. Attlee asked him whether he had "any-
thing to add to the statement which he made on Friday/*
the Prime Minister answered some of the accusations
which had been made against him and his Government;
mainly the accusation that they had pressed the King for a
decision. He again declared that no advice had been given
to the King except upon the question of a morganatic
marriage, and that this had been at His Majesty's wish.
The conduct in the House continued to be quiet, and it
was significant that when Mr. Baldwin expressed "deep
and respectful sympathy with His Majesty/' the Leader
of the Opposition added his agreement. A question from
Mr. Winston Churchill was abruptly nipped in the bud
with cries of "Sit down!" and "Shut up!" Never in his

298

THE KING AND THE PRIME MINISTER

career had the Prime Minister been attended with such
respect and consideration, and on this occasion, the So-
cialists joined in the cheering. The imagination of poli-
ticians no doubt played about the dramatic interviews in
the modest country house in which the King was now
alone. Most of them trusted Mr. Baldwin not to misuse
the frightening opportunity which had come to him.

Fort Belvedere had never been described in fulness to
the people of England. It was the King's independent
home, upon which he had spent much affection. Now
the thoughts of everybody turned upon the house in
which his fatal love had matured. The knowledge of bis
unhappiness was painful to all sensitive people, but emo-
tion could not drown the certain knowledge that there
was only one way to nobleness for him and that through
renunciation. In the days that followed, when returned
soldiers talked over his abdication, they sometimes mur-
mured against him. He had always promised them so
much. "I want all ex-Service men ... to look on me
as a comrade," he had said to them, and it had not seemed
possible that he could turn from his vows. They said,
with simple truth, "We had to give up our girls and leave
our wives for our country." The magnitude of his world
compared with the simplicity of theirs made no difference
to the issue on the basis of character.

The King's life had been a pathway of promises from
the day when he walked in Carnarvon Castle to vow to
his father that he would always be a "husband" to his
people. These pledges were recalled during the early
days of the last week of his reign. Business men in Man-
chester were able to remember the day when he leaned
across a table and said, "I shall always pull my weight."
Even the dusky Maoris in New Zealand were able to
think of the day when he said to them, "I will ever keep
before me the pattern of Victoria, the Great Queen." In

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KING EDWARD VIII

almost every land of the earth, over a period of twenty
years, he had frowned, with the earnestness which had
always made his utterances attractive, and had promised
that his heart and his talents belonged to the people. It
did not seem possible that he would turn from this good
history to embrace the smaller needs of his heart.

CHAPTER XXVI

THE ABDICATION

This is the state of man; To-day he puts forth
The tender leaves of hope, to-morrow blossoms.,
And bears his blushing honours thick upon him:
The third day., comes a frost, a killing frost;
And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely
His greatness is a ripening, nips his root,
And then he -falls, as I do.

"King Henry VIII"
Act III, Scene 2

CHAPTER XXVI

THE ABDICATION

JX.ING EDWARD ANNOUNCED HIS DECISION

to abdicate on Thursday, December 10. The preceding
Tuesday and Wednesday gave no fresh themes to the
drama. There had been faint hope when Mrs. Simpson's
statement was published that she "wished to avoid any
action or proposal which would hurt or damage His
Majesty or the throne/' She said that she was willing, "if
such action would solve the problem/' to withdraw from
the situation. But nothing would shake the strength of
King Edward's purpose, and the world waited, excited
and anxious, to know the outcome of the hurried meet-
ings between members of the Royal Family, the meetings
of Dominion Ministers and the continued interviews be-
tween Mr. Baldwin and the King. The signs were in-
creasingly grave, and renewed gloom settled upon finan-
ciers and members of the Stock Exchange. On Wednes-
day a note of impatience was in the air. Mr. Baldwin
added nothing to his previous statements in the House,
but he hoped to be able to do so "to-morrow/' This last
day was a maze of anxious talk, and the members of the
Cabinet sat for two and a half hours. The leaders of the
country were busy and silent: they did not share the con-
fidence which some of the newspapers drew from the
statement which Mrs. Simpson had made. As the Parlia-
mentary correspondent of The Times wrote, the Min-
isters had been merely embarrassed by the "very con-
fident assurances*' which some of the journalists built
upon her message. 'This was never the view of those of

303

KING EDWARD VIII

them who realised that the final decision rested with the
King and with the King alone." It was expected, said
The Times., that a message from the King would be read
in the House during Wednesday afternoon, and it was
"generally anticipated" that it "would indicate the mon-
arch's desire to relinquish the throne."

It was with this melancholy announcement that the
last day o the crisis began. The King remained at Fort
Belvedere. His health and his reason were said to show
the strain of his unhappy state, but the will within re-
mained firm; firm, enough for him to withstand the
touching appeal of his mother's visit to him on Wednes-
day afternoon. When the letters and diaries of this time
become historical documents, posterity may know the
extent of this appeal. We can know only that if it took
the form of words it was calm and wise. King Edward
was wrapped in his own stubbornness and he did not
change his mind.

At the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday, Mr. Baldwin
reported the conversation of the day before, when the
King "communicated to him informally" his "firm and
definite intention to renounce the throne." In a letter
written after the meeting, the Prime Minister made his
last appeal to his Sovereign. "Ministers are reluctant to
believe that Your Majesty's resolve is irrevocable, and
still venture to hope that before Your Majesty pro-
nounces any formal decision, Your Majesty may be
pleased to reconsider an intention which must so deeply
distress and so vitally affect Your Majesty's subjects."

On Wednesday night King Edward answered Mr.
Baldwin. The end had come and his pledges of twenty
years died upon the wind. The King wrote, "His Majesty
has given the matter his further consideration, but re-
grets that he is unable to alter his decision."

This was the news with which the Prime Minister

THE ABDICATION

faced the House of Commons on Thursday afternoon.
The hushed, strained morning ended. Thousands of
people stood outside the Houses of Parliament, but they
made little sound. The, day was cold and it added to the
gloom, the sense of anxious meditation which spread
over the capital. London seemed to be stunned into
silence, knowing that hope was passed. When it was al-
most four o'clock, Mr. Baldwin rose from his seat and
walked to the Bar of the House, carrying three sheets of
typescript which bore the royal coat of arms in red. He
turned quickly and bowed to the Chair, and then, in a
clear, unhesitating voice, he said, "A message from His
Majesty the King, sir, signed by His Majesty's own
hand/'

He handed the three sheets of paper to the Speaker
and then walked back to his seat. There was one break
in the strained silence as the Speaker began there was
a movement in one of the galleries. The word Order was
cried and then, with the return of silence, the Speaker
read the King's message.

After long and anxious consideration I have de-
termined to renounce the throne to which I suc-
ceeded on the death of my father, and I am com-
municating this, my final and irrevocable decision.
Realising as I do the gravity of this step, I can only
hope that I shall have the understanding of my
peoples in the decision I have taken and the reasons
which have led me to take it. I will not enter now
into my private feelings, but I would beg that it
should be remembered that the burden which con-
stantly rests upon the shoulders of a sovereign is so
heavy that it can only be borne in circumstances dif-
ferent from those in which I now find myself.

KING EDWARD VIII

There was also the sentence which revealed his own
wretchedness: ". * . I am conscious that I can no
longer discharge this heavy task with efficiency or satis-
faction to myself." Later in the message occurred the
phrase, "But my mind is made up/' and at the end he
directed his Ministers to avoid further injury to his
people by giving effect to the "instrument/' without de-
lay, so that his brother should ascend the throne.

We are close to the terrible week preceding King Ed-
ward's abdication and unable to view it with the perspec-
tive of the historians and dramatists of the future. But
we have emerged far enough from the events of Decem-
ber to realise that the authors of the future will not write
upon the romantic theme of a King who gave up his
throne for love, so much as upon the theme of a man of
promise who came to disaster through the slow disin-
tegration of his character: disintegration which was
hastened by the perpetual frustration which he suffered.
That the circumstances of his life contributed to this end,
circumstances often beyond his own control, will be con-
ceded, but people of the future will doubtless compre-
hend Mr. Baldwin's mind when he said, after the King's
message had been read, "Sir, no more grave message has
ever been received by Parliament and no more difficult,
and I may almost say repugnant, task has even been im-
posed upon a Prime Minister."

Then began the long, simple record of the preceding
days. When the story was ended, Mr. Baldwin was
cheered. There was no protest yet, and no criticism. The
Leader of the Opposition asked that the sitting should be
suspended until evening, in view of the gravity of the
King's message. Little more than half an hour from the
time when Mr. Baldwin rose from his seat and took the
King's message to the Speaker, the House rose and with-
drew in silence.

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THE ABDICATION

King Edward remained in England one more day. In
London, the Commons closed the formalities associated
with the Abdication Bill. The House had met on Thurs-
day evening, when the Leader of the Opposition said,
"This occasion does not, in my view, call for long and
eloquent speeches." He spoke with sympathy for the
King and with understanding for Mr. Baldwin. The
Leader of the Opposition Liberals and Mr. Winston
Churchill followed, and it must have solaced Mr. Bald-
win to hear the latter speaker withdraw his early sugges-
tion, that the King had been harried into making
his decision. "I accept wholeheartedly/' Mr. Churchill
said, "what the Prime Minister has proved namely, that
the decision taken this week has been taken by His
Majesty freely, voluntarily and spontaneously, in his own
time and in his own way."

The day in the House ended with the speeches of those
who were openly opposed to monarchy. The most in-
teresting address was from Mr. Maxton, who revealed the
danger which the King's abdication was likely to let loose
among Communists. Mr. Maxton spoke with quiet ap-
preciation of the opposite view. "I am speaking in a
House in which an overwhelming proportion of the
membership is under feelings of very strong emotion. I
respect these emotions, although I do not entirely share
them. ... I share the same sympathies with the Prime
Minister, who has to shoulder a task which few, if any, of
the occupants of his office has ever had to shoulder be-
fore, and, in the nature of the case, has had to shoulder it
alone." There Mr. Maxton's sympathies ended. He
moved to the theme of the damage to the cause of mon-
archy. He spoke for men of his own opinion. "We there-
fore intend, however it may be against the general run
of opinion in this House, to take strongly the view that
the lesson of the past few days, and of this day in par-

KING EDWARD VIII

ticular, Is that the monarchical Institution has now out-
lived its usefulness/' There were other speeches, but they
did not affect the general tide of thought. Through the
great sadness which pervaded the country, two or three
scenes and figures could be seen clearly. Mr. Baldwin had
become one of the celebrated Prime Ministers in English
history. Never an inspiring figure, sometimes attracting
derision and stirring discontent because of his apparent
lethargy, he had suddenly emerged as a distinguished
statesman, and it was not possible to imagine any other
man in the land who could have nursed both the country
and its King through such a disaster with satisfaction and
so little hurt to them both. From this view of West-
minster the thoughts of the people moved back to Fort
Belvedere. There was the King, still alone. The simple
truth was already spreading over the country and into
the world. It was better that he should go; better in every
way, despite the affection which was still strong for him,
and despite his good history. The anxiety had passed and
the general feeling was of resignation and relief.

The British public react calmly and with speed in
times of crisis. As the night of Thursday came, people
began to talk of the new King. The sense of history in
their loyalty was strong, and crowds gathered outside the
Duke of York's house in Piccadilly, as a sign of their
curiosity, but also of their devotion.

King George VI began his reign at 1.555 p.m. on
December 1 1 . The business of the country went on. It
seemed that the strange, persistent machine of English
life was strong enough to withstand any accident to the
State. It was said that the world looked on with admira-
tion because of the public calm, the dignity in a time of
alarm and pain. They knew the closing words Mr. Bald-
win had used in the House on Friday morning in speak-
ing of the ex-King. "Like many of his generation, he was

308

THE ABDICATION

flung into the war as a very young man, and he has served
us well in trying to qualify for that office which he knew
must be his if he lived. For all that work I should like to
put on record here to-day that we are grateful and that
we shall not forget. There is no need in this Bill to say
anything of the future. It deals with the fate of him who
is still King, and who will cease to be King in a few short
hours. . . ."

The few short hours passed. In the afternoon Queen
Mary addressed a message to her son's subjects. She spoke
of the sympathy which had been given to her. "I need
not speak to you of the distress which fills a mother's
heart when I think that my dear son has deemed it to be
his duty to lay down his charge, and that the reign which
had begun with so much hope and promise has so sud-
denly ended." Queen Mary did not embrace her disaster
or her grief. She went on: "I commend to you his
brother, summoned so unexpectedly and in circum-
stances so painful, to take his place. . . ."

Life never stays upon the tragedy of an individual, and
the integrity of the throne is in its own existence rather
than in that of any man who sits upon it. Before the day
ended King Edward said his last words to those who had
been his subjects. At ten o'clock he was within Windsor
Castle, ready to broadcast his farewell.

It is not difficult to understand why kings have some-
times gone mad with the unnatural weight which life
puts upon them. It was amazing that King Edward had
lived through the days at Fort Belvedere with any rem-
nant of his reason left. But it was disturbing to realise, as
one sat beside an English hearth, nursing all the comfort
of Britissh life, that he was going out into a wilderness in
which he will never know what it is to be other than
alone. For his busy mind and his interest in life, his sym-

KING EDWARD VIII

pathy and his training as a prince will never fit into the
little space of desire.

As one waited for the striking of ten o'clock, the hour
when the farewell was to begin, there were many agitat-
ing thoughts for those millions of people whose chief
sensation was of disappointmentnot only disappoint-
ment in an individual, but disappointment in the
vagaries of human nature. We like to believe that kings
and princes and priests and statesmen are better than
ourselves, against all our logic and our information about
life., our knowledge of history and our cynicism. One re-
membered that kings had ruled in Windsor Castle from
the days of the Norman Conqueror. One thought of the
earlier story of Edward the Confessor lisping his prayers
in the same forest through which his namesake of the
twentieth century had driven a little time before. There
was John to recall, climbing the Windsor hill on the way
back from Runnymede, giving "vent to rage and curses
against the Charter/' and there was the White King,
being carried within the shadows of St. George's, where
the Cavaliers found a place for him beside the body of
Henry VIII. It was not reasonable to suppose that these
ancestral voices would be audible to Prince Edward in
such an hour. One remembered also that the only King
of England, since the Conqueror, who never slept in the
Castle, as a Sovereign, was George IV.

At ten o'clock a voice announced, over the air, "This
is Windsor Castle. His Royal Highness Prince Edward/'

Then came another voice, thick and tired, and one
was aware of the Prince's will summoning its strength,
trying, along the way of sorrow and self-pity, to explain
his intimate tragedy to the world. He had always been
sincere. He said, "I have never wanted to withhold any-
thing. . . " And this was true. He pleaded then, "But
you must believe me when I tell you that I have found
it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility

310

Sport tint! General Press dgcncy, Ltd.> phntn

KING F.mVARI) BROADCASTING TO THE EMPIRE, 1936

THE ABDICATION

and discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do
without the help and support of the woman I love/'

Later came the quickened sentence, "I now quit alto-
gether public affairs, and I lay down my burden. . . ." *

From Windsor Castle, Prince Edward travelled to
Portsmouth, where a destroyer was waiting to carry him
across the water. Midnight had passed when he came to
the coast. Fog had settled on the land and on the Chan-
nel, and H.M.S. Fury moved cautiously towards Bou-
logne. With the Prince went an equerry and a detec-
tive, but none of his servants. The train carried him
from Boulogne to Vienna. One incident on the railway
station made people wonder still more over the intricacy
of his character. All the way across Europe the train had
been overrun by reporters and photographers, but the
Prince had evaded them. In the distress and hurry of
arrival at Vienna, he paused on the railway station and
said to the British Minister, "I want you to let the pho-
tographers come along. They have had a very tough
journey and they deserve some results."

On Sunday, December 14, the Archbishop of Canter-
bury preached a sermon in the Concert Hall of Broad-
casting House in London. Dr. Lang depended upon
moral indignation for his theme, influenced, no doubt,
by the long months during which he had watched King
George suffering great bitterness because of the wilful-
ness of his son. It was not unnatural that he should have
had resentment in his heart, but he was out of sympathy
with the general feeling of the nation, however true his
words may seem when they are considered at a distance
of time. The mass of people had watched the young King
passing through a crisis, and they had been deeply sad
when he chose to go out, a solitary figure, into the night.
Dr. Lang said:

* The full text of the farewell speech is given in the appendix on page

KING EDWARD VIII

"Seldom, if ever, has any British Sovereign come
to the throne with greater natural gifts for his king-
ship. Seldom, if ever, has any Sovereign been wel-
comed by a more enthusiastic loyalty.

"From God he had received a high and sacred
trust. Yet, by his own will, he has abdicated he has
surrendered the trust. With characteristic frankness
he has told us his motive. It was a craving for pri-
vate happiness. Strange and sad it must be that for
such a motive, however strongly it pressed upon his
heart, he should have disappointed hopes so high,
and abandoned a trust so great.

"Even more strange and sad it is that he should
have sought his happiness in a manner inconsistent
with the Christian principles of marriage, and with-
in a social circle whose standards and ways of life
are alien to all the best instincts and traditions of his
people.

"Let those who belong to this circle know that to-
day they stand rebuked by the judgment of the
nation which had loved King Edward. I have shrunk
from saying these words. But I have felt compelled
for the sake o sincerity and truth to say them/'

Many people regretted the condemnation in these sen-
tences. British people still loved the Prince and they had
no wish to give him new pain*

It was strange that Prince Edward should have chosen
the country of lost causes for his exile. It seemed to give
the final air of gloom to his story as a monarch that he
should have hurried across Europe to the little, crushed
country where the Habsburgs flourished and died. One
could not help reflecting on the pathos of the Prince's
state when news came of his walking through the vast,
empty rooms of Schoenbrun Palace, free of the "golden
yoke of sovereignty" and alone with his failure.

APPENDIX

KING EDWARD VIII'S LAST SPEECH

APPENDIX

KING EDWARD VIII'S LAST SPEECH

"A
/IT LONG LAST I AM ABLE TO SAY A FEW

words of my own. I have never wanted to withhold any-
thing, but until now it has not been constitutionally
possible for me to speak.

"A few hours ago I discharged my last duty as King
and Emperor, and now that I have been succeeded by my
brother, the Duke of York, my first words must be to
declare my allegiance to him.

"This I do with all my heart.

"You all know the reasons which have impelled me to
renounce the throne, but I want you to understand that
in making up my mind I did not forget the country or
the Empire, which as Prince of Wales and lately as King
I have for twenty-five years tried to serve.

"But you must believe me when I tell you that I have
found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of re-
sponsibility and discharge my duties as King as I would
wish to do without the help and support of the woman
I love.

"And I want you to know that the decision I have
made has been mine and mine alone. This was a thing I
had to judge entirely for myself. The other person most
nearly concerned has tried up to the last to persuade me
to take a different course.

"I have made this, the most serious decision of my
life, only upon a single thought of what would in the
end be best for all.

"This decision has been made less difficult to me by

315

KING EDWARD VIII

the sheer knowledge that my brother, with his long train-
ing in the public affairs of this country and with his fine
qualities, will be able to take my place forthwith with-
out interruption or injury to the life and progress of the
Empire.

"And he has one matchless blessing, enjoyed by so
many of you, and not bestowed on me, a happy home,
with his wife and children.

"During these hard days I have been comforted by
Her Majesty, my mother, and by my family. The Min-
isters of the Crown, and in particular Mr. Baldwin, the
Prime Minister, have always treated me with full con-
sideration. There has never been any constitutional dif-
ference between me and them, and between me and
Parliament.

"Bred in the constitutional traditions by my father, I
should never have allowed any such issue to arise. Ever
since I was Prince of Wales, and later on when I oo*
cupied the throne, I have been treated with the greatest
kindness by all classes of people, wherever I have lived
or journeyed throughout the Empire. For that I am very
grateful.

"I now quit altogether public affairs, and I lay down
my burden. It may be some time before I return to my
native land, but I shall always follow the fortunes of the
British race and Empire with profound interest, and if
at any time in the future I can be found of service to His
Majesty in a private station I shall not fail.

"And now we all have a new King. I wish him and
you, his people, happiness and prosperity with all my
heart. God bless you all. GOD SAVE THE KING!"

INSTRUMENT OF ABDICATION

I, Edward the Eighth, of Great Britain, Ireland, and
the British Dominions beyond the Seas, King, Emperor

316

APPENDIX

of India, do hereby declare My irrevocable determina-
tion to renounce the Throne for Myself and for My de-
scendants, and My desire that effect should be given to
this Instrument of Abdication immediately.

In token whereof I have hereunto set My hand this
tenth day of December, nineteen hundred and thirty-
six, in the presence of the witnesses whose signatures are
subscribed.

EDWARD R. I.

SIGNED AT
FORT BELVEDERE

IN THE PRESENCE

OF

ALBERT,

HENRY.

GEORGE.

INDEX

INDEX

Abdication, King Edward's, first
mooted, 298; decision announced,
303 et seq.; message read in the
House, 305; instrument, text of,
316-17

Abraham, the Heights of, 100

Accra, 184

Acorn, H.M.S., 71

Addison's Walk, Oxford, 43-4

Aden, 154

Adriatic, King Edward's cruise in the,
280-1

Aire, 80

Albert, H.R.H. Prince, now King
George VI, see George VI

Albert, Prince Consort, 20; Adminis-
tration of Duchy of Cornwall, 31;
visit to Rome, 75; comparison
with George V, 229; on the Con-
stitution Hill incident, 277

Aldershot, O.T.C. manoeuvres at,
June, 1914, 57

Alexandra, Queen, 22, 80

Alice, Princess (Countess of Ath-
lone), 185

Allahabad, 166

America, Prince of Wales's first visit
to, 101-2; second visit to, 242-3

American criticism of Mr. Baldwin,
286

American Nation, The, quoted* 103

Andes, the Christ of the, 209

Antigua, 134

Antiquities, Edward VII and Edward
VIII both indifferent to, 46, 72

Argentine, the Prince in the, 206-8,

*s8

Argentine meat trade, Prince's in-
terest in, 207

Army, Prince of Wales's training in,
57

Art, the Prince's attitude to, 226

Arthur, Sir George, quoted, 60, 61

Ashanti, 184

Athlone, Countess of, see Alice,

Princess ,

Athlone, Earl of, 185
Attlee, Major, M.P., 292, 294, 298
Auckland, N. Z., 115
Australia, particular character of,

125, 126, 131
Australia, Prince of Wales's visit to,

125-135
Australian and N. Z. soldiers, Prince's

first meeting with, 71; impression

made on him, 71, 88, 89
Aviation, beginnings of, 52; Prince

of Wales's interest in, 233-240

Baldwin, Rt. Hon. Stanley, 149, 265,
285-308

Balfour, A. J. (afterwards Lord), 141

Ballarat, 128

Balmoral, King Edward's economies
at, 276

Baltimore, 102

Banff, Canada, 99

Banjo, the Prince of Wales as per-
former on, 45

Bantus, the Prince addresses the, 190

Barbadoes, the Prince of Wales in
the, 109

Barker, Canadian airman, 78

Baroda, 160-1

Baroda, Gaekwar of, 161

Baroda, Resident of, quoted, 160-1

Basuto chiefs greet Prince, 191, 192

Benares, 166

Bendigo, 128

Bengal, Chief Secretary to the
Government of, quoted, 168

Berlin, Prince of Wales's visit to, in

*9*3> 53
Bermuda, the Prince's reception in,

134
Bethune, 68

321

KING EDWARD VIII

Bharatpur, Maharajah of, 164-5

Bhopal, Begum of, 171

Bikaner, 164

Blue Mountains, Australia, 132

Boers, the Prince's reception among

the, 186-7, 1 92
Bombay, 157-9
Botany Bay, legends, 125
Bradford, Bishop of, 291
Brazil, British railway contract with,

122

Breteuil, Marquis de, 37
Breteuil, Prince of "Wales at, 37 el

seq,
Brighton, Prince dedicates memorial

to Indian soldiers at, 151
Brisbane, the Prince in, 132
Britannia, George V on, 21
British Industries Fair, 1929, Prince's

speech at, 79, 226
Brittain, Sir Harry, 234, 238
Broadcast, Archbishop of Canter-
bury's, 311, 312
Broadcast, King Edward VIII 's last,

310-11; text of, 315-7
Bronte, Charlotte, 119
Brown, Charles Armitage, 118
Browning, Robert, 118
Bruce, Colonel, 76
Buckingham Palace, crowd scenes

at, on Peace Night, 92; during

King George's illness, 1928, 229;

during Constitutional crisis, 292
Buenos Aires, the Prince's welcome

in, 206-9
Bulawayo, 199
Burma, Prince of Wales's visit to,

168-9

Butler, Sir Harcourt, 164
Butler, Samuel, 119

Cadogan, Major, 43, 51, 78

Calais, 71

Calcutta, 167

Calgary, the Prince buys a ranch at,

99
Cambridge, Prince's speech at, on

receipt of honorary degree, 141
Canada, Prince of Wales's visit to.

Canning, George, 209
Canterbury, Archbishop of (Dr.
Lang), 261, 265, 269-70, 295-6, 311
Capetown, the Prince's reception at,

185-6
Carnarvon, Investiture of Prince of

Wales at, 29-30
Castries, B. W. L, 134
Cavan, Field-Marshal Earl, 66, 78
Ceylon, the Prince in, 177-8
Chancellor, Sir John, 199
Charles I, 16, 19, 268
Charles II, letter quoted^ 121
Charlotte, Princess, memorial to,

268

Cheetah hunting in India, 161
Chesterton, G. K., quoted, 228, 247
Children, the Prince's understand-
ing of and popularity with, 121,
233-S

Chile, the Prince in, 209-10
Christchurch, N, Z., 119
Christmas in New Zealand, 118-9
Church of England and King Ed-
ward, 291, 295, 296, 311, 312
Churchill, Rt. Hon. Winston S., 52,

68, 149, 297-8, 307
Clayton, the Rev. P. T, B. ("Tubby"),

81-2

"Colonial goose," 95
Colonial loyalty, 95-6 ct seq.
Colonial tours of King George V as

Prince, 87-8

Columbus, Christopher, 134
Commons, House of, and constitu-
tional crisis, 285 et seq.
Constitutional crisis of King Ed-
ward's reign, 285-309
Cook, A. J. 215, 216
Cook, Sir Thomas, 214
Cornwall, Duchy of, 30-2, 226, 236
Coronation of King George V, 27
Cotes, Everard, quoted, no, 132-3
Crisis, Constitutional, of King Ed-
ward's projected marriage, 285-309
Cromwell, and the Duchy of Corn-
wall, 31

Crown, strength of, in 1914, 65-6;
in 1935, 247 ct uq.

INDEX

Curtis Bennett, Sir Noel, 216-9
Cymbelme, quoted, 78

Daily Express, quoted, 122, 256, 292
Daily Herald, quoted, 265, 292, 296
Daily Mail, quoted, 292
Dartmouth, Prince Edward goes to,

22; first public speech of Prince

at, 24
Davis, D. L., American Ambassador,

141

Deakin, Ralph, 191, 201, 207
Dehra Dun, 176

Delhi, Prince of Wales at, 173-4
Democratic manners of the Prince,

19, 44-6, 177, 224-5, 241-2, 273, 276
Denmark, visit to, 237-8
Deutsche Mgemeine Zeitung, quoted,

275

Devonshire, Duke of, Governor-Gen-
eral of Canada, receives Prince,
1919, 98

Dhar, Maharajah of, 171

Divorce, the Simpson, 285

Domett, Alfred, 118

Dominion comment on Constitu-
tional crisis, 290, 292

Dominion loyalty, nature of, 95-6

Dominions' response to the war, 96-7

Don, Squadron-Leader D. $., 235-7

Down Under with the Prince, cited,
no

Dudley, Lord, 122

Durban, 193

Dutch reception o Prince in South
Africa, 186-8

Edinburgh, Duke of (great-uncle of
Edward VIII), 189

Edward I, 29

Edward VI, 31

Edward VII, accession, 16; his Court,
16, 17; relations with his grand-
son, Prince Edward, 17, 21; death
of, 22; dislike of the Emperor
William, 28; at Oxford, 41; at-
titude to scholarship and an-
tiquities, 47; letter to William II,
quoted, 51; as a father, 58, 224;

and Dean Stanley, 72; American

visit of, in 1860, 101-2; contrasted

with his grandson, 241; appiecia-

tion of his son, George V, 248
Edward the Confessor, 310
Egypt, Prince of Wales's visit in

1916, 71
Empire tours, their effect on the

Prince, 120-1, 139-41
Energy, the Prince's physical, 35-6,

54> 218-9
Englishman, The, on the Prince's

Indian visit, 176-7
Enterprise, H.M.S., 230
Equator, the Prince first crosses the,

111
Escoffier, M. Maurice, the Prince's

French tutor, 38
Eucalyptus tree, 128
Ex-service men, Prince of Wales's

work for, 141-3

Fiedler, Professor, the Prince's Ger-
man tutor, 52, 255
Fielden, Wing Commander, 239
Fiji, the Prince of Wales in, in, 133
Fisher, Admiral Lord, 52
Flameng, Francois, portrait of Prince

of Wales by, 38
Flying, see Aviation
Ford Motor Works, Prince's visit to,

21
Fort Belvedere, 257, 264, 285-6, 288,

298-9, 308-9
Fortune, American magazine, cited,

149, 248

Forward, quoted, 265
Fourteenth Corps, Prince of Wales

with, 78, 81
France, Edward VII and, 28, 36-7;

Edward VIII as student in, 37-8;

war service in, 65-71
Frederick, the Empress, 28, 65
French, Sir John (afterwards Earl

of Ypres), 68

Frogmore, Royal mausoleum, 16
Frustration of Prince's desires and

ambitions, 238-41, 280
Fury, H.M.S., 311

3*3

KING EDWARD VIII

Gambia, 183

Gandhi, 157-9, 162, 164-6, 168, 170-

i, 192
Garter King of Arms proclaims new

Sovereign, 269
Gaskell, Mrs., quoted, 125
Gathorne-Hardy, General, 80
General Strike, the, 215
George I, 14
George IV and Duchy of Cornwall,

3i

George V, stay with Queen Victoria
at Windsor, 1897, 13; as a mid-
shipman, 23; succeeds to the
throne, 22; Coronation, 27; char-
acter, 27, 29, 149-50* i77> 247"53J
relations with tenantry, 32, 249;
as a father, 42, 58, 150, 166-71, 253;
complete identification with Eng-
land, 27-8, 65-6, 148-9, 247-250;
bans alcohol during the war, 69;
accident at Hesdinguel, 80; Im-
perial tours when Prince of Wales,
87-8; widening gulf between Prince
and, 213, 225-4; comparison with
Prince Consort, 229; illness of,
1928, 229-30; reluctance to allow
the Prince to fly, 235-6; Jubilee
of, 247-52; estrangement from
Prince, 253; death, 261; lying-in-
state, 263; burial, 266-70

George VI, H.M. King, birth of, 15;
youthful anecdotes, 15; connection
with aviation, 234, 235; accession,
308

George, Rt. Hon, D. Lloyd, 149

Germany, Queen Victoria's par-
tiality for, 28; King Edward VII
and King George's dislike of, 28;
the Prince's pre-war visit to, 51-4

Gibbs, Sir Philip, quoted, 68

Gibraltar, 152

Gladstone, W. E,, on Edward VII,

47

Gloucester, H.R.H. Duke of, 229, 293
Gold Coast, the Prince on the, 183-5
Golf, the Prince at, 225, 232
Grand Cerf, H6tel du, Paris, 69
Gray, Thomas, poet, 66

Grenada, B. W. I., Prince's visit to,

134
Gwalior, Maharajah of, 172

Ham, 89

Hanno, 183

Hanover, King of, memorial to, 268

Hardy, Thomas, 225

Hartals, planned against the Prince
in India, see India, Gandhi

Hawke, Mr. Justice, 285

Henry VIII, 268, 310

Hercules, air liner, 238

Hesdinguel, King George V's ac-
cident at, 80

Hindustan^ Prince Edward as mid-
shipman on, 23-4

Hinkler, Bert, 234

Hofmeyer, Mr,, Administrator of the
Transvaal, 197

Honolulu, Prince of Wales in, no,

134

Home, General, 68
Hookupu gathering, the Prince at,

110
Hughes, the Hon. W., Australian

Prime Minister, 127
Hunting, the Prince's interest in,

42-3, 231-2
Hyderabad, 171

Imperial questions, growing im-
portance of, in twentieth century*
87; great services of Prince of
Wales to, 88 et seq.

India, the Prince of Waks's visit to,
157-177

Indore, 171

Ismailia, 71, 153

Isolation, beginnings of Prince's, 213

Italy, Prince's war service in, 75, 78

Italy, traditional friendship with
England, 76-7

Jagersfontein, 191

Jammu, 175

Japan, Prince of Wales in, 178-9

Jews mourn George V at Wailing

Wall, 262
Johannesburg, the Prince in, 198

324

INDEX

Jones, the Rev. Llewellyn, 66
Jubilee of King George V, 247-52

Kaffirs, 188, 190

Kandy, 177

Kano Plain, Durbar on the, 185

Katanga, Governor of, 201

Keats, 118

Kennington estate o Duchy of Corn-
wall, 31-2

Kent, Duchess of (mother of Queen
Victoria), 166

Kent, Duke of (father of Queen
Victoria), 134, 152

Kent, H.R.H, Duke of, 229, 293

Kindersley, A, F., quoted,, 160

King William's Town, 190

Kitchener, Field-Marshal Lord, 60-1,
69-71, 77

Kitchener College, Delhi, 173

Kitzbuhl, the Prince's holiday at,
256

Labour leaders, Prince's growing
sympathy with, 314-19

Lahej, Sultan of, 154

Lahore, the Prince in, 174

Lang, Most Reverend C. G., see
Canterbury, Archbishop of

Lansbury, Rt. Hon. George, 274

Latorre, Chilean battleship, 210

Laurent, Marcel, French novelist,
quoted, 69-70

Laxmi Vilas Palace, Baroda, 160-1

Lee, Sir Sidney, quoted, 17, 37

Le Jour, quoted, 250

Lifeboat Association, Prince's ad-
dress to, 140

Liliuokalani, Queen of Hawaii, no

Lindbergh, Colonel, 278

London Chamber of Commerce,
Prince's address to, 226

Lovie Chateau, 78

Lucknow, 164

Lyon, C. A., quoted, 256

MacDonald, Rt. Hon. Ramsay, 149
Madras, 169-70

Magdalen College, special character
of, 43

Magdalen, President of, on the

Prince of Wales, 47
Malta, the Prince's reception at, 152
Mandalay, 169
Maoris greet Prince at Roturua,

117-8

Marco Polo, 152
Maryborough House, 60-1
Marriage proposal, King Edward's,

285 et seq.
Mary, H.M. Queen, 15, 35, 76-7, 129,

147-8, 240, 262, 268-70, 275, 309
Matabele War, 189
Matapos, Prince visits Rhodes's tomb

on, 199

Maude, General, 79
Maxton, James, M.P., 307
Maxwell, Donald, 161-3
"May," Princess, see Mary, H.M.

Queen

Mayo, Katherine, 159
Medina, voyage of King George V

on, 76
Melbourne, the Prince's visit to,

127-8
Miners, Prince's appeal for, 1923,

216
Mining areas, Prince's visit to, 1929,

216-9; King's visit to, 1936, 288
Monro, Sir Charles, 66
Mons, 89, 234
Montevideo, 205
Montreal, Prince of Wales addresses

French Canadians at, 99
Moore, George, 225
Mother India, quoted, 159
Mountbatten, Lord Louis, 119, 153
Mysore, the Prince in, 170-1

Nagpur, 171

Napoleon, 205

Natal Indian Congress, attempts to

boycott Prince, 193
National Press Club (U. S.), Prince's

speech to, 103
National Relief, Prince of Wales's

appeal for, 90
Native States, Prince of Wales in

Indian, 159-65, 170-1, 174-5

3*5

KING EDWARD VIII

Navy, Prince Edward's service in,

18-24
Nawanagar, Maharajah of, speech

quoted, 173
Nepal, 167
New York welcomes the Prince, 1918,

101 ; criticism of, 242-3
New York Times > quoted, 250
New York World, quoted, 242-3
New Zealand, particular character

of, 95-6, 115; Prince o Wales's visit

to, 115-22
Nicolas II, Tsar of Russia, visit to

England, 20
North- West Frontier, Prince of Wales

on, 175
Norway, the Prince's holiday in, 54

O.T.C., Prince of Wales with, 57
Osborne, Prince Edward at, 18-22
Osborne, Queen Victoria's villa at,

18-9

Oudtshoorn, 188
Oxford, Prince of Wales at, 41-7;

return to, 139
Oxford, quoted, 43

Pacific Islands, the Prince in, 110,

i33"4

Paris Soir, cited, 295
Patiala, Maharajah of, 174
Pegoud, the airman, 52
Perth, W. A., 131
Peshawar, 175
Phillips, Sir Percival, 178
"Piccin, King," African nickname for

the Prince, 184
Pinafore, H.M.S*, Prince Edward in,

21

Pioneer, The, quoted, 158-9
Popularity of Prince of Wales after

the war, 90-1, 177; possible ill-
effects of, 241-2, 253-4
Port Elizabeth, 190
Post-war conditions and effect on the

Prince, 82-4, 139, 223, 249
Poverty, the Prince and the problems

of, 142, 213-19
Prince of Wales's Feathers, 30

Privy Council, King Edward VIII's

first speech to, 274 *"
Probyn, Sir Dighton, 61

Queen Mary, the, 273

Rangoon, 169

Rawalpindi, 176

Rawlinson, Lord, 170, 172

Reading, Lord, 173

Religion, importance of, to King

George V, 29, 150

Renown, H.M.S., voyages of Prince
of Wales on, to Canada, 98-101; to
Australia, New Zealand, the Pacific
Islands and the West Indies, 109-
135; to India, Burma, Ceylon and
Japan, 151-179

Renown Magazine, cited, 98, 100
Repulse, voyage of Prince of Wales

in, 183-210

Restlessness of Edward VIII de-
veloped by continual tours, 147-51
Returned soldiers, see Ex-service men
Revolver incident on Constitution

Hill, 277
Rhodes Scholars, influence of, at

Oxford, 42

Rhodesia, the Prince in, 199-200
Roberts, Field-Marshal Earl, 15
Rotorua, Maori festival at, 117-8
Royal Air Force, Prince's interest in,

see Aviation

Royalty, Australian view of, 131
Russian Royal Family, 20, 65

St. George's Chapel, Windsor, 16;

burial of King George V in, 266-

270

St. Helena, 205
St. James's Palace, 18
St. John's, 98
St. Omer, 68
Salisbury (Rhodesia), 199
Saliust, quoted, 96
Samoa, the Prince in, 133
Sanders, Miss, quoted, 231
San Diego, 1 10

Sandringham, 17-8, 27, 248-249, 276
Santiago, Chile, 209

INDEX

"Sardine," the Prince's nickname at
Osborne, 19

Schoenbrun Palace, 312

Seddon, Mr., Premier of New Zea-
land, 87

Segontium, Roman camp at, 30

Sheldrake, H.M. destroyer, 71

Sierra Leone, the Prince in, 183

Simpson, Mrs. Ernest, 255-57, 2 ^ l
273, 278-9, 281, 285-87, 289, 293, 303

Sims, Admiral (U. S.), 141

Snowden, Viscount, 216

South Australia, the Prince in, 132

South Oxfordshire Hounds, 43

Southward Ho!, 191, 201, 207

Spectator, The, quoted, 243

Stanley, Dean, 47, 72

Stanley, Lady Augusta, 224

Statesman, The (India), quoted, 158,

174-5
Stationers and Newspaper Makers,

Company of, 227
Stellenbosch, 188
Stenning, Colonel, 58
Stevenson, R. L., 133
Stoke Poges, 266

Storey, Mr., Australian Minister, 127
Stuttgart, visit of Prince of Wales to,

S3* 234

Suez Canal defences, the Prince re-
ports on, 71

Sydney, reception of Prince of Wales
at, 129

Sydney Sun f quoted, 126

Takoradi, 184

Talbot House, Poperinghe, 81. See

also Toe H
Taranaki, N. Z., 118
Taylour, Mary, 119
Thomas, Sir Godfrey, 216-7
Thomas, Rt. Hon. J. H., 214-5
Thompson, G. Patrick, quoted, 216-

8

Thuringia, the Prince in, 53, 234
Times, The, quoted, 41, 44, 277, 287,

289, 304

Times of India, The, cited, 165
Toe H Movement, foundation of,

and Prince's interest in, 81-3, 208,

215

Togo, Admiral (Japan), 178
Toheroa soup, 122
Tokio, 178
Trade, the Prince's interest in, 97,

121-2, 139-40, 226-27
Transvaal, the Prince in the, 197-

201
Travelling, effect of, on the Prince,

213, 223-5, 253-4
Trenchard, Lord, 235
Trinidad, Prince's visit to, 134

Udaipur, 161

Udaipur, Maharajah of, 162-4, 231-2

Udine, 75

"Untouchables/ 1 the Prince and the

Indian, 173

Uruguay, Prince's welcome in, 205-6
Uspallata, 209

Vaea, Mount, 133, 281

Vailima, 134

Valparaiso, 210

Verney, Major, quoted, 21-2, 46

Vickers, Ltd., contract with Central
Railway of Brazil, 122

Victor Emmanuel I, King of Italy,
75-6

Victor Emmanuel II, King of Italy,
77-8

Victoria, Queen, last days at Wind-
sor, 13-15; death, 15; attitude to
Germany, 28; physical stamina, 35;
anxiety over Edward VII's visit to
Rome, 76; indifference to Imperial
questions, 87; indulgence to serv-
ants, 254; attempt to assassinate,
on Constitution Hill, 277; loneli-
ness of widowhood, 268; Journal ,
quoted, 13-15

Vienna, King Edward VIII in, 281,
311

Virginia, tribute to King George V
in House of Delegates, 262

Waikiki, Hawaii, 134
Wales, King Edward's last visit to,
288-9

KING EDWARD VIII

Wales, Prince of, history of title, 30.

See also Carnarvon
War, outbreak of European, 1914, 59;
Prince of Wales 's early service in,
59 et seq.

Ward, Major Dudley, 79
Warley, training camp at, 59, 61
Wellington, N. Z., 1x8
Wells, H. G., quoted^ 228
Western Australia, Lieutenant-Gov-
ernor of, quoted, 88
West Indies, the Prince in the, 134-5
Westminster Hall, King George's

lying-in-state at, 263
White House, Prince's visit to Presi-
dent Wilson at, 103
White Lodge, Richmond, birthplace

of Edward VIII, 14-5
William II, Emperor o Germany, 22,

28, 51, 53, ** 8

Williamson, David, quoted, 54
Wilson, Woodrow, President U. S.,
103

Winchester, Bishop of, 268

Windsor, Prince of Wales is made
Freeman of, 105

Windsor, St. George's Chapel, 16,
266-70

Windsor Castle, 14-17, 310-11

Wolferton, 26$

Wood, Sir John, 169

Worcestershire Regiment, Prince pre-
sents colours to grd Bait, of, 165

Wurtembcrg, King and Queen of, 52

Yeta, Barotse chief, 200

York, H.R.H. Duke of, see George VI

York House, St. James's, the Prince

makes his home in, 88-92
"Young Thunder/' Indian chief, 99
Yule, Lady, 280

Zambesi, Victoria Falls, 200
Zeppelin, Count, 52, 234
Zulus and the Prince, 193-4

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