A Brief History of the House of Windsor (16 page)

With his accession there appeared on the national stage someone who was to be more responsible than any other individual for a new era of popularity for the monarchy. This was the new queen, Elizabeth. Her outgoing nature and matchless ability to make small talk hid a will of iron. She would not only bring up her eldest daughter to be a paragon among sovereigns but would make the utmost of the gentle nature and willingness to do his duty that characterized her husband. Her ability to manage what would now be called ‘public relations’ was unarguable. She presented the world, through the photographs and articles that she allowed visiting journalists to produce, with the image of a devoted, close-knit family, dressed simply and given to uncomplicated pleasures – riding, bicycling, gardening, picnicking. There was no pretence about any of this. The family members were precisely as they were shown. Queen Elizabeth succeeded in presenting them as the nation’s first family even before her husband had attained the throne.

At first it seemed Bertie had not been designed by nature to be either a monarch or a wartime figurehead. Born on 14 December 1895 at York Cottage in Sandringham, he was christened Albert Frederick Arthur George (during Queen Victoria’s lifetime the name Albert appeared with unrelenting
regularity among the Christian names of her male descendants). From the beginning he lived in the shadow of his more promising, charming, outgoing elder brother. Bertie was not only delicate but ill throughout his childhood. He had gastritis in infancy and it was to plague him again once he entered the Navy. He was also prone to knock knees, a family trait that is noticeable in pictures of George V, and was obliged to wear splints to correct this tendency.

At the age of eight he developed his famous stammer. It has been accounted for by the fact that he was naturally left-handed but was forced to use his right. His father, who was affectionate but impatient and certainly not inclined to mollycoddle, would shout at him: ‘Get it out!’ if the boy suddenly became stuck over a word, and this naturally made him worse. There is no question that the royal family of that era provided a generally supportive environment in which to grow up. Its members were genuinely fond of each other and, with a few exceptions, demonstratively so when out of the public eye. It was also true, however, that the children were treated with exemplary firmness from the beginning. The boys must be accustomed to strictness so that they could cope with serving in the Navy. They could not be indulged, given the lives of duty they would go on to lead. This, as much as natural impatience, led their father to shout at them when occasion demanded. Between the brothers there was a very strong bond, as might have been expected with those who had little chance to meet others of their age (Bertie’s daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, were to have the same close relationship). The common experience of growing up in a unique family united them, as it tends to do with every generation of royalty.

Like Eddy and George before them, Bertie and his brother David were put into the Royal Navy at an early age. As with the previous generation, it was assumed that this would give them a sound education. When in 1936 Bertie suddenly found himself king, he would exclaim anxiously to his cousin, Louis
Mountbatten: ‘Dickie, this is absolutely terrible. I’m only a naval officer. It’s the only thing I know about!’ Mountbatten was to reply smoothly that: ‘There is no finer training for a king.’ This pronouncement was treated as received wisdom, but it was in fact highly unrealistic. The Service undoubtedly taught some important traits: responsibility, punctuality, respect for authority, and familiarity with the wider world. Yet a naval gunroom was also a place of smug and insular philistinism. The only knowledge required in the Navy was technical. There was no opportunity to develop imagination, creativity or original thought. Character was developed at the expense of individuality or intellectual enquiry, and though some officers might possess these things, they would be seen as odd in an environment where the ‘norm’ was a bluff distrust of intelligence. The Navy left both princes hopelessly unlettered and uncultured, and with a puerile sense of humour that stayed with them for life. Nevertheless, they both retained a personal loyalty to it, looking back with affection on their time as officers, and they both had a great rapport with servicemen and veterans that served them well as sovereigns.

Since their father’s time, a naval school had been set up in the grounds of Osborne House, Queen Victoria’s summer home on the Isle of Wight. David, Bertie and their cousin Louis Mountbatten all attended this before going on to Dartmouth. Bertie’s performance at the school was dismal. He came 68th out of 68 cadets in order of merit. When he passed out of Dartmouth he managed to stay off the bottom of the class, but here too his performance was unimpressive: 61st out of 67. His career at both establishments was ordinary enough. At the former he was nicknamed ‘Bat-lugs’ for his protruding ears. At the latter he was punished for horseplay. He became a midshipman in 1913, a member of the world’s largest and most powerful navy. He had entered a Service that, at that time, had permanent fleets based in the Mediterranean, the Indian Ocean, and the Far East, and which would thus have enabled him to serve in every part of the globe.

He was to spend four years in the Navy. During that time he was treated like any other junior officer, and was to look back with appreciation on this interlude. He enjoyed life at sea, with its lack of protocol and its frequent challenges. He liked living, on terms of complete equality, with other young men who shared his interests. He appreciated the chance to meet and work with the ratings and petty officers – his only close encounter with the working class, and one that must have exerted a certain fascination. Like his father – and indeed the great Lord Nelson – he became seasick, but this did not prevent him from revelling in his new life. He went on a training voyage to the Caribbean and, because his presence aboard ship was known, crowds gathered in the ports to stare at him. Such was his shyness – and irritation with all this attention – that he got a fellow midshipman of similar build to act as his double.

The era of peace between Britain and the Continental powers, which had lasted almost a hundred years, was about to end with frightening suddenness in the outbreak of the First World War. Bertie was aboard HMS
Collingwood
during the first days of August when the Fleet awaited the opening of hostilities, and stood watch on deck to await conflict. Yet his war was to start badly for him. Within a few weeks appendicitis had put him on an operating table. His recovery was slow, and he chafed at the enforced idleness. A further illness put him out of action for months, though at least during that time he was able to make a visit to France with the Prince of Wales, and to see there the horrific conditions in which the soldiers lived and fought. He rejoined his ship in May 1916, only a few weeks before the showdown with the German Fleet for which the Royal Navy had been waiting throughout almost two years of war. This was to be the clash between two of the world’s naval giants, equipped almost equally with state-of-the-art warships – an encounter that in its scale, its weaponry and its consequences would surely be the greatest naval battle of all time. It took place on the afternoon of 31
May 1916, when the German Fleet sailed out of Kiel into the North Sea and met their opponents off the coast of Denmark.

The British called it the Battle of Jutland. To the Germans, it was the Battle of Skagerrak. Both sides claimed they won; neither really did. The British Fleet lost more ships, but their enemy gained nothing. What did happen, however, was that the German Fleet returned to port and did not come out to fight again. Bertie was there, helping to man the guns in ‘A’ Turret aboard
Collingwood
. It must have been a frantic, frightening, chaotic business, and his ship was fortunate in coming through the battle unscathed, for if a vessel received a direct hit there might well be very few survivors – an entire crew could be lost. Other vessels could be too far away to attempt rescue, and death by burning or drowning would be the result. Bertie would always be rightly proud that he had taken part in this crucial battle. His brother missed it, and so did Louis Mountbatten, who would go on to make a career in the Navy. It was the shy and unpromising member of the family who had gained this distinction.

He had only just been in time, however, because another bout of illness quickly landed him back in hospital. Between sea duty and convalescence he continued to take part in family duties. A photograph from that time shows him, dressed in his naval officer’s uniform, pouring tea for wounded soldiers at an event hosted by his parents.

After Jutland he did not return to sea. Instead he was transferred to the Royal Naval Air Service and sent to Cranwell, where he spent the rest of the war in command of a squadron of trainee pilots. He qualified as a pilot himself, beginning the connection between his family and military flying that has been maintained ever since. When in April 1918 the RNAS would amalgamate with the Royal Flying Corps to create the Royal Air Force, Bertie would become the first member of the royal family to wear the uniform of this new service.

He loved his time at Cranwell. He was popular with his youthful charges, who referred to him as ‘P.A.’ (Prince
Albert). He also made friends among the staff, and one of these, Louis Greig, whose home he visited, introduced him to the pleasures of family life. To see parents and young children living happily together within the cramped confines of a small house filled him with envy. He realized how much he, too, yearned to have his own home and family.

He continued with the RAF once the conflict was over, serving with the Air Ministry in London, a period of useful work in the sense that he saw at first hand a government department and how it functioned. Nothing, however, was allowed to last for long. Though there was no expectation that he would succeed to the throne, he was to be given a taste of several different aspects of national life and his next phase was to be spent at Cambridge. Here, in accordance with family tradition, he did not shine academically, though his personality continued to develop – he lived as far as possible like any other undergraduate, attending debates at the Union, buying a motorcycle, and playing tennis. Mountbatten, his friend and cousin, was there at the same time, and so was Louis Greig. He and the prince became such an effective tennis partnership that in 1920 they won the RAF Doubles. Continuing to play, they would actually make it to Wimbledon in 1928, though they were not successful there.

In this new era Bertie acquired both a title and a purpose. First, his father created him Duke of York. Secondly, he took on the task of wooing the working class. As part of the monarchy’s new image, it would be helpful if the poorest section of its people could be shown that royalty was interested in them, through patronage or chairmanship of appropriate organizations, and through visits to industrial plants. This could be seen as a cynical attempt to make the monarchy seem relevant to the masses, and to discourage the spread of socialism. The initiative, however, did not come from the Palace but from the public. Bertie was not designated by his father to undertake this task, he was asked to do it by persons interested in social welfare, and it happened to fit with the
monarchy’s own inclinations. The royal family had shown an interest in the industrial life of the country for almost a hundred years. When Queen Victoria was a girl she had been taken to visit factories and foundries in the English Midlands as part of her royal training. Her husband Prince Albert had furthered this connection through a genuine enthusiasm for industry and technology, and he had also designed ‘model dwellings’ – easy-to-build mass housing that could be erected anywhere – in which a workforce could be accommodated. King George V’s plan was to make the monarchy more visible to the whole population and more involved in the life of the country, and he could thus draw on precedent. His second son, whose shyness and lack of speaking ability made him an unlikely candidate for a charm offensive, took up the cause of industrial welfare and proved surprisingly successful at it.

It must not be forgotten that he and his father were sincere in their desire to improve the lot of their people. Both of them had a sense of mission, seeing it as their role to conciliate; to encourage unity and moderation and compromise in an era when industrial and class relations threatened to deteriorate drastically. It was a worthwhile task, and Bertie set about it with enthusiasm. He accepted the role of ‘industrial duke’ (his brothers nicknamed him ‘the foreman’), provided he could undertake visits with a minimum of fuss and preparation. ‘I’ll do it provided there’s no damned red carpet,’ he said. He founded an organization called the Industrial Welfare Society, on behalf of which he made tours of factories that enabled him to see conditions as they really were. He managed also to have some fun: in 1924, during a visit to Wales, he played a round of golf against the labour leader Frank Hodges on a course in the Rhondda Valley that had been laid out for miners.

His time at Cranwell had given him experience of working with young men, and in 1921 he established a regular summer camp. The boys who attended were to be recruited in equal numbers from public schools and industry, a mixing
of classes in which neither side would have the advantage of numbers. It was a highly original and imaginative concept, and it was Bertie’s own. The camps were held at Southwold in Suffolk, a beautiful rural corner of England. They lasted a week. The boys, who were nominated by headmasters, local clergymen or employers, were doubtless chosen for their outgoing and confident natures, but the camps might well have failed had there not been a routine of chores and competitive games that required absolute cooperation. Sharing tents, chopping firewood, and then sitting around the resulting blaze in the evenings made for fellow feeling whatever the backgrounds of those involved. The duke himself always attended for part of the camp, and sat for a group photograph with all the participants. Pictures show him wearing tweed jacket, shorts and knee-socks, as informally dressed as any Sunday hiker. He was also depicted joining in the singing of the camps’ theme song ‘Under the Spreading Chestnut Tree’.