King Edward VIII. Philip Ziegler

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СКАЧАТЬ Earl of Chester, the investiture should have happened there. The leading man earned himself a crop of compliments. Winston Churchill, the Home Secretary, congratulated him on possessing a voice ‘which carries well and is capable of being raised without losing expressiveness’.⁴⁶ Lloyd George assured him that he had forged a lasting bond of affection with the Welsh ‘and won the admiration of all those who witnessed the spectacle’.⁴⁷ Queen Mary told Aunt Augusta that he had played his part to perfection, ‘It was very émouvant for George and me.’⁴⁸ To the youthful Harry Luke he seemed ‘the incarnation of all the Fairy Princes who have ever been imagined’.⁴⁹ The last description encapsulated everything that disquieted Edward about the ceremony. He was not sure he wanted to be a prince at all, certainly he did not wish to be a fairy prince. He hated anything which made him a man apart, which set him on a pedestal for his fellows to goggle at and worship. If to be Prince of Wales meant to put on fancy dress and strike attitudes in remote Welsh castles, then it was not a job for him.

      There were good points about the position too. As Duke of Cornwall, he now enjoyed the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall, derived from much valuable property in London and huge estates in the West Country. These amounted to some £90,000 a year, far more than he could possibly require before he came of age and set up his own establishment. The Treasurer of the Duchy of Cornwall, Walter Peacock, estimated that by the end of his minority savings would probably amount to £400,000; say, very roughly, £10 million at current values.⁵⁰ With new wealth and consequence came new responsibilities. J. C. Davidson, some time in 1912, was summoned from his work in the Colonial Office to St James’s Palace to be looked over as a prospective private secretary. He quickly decided it was no job for him: ‘I would have made a very poor courtier, nor did I quite like the character of the Prince of Wales, charming in some ways as he was.’⁵¹ The Prince possibly reciprocated the mild dislike; certainly no job was offered to Davidson, nor any private secretary appointed.

      Meanwhile his naval career was running to its close. His last term at Dartmouth had been truncated by a fierce attack of measles. He retreated to Newquay to convalesce and to pay a few perfunctory visits to his recently acquired estates in the vicinity. On 29 March 1911 he returned briefly to Dartmouth to give presents and signed photographs to the officers, masters and a few particularly close friends. On the same day he presented to the town of Dartmouth the silver oar which symbolized the ancient rights of the Duke of Cornwall over the adjoining waters: ‘This was my first function, and I think it went off very well,’ he noted in his diary.⁵² Neither he nor his father appeared to have any doubts about the value of the education he had received. ‘I certainly think the College is the best school in England,’ wrote the King.⁵³ The Prince echoed the sentiment when he visited Winchester in 1913. ‘I believe it is a very good school,’ he told his father. ‘… It is amusing to see the difference between an ordinary school and Dartmouth. The boys talk of discomfort, but in the dormitories they have cubicles and they sit about in studies all day. Their life is not half as strenuous as it is at Dartmouth and we were more contented. There can be no better education than a naval one.’⁵⁴

      The Dartmouth course ended with a training cruise. The Coronation made it impossible for the Prince to take part, but as a consolation in the autumn of 1911 he was sent on a three-month tour in the battleship Hindustan. The Prince served as a midshipman as the ship sailed along the south coast to Portland, Plymouth and Torbay, then for a month to Queensferry and back to Portland for the final weeks. The Captain, Henry Campbell, was a shining example of those bluff sailor men who maintain a conspicuous independence of attitude while keeping a weather eye always open to the wishes of those likely to further their careers. ‘Not the smallest exception or discrimination has been made in his favour,’ he wrote in his final report on the Prince.⁵⁵ Up to a point it was true. The Prince did work hard, get up at 6 a.m. to do rifle drill or P.T., receive the same pay – 1/9d (9p) a day – as the other midshipmen, keep his watches, do a stint in the coal bunkers – ‘the atmosphere is thick with coal dust and how the wretched stokers who have to remain down there can stand it, I do not know’.⁵⁶ But not many midshipmen ate regularly with their captain, went for walks ashore with him when the ship was near land, lunched in their stately homes with Lord Mar, Lord Rosebery and Lord Mount Edgcumbe. He was always the Prince of Wales and though he seems to have been genuinely welcome in the gunroom by the other midshipmen, he was there as a guest, not as a member.

      ‘I like the Captain very much indeed, he is always so interesting,’ wrote the Prince in his diary. ‘The Chaplain had a talk with me … and gave me some tracts to read.’⁵⁷ The Chaplain, one suspects, was found less interesting than the Captain. Campbell reciprocated the boy’s affection, and, though he was not above flattery, his letter to Queen Mary has the ring of sincerity:

      We in the Navy rate a man for what he does, not for what he is; from the highest to the lowest he was looked upon with affection and respect. His character has formed; it is strong but very gentle and is best described in the old Scotch words ‘Ye can break but ye canna bend me.’ In spite of his very happy nature he thinks a great deal and he one day made it quite clear to me that he was fully alive to the fact that false speech and fond hopes do not alter facts … The Prince said to me one day; ‘If I have learnt nothing else since I have been with you, I have learnt what inconvenience is and what it means to be really tired.’ I thought of my promise to you and felt that it had been fulfilled.⁵⁸

      When he went ashore for the last time the ship’s company sang ‘God Bless the Prince of Wales’ and ‘Auld lang syne’. The Prince knew it was the end of his naval life. ‘I only wish it was possible for you to continue serving in what I consider the finest service in the world,’ his father had written to him.⁵⁹ But it was not possible. The first year of his reign had finally convinced George V that life aboard a ship could not equip a prince to be King. Edward must travel, he must learn languages, he must study history and the constitution, he must serve in the Army, he must become the very model of a modern monarch. The Prince of Wales was disconsolate, but he knew his father was right.

      ‘You know, I think father now is quite a nice man,’ Edward had said in apparent surprise to his mother in the summer of 1910.⁶⁰ That George V was in fact quite a nice man is hardly in question; that his son continued to think him quite a nice father is more doubtful. The trouble was partly that the King tried too hard. ‘Now that you are leaving home, David, and going out into the world,’ he said when he deposited his son for the first time at Osborne, ‘always remember that I am your best friend.’⁶¹ The same refrain reverberated down the years: in 1908, ‘I wish you always to look upon me as your best friend, when in doubt and want advice, come to me’; in 1913, ‘I want you always to look upon me as your best friend’; in 1914, ‘I want you to treat me as your best friend.’⁶² It is possible that some boys may indeed regard their fathers as their best friends, but even if they did it is unlikely that they would relish being constantly reminded of the fact.

      There was a sententiousness about the King’s approach which must have grated on its victim. ‘I trust that you will always remember …’ wrote George V just after his accession, ‘that now you must always set a good example to the others by being very obedient, respectful to your seniors and kind to everyone.’⁶³ ‘May God spare you for many, many years and may you grow up to be a happiness and a credit to your parents and your Country,’ was the message for the Prince’s thirteenth birthday.⁶⁴ The sentiments were unexceptionable, but no teenage boy could be expected to pay much attention to such exhortations. In later life Edward was apt to say that his father never said anything nice about him, always it was carping criticism and rebuke. This is not altogether fair. The King did sometimes congratulate his son on his manners, his letter-writing or some new achievement. But such occasions were the exception. ‘Papa has been so nice to me since my return …’ wrote the Prince in his diary in 1913. ‘No faults have been found … Such a change!!’ It was too good to last. Within a few days there was ‘an awful row’ when the King took exception to his sons going out for a walk with small rifles and shooting rabbits. ‘Those things are always СКАЧАТЬ