King Edward VIII. Philip Ziegler

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СКАЧАТЬ Yet she appears to have had no qualms. ‘I do so hope our children will turn out common-sense people, which is so important in this world,’ she told her aunt Augusta early in 1907. ‘We have taken no end of trouble with their education and they have very nice people round them so one feels all is being done to help them.’⁵⁸

      To be fair to Hansell, he saw the claustrophobic limitations in the system of education imposed upon his charges. He wanted them sent to a preparatory school, preferably Ludgrove where he himself had taught. When this proposal was brusquely vetoed by the Prince of Wales, he at least tried to open their social horizons a little way by organizing football matches in which the princes and boys from the local village played against teams from nearby schools. Edward enjoyed both the games and the conviviality which accompanied them. His father was dubious, not so much over the principle as over the choice of sport. He complained to Hansell that the Prince much preferred ‘football to golf, which is a pity, and dislikes playing golf now, probably because his brother beats him, but I want you to encourage him all you can. I have already told him he will have more opportunities of playing golf when he grows up than football or cricket.’⁵⁹ But Edward was always hesitant about fresh experiences: ‘How funny he is about trying anything new like hockey,’ remarked his father. ‘We must try to get him over it.’⁶⁰

      You’ll be glad to hear

      That the Cuckoo is hear!

      That is poetry.⁶¹

      wrote Edward proudly from Frogmore in April 1904. It was a solitary foray into an art form that was to hold little appeal for him in later life. But in some ways his education was less inadequate. He took a keen interest in the 1906 general election, which Hansell turned into a game. Edward backed Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal leader; Prince Albert favoured the Conservative Balfour. When Campbell-Bannerman, duly elected Prime Minister, visited Windsor, the eleven-year-old Prince asked whether being at the top of the ladder would not make him feel giddy. ‘Is this not delightful and promising for his future!’ exclaimed his doting great-aunt Augusta.⁶² His memory for names and faces was trained from a very early age – after going into a room with some fifty people in it he was rigorously grilled on the identity of every one he had met. He was encouraged to take an interest in any part of the world visited by his parents. When the Prince of Wales was in India: ‘Mr Holland Hibbert came to lecture to us. The part that interested me most was when he told us about the holy men of Benares. He said that some of them hold their arms up all their lives. I think it must be rather tiresome.’ Some of them also lie on a bed of nails, replied his father. ‘I thought them rather nasty kind of people.’⁶³

      But the Prince never learned to read for pleasure or acquired even a superficial knowledge of the English classics. Tommy Lascelles, then his private secretary, speculated many years later about what Hansell could have taught his charge. ‘I recollect the Prince of Wales years ago, coming back from a weekend at Panshanger and saying to me, “Look at this extraordinary little book wh. Lady Desborough says I ought to read. Have you ever heard of it?”’ The extraordinary little book was Jane Eyre. Another time he asked Hardy to settle an argument he had had with his mother about whether the novelist had written a book called Tess of the D’Urbervilles; ‘I said I was sure it was by somebody else.’ Hardy answered politely that it had indeed been one of his earlier books.⁶⁴ A working knowledge of English literature is perhaps unnecessary to a monarch, but to be totally ignorant of its greatest monuments is surely undesirable.

      In the many accounts that survive of Edward at this period, it is his quickness, brightness and anxiety to please which are most often remarked on. ‘A delightful child, so intelligent, nice and friendly,’ said Queen Victoria;⁶⁵ ‘a sweet little person’ was Esher’s judgment;⁶⁶ ‘he had a look of both intelligence and kindness, and a limpid clarity of expression,’ observed the Aga Khan.⁶⁷ His formal courtesy and consideration for others were unusual in one so young, as also ‘the look of Weltschmerz in his eyes’ which Lord Esher detected when he was only eleven years old. He was softhearted, telling Lord Roberts that when he was King he would pass a law against cutting puppy dogs’ tails and forbid the use of bearing reins on horses. ‘Those two things are very cruel.’⁶⁸ When he caught his first fish he danced for joy, then handed it to the boatman and said: ‘You must not kill him, throw him back into the water again!’⁶⁹ (Such sensibilities did not endure. Only a year later he was recording in triumph, ‘We caught such a lot of fishes! and had them for breakfast this morning.’⁷⁰) But his benevolence, though sincere, was sometimes remote from the realities of human existence. The first recorded story that he told his brothers was about an extremely poor couple living on a deserted moor. They were starving. One day the man heard his wife moan, ‘I’m so hungry.’ ‘“Very well,” said her husband. “I’ll see to it.” So he rang the bell and, when the footman came, ordered a plate of bread and butter.’⁷¹

      In June 1904 Prince Edward’s skull was inspected by Bernard Holländer, an eminent phrenologist. Most of the comments could have been made by anyone of a sycophantic nature without reference to the cranium, but there are some interesting points. The Prince, said Holländer, was eager to acquire knowledge and a keen observer, but ‘he would show his talents to greater advantage were he possessed of power of concentration and greater self-confidence’. He had a good eye for painting and would like music, though mainly of the lighter kind, ‘for example songs and dancing tunes’. He would have little use for organized religion himself but would respect the views of others. ‘Persons with the Prince’s type of head are never guilty of either a mean or dishonest action; they are just-minded, kindly disposed and faithful to their word.’ He had strong ‘feelings of humanity and sympathy for the welfare of others … He will seek to alleviate the sufferings of the poor.’ He would be uneasy in company, dislike public appearances, accept responsibilities with reluctance. He would not, it was clear, find it easy to be King.⁷² Even at the age of ten he seemed to cherish doubts about his fitness for the role that his birth had thrust on him. More than thirty-two years later, after the abdication, Lalla Bill wrote in high emotion to Queen Mary. ‘Do you remember, Your Majesty, when he was quite young, how he didn’t wish to live, and he never wanted to become King?’⁷³

      2

      The Youth

      THERE WERE GOOD REASONS FOR CHOOSING THE ROYAL Navy as a training ground for future monarchs. Careers open to princes at the beginning of the twentieth century were rare indeed, and the armed services provided one of the few in which they could find employment. The Navy, as the senior, was the obvious choice. It was a cherished national institution, its officers were recruited largely from the gentry or aristocracy, it offered less opportunities for debauchery or any kind of escapade than its land-based counterpart, it inculcated those virtues which it was felt were above all needed in a future king: sobriety, self-reliance, punctuality, a respect for authority and instinct to conform. A few years at sea would do harm to few and most people a lot of good. But to thrust a boy into the Navy at the age of twelve and leave him there until he was nineteen or twenty, if not longer, was unlikely to produce the rounded personality and breadth of mind needed to cope with the plethora of problems which afflict the constitutional monarch. When Edward’s father and uncle went to sea, Queen Victoria complained that the ‘very rough sort of life to which boys are exposed on board ship is the very thing not calculated to make a refined and amiable Prince’.¹

      The risk seemed more that the Navy would blinker rather than brutalize a prince. The curious thing was that the Prince of Wales himself was aware of the limitations of a naval education. He knew that he had grown up without any understanding of international affairs, any knowledge of society or politics, any facility for languages. He deplored these handicaps. And yet when it came to his own sons, he condemned them to the same sterile routine. At least when he had joined the Navy it had not seemed likely that he would become King. Prince Edward was destined for the throne, СКАЧАТЬ