'CLOSE OF A DYNASTY'
SK—While I am most gratified that you should have seen fit to include a review of my book, Close of a Dynasty, in the Spectator of August 17, I feel justified in making to you the following observation.
Mr. Gerald Hamilton, in the final paragraph of a generally favourable review, makes an entirely false and somewhat damaging state- ment.
Though he says with truth that I am 'cer- tainly no writer' (I acknowledge this in my preface), he attempts to confirm this by stating that The Dowager Empress is always referred to as "Her Imperial Majesty, the Empress Marie." ' This full title is not to be found anywhere in the text of the book. In fact, the only in- stance in the text in which the full and correct title is used for any member of the Imperial family is the first reference to the Grand Duchess Xenia, to whom the book is dedicated.
I think you will agree, Sir, that an all too evident personal dislike of admirals and generals is no justification for a gross misrepre- sentation of fact.—Yours faithfully,
FRANCIS PRIDHAM Millmead, Axmouth, Seaton, Devon
(Mr. Hamilton writes : 'Admiral Sir Francis Pridham complains that I evidently have a "personal dislike of all admirals and generals." This is not the case at all and my own grand- father was a not unknown general. I do, how- ever, object to their interference in politics and I attempted to illustrate this by quoting from the Admiral's book Lord Beatty's address to the officers and ratings of the British Fleet after the German surrender at the end of the First World War.
With regard to the more serious Accusation that I misrepresented him by stating that the Dowager Empress of Russia was referred to as Her Imperial Majesty, the Empress Marie, in his book, I see that the very first photo- graph in the book happens to be one of the Dowager Empress and under this the Admiral has written "Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Marie. Feodorovna of Russia." Further, in the first paragraph of the preface the Admiral writes about the Dowager Empress's daughter whom he calls, somewhat pompously, "Her Imperial Highness the Grand Duchess Xenia Alexandrovna of Russia." This is what I meant by saying in my review that even the Grand Dukes received from the author what I described as "the full treatment." '—Editor, Spectator.]
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