BOOKS

Queen versus Duchess

Brian Masters

ROYAL FEUD by Michael Thornton

Michael Joseph, £12.95

The wise and witty Cecil Woodham- Smith used to deflect young authors from choosing cherished recondite subjects in whom no one would be interested. Stick to the star material, she would say. Oscar Wilde, T.E. Lawrence, Queen Victoria, Richard III, these could never fail, no matter how many previous books had been devoted to them. She did not mention Edward VIII, but I suspect the romance between that King and Mrs Simpson, with all its repercussions, is the most secure subject of all, likely to give employment to writers at least until the cabinet papers are open to scrutiny in 2036. This latest addi- tion to the pile tells the familiar story again, but with a shift in emphasis, suggest- ing that the tragedy of the abdication was due in large measure to implacable hostil- ity existing between the eventual sisters-in- law, Wallis Simpson and Elizabeth Bowes- Lyon.

According to this account, the two ladies were 'sworn enemies' who felt nothing short of 'abhorrence' for each other. Wallis made fun of Elizabeth's sartorial dowdi- ness and saccharine manner, which she judged to be a cynical invention meant to conceal the intriguing heart of a `clever and dangerous woman'. Hitler apparently con- sidered Queen Elizabeth to be the most dangerous woman in Europe, and we are told, on no authority whatever, that the Duchess of Windsor agreed with this assessment. As for Elizabeth, she dismis- sed the Windsors as 'a pampered, idle couple, with a frivolous and shallow life- style, who did nothing to justify the defer- ence and privileges they still expected.' Elizabeth, moreover, is variously depicted as a coldly obstinate, unrelenting and inflexible woman, with a vein of steel and an ungracious vindictiveness. If Wallis retires subdued and battered from this 30-year combat, it is undoubtedly the triumphant, intransigeant Elizabeth who emerges the less attractive personality.

Now all this jolly gossip might one day be distilled into history, with the passing of a few decades to lend it decency and the availability of some factual evidence to give it credence. But both ladies are still alive, the one pathetically bed-ridden and speechless in Paris, the other still jaunty, regal and adored in London. At the very least, this rather feline and noisome book does not make a pleasant 85th birthday present for the Queen Mother. More seriously than that, it raises the tricky question of taste, which I like to think may still be a worthy matter for deliberation by authors and decision by publishers. If Michael Thornton lacks the inherent man- ners to see that his exercise in speculation is both untimely and indecorous, I would have expected the publishers to know better and to decree that it must not appear within the lifetime of the protagonists.

Since it has appeared, however, we must make of it what we can. Mr Thornton is industrious and thorough. He has written to dozens of people, has persuaded others to pore over newspaper collections for him, and has read every available book on this and attendant subjects. So assiduous has he been in his reading, that there is scarcely a paragraph in his book which does not quote from some other; indeed, most paragraphs are actually built around a quotation. The result is a suffocating sense of déjà ins and a wearying realisation that there is unlikely to be anything original in such a remorselessly second-hand account. One hopes that perhaps Mr Thornton has been allowed access to an unknown source of letters which would inform his main theme. But no; there is not a single letter from Queen Elizabeth to the Duchess of Windsor, or from the Duchess to the Queen, and those to third parties in which an opinion is expressed on either lady have all been published before. To determine what Queen Elizabeth was thinking, the author places reliance on the interpreta- tions of Lady Hardinge, widow of the man who was Private Secretary to George V, Edward VIII, and George VI, and for a view as to what the Duchess really thought of the Queen, he depends on the evidence of an American socialite called Kitty Mil- ler, vouchsafed to him one day in 1976. Both Lady Hardinge and Mrs Miller were thought a trifle dotty and self-important in their old age. Failure to discriminate be- tween solid sources and wobbly ones dis- tinguishes the popular journalist from the historian. Finally, there is the anonymous squealer called `private information' who pops up in the notes every time Queen Elizabeth is lumbered with a nasty inten- tion.

Also, it is rather silly to dismiss a source as sunk in error, then gleefully plunder it. The author here speaks disparagingly of Michael Bloch's book The Duke of Wind- sor's War, yet quotes from it repeatedly (not always with acknowledgement); and he accepts that Helen Cathcart does not exist, and that the man who writes under her name has never met the Queen Mother, but still gives quotations from Helen Cathcart as his authority. One can- not have it both ways.

Given the paucity of new material, Mr Thornton is obliged to relate two separate and parallel stories and force their con- vergence at several points by labouring coincidences or telling us what one woman was doing in one part of the world 'while' the other was doing something else entirely unconnected in another part. The forces of destiny were, he says, 'working overtime', and it is part of his job to show us what they were up to. The end of each chapter pulls the divergent strands of his narrative together with an envoi of which the follow- ing is not an unfair example:

Elizabeth would almost always be gracious. There would only ever be one exception to the rule, and that would be in her dealings with the woman who had caused the whole traumatic upheaval to come about; the woman she would find it impossible to forgive for almost forty years: Wallis Simpson.

What it boils down to is this: the two women, so seemingly unlike in manner, dress, behaviour, principle, were locked in a battle of wills because each recognised the strength of the other as something she acknowledged within herself. Mr Thornton begins very well, with a chapter on their first meeting since the abdication, at the unveiling of the memorial to Queen Mary in 1967, when the Duchess of Windsor pointedly omitted to curtsey (though the photograph shows her looking very benign and friendly). Chapter Two lists their similarities (both descended from families in Virginia, both dominating their hus- bands, and so on), while from Chapter Three onwards the feud is launched.

Elizabeth had very little patience with Edward VIII even when he was King. She deplored his admiration for Hitler, which we now know was indiscreetly expressed, his naivete, his selfishness. Above all, she despised his abject submission to Mrs Simpson, especially since her own husband was equally submissive to her, thus re- minding her that they had 'too much in common for comfort'. On the death of George V, his widow Queen Mary's first act was to kiss the hand of her new Sovereign; the new Sovereign's first act was to telephone the news to his American girl-friend. He then broke tradition by witnessing his own proclamation, with Mrs Simpson at his side. His boorish attitude towards former mistresses Thelma Furness and Freda Dudley Ward, who had been discreet and helpful, also rankled. He gave the impression of giggling his way through his brief reign with vapid hangers-on who may have been more fun than the staid courtiers of yesteryear, but were better suited as the friends of a cabaret artist. Elizabeth, with her deep sense of duty and les bienseances, looked reproachfully upon all this.

Then Wallis could not put a foot right. It was patently obvious she did not know how to behave, lacked the necessary reticence due from some one admitted into royal circles, and after Edward's accession, arro- gantly assumed the role of hostess at Balmoral. Nor, later, was it very bright of her to let it be known she thought the war terribly boring. Once she and the King had become Duke and Duchess of Windsor, their self-concentratiori was absolute, and the Duke took a long time to realise that he had by his abdication made himself a much less important person.

Elizabeth, despite the supposed affini- ties, displayed a character in dramatic contrast, as Mr Thornton to his credit eventually makes clear. Her charm and compassion (which Wallis thought synthe- tic), her celebration of simple family vir- tues, her responsibility, inaugurated an entirely new era in the relation between Sovereign and subjects and made her the guardian of tradition and continuity in the monarchy. To this day, she is the only Dowager Queen in our history to be a Counsellor of State in the Queen's abs- ence. No apologist for the Duchess of Windsor has ever suggested she could have done as well. Incidentally, Mr Thornton accepts the notion that Elizabeth was a reluctant queen who blamed Mrs Simp- son's interference for obliging her shy husband to accept a throne for which he was ill-prepared. I am told, however, that she was in correspondence with Edward VIII before the abdication, indicating that she was working on Bertie to persuade him to be ready to take over. In old age, the enmity has abated. The Duchess, before descending into her pre- sent extreme frailty, evidenced a dignity which none of her detractors had previous- ly thought possible, notably when she came to London for her husband's funeral in 1972. The Queen Mother, so Mr Thornton tells us, sent her some roses with the simple card attached 'in friendship'. I think he is wrong, however, to suggest that the Queen sends flowers from Windsor to the house in the Bois de Boulogne every month; all the Duchess is likely to receive are a few miserable daffodils from the British Embassy.

The most fascinating section of this book occurs in Chapter Seven, where the author deals at length with the Duchess of Wind- sor's rank and status. It has always been maintained by those who see nothing wicked in the Court's treatment of her, that by his abdication Edward VIII for- feited all right to be a Royal Highness and a Prince, that therefore he had to be recreated a Royal Highness by his brother George VI in Letters Patent, and that those same Letters Patent withheld the privilege of royal status from his wife. Mr Thornton, with clarity and conviction, de- monstrates the nonsense in this reasoning. Edward gave up his right to the throne, but he could not, even if he wanted, give up his right to be the son of a sovereign and therefore a Royal Highness. By common law, his wife immediately became a Prin- cess and a Royal Highness the day she married him. The Letters Patent of 1937 were a deception to rob her of a rank which would sound like an admission of equality. The need for retribution and insult was paramount. But since the Letters Patent of 1937 were legally and constitutionally un- sound, the ruse did not work, and Wallis is in fact entitled to HRH before her name. George VI was bullied by his wife (private info) into this foolish move. The on dit, repeated by Mr Thornton, is that Wallis will get her HRH posthumously, in return for all the jewels David gave her from the royal collections.

If wide reading and devotion to a subject over many years were enough to make an historian, Michael Thornton would belong on the shelves with A.J.P. Taylor and Lord Blake. Alas, they are only the groundsoil, and Royal Feud is the mere stepchild of serious research, further spoilt by the perpetual drama of its style.