Golden Frame
(See front cover)
Leaving behind the home in which they lived as Duke & Duchess of York at No. 145 Piccadilly (see map, p. 21), the new King & Queen had just moved into Buckingham Palace last week. Installed with a big nursery window on the public facade of the Palace were popular Princesses Elizabeth, 10, and Margaret Rose, 6. Last week people who came to watch the daily change of the Guard amid stirring fanfare exchanged nods, smiles and waves with Their Royal Highnesses. Already Princess Betty is past mistress in attracting the popular affection inspired for 25 years by the Prince of Wales, and last week an exalted Briton who had just visited the Duke of Windsor brought home a pat remark. Said Edward, "less in the heat of anger than in philosophic amusement" according to his visitor:
"I always told those idiots not to put me in a golden frame."
The Kingdom & Empire are confident that the right people have now been golden-framed. Last week Buckingham Palace was a busy hive of active preparation for the gorgeous, solemn Coronation scheduled for May 12. The King had regular fittings of his various Crowns and Coronation garments, as did the Queen. Tightly boarded up already is Westminster Abbey and inside carpenters thwacked furiously, erecting that ominous-sounding platform, "The Scaffold," on which Their Majesties are joyously to be crowned.
Selassie, Goering & Pajamas. Zest and pace were given to the approaching Coronation by striking events last week. With faint shrugs and slightly lifted eyebrows civil servants of the Foreign Office told the press that, since His Majesty's Government still recognize the Ethiopian Government of Haile Selassie (although he has been driven from Addis Ababa) and the Spanish Government of Francisco Largo Caballero (although he has been driven from Madrid), invitations have had to be dispatched to these Governments asking them to send representatives to the Coronation. At news of this Benito Mussolini, who was recently appeased by a new British-Italian treaty supposed to have ended mutual animosity over Ethiopia (TIME, Jan. 11), grew furious. II Duce's press thundered that Italy's Royal House of Savoy is justly renowned for the wisdom of Vittorio Emanuele III, added that His Majesty "cannot make other than the correct choice" in deciding whether or not to send Italian Crown Prince Umberto to sit in Westminster Abbey with a black-faced Ethiopian.
Gleeful in England last week, ex-Emperor Haile Selassie hinted that he would send to the Coronation his favorite son-in-law, the doughty Ras (General) Desta Demtu, who was still in Ethiopia last week commanding the remnants of a native army. Few-hours later an Italian-led column of Ethiopian troops swooped down and routed the Ethiopian stragglers of Ras Desta Demtu. According to the Italian official version, Haile Selassie's designated Coronation envoy was implicated in the attempt to assassinate Italy's Viceroy in Addis Ababa by means of hand grenades (TIME, March 1). In short order Ras Desta Demtu was executed, and convalescent Viceroy Graziani radioed to Rome: "DUCE YOUR ORDERS HAVE BEEN CARRIED OUT AS ALWAYS."
Next, in the House of Commons, various Labor Members denounced last week the expected representation of Germany at the Coronation by Ministerprdsident-Generaloberst Goring. Fresh from the U. S., where she harangued Detroit strikers, famed little Laborite Miss Ellen Wilkinson had to be coldly ignored in the House by Viscount Cranborne, Undersecretary for Foreign Affairs, when she shrieked: "Can we have some guarantee that we shall not be insulted by the presence of General Goring as Germany's representative at the Coronation?" So far as British officials knew last week, Goring is coming and that is that.
In London Stock Exchange quarters meanwhile rumors rumbled that the German Government has chosen Coronation week as the time to invade Czechoslovakia and seize those few of its provinces in which citizens of German blood unquestionably predominate. In knowing European circles these rumors were considered "propaganda-in-reverse"--a British attempt to repeat the supremely adroit French move which recently kept the Reichswehr out of Morocco (TIME, Jan. 18). In that case the French Cabinet circulated to the world press the deliberate lie that German forces had already landed at Ceuta, whereas the French Secret Service knew they only planned to do so. Exposed in advance, Dictator Hitler soon professed his "non-aggression," landed no Germans in Ceuta, and Der FUehrer may not strike at Czechoslovakia during the Coronation if his Nazi schemes are sufficiently anticipated and aired to the world.
While such matters as these gripped the minds of the British Cabinet last week, a Coronation problem too tough for the Duke of Norfolk's Court of Claims to solve had to be referred for decision by King George. The problem: since the Joint Hereditary Lord Great Chamberlain of England, Lord Ancaster, has the undoubted right to receive "His Majesty's night robe" in which the King sleeps the night before the Coronation, what is to be done in view of the fact that King George VI sleeps in pajamas? This baffled the Court of Claims, should not baffle His Majesty. Friends of King George were confident he will decide that Lord Ancaster shall be given His Majesty's pajamas and also, of course, according to ancient custom, "the bed wherein His Majesty lay, together with all the curtains and valances thereof and all the cushions and clothes within the chamber, together with the furniture"--these to become in future times precious relics of 1937.
Chronology. Every year England's aristocrats open their social round, "The London Season," on Varnishing Day at the Royal Academy, this year April 30. Next day and for the rest of the Coronation Season anyone, on payment of 40-c-, can visit this same show, view the year's crop of oil paintings and sculpture in which Royal Academicians have done members of the Royal Family, peerage, beerage, their children, estates, horses, cattle, dogs, canaries, mice.*
Next come a Royal Court on May 5 and another May 6, the U. S. Embassy deciding which U. S. women shall drop three curtsies to the King & Queen after being presented by Ambassadress Mrs. Robert Worth Bingham, gratis. English women have often paid up to $1,000 to an Englishwoman who has been presented at Court and so become entitled to present a "friend," but this form of purchased entree to Buckingham Palace is open only to women whose husbands are subjects of the King or who are themselves British.
On May 11 the Dominion Prime Ministers present Addresses and Loyal Greetings to His Majesty and lunch in state at Buckingham Palace.
Next day, May 12, is the Coronation (see below).
On May 13, the solid gold dinner service of the Royal Family, worth $16,000,000, will be used at the State Banquet. As always happens, at least one guest too exalted to be nabbed in the act will get away with a gold butter plate worth $500. Next evening the British Foreign Office is dinner host to the King & Queen--biggest night of Foreign Secretary & Mrs. Anthony Eden's lives, although Foreign Undersecretary Viscount Cranborne, a Cecil, and his Viscountess are often house guests of Their Majesties. Next day, May 15, the Envoys of 53 States depart and on this day train accommodations to the Continent cannot possibly be secured by an ordinary visitor.
Best chance to see the King & Queen without having to buy a seat is on May 19, when Their Majesties drive nearly three miles across town from Buckingham Palace to lunch with the Lord Mayor at Guildhall. One may catch a local cruise boat next day to go to the Royal Naval Review at Spithead.
To church in St. Paul's Cathedral ("The Parish Church of the British Empire") go the King & Queen on May 24, humbly wearing "plain clothes." Next evening they dine at red brick No. 10 Downing Street with the Prime Minister & Mrs. Stanley Baldwin ("The King Makers"). The King was born Dec. 14, 1895, but the Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin has ordered "Celebration of the King's Birthday on June 9," * and this may be said to close the Coronation Season. The London Season continues for swanksters until the Cowes Regatta which ends Aug. 7.
Getting There-- Arrong themselves travel and steamer folk were saying ruefully last week that "Americans who are able to go have not yet decided whether they are going to the Coronation--the thing has not yet crystallized, and it will probably crystallize suddenly one way or the other."
Thus last week no transatlantic line had its "Coronation sailings" yet solidly booked in any class. Out-of-town agents, by paying a small deposit, are permitted to book and hold any number of cabins in dummy names until about ten days before a given ship sails, do not lose this deposit in any case as it stands to their credit if the reservations are given up. This sort of speculative booking had by last week pretty well "filled" the Queen Mary, Paris and Bremen--all of which sail from Manhattan at just the right time for last-minute Coronation fans in a hurry--but the Cunard White Star Line is taking practically its whole fleet out of Manhattan at that time and unquestionably good accommodation is still plentiful. In this or any other year, actual decision to go abroad should of course be followed by "Booking Early" for best, cheapest cabins.
A great victory for the Earl of Derby, who has campaigned for years to get the $10 British visa fee down, was its recent revision-to $2 after April 1. The French visa, ordinarily $2.33, is reduced to 47-c- for the Paris Exposition Season this spring and summer, with 50% reduction to Exposition visitors of all French rail fares. Italy offers similar inducements and the recent devaluation of French francs, Belgian francs, Dutch gulden, Swiss francs and Italian lire make these ideal post-Coronation countries, cheaper today by some 20% to 40% than they were in 1936 and better bargains than they will be in 1938 as prices inevitably rise to offset devaluation. Canadians are in the same state of mind as U. S. citizens and last week Canadian Pacific had many unbooked cabins in all classes for its Coronation sailings of the Duchess of York, Empress of Australia and Duchess of Atholl.
Staying There. In London speculative bookings, not only of hotel rooms but of seats from which to view the Coronation Procession, have surged in wild fluctuations and last week continued erratic. Nevertheless London is such a rearmament boom town in 1937 that, even if nobody came to the Coronation--and by lowest estimates 2,100,000 are coming*--the hotels would be overcrowded as they were last spring and summer, the theatres jammed and head waiters (usually Italians in the swankest English places) as cocky as in 1929. Today in London almost no top-class hotel rooms for Coronation time remain available. His Majesty's Government bought the best months ago, and forehanded folk the rest. Class A & B tourists from the U. S. who would normally stay at the Ritz, Savoy or Claridge's are today being booked into Class C & D hotels such as the Thackery and Russell.
All Manhattan agents find their best, highest-priced Coronation Procession seats sold out, or nearly. Thus Raymond Whitcomb, who have the grandstand adjoining Westminster Abbey, have sold all the top-price seats they offered at $262.50 each, have plenty left at down to $94.50 each, their cheapest. Thomas Cook & Son have the stand of 4,000 seats near Hyde Park Corner and throw in with one of these seats a minimum rate inside cabin on the Kimgsholm for $395 roundtrip. This definitely cheap inclusive rate covers dinner, breakfast and bus transport between the ship in the Thames and a point within five rninutes walk of the stand. American Express offer similar rates with emphasis on further travel on the cheaper Continent after the Coronation.
Privately all agents agree London will be so jam-squeezed that even Ambassadors in Government cars will have to arise at dawn before the Coronation and reach the Abbey by 7 a. m. at the latest. Millions of Britons will stand, sit, slump and sleep on curbstones not only the whole previous night but in all probability the night before that. Ten thousand tourists will sleep in ships on the Thames.
Anyone who would like the Cumberland Terrace mansion in which Mrs. Simpson lived can rent it at $210 for Coronation week. The late great Earl of Birken-head's son's house may be had for May and June at an asking price of $1,500 on agreement to feed the six Birkenhead servants and pay their combined wages of $150 per month--and at that the young Earl is "open to offers." Today Manhattan agents are loaded up with such London houses, report "little or no demand"; but U. S. Ambassador to Soviet Russia and Mrs. Davies (see p. 24) have taken one of the largest mansions in all London for the Coronation.
Sight Unseen. A seat anywhere along the Coronation Procession route (see map), and there are 23 miles of grandstand seats, schedules the sitter to see the King & Queen bowling along in their golden Coach of State. After leaving Westminster Abbey the King will be wearing the Imperial State Crown. Other members of the Royal Family will be in open landaus or limousines as will foreign Crown Princes, Special Envoys, Ambassadors. Necessarily the Procession is all that the public can possibly be shown, for the Coronation must take place inside the Abbey. About 15,000 subjects of the King have a "right" in varying degrees to be in the Abbey, but its maximum capacity is about 7,700. The choir screen cuts off all but about 2,000 persons in the Abbey from seeing what takes place. It is therefore in a fine medieval and traditional sense a Mystery.
This is as it should be, for George VI is to emerge after many exhausting hours of ministrations by the Archbishop of Canterbury and others as officially a persona mixta or "mixed person." In the eyes of faithful, devout members of the Church of England, His Majesty is henceforth a mixture of priest and layman. He has been anointed with holy oil or balm as a bishop is consecrated, and upon his head has briefly rested what is called St. Edward's Crown. This is too sacred to be worn in the open or seen by the mob.
Centuries ago Cromwell's men smashed up and dispersed the British Regalia, including what was then called St. Edward's Crown, stealing the jewels. After the Monarchy was restored the present St. Edward's Crown was made in 1661, and is thus a venerable relic although England's holy King, St. Edward the Confessor, died in 1066. It is St. Edward's sacredness, and that of the Church of England, which is the Mystery of the Coronation and its essence.
George VI was King the moment Edward VIII abdicated. After his Coronation, he is not any more King or Emperor than he was before, but he emerges in talismanic Mystery. As Shakespeare makes King Richard II exclaim:
Not all the water in the rough rude sea,
Can wash the balm from an anointed
King;
The breath of worldly men cannot depose
The deputy elected by the Lord!
Bean Feast. The great Coronation Mystery enshrined at Westminster Abbey is in 1937 and has been for generations something in which the English, Scottish and Welsh share by instinct and faith rather than in their thoughts. Centuries ago pilgrims came from all over Europe in season and out to the shrine of St. Edward. They come no more--except to the Coronation. Until about 200 years ago the people of Britain believed the King could cure them of bodily ills and he had to spend scores of days every year "touching" the sick. That custom fell into disuse before Queen Victoria was born, and today George VI-- except in his devoted subjects' love--is in the cold eyes of Science endowed with no special Mystery. The Coronation has become what Englishmen call pleasantly a "bean feast"--a period of rejoicing, relaxation, fun and amiable pomp. On May 12 the charm of special novelty is added by the fact that so few of their subjects ever until recently much noticed or thought about the present King & Queen. Who is he? Who is she? They were vaguely "popular" as the Duke & Duchess of York, but their lives today are news.
Their Majesties-- Queen Victoria's beloved Prince Consort, "Albert the Good," died Dec. 14, 1861, and 34 years later the grief of the Widow of Windsor was still so poignant that she was much annoyed when it began to seem probable that Britain's present King George VI would be born on the anniversary of the Prince Consort's death. The expectant young mother, the future Queen Mary, sent to Queen Victoria (according to the Manchester Guardian) assurances that she "almost feverishly hoped that her accouchement might occur on any other day" but it occurred Dec. 14.
This put the father, England's future George V, in a difficult position when he faced the Great Queen, his grandmother, and she demanded that his newborn second son be given as his first name "Albert." Victoria had tried to get the future King Edward VIII christened with Albert as his first name, and the future King George V had managed to tuck it in second, but after the way Queen Victoria had been annoyed on Dec. 14 it became impossible to resist her will and the baby became "Prince Albert," later "Prince Albert, Duke of York" (premature headlines even made him "King Albert" upon the abdication of Edward VIII). Since it happens that "Albert" is a name the English simply do not like, the Rt. Hon. Stanley Baldwin had the Royal Family and everyone else with him in undoing the work of Queen Victoria and announcing that His Majesty is King George VI (TIME, Dec. 21). He was christened "Albert Frederick Arthur George."
At the Royal Naval College, cadets nicknamed the future George V when he was a cadet "The Sprat." Edward VIII as a cadet was "The Sardine." The more serious, studious nature of George VI made him, as a cadet, "Dr. Johnson" and later "Mr. Johnson." It was soon evident that the present King was the only scion of the Royal Family ever to show a definite mechanical bent. Ship mechanisms became his major interest. Even today His Majesty is fond of the exceedingly intricate model railways--not "toys" but "scale models" costing in some cases up to $20,000 for a complete system.
In September 1914 the appendix of Prince Albert was removed, in 1917 he was operated upon for acute duodenal ulcer. Despite these gastric difficulties, the Battle of Jutland found him in the "A" turret of H.M.S. Collingwood as that ship went into action. During the bombardment he coolly made hot cocoa for his fellow officers.
Aviation offered Prince Albert opportunity to enter an arm of the fighting services easier on the stomach than the Royal Navy, ideal from the point of view of his mechanical skill. His Majesty today is a better pilot than King Edward ever was.
His "Dr. Johnson" nature has kept the new King quietly, diligently studying all these years the problems of industry, civics, the classes and the masses in which for 25 years the Prince of Wales exhibited on all occasions and all over the world a dazzling show of interest. Those few who know the new King best know that he and his Queen know much and care greatly and intelligently for the welfare of their subjects and the smooth functioning of the State.
Queen Elizabeth, although the daughter of an earl and descended from the most illustrious Scottish nobility, is technically the "first commoner" to become Queen of England since Henry VIII's Queen Catherine Parr. In nothing has Her Majesty been common, except in dress, for it was undeniable that as Duchess of York she was "the sloppiest dresser in the Royal Family." This was the result of misplaced loyalty to her Scottish maid, an honest wench who, realizing perhaps more keenly than anyone else how unfit she was to dress the Queen of England, tearfully protested her inadequacy to her mistress. This peculiarly Scottish situation is now being got in hand by the Queen Mother and Elizabeth is already no sloppy Queen.
Not until after King George V came to the Throne had Westminster Abbey, sacred "Valhalla of the Empire," been used over a period of six centuries for such joyous occasions as a Royal Marriage. A bridesmaid at the wedding of Princess Mary, only daughter of King George & Queen Mary, was wholesome and attractive young Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, today Queen Elizabeth. When the present King George VI presently sought his sister's bridesmaid's hand, she made no secret of her Scottish impression that he had been sent. She unaffectedly told His Royal Highness that she could not, she really could not accept a suitor who had been sent. This was in her father's frowning Glamis Castle where, according to Shakespeare, Macbeth murdered Duncan, and the English press likes to repeat its tale of the commoner daughter of a Scottish earl who was unyielding and unimpressed until her King's second son finally convinced her that he came as her suitor on his own. To their marriage on April 26, 1923, George V "with the greatest pleasure . . . gladly" gave consent.
The new King has a natural candor matching that of the new Queen. About six years after his marriage he said as Duke of York, "My chief claim to fame seems to be that I am the father of Princess Elizabeth." To a pushing cinemagnate who managed to buttonhole the Duke and make an offer as fabulous as it was vulgar, the present King quickly replied with perfect truth, "You can tell your firm that I make my own films of my daughters." Newsreel companies never know when he will call up to borrow a $45,000 sound camera, truck and delighted, grinning crew to help their King & Emperor shoot a scene.
In his own name the King is a paid subscriber to Cavalcade, the British newsmagazine most candid in reporting the Royal family. In the eyes of good middle-class people like Mr. & Mrs. Stanley Baldwin this magazine is "most vulgar." Recently a close friend of George VI rang up the editor, suggesting a denial be printed of rumors circulating on the Stock Exchange that another mild epileptic "falling fit" had been suffered by His Majesty. This denial, since it came virtually from the honest King-Emperor himself, could be accepted as the nearest thing possible to the lowdown on a matter of utmost interest to British businessmen in view of the approaching Coronation in which they have so many millions at stake. But between the business-like King-Emperor and his business subjects, stand the Gentlemen of England. The printed denial in Cavalcade was pounced upon, its excision forced.
As Duke & Duchess of York the most historic duty discharged by Their Royal Highnesses was to open in Australia the handsome Parliament Building of that Dominion (TIME, May 16, 1927) exactly 26 years after its Parliament was originally opened by the future King George V. But the most important duties discharged over long years by the present King were as the really active patron of, for example: the British Empire Cancer Campaign; the Institute of Hygiene; the Browning Settlement; the Newspaper Press Fund (for indigent ex-hacks and soaks); the Gordon Boys' Home; the Waifs & Strays Society; the Free Masons (His Majesty is Grand Master Mason of Scotland and as such darkly suspected by Masonophobes Mussolini & Hitler); the Safety First Association; the Early Closing Association and especially the National Playing Fields Association. Many hundreds of teen-age British boys have romped and played games with the Duke of York in the annual two-week period which it was the custom of His Royal Highness to spend camping with them. They know WHAT GEORGE CAN DO (see p. 22) and neither the words "falling fits" nor the fact that His Majesty plays a fast tennis game left-handed and, under stress of emotion, stutters or is momentarily unable to speak, worries buoyant young Britain in the least.
George VI is sound in that in which King George V was most sound and King Edward VIII by no means sound--Character--and so is Her Majesty. They are unaffected, charming people and if outrageous fortune has any slings and arrows in its quiver for them, they have what it takes to meet these wisely. They are definitely more popular today than were Queen Victoria & Prince Consort Albert at the time of their marriage. They give every promise of maturing into the ripe greatness of the late King George V and Her Majesty, Mary, the Queen Mother.
This week the first rehearsal for the Coronation was set to begin sharp at dawn on April 6. The first overseas Premier to have set sail is Dunstan of the Australian State of Victoria. This week the great organs of the London populace slapped out such Coronation shock-headlines as: Sunday Referee: "WHISPERING AGAINST THE KING"; Sunday Graphic: "SELL BRITAIN TO THE WORLD"; Daily Express: "BOOST BRITAIN"; Sunday Express: "DON'T BUNGLE THE CORONATION."
*Such a rage has mouse-fancying become in Mayfair today that a swank British connoisseur often pays as much as $75 for a likely buck mouse, and a stud fee of $10 is not uncommon.
*Reason: King Edward VIII abdicated last Dec. 10 and in those solemn days it would not have been seemly for King George VI to "celebrate" Dec. 14.
*Of these comers 1,500,000 are estimated to be United Kingdomers, 500,000 from overseas, 100,000 from Europe.
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