The King's Speech - Mark Logue [90]
Today we give thanks to Almighty God for a great deliverance. Speaking from our Empire’s oldest capital city, war-battered but never for one moment daunted or dismayed, speaking from London, I ask you to join with me in that act of thanksgiving.
Germany, the enemy who drove all Europe into war, has been finally overcome. In the Far East we have yet to deal with the Japanese, a determined and cruel foe. To this we shall turn with the utmost resolve and with all our resources. But at this hour when the dreadful shadow of war has passed far from our hearths and homes in these islands, we may at last make one pause for thanksgiving and then turn our thoughts to the task all over the world which peace in Europe brings with it.
Continuing, the King saluted those who had contributed to victory – both alive and dead – and reflected on how the ‘enslaved and isolated peoples of Europe’ had looked to Britain during the darkest days of the conflict. He also looked to the future, urging that Britons should ‘resolve as a people to do nothing unworthy of those who died for us and to make the world such a world as they would have desired, for their children and for ours. ‘This is the task to which now honour binds us,’ he concluded. ‘In the hour of danger we humbly committed our cause into the Hand of God, and He has been our Strength and Shield. Let us thank him for his mercies, and in this hour of Victory commit ourselves and our new guidance of that same strong Hand.’
The King was exhausted, and it showed; he stumbled more than usual over his words, but it didn’t seem to matter. ‘We all roared ourselves hoarse,’ recalled Noël Coward, who was among the crowd. ‘I suppose this is the greatest day in our history.’
As the celebrations continued, the two princesses asked their parents for permission to be allowed out into the throng. The King agreed: ‘Poor darlings, they have never had any fun yet,’ he wrote in his diary. And so, at 10.30 p.m., accompanied by a discreet escort of Guards officers, Elizabeth and Margaret slipped out of the Palace incognito. No one seems to have recognized the two young women as they joined the conga line into one door of the Ritz and out of the other.
At 11.30 the Queen sent for Lionel and Myrtle, and they said their goodbyes. Then Peter Townsend, the King’s equerry and future lover of Princess Margaret, led them out through the gardens to the Royal Mews where a car was waiting for them. The crowds had thinned considerably by then, but there were still plenty of people out on the streets celebrating victory.
As the Logues drove home, they gave a ride as far as the Kennington Oval, in south London, to a soldier and then, after he got out, to a couple with a little girl, who wanted to go to Dog Kennel Hill which was near their home. As they drove, they talked about the evening’s events and about the King and Queen. The couple thanked the Logues warmly as they got out; Lionel heard the baby’s sleepy little voice saying goodnight.
Although Logue had recently celebrated his sixty-fifth birthday, he had no plans for retirement and continued to see other patients. On 3 June 1945, Mieville wrote to thank him for ‘what you did for young Astor’ – a reference to Michael Astor, the twenty-nine-year-old son of Viscount Astor, the wealthy owner of the Observer newspaper, who wanted to follow his father into politics. ‘Your efforts were successful in that he was adopted