The royals - Kitty Kelley [14]
The man known to his family as David was born HRH the Prince Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David. For twenty-five years before becoming King, he was the most popular Prince of Wales in history. In every country he visited he was hailed as gallant and charming, a mesmerizing knight with shining gold hair and sad blue eyes. He bestowed the magic of royalty wherever he went, and people bowed eagerly in his presence. He was one of the most adored heirs ever to grace the British empire.
“Probably no one in our history has ever had so marked a power as this young Prince to rivet the ties of emotion and sympathy between the Mother Country and the millions of men, women and children in the outlying commonwealth of nations,” wrote Frances Donaldson in her definitive biography of Edward VIII. “The emotions felt for England could never be explained merely by political or economic advantage, and there is no doubt that the monarchy was the greatest single influence in welding these disparate nations together….”
Women were especially thrilled to be in the company of such a man. Even meeting someone who had met him was exciting. This gave rise to a popular lyric of the time: “I danced with a man who danced with a girl who danced with the Prince of Wales.”
One of those women was the daughter of a Scottish earl, Lady Elizabeth Angela Marguerite Bowes-Lyon. As the ninth of ten children, she was pampered and spoiled by her indulgent father. Like other women of her generation, she was formally uneducated but well versed in the arts necessary to marry well. Yet at the age of twenty-two she was still single while most of her aristocratic friends had husbands. Then she met the Prince of Wales, the most dashing man of the era. She relished the attention she received when the Daily News of January 5, 1923, reported:
“Scottish Bride for Prince of Wales. Heir to Throne to Wed Peer’s Daughter.”
The paper did not identify her by name, but she was obviously the young woman in question. “The future Queen of England is the daughter of a well-known Scottish peer, who is the owner of castles both north and south of the Tweed.”
“We all bowed and bobbed and teased her, calling her ‘Ma’am,’ ” Henry “Chips” Channon wrote in his diary. “She is more gentle, lovely and exquisite than any woman alive, but this evening I thought her unhappy and distraught.”
She knew the rumor of romance was untrue, and to her chagrin, the newspaper printed a royal retraction a few days later. “We are officially authorized to say that this report is… devoid of foundation….”
Only in her old age did she admit to a friend that she was one of the many young women in the 1920s who had fallen in love with the Prince of Wales. “He was such fun,” she said. “Then.”
At the time, the Prince was interested only in other men’s wives who were thin, streamlined, and looked as androgynous and anorectic as he did. He was not in the least attracted to the dumpling fullness of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon. In fact, years later he and his wife mischievously nicknamed her “Cookie” because of her unfashionable plumpness and fondness for food.
In April 1923 Elizabeth married Bertie, the Prince’s younger brother, the Duke of York, who had proposed to her after Lady Maureen Stanley had rejected him. He suffered from such excruciating nervousness that he stuttered, blinked incessantly, and could not control the muscles around his mouth. “Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was determined to marry into the royal family,” said biographer Michael Thornton, “so after his third proposal, she settled for the runt of the litter. I say this because I interviewed the Duke of Windsor to chronicle the blood feud between the Duchess of Windsor and the Queen Mother. I asked him why the Queen Mother continued to be so implacable toward his wife in later years, so unrelenting in her hatred of the Duchess.
“ ‘Jealousy,’ he said. ‘To put it politely, she wanted