The Prince reacted with the same intemperance to relatively mild rebukes from home. The King deplored a photograph of his son and Mountbatten in a swimming pool – ‘You might as well be photographed naked, no doubt it would please the public.’ He objected to the wearing of a turned-down collar in white uniform with a black tie, ‘anything more unsmart I never saw’.102 ‘His father’s letters might be the letters of a Director of some business to his Assistant,’ commented Mountbatten.103 The remark was not wholly unjustified, George V did find it hard to communicate affection. But the affection was there, and the Prince must have known it was. Nor did the letters contain only criticism. Three weeks before Mountbatten made his comment, the King had written to say how the Queen and he rejoiced ‘at the splendid success of your tour and the way in which you have won all hearts by your hard work and your own personality. I must say we are very proud of you. You are doing untold good for the Empire.’104
Not everything went to plan on the tour, nor was the Prince’s behaviour always impeccable. He caused offence to several ladies of eminence by preferring to dance with the prettier of the – evidently not so hen-faced – Australian girls. He upset one family who had taken endless pains to prepare for his reception by brusquely cancelling a visit at the last moment on the flimsy pretext that the roads were impassable.105 He sometimes looked bored at the stuffier public performances or snapped angrily at slow or incompetent servants. But these were minor blemishes on an otherwise almost flawless performance. The visit had been a tumultuous success.
There had been moments when his staff had doubted whether he could carry it through. Grigg told Lord Cromer what an immense relief it was to have reached the end of the Australian programme: ‘HRH has done splendidly from first to last, though working hard against the collar for the better part of the time.’106 Any minor complaints were forgotten in the paean of praise that greeted the accomplishment of his mission. More important than the views of his own staff were the feelings of the Australians. Billy Hughes, the Prime Minister, had been determined not to be impressed by any mere princeling. The fact that the princeling was English was an additional reason for suspicion. Yet he had succumbed totally to his visitor’s charm and simplicity. His valedictory letter to the Prince of Wales might be ascribed to politeness, if almost on the same day he had not spoken to Grigg ‘most touchingly of the Prince’.107 There is no reason to doubt that he meant what he wrote:
When you first came amongst us we welcomed you as a Prince who is one day to be our King; but we part from you as a dear friend who has won our affections and whom we love. Your visit has provoked demonstrations that in their spontaneous enthusiasm are unique in our history.
The Australian people see in you all that our glorious Empire stands for, that deathless spirit of liberty, of progress, that distinguishes it from all other Empires, ancient or modern …
Come back to us, Prince, as soon and as often as you can.108
8
India
‘I AM DELIGHTED AT THE PROSPECT OF AN UNINTERRUPTED twelve months in the Old Country,’ declared the Prince of Walesat a Guildhall luncheon shortly after his return from Australia; ‘– a treat I have not had for several years.’1 His parents’ view was that he should now have a badly needed rest, ‘free from functions and photographers’ and occupied by ‘ordinary country pursuits’.2 The Prince was delighted to dispense with functions and photographers and by no means averse to country pursuits – with the emphasis on hunting and steeplechasing; but nothing was going to make him go early to bed, or away from London if that was where Freda Dudley Ward was to be found. In fact his freedom from functions proved illusory; the Guildhall luncheon was only one of many such occasions. It was also typical in that it involved an acrimonious exchange with the King, who wanted his son to drive to the City in cocked hat and scarlet tunic. The Prince argued that, with fifteen thousand men still unemployed, this was the wrong moment for a display of military pomp.3 He carried his point. Lloyd George was due to speak at the same occasion. Grigg noted that his draft speech contained no reference to the King and, knowing how sensitive things were between father and son, urged that one be included: ‘As the happiness of the Prince does depend a great deal on keeping all well between the King and him, I feel you will forgive this reminder.’4
This year at home was an unhappy one for the Prince’s relationship with his father. It was tolerable in London, where they met only occasionally, but cooped up in Balmoral or Sandringham and cut off from Mrs Dudley Ward the Prince found the court routine more than he could endure. ‘It’s all terribly irksome and it’s such a gloomy atmosphere.’5 There was an explosion at Balmoral in October 1921. ‘I’ve turned Bolshie tonight,’ he told Freda, ‘as H M has been the absolute limit, snubbing me and finding fault sarcastically on every possible occasion. It really isn’t fair, darling, particularly as I’ve been playing up to him all I can since I arrived.’6 The Prince’s doubts about the forthcoming tour of India provided an extra cause for wrangling between the two. Once the Prince threatened to ask Lloyd George whether he really felt the visit essential. ‘I don’t care whether the Prime Minister wants you to go or not,’ retorted the King. ‘I wish you to go and you are going.’7
The Prince was not alone in wondering whether his visit was necessary or desirable. India was in disarray. The Montagu-Chelmsford Report, which had reiterated that the aim of the British government was to establish India as an independent democracy within the Empire, had signally failed to convince the Indian National Congress Party that British intentions were honourable. The unrest that followed led to the introduction of trial without jury for those accused of political crimes, and, in April 1919, to the massacre at Amritsar. Peaceful non-cooperation was Gandhi’s formula for India’s dealings with the British, but non-violence frequently led to violence, and Congress’s decision to boycott the Prince’s visit carried with it the threat of disorder and much personal risk for the visitor. Almost all the provincial governors, led by the experienced Lord Willingdon, concluded that the tour was unwise,8 while from a different point of view the private secretary to the Maharaja of Dewas, E. M. Forster, felt that to the educated Indian ‘this ill-omened visit does seem an impertinence. You can’t solve real, complicated and ancient troubles by sending out a good-tempered boy; besides, this naive slap-on-the-back method, though the very thing for our colonies, scarcely goes down in the East.’9 Indeed, almost the only champion of the tour was Lord Reading, who was unshakeable in his conviction that the visit would pass off well, serve British interests in India and, above all, consolidate Britain’s relationship with the Indian princes. Since Reading was the Viceroy and Montagu, the Secretary of State for India, was his faithful ally, planning for the tour continued.
Montagu’s original idea, indeed, had been that the functions of executive ruler and Viceroy should be divided and the Prince himself serve for a few months as Viceroy.10 Lloyd George vetoed the idea, no doubt to the Prince’s considerable relief.11 But the project that survived seemed little better. ‘How I’m loathing and hating the thought of India …’ he told his mother.