‘The older I get, the less I like being away from you, and although I am reasonably content, my chief feeling is happiness that one week of the fifteen that I must be away has already gone.’1 So Lascelles wrote to his wife, Joan, on 7 February 1947 from on board HMS Vanguard, as the royal family’s tour of South Africa got under way. The king, queen and princesses, as well as courtiers including Lascelles, had embarked at Portsmouth on 1 February, amid much publicity.
The trip was seen as an important one diplomatically, as it would help British ally Jan Smuts secure re-election in the face of the challenge from the right-wing, pro-apartheid Nationalist Party, but it also had two further purposes. The first was to see whether Princess Elizabeth’s attachment to Prince Philip would last a four-month separation, and the second was to enable the exhausted king to have a holiday of sorts: he had not left Britain since the end of the war. It was hoped that the two-week voyage would give him a much-needed rest, before the tour began in earnest later in February.
It was not only Lascelles who was uneasy about the trip. Crawfie wrote that Princess Elizabeth dreaded the prospect of being parted from Prince Philip and that she remained ‘quiet and subdued’. Although she would not turn twenty-one until 21 April, Crawfie observed that she would have liked to have set off with the security and comfort of a formal engagement in hand. Nonetheless, it was regarded as impossible, even with Prince Philip’s soon-to-be-formalised British citizenship, for such a betrothal to become official until at least after the tour.
Crawfie enjoyed supervising the preparations for the trip with her charges – ‘the official evening dresses [the princesses] took with them were really beautiful … out came the maps of Africa, and we went together over the whole ground they were to cover, and read up on all the places they would visit’2 – but there was also the question of personnel to accompany the family. As she put it, ‘no one quite knew until the last possible moment just who would be chosen to go, and there were many heart-searchings and false hopes’. She was informed that the reason why she herself was not invited was that Princess Margaret – who remained her responsibility – would have no time for lessons. The governess would be able to relax while the royal family were absent, and normal matters would resume upon their return.
Crawfie later wrote that ‘I thought Her Majesty did not relish the thought of having to deal alone with what might prove to be a spoiled and disorganized young girl when the party got back … I did not entirely relish the prospect myself.’ Her greatest fear when it came to a newly emancipated Margaret was that she would not settle down to her previous life with equanimity, especially if her sister’s engagement was to become official. She knew that the younger princess was both ‘wilful and headstrong’, and even as she delicately hinted to the queen that Margaret was unlikely to return to the schoolroom after the trip (‘Crawfie, don’t suggest such a thing!’3), the potential for familial conflict, inflamed by both their enforced proximity and the demands of the tour, was tacitly acknowledged by all involved.
The royal couple were not looking forward to what the king’s official biographer, John Wheeler-Bennett, would subsequently describe as ‘a great imperial mission’.4 With the partition of India – which would take place on 15 August that year – now inevitable, South Africa was one of the last remaining territories that remained part of the British Empire, although it had been a self-governing nation state since 1934. And Smuts had been a tireless supporter of Britain, and British interests, during the war. Not only had he been appointed a field marshal of the British army, but he was a member of the Imperial War Cabinet, whose advice had been eagerly sought by both Churchill and the king. If he was now asking a favour as a quid pro quo, then at least the attendant pageantry and profile of the tour would offer its own rewards: the first significant suggestion since the end of the war that Britain remained, in its own estimation at least, a world power, rather than an exhausted and impoverished island still suffering from the after-effects of conflict.
On a personal level, it would also be the last time that the royal family would be together as a quartet. Even if the king and queen continued to have mixed feelings about Philip’s suitability as a match for their elder daughter, it seemed all but inevitable that the engagement would be formalised on their return. As Crawfie wrote, ‘I have wondered since whether the King and Queen thought that maybe a trip abroad, and the new sights and adventures to be found there, would make Lilibet forget what was, after all, her first love affair … Other parents have staked everything on the foreign journey and the long separation, often with some measure of success.’5
If this was their intention, it failed. Not only was Philip present at a dinner hosted by Mountbatten* that the royal family attended on 30 January – ‘the royal engagement was clearly in the air that night’,6 Mountbatten’s butler John Dean subsequently remarked – but when they arrived at Portsmouth on 1 February, a press picture of the royal family showed their respective states of mind. As Crawfie described it, with her customary exaggeration and sentimentality, ‘The King and Queen [looked] pleased at the prospect of two weeks’ rest at sea … Margaret [was] obviously very gay and excited … [Lilibet] is standing at the ship’s rail looking back sadly towards England.’7 Yet even before they had departed, and were taking their formal leave of their staff at Buckingham Palace, Crawfie observed that the king was ‘desperately tired’ and that Princess Elizabeth ‘was sad and we all thought that she did not want very much to go’.8
Nor were the royal family leaving behind a happy and settled country. The king saw Attlee on 28 January, and asked him three times if he was not concerned about the domestic situation in the country; Attlee did not say, but the monarch wrote in his diary that day, ‘I know I am worried.’9 As the queen wrote to Queen Mary shortly before their departure, ‘I wish that one could feel happier about the state of the country, so many homeless is a terrible thing, and so bad for home life in general.’10 Prince Philip was conspicuously absent from Portsmouth – a fact reported in the press – and they embarked on the tour at a time of freezing weather, a national fuel shortage, enforced daily power cuts and rising unemployment. Still, it had been long planned, and it might even do some good, on both international and personal levels alike.
The journey to South Africa was initially uncomfortable and, at times, tense, negating hopes that it would offer the king his much-needed rest. He had already suggested to Queen Mary before his departure that he considered it morally wrong to be away from his people at the time of national crisis, given that he had ‘borne so many trials with them’,11 but to have pulled out of the trip was unthinkable. As soon as they left Portsmouth, they encountered a strong gale – which Lascelles described to his wife as ‘a bad dusting’ – which meant that the first days saw the passengers cabin-bound, save the queen, who made a special effort to keep matters cheerful; the chief clerk, Ted Grove, who was present on the journey, remarked, ‘She was certainly looking better than I felt.’12
The passengers amused themselves in various ways in the ‘sticky, somnolent atmosphere’. Lascelles described the daily routine as ‘deck chairs, deck games after tea, three or four officers to dinner, a film or dancing afterwards’. There were moments of greater excitement, usually involving the princesses; they attended a cocktail party held by the midshipmen – ‘like a Turkish bath, but otherwise agreeable’13 – and on 10 February, they were involved in the ‘crossing the line’ ceremony, followed by what Lascelles called ‘the mummery of “Neptune’s Court”, with scores of people dressed up, more or less humorously, shavings, duckings in the bath etc. … The Princesses went through a token ceremony, and were given elaborate and artistically got-up certificates.’ He was able to say that ‘[they are] enjoying themselves … yesterday a treasure hunt was organised for them and the midshipmen, which appeared to be successful’.14
During this time, Princess Margaret made the further acquaintance of a young royal equerry, Peter Townsend, who had been in her father’s service since 1944. He was married, with two young children, and a decorated RAF officer who had received the Distinguished Service Order and the Distinguished Flying Cross, among other accolades. Matters between him and Margaret would evolve considerably in years to come, but then, Lascelles was able to report, approvingly, that ‘Peter T tries hard and is doing well.’15 Townsend himself reflected, of his life in Britain, that ‘it irked me to be restrained, imprisoned, driven in on myself within her shores’,16 and was grateful for the opportunity for escape, even if it could only be temporary.
Princess Elizabeth, meanwhile, managed to forget Philip and instead relaxed into enjoying herself on her first foreign adventure. She wrote happily to Crawfie that ‘the officers are charming and we have had great fun with them … there are one or two real smashers, and I bet you’d have a WONDERFUL time if you were here’.17 Yet she was not so frivolous that she could ignore the situation in Britain, which she acknowledged when she wrote to Queen Mary that ‘we hear such terrible stories of the weather and fuel situation at home, and I do hope you have not suffered too much. While we were dripping in the tropics, it was hard to imagine the conditions under which you were living, and I for one felt rather guilty that we had got away to the sun while everybody else was freezing!’18 Matters at home had only worsened; Crawfie dolefully informed Margaret that ‘I had cut my face on an icicle which had formed on my sheet in bed from my own breath.’19
The king, meanwhile, had had enough by the time of their arrival in Cape Town on 15 February. He did not feel relaxed or rested, but believed that his absence away from his subjects was irresponsible. Accordingly, he sent Attlee a telegram, shortly before the ship docked, announcing his intention of returning immediately by air and allowing his wife and daughters to carry on the trip without him. The prime minister turned down the offer, on the grounds that the monarch’s early return from such a high-profile embassy would not only be diplomatically disastrous, but would also intensify, rather than diminish, the sense of national crisis. The king agreed to continue and serve as an ambassador for his country as best he could. Nonetheless, he was miserable and stressed as he and his family disembarked in what Lascelles called, with typical economy, ‘a real Bombay day’. The temperatures in Cape Town had reached 105 degrees Fahrenheit, and despite the warmth of the welcome extended to the royal family, he felt he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It did not help that the Nationalist Party was opposed to the visit, both on the grounds of anti-British feeling and because it resented everything the royal family stood for. The British high commissioner, Sir Evelyn Baring, called the pro-Nationalist papers ‘unrelenting in [their] hatred of the British connexion’,20 and they, in turn, treated the tour as if it was an affront to their country’s dignity. The king addressed the Senate and House of Assembly on 17 February, shortly after arrival, and although Lascelles called this ‘most successful, with unexpectedly large and enthusiastic crowds, and vociferous cheering throughout the day’, which banished fears that the reception would be a predominantly republican one, the formal dinner that greeted them was an ordeal. Lascelles complained that ‘in thirty years of public dinners, I can’t recall one that caused me greater misery’, although he allowed that ‘the King spoke well, and made a deep impression, and to my great surprise, I found when we got home that the Royals had enjoyed it and thought it great fun – especially the young ones’.21
Although Lascelles subsequently described Cape Town as a ‘roaring success, in outline and in detail’, singling out how ‘the populace, British, Afrikaans or coloured, could not have behaved better or more enthusiastically’,22 it was not without its problems. The king was mocked by the pro-Nationalist newspaper Die Burger for his pronunciation of an Afrikaans sentence at the opening of Parliament on 21 February, and the queen, in an otherwise positive letter to Queen Mary, remarked that the country had ‘so many serious racial problems’, and that thanks to the hectic schedule of the tour, it threatened to be exhausting; she noted, perspicaciously, ‘I do hope it won’t be too tiring for Bertie.’23
Although the king was able to deliver the set-piece speeches that he was expected to, Lascelles told his wife that he was beset by ‘repeated spasms of stage fright, which gave me much trouble’.24 Even Smuts, the purpose of the trip, was a disappointment: when the royal family dined with him at his home of Groote Schuur on 21 February, Lascelles called him ‘a bit tired, and not as amusing as usual’.25 As Britain teetered on collapse, the king seemed almost bemused by the royal family’s presence in South Africa.
After they left Cape Town, they were herded onto a luxurious locomotive, the so-called White Train, which would be their home for thirty-five nights. They were accompanied not just by courtiers and equerries, but by the international press, which included the Daily Express journalist James Cameron. Remarking on the monarch’s demeanour, he wrote that ‘the King kept saying that he should be at home and not lolling about in the summer sun; never was a man so jumpy’. Cameron noticed his ‘deadly’ boredom, which the monarch attempted to relieve by methods orthodox and unorthodox alike. He offered this vignette of what the now fifty-one-year-old king’s life was like, after the train stopped beside a beach near Port Elizabeth: ‘Down the path from the Royal Train walked a solitary figure in a blue bathrobe, carrying a towel. The sea was a long way off, but he went. And all alone, on the great empty beach, between the surging banks of the people who might not approach, the King of England stepped into the Indian Ocean and jumped up and down – the loneliest man, at that moment, in the world.’26
As the trip continued, the king’s mental and physical health declined. The queen’s letters frequently referred to his exhaustion and dissatisfaction, most explicitly when she wrote to his mother on 16 April that ‘Bertie is rather tired – the pace has been very hot, and the weather at the Victoria Falls boiling. I do hope that the trip home will rest him a little, tho’ the journey out was not really peaceful. He has worried so much about affairs at home & this tour has been really exhausting on top of all that.’27 Even as she professed herself enraptured and impressed by all she saw,* from the traditional tribal dances to the ‘profusion & terrific colours’ of the local flora and fauna, her husband quickly tired of the ‘irrelevant’ tour.
His anger and irritation were barely concealed. He hated being under the constant watch of Afrikaner policemen, whom he referred to as ‘the Gestapo’, and believed that they were attempting to limit his activities. He was also vexed by what he saw as a lack of gratitude towards Smuts, and at one point he lost his temper and said to the queen, of the Nationalists, ‘I’d like to shoot them all!’ Knowing his moods, his wife replied comfortingly, ‘But Bertie, you can’t shoot them all.’28
Nonetheless, Ted Grove’s tactful remark that ‘we admired the way [the queen] cared and watched over him during the tour when sometimes the continual heat and travel in the confined space of the Royal Train did nothing to improve his occasional bouts of temper’29 was an understatement. The king resented the way in which his hosts seemed indifferent to the suffering that Britain had faced during the past decade, and frequently made pointed reference to his country’s current trials during his public speeches, to some embarrassment. Even Smuts bore the royal temper; at one state banquet in Pretoria, the king was heard angrily telling the president, when asked to deliver a speech, ‘I’ll speak when I’ve had my coffee and the waiters have left the room’, and then, on being told that people in Britain were waiting to hear him speak, ‘Well, let them wait. I have said I will speak when the waiters have left the room.’30
As the tour wore on, the king’s behaviour grew more erratic and volatile. Although the ever-loyal Lascelles made no allusion to any difficulties in his correspondence to his wife,* the suffocating heat, his exhaustion and the demands being made on a naturally shy and awkward man took their toll. At one point during the trip, he and his family were being driven by Townsend through the Rand area of the country in an open-topped Daimler, engaging in the usual routine of smiling, waving and impersonal interaction. On this occasion, the king snapped, and began to shout incomprehensible instructions at Townsend, to the dismay of his family. Eventually, the equerry, goaded beyond manners, shouted at the monarch, ‘For Heaven’s sake, shut up, or there’s going to be an accident.’31 Townsend described his own behaviour as being ‘with a disrespect of which I was ashamed’.32
If this was not enough, worse was soon to come. As the equerry later described it in his memoir, Time and Chance, as they arrived in the town of Benoni, he saw ‘a blue-uniformed policeman’ heading towards the royal vehicle ‘with a terrible, determined look in his eyes’. Townsend turned round to see a man, ‘black and wiry, sprinting, with terrifying speed and purpose, after the car. In one hand he clutched something, with the other he grabbed hold of the car, so tightly that the knuckles of his black hands showed white.’
Just over a decade earlier, the then Edward VIII had faced an assassination attempt at the hands of the drifter George McMahon, and the following year, George VI had been approached by another madman at the Cenotaph. The fear of being assaulted, or worse, by a member of the public was an ever-present danger. It was with admiration that Townsend recalled how ‘the Queen, with her parasol, landed several deft blows on the assailant before he was knocked senseless by policemen. As they dragged away his limp body, I saw the Queen’s parasol, broken in two, disappear over the side of the car.’ Even an incident of this nature could not curtail the royal progress, however. Townsend then noted that ‘within a second, Her Majesty was waving and smiling, as captivatingly as ever, to the crowds’.33 The show went on.
Had the man presented a threat, intentionally or otherwise, it would have been an unfortunate but easily resolved distraction, ‘one of those things’. Unfortunately, it soon transpired that he had meant no harm at all. Kayser Sitholi, an ex-serviceman, had instead been shouting, ‘My king! My king!’ He had been holding a ten-shilling note, which he had intended to give Princess Elizabeth as a gift for her imminent birthday.
The king, overcome by remorse and guilt, asked Townsend to seek Sitholi out and make amends on his behalf, adding, ‘I hope he was not too badly hurt.’ He also acknowledged to his equerry that the strain was getting too much for him, saying, ‘I am sorry about today. I was very tired’, to which Townsend responded, ‘more than ever before, I realised how lovable the man was’. And, he did not need to say, in need of care. A worn-out, drained monarch was prone to make mistakes, and this could be ascribed to human error. But the suspicion – as yet unspoken – that the collapse in his health might soon be terminal came to dominate the thoughts of those around him.
‘It was an extremely interesting tour.’ So the queen wrote to her sister, May Elphinstone, on 26 April, with great tact, on board HMS Vanguard on their return journey. She described South Africa as ‘such a complex country, with the white races quarrelling & hating each other, and the black races growing enormously in numbers’,* but gave May a sanitised version of what their reception had been like. ‘They were marvellously kind & welcoming to us – even the old Nationalist Boers, reared to hate England, gave us a very hearty welcome, and I do hope our visit has done good.’ Yet she knew that the stated purpose of their trip may have been unsuccessful, even as she suggested, ‘it would be a thousand pities if S. Africa became a Republic, because the Crown is really the only link now left, & I do trust this will not happen’; she acknowledged that ‘there have been quite strong feelings for one in recent years’.34
The fatigue that the trip had caused the family was acknowledged – ‘[I feel] very, very tired – one feels quite sucked dry sometimes – I am sure that crowds of people take something out of one … I can almost feel it going sometimes, and it takes a little time to put it back’ – but with typical reserve. ‘A little bit of England and Scotland will be heaven’,35 the queen decided. The extreme cold weather had passed, and they were returning to a country that, if hardly restored to prosperity and happiness, had rallied slightly since they had left. The most notable occurrence that had taken place in their absence was the death of King George of Greece on 1 April, which was ignored by the royal family in South Africa – not out of callousness, but because, as Lascelles wryly observed, ‘we haven’t any becoming mourning with us’.*36
The private secretary regarded their visit as having been worthwhile and successful, saying briskly, ‘The South Africans are a generous, warm-hearted people and there is no doubt they have thoroughly enjoyed the Royal Family in their midst.’ There was an emotional send-off from Cape Town, with the royals being given lavish gifts, the most impressive of which was to Princess Elizabeth: twenty-one diamonds to make a necklace to mark her twenty-first birthday a few days before, which Lascelles estimated were worth £200,000. He wrote to his wife, ‘I know that [the tour] has been an immense success, and amply achieved its only object (at least from my point of view) – to convince the South African people that the British Monarchy is an investment worth keeping, and that the present Royal Family in particular can mean a good deal to them.’37
Lascelles’ confidence was misplaced. The next election, on 26 May 1948, saw Smuts ousted from power by D. F. Malan, who promptly implemented the Nationalist policy of apartheid that would eventually turn South Africa into a pariah state until its abolition in 1991. The former prime minister died a disappointed man on 11 September 1950, not long after his eightieth birthday. South Africa’s transition into a republic was by then inevitable, and it duly took place on 31 May 1961, following a national referendum.
Judged solely by its eventual results, the royal tour was a disappointment; looked at from the perspective of the king’s health, it was little less than a disaster. Crawfie was shocked at how the entire family looked upon their eventual return to Buckingham Palace. ‘The King and Queen looked positively worn out. I thought at first the King’s hair had gone quite grey in his four months’ absence … later I saw it was just bleached by the hot sun … Margaret looked ill and tired out … the worst of them all, and I was secretly very anxious about her.’ George VI, never a plump man, lost seventeen pounds in weight on the tour, and began to look drawn and weak, as well as considerably older than his age. This decline in his well-being would only continue, even as he wrote to the Duke of Windsor that the tour had been ‘very strenuous but most interesting’.38
Yet there had been a broadcast made shortly before its conclusion that not only redeemed it, but would have an existential benefit to the monarchy that was of longer-lasting import than anything that happened in South Africa. Princess Elizabeth had declared, before hundreds of millions, that her whole life, whether long or short, would be devoted to their service. The question of when she would be required to make good her promise as queen lingered, unanswered, even as her father’s decline seemed inescapable.