A Brief History of the House of Windsor by Michael Paterson Page A
Authors: Michael Paterson
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taken-for-granted things that monarchs found most intriguing, or even envied, in their subjects. When Queen Mary was a very old lady, at the beginning of the 1950s, she was asked if there was anything she regretted not having done. She thought for a moment and then confessed that she had always had the desire ‘to climb over a fence’.
In the meantime there were even more pressing difficulties. Ireland remained an open wound, and three of its provinces remained largely hostile to British rule. When the war ended, the public there voted overwhelmingly for Sinn Féin, the party that advocated breach with the Crown. In rural Ireland officials and policemen were murdered with such frequency that troops had to be sent in to keep order. Continuing attacks led to draconian responses and the deployment of an auxiliary force (nicknamed the Black and Tans for their mismatcheduniforms) that gained a swift and well-deserved reputation for brutality. Their methods, in a situation that was admittedly unwinnable and deeply provoking, included retaliatory murder. Politicians sanctioned this – Churchill was one who thought it effective – but the king was horrified that such things were being done in his name, and complained to the prime minister. When a solution was arrived at after negotiations in London – Ulster, with its Protestant majority, would remain in the United Kingdom while the remaining twenty-six counties would form a free state that would be part of the British Empire but not the kingdom – he travelled to Ireland to open Ulster’s new parliament.
By the end of the war the mood in most of Ireland was implacable. Sinn Féin won overwhelmingly in the General Election of 1918. There was now open, armed rebellion against the Crown once again. Though this time no one seized a large public building, there was gunfire on the streets of Dublin, and in the countryside maintaining law and order was often impossible.
George made use of a ceremonial occasion, the opening of the new Stormont Parliament in Ulster on 21 June 1921. This was usually a matter of the sovereign presiding and reading a speech that had been written for him. On this occasion the king had been advised by General Smuts of South Africa that he could give a speech of his own, aimed at the whole population of Ireland. The speech was created for him by Smuts himself, Arthur Balfour, and a civil servant named Edward Grigg. The king went on to deliver sentences that have been quoted ever since: ‘I appeal to all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and forget and to join in making for the land they love a new era of peace, contentment and goodwill.’
This was unlikely. Both historical resentment and recent animosity were too deep-rooted. Irish nationalists saw the opportunity to end seven hundred years of English domination and they would not let it pass. Though the speech waswell received it affected neither the determination of Sinn Féin and its allies to end the British connection, nor the determination of loyalists to resist separation, nor the fury of the newspaper-reading British public at terrorist atrocities. The British people were supportive of the tough and uncompromising measures being taken by their government. King George’s speech had been a brave – but also a constitutionally dangerous – attempt to intervene in the political process.
In the General Election of January 1924 (there had been one the previous December, but no government had been formed), the Conservatives gained the most votes but the issue turned on support for the prime minister, Stanley Baldwin. Because there was not sufficient confidence in him, the king summoned instead the leader of the less successful Labour Party, Ramsay MacDonald, who became the first-ever Labour prime minister. MacDonald had lived in poverty for much of his early life and was the first Premier to come from such a background. The press made much of
In the meantime there were even more pressing difficulties. Ireland remained an open wound, and three of its provinces remained largely hostile to British rule. When the war ended, the public there voted overwhelmingly for Sinn Féin, the party that advocated breach with the Crown. In rural Ireland officials and policemen were murdered with such frequency that troops had to be sent in to keep order. Continuing attacks led to draconian responses and the deployment of an auxiliary force (nicknamed the Black and Tans for their mismatcheduniforms) that gained a swift and well-deserved reputation for brutality. Their methods, in a situation that was admittedly unwinnable and deeply provoking, included retaliatory murder. Politicians sanctioned this – Churchill was one who thought it effective – but the king was horrified that such things were being done in his name, and complained to the prime minister. When a solution was arrived at after negotiations in London – Ulster, with its Protestant majority, would remain in the United Kingdom while the remaining twenty-six counties would form a free state that would be part of the British Empire but not the kingdom – he travelled to Ireland to open Ulster’s new parliament.
By the end of the war the mood in most of Ireland was implacable. Sinn Féin won overwhelmingly in the General Election of 1918. There was now open, armed rebellion against the Crown once again. Though this time no one seized a large public building, there was gunfire on the streets of Dublin, and in the countryside maintaining law and order was often impossible.
George made use of a ceremonial occasion, the opening of the new Stormont Parliament in Ulster on 21 June 1921. This was usually a matter of the sovereign presiding and reading a speech that had been written for him. On this occasion the king had been advised by General Smuts of South Africa that he could give a speech of his own, aimed at the whole population of Ireland. The speech was created for him by Smuts himself, Arthur Balfour, and a civil servant named Edward Grigg. The king went on to deliver sentences that have been quoted ever since: ‘I appeal to all Irishmen to pause, to stretch out the hand of forbearance and conciliation, to forgive and forget and to join in making for the land they love a new era of peace, contentment and goodwill.’
This was unlikely. Both historical resentment and recent animosity were too deep-rooted. Irish nationalists saw the opportunity to end seven hundred years of English domination and they would not let it pass. Though the speech waswell received it affected neither the determination of Sinn Féin and its allies to end the British connection, nor the determination of loyalists to resist separation, nor the fury of the newspaper-reading British public at terrorist atrocities. The British people were supportive of the tough and uncompromising measures being taken by their government. King George’s speech had been a brave – but also a constitutionally dangerous – attempt to intervene in the political process.
In the General Election of January 1924 (there had been one the previous December, but no government had been formed), the Conservatives gained the most votes but the issue turned on support for the prime minister, Stanley Baldwin. Because there was not sufficient confidence in him, the king summoned instead the leader of the less successful Labour Party, Ramsay MacDonald, who became the first-ever Labour prime minister. MacDonald had lived in poverty for much of his early life and was the first Premier to come from such a background. The press made much of
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