The Henson Journals

[130]

Low Sunday, April 11th, 1920.

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I went to S. George's, and received the Holy Communion. Breakfast was very pleasant with the Household, & much political talk. I preached in the private chapel from Deut:XXIX.29 "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God: but the things that are revealed belong unto us, & to our children for ever." My subject was 'Spiritualism". Their Majesties, Princess Mary, and Prince Henry were present. Lord Stamfordham picked me up after service, and went with me to my room [where we discussed appointments]. While we were talking a message came to say that their Majesties wished me to lunch with them. So in due course I was fetched, & had a most enjoyable luncheon. Their Majesties, Princess Mary, Prince Henry, the Marquis de Soveral, & myself formed the company, & we talked with the utmost freedom & friendliness. The Prince & Princess [131] [symbol] shewed me the pictures &c after lunch, & were very simple & frank. I enjoyed myself thoroughly. Lord Stamfordham came again to my room, & resumed discussion about ecclesiastical appointments. I strongly urged that Headlam should be made a bishop: & that Rashdall shd be preferred to his chair in Oxford. Then we went to S. George's, where Mendelssohn's loveliest anthem, "Hear my prayer", was sung exquisitely. After service I called on Canon Dalton, & walked with him for more than an hour, as the rain had ceased. At dinner I sate next the Queen again, but, as the Earl of Athlone was on her other side, I could not monopolize her conversation as I did last night. After dinner the King talked with me very interestingly. He said that he had had a stormy interview with Lloyd George over the proposal to bring the Kaiser to trial. "He is my own cousin, & Queen Victoria's eldest grandson; how can he be subjected to such disgrace. [You would do an irreparable damage to the cause of monarchy." "We never refer to that interview" added the King.] His Majesty was very scornful of the Kaiser's cowardice. "If I had been in his place", he said, "I shd have gone with the white flag, & surrendered to Sir Douglas Haig, not scuttled into Holland". Both their Majesties said Good Night very kindly: & I thanked them for their graciousness, which had made my visit so very agreeable.

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The King told me that he had been pestered by spiritualists at the crisis of the War, who offered to bring him messages from King Edward, and to inform him of the courses of the future. [He spoke with a naïve and touching simplicity about his own religion. "I was always quite sure that we must win the war: if we had been defeated, I shouldn't have committed suicide, which I hold to be cowardly, but I should just have disappeared." I was struck by the resentment which his Majesty expressed against the "Times" and Lord Northcliffe. Certainly this was justified, but it interested me to observe it. France, he thought, was behaving very badly, & would have to withdraw from the position she had taken up. "We are not going to war again: we've had enough of it: not a regiment could be got to march now." This no doubt is the salient feature of the position. "We're all bluffing, & Germany knows it."]

I told him that I meditated visiting Sweden this autumn. "Don't go", he said, "the upper classes are all anti–English, and the rest are Bolshevist".] The King spoke with real feeling of the Tsar's death. "He was a true man: & I was very fond of him: besides, he was my first cousin. But I got much abused for going to a memorial service after his death." He thought the basest action of the Kaiser was his desertion of the Tsar, when he was master of the situation, & could have saved him quite easily. Of the Crown Prince both the King & the Queen spoke with a kind of pitying contempt.

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