Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Royalty and the Army in the Twentieth Century

  • Chapter
  • First Online:
The Windsor Dynasty 1910 to the Present

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Modern Monarchy ((PSMM))

Abstract

This chapter explores the emphasis placed by the royal family on its continuing relationship with its armed forces, through a case study of the army. A significant remaining part of the royal prerogative that is still exercised by the Windsor monarchy is focused on the monarch’s role as titular commander-in-chief of the armed forces, something that is argued to be of immense importance for monarchy and armed forces alike. For most soldiers, the Crown represented a higher form of authority than that of government. By posing, first and foremost, as servants of the Crown, soldiers could distance themselves from what was perceived as the squalid nature of politics. Potentially, indeed, it is argued here, the army has been able to attempt, at least, to play off the royal prerogative against the authority of elected governments. In assessing the relationship of Crown and army, the chapter explores the conventional and practical links as well as the more political aspects of the relationship.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 119.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book
USD 159.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

  1. 1.

    Simon Heffer (1998) Power and Place: The Political Consequences of King Edward VII (London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson), pp86–97.

  2. 2.

    There was also, of course, no automatic expectation that the Duke of York would outlive, and so succeed to, a childless Edward VIII: it was the abdication, not death, of his predecessor which elevated George VI to the throne.

  3. 3.

    Denis Judd (2012) George VI (London: I B Tauris).

  4. 4.

    Ian F. W. Beckett (2002) ‘Selection by Disparagement: Lord Esher, the General Staff and the Politics of Command, 1904–14’ in David French and Brian Holden Reid, eds The British General Staff: Reform and Innovation, 1890–1939 (London: Frank Cass), pp41–56.

  5. 5.

    Noble Frankland (1993) Witness of a Century: The Life and Times of Prince Arthur Duke of Connaught, 1850–1942 (London: Shepheard-Walwyn), pp246; 254–6.

  6. 6.

    Frances Donaldson (1974) Edward VII (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson), pp49–55; Hubert Gough (1931) The Fifth Army (London: Hodder and Stoughton), pp93–4; Gary Sheffield and John Bourne, eds (2005) Douglas Haig: War Diaries and Letters, 1914–18 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson), pp462–3; 474.

  7. 7.

    R. J. Minney (1960) The Private Papers of Hore-Belisha (London: Collins), pp236–39; T. A. Heathcote (1999) The British Field Marshals, 1736–1997: A Biographical Dictionary (Barnsley: Leo Cooper), pp110–11.

  8. 8.

    Sarah Bradford (1989) King George VI (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson), pp346–8; Alex Danchev and Dan Todman, eds (2001) War Diaries, 1939–45: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson), pp315; 321; 384–5.

  9. 9.

    Royal Archives (henceforth RA) PS/PSO/GVI/PS/ARMY/0003/1/004; ibid., 00031/B/01, Agenda for meeting with Wigram, 22 February 1937; ibid., 00031/B/03.

  10. 10.

    RA PS/PSO/GVI/PS/ARMY/01575/31, Anderson to Hardinge, 7 August 1944; ibid., 01575/51, Margesson to Hardinge, 16 January 1941; ibid., 01283/027 Clarke to Miéville, 5 December 1937; ibid., 01575/70, Hardinge to Brownrigg, 9 March 1939; ibid., 01575/71, Brownrigg to Hardinge, 10 March 1929.

  11. 11.

    RA PS/PSO/GVI/PS/ARMY/00649/34, Hardinge to Roseway, 26 April 1939; ibid., 01283/043, Hore-Belisha to Hardinge, 18 April 1939; ibid., 01283/045, Hardinge to Hore-Belisha, 19 April 1939.

  12. 12.

    See also Chapters 2 and 8 for more detail on this aspect.

  13. 13.

    Rowland Ryder (1987) Oliver Leese (London: Hamish Hamilton), pp180–1; John Wheeler-Bennett (1958) King George VI: His Life and Reign (London: Macmillan), pp566–70; 612–14; Bradford, George VI, pp358–65.

  14. 14.

    http://www.princeofwales.gov.uk/personalprofiles/theprinceofwales/atwork/supportingthequeen/armedservices/index.html, accessed 20 December 2012.

  15. 15.

    Michael and Eleanor Brook, eds (1982) H.H. Asquith: Letters to Venetia Stanley (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p432.

  16. 16.

    Ian F. W. Beckett (2000) ‘King George V and his Generals’, in Matthew Hughes and Matthew Seligmann, eds Leadership in Conflict, 1914–18 (Barnsley: Leo Cooper), pp247–64.

  17. 17.

    Later Viscount Alanbrooke, from 1945.

  18. 18.

    Danchev and Todman, War Diaries, pp95; 115; 130; 149; 206; 239; 275; 315; 385; 455; 504; 512–13; 615; 672; Bradford, George VI, pp305; 352; 364.

  19. 19.

    RA PS/PSO/GVI/C/138/08, George VI to Wavell, 24 June 1941.

  20. 20.

    RA PS/PSO/GVI/PS/ARMY/05123/086, Churchill to Hardinge, 28 March 1943.

  21. 21.

    Sidney Lee (1927) King Edward VII: A Biography 2 vols. (London: Macmillan) II, pp208–10.

  22. 22.

    Danchev and Todman, War Diaries, p663; John Wheeler-Bennett (1958) King George VI: His Life and Reign (London: Macmillan), p617; Stephen Brooks, ed (2008), Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy (Stroud: History Press for Army Records Society), pp42; 325.

  23. 23.

    RA PS/PSO/GVI/PS/ARMY/03639/2, Hardinge to Athlone, 2 February 1939; ibid., 03639/4, Adeane to Abel Smith, 26 March 1949; ibid., 02825/5, Hardinge to Hore-Belisha, 22 February 1938; ibid., 00651/09, Strachey to Lascelles, 5 December 1950; ibid., 00595/D/382, Lascelles to Montgomery, 20 February 1951; ibid., 01853/5, Adeane to St. George, 29 March 1951.

  24. 24.

    Jonathan Dimbleby (1994) The Prince of Wales (London: Little, Brown), p515.

  25. 25.

    British Library, Lansdowne Mss, L(5)42, Bigge to Lansdowne, 26 August 1895; Frank Hardie (1938) The Political Influence of Queen Victoria, 1861–1901 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp178–82.

  26. 26.

    Beckett, ‘Selection by Disparagement’, p47; Hew Strachan (1997) The Politics of the British Army (Oxford: Clarendon Press), pp68–9.

  27. 27.

    Ian F. W. Beckett (1981) ‘H. O. Arnold-Forster and the Volunteers’, in Ian F. W. Beckett and John Gooch, eds Politicians and Defence: Studies in the Formulation of British Defence Policy, 1846–1970 (Manchester: Manchester University Press), 47–68, p55.

  28. 28.

    Ibid. See also Christopher Hibbert (2007) Edward VII, the Last Victorian King (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan) p208.

  29. 29.

    Lee, Edward VII, pp200–02; 207; 210–14.

  30. 30.

    Ibid., pp501–9.

  31. 31.

    Harold Nicholson (1952) King George V: His Life and Times (London: Constable and Co), pp249–50; 510–11.

  32. 32.

    Ian F. W. Beckett, ed (1986) The Army and the Curragh Incident, 1914 (London: Bodley Head), pp57–64 in particular.

  33. 33.

    Ibid., pp15; 25; 88; 106; 132–5; 154–5; 226–7; 317–8; 323; 326; Richard Holmes (1981) The Little Field Marshal: Sir John French (London: Leo Cooper) p184.

  34. 34.

    David Woodward, ed (1989) The Military Correspondence of Field Marshal Sir William Robertson, CIGS, 1915–18 (London: Bodley Head for Army Records Society), pp40–1; 315 n.23; National Army Museum (hereafter NAM) Rawlinson Mss, 5201-22-73, Wigram to Rawlinson, 18 April 1918.

  35. 35.

    National Library of Scotland (hereafter NLS) Haig Mss, Ms 3155, Haig, Diary, 9 and 11 March 1917; Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge (hereafter CAC) Rawlinson Mss, RAWL 1/7, Rawlinson diary, 12 March 1917; David Woodward (1983) Lloyd George and the Generals (Newark: University of Delaware Press), p150; Gerard De Groot (1988) Douglas Haig, 1861–1928 (London: Unwin Hyman), pp308–9; Robert Blake, ed (1952) The Private Papers of Douglas Haig, 1914–19 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1952), p209; Lord Beaverbrook (1956) Men and Power, 1917–18 (London, Hutchinson), p165.

  36. 36.

    See Peter Fraser (1983) ‘The British “Shells Scandal” of 1915’ Canadian Journal of History, 18(1) 69–86.

  37. 37.

    Kenneth Rose (1983) King George V (London: Weidenfeld and Nicholson) pp192–3.

  38. 38.

    RA PS/PSO/GV/C/Q./2522/3/182 and 185, Robertson to Wigram, 19 June and 13 July 1915; Nicholson, George V, p267.

  39. 39.

    Ian F. W. Beckett (2014) The Great War (Abingdon: Routledge) p156.

  40. 40.

    CAC Hankey Mss, HNKY I/1, Hankey, Diary, 14 December 1915.

  41. 41.

    Beckett, ‘George V and his Generals’.

  42. 42.

    RA PS/PSO/GV/C/Q/832/130, Haig to King, 28 February 1917; ibid., 832/134, Stamfordham to Haig, 5 March 1917; Blake, Private Papers, p. 209.

  43. 43.

    NAM, Rawlinson Mss, 5201-33-73, Wigram to Rawlinson 18 April, 13 May and 4 September 1918; Blake, Private Papers, pp293; 343–4.

  44. 44.

    RA PS/PSO/GVI/PS/ARMY/01153/04, Stamfordham to Worthington-Evans, 3 March 1928; ibid., 01153/07, Stamfordham to Worthington-Evans, 7 March 1928.

  45. 45.

    RA PS/PSO/GVI/PS/ARMY/03651/01, Hore-Belisha to Hardinge, 2 February 1939; ibid., 03651/02, Hardinge to Hore-Belisha, 3 February 1939; ibid., 03651/03, Note by Hardinge, 6 February 1939.

  46. 46.

    RA PS/PSO/GVI/PS/ARMY/01139/30, Davidson to Hardinge, 28 April 1938; ibid., 01139/31, Hardinge to Davidson, 2 May 1938; ibid., 01139/33, Hardinge to Hore-Belisha, 9 May 1938; 01139/36, Hore-Belisha to Hardinge, 20 June 1938; ibid., 01133/38, Davidson to Hardinge, 28 June 1938; ibid., 01139/40, Davidson to Hardinge, 4 July 1938; ibid., 01139/41, Hardinge to Davidson, 6 July 1938; ibid., 01139/42, Hardinge to Hore-Belisha, 6 July 1938.

  47. 47.

    Andrew Roberts (1994) Eminent Churchillians (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson), p27; Bradford, George VI, p305; Robert Rhodes James (1999) A Spirit Undaunted: The Political Role of George VI (London: Abacus), p179.

  48. 48.

    Brian Bond, ed (1973) Chief of Staff: the Diaries of Lieutenant General Sir Henry Pownall, 2 vols, (Hamden, CT: Archon Books).

  49. 49.

    Charles Hardinge of Penshurst (1947) Old Diplomacy (London: Jonathan Cape).

  50. 50.

    Charles Douglas-Home and Saul Kelly (2000) Dignified and Efficient: The British Monarchy in the Twentieth Century (London: Claridge Press).

  51. 51.

    Bradford, George VI, pp305–8; Rhodes James, Spirit Undaunted, pp179–84; Robert Rhodes James (2000) Chips: The Diaries of Sir Henry Channon (London: Orion) p229; J. R. Colville (1972) Man of Valour: Field Marshal; Lord Gort VC (London: Collins), pp161–5; Minney, Private Papers of Hore-Belisha, pp266; 281; Brian Bond (1981) ‘Leslie Hore-Belisha at the War Office’, in Beckett and Gooch, eds Politicians and Defence, pp110–53.

  52. 52.

    Strachan, Politics of British Army, p71.

  53. 53.

    ‘The Queen Dines with the Army’, The Times, 28 November 1958.

  54. 54.

    See, for instance, ‘Royal Cavalry to be Axed in Defence Cuts’, Sunday Times, 7 July 1991; ‘Royal Family’s distress’, The Times, 14 October 1991.

  55. 55.

    Ibid.

  56. 56.

    David French (2005) Military Identities: The Regimental System, the British Army and the British People, 1870–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press), p2; Strachan, Politics of British Army, pp72; 214–15; 270; Dimbleby, Prince of Wales, pp515; 520; 523.

  57. 57.

    Dimbleby, Prince of Wales, pp515–19.

  58. 58.

    Ibid.

  59. 59.

    The Times, 16 June 1986; 4 May 1987; 16 May 1988; 10 April 1996.

  60. 60.

    Strachan, Politics of the Army, p62.

Select Bibliography

  • Ian F. W. Beckett (2002) ‘Selection by Disparagement: Lord Esher, the General Staff and the Politics of Command, 1904–14’, in David French and Brian Holden Reid, eds The British General Staff: Reform and Innovation, 1890–1939 (London: Frank Cass).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ian F. W. Beckett (1981) ‘H. O. Arnold-Forster and the Volunteers’, in Ian F. W. Beckett and John Gooch, eds Politicians and Defence: Studies in the Formulation of British Defence Policy, 1846–1970 (Manchester: Manchester University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ian F. W. Beckett (2000) ‘King George V and his Generals’, in Matthew Hughes and Matthew Seligmann, eds Leadership in Conflict, 1914–18 (Barnsley: Leo Cooper).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ian F. W. Beckett, ed (1986) The Army and the Curragh Incident, 1914 (London: Bodley Head for Army Records Society).

    Google Scholar 

  • Ian F. W. Beckett (2014) The Great War (Abingdon: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Lord Beaverbrook (1956) Men and Power, 1917–18 (London, Hutchinson).

    Google Scholar 

  • Robert Blake, ed (1952) The Private Papers of Douglas Haig, 1914–19 (London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1952).

    Google Scholar 

  • Sarah Bradford (1989) King George VI (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson).

    Google Scholar 

  • Michael and Eleanor Brook, eds (1982) H. H. Asquith: Letters to Venetia Stanley (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Stephen Brooks, ed (2008) Montgomery and the Battle of Normandy (Stroud: History Press for Army Records Society).

    Google Scholar 

  • J. R. Colville (1972) Man of Valour: Field Marshal; Lord Gort VC (London: Collins).

    Google Scholar 

  • Alex Danchev and Dan Todman, eds (2001) War Diaries, 1939–45: Field Marshal Lord Alanbrooke (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson).

    Google Scholar 

  • Jonathan Dimbleby (1994) The Prince of Wales (London: Little, Brown).

    Google Scholar 

  • Frances Donaldson (1974) Edward VII (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson).

    Google Scholar 

  • Charles Douglas-Home and Saul Kelly (2000) Dignified and Efficient: The British Monarchy in the Twentieth Century (London: Claridge Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Noble Frankland (1993) Witness of a Century: The Life and Times of Prince Arthur Duke of Connaught, 1850–1942 (London: Shepheard-Walwyn).

    Google Scholar 

  • David French (2005) Military Identities: The Regimental System, the British Army and the British People, 1870–2000 (Oxford: Oxford University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Gerard De Groot (1988) Douglas Haig, 1861–1928 (London: Unwin Hyman).

    Google Scholar 

  • Frank Hardie (1938) The Political Influence of Queen Victoria, 1861–1901 2nd edn (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • T. A. Heathcote (1999) The British Field Marshals, 1736–1997: A Biographical Dictionary (Barnsley: Leo Cooper).

    Google Scholar 

  • Richard Holmes (1981) The Little Field Marshal: Sir John French (London: Leo Cooper).

    Google Scholar 

  • Robert Rhodes James (1999) A Spirit Undaunted: The Political Role of George VI (London: Abacus).

    Google Scholar 

  • Sidney Lee (1927) King Edward VII: A Biography 2 vols (London: Macmillan).

    Google Scholar 

  • Simon Heffer (1998) Power and Place: The Political Consequences of King Edward VII (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson).

    Google Scholar 

  • Denis Judd (2012) George VI (London: I B Tauris).

    Google Scholar 

  • R. J. Minney (1960) The Private Papers of Hore-Belisha (London: Collins).

    Google Scholar 

  • Harold Nicholson (1952) King George V: His Life and Times (London: Constable and Co).

    Google Scholar 

  • Andrew Roberts (1994) Eminent Churchillians (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson).

    Google Scholar 

  • Kenneth Rose (1983) King George V (London: Weidenfield and Nicholson).

    Google Scholar 

  • Rowland Ryder (1987) Oliver Leese (London: Hamish Hamilton).

    Google Scholar 

  • Gary Sheffield and John Bourne, eds (2005) Douglas Haig: War Diaries and Letters, 1914–18 (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson).

    Google Scholar 

  • Hew Strachan (1997) The Politics of the British Army (Oxford: Clarendon Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • John Wheeler-Bennett (1958) King George VI: His Life and Reign (London: Macmillan).

    Google Scholar 

  • David Woodward, ed (1989) The Military Correspondence of Field Marshal Sir William Robertson, CIGS, 1915–18 (London: Bodley Head for Army Records Society).

    Google Scholar 

  • David Woodward (1983) Lloyd George and the Generals (Newark: University of Delaware Press).

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of History, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

    Ian F. W. Beckett

Authors
  1. Ian F. W. Beckett
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

    Matthew Glencross

  2. Plymouth University, Plymouth, United Kingdom

    Judith Rowbotham

  3. King’s College London, London, United Kingdom

    Michael D. Kandiah

Copyright information

© 2016 The Author(s)

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Beckett, I.F. . (2016). Royalty and the Army in the Twentieth Century. In: Glencross, M., Rowbotham, J., Kandiah, M. (eds) The Windsor Dynasty 1910 to the Present. Palgrave Studies in Modern Monarchy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56455-9_5

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-56455-9_5

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-137-56454-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-137-56455-9

  • eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation