A fine collection of medals to Members of The Royal Household
En route to the Normandy with H.M. the King, June 1944
For the purposes of such a catalogue entry, it would be impossible to incorporate sufficient detail to lend justice to such a fascinating career, encompassing as it does so many salient chapters in recent Royal Household history, not least the momentous events of the 1939-45 War. Instead, interested parties are strongly recommended to consult King’s Counsellor - Abdication and War: The Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles, edited by Duff Hart-Davis (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2006), and indeed other pertinent published sources such as Philip Ziegler’s official biography, King Edward VIII (Collins, London, 1990). There follows, however, a brief account of Sir Alan’s career.
Alan Frederick Lascelles, known to his intimates as “Tommy”, was born in April 1887, the son of the Hon. Frederick Lascelles, a brother of the 5th Earl of Harewood, and was educated at Marlborough and Trinity College, Oxford.
Commissioned in the 1/1st Bedfordshire Yeomanry after the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, he first went out to France in June 1915, where, among other adventures, he ‘defied a Major-General on the field of battle and got away with it’ and was wounded by shrapnel in his right forearm on 24 November 1917. He was mentioned in despatches (London Gazette 4 January 1917 refers), and awarded the M.C., the latter distinction while on attachment to the 15th Hussars. He was demobilised in November 1920, after latterly serving as A.D.C. to the Governor of Bombay.
Returning to the U.K. Lascelles entered royal service as Assistant Private Secretary to the Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward VIII, in which capacity he remained employed until 1929, when he grew distinctly uneasy with the Prince’s conduct and resigned. In the course of his time with the Prince in the 1920s, Lascelles gained a unique insight into his charge’s foibles, whether on foreign visits to Canada, the U.S.A. or Africa, or on the home establishment - the Prince’s insatiable appetite for grand affaires, interwoven with numerous petites affaires, often with married women, was but the tip of the iceberg. To quote Lascelles, it was more like ‘working for the son of an American millionaire’ - he was ‘an abnormal being, half child, half genius’ and the cause of grave concern in terms of his suitability to reign. Indeed on resigning his post on returning from a safari with the Prince in East Africa, Lascelles took the opportunity of delivering him a severe dressing-down: the Prince responded by buying him a new car.
An appointment as Secretary to the Governor-General of Canada ensued, for which he was awarded the C.M.G., but in 1935 Lascelles was persuaded to return to royal service as Assistant Private Secretary to King George V, an invitation which he accepted on the basis the King would probably survive for several years. Instead, six weeks later, on George V’s sudden death, he found himself back in Edward’s employment, this time in face of the gathering storm over his seemingly innocent relationship with Wallis Simpson - Lascelles later confided that any element of innocence was as likely ‘as a herd of unicorns grazing in Hyde Park and a shoal of mermaids swimming in the Serpentine.’ And if he ever had moment to doubt his belief in the seriousness of the affair, it would have been quickly eroded during the course of the King’s yachting trip with Simpson in the Nahlin in the Mediterranean - a hugely expensive, often outright vulgar display, enacted under the glare of the world’s media. But as related by Lascelles, Simpson wasn’t the only problem, for he had seen Edward’s reaction on learning that his late father had all but written him out of his Will in terms of cash funds - by abdicating he would be in a position to negotiate better funding. And so it proved when Edward did indeed abdicate. Remarkably, however, his Private Secretary bore him no real bitterness, and, on the rare occasions he could be persuaded to touch upon the Abdication, spoke frankly, with the added weight of his unique and protracted dealings with Edward.
As it transpired, the antics of the Duke of Windsor would continue to haunt the Royal Household with alarming regularity in the lead- up to the renewal of hostilities in September 1939, Lascelles often finding himself in the unenviable position of having to act as middle man between the Duke and his increasingly exasperated brother, George VI. But it was during his subsequent years in office in the War, after a successful royal tour to Canada and the U.S.A. in 1939, that he became an invaluable asset to the Royal Family, so, too, witness to an international cast of visitors and crucial wartime meetings that would place him high in the ranks of those afforded such privilege. Once again, interested parties are strongly recommended to consult King’s Counsellor - Abdication and War: The Diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles, edited by Duff Hart-Davis (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 2006), where a wealth of vivid descriptions of such encounters may be enjoyed, including full story of the King’s visits to Normandy in mid-June 1944 - it had taken all of Lascelles’ diplomacy to dissuade the King and Churchill from sailing with the invasion armada on D-Day itself - and to Belgium and the Netherlands in October 1944. Indeed, King’s Counsellor is hugely important reference work, containing as it does so many first hand accounts of secret meetings and personal opinions on the great and the good of the 1939-45 War, not least Churchill hard at work with his ministers and top brass. And of more behind the scenes work such as the employment of Lionel Logue to assist the King with his momentous wartime addresses to the nation.
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