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words; only Prince George, the youngest, wrote with an elegant individual style. Royal
children have only their own parents as role models in everything and handwriting was
no exception; just as King George’s children copied his hand, so Elizabeth’s handwriting
was to turn out so like her mother’s that their signatures are almost indistinguishable.
Queen Mary, however, was not so easy to please. For her, the goal of the children’s
education was to make them aware of their royal history and the nature of the British
monarchy and Empire. To Crawfie’s curriculum, which included the singing, dancing,
music and drawing considered accomplishments suited to the education of a young lady
since well before the days of Jane Austen, Queen Mary insisted on adding subjects that
she considered essential for royal children. ‘Her Majesty felt that genealogies, historical
and dynastic, were very interesting to children and, for these children, really
important,’ Crawfie recorded. The Queen also suggested that the children should be
taught the physical geography of the Dominions and India as a follow-up to the interest
in the Empire which she hoped she had inspired in Elizabeth with her present of the
blocks of wood. It may have been due to her insistence that Crawfie’s efforts were
supplemented by a French governess, Mrs Montaudon-Smith, always known as ‘Monty’,
while Crawfie added her own touch of current affairs to the curriculum by taking out a
subscription to The Children’s Newspaper, a carefully edited publication, and Punch.
Queen Mary’s presents to the children were generally educational, classic authors such
as Robert Louis Stevenson, Jane Austen and Kipling, while she took it upon herself to
take them on cultural expeditions, ‘instructive amusements’ as she called them, every
Monday, either to a museum or to places like the Tower of London and the Royal Mint.
Queen Mary did not hesitate to comment on the children’s progress in letters dictated
to her ladies-in-waiting and despatched to Crawfie. Some of her remarks would have
been considered interfering by their mother had she seen them. ‘Is arithmetic more
valuable than history to them?’ she queried; ‘they will never do their own household
books…’ ‘Shouldn’t they get a more intellectual indoor game than Racing Demon?’ ‘I am
distressed by their late and fluctuating bedtime,’ she wrote. ‘Princess Margaret’s
character is more complicated and difficult but… her general outlook and attitude to life
may improve.’ 7
The children were in awe of their grandmother, finding her strict and intimidating.
They were unable to penetrate, as perhaps only Prince George and her close friends like
Lady Airlie could, the Queen’s formidable shyness and reserve to discover the kind,
gentle, even lighthearted personality within. The Queen’s determination to make the
children sensible of their position and her emphasis on how to behave did not endear
her to them. On one occasion when she took Elizabeth to a concert at the Queen’s Hall,
the child fidgeted so much that her grandmother asked her if she would not prefer to go
home. ‘Oh, no, Granny,’ Elizabeth said, ‘we can’t leave before the end. Think of all the
people who’ll be waiting to see us outside.’ Some people might have thought this showed
unusual thoughtfulness on Elizabeth’s part. Queen Mary regarded it as vulgar,
undignified and distinctly unroyal to pay attention to such things. The child might be
getting swollen-headed. Elizabeth was sent home in disgrace. Yet in some ways