From: B
King George VI’s other stuttering performance
BY ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Posted: March 10, 2011
Courtesy of the Oscar-laden King's Speech, George VI, previously a dim bulb in the history books, now at least will be remembered as a stutterer. But there was more to the man than that. The stresses that prompted the stutter extended to other regions of the King's body, according to Kitty Kelley's fine book The Royals. Sexual dysfunction plagued poor George VI.
Kelley's researches suggest Elizabeth and Margaret were conceived (respectively in 1926 and 1930) with the help of artificial insemination, donor undisclosed. Actually, since the sisters did not resemble each other, we can conjecture that possibly two donors were involved.
The explanation for Princess Margaret's attractively Jewish looks used to be that her great-great grandfather, Prince Albert, was in fact the son of the Baron von Mayern, the cultivated Jewish chamberlain at the court of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, Albert's official father, a brutish creature of the homosexual preference.
Candidates for the donor role should no doubt start with immediate relatives, such as George V, though probably not the Prince of Wales, later Edward VIII, who had his own problems in that department until achieving satisfaction with Wallis Simpson who had notable skills as regards physical encouragement.
My maternal grandfather, Major Jack Arbuthnot of the Scots Guards, could be a candidate as the mystery donor for the then future Queen. In terms of physiognomy, Margaret is less likely.
When Major Jack was commanding the guard detail at Balmoral, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, later George VI's consort, would visit from Glamis castle, as a young girl. The high-spirited Elizabeth used to insist that my grandfather play 'Horse', carrying her about on his shoulders.
Perhaps in 1926 the Duchess, as she then was, remembered that early, intimate proximity and sent a royal request to the now seasoned but still virile Major Jack, himself from reputable genetic stock, not too different from the man sometimes suspected of being Queen Victoria's real father, another Anglo-Irishman, Sir John Conroy.
Major Jack was an interesting character, a good artist, and light versifier, at one point enhancing his income by journalism, initiating the Beachcomber column in the Daily Express. He would finish his column, then get a taxi to Paddington where, on the days he was working in Fleet Street, he had a special train waiting for him so he could be sure to reach Windsor in time to go on guard duty at the Castle.
He guarded the Irish nationalist Roger Casement in the latter's last days in the Tower before he was hanged for treason, and treated him very humanely, disregarding rules and allowing Casement's family private, unsupervised visits to the doomed prisoner.
If the normally very private business of unofficial sperm donorship, whether from lovers or testtubes, was accurately reflected in family trees, they would certainly have to rewrite substantial portions of Debrett's and Burke's Peerage.
One weekend in the mid-1960s I agreed to provide a sperm donation to an expensive society doctor on Upper Wimpole Street, whose aristocratic client was unable to provide his wife with the requisite heir.
Dr G gave me a test tube and said to be back at 10 am Monday morning, advising that I would get my 50 quid on production of the test tube, which for maximal fertility potential, he counseled with doctorly sternness, should be filled early Monday morning. In the interests of self-same fertility he also stipulated I should refrain from sexual activity over the weekend.
At that time I was having a fling with tempestuous Penny in Colchester and travelling thither on the train, a journey of some two hours. Our next rendez-vous was that very weekend. I told Penny the news on arriving in Colchester. Incensed at her rival, the test tube, she seized me by the hand and headed for the bedroom. Monday morning found me hollow-eyed from lack of sleep, slumped on the early train back to London. Chances of swelling the ranks of the Anglo-Scottish upper classes seemed nil.
About an hour short of London, a young thing, beehive hair mounting to a perfect cone above her thickly mascara-ed eyes, somewhat reminiscent of the divine Helen Shapiro, clambered aboard the train and provided the necessary pheromonic transfer. I hastened to the tiny lavatory, test tube at the ready. I figured another half hour on the train, a quick taxi ride to Upper Wimpole Street to the exchange of test tube for cash and the rent check would be taken care of for the next three weeks. Life was cheap in Earls Court in those days.
But I'd reckoned without British Rail. Fifteen minutes short of London the train came to a halt. A voice from the loudspeaker spoke of delays. It counseled patience. The young thing tended to her beehive. I thought of the waning vitality of my test tube, the possibility that Lady A would produce a wimpy little baronet, with her father the Earl barking gruffly, "What's the matter with that boy?" How would they know to put the blame on British Rail?
The minutes ticked away. At last the train shuddered forward. Into King's Cross it clattered. I dashed to the taxi line. "Drive to Upper Wimpole Street. A life may depend on it!"
Dr G was waiting. As I entered his consulting room he barked into the phone, "It's here!" Money changed hands and, yes, nine months later a bouncing lordlet embarked on the long trek of the upper classes, toward... Alas, his life was, I understand, a blighted one, and who knows, if it hadn't been for Penny and British Rail, things might have turned out better for him.
The popularity of the Royal family after the war was very considerable, but should not be overestimated. In his excellent history Austerity Britain David Kynaston quotes James Lees-Milne as recording in his diary for November 18, 1947, apropos the announcement of the engagement of Princess Elizabeth to Prince Philip of Greece, a disturbing dinner with Simon Mosley of the Coldstream Guards:
"Says that 50 per cent of the guardsmen in his company refused to contribute towards a present for Princess Elizabeth. The dissentients came to him in a body and, quite pleasantly, gave him their reasons. One, the Royal Family did nothing for anybody, and two, the Royal Family would not contribute towards a present for their weddings."
Moreover, "when Simon Mosley said that without the Royal Family the Brigade of Guards, with its privileges and traditions, would cease to exist, they replied, 'Good! Let them both cease to exist.' "
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