2110-8-2-13

Nov. 17 1938

Elsfield Manor, Oxford.

Visit to Chequers

I got a wire from Mrs Baldwin asking me to go over to lunch at Chequers & offering to send a car for me, an offer which I gratefully accepted as my own car was busy. The car appeared at 12.30 & the chauffeur said it would take an hour to get there. He went through Thames, on to the Tightrope road through a few little lanes & at about 1.00 I found myself in Chequers park. It is far nearer here than I ever imagined. I found S.B. & Mrs Baldwin alone in the great hall - Chequers outside is the most exquisite rose coloured Tudor manor house with a hill behind it & a beautiful rolling all round it.

S.B. said before I had been there five minutes I want to talk to you about the King & I have just written to John to ask him to write to me & tell me just all that Canada feels about

Please tell me all you know"

So I told him everything I could think of, then he said

"I saw Mackenzie King before he left, who told me that he had spoken to the King" he added "but I don't believe he did really". He said "I believe King but I don't believe he's the sort of person who would really have talked straight to the King. He added "my life is simply plagued out of me about this, & it is really terrible to be obliged to have to talk & think about it all the time, with Europe & home affairs pressing in on me all the time"

Then he said "I had 3 quarters of an hours with the K. & told him all that the country felt about it. "I said did you make a strong impression"?

S.B. "I don't know - He listened very carefully but I think his mind is undeveloped in some ways."

He added "She has had a great many threatening letters. The K. gave her his head detective when she was at Felixstowe last week." He then said that he had had quantities of letters from private (& reputable) citizens in the States raving against Mrs S.

II.

Then he said what I have hinted at in both my other letters to you - "John can't write to me too often & too strongly about it."

Beaverbrook has come over to Canada to see the state of Canadian feeling about it.

Hearst goes what saying: that he (Hearst) has discussed it with Godfrey Thomas - S.B. rang up Godfrey Thomas who said he had never even seen Hearst in the whole of his life. SB says that the King's Procter is in a fearful position. Mrs S has been at Fort Belvedere ever since the decree nisi was given - & that sworn affadavits are being sent in about this, & for which notice will have to be taken. I hated to see S.B. so anxious & worried though I must say that when Mr Courtauld & the Fitzalans arrived, he threw it all off & was his charming gay amusing self. I asked him specially about his health. He said "Tell John I am very well. I was utterly exhausted, but now I am feeling very fit" & he certainly looked it. He & I & Mr Courtauld (who is charming) had a most delightful conversation about old houses we had seen -

Chequers is a dream of lovelines & it was heavenly to fill ones eye with such glowing beautiful things - Lord Lee ranks with Horace Walpole as one of the great collectors of the world. The pictures! The tapestry! The glass! the gold ornaments & snuff boxes! Elizabethan needlework! miniatures! You must please be Prime Minister one day sot that we can live there.

There are stacks of Cromwell things - but that you probably know all about. The rooms are varieties on the them of panelling; some the days of Henry 8th, some lovely Jacobean panelling. SB told me that the taxation would be fearful after all these armaments. He added "That [underlined] is Hitler's contribution to the world to have made all countries ruin themselves in armaments."

There is something very cosy about both the Baldwins - one felt as if Chequers was their own house. I liked her very much indeed - it is nice to see the delightful chaffing terms they are on with each other.

This document may be amusing some day so do keep it. Johnnie Eric and Shouldham [sic] may like to see it.

S [Susie Tweedsmuir]