LORD STAMFORDHAM

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 78, 2 April 1931, Page 3

LORD STAMFORDHAM

THE KING'S SECRETARY

SERVED THREE SOVEREIGNS

The lato Lord Stamfordham, whose death was announced-yesterday, was a very interesting character. "From the.next room, in the quietude of Windsor Castle, sounded the ceaseless, clatter of a typewriter,',' wrote a correspondent of the London "Evening News," when Lord Stamfordham celebrated his eightieth birthday almost two years ago. J'But m this room, so absorbed in his work that he could not hear that rapid-tap-ping, sat a man With the white moustache and clear-cut features of a diplomat of fiction. He was Lord Stamfordham, the King's Private Secretary and beloved friend, as busy on the eve of his 80th birthday as1 he was in the days when he first served Queen Victoria 49 years ago. One letter finished, he turned without a moment's pause to another. And that one blotted and addressed he started on a third. "Tap-tap-tap! drummed the typewriter. But, in that big room, at his orderly desk, the man-who knows more State secrets than any other 'man in the world went on with the work he has done for two generations. "If ever the real story of this last fifty years comes to be written the name of Lord Stamfordham will be found large in . it. You would read how he had once to tell Lord Curzon that he could not be Prime Minister; how ho sat up for nights'on end in the crisis of the King's illness, torn with anxiety for his greatest friend; how he conferred, year after year, with all the statesmen of his time, from Gladstone' to Ramsay Mac Donald; how. he moved in the midst of political crises and the storms of war. You would read, too, how he has regularly, offered to resign in these last few years, and how the King has begged him to stay. "But that story will never be "written. Lord Stamfordham, the man behind the Throne, prefers .to stay far from the limelight." : When Arthur Bigge, the son of a Northern Ireland vicar entered the Boyal Military Academy at Woolwich, he would have thought you insane had you suggested that he would one day find himself a peer, a King's secretary, and a figure of European importance. He had then no ambition but to distinguish himself as- an artillery officer. Chance brought him into the life of courts and. palaces, and his charm rather than his ability won him his first court appointment. When the Prince Imperial, son. of Napoleon 111., sometime Emperor of the French, and *of ■ the Empress Eugenic, went to fight " the . Zulus,, Captain Arthur Big^e, 8.A., was one of the officers chosen to accompany him. As everyone knows, His Imperial Highness died in Africa, and Captain Bigge went ifi Balmoral, where the Empress was staying- with Queen Victoria, to tell her of her son's last campaign., Queen Victoria, who . liked to- surround . herself with pleasant young poidiers, was attracted hy his personality, and offered him a post as one of her. Grooms in Waiting. Captain Bigge did not know what to make of the offer, and laid his dilemma before tt frieiid. "If you have the sense I credit you with," said the latter, "you will thank' your lucky stars for the chance. If you are a fool you will stay in the army." "So IJiad to take the post," explains Lord Stamfordham, when he tells the story, "If only to vindicate my intelligence." He 'proved as discreet .as he was charming , and as able as he was popular; and within a year he was made the Queen's Equerry iv ordinary and. Assistant Private- Secretary. For the next fourteen. N years he served a long apprenticeship under the late Sir Henry Ponsonby, Her Majesty's * principal Secretary, a man of imposing wis,dom and great tact and experience. Wlien Sir Henry, died in 1895, Colonel Arthur Bigge succeeded him almost as a matter of course. Six years later the Queen died, and he joined the King in the position he has held ever since. What exactly are. Lord Stamfordham's' powers, duties, and influence? An accurate answer could only ha,ve been given, by himself,' and he would never give it. He • was not technically a servant of State, Imt a personal attendant of the King's.l His office indeed was .created only by an accident. When, in 1805, blind old King George 111. retired to Windsor, Sir Hubert Taylor was appointed his private and personal secretary, because the , King tould not see either to read or to write. Lord Stamfordham's principal task was 'to uphold the ancient doctrine that "the King can. do no wrong" in its modern form, "the King cannot make a mistake^" As His Majesty's most trusted and familiar counsellor he had to see that the King was never at fault in his judgment of the smallest trifle, had to know at all times how to deal with any circumstances wisely, constitutionally, and with dignity.