Engagement with Crepe

Against a Dominion citizen no weapon is so keen in the Mother Country as a well-bred accusation of "bad taste" murmured by some Briton. Paradoxically the Royal Family were themselves gently hoist by this petard last week. It was not in good taste, loyal London felt, for the engagement of H. R. H. the Duke of Gloucester to be made public last week a few hours after the tragic death of H. M. the Queen of the Belgians became known (see p. 22).

King George, unable to celebrate or permit celebration of his third son's engagement, ordered the Court into a fortnight's mourning. Flustered Court officials sought to exculpate themselves by saying that, although Queen Astrid's death came off the news ticker at 11:58 a. m., they did not consider it as yet official when the Court Circular announcing Gloucester's engagement was read off the British radio at dinner time and released for next morning's papers. They did not doubt that the Queen of the Belgians had been killed. It was merely that, hours afterward, this had not yet been reported by the appropriate department of the British Government.

The Duke's fiancee, Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott, became at once a bonny, bouncing public favorite. High spirited, she slipped away from the dinner table at Drumlanrig Castle and turned on the radio full blast, startling her father the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry and his guests. Boomed the loud speaker: "It is with great pleasure that the King and Queen announce the betrothal of their dearly beloved son, the Duke of Gloucester, to Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott, the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch and Queensberry, to which union the King has gladly given his consent."

Telling reporters afterward how she had turned on the radio, laughing Lady Alice cried: "Their surprise was so amusing! Only our families had known. The details of our romance must remain secret. But I can tell you that the Duke proposed to me three weeks ago and I accepted him!"

"I Love." Since the Duke of Gloucester was obliged to mourn last week, he prepared to withdraw to the bachelor seclusion of his regiment at Catterick Camp. It was he who in 1926 represented King George at the marriage of Belgian Crown Prince Leopold and the beautiful young Swedish Princess who last week died Queen Astrid.

Lady Alice, should she ever thumb through Burke's Peerage, would find that her family makes vivid reading. Its motto is Amo ("I love"). Sir Walter, First Lord Scott of Buccleuch (pronounced Buck-clew), "carried on a predatory warfare against the English" and "was delivered up as a hostage upon an adjustment of feuds between the English and Scots."

Mary, Countess of Buccleuch, "at the time of her marriage . . . was but 11 years of age, and Mr. Scott 14. The affair made a considerable noise and became matter of discussion before the provincial Synod of Fife, in 1659. . . . The presbytery was, however, absolved, because the order was grounded upon an act of the General Assembly allowing such marriages in case of necessity for fear of rape."

The family's greatest day came when "Anne, Countess, afterward Duchess of Buccleuch . . . married in April 1663 James Crofts, Duke of Monmouth, Knight of the Garter, illegitimate son of Charles II by Lucy, daughter of Richard Walters, of Haverfordwest, County Pembroke. His Grace, before his marriage, assumed the name of Scott."

Since then the House of Scott has been close to English Kings whose own houses waxed and waned or even vanished while the Scottish Scotts accumulated lands, titles, riches and diadems. Today the jewels of Lady Alice's mother are said to be unsurpassed in value by those of any other woman in Great Britain except Queen Mary. A few years ago her father touched half a million dollars in hard cash by selling off a Rembrandt Self Portrait, and by similar sales he could realize millions more.

Years ago Prince Henry, now Duke of Gloucester, made friends with Lord William Scott, next-to-eldest brother of Lady Alice, when they were both in the 10th Hussars. Since then H. R. H. has spent so much time as a house guest of the Scotts that his marriage to one of their "delightful daughters" has long been confidently expected by British dowagers. Gloucester first seemed to court Lady Mary, fourth daughter of the Duke of Buccleuch & Queensberry, then youngest daughter Lady Angela, and finally third daughter Lady Alice with whom he has danced much in London ballrooms this season.

Soldier Prince. Gloucester, the least mentioned, least photographed offspring of George V, is the ideal royal son who always does as he is told. Somebody had to be "Britain's Soldier Prince," so he ennobled that chore by plugging at his duties, grinding through Army exams and is said to wish to ''rise by sheer merit from subaltern to field marshal, like the Duke of Connaught." Few subjects of the King could call to mind all this young man's royal chores. 1925: He was one of four Counsellors of State who in effect reigned while King George went abroad. 1929: He conferred the Garter on Japan's Emperor in Tokyo and received the Chrysanthemum. 1930: He represented King George at the Coronation in Addis Ababa of Emperor Power of Trinity of Ethiopia and departed with the Seal of Solomon. Everyone remembers Gloucester's tour of Australia and New Zealand last winter, with the anticlimax that Australians have just advised the King to appoint someone else their Governor General (TIME, Aug. 26).

Definitely the admirable mama's boy of the Royal Family, useful, industrious Gloucester lives with King George & Queen Mary in Buckingham Palace, never stays out what his brothers would call late. A third son, he is 35. A third daughter, Lady Alice is 33. In 1897 their fathers were brother naval officers on Queen Victoria's war boat Bacchante.

With Queen Astrid two days dead, King George had Gloucester up for the weekend to shoot grouse with him at Balmoral. While they were banging away, Lady Alice arrived and was greeted by Queen Mary while 50 tenants raised cheer on cheer. Later the shooting party returned and on Sunday the tall Duke in stiff kilts knelt beside soft-skirted Lady Alice in the grey stone kirk at Crathie. She kept on her gloves so that none could see if she wore an engagement ring.

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