Lawrence – ‘Royal of the Gods’

ROYALTY no longer rules these days, but is “defined by service”, we are told. The motto on the heraldic emblem of the Prince of Wales reads “Ich Dien” – German for “I Serve” – a sentiment DH Lawrence once took great issue with.

Lawrence’s visit to Ceylon on March 13-April 24, 1922, coincided with the appearance there of Edward, Prince of Wales – later King Edward VIII, who abdicated in 1936 to marry divorcee Wallace Simpson, becoming Duke of Windsor – at a magnificent torch-lit late-night procession, the Perahera, in Kandy.

Lawrence, Frieda and their Buddhist friends, the Brewsters, were opposite the Prince – guest of honour at what Lawrence called a “gorgeous and barbaric event”. Over 100 “great elephants in their trappings” went “heaving along in the hot, still, starry night”, Lawrence wrote to his sister Emily in Nottingham – with dancers “half naked and jewelled”, tomtoms, bagpipes, “Kandyan chiefs in their costumes”, “flaming torches of cocoanuts blazing”, “thousands of natives”, and “fireworks over the lake”. All this to escort the Buddha’s tooth from the temple housing it.

Of the Prince, Lawrence writes: “Poor devil, he is so thin and nervy: all twitchy: and seems worn out and disheartened. No wonder, badgered about like a doll among a mob of children. A woman threw a bouquet, and he nearly jumped out of his skin.”

This causes Lawrence to reflect on leadership and Englishness, in correspondence and in a powerful long poem, Elephant. Suddenly sensing “the responsibility for England, the living England” resting on men like him, and this “poor Prince”, he feels resolutely “English in the teeth of all the world”, declaring a belief in “the divine right of natural aristocracy” and “the sacred duty to wield undisputed authority”.

Elephant concludes with a “tired remnant of royalty” upon a mysterious “dark mountain of blood”. This “weary, diffident boy” is a “Drudge to the public”. Lawrence wishes they had handed the three feathers to him: he’d have proudly flourished them aloft, insisting “Dient Ihr! . . .Serve me, I am meet to be served. Being royal of the gods.”

■■ 100 years ago Lawrence sends postcards and short letters to his contacts, alerting them to his itinerary. On April 18, 1921, he tells Robert Mountsier he’s leaving Capri for “Rome tomorrow”. On April 22 Catherine Carswell learns he’ll leave Florence tomorrow “for Switzerland and Germany – joining Frieda.” He invites Irene Whittley to Taormina in Sept/oct, and sorts out business with agent Curtis Brown and publisher Martin Secker.