Foreign News: Courtship in a Sunbeam

With everything from a cocktail to a new Scotch tart being named for Lady Alice Scott last week, the austere, technical voice of The Motor rose above the twitter and gush of London society paragraphists. Going to press too early to catch the death of Lady Alice’s father which makes it necessary to transform her marriage this week to George V’s third son from a public function at Westminster Abbey into a quiet, private affair. The Motor took a knowing Rolls-Royce-eye-view of the royal nuptials thus:

“Both the Duke of Gloucester and his fiancée, Lady Alice Scott, are keen motorists, and it is no secret in Selkirkshire that their engagement was largely the outcome of their joint motoring trips in the beautiful Border country during the past two years.

“Lady Alice is a skilful and experienced driver who has driven constantly since the age of 18, as might be expected, for she belongs to a family of motorists, one of whom, Lord Herbert Scott, is a director of Rolls-Royce, Ltd. She has motored many thousands of miles, both at home and abroad, notably in Kenya, where her uncle has a large estate.

“Her home is Bowhill in Selkirk, between which and Boughton House, the Northamptonshire residence of the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, her parents, she is often seen driving.

“At Bowhill there is accommodation for a dozen cars, but only four of them are permanently there, one of them a beautifully appointed Rolls-Royce. When the King and Queen invited Lady Alice to Balmoral, after the announcement of her engagement, she and her mother, the Duchess of Buccleuch, traveled the 200-odd miles from Selkirk in this car, and Lady Alice relieved the chauffeur at the wheel when they reached the Scottish Highlands. This Rolls-Royce belongs to Lady Alice’s eldest brother, the Earl of Dalkeith.

“The Earl owns also, and often drives, a Rover, also a great favorite of Lady Alice. On more than one occasion Lord Dalkeith, summoned suddenly to London, has returned to discover that his Rover is missing. More often than not Lady Alice is the culprit.

“The future Duchess of Gloucester is a very careful driver. She is not fond of speed and seldom travels at more than 30 miles an hour; this being one of the reasons why her semi-invalid father, the Duke of Buccleuch, prefers her as a driver to any other member of his family. Another keen motorist in the family is Lord George Scott, the Duke’s youngest son, who is often seen driving along the Border roads in a 20-h.p. Armstrong Siddeley.

“For years Lady Alice and her sister, Lady Angela Scott, have had friendly arguments as to who is the better driver. Lady Angela is a greater lover of speed than her sister and in her Morris Isis she covers thousands of miles every year.

“The enthusiasm of the Duke of Gloucester for motoring is largely due to the Buccleuch family. The Earl of Dalkeith and Lord George Scott have been for years close personal friends of his, and now, instead of traveling by train, the Duke nearly always visits his fiancée’s family by car. The Duke’s favorite at the moment is a Sunbeam, and Lady Alice now knows as much about the car as the Duke himself. She has driven it often with the Duke sitting beside her, and Border rumor has it that he actually proposed in the car.

“The Duke is said to be an even better driver than the Duke of Kent. At the Tidworth Tattoo, during an episode contrasting the modern motor bandit with Dick Turpin, the Duke drove the pursuing car. The thousands of spectators present cheered him wildly for his skill and speed, but not one of them guessed the identity of the driver.

“In all her motoring experiences Lady Alice has never had an accident, although she admits that she has had several narrow escapes. She is proud of the fact that she knows many of the clauses in the new Highway Code off by heart. . . .”

To His Majesty’s subjects this revelation that the royal bride can and does recite passages from the Highway Act augured that Queen Mary has at last found the perfect royal daughter-in-law, recalled the late Prince Consort Albert whose ability to recite excerpts from State papers ancient and modern has been equaled by no member of the Royal Family since.