Up the Gatineau! Article
This article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 18.
Mackenzie King and the Stone Angels of Moorside
George F. Henderson
“After the Service [at Westminster Abbey], we1 walked about the cloisters of the Abbey and then wandered around to the South end of the House of Lords where the policeman in charge permitted us to look over the carved stones which are being taken down from the old building and are now for sale. I saw there two beautifully carved angel figures which, if not too expensive and costly for shipment, I intend, if still available to purchase. It is singular how throughout the day, angels in kneeling or standing posture have been in evidence in so many places.2 The two in stone at Westminster would make a wonderful entrance to a little Chapel. They are like guardian angels, beautifully carved.3
With these words Mackenzie King described his first glimpse of the two stone angels which are now in the front hallway of his former residence, Moorside, on the estate at Kingsmere.
King learned, however, that the stone angels had already been sold. Thus, there seemed little chance that he would ever be able to acquire them.
In January 1937, Sir Howard d'Egville informed King that the original sale had been cancelled and that the stone angels were now available. At the same time he told the Canadian Prime Minister, who for several years had been acquiring a number of pieces of stone work for his estate, that the United Kingdom Branch of the Empire Parliamentary Association had decided to present them to King as a token of “their feelings of personal regard and their appreciation" for his services to the Empire. As soon as King received word that the angels were available, he wrote to John C. Patteson, son of his close friends Godfrey and Joan Patteson. Patteson was European Manager of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. By the third week of January Patteson had visited the storage area in London to see the angels and was making plans to have them shipped to Canada in March. They were duly shipped from London on the "Beaverford" on March 18th; the shipping costs amounted to £6.15.1.
The stone angels arrived in Ottawa about the beginning of April. King immediately informed Patteson of their arrival but noted that it was unlikely that they could be moved to Kingsmere until the summer. There were two reasons for the delay. First, the Prime Minister was frantically preparing for a trip to Britain to attend the Coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth as well as the Imperial Conference to be held at the same time in London.4 Secondly, the roads to Kingsmere were “in pretty bad shape." King added. “They will be all the more welcome making their appearance in the summertime.“
By the third week of August the stone angels had arrived at Kingsmere. King has left us with this description of their unpacking:
"When there we began to unpack the box which contains one of the angels. As I stood beside it, & removed the wool... from the face, & saw the beauty of the face and the curls, I was startled for a moment, the resemblance was so like that of dear mother. It was as if she were lying there quietly resting. I said nothing... I felt her presence in a very real way, the more I looked at the figure the more it seemed like her — we [Joan Patteson and King] both spoke of the curls."
While he and Joan Patteson continued to look at several other stone works acquired from London (including the Arms of England. and the gargoyles which had been near Big Ben), he recorded again, in his diary, “but, oh, how beautiful the angels."
King and Joan Patteson discussed the place where the angels should be located. King continued to express the desirability of having a chapel for them. He immediately decided, however, that they should not be left on the hill without protection: “Increasingly I felt they were too precious to be left anywhere out-of-doors.” "I said to Joan as we walked along,“ writes King, “God will shew us where they are to go, we will not hurry, all will be disclosed in time.”
A few minutes later King seems to have been guided as to the resting place of the angels. As he entered the front door of Moorside, he decided that they should be placed on either side of the large bench in the small hall. His diary provides us with this description of the significance of the place:
"...I said there is the place for them on either side of this seat the mercy seat came into my mind & with its Grace — God's Grace — Mother's power — God's mercy & His Grace. The more I thought of it, the more it seemed to me this was the place for the two angels on either side of the Mercy seat, that seat is carved with figures symbolical of celestial harmonies... It will be a daily inspiration to see these figures there, a note to the house — the guardian angels."
At the same time he considered the possibility that they might guard his grave some day. At various times King thought of being buried at Kingsmere. Only one week earlier King and Mrs. Patteson had discussed his idea of being buried near the present ruins.
Later in the day King and two members of his staff visited the stone angels again. Immediately he made arrangements to have supports placed beneath the hallway in Moorside for the two angels. Two days later the angels were moved across the estate to Moorside in a truck. Fourteen men were at work or looking on during the move of the angels. He continued to note the resemblance of the angels to his mother: "The likeness to dear Mother, each time the lid was lifted, or it was looked at in the box was amazing.“
King was working on correspondence in the upstairs study at Moorside. It is unlikely, however, that much work on the correspondence was accomplished as the moving was carried out downstairs. He continued to worry about the weight of the angels on the floor and the danger of the workmen being injured during the moving operations. While he wished that he had a large stone room for the angels or a better setting for them, he believed that they “could not have improved the symbolism of it all, or suitability — as in the hall of this house with all of its associations."
On August 24th King wrote in his diary: "Today is the first day ‘the Cherubims are shadowing the mercy seat'." In the Bible that day he had read Hebrews IX which contained the words: “the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercy seat" and “which are the figures of the true." To King, his new stone angels represented in a concrete way the meaning of the scripture he had read earlier in the day.
Why did these stone angels mean so much to King? In the first place, King believed that the angels resembled his mother. Secondly, his diary provides us with another explanation: “There can be no doubt whatever that dear Mother is making her presence known, that God is using her as a ministering angel to make clear to me His Mercy & His Grace & His tenderness in all things & His guidance." Also he believed that his mother was guiding him: “I felt sure that dear Mother was guiding me & is very near..."
The stone angels illustrate several important aspects of King's complex personality — his deep religious faith, his devotion to his mother and his deep attraction to symbolism and associations. They are seen by thousands of visitors each year at Moorside, in the spot where they were placed fifty-five years ago.
Footnotes
- Mackenzie King and his private secretary, H.R.L. Henry
- For example, on the same day, during a stop at St. Paul's Cathedral, King had seen two angels on either side of the entrance to the tomb of Lord Melbourne. - National Archives of Canada, William Lyon Mackenzie King Papers. MG26, J13, Diary, October 25, 1936.
- The quotations used in this article are extracted from King's correspondence and diary for the years 1936 and 1937. NAC, King Papers. MG 26.
- King left Ottawa on April 24 and did not return until July 9.