Their elder son, the 7th Earl of Harewood, wrote about his parents' marriage in his memoirs The Tongs and the Bones and says that "they got on well together and had a lot of friends and interests in common". He also noted that "Shy, aloof and worse, I have heard my father called since; but that was not how his friends knew him how his family felt about him; and I knew then, and know still, that when I was 24 I lost potentially the best friend and mentor I could ever have – at precisely the moment I discovered this was so.”
Military career
After education at Eton College, Lascelles attended the Royal Military College, Sandhurst before being commissioned as a second lieutenant into the Grenadier Guards on 12 February 1902, serving until 1905. He was an honorary attache at the British embassy in Paris from 1905 until 1907, then served as aide-de-camp to the governor general of Canada, Earl Grey, until 1911. In 1913 he joined the Territorial Army as second lieutenant in the Yorkshire Hussars yeomanry. He was promoted lieutenant on the Reserve of officers in 1914. He continued with the yeomanry after the outbreak of the First World War until he rejoined the Grenadier Guards for service on the Western Front in April 1915. Even so, he continued to be promoted within the regiment to captain in 1917. Postwar he was promoted major in 1920 and retired in 1924. Meanwhile, at the front, he was wounded in the head at the Second Battle of Givenchy but recovered to fight in the Battle of Loos in 1915, and was wounded a further two times as well as gassed. He was promoted captain and later major in command of a battalion in 1915, and lieutenant-colonel in 1918. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Order and a bar both in 1918, as well as the French Croix de Guerre. He continued his interest in the Territorial movement after the war, as honorary colonel of the 1st Battalion The London Regiment from 1923, the 5th Battalion West Yorkshire Regiment from 1937, and as president of the West Yorkshire Territorial Forces Association from 1928. He was also appointed in 1937 honorary air commodore of the 609 Bomber Squadron of the Auxiliary Air Force.
As Viscount Lascelles, he attempted to enter the House of Commons in 1913. He stood as the Unionist candidate in the 1913 Keighley by-election. In the three-cornered fight that also included a Labour candidate, he came second to Buckmaster by 878 votes. He did not seek election again and his defeat led to a later distaste for politics. He declared in later life "every war in which Britain had been involved had been due to the inefficiency of politicians, and they began what soldiers had to end." On succeeding to his father's Earldom he became a member of the House of Lords.
Death and legacy
Lord Harewood died of a heart attack on 24 May 1947 at the age of 64 at his home, Harewood House. He is buried in the Lascelles family vault at All Saints' Church, Harewood. Lady Harewood, the Princess Royal, survived him by almost eighteen years and died in 1965. It is widely understood that Virginia Woolf based the character of Archduke Henry on him in her novel, a tribute to her lover Vita Sackville-West. Henry Lascelles was one of West's suitors. In the 2019 film Downton Abbey, Viscount Lascelles is played by Andrew Havill.
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Styles
1882–1892: The Honourable Henry G. C. Lascelles
1892–1929: Viscount Lascelles
1929–1947: The Right Honourable The Earl of Harewood
