King George V and Queen Mary

[amabel]

Egotisitical as George was, I doubt if he was quite blas? about the Caroline situation....  He was lucky that Caroline did lose her popularity.. and the crowds were by then more amused by the ridiculous situation than ready to support her. 

[Curryong]

James Pope-Hennesy wrote the authorised biography of Queen Mary in the 1950s. Before he proceeded he conducted masses of interviews with people, including foreign royals, who had known Queen Mary (some all her life) or who had served her. These interviews have been gathered into a fascinating book, 'The Quest for Queen Mary', which was published last year.

I've been reading it and enjoying it very much. It's full of fascinating titbits. Many people who were her social equals said she was full of fun in private, and even naughty as a child. However her staff said she could be inconsiderate, as most royals are.  Her father, the Duke of Teck was extremely volatile and would scream at his family, threatening to thrash his sons a lot. He was regarded as odd.

Grosvenor Hood was the only true love of Queen Mary's life she told Margaret Wyndham, one of her ladies in waiting. She was very reticent about her private life usually, but she told Miss Wyndham this in a car, as she felt secure away from servants' listening ears when she was travelling by motor car. That love affair was before the engagement to Eddy, obviously. He was an army officer and later Viscount Hood. She said the King wasn't in love with her when they married but was so later.

As Mary aged she wore wigs, a gold one at night and silver during the day. During WW2, which she spent at Badminton, the only two women who could dress her two wigs were both ill. So she wrapped a headscarf around the wig she was wearing and kept it on for three days!

[amabel]

Did it give any reason why she didn't marry this man?  Because she wanted a royal husband,not an aristocrat?  or didn't he ask?  GIven that the Tecks were pretty poor, and not that grand, I would have said that if this man was comfortblly off, it would have been an OK match for her. But of course it has been said that Mary was embararased by her mother, their debts and her status as springing from a morganatic line and maybe she was determined to get a real prince as a husband?

[Curryong]

Id just got to the part where Pope-Hennessy had interviewed Margaret Wyndham when I wrote that down here about her telling PH that it was Hood she was in love with. Then, blow me down, in the next chapter (it is a very long book) Miss Wyndham writes to him and tells him that she misremembered and it was John Hopetoun she was in love with, not Hood!)

The trouble is that a lot of the people he interviewed are very old and she obviously had a bad memory for names. (Queen Mary liked being read to and she used to object to Margaret Wyndham's voice being weak and giving out after several hours. She used to have to suck lozenges in an effort to save it!)

He interviewed the sister of the 7th Earl of Hopetoun (a Scottish peer) early in the book. The Earl's parents were great friends of the Duke and Duchess of Teck and Mary and her brothers had known the family all their lives. The Duke and Duchess and their family used to go up to the Hopetoun family  seat in Scotland for TWO MONTHS at a time to mooch off them er stay with the family.

The sister had strong memories of Mary as a child (she was around the same age) and her parents, the Duchess was a warm hearted and delightful person but, like everyone who remembered him, she spoke of the Duke as being very abrupt, eccentric and rude. He brought all the family and guests, children AND adults, gifts of balloons, and then told the children off for being noisy when they played with them! The Duchess would say 'Franz! Franz!' and sometimes he would be quiet, sometimes not.

The sister didn't tell Pope Hennessy about any romantic attachments, it  was only Miss Wyndham who heard that from the Queen's own lips years later. Hopetoun had quite a distinguished career. He became our first Governor General here in Australia in the early 1900s. He was older than Mary by about seven years and married in 1886 when Mary was 19. I would guess that money was the issue but Miss Wyndham didn't ask. (She said she never probed about anything because Mary would then shut up.)

POpe-H visited Sandringham, where Eddy died, describing as a place with a horrible atmosphere. Eddy's bedroom was very small and PH couldn't imagine how 14 people could have crammed into it for the death scene. Prince Charles had lessons as a little boy in the room next door, where Queen Alexandra and her daughter Victoria would sit on dark nights. Hennessy said that part of the house was sinister (and I have heard that before, myself.)

Later PH goes to stay with the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester at their country home. He liked them, but the Duke seems to have been very exccentric, with a laugh like a pig's squeal. He occupied Eddy's room after the King and Queen moved into Sandringham after Queen A's death. He told PH that even the soap Eddy used was still there and everything had to be cleared out.

[TLLK]

James Pope-Hennesy wrote the authorised biography of Queen Mary in the 1950s. Before he proceeded he conducted masses of interviews with people, including foreign royals, who had known Queen Mary (some all her life) or who had served her. These interviews have been gathered into a fascinating book, 'The Quest for Queen Mary', which was published last year.

I've been reading it and enjoying it very much. It's full of fascinating titbits. Many people who were her social equals said she was full of fun in private, and even naughty as a child. However her staff said she could be inconsiderate, as most royals are.  Her father, the Duke of Teck was extremely volatile and would scream at his family, threatening to thrash his sons a lot. He was regarded as odd.

Grosvenor Hood was the only true love of Queen Mary's life she told Margaret Wyndham, one of her ladies in waiting. She was very reticent about her private life usually, but she told Miss Wyndham this in a car, as she felt secure away from servants' listening ears when she was travelling by motor car. That love affair was before the engagement to Eddy, obviously. He was an army officer and later Viscount Hood. She said the King wasn't in love with her when they married but was so later.

As Mary aged she wore wigs, a gold one at night and silver during the day. During WW2, which she spent at Badminton, the only two women who could dress her two wigs were both ill. So she wrapped a headscarf around the wig she was wearing and kept it on for three days!

Fascinating anecdotes about a woman that is typically viewed as cold and aloof. I would love to have seen a photo of her when she was laughing as most of her portraits are of a woman who could seem serene or stern.

Gold wig and a silver wig...she must have know which would be more flattering depending on the light source.

[LouisFerdinand]

Queen Mary attended the premiere of The Lavender Hill Mob on June 28th, 1951. She wore the Diamond Bandeau Tiara which Meghan wore on her wedding day in 2018.   
Queen Mary arriving at the Odeon cinema, Marble Arch for the premiere... News Photo | Getty Images

[Curryong]

Yes, extraordinary really that she and the QM wore tiaras on all gala occasions including film premieres. As a lover of Royal jewellery and big occasions I regret in a way that this no longer occurs. The times are very different though.

[amabel]

Id
The sister didn't tell Pope Hennessy about any romantic attachments, it  was only Miss Wyndham who heard that from the Queen's own lips years later. Hopetoun had quite a distinguished career. He became our first Governor General here in Australia in the early 1900s. He was older than Mary by about seven years and married in 1886 when Mary was 19. I would guess that money was the issue but Miss Wyndham didn't ask. (She said she never probed about anything because Mary would then shut up.)

Late

was it that Mary had no money or he hadn't got any?

[LouisFerdinand]

Queen Mary saw herself on film.     
Queen Mary Sees Herself On Film (1911-1945) - YouTube     
 
:xmas8: :xmas8: :xmas8: :xmas8:

[LouisFerdinand]

Queen Mary visited a Welsh mine.   
Queen Mary of Great Britain visits a Welsh mine Stock Photo: 68548148 - Alamy   

:xmas6: :xmas6: :xmas6: :xmas6:

Double post auto-merged: January 03, 2019, 08:01:07 PM

[LouisFerdinand]

George V visited Melbourne in 1901 with his wife Mary, when they were the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York to open the first federal parliament of Australia.

[LouisFerdinand]

Queen Mary opened the new Rachel McMillan Training College for Children.     
Her Majesty The Queen (1930) - YouTube

[LouisFerdinand]

King George V paid tribute at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the Arc de Triomphe in Paris in 1925. He left a wreath bearing an inscription "From George V, to the Unknown Soldier".     
     

:xmas4: :xmas4: :xmas4: :xmas4: :xmas4:

It would be interesting to know what George's private thoughts were when he laid the wreath. It was only eleven years before that Archduke Francis Ferdinand was shot and the War began.

[Curryong]

Why would George V be anything other than terribly sad when he laid the wreath? The First World War produced horrendous numbers of casualties. Britain and its realms/colonies suffered almost a million war dead, France a half million more, not to mention the rest of the combatant nations. I hardly think his private thoughts would be on what he was going to have for dinner!

[LouisFerdinand]

Would you say that George V was traditional like Queen Victoria? Or was he more traditional like his father, Edward VII?

[Curryong]

What do you mean by traditional? The Queen Victoria of 1900 was different in her customs and traditions from what she had been in 1837 or 1850 or 1870. If you mean in character, the middleaged King George held to the way of life of the latter part of his grandmother's reign and therefore his youth, rather than more recent decades, as he was a conservative man and didn't particularly like modern customs like short skirts, women smoking, jazz, cocktails etc.

All three monarchs were innovators in various directions and Edward and George did some things differently to the way Victoria did them, just as she did things differently to her uncles, especially under Prince Albert's direction, and George did some things differently to his father as well.

[Princess Cassandra]

     

It would be interesting to know what George's private thoughts were when he laid the wreath. It was only eleven years before that Archduke Francis Ferdinand was shot and the War began.

He might have been thinking about how many other unkowns there were, or about the families mourning their dead, about how much the war had affected his country, perhaps pondering where the unknown soldier was killed, or even hoping there would never be another war but worrying that there might be. 

[LouisFerdinand]

Queen Mary was greeted by Grand Duchess Augusta Karoline in the railway station Neustrelitz in 1912.     
Queen Mary of Great Britain in Neustrelitz, 1912 Stock Photo: 48349685 - Alamy

[LouisFerdinand]

On May 3, 1893 Princess Mary of Teck was suppose to have tea with Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife and her husband Alexander, Duke of Fife. When Mary arrived, she found Prince George, Louise's brother there as well. Louise inquired, "Georgie, don't you think that you ought to take May into the garden to look at the frogs in the pond?" George proposed beside the pond. Princess Mary accepted.   
 

:daisy: :daisy: :daisy: :daisy: :daisy: :daisy: :daisy: :daisy:

[LouisFerdinand]

The return of Henry, Duke of Gloucester at Portsmouth   
Duke Of Gloucester's Return (1930-1939) - YouTube

[oak_and_cedar]

I read that prince William was named after another William, a duke that was brother of the king?

Is it possible that prince Harry is named after this duke?

[Curryong]

I read that prince William was named after another William, a duke that was brother of the king?

Is it possible that prince Harry is named after this duke?

I thought William was supposedly named after the elder son of the then Duke of Gloucester, brother to George VI. He was killed piloting a plane at an air show.

OTOH I' read somewhere that Harry was Diana's choice of name as Charles quite liked Albert and/or Arthur and Diana hated the sound of both! 

[Amabel2]

I thought William was supposedly named after the elder son of the then Duke of Gloucester, brother to George VI. He was killed piloting a plane at an air show.

OTOH I' read somewhere that Harry was Diana's choice of name as Charles quite liked Albert and/or Arthur and Diana hated the sound of both!

I think it was also that it was a royal name but hadn't been used within the family for a while and Prince Will of Gloucester had died.  I think that harry was the same in that it was a royal name and wasn't currently in use but I am guessing Diana didn't like it that much so they went with the abbreviation harry...

[LouisFerdinand]

Queen Mary saw herself on film.     
Queen Mary Sees Herself On Film (1911-1945) - YouTube

[LouisFerdinand]

In the spring of 1917 there was what seems to have been a concerted campaign against the King of England and the royal family. There was a spate of letters arriving at 10 Downing Street asking how the First World War could be won when the King himself was German.