Queen Mary, consort of George V (1867-1953)


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Denville said:
What a charmer the DOW was...
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You have to remember that the DOW seems to have had a very difficult relationship with his parents, especially so with his father. So yeah, I can really understand that he would put it like that. But he did at least give Queen Mary the credit, that she would be more pleasant when King George was away.
 
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Does anybody know the reason why all of King George and Queen Mary's sons except the Dukes of Windsor and Kent were married off to women of noble birth and not to royal princesses during the time when the whole European royal houses follow strict protocol with dynastic marriages?
 
theroyalfly said:
Does anybody know the reason why all of King George and Queen Mary's sons except the Dukes of Windsor and Kent were married off to women of noble birth and not to royal princesses during the time when the whole European royal houses follow strict protocol with dynastic marriages?
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It was basically a decision made to safeguard the future of the monarchy. King George and Queen Mary decided that having their children continue the tradition of marrying German royals would reflect badly on the monarchy at a time when anti-german feelings ran so high that they and their relatives had been forced to change their German names and titles.
I've read somewhere that the King informed the government of his decision around the time of the name change, but I can't find the text where I read it.
Making it possible for his children to marry British subjects was seen as both patriotic and modernising.
Worth noting is that children of both Queen Victoria and King Edward VII had married members of the British nobility and also members of the non-royal houses of Battenberg and Teck so the rules of equal marriages weren't followed as rigidly as on the continent.
 
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theroyalfly said:
Does anybody know the reason why all of King George and Queen Mary's sons except the Dukes of Windsor and Kent were married off to women of noble birth and not to royal princesses during the time when the whole European royal houses follow strict protocol with dynastic marriages?
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When King George and Queen Mary's sons came of age which was after World War I, the era of dynastic marriages had ended. By then it was more advantageous to marry a British aristocrat than a European royal given that many of the eligible princesses would have been German and therefore from the country they just ended a very bloody war with. On top of that the monarchy had been abolished in Germany, Austria, Russia and other countries and therefore the union would not be a true dynastic marriage.

The British royals were not required to make equal marriages, they did so out of custom. Heck George's marriage to Mary could hardly be considered dynastic, Mary was considered suitable for marriage to Eddy and then George because Queen Victoria liked her character, not because there were political or financial gains.
 
theroyalfly said:
Does anybody know the reason why all of King George and Queen Mary's sons except the Dukes of Windsor and Kent were married off to women of noble birth and not to royal princesses during the time when the whole European royal houses follow strict protocol with dynastic marriages?
Click to expand...

They were not "married off" in any case. They chose their own wives
 
Thank you for all of your replies and I appreciate it so much. So it makes sense to me now and I can just summarize it into 3 points:

1 Due to Anti-German sentiments
2 The British RF are not keen on dynastic marriages compared to other European royal houses as a matter of fact Queen Mary's patrilineal line is of obscure origin.
3 They married out of love
 
theroyalfly said:
Does anybody know the reason why all of King George and Queen Mary's sons except the Dukes of Windsor and Kent were married off to women of noble birth and not to royal princesses during the time when the whole European royal houses follow strict protocol with dynastic marriages?
Click to expand...

Tonight, on Channel 4 in the UK, there is a new series entitled 'The Queen's Lost Family' - the summary is 'Following the First World War, King George V deploys his five children as part of a charm offensive to woo the public. But when he falls ill, can the five siblings pull together?'
A rather strange title, but it could be interesting!
 
:previous: Will "The Queen's Lost Family" be aired in the United States?
 
irish_royalist said:
Tonight, on Channel 4 in the UK, there is a new series entitled 'The Queen's Lost Family' - the summary is 'Following the First World War, King George V deploys his five children as part of a charm offensive to woo the public. But when he falls ill, can the five siblings pull together?'
A rather strange title, but it could be interesting!
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yes why was it called the queen's lost Family? They were not "lost" in any sense.. they were the queen's Father and uncles and aunt.. and well known
 
Denville said:
yes why was it called the queen's lost Family? They were not "lost" in any sense.. they were the queen's Father and uncles and aunt.. and well known
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They kind of never talked about poor Prince John though. I have no idea how much of the documentary is about him though.
 
I recommend this Having watched the first instalment of this new interesting 3 part TV documentary which is based on a “cache of recently unearthed letters: here, a bundle of correspondence tucked away at Harewood House, near Leeds, the marital home of Princess Mary, the only daughter of George V and Queen Mary... the letters written by and to the royal siblings and their friends –...”

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-...g-royal-history-by-numbers?CMP=share_btn_link
 
Furienna said:
They kind of never talked about poor Prince John though. I have no idea how much of the documentary is about him though.
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Nothing.. since the thrust of the programme is about the way George V used his family to rebuild the image of the monarchy after the war..JOhn had died by then and in any case was not ever likely to lead a public life. The programme is about the "new image" of the RF in the 20s and 30s, where they were seen as supporting charities, doing tours, "working for the Firm" and getting respectably married nad having families (all of course except Ed VIII)
 
Dalriada, Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Very interesting. We hear so little of Princess Mary. I went to Harewood years ago, fantastic Adam interiors & breathtaking garden:flowers:
 
The Royal Family Twitter account has released a section of Queen Mary's diary and letter to George VI after listening to Princess Elizabeth's (later Elizabeth II) broadcast to children during The Blitz for BBC’s Children’s Hour on 13th October 1940.

The Royal Family @RoyalFamily
[Crown] Queen Mary - listened to her granddaughter’s broadcast with great pride, writing in her diary on that day:
[Radio] “At 5:15 we listened to Lilibet’s broadcast in the children’s hour. She made a charming little speech and said it so well”
3:48 AM · Oct 14, 2020·Twitter for iPhone​
https://twitter.com/x/status/1316058347913785346

The Royal Family @RoyalFamily
[Scroll] The following week, she wrote to The King, praising his daughter’s first public address:
? “Lilibet’s broadcast was admirable, so well delivered, so calm & collected, we were all so enchanted, her voice so like Elizabeth’s, I have written to Lilibet to congratulate her.”
3:52 AM · Oct 14, 2020·Twitter for iPhone​
https://twitter.com/x/status/1316059184128028672

The Royal Family @RoyalFamily
? Exactly 80 years ago today, The Queen (then 14 year-old Princess Elizabeth) made this broadcast to children around the world in the midst of The Blitz. Her sister Princess Margaret, then 10, was by her side during the recording for the BBC’s Children’s Hour.
2:59 AM · Oct 14, 2020·Twitter Media Studio​
https://twitter.com/x/status/1316045859868610560
 
From the Royal Collection Trust, picture of Queen Mary as the then Duchess of York sitting at a table in York House, London in 1895. Photograph taken by Mary Sheen, who was Denmark’s first female court photographer.

@royalcollectiontrust Verified
This photograph was taken in 1895 by Mary Steen, who was Denmark’s first female court photographer. At the invitation of Danish-born Alexandra, Princess of Wales, later Queen Alexandra, she also photographed members of the British royal family.

Shown here is Queen Mary when Duchess of York seated at a table in York House, London. The room is bathed in sunlight, illuminating the various framed photographs and vases of flowers on her desk. If the sun is shining where you are, you may be inspired to capture your own interior scene.

#photography #photographer #MarySteen #femalephotographers #femalephotographer #history #historical #royalhistory #QueenMary #earlyphotography #photooftheday #photographylovers #desk #sun #sunshine #sunlight #naturallight
14h​
https://www.instagram.com/p/CNCzuakLxAR/
 
A beautiful photo thank you for the link. I haven't seen that one before.
 
Time stood still, what a wonderful photo of Mary of Teck.
 
How well did Queen Mary maintain a reputation for formality and dignity?
 
To the maximum. Perhaps too much. I think she was too conscious of how she appeared to others. When older she once confided that she didn’t care to laugh. ‘You see, I have such an ugly laugh.’
 
We should probably remember that Queen Mary grew up and formed her character in the Victorian era. Also, she was very deferential to George always. Her character was probably partly nature and partly nurture.
 
Her mother Mary Duchess of Teck was a very warm, exuberant and extroverted woman however, extremely popular with the London crowds. And the Duke, if a bit eccentric, was hardly a shy man. So I’m not so sure about the nurture bit, at least not in her childhood home. Her mother was always urging her to talk more to visitors as she grew up.

I tend to think that May’s personality came into being as a reaction to her mother’s talkative exuberance, not in copying it. She was essentially a shy and reserved person. Plus, although I agree that Mary was always deferential to George, she didn’t learn that in her own family’s home either. Several of her recorded remarks at the time show that the Duchess’s personality dominated their home life and she made most of the decisions for the family.
 
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Indeed. Mary Adelaide's ebullient personality supposedly embarrassed May and made her even more formal and stiff. I guess it was just her personality at the end of the day!
 
From reading The Quest for Queen Mary by James Pope-Hennessy and edited Hugo Vickers, Queen Mary was very punctual unlike her mother (Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge) and mother-in-law (Queen Alexandra). I read the book last year and from memory, Queen Mary was not really closed to her father (in the early chapters), but rather closer to her mother and aunt (Princess Augusta of Cambridge later Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz).

Queen Mary was known to be shy and reserve, but those who were close to her mentioned that she had dry sense of humour and did got into some mischief as a child. At one point, I remember reading that Queen Mary did not like Ivy (Hedera), because their disorderly growth. In terms of formality with her ladies-in-waiting and place/estate staff, Queen Mary does greatly uphold them with a reasonable level.
 
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