Squidgy said:
I'm sure it will be an interesting read Marengo.
The Earl, as you probably know, was one of Margriet's godfathers. At the time that Juliana & her daughters were living in Ottawa, the Earl of Athlone was our Governor General. I think he & his wife, Princess Alice had pretty strong ties to the Dutch RF (Alice was an aunt of Juliana's, was she not?), and while Juliana was looking for a house to rent in Ottawa, they stayed with the Earl & Countess.
Alice was a 1st cousin of Queen Wilhelmina, the Duchess of Albany was Princess Helena of Waldeck-Pyrmont and Wilhelmina's mother was of course one of Helena's older sisters: Emma of Waldeck-Pyrmont. The Furstin did quite well for her daughters I would say, the eldest became Queen of Wurttemberg.
Alice was quite indiscrete and was boasting now and then how rich her dutch cousin was. However in her memoirs she used not to flattering words about Wilhelmina (according to her Wilhelmina was not able to find a decent dress in London as she was to fat). I believe Queen Juliana tried to stop these memoirs from being sold in The Netherlands. According to the dutch press Alic's spite might have been that Wilhelmina, when younger did not approve of the Earl of Athlone as a husband for herself.
Alice visited The Netherlands quite often, especially when Queen Emma was still alive. After WWI she and her brother, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (grandfather of the present King of Sweden) usually met in The Hague or Scheveningen as going to Germany was a bridge to far for british royals, so soon after the war.
I believe in her last years, when she was a widow she became a close companion of King Gustaf VI-Adolf of Sweden and some say he even proposed to her.
Alice was at the bapism of Beatrix, she was her godmother (Beatrix is the godmother to one or two of the Abel-Smith grandchildren as well I believe). Others who attended: the Countess de Kotzebue, King Leopold III of the Belgians, Princess Armgard (Bernhard's mother), Crown Princess Juliana with baby Beatrix, Prince Bernhard, Queen Wilhelmina I, Duke Adolf of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (paternal uncle of Juliana), Fuerstin Elisabeth of Erbach-Schonberg (sister of Queen Emma, aunt of Wilhelmina and Alice).
The choice of Adolf as a godfather was unfortunate, the man became a nazi in the war. During the war Bernhard (and I believe Princess Armgard as well) wrote him letters as one of his best friends, Jhr. Roell was captured and would be shot dead (as he was in the resistance). He asked Adolf to intervene ut he did nothing for the squire, who was shot dead. Afterwards the family saw him only once at the Olympic Games of Helsinki and they all turned their back at him. (The wife of jhr Roell lives in Canada, and is now Mrs Martine Feaver, one of the closest friends of Queen Juliana who accompanied her in the war to Canada. The couples daughter Jvr. Renee Roell is the closest friend of Queen Beatrix and godmother of the Prince of Orange)