26 May 1867: Princess Mary of Teck

Princess Victoria Mary ("May") of Teck was born on 26 May 1867 at
Kensington Palace, London, in the same room where Queen Victoria,
the cousin of her mother , had been born 48 years and 2 days earlier.

Queen Victoria came to visit the baby, writing that
she was "a very fine one, with pretty little features and a quantity of hair".

Family

Her father was Prince Francis, Duke of Teck, the son of Duke
Alexander of Württemberg by his morganatic wife, Countess Claudine
Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde (created Countess von Hohenstein in the Austrian Empire). 

Her mother was Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge,
a granddaughter of King George III and the third child and younger daughter of
Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, and Princess Augusta of Hesse-Kassel.

Baptize

She was baptised in the Chapel Royal of Kensington Palace on
27 July 1867 by Charles Thomas Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury.  

From an early age, she was known to her family, friends and the public
by the diminutive name of "May", after her birth month.

Childhood

May's upbringing was "merry but fairly strict". She was the eldest
of four children, and the only daughter, and "learned to exercise her
native discretion, firmness, and tact " by resolving her three younger brothers'
petty boyhood squabbles.

They played with their cousins, the children of the Prince of Wales, who
were similar in age.She grew up at Kensington Palace and White Lodge, in
Richmond Park, which was granted by Queen Victoria on permanent loan.
She was educated at home by her mother and governess (as were her
brothers until they were sent to boarding schools).

The Duchess of Teck spent an unusually long time with her children for
a lady of her time and class, and enlisted May in various charitable endeavours,
which included visiting the tenements of the poor.

Although May was a great-grandchild of George III, she was only a
minor member of the British royal family. Her father, the Duke of Teck, had no
inheritance or wealth and carried the lower royal style of Serene Highness
because his parents' marriage was morganatic.

The Duchess of Teck was granted a parliamentary annuity of £5,000 and
received about £4,000 a year from her mother, the Duchess of Cambridge,
but she donated lavishly to dozens of charities. 

Prince Francis was deeply in debt and moved his family abroad with
a small staff in 1883, in order to economise. They travelled throughout
Europe, visiting their various relations. For a time they stayed in Florence, Italy,
 where May enjoyed visiting the art galleries, churches, and museums.

She was fluent in English, German, and French.

In 1885, the family returned to London and lived for some time in
Chester Square. May was close to her mother, and acted as an unofficial secretary,
helping to organise parties and social events. She was also close to her aunt,
the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and wrote to her every week. 

During the First World War, the Crown Princess of Sweden helped
pass letters  from May to her aunt, who lived in enemy territory in Germany
until her death in 1916.

A romance?

In 1886, "May" (as she was known) was a debutante in her first season,
and was  introduced at court. Her status as the only unmarried British
princess who was  not descended from Queen Victoria made her a suitable
candidate for the royal family's most eligible bachelor, Prince Albert Victor,
Duke of Clarence and Avondale, her second cousin once removed and
the eldest son of the Prince of Wales.

On 3 December 1891 at Luton Hoo, then the country residence of
Danish Ambassador  Christian Frederick de Falbe, Albert Victor proposed
marriage to May and she accepted.

The choice of May as bride for the Duke owed much to Queen Victoria's
fondness  for her, as well as to her strong character and sense of duty.
However, Albert Victor died six weeks later, in a recurrence of the
worldwide 1889–90 influenza pandemic.

Albert Victor's brother, Prince George, Duke of York, now second in line
to the throne, evidently became close to May during their shared period of
mourning, and Queen Victoria still thought of her as a suitable candidate to
marry a future king.The public was also anxious that the Duke of York
should marry and settle the succession. 

In May 1893, George proposed, and May accepted. They were soon deeply
in love,  and their marriage was a success. George wrote to May every day
they were apart and,  unlike his father, never took a mistress.

A royal wedding

Mary married Prince George, Duke of York, in London on 6 July 1893 at the
Chapel Royal, St James's Palace.The new Duke and Duchess of York lived in 

York Cottage on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, and in apartments in
St James's Palace.  York Cottage was a modest house for royalty, but it was a
favourite of George, who liked  a relatively simple life.

They had six children: Edward, Albert, Mary, Henry, George, and John.

The children were put into the care of a nanny, as was usual in upper-class
families at  the time. The first nanny was dismissed for insolence and the second
for abusing the children. This second woman, anxious to suggest that the
children preferred her to anyone else, would pinch Edward and Albert whenever
they were about to be presented to their parents so that they would start crying
and be speedily returned to her. On discovery, she was replaced by her effective
and much-loved assistant, Charlotte Bill.

Sometimes, Mary and George appear to have been distant parents. At first, they
failed to notice the nanny's abuse of the young princes Edward and Albert, and
their youngest son, Prince John, was housed in a private farm on the
Sandringham Estate, in Bill's care, perhaps to hide his epilepsy from the public.
Despite Mary's austere public image and her 

strait-laced private life, she was a caring mother and comforted her children
when they suffered from her husband's strict discipline.

As Duke and Duchess of York, George and Mary carried out a variety of public duties. 

In 1897, she became the patron of the London Needlework Guild in succession to her 

mother. The guild, initially established as The London Guild in 1882, was renamed 

several times and was named after Mary between 1914 and 2010.Samples of her own 

embroidery range from chair seats to tea cosies

On 22 January 1901, Queen Victoria died, and Mary's father-in-law ascended the
throne as  Edward VII. For most of the rest of that year, George and Mary were
known as the  "Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and York". For eight months they
toured the British  Empire, visiting Gibraltar, Malta, Egypt, Ceylon, Singapore,
Australia, New Zealand,  Mauritius, South Africa and Canada. No royal had
undertaken such an ambitious tour before. She broke down in tears at the thought
of leaving her children, who were 

to be left in the care of their grandparents, for such a long time.

A new title

On 9 November 1901, nine days after arriving back in Britain and on the King's 

sixtieth birthday, George was created Prince of Wales. The family moved their London 

residence from St James's Palace to Marlborough House. As Princess of Wales, Mary 

accompanied her husband on trips to Austria-Hungary and Württemberg in 1904. The 

following year, she gave birth to her last child, John. It was a difficult labour, and 

although she recovered quickly, her newborn son suffered respiratory problems.

From October 1905 the Prince and Princess of Wales undertook another eight-month 

tour, this time of India, and the children were once again left in the care of their 

grandparents.

They passed through Egypt both ways and on the way back stopped in Greece. 

The tour was almost immediately followed by a trip to Spain for the wedding of King 

Alfonso XIII to Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, at which the bride and groom 

narrowly avoided assassination.Only a week after returning to Britain, May and George 

went to Norway for the coronation of George's brother-in-law and sister, 

King Haakon VII and Queen Maud.

Queen consort

On 6 May 1910, Edward VII died. Mary's husband ascended the throne and she 

became queen consort. When her husband asked her to drop one of her two official names, 

Victoria Mary, she chose to be called Mary, preferring not to be known by the same 

style as her husband's grandmother, Queen Victoria.

She was the first British queen consort born in Britain since Catherine Parr. Queen Mary 

was crowned with the King on 22 June 1911 at Westminster Abbey. Later in the year, 

the new King and Queen travelled to India for the Delhi Durbar held on 12 December 1911, 

and toured the sub-continent as Emperor and Empress of India, returning to Britain in 

February.

The beginning of Mary's period as consort brought her into conflict with her 

mother-in-law, Queen Alexandra. Although the two were on friendly terms, 

Alexandra could be stubborn; she demanded precedence over Mary at the funeral of 

Edward VII, was slow in leaving Buckingham Palace, and kept some of the royal 

jewels that should have been passed to the new queen.

World War II

During the First World War, Queen Mary instituted an austerity drive at the palace, 

where she rationed food, and visited wounded and dying servicemen in hospital, 

which caused her great emotional strain. After three years of war against Germany, 

and with anti-German feeling in Britain running high, the Russian Imperial Family, 

which had been deposed by a revolutionary government, was refused asylum, 

possibly in part because the tsar's wife was German-born.

News of the tsar's abdication provided a boost to those in Britain who wished to
replace their own monarchy with a republic.The war ended in 1918 with the 

defeat of Germany and the abdication and exile of the kaiser.

Two months after the end of the war, Queen Mary's youngest son, John, died at the age 

of thirteen.

Her staunch support of her husband continued during the later half of his reign.
She advised him on speeches and used her extensive knowledge of history and 

royalty to advise him on matters affecting his position. He appreciated her 

discretion, intelligence, and judgement. 

She maintained an air of self-assured calm throughout all her public engagements 

in the years after the war, a period marked by civil unrest over social conditions, 

Irish independence, and Indian nationalism.

1920's & 1930's

In the late 1920s, George V became increasingly ill with lung problems, exacerbated
by his heavy smoking. Queen Mary paid particular attention to his care. During his
illness in 1928, one of his doctors, Sir Farquhar Buzzard, was asked who had saved
the King's life. He replied, "The Queen". 

In 1935, King George V and Queen Mary celebrated their silver jubilee, with 

celebrations taking place throughout the British Empire. In his jubilee speech, 

George paid public tribute to his wife, having told his speechwriter, "Put that
paragraph at the very end. I cannot trust myself to speak of the Queen when
I think of all I owe her."

Queen mother

George V died on 20 January 1936, after his physician, Lord Dawson of Penn,
gave him an injection of morphine and cocaine that may have hastened his death.

Queen Mary's eldest son ascended the throne as Edward VIII. She was then to be 

known as Her Majesty Queen Mary.

Within the year, Edward caused a constitutional crisis by announcing his desire to 

marry his twice-divorced American mistress, Wallis Simpson. Mary disapproved of 

divorce, which was against the teaching of the Anglican church, and thought 

Simpson wholly unsuitable to be the wife of a king. After receiving advice from the 

Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Stanley Baldwin, as well as the Dominion 

governments, that he could not remain king and marry Simpson, Edward abdicated.

Though loyal and supportive of her son, Mary could not comprehend why Edward 

would neglect his royal duties in favour of his personal feelings.

Simpson had been presented formally to both King George V and Queen Mary 

at court,but Mary later refused to meet her either in public or privately. 

She saw it as her duty to provide moral support for her second son, the reserved 

Prince Albert, Duke of York. Albert ascended the throne on Edward's abdication, 

taking the name George VI. When Mary attended the coronation, she became the 

first British dowager queen to do so. 

Edward's abdication did not lessen her love for him, but she never wavered in her 

disapproval of his actions.

A grandmother

Mary took an interest in the upbringing of her granddaughters,
Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, and took them on various
excursions in London, to art galleries and museums. 

(The princesses' own parents thought it unnecessary for them to be
burdened with a demanding educational regime.)

In May 1939, Mary was in a car crash: her car was overturned but
she escaped with minor injuries and bruises.

World War II

During the Second World War, George VI wished his mother to be
evacuated from London. Although she was reluctant, she decided to
live at Badminton House, Gloucestershire, with her niece, Mary Somerset,
Duchess of Beaufort, the daughter of her brother Adolphus. 

Her personal belongings were transported from London in seventy
pieces of luggage. Her household, which comprised fifty-five servants,
occupied most of the house, except for the Duke and Duchess's
private suites, until after the war. 

The only people to complain about the arrangements were the royal
servants, who found the house too small,though Queen Mary
annoyed her niece by having the ancient ivy torn from the walls as
she considered it unattractive and a hazard. 

From Badminton, in support of the war effort, she visited troops and factories 

and directed the gathering of scrap materials. She was known to offer
lifts to soldiers she spotted on the roads. 

In 1942, her youngest surviving son, Prince George, Duke of Kent,
was killed in an air crash while on active service. Mary finally returned
to Marlborough House in June 1945, after the war in Europe had resulted
in the defeat of Nazi Germany.

Her collection

Mary was an eager collector of objects and pictures with a royal connection.
She paid above-market estimates when purchasing jewels from the estate
of Dowager Empress Marie of Russia and paid almost three times the
estimate when buying the family's Cambridge Emeralds from
Lady Kilmorey, the mistress of her late brother Prince Francis. 

In 1924, the famous architect Sir Edwin Lutyens created Queen Mary's
Dolls' House for her collection of miniature pieces. She has sometimes been
criticised for her aggressive acquisition of objets d'art for the
Royal Collection. On several occasions, she would express to hosts, or
others, that she admired something they had in their 

possession, in the expectation that the owner would be willing to donate it. 

Her extensive knowledge of, and research into, the Royal Collection helped in 

identifying artefacts and artwork that had gone astray over the years.

The royal family had lent out many pieces over previous generations. Once she had 

identified unreturned items through old inventories, she would write to the holders, 

requesting that they be returned.

In addition to being an avid collector, Mary also commissioned many gifts of jewellery, 

including rings which she presented to her ladies-in-waiting on the occasion of their 

engagements.

Death

In 1952, King George VI died, the third of Queen Mary's children to predecease
her; her eldest granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth, ascended the throne as Queen 

Elizabeth II. The death of a third child profoundly affected her. Mary remarked to 

Princess Marie Louise: "I have lost three sons through death, but I have never been 

privileged to be there to say a last farewell to them."

Mary died on 24 March 1953 in her sleep at the age of 85, ten weeks before 

her granddaughter's coronation. She had let it be known that should she die, 

the coronation should not be postponed. 

Her remains lay in state at Westminster Hall, where large numbers of mourners 

filed past her coffin. She is buried beside her husband in the nave of
St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. 

Source pictures: Wikipedia