Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood (1897-1965)

[PssMarie-Elisabeth]

Princess Mary (Viscountess Lascelles) with her younger son, Gerald c.1924

 

[Mermaid1962]

I found this quote, but I'm not exactly sure what the source was, although a bibliography is given at the end of the article:

"
The Princess Royal was particularly close to her eldest brother. After the abdication crisis, she and her husband went to stay with the former Edward VIII, by then created Duke of Windsor, at Enzenfeld Castle near Vienna. In November 1947, she declined to attend the wedding her niece, the future Queen Elizabeth II, and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, to protest the fact that the Duke of Windsor had not been invited."

This is where I found the quote. I'm going to look into this some more.

Mary, Princess Royal. Who is Mary, Princess Royal? What is Mary, Princess Royal? Where is Mary, Princess Royal? Definition of Mary, Princess Royal. Meaning of Mary, Princess Royal.

Maybe it has something to do with, that Princess Mary - I suppose - was very loyal with her brother the Duke of Windsor??

 

[Dierna23]

A video with many pictures of Princess Mary, Viscountess Lascelles:

YouTube - H.R.H. Princess Mary

 

[ada]

A video with many pictures of Princess Mary, Viscountess Lascelles:

Thank you so much, incredible photos. She was 3 years older than the Queen Mother, but died at 68.

 

[Dierna23]

You're welcome, ada

Yes, she suffered a fatal heart attack during a walk with her family on the grounds of the Harewood House estate. I think, she smoked a lot, like her parents and brothers and it is said, that her marriage wasn't a love marriage. The Duke of Windsor remembered in his memoirs: "Mary had to marry this old man."

 

[Wendy Tebble]

I do not have an answer to your query but have another question re the Lascelles family of which the late Princess Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood was a member until her death. Do you have a list of the organisations of which the princess was patron and/or president and regiments in which she held an honorary rank?

 

[MAfan]

Wikipedia reports a list of some of the honorary military appointments she held.

 

[Elly C]

Mary, Princess Royal, Countess of Harewood, only dau of George V (1897-1965)

I don't think there is a thread about Princess Mary, the previous Princess Royal (daughter of George V). I may be looking in the wrong place because during her lifetime she was styled in a number of different ways.

I was reading an article that stated she declined to attend the wedding of her niece, the current Queen, in protest of the fact that the Duke of Windsor had not been invited. She gave ill health as the official reason for her non-attendance. The family must have patched up their differences as she continued to attend state occasions such as the coronation, held many important orders & she also represented the Queen on several occasions. Does anyone know any more about this issue?

I have posted a link to a short biography of Princess Mary. Like the current Princess Royal she appears to have been a very busy & dedicated member of the Royal Family.
Princess Mary (biog)
Also of interest is her jewellery collection - She had some very important pieces. See below
Princess Mary (jewellery) - just look at the link to her wedding gifts!

Does anyone have any other information about Princess Mary we could share?

pic

 

[Warren]

The Princess Royal remained very close and loyal to her brother after he became Duke of Windsor. It has been claimed that she was "forced" by her parents into an arranged marriage with Lord Lascelles and that the then Prince of Wales was against it.

There was also an issue in 1952 when Mary's second son the Hon Gerald Lascelles married. The London Telegraph wrote "The wedding in July 1952 led to comment: "... the fact that the Queen had excused herself at the last moment, blaming a cold, was construed as "a royal snub" by Time magazine, which pointed out that "cousin Gerry [was] never a royal favourite".

The current Earl of Harewood's fathering of a child out of wedlock in 1964 and his divorce in 1967 led to his estrangement from the immediate Royal Family.

Here's a picture...
The Princess Royal's diamond and sapphire Gothic-style tiara belonged to Queen Victoria and is now in the possession of the Earl of Harewood.
Princess Marina's sapphire parure has been remade and partly sold off. What remains is in the possession of the Duke and Duchess of Kent.

 

[snowflower]

Princess Mary (biog)
Also of interest is her jewellery collection - She had some very important pieces. See below
Princess Mary (jewellery) - just look at the link to her wedding gifts!


pic

Oh my God! Her personal jewelery could be used to built an entire collection for one the current Royal families! I always thought that it was just Queen Alexandra and Queen Mary, but it seems that most of the British Royals of those days had a , lets say, adequate collection

 

[Vasillisos Markos]

Hah! More than adequate, those jewels are simply marvelous. What a collection but I think that Mary was either uncomfortable being photographed or maybe uncomfortable wearing such jewellry. She does not look at ease in the photographs to me.

 

[IloveCP]

Mary looks so much like her niece Queen Elizabeth.

 

[Patra]

I think Ann and Zara resemble Mary.

 

[Roderick]

I think Ann and Zara resemble Mary.

Can see this too.

 

[ChantalC]

I agree with Patra and Roderick that Mary, Princess Royal looks like Princess Anne and her daughter, Zara. When I looked at the picture of Princess Royal in the beginning of this thread, you could see that she looks like Princess Anne.

 

[CyrilVladisla]

Princess Mary became Viscountess Lascelles upon her 1922 wedding. Even though she was Viscountess, did she outrank her husband, the Viscount, because of her title of Princess?

Harewood House is the family country house of the Countess of Harewood and the Earl of Harewood. It is located in Harewood, England. I highly recommend a description of the house at: www.harewood.org There are over 100 acres of gardens at Harewood. The family portraits include a painting of Edwin Lascelles, who had Harewood House built.

Princess Mary enjoyed working the model dairy that her paternal grandmother, Queen Alexandra, had set up at Sandringham.

Princess Mary was fluent in French and German.
​

 

[Ish]

British Royal women don't lose their status when they marry men of lesser rank. When Princess Mary married Henry Lascelles she didn't cease to be HRH Princess Mary, instead she became HRH The Princess Mary, Viscountess Lascelles. While she may have taken her rank from her husband when they were together (or not; I'm not certain on this), when without him she would have retained her own rank.

A similar thing happened with Princesses Anne and Margaret.

 

[An Ard Ri]

Funeral of the Princess Royal & a later Memorial Service 1965

Tribute To Princess Royal (1965) - YouTube

 

[CyrilVladisla]

In 1918 Princess Mary began a nursing course at the Great Ormond Street Hospital.
When she was the Countess of Harewood, Harewood House was used as a convalescent hospital during the Second World War.
Did Princess Mary perform nursing duties then?
​

 

[CyrilVladisla]

The Princess Royal went to Pathe House to see the film wedding of the Earl of Harewood.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4f-UnqiYKI

 

[Curryong]

In 1918 Princess Mary began a nursing course at the Great Ormond Street Hospital.
When she was the Countess of Harewood, Harewood House was used as a convalescent hospital during the Second World War.
Did Princess Mary perform nursing duties then?
​

I shouldn't think so. The family had moved out and were living elsewhere, I believe. The Countess was patron of a lot of charities and different organisations during the war including wartime canteens and Territorial units like the Women's Royal Army Corps (as it became after the war) which she went around the country inspecting.

Women in all royal families in the early 20th century were expected to take on a role in nursing organisations and Princess Mary took an interest in them later in life as well as during World War One, but that didn't necessarily mean walking around taking temperatures, giving out doses of medicine or dealing with bedpans! Nurses in World War 2 were very professional, and I don't think a short course at the end of WW1 would have cut it somehow!

 

[Katrianna]

Many Royal women took on nursing roles even in WWII. Marina of Kent was a nurse in WWII in London, while working under an alias. Nursing in WWI was just as complicated as WWII, perhaps even more because the conditions were primitive and medicine hadn't advanced until after the First World. Some Royal nurses did indeed take temperatures, handle bedpans and give medication, some assisted in surgeries and some even sutured wounds if a doctor wasn't immediately available. All nurses learned these things through Red Cross Nursing Courses and then hands on in the field because they had to. I don't think Princess Mary had those extensive duties, but she still experienced the horror of war injuries in her nursing. During WWII I think she supported many war and nursing charities and visited the wounded in hospitals of course.

I do have one question. I've read varying accounts of Mary's marriage. Some accounts have written that it was a happy marriage while others have written that Mary was the victim of verbal and sometimes physical abuse by her husband at times. I don't really know if the latter is true. Has anyone read anything to that effect? Thanks in advance.

 

[Curryong]

Well, of course there were all those rumours weren't there, that Lascelles had proposed to her after an unrequited love and for a bet at his club, and that Mary had absolutely wept buckets because her father George V wanted the marriage due to the Lascelles wealth and so forced her to go through with it.

I don't think any of that's true as I read in a biography of George VI that when Viscount Lascelles proposed Mary was so excited she rushed off to tell her mother straight away and they had trouble disturbing her father to tell him the news.

Earl Harewood addressed the rumours of a deeply miserable marriage in his biography and more or less said it was hogwash. Mary was shy, liked a country lifestyle, and the two of them, according to their son, had many mutual friends and interests in common. They both seem to have been rather unemotional stiff upper lip people, but I've never read any credible accounts of violence and misery.

Perhaps because Lascelles was a rather odd looking individual, a bit like a lugubrious bloodhound, and quite a bit older than Mary, rumours started to account for her marrying him.

 

[Denville]

I never have read anything to indicate violence etc. I've read one or two accounts that mary wasn't happy but it was unthinkable of course to separate or divorce. However, I'd be dubious. I am sure that George V never pushed her into the marriage, he loved her.. and I'd say that Mary was eager to marry. It wasn't that easy for Royal women to find a husband, once the foreign princes were off limits.. and foreign royals meant exile and loneliness.
I woudl agree, it was problaby a good enough marriage. They boht liked county life, horses and dogs, and they had their sons. Maybe not "wild romance" but a decent enough marraige.

 

[Denville]

Many Royal women took on nursing roles even in WWII. Marina of Kent was a nurse in WWII in London, while working under an alias. Nursing in WWI was just as complicated as WWII, perhaps even more because the conditions were primitive and medicine hadn't advanced until after the First World.
I do have one question. I've read varying accounts of Mary's marriage. Some accounts have written that it was a happy marriage while others have written that Mary was the victim of verbal and sometimes physical abuse by her husband at times. I don't really know if the latter is true. Has anyone read anything to that effect? Thanks in advance.

I suspect it is a bit exaggerated iwht some Royal women how much nursing work they actually did or whether they did much of the icky bits like bedpans and washing.. OTOH, they may not have had the time or opportuntiy to learn the more "scientific" stuff so the more basic tasks like bedmaking and washing and so on, were what they could help with...
Princess Alice of Battenberg, P Philips mother, helped to nurse in hospitals during the war, I Believe.. and I'd believe it that she was hands on and worked at the job..

 

[Countessmeout]

I am not sure if Alice worked as an actual nurse, but she did establish nursing circuits. She helped organize an orphanage, shelter and soup kitchens. She would go out after curfew to feed police officers send others, risking getting shot. Her and princess Nicholas (mother of princess marina of Kent) remained in Greece when the rest of the royal family were in South Africa during the war. They lived in a town house owned by their brother in law George in the heart of Athens. Alice used to fly to Sweden under the pretence of visiting Louise, to bring medical supplies back to Greece. Even over looking the protection of Jews which got her the honorific righteous among nations, she showed incredible bravery in her other work. Princess Nicholas's daughter living in the uk and married by then, also trained as a nurse and

 

[Denville]

I'm sure I've read that she worked in a hospital or at least in a sick ward in a camp or orphanage. And that when some Nazi dignitaries were visiting she put her hands behind her back and refused to shake hands with them.
She was clearly a very "social minded" person - in the sense of being into social welfare issues such as helping the poor, orphans etc.
And She showed great bravery in protecting Jewish people during the war...

 

[CyrilVladisla]

Princess Mary visited the County War Memorial Hospital in 1939.

 

[Queen Claude]

Get rid of Wallis Simpson for good! Edward VIII's abdication caused turmoil, not least among his own family. Now newly discovered letters from his sister, Princess Mary, reveal a shocking plan to prevent the marriage from ever happening

• King Edward VIII abdicated throne in December 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson
• Royal family members attempted to prevent the marriage from taking place
• Seen in letters belonging to Edward's sister Princess Mary that were hidden in the basement at Harewood House, Leeds

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...top-Wallis-Simpson-Edward-VIIIs-marriage.html

 

[Hallo girl]

Get rid of Wallis Simpson for good! Edward VIII's abdication caused turmoil, not least among his own family. Now newly discovered letters from his sister, Princess Mary, reveal a shocking plan to prevent the marriage from ever happening

• King Edward VIII abdicated throne in December 1936 to marry Wallis Simpson
• Royal family members attempted to prevent the marriage from taking place
• Seen in letters belonging to Edward's sister Princess Mary that were hidden in the basement at Harewood House, Leeds

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...top-Wallis-Simpson-Edward-VIIIs-marriage.html

There is a television programme on at the moment ' The Queens lost Family.. some of it based on these letters. Really interesting programme, some of it still relevant today