The final self-effacing gesture of one whose lifetime's single aim, as Princess and as Queen, had been to serve the British Throne.

The New Year, 1953, was that of the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Queen Mary who drove out in Hyde Park in February to look at the stands being erected along the processional route, let it be known at Buckingham Palace that, should she no longer be there to attend the Coronation, this solemnity must on no account of mourning be postponed. This, we may think, was the final self-effacing gesture of one whose lifetime's single aim, as Princess and as Queen, had been to serve the British Throne.

J . Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary (1959), 620-1

Aunt Augusta's persistent view of France as a regicide nation

'I rather dread the next days as you can imagine,' she wrote to her aunt just before starting for France, 'it will all be rather difficult and unusual.' Although she did not, of course, share her Aunt Augusta's* persistent view of France as a regicide nation, Queen Mary was very much aware that this was her first state visit as Queen of England to a foreign republic. Some of her mother's greatest friends had been the Princes and Princesses of the exiled house of Orleans, and Queen Mary herself has always known and liked the Empress Eugenie.   

J . Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary (1959), 483

* Princess Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, 1822-1916

They were too often surprised by the simplest manifestations of childishness in children

Yet it cannot be denied that, between them, King George and Queen Mary manged to be rather unsuccessful and somewhat unsympathetic parents. They were too often surprised by the simplest manifestations of childishness in children. Why was their eldest son so 'fidgetty', so 'jumpy' as a tiny boy? 'David was "jumpy" yesterday morning, however he got quieter after being out, what a curious child he is', Princess May wrote when Prince Edward of York [Edward VIII] was scarcely two years old.

J . Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary (1959), 392

Princess May took a quite professional interest in anarchists

In common with every other member of a European Royal House, Princess May took a quite professional interest in anarchists. Nor was this interest an academic exercise: for she lived to know of several royal assassinations.

...

Princess May, like [Alexandra] the Princess of Wales, was in favour of lynch-law for active anarchists. Prince George considered 'hanging or shooting ... much too good for ... an Anarchist, they all ought to be exterminate like wasps'. 

J . Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary (1959), 237-8

Russian Grand Dukes made notoriously bad husbands

The old Duchess of Cambridge had begun to derive a genuine delight from her granddaughter's appearance ... and urged that she should marry the Grand Duke Michael Michailovich*, who was in London in the spring of 1886. this suggestion was strongly combated by the Duke of Cambridge** and also by [her father] the Duke of Teck, the latter stating categorically that he would not be a party to 'sacrificing his child', that Russian Grand Dukes made notoriously bad husbands, that Russia was a horrid country and and the Russians were 'our enemies'.

J . Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary (1959), 166-7

* Grandson of Nicholas I, 1861-1929
** Prince George, 2nd Duke of Cambridge, 1819-1904

I wonder what it's thinking? Nothing at all of course, stupid little thing

Princess May was never maternal. Showing Juliet one of the babies in its cot she once remarked: 'I wonder what it's thinking? Nothing at all of course, stupid little thing.'

....

In a later, earnest and somewhat pathetic conversation the Duke [of Gloucester] related that the biggest compliment his mother ever paid him, and which delighted him, was at her second tour of inspection at Barnwell Manor, after his alterations: she turned to him and said, 'Well, Harry, I would never have thought you could make this house habitable, but you have'. High praise, he indicated.


J. Pope-Hennessy, The Quest for Queen Mary, ed. H. Vickers (2018), 138, 200

The list of Queen Mary's lack of interest in small children is extensive. These were my favourites.

There in the shelter sat Queen Mary perfectly dressed with her pearls, doing a crossword puzzle

During the first air-raid a message was sent to the Duchess [of Beaufort] that the Queen was in the reinforced shelter and wished her to come down. 'It was a mistake of course, she hadn't sent for me at all. Well there I was in the middle of the night, with my hair all anyhow and in a filthy old dressing gown; and there in the shelter sat Queen Mary perfectly dressed with her pearls, doing a crossword puzzle.

J. Pope-Hennessy, The Quest for Queen Mary, ed. H. Vickers (2018), 324

And you say I can't give a blessing because the Archbishop of Liverpool is present?

'You can't expect me  to like all the propaganda about "getting England back for the Faith"? How could I? At Westminster they always go on about their feelings being hurt, but I said to one of them (over the Hungarians at the Albert Hall) don't you suppose I've  got any feelings to hurt? Here I am, in my country, head of my country's church, and you say I can't give a blessing because the Archbishop of Liverpool is present? They saw the point.

J. Pope-Hennessy, The Quest for Queen Mary, ed. H. Vickers (2018), 226

It's a tendency of all our royal family. They came from the continent you see.'

[JP-H:] 'I understand there is what is called a High Church and a Low Church. Now the Duchess of Teck was Low Church, and hated anything that "smacked of ritualism" and they all though going to mass in Florence (which they often did to hear the  singing) was mummery.'

[Archbishop Fisher:] 'Do you know Lady Cynthia Colville?'

'I know her well. But she  is very High Church I believe.', A

'That's what I mean. She could tell you, because she isn't Low Church. Now let me see, yes, Queen Mary was what you would call Low Church, it's a tendency of all our royal family. They came from the continent you see.'

....

Take Princess Margaret now, she understands doctrine - knows what it's all about. In fact Princess Margaret is a thoroughly good churchwoman.'

...

He took me out into the passage and promised to read the doctrinal passages in my proofs.

J. Pope-Hennessy, The Quest for Queen Mary, ed. H. Vickers (2018), 222-3, 224, 227

A good deal of is time is spent not listening

[Henry, Duke of Gloucester] He is not at all the stupid man he is thought to be. He simply works on a different system to most ordinary people. He has, to begin with, the royal trait of expecting you to know what he is thinking about, and tosses out apparently irrelevant remarks at intervals which you have to catch ad return like longstop in cricket. He treats himself as if he were somebody else, e.g., coming down to Sunday breakfast: 'I'm sorry to say this wind is going to make me very cwoss and irritable today, very cwoss and irritable I'm afraid.' A good deal of is time is spent not listening.

J. Pope-Hennessy, The Quest for Queen Mary, ed. H. Vickers (2018), 187-88

The private chapel of a family of ailing megalomaniacs

[The chapel at Sandringham] Not, as the books say, like an ordinary country church in the least, but more like the private chapel of a family of ailing megalomaniacs: the shrine of a clique.

....

To sum up: this is a hideous house with a horrible atmosphere in parts, and in others no atmosphere at all. It was like a visit to a morgue, and everywhere were their [i.e., royal family] faces, painted, drawn or photographed: few pictures not directly related to themselves: ... Almost monastic in its seclusion with the added safety that where a monastery would have religious paintings they lived with nothing higher than paintings of themselves.

J. Pope-Hennessy, The Quest for Queen Mary, ed. H. Vickers (2018), 94, 100