Darling Georgie (13 page)

As the fiancée of the late Prince Eddy, Princess May found herself in the company of the Waleses, in the first instance at Osborne, the Isle of Wight home of Queen Victoria, then at White Lodge, Richmond, and later – at the suggestion of Princess Mary Adelaide – at Compton Place, the home of the Duke of Devonshire. Princess Mary Adelaide was at first aghast that her plan to marry her daughter off to Queen Victoria’s grandson, so that she might restore her family’s credibility and perhaps its fortune,
had come to nought. But she was pleased that the Waleses had taken her daughter under their wing. In a letter to his sister Princess Amelie of Teck (the Countess von Hugel) the Duke of Teck wrote with some satisfaction that ‘May has become the child of the Waleses, I foresee that she will be much taken up with them.’

With the death of Prince Eddy, Prince George became the heir apparent. The Teck family, the Wales family and almost the entire country realized that the logical outcome for all concerned would be for Prince George to marry Princess May. Neither of the two young people concerned, however, was ready to consider this possibility. Both were still grieving, and neither had romantic feelings for the other. Queen Victoria was insistent, however, that the time had come for her grandson to marry. There were few Princesses of the Blood Royal available and it was essential that Prince George have children as soon as possible. The Queen was concerned that he had not as yet made a complete recovery from the typhoid fever from which he had suffered just before his brother’s death. He had lost weight and was not sleeping. The Queen knew that if George, too, failed to come to the throne, the next in line would be Princess Louise, his eldest sister, a scatterbrained young woman who was married to a commoner (the Duke of Fife) and who, to make matters worse, had only one child, a daughter.

At Eastbourne Princess May was gradually getting to know Prince George. It irritated her that he was unable to discuss anything other than his relationship with his brother and spoke constantly to her of Prince Eddy, referring to him as his ‘darling boy’. Because he had not previously had a sexual partner, Prince George may have envied his brother’s successes, and there is perhaps some Freudian significance in his inheritance of his brother’s pen, which he was to use for all his correspondence for the rest of his life.

Queen Victoria continued to impress upon her grandson the importance of marrying as soon as possible. Prince George had barely recovered from his illness and was still in deep mourning for his brother when, in her Birthday Honours of 23 May 1892, it was announced that ‘The Queen has
been graciously pleased to confer the dignity of a Peerage of the United Kingdom upon His Royal Highness Prince George of Wales, KG, by the name, style and title of Duke of York, Earl of Inverness and Baron Killarney’. Had it been Queen Victoria’s intention gradually to involve Prince George in affairs of state preliminary to marriage (and eventually the throne) she was not immediately successful. Having attended some dinners with politicians and made an appearance in the House of Lords which made him anxious, Prince George resumed his naval career.

Princess May was encouraged by her parents to resume her social life as soon as possible. Still feeling bereaved at the sudden loss of her fiancé, however, she found it difficult, like Prince George, to focus her thoughts on anything other than Prince Eddy’s death. Nothing seemed to distract her. The winter appeared to be exceptionally cold and she felt lonely. She was isolated from a life-style which, encouraged by her ambitious mother, she had been looking forward to but which, sadly, had not materialized. Only two months earlier her spirits had been high. The disappointment was too much for her to bear. She was grieving not only for something she had never had but for a man she had scarcely known. In February 1892 Princess Mary Adelaide, well aware of her daughter’s grief, and knowing that Prince Edward and Princess Alexandra and their family would be at Cap Martin in the South of France, contrived an invitation to a villa in Cannes belonging to Lady Wolverton, a wealthy friend. The Duke and Duchess of Teck and their family at once accepted.

Although Princess May was pleased to be out of England and distanced from the sad events of the previous January, she continued to reflect on her loss and hoped for a distraction that would allow her to get on with her life. Writing to her former governess Mademoiselle Bricka on 24 March 1892 she asked her to ‘write [me] one of yr
clever
letters & tell me of anything interesting
qui se passe
in the scientific, thinking world, here I hear too much gossip & one is inclined to sleep, tho’ this must
not
happen to me, so I read as much as possible … I moralise a good deal to myself but this doesn’t help much – When I see people chaffing each other, talking in a flighty way, I think of the tragedy of 2 months ago
& wonder how can they go on like this when there is so much sadness in the world, quite forgetting that they have not suffered as I have & do suffer.’ Princess May’s sad outpouring of feeling continued: ‘Sometimes I feel rather miserable & it does me good to talk out my feelings to so sympathetic an ear as yours … When I am alone I feel the loneliness, some vague dream of something pleasant having passed out of one’s life for ever.’ The sadness of loss was soon to be replaced by the happiness of gain. Unbeknownst to Princess May, within a few days of the Tecks’ arrival in Cannes, fate and destiny combined to rewrite history. At Cap Martin, a few miles east of Cannes, Prince Edward and Princess Alexandra arrived with Prince George and their family.

After a decorous interval of three weeks Prince George wrote to Princess May suggesting that they dine together since he and his father were proposing, during the next few days, to visit Cannes on the Royal Yacht
Nerine.
He ended his note by confiding in the Princess the news that ‘we are going to stay at a quiet hotel, only don’t say anything about it. The others will remain here … Goodbye dear “Miss May” … ever yr very loving old cousin Georgie.’

When Princess May received Prince George’s letter she might well have been struck by its probably unintentional conspiratorial tone. Believing themselves invisible – perhaps because they were beginning to have eyes only for each other – the two cousins strolled along the promenades and through the street markets of Cannes, mildly surprised when they were not only recognized but sometimes presented with flowers, purchased in the local flower market by passers-by. With a freedom scarcely imaginable today, the young royal couple were able to spend a few days out and about, either in Cannes or on a return visit in Cap Martin. In the hothouse atmosphere of two expectant families, each pressing for a satisfactory conclusion to the friendship of their children, the relationship began to flourish.

Prince George and Princess May had much in common. Both had mothers who showered them with tokens of their affection: Princess Alexandra with her many and eloquent letters expressing her undying love
for her son, Princess Mary Adelaide with the finery she occasionally lavished on Princess May. These priceless symbols of love (which were to furnish the libraries and illuminate the showcases of posterity) had similar effects on both Prince George and Princess May. Like the favourite toys of childhood, the letters and the jewellery became treasured transitional objects. They were never relinquished by either of the recipients who were condemned to search in vain for the ‘hands-on’ relationship not only denied them by their mothers but by their fathers who had admired their children from the sidelines and cheered them on but who had seldom joined in the game.

Children who at a crucial time in their development are cheated of their birthright by parents who, through no fault of their own, are sometimes otherwise engaged become angry children. Prince George and Princess May were so deceived by the ‘pseudo-love’ they had both received from their parents that they were unable to give vent to their angry feelings towards them. Repressed anger may lead either to depression or to a self-righteous assault upon others who are more easily able to express their anger, sometimes violently, and who, perhaps in order to redress the wrongs of childhood, may even take the law into their own hands.

In 1898 an anarchist, whose hatred of crowned heads of state was possibly equalled only by his hatred of the uncrowned head of his own family, stabbed the Empress of Austria to death in Geneva with a file. Following this outrage an extraordinary account of the feelings of the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, her niece, Princess May, and her niece’s husband, Prince George, were committed to paper. Aunt Augusta wrote to Princess May in 1900 outlining her strategy to rid the world of the anarchists: ‘My plan would be, to forbid and close all meetings, Associations, and to muzzle the Press entirely, then, take up every man or woman, expressing anarchist views, have them flogged daily, and if decided murderers, have them tortured then blown off from a Gun.’ Princess May expressed herself in favour of lynch law for active anarchists and Prince George was in favour of ‘exterminating all anarchists like wasps’, ‘since hanging or shooting was
much too good for them’. Later, as King George V, he told the future Lord Justice Goddard while conferring a knighthood on him at Buckingham Palace in 1932 that he should not hesitate to sentence violent prisoners to be flogged. The Royal Prince and Princess, both denied love as children, may have unconsciously empathized with – but consciously disapproved of – the rage of those whose inner world was so disadvantaged that they rose up against authority. Although they believed themselves to have been nurtured in a loving environment, they confused the written expression of love and the material wealth they had been given with parental care and attention. They not only therefore identified with authority but passed their faulty nurturing on to their own children, thus unwittingly perpetuating paternalistic tyranny.

As the summer of 1892 came and went Princess May and Prince George became increasingly companionable. No hint of romance passed between them. As yet they felt themselves bound together only by kinship and by the death of Prince Eddy. Princess May and her parents arrived back at White Lodge after their holiday in the South of France which was then followed by a dutiful visit to their German relatives. At the end of the year the Prince and Princess found themselves together again at Sandringham to celebrate the birthday of Princess Alexandra on 1 December. Two days later the anniversary of Princess May’s engagement to Prince Eddy brought the enforced gaiety to an end. The inspection of the memorial window dedicated to Prince Eddy at Sandringham Church brought Prince George and Princess May together again briefly before Princess May’s return to White Lodge for Christmas.

Prince George and Princess May could hardly be unaware that they were expected by their families to consider each other as prospective marital partners. Prince George, as always, did what was expected of him and sent Princess May a brooch for Christmas, a gift ‘close to her heart’. Princess May sent Prince George a pin. They each wrote and received polite and rather guarded thank-you letters. On 14 January 1893 the year of mourning for Prince Eddy came to an end and his shadow began to recede.

Princess May now felt free to allow herself to think of Prince George
not as a cousin, nor as a stand-in for his late brother, but as an individual in his own right. What she saw was a man of her own height, with fair hair and blue eyes, lively in disposition but short on conversation. He would become animated only when the subject of shooting was broached or when he was demonstrating a brand of humour more cutting than amusing, which concealed the rage buried within him. Princess May knew that she was better educated than her cousin and, his years touring the Empire in the Navy notwithstanding, more worldly. She sensed Prince George’s lack of ease and his total lack of experience in the ways of the opposite sex. While she knew herself to be equally naïve, her cultural interests had imbued her with at least some knowledge of romantic love derived from her reading. While she could not envisage Prince George as a Prince Charming who would sweep her off her feet, she knew that marriage to him might provide her with a framework from within which a more realistic relationship could develop.

Prince George’s mother was ambivalent about relinquishing her ‘Georgie dear’ to another woman. While Princess Alexandra wanted him to marry, she was less concerned about gaining a daughter (she already had three of her own) than about losing her beloved son. Events overtook the reluctant trio, however, and on a visit to Sheen Lodge, the home of his sister Princess Louise, Prince George allowed himself to be pushed into the garden to propose marriage to his cousin Princess May. Princess Alexandra had already made her views known to her son in a letter a few weeks earlier. She reminded him that ‘there is a bond of love between us, that of mother and child, which nothing can ever diminish or render less binding – and nobody can, or shall ever, come between me and my darling Georgie boy’. While she had to accept that she must give up her son to another woman, she made sure that he knew he was expected to remain faithful to his mother for ever.

Princess May accepted her cousin Prince George’s proposal and Queen Victoria immediately gave her consent. She wrote to her grandson telling him ‘how thankful I am that this great and so long & ardently wished for event is settled & I gladly give my consent to what I pray may be
for your happiness and for the Country’s good. Say everything affectionate to dear May, for whom this must be a
trying moment
full of such mixed feelings. But she cannot find a
better
husband than you and I am sure she will be a good, devoted and useful wife to you.’ If Prince George felt, as he did when he was banished from home as a child, that he was on his own and now expected to fend for himself, he might have been comforted by the fact that his future wife was at least expected to be ‘useful’ to him. He had done what was expected of him. He would fulfil his duty to Crown and Country. He would remain faithful to his mother and at the same time would acquire a companion who would look after his interests. He now felt free to devote himself to his other passions, shooting and stamp-collecting.