Esteemed royal biographer Hugo Vickers approves of Elisabeth Basford’s biography of Princess Mary, the Princess Royal and the Countess of Harewood. It’s praise indeed from someone with such a rich interest in the subject; after all, Vickers edited James Pope-Hennessy’s The Quest for Queen Mary on the subject of Princess Mary’s mother.
Princess Mary: The First Modern Princess is the first full biography of Princess Mary (b. 1897), the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary, who Basford argues redefined the role of ‘princess’ for the modern age. Ysenda Maxtone Graham, who reviewed the book in the Times , writes: ‘It’s easy to remember the eldest two and the (tragic) youngest two [Prince George, who died in a plane crash, and Prince John, who suffered from epilepsy], but the middle two can be a bit forgettable.’ Very true and hence why this biography has been a while coming. The research Basford has carried out is rigorous and unfailing, she has consulted previously unpublished letters, diaries and delved into the recesses of the royal archives to get to the truth of this relatively little known member of the Royal Family who she argues well deserves her moment in the spotlight. Hugo Vickers in the foreword rejoices: ‘At last a biography of Princess Mary, the Queen’s aunt – and a good one.’
What a life: Princess Mary was sister to two kings, King Edward (laterly the Duke of Windsor) and King George VI (the Queen’s father) and through her time on planet Earth would witness no fewer than six sovereigns (including the ascension to the throne of her niece, Princess Elizabeth, in 1953). Basford presents Mary as the ‘princess who redefined the role for the modern age’, paving the way for the likes of Diana, Princess of Wales, the Duchess of Cambridge and the Duchess of Sussex.
Basford writes: ‘Despite her Victorian beginnings, she strove to make a princess’ life meaningful, using her elevated position to help those less fortunate and defying gender conventions in the process.’ One of the hardest-working members of the Royal Family, she was known for her no-nonsense philosophy and lived a life characterised by ‘firsts’. As the first female chancellor of a university, the first female honorary General of the British Army and the first daughter of a monarch to train and work as a nurse. Living at the time she did (1897 to 1965), the wars were to have a huge impact on her life. Princess Mary was not able to experience her first season of coming out as a debutante due to the First World War – it was her idea that every soldier and sailor (2.5 million of them) should receive an embossed Princess Mary Gift Tin for Christmas 1914, containing cigarettes, tobacco, a pipe and a lighter. (An enormous feat, but certainly a worthwhile one.)
Thus in 1918 when she reached her twenty-first birthday, she asked her father for a rather unusual gift; to be permitted to train and work as a paediatric nurse. The King allowed it, ordering a carriage to take her to Great Ormond Street every morning. David (the future King Edward VIII) reportedly said it was ‘a shame she was not heir to the throne as she is far cleverer than me.’
Her marriage to Viscount Lascelles of Harewood House, made her Yorkshire’s Princess – it was a match that stood the test of time (despite the Viscount's 15 year seniority). He was joint Master of the Bramham Hunt, steward of the Jockey Club, a Leeds United supporter, freemason and an art collector. Maxtone Graham also writes that he had previously proposed to Vita Sackville-West (wife of diarist Harold Nicholson and creator of the gardens at Sissinghurst), but she had refused, reportedly writing in her diary, ‘He is not sympatico. Tall & not too ugly but he has a silly laugh.’
Basford argues that the recent Downton Abbey film portrayal of Lascelles as something of a brute scarred by post-traumatic stress from his time serving on the Western Front for the Grenadier Guards ‘couldn’t be further from the truth’ and his death in 1947 left Mary ‘utterly bereft’. Harewood House, where they moved from Goldsborough Hall (also in Yorkshire), was made into a treasure house akin to a Royal Palace with its triple-threat of Chippendale furniture, Capability Brown parkland and Robert Adam interiors.
Basford suggests that when she married in 1922, she could quite easily have retired from public life and retreated to the role of an affluent aristocrat’s wife (especially as they moved down the order of succession), but it was her strong sense of duty that ensured she would diligently continue her public engagements over the ensuing 40 years. Reportedly an ‘inveterate letter writer’, she kept in dedicated contact with her brothers. Her favourite was supposedly Prince Edward, and his abdication in order to marry the twice-married American socialite Wallis Simpson, left her torn between loyalty to her brother and the duty to the crown. She also wrote letters regularly to her poor epileptic youngest brother, Prince John, put away at an outlying farm.
She had two children with Viscount Lascelles, their eldest, George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood, married Marion Stein, an Austrian born concert pianist, which ended in divorce when he had a love child with another musician, Patricia ‘Bambi’ Tuckwell, who he then married. Marion went on to marry Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberal Democrat MP and stood loyally by him throughout the Very English Scandal (the drama between Jeremy and his gay-lover Norman Scott, televised in 2018 with a script by Russell T Davies).
Filled with never previously known information, this first full biography is the definitive read for this refreshingly forwards-looking, eternally good-willed and relatively little-known Princess.
Princess Mary: The First Modern Princess (The History Press, £20) is published on 5 February
