INTRODUCTION

HER STORY

QUOTES

She was meticulous, orderly and disciplined, kept a detailed diary and carefully listed appointments, tasks and catalogues of her possessions.

She had a particular love for English monarchial lore and could recite the royal lineage from Egbert to his remotest descendant in the time of Victoria.

She refused to use the telephone, for it was beneath the dignity of royalty. One ought to ring if one required something.

After attending a performance of the play September Tide, Queen Mary was taken backstage to meet the cast, headed by the formidable Gertrude Lawrence. After expressing her admiration, Queen Mary said she had found some of the words inaudible.  "Do you hear?" Gertrude Lawrence said, turning to her costars. "Now you've all got to speak up." "Not all of them," Queen Mary corrected. "Just you!'

Her hostility to ivy was a lifelong preoccupation. She took every opportunity to tidy up gardens, walks and fields by attacking any sign of ivy. Throughout the long, dark seasons of wartime, Queen Mary enlisted everyone on her personal staff-- ladies-in-waiting, secretary, guard and chauffeur-- in what became known as her Ivy Squad.

Queen Mary's wardrobe, which for the rest of her long life never advanced beyond the fashion of the turn of the century, was frozen in time at the express command of the King, who in everything-- clothing styles included-- had an absolute horror of change.

Field Marshall Jan C. Smuts of South Africa said to Mary at her granddaughter's wedding: "You are the big potato; the other queens of Europe are small potatoes."

When someone told her of a certain woman whose seven marriages had given her as many name changes, she said, "Well, I have had to change mine quite a lot: Princess May, Duchess of York, Duchess of Cornwall, Princess of Walles, Queen. But whereas mine have been by accident, hers have been by enterprise."

She never lost the slightly guttural German tint to her accent.

Her son George was always the Queen's favorite. He shared her love of collecting and her interest in historic paintings and antiques, and she frequently confided in him. But she must have been dismayed when she learned about some aspects of George's private life, although her reactions to the issue remain predictably undocumented. It is unlikely that she would not have known of George's love affair with Noël Coward (certainly not the last and perhaps not the first of his male lovers). George was doubtless aware of the King's belief that "men like that shot themselves," but never mind.

Mary had good reason to be gratified when there was a sudden change of plans for the christening of a new ocean liner, originally to be called Queen Victoria. Told by a Cunard executive that the ship was to be named for "the greatest of all English Queens," King George exclaimed with delight, "Oh, my wife will be so pleased!" And so, on September 26, 1934, the Queen Mary was launched.

Princess Margaret said that a visit with Queen Mary brought "a hollow, empty feeling to the pit of the stomach." There was good reason for her discomfiture, for her grandmother had often said to her as a child, "How small you are! Why don't you grow up?"

On the day her eldest son David married Wallis Simpson Queen Mary wrote in her diary, "Alas! The wedding day in France of David & Mrs. Warfield."

The decision to deny Wallis Simpson the style of Her Royal Highness was made in part at the insistence of Queen Mary.

A year after the abdication, she declared, in response to a question as to when her eldest son would return to the country, "Not until he comes to my funeral."

When David told his family that he was to abdicate, Queen Mary exclaimed in disgust, "To give up all that for this!"

After David informed his mother that he intended to marry Wallis, he asked Queen Mary to receive her, but she refused. When he required why, Queen Mary replied, "Because she is an adventuress!"

When her husband went into a coma, Queen Mary declared that she had no wish to prolong the King's life. A lethal dose of morphine and cocaine was administered.

Queen Mary's visits to her daughter-in-law, the future Queen Elizabeth, were always formal. On her arrival, she would be greeted by the Duchess of York and her two daughters, first with the regulation curtsy, then with a kiss on her right hand and finally with a kiss on both cheeks. The process was repeated when she took her leave.

Under protest, the 72-year-old Queen had agreed to sit out the war at Badminton House in Gloucestershire. She left Sandringham, heading a cavalcade of cars carrying her staff of sixty-three, plus their dependants, and over seventy pieces of personal luggage. For the duration of the war, this most formal and metropolitan of queens was to be subjected to all the unfamiliarities of life in the country.

The bulk of Queen Mary's wealth, which included her fabulous collection of jewellery, was left to Queen Elizabeth II. To Princess Margaret she bequeathed one of her favorite necklaces, a chain set alternately with large pearls and diamonds.

To the very end, the overriding concern of the magnificent old Queen had been for what she had always regarded as the most sacrosanct of institutions, the monarchy. Her final instructions had been that on no account was the Coronation of her granddaughter to be postponed because of the mourning for her death. Royal obligation must take precedence above all else.

Like her husband, King George V, Queen Mary was shy, inhibited, inarticulate and not given to any displays of emotion or affection.  Her relationship with her children lacked warmth and intimacy. Her first loyalty was to her husband: as monarch and as man, and in that order. "I have always to remember," she once explained, "that their father is also their King."

She had little understanding of her subjects' lives or daily concerns. Once, during a tour of run-down lodging houses in London's East End, Queen Mary, rather embarrassingly, reacted with great horror and thoughtlessly asked the huddled family whose room she was surveying, "Why, why do you live here?"

She harboured an intense dislike of both pregnancy and childbirth, which she once described as "the penalty of being a woman."

Years after the Abdication Crisis, her eldest son Edward was to declare, "My mother was a cold woman, a cold woman."

When the present Queen was a child, she and Queen Mary were out on an educational expedition when Princess Elizabeth started wriggling in her seat. Then Queen Mary asked if she would prefer to go home. Princess Elizabeth replied, "Oh no, Grannie, we can't leave before the end. Think of all the people who'll be waiting to see us outside." Queen Mary thought that was very unroyal and vulgar, so Princess Elizabeth was taken out the back with a lady-in-waiting, and home in a taxi.

Is reported to have said when her son Edward, the Duke of Windsor, abdicated, "Really! This might be Rumania!"

When the current Queen Elizabeth was 6 years old, a Minister of State, on encountering her at Buckingham Palace, greeted her with "Hello, little lady." "I'm not a lady, I'm Princess Elizabeth" came the snotty retort. On hearing of this, Queen Mary the following week marched the Princess into the presence of the Minister to apologize, beginning with "This is Princess Elizabeth, who hopes one day to be a lady."

Her famous kleptomaniac tendencies were indicated by the line, on seeing something she coveted, with "I'm caressing it with my eyes."

She was a shy woman, whose only broadcast contact with the people of Britain or her Empire consisted of the twenty-eight words with which she christened the massive Cunard liner that bore her name.

Bethrothed to Prince Albert, the Duke of Clarence who died shortly before their upcoming wedding. He has been accused of being Jack the Ripper but no proof of that exists. After his death, Mary ended up marrying his brother, George V.

Her mother was compassionate and an enormously fat extrovert who knew how to raise children. She was nicknamed Fat Mary.

The Queen Mother was short on Royal Jewels when Queen Consort because Queen Mary hung on to them all until she died, when they passed to the Queen.

Prior to receiving her in their homes hosts would hide their prized possessions given her propensity for expecting pieces which she admired to be offered as gifts. When caught out hosts could expect a van to arrive from Buckingham Palace the next morning to collect the gifts.

Was reputed to be a kleptomaniac, who would make hints about small pieces of silver and enamel, and if not presented with them as a gift would steal them!

Bought a large selection of the Imperial Russian jewels when they came on the market after the revolution.