Elegant, haughty, and Queen Victoria's favorite. This was Mary of Teck, the queen who had a decisive role in the education of Elizabeth II and an exquisite taste for jewels.
The haughty and elegant demeanor that she shows in her photographs and her fabulous jewelry, which seemed to cover her entire body, define her figure, which was one of the most influential British royals in the first decades of the 20th century. María de Teck, Queen Mary, is today a blurred and old figure for the new generations, but her personality, disciplined and austere, was decisive in the education of Queen Elizabeth II. From her, he inherited her sobriety and her fabulous jewelry collection.
Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes was born on May 26, 1867, in Kensington Palace, near Buckingham Palace. Her parents were Prince Francis, Duke of Teck, and son of Duke Alexander of Württemberg, and Princess Maria Adelaide of Cambridge, granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
Who was Queen Mary of Teck before she got married
She was the first British princess whose first language was English, although she spoke it with a heavy German accent. But, despite being a princess by birth, Maria was only "Serene Highness" and she did not belong to the first line of royalty. It was a "very smiling" baby, according to Queen Victoria, who always had a soft spot for her. She received a strict upbringing, with a great sense of duty, and learned to be a strong woman and use her left hand to resolve all kinds of family conflicts.
Despite her lesser position in her family, Queen Victoria protected her and chose her as the wife of the heir to the Crown, her grandson Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, and Avondale, eldest son of the Prince of Wales. He proposed to her in 1891, and she accepted, although she was in love with the Earl of Hopetoun. Maria was 24 years old and accepted. But what could have been a happy time turned into a tragedy. Alberto caught the flu and, shortly after, contracted pneumonia. He passed away, in a few days, at Sandringham Palace, in 1892.
Despite her misfortune, Queen Victoria continued to believe that Mary was the ideal candidate for Queen Consort of England. After Albert's death, his brother George, Duke of York, became heir to the throne and, in 1893, also proposed to Mary, who was Princess of Wales from 1901 and Queen Consort, as George's wife. V, in 1910.
The wedding between the two took place, in 1893, in the Palace of St. James. From the beginning, they gave the image of a discreet and austere marriage. Maria was a cultured woman, a lover of literature and fun, but, according to the testimony of her son Edward VIII, who renounced the throne for the divorcee Wallis Simpson, she was a harsh, cold, and demanding mother.
Her fondness for stealing from her subjects and friends
María distinguished herself by her taste for jewels, gathering a fabulous collection, which passed, in most of it, to Elizabeth II. The image of her covered in diamond threads until shortly before her death became a symbol of her reign. However, Maria was of such austerity that she bordered on stingy.
She never bought fresh flowers, she reused the ones that Buckingham decorated when she had to go to dinner. And she developed a passion for collecting that almost turned into a form of kleptomania.
Perhaps the popular legend is exaggerated, but what she liked the most was acquiring new pieces and restoring them to enrich the trousseau of the Windsors. She was passionate about jade figures, enamels, agate elephants, and gold and silver tea sets. In the years of her reign, she added to the royal palaces more than 2,000 paintings, books, photographs, and art objects, including an important collection of semi-precious stones. She loved spending hours going through her residences, rearranging the decor.
This fondness for collecting and her extreme austerity come, according to her biographers, from childhood with financial difficulties due to the extravagance of her mother, Princess Adelaide, who liked parties above all and led a life extravagant. This made Mary a staunch saver. But she also made him develop a peculiar fondness for other people's possessions, which caused awkward situations in her circle. The anecdotes are innumerable.
Mary of Teck's serious kleptomania problem
She could come over and sit in a chair and if she said, "I love this chair," you had to give her the whole set. The host could not refuse. It is said that when she announced her arrival, families kept her possessions in the attic and removed the oldest furniture. It seems that she visited antique dealers in London and used to choose objects that she did not pay for.
Her passion for reusing and redesigning jewelry was also known. He collected legendary diamonds during his reign. He received, for example, the famous 158-carat Cullinan III diamond as a gift, along with the 63.6-carat cushion-shaped Cullinan IV. The last two stones in this series became a brooch that Mary bequeathed to her granddaughter, Elizabeth II, who fondly referred to it as "Granny's Chips."
She also commissioned designs that could be used in a variety of ways and had pieces disassembled to modernize them, even if they were gifts from Queen Victoria. Maria was widowed in 1936. She never understood the decision of her eldest son, Edward VIII, to abdicate for the love of a divorced American, one of the tragedies of her life. She passed away in March 1953, just ten weeks before Elizabeth II's coronation ceremony.
