Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark
GCVO GBE CI
(Greek:
Μαρίνα;
13 December [O.S. 30
November] 1906[1] –
27 August 1968), later Duchess of Kent, was the wife of Prince George, Duke of Kent, the
fourth son of King George V of the United Kingdom and
Mary of Teck.[2]
Princess Marina´s marriage was the most recent occasion on which
a foreign-born princess married into the British Royal Family.
In 1932 Princess Marina and Prince George, Duke of Kent,
second cousins through the descent of Christian IX of Denmark, met in
London.[5]
Their betrothal was announced in August 1934.[4]
On 29 November 1934 they married at Westminster Abbey, London.[8]
The wedding was followed by a Greek ceremony in the private chapel
at Buckingham Palace.[8]
The bride´s gown was in white and silver silk brocade, designed
by Edward Molyneux, and worked on by a team of
seamstresses including, at Marina´s request, Russian
emigrees.[9]
Her eight bridesmaids were her first cousins, Greek princesses
Irene, Eugenie and
Katherine, her
maternal first cousin Grand Duchess Kira
Kirillovna of Russia, Princess Juliana of the
Netherlands, her husband´s niece Princess Elizabeth of York, her husband´s
cousins the Lady Iris Mountbatten and Lady Mary Cambridge.[5][10]
The Royal School of Needlework made a
quilt as a wedding gift for Princess Marina and the Duke of
Kent.[11]
Following the marriage she became the Duchess of Kent.
The couple had three children:
The Duke of Kent was killed on 25 August 1942, in an aeroplane
crash at Eagles Rock, near Dunbeath, Caithness, Scotland, while on active service with the Royal Air Force. The Duchess, according to
royal biographer Hugo Vickers, was "the only war widow in Britain
whose estate was forced to pay death duties".[12]
During World War II, the Duchess was trained as a nurse for
three months under the pseudonym "Sister Kay" and joined the civil nurse
reserve.[6]
Princess Marina´s Private Secretary for many years was Sir
Philip Hay KCVO (1918–1986), whose wife Dame
Margaret Katherine Hay DCVO (1918–1975) was Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Elizabeth II and a granddaughter of
1st Duke of
Westminster.
After her husband´s death, the Duchess of Kent continued to be
an active member of the British Royal Family, carrying out a wide
range of royal and official engagements.[3]
She was the president of the Wimbledon All England Lawn
Tennis and Croquet Club for 26 years.[6]
Her first cousin Prince Philip, Duke of
Edinburgh, married her niece, the future Queen Elizabeth II.
In June 1952 the Duchess laid the foundation stone of the new St
Mark´s Church in Bromley, London, which had been damaged in the
war.[13]
In March 1957 when the Gold Coast (later Ghana)—gained
independence from Britain, the Duchess of Kent was appointed to
represent the Queen at the celebrations. Fifty years later, at the
50th Anniversary of Ghana´s Independence, it would be her son,
Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, who would be appointed by the Queen to
represent her.
In September 1966, when the British Protectorate of Bechuanaland
became the new Republic of Botswana, the Princess was appointed again to
represent the Queen at the celebrations. The main public hospital
in Gaborone, the new Botswana´s capital, is named
"Princess Marina Hospital".
She served as the first Chancellor of the University of Kent at Canterbury from 1963
until her death from a brain tumour at Kensington Palace at 11.40 am on 27 August
1968, aged 61.[3]
Funeral service for the Princess was held in the St. George´s
Chapel on 30 August.[14]
She was buried in the Royal Burial Ground,
Frogmore.[15]
Her funeral was the final royal ceremony attended by her
brother-in-law, the former Edward VIII.[16]
Prince George, Duke of Kent KG KT GCMG GCVO
(George Edward Alexander Edmund; 20 December 1902 – 25 August
1942) was a member of the
British Royal Family, the fourth son and
fifth child of
King George V and
Queen Mary, and younger brother of Kings
Edward VIII and
George
VI. He held the title of
Duke of Kent from 1934 until his death in a
military air-crash on 25 August 1942.
Prince George was born on 20 December 1902 at York Cottage on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk,
England.[1]
His father was George, Prince of Wales (later King
George V), the eldest surviving son of King
Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. His mother was the
Princess of Wales (later Queen Mary), the daughter of the Duke and Duchess of
Teck.[2]
At the time of his birth, he was fifth in the line of succession to the
throne, behind his father and three older brothers. As a
grandchild of a British monarch in the male line, he was styled
His Royal Highness Prince George of Wales.
George was baptised in the Private Chapel at Windsor Castle on 26 January 1903 by Francis Paget, Bishop of Oxford. Unlike many previous royal
baptisms, George was christened using local water, rather than
water from the River Jordan.[3]
On 12 October 1934, in anticipation of his forthcoming marriage
to his second cousin Princess Marina of Greece
and Denmark he was created Duke of Kent, Earl of St Andrews,
and Baron Downpatrick.[2][12][13]
The couple married on 29 November 1934 at Westminster Abbey.[14]
The bride was a daughter of Prince Nicholas of
Greece and Denmark and a great-niece of Queen Alexandra.
Princess Marina became known as HRH The Duchess of Kent
following the marriage. She and her husband had three children:
Both before and after his marriage, Prince George had a string
of affairs with both men and women, from socialites to Hollywood
celebrities. The better known of his lovers included banking
heiress Poppy Baring, socialite Margaret Whigham (later Duchess
of Argyll and involved in a notoriously scandalous divorce case),
and Barbara Cartland (who believed him to be the
father of her daughter Raine
McCorquodale).[15]
There were "strong rumours" that he had affairs with musical star
Jessie Matthews[16]
and Noël Coward,[17]
a relationship which Coward´s long-term boyfriend, Graham Payn, denied.[18]
The security services "reported that Coward and Kent had been seen
parading together through the streets of London, dressed and made
up as women, and had once been arrested by the police for suspected
prostitution".[19]
The Duke of Kent is rumoured to have been addicted to drugs,
especially morphine and cocaine, a rumour which reputedly originated with his
friendship with Kiki Preston,[20][21][22]
whom he first met in the mid-1920s. Reportedly, Prince George
shared Kiki in a ménage à trois with Jorge Ferrara, the
bisexual son of the Argentinian ambassador to Britain.[23]
Other alleged sexual liaisons were with the art historian and
Soviet spy Anthony Blunt and maharani of Cooch Behar, Indira Raje.[16]
In his attempt to rescue his cocaine-addicted brother from the
influence of Kiki, Edward VIII attempted for a while to persuade
both George and Kiki to break off their contact, to no
avail.[24]
Eventually, Edward forced George to stop seeing Kiki and also
forced Kiki to leave England, while she was visiting George there
in the summer of 1929.[25]
For years afterwards, Edward feared that George might relapse to
drugs if he maintained his contact with Kiki. Indeed, in 1932,
Prince George ran into Kiki unexpectedly at Cannes
and had to be removed almost by force.[26]
It has been alleged for years that American publishing executive
Michael Temple Canfield (1926 – 1969) was the illegitimate
son of Prince George and Kiki Preston. According to various
sources, both Prince George´s brother, the Duke of Windsor and Laura, Duchess of
Marlborough, Canfield´s second wife, shared this belief.[27][28][29][30]
Canfield was the adopted son of Cass Canfield, American publisher of Harper and Row.[31]
Early on the duke came to the opinion that the future lay in
aviation. It became his passion, and in 1929 the duke earned his
pilot´s licence. He was the first of the Royal family to cross the
Atlantic by air. Prior to his flying days, he
entered the Royal Navy, and was trained in intelligence
work while stationed at Rosyth.[32]
In 1937, he was granted a commission in the Royal Air Force as a group captain.[33]
He was also made the Honorary Air Commodore of No. 500 (County of Kent) Squadron
Auxiliary Air
Force.[34]
Just before war broke out he became an RAF Air Vice-Marshal
(approximately equal in rank to his Rear Admiral status earlier in
the Royal Navy). In a characteristic gesture, he relinquished that
rank in 1940 so that he would not be senior to more experienced
officers, becoming a lower-ranked group captain and, in July 1941,
an air commodore in the Welfare Section of the RAF Inspector
General´s Staff.[citation
needed] In this role he went on official
visits to RAF bases to help boost wartime morale.[35]
His death while in the service of the RAF marked the first time in
500 years that a member of the Royal family died in active service.
[36]
Prince George died on 25 August 1942, at the age of 39, along
with fourteen others, on board RAF Short Sunderland flying boat W4026, which crashed into a hillside
near Dunbeath, Caithness, Scotland, while flying from Invergordon, Ross and Cromarty, to Iceland
on non-operational duties.[37]
Well documented is the fact that handcuffed to the wrist of Prince
George was a briefcase full of 100 Kroner notes, worthless in
Iceland; leading thoughtful minds towards the possibility the
flight was a military mission to Sweden, the only place Kroner
notes were of any value.[38]
The Duchess of Kent had given birth to their third child,
Prince Michael of Kent, only six
weeks earlier. The Duke´s body was transferred initially to
St. George´s Chapel,
Windsor. He was buried in the Royal Burial Ground,
Frogmore, directly behind Queen Victoria ´s mausoleum,
and was succeeded as Duke of Kent by his eldest son, Edward.
