George and Marina, Duke and Duchess of Kent, Part 2

She was wearing the tower like tiara that is now worn by Princess Michael of Kent. 

She was wearing the tower like tiara that is now worn by Princess Michael of Kent. 

Yes, but what happened to the necklace with triple rows of diamonds ?

Most likely sold in later years.

Most likely sold in later years.

How sad this loss of wealth in a family yet still reigning.

It is a gradual step. Just read the story on the Queen Mother via a new book on the Queen Mother. Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent should have been given a widow's pension, since the Duke died in the service of the country. Somehow it was never paid to her. The King gave some money to her (as well as Queen Mary), but it is not a pension nor on a regular basis. Given the Queen Mother's dislike of Marina, I wonder if she has something to do with that ?  As a result, the Duchess has to sell the collection of antiques her husband collected and those object of art (some Faberge pieces from her family) has to be sold. Later it extended to the jewelry she owned.

It is a gradual step. Just read the story on the Queen Mother via a new book on the Queen Mother. Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent should have been given a widow's pension, since the Duke died in the service of the country. Somehow it was never paid to her. The King gave some money to her (as well as Queen Mary), but it is not a pension nor on a regular basis. Given the Queen Mother's dislike of Marina, I wonder if she has something to do with that ?  As a result, the Duchess has to sell the collection of antiques her husband collected and those object of art (some Faberge pieces from her family) has to be sold. Later it extended to the jewelry she owned.

Indeed, in order to raise her children according to their rank, Marina sold many treasures accumulated by her late husband. Later, her financial situation was arranged following the legacy of Queen Mary left at her disposal. Then Queen Elizabeth II grant a civil list to her aunt.

Is there much evidence of active dislike between the Queen Mother and Princess Marina?

I think so, especially Hugo Vickers did indicated they were never close. The Queen Mother respected Marina but wasn't warm to her like the Duchess of Gloucester. It was natural since Marina did look down on "that little Scottish girl"...

Actually there was some problem between the QM and The Duchess of Kent.  Princess Marina had referred to both Elizabeth and Princess Alice of Gloucester as "those common little Scottish girls my husband's brothers married.  She always considered her family far more "royal" and was quite snooty about it.  My family is friends with her late hairdresser.  He said she was a very "snippy" woman and he gave the impression that he was not at all fond of her.  She was the only royal he worked on who he really did not much care for.

It is a gradual step. Just read the story on the Queen Mother via a new book on the Queen Mother. Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent should have been given a widow's pension, since the Duke died in the service of the country. Somehow it was never paid to her. The King gave some money to her (as well as Queen Mary), but it is not a pension nor on a regular basis. Given the Queen Mother's dislike of Marina, I wonder if she has something to do with that ?  As a result, the Duchess has to sell the collection of antiques her husband collected and those object of art (some Faberge pieces from her family) has to be sold. Later it extended to the jewelry she owned.

I don't think it needed any sinister intervention on the part of Queen Elizabeth that Marina did not have a 'widow's pension'.  She had no automatic entitlement to a civil list consolidated fund annuity, for which George VI would have had to go to Parliament to request, and in 1943 his principle Private Secretary, Sir Alan Lascelles, wrote "For the last few months the King has been urging that the Duchess of Kent's emoluments should be increased at the public expense.  Alec Hardinage and I both felt that this would be a disastrous move, and that it would be most unwise, at this juncture, to provoke a parliamentary, and public, discussion on the general subject of the royal finances.  Winston [Churchill, obviously], whose head is often ruled by his heart in such matters, has hitherto inclined to the opposite view, but I am glad to say that Kingsley Wood [Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1943], who came in today to communicate his Budget secrets to the King, reported to Alec that Winston was now converted, and sees that anything of the sort would be folly.  Apart from any political implications, it has always seemed to me an iniquitous proposal; the Duke of Kent was left the best part of a million by his father, and, granted that she has three children to bring up, and that taxation no doubt leans as heavily on his widow as it does on the rest of us, she surely ought to be able to jog along on what she's got; and if she can't, she has a number of very rich in-laws who could quite well help her without any embarrassment to themselves." Which is of course what they did.  'Tommy' Lascelles was shrewdly articulating what most of the government clearly thought and which the nation would probably have thought as well – seeking more money for the Duchess of Kent in wartime, rationed Britain, where there were widows whose husbands had also been killed (on purpose) in the service of their country surviving on a lot less than the Duchess of Kent could scrape up, was not going to appeal to public sentiment.  Immediate post war British voters, who turned around and voted out Winston Churchill and voted in a labour government, were also unlikely to be very sympathetic to the plight of the Duchess.  It was only in a much more prosperous country, on a wave of sentiment towards the new monarch, that Elizabeth II was able to allocate funds from an increased civil list at the start of her reign, to her aunt.
Christopher Warwick suggests in his joint biography of the Kents, ‘George and Marina’, that the Duke of Kent was under the impression that there was an automatic civil list annuity for royal widows, in which he was mistaken; hence his leaving his money to his children rather than make provision for his wife.

Prince George relaxed in 1934 :



And in full uniform a few years earlier :



Elegant and stately in any outfit.

I think it is unfair to expect Marina to keep up being a royal without enough money allocated to her. As a result, the Kents had to systematically sell all of their valuables from the estates left to them by the Duke, the bequests from Queen Mary and whatever they could get their hands on. Most writers feel an injustice had been done towards the Kents on her not have given a pension.

Countess Kate

I think you make the position very clear. Marina was only badly off in relative terms, and presumably her expenses in carrying out royal duties were met from the Privy Purse. This is essentially the income from the Duchy of Lancaster, and used to cover the costs of public duties for those members of the royal family not funded from the Civil List (apart from the Prince of Wales, who receives the income of the Duchy of Cornwall).

Ann

I think it is unfair to expect Marina to keep up being a royal without enough money allocated to her. As a result, the Kents had to systematically sell all of their valuables from the estates left to them by the Duke, the bequests from Queen Mary and whatever they could get their hands on. Most writers feel an injustice had been done towards the Kents on her not have given a pension.

I'm not sure about "most writers".  Christopher Warwick, whose biography was by no means hard on Marina, nevertheless wrote of her widowhood finances  that "when Marina was allocated a grace-and-favour residence at Kensington Palace [1954], she employed a permanent staff of eleven.....Until the mid-1960s, when it was sold in favour of a later and slightly larger, black model, the Duchess travelled everywhere by road in a deep-blue Rolls-Royce......throughout the twenty-six years of her widowhood, whether in.......Coppins or Kensington Palace, Marina continued to entertain in a style Prince George would certainly have recognised as his own.  She continued to make frequent private trips abroad; and as for clothers, though thorough in her costings......Marina's wardrobe continued to be replenished with couture outfits by designers such as John Cavanagh, Norman Hartnell and Victor Stiebel.  At her death Marina bequeathed a spectacular collection of jewellery to her daughter and daughter-in-law, with an extra provision for the wife Prince Michael would undoubtedly take at some future time.  While it is obvious that Princess Marina's wealth could not be estimated.....in terms of liquid assets, the comfort in which she lived and the style to which she had been accustomed since the time of her marriage suggest that she was not the penurious widow of popular legend." 

I think Sophia Watson, the last biographer of Marina indicated the situation best. "Most of her husband's money was in trust for his children, leaving Marina with almost nothing to live on" pg. 191. A sale was organized a year after George's death. She was able to sell her great Aunt Louise's furniture and raise 20,000 pounds. pg.192 "Marina paid low wages to her staff, borrowed dresses from designers, wear them for one evening and returning them. In March 1947, another auction raised 92, 341 pounds on furniture, silver, pictures and porcelain left to her by various aunts. In June 1962, another sale sold various object d'art that included most Faberge pieces." I don't think the Duchess of Gloucester or the Duchess of Windsor had to sell that much before their deaths. Both King George VI and Queen Mary gave her an allowance to keep up Coppins & provide education fees for the children.