Frederick VIII, Queen Lovisa (Swan) and their family

[grandduchessella]

Welcome Tom! Always nice to find another fan of Queen Mary.  

It seems to me that May just pulled into herself since, as the eldest child, she pretty much was the only 'adult' in her family. Her mother especially was very warm and loving but she also wasn't much of a responsible person constantly having the family in debt and forced to basically ask family members constantly for money. If you look at QM as just an adult she can seem unsympathetic but if you look at her as the child she was she becomes more sympathetic. And her sisters-in-law (except Maud) and including her mother-in-law could be awfully spiteful and cutting about her--her appearance, her figure, her stiffness, her love of artistic pursuits, etc... George was the only remaining son and his sisters (esp Toria) and Queen Alexandra were very possessive of him and once he married became very jealous, even dropping in at all times (unannounced)  to York Cottage early in their marriage. Couldn't have been easy for such a shy person of Mary to get thrust into such an environment. I think she was capable of warmth to her children (certainly not a lot but not as icy as EVIII would have people believe, I don't think). She was very well-liked amongst her nieces/nephews on the Cambridge side (as was GV) and was VERY kind to her cousin Marie of Mecklenberg-Strelitz who had an illegitimate child. She and GV put themselves out on a limb to publicly support her (and bring QV to their side) and that probably helped save what was left of her reputation. How's that bluetoria?   (Plus I think she did have a dog at some point in her life).

Now as for 'Aunt Swan', I don't know about her childhood but from what I've read she doesn't seem to have many redeeming qualities. She deliberately stifled her children not from lack of understanding like QM but because of her strict piousness and rigidness.

[bluetoria]

 and was VERY kind to her cousin Marie of Mecklenberg-Strelitz who had an illegitimate child. She and GV put themselves out on a limb to publicly support her (and bring QV to their side) and that probably helped save what was left of her reputation. How's that bluetoria?  

 

In this alone, I see, perhaps, one redeeming quality In May...but beyond that, no...I'm sorry, I 'm just not convinced. (If even the Wales 'girls' found her dull...well that's saying something!) As a child I might have liked her...but beyond that...(& maybe it wasn't her fault but the swift change of 'affection' from Eddy to George - then for QV to say she never loved Eddy anyway - she just strikes me as a 'social climber' & one who, having climbed to the top, clung too her dignity too much!)
As for George V...my opinion of him just continues to deteriorate, not only for his sheer hypocrisy in his letter to Victoria Battenberg after the murder of the IF (which I ranted on about in the rescuers thread ) but also for his treatment of his children (even without Edward VIII's exaggeration - why, e.g., did King Geo. VI stutter? How did he feel about John?)...  
I know Marie Louise speaks very highly of them both (but then M-L does of everyone, doesn't she?) & I still can't accept it...
Oh dear (planks in my eyes, spotting splinters!  )

Thank you for trying

[grandduchessella]

Well, I still like GV (I must have a soft spot for cantakerous men, don't know why as hubby is complete opposite) and QM. Bertie probably stuttered because he was of a sensitive nature and his father's bellowing and teasing didn't help his nerves. It's difficult to separate modern ways and those of the time. Stutterers are still often misunderstood and teased so I can only imagine what it was like back then. It must've seemed Bertie was probably trying to twit them. As for John, he also seemed to lack understanding of his problems but seems to have cared for him and based on some photos and letters seems to have enjoyed playing with him (as much as any Victorian father of his day would've given the time & behavioral constraints). They apparently liked playing toy soldiers together.

As for their marriage, I like it. Yes she didn't love Eddy and QV could be VERY blunt (witness her remarks about her children's looks) but May seems to have accepted the match as much for duty as a chance to have a better life than she could've dreamed. She wasn't expected to make much of a match at all since she was very royal on one side (mother) and morganatic on the other (father). She was caught between the two. QV was a shrewd person and she would've never sanctioned the match (indeed she pursued it with an eye to a wife who would be stable and calm to balance out Eddy) if she thought May was a social climber or wouldn't make a good Queen. On the contrary, she had a very high opinion of her. George & May were apparently embarrassed at the idea of switching (but it worked well for MF & AIII as well!) and it didn't happen right off. In some of their letters (romantic ones at that) they express their feelings for each other and I find them very sweet. Even during Queen Louise's funeral when they were separated (as were NII & AF) he wrote daily to her which NII found very 'good'.

I think they were decent people with some serious character flaws but not mean-spirited and difficult to judge through modern eyes.

As for the Wales sisters--the 'dull' comment was just catty since May was way smarter and more cultured then them. Since they basically bullied and embarrassed her into silence, no wonder they found her dull. Talk about pot calling the kettle black!

[grandduchessella]

Back to Queen Louse:

Nicky to AF Sept 1898
'Aunt Swan looks more hideous and repulsive than ever, her hair in a straight grey line hanging over her eyes, some teeth fallen out oh! simply awful the poor thing! '

Yikes!  :-/

[bluetoria]

Are you a lawyer, grandduchessella?   You put up a good defence!
I accept that the Wales sisters criticisms were rather snide (& similar to their mother's about Thora of S-H).
I accept too that perhaps he wasn't QUITE so bad a father as may be supposed.
On the other hand I find their letters to one another almost as stiff as they themselves appear; even the 'romance' - if I dare use that word! - seems stilted...but then I suppose that's just different people.
It's George's hypocrisy after the Romanovs' murder I must dislike.
But, having gone on about that...and this...I shall stop now.   (Just venting my spleen before Lent!  

[grandduchessella]

Well, I have taken pre-law classes.    I still like GV and think he couldn't have possibly seen what would happen to the Romanovs. I mean, save for the Serbian murder of Draga and Alexander (?) no monarchs had been killed in a revolution since the French one--there were assassinations but no murderous overthrowing of monarchs. There was a lot of socialist anti-monarchial feeling in England, the Tsar adn esp the Tsarina were very unpopular (Nicholas since the 1905 'Bloody Sunday'). With AF even more unpopular, it's hard to imagine asylum there. If it could've been foreseen, WII probably wouldn't have let Lenin travel through Germany.  It may have been weak but I believe GV loved his cousins dearly and probably went into denial about the whole thing--even EVIII said he came to believe it was Lloyd George's doing. Hindsight is 20/20. I don't think he was hypocritical about it--his feelings of grief would've been genuine plus magnified by his own feelings of guilt.

I find their romance rather charming--I was re-reading Pope-Hennessey's bio on QM and there are several very nice letters in there from between the two. Queen Mary, apologizing for being so stiff would write that 'there is nothing I would not tell you, except that I _love_ you more than anybody in this world.' to which George replied about 'how deep my love for you my darling is & I feel it growing stronger & stronger every time I see you; although I may appear shy & cold'. Three days before the wedding George wrote that time had gone very quickly and 'I loved you then very much, now I adore you, I feel so happy that I don't know how to thank you enough for having made me so.' Even in 1911 he wrote that 'I thank God every day that he should have brought us together...people said I married you out of pity & sympathy. That shows how little the world really knows what it is talking about.' I think the thing that really got to my romantic nature when I was a teen (when I first read the bio) was the passage that stated that the morning of the wedding, as he was leaving for the Chapel Royal, GV caught sight of QM (accidentally) in the long hallway at Buckingham Palace. 'He swept her a low and courtly bow. This gesture she never forgot'. All I got on my wedding morning was a screaming fight with my hubby over the phone due to the fact that one of his groomsmen didn't show up and Bob wanted to re-arrange the processional!  

As to Aunt Swan, you said that how dull was Mary if the Wales girls found her--Mary once wrote that Louise was 'a good soul but a little queer in the head & very difficult to get on with as she is so stiff.' If QM, who admitted her own reserve, would find someone stiff, well....  

[grandduchessella]

I'll just have to keep working on you.    In the papers of the day, there was actually a lot of feeling against the Tsar even if it didn't necessarily trickle down to regular people. There were really horrible caricatures, etc of him and Alexandra and Rasputin that went around. Plus when speaking of the Tsarist government, the Tsar basically was the govt, unlike in England. It's like the Kaiser and Germany--he was the symbol (think most Britons blamed whoever was Chancellor? Most of the posters depicted a gruesome Wilhelm II). I guess I just blame (apart from the Bolsheviks of course!) Nicholas more than George for his predicament. He was warned in 1915-1916 of revolutionary forces gaining power and to make constitutional concessions and ignored it. I guess I just wonder why George somehow ends up more to blame than almost anyone for their deaths and why QM is penalized for being reserved and shy but not AF so much (she's just 'misunderstood'). QM actually had some suffragette friends even if she didn't actually agree with the cause--Mary Macarthur, a well-known early 'women's libber' and she bonded over war work and after MM's early death, QM stayed in close contact with her only child. I just think there's a lot more out there.  And I still think George's letters are sweet and probably more than a lot of women got back then. But I guess we'll agree to disagree. I still like George more than Nicholas though of course I feel SORRIER for Nicholas and his family. I just get exasperated with NII and some of his behavior and actions. I don't know much about his letter to VMH but it would have to be a consideration but one that would've worked out. I mean even after his death, people were squabbling about money in banks, etc... for decades. Was that his very first letter or a follow-up? Sure he didn't express himself well (better for AF to die with him, etc) but well-meaning people often blunder around at times of tragedy and GV was certainly not full of eloquence to say the least.  

Oh--I did find out QM did indeed have a dog. Her father apparently made quite a scene about her keeping her dog on a leash!

[bluetoria]

Oh you really are very patient & very persuasive.   I concede entirely about the romance - THEIR romance is really none of my business anyway.
Mary's connection with the suffragettes is entirely new to me (when I was about 12 I set out to learn everything about everything about the suffragettes! My interest has waned over the years, though I still admire them & Mary's reaction to the death of Emily Wilding Davison & her comments about Mrs. Pankhurst at the gates of BP are very patronizing)
But the letter & what I meant about the letter - I haven't changed my view but I will think very carefully about it all again & then respond! (With more thought & less passion!)
Thank you

[bluetoria]

I'm wrong. I'm judging them entirely on the basis of one mistake - & though I don't think as people I could ever take to them (to me they lack any DRIVE or PASSION) it's unfair to be so totally against them.
I still think he/we/the country should have taken the IF in. And I think George's cowardice led to his decision but I can't condemn him for being inhuman one minute & too human the next. So I yield, grandduchessella!
For now!

[grandduchessella]

Ah, my future career as a litigator is assured!    You are certainly entitled to feel however you want about them bluetoria. I just like to defend them as I've always felt an affinity for them for whatever reason. I certainly believe that the IF (the children at the VERY least) should've been allowed in but I try not to judge by hindsight. Just one of the tragic twists that seem to dog N&A. Their last year is just full of 'if onlys'. Maybe that's why I don't judge too harshly, there were so many times that things could've changed and it just seems like fate had other ideas for them.

[grandduchessella]

Back to Queen Louse:

Nicky to AF Sept 1898
'Aunt Swan looks more hideous and repulsive than ever, her hair in a straight grey line hanging over her eyes, some teeth fallen out oh! simply awful the poor thing! '

Yikes!  :-/

I don't know if this picture was taken around that time but she doesn't look _that_ bad.

[kmerov]

I think that she started to look really bad in the years around her being queen. I have seen some pictures of her from a state visit to Russia around 1909, and you do feel sorry for her.
Her state picture as queen is very kind to her!

[kmerov]

I have just been reading some letters from Alix, Minnie and Thyra to each other, in the first years of Lovisas and Freddys marriage. Lovias mother seems to have been getting on their nerves, and they blame her for many things. Alix calls her something like "a bastard of a b...." . Apperantly the queen of Sweden is jaloux on the danish family, and had spread some rumors about Alix...Quit interesting letters, regarding the danes and Lovisa...

[grandduchessella]

How interesting! Is that from the book of Alix's letters (in Danish  ) ?

[kmerov]

The book is in danish (!), but its about the hole family, and centered around Christian IX and Louise..
One of the letters from Thyra to Dagmar (my translation of course)."You could feel that the Queen was very jaloux here, she was scared that Lovisa would spend more time with Mama then with her, and because of that the unhappy Lovisa had to spend all time with her in her room, where she would only get yelled at"