Mary of Teck was queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions and Empress consort of India as the wife of King George V.
Although technically a princess of Teck, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, she was born and raised in the United Kingdom. Her parents were Francis, Duke of Teck, who was of German extraction, and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, who was a granddaughter of King George III. She was informally known as "May", after her birth month.
At the age of 24, she was betrothed to her second cousin once removed Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, but six weeks after the announcement of the engagement, he died unexpectedly during an influenza pandemic. The following year, she became engaged to Albert Victor's only surviving brother, George, who subsequently became king. Before her husband's accession, she was successively Duchess of York, Duchess of Cornwall, and Princess of Wales.
As queen consort from 1910, she supported her husband through the First World War, his ill health, and major political changes arising from the aftermath of the war. After George's death in 1936, she became queen mother when her eldest son, Edward VIII, ascended the throne; but to her dismay, he abdicated later the same year in order to marry twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson. She supported her second son, George VI, until his death in 1952. She died the following year, during the reign of her granddaughter Elizabeth II, who had not yet been crowned. Wikipedia
“Well, Mr. Baldwin, this is a pretty kettle of fish!”
Statement to Stanley Baldwin during the abdication crisis. (1936) <br class="br">Quoted by James Pope-Hennessy in Queen Mary, 1867-1953 http://books.google.com/books?id=Cos4AAAAIAAJ&q=%22Well+Mr+Baldwin%22+%22this+is+a+pretty+kettle+of+fish%22&pg=PA575#v=onepage (1959).
“Really! This might be Roumania!”
Of the Abdication Crisis, 1936.
James Pope-Hennessy, Life of Queen Mary (1959), ch.7., ii.
