One hundred years ago this month, the Royal Family was big news. In a country still recovering from World War One and negotiating the new social set up that had ushered in, they had become what they always were at their best. A focal point. And what was drawing everyone’s focus was the arrival of a baby.
Despite the lack of formal announcement, everyone knew that the wife of the second son of King George V was expecting a baby. What they didn’t know was that they were counting down to the arrival of one of the most famous Monarchs in history. On April 21 1926, a princess called Elizabeth was born in London. It was the royal news of the year. But around that were many other royal stories and we’re counting them down as the centenary of Queen Elizabeth II approaches.
A new royal author
Royals writing books, eh? Whoever would have thought it. On April 2 1926, the papers were talking about a possible new publication from a princess. There were few details and, it has to be said, a rather condescending look ahead from the Bournemouth Graphic. It informed its readers that Princess Marie Louise would be publishing a book on West Africa in the coming weeks, noting that ”although one of the most versatile members of the Royal Family, she is new to the role of authoress”.
The paper needn’t have worried. Princess Marie Louise, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, was generally successful at whatever she tried and she had tried plenty by April 1926. Born in Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park in 1872, her mother was Victoria’s third daughter, Princess Helena. Marie Louise had been married, had that union annulled and had taken up nursing, philanthropy and numerous patronages not to mention painting, enamelling and music by the time the Bournemouth Gazette started on her. The book turned out to be about her time in Ghana where she had helped establish a hospital.
A princess setting an example
However, Princess Marie Louise was also something of an example of a way of royal life still to come. She had taken on a wide range of duties representing King George V and Queen Mary, many of them charitable. Her life was a string of public engagements, a kind of template for the Royal Family that would be steered by the baby everyone was waiting to meet in April 1926.
On April 2 1926, The Scotsman reported that Princess Marie Louise had been the representative of the Royal Family at the traditional Maundy Thursday service, held at Westminster Abbey. The familiar traditions we know took place with 61 men and 61 women receiving Maundy money, one for each year of the Monarch’s age. However, there were more explicit nods to the origins of the ceremony which originally followed the story of Jesus washing the feet of his disciples. Although washing was long since gone, some of those receiving money at this ceremony carried a towel into the Abbey, in remembrance of that.
Royal love story captures imaginations
The women of royal families are, generally, much more interesting than the men and that proved true in April 1926, While poor old Princess Marie Louise was doing the heavy lifting in London, another royal woman was captivating attention on the continent. On April 2 1926, everyone was talking about Marie Jose.
Marie Jose, only daughter of King Albert I and Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians, was reported to be on her way to San Rossore in Italy where that country’s royal family was also heading. The Shepton Mallet Journal, carrying syndicated material, noted that ”according to a telegram from Brussels, the engagement of the Prince of Piedmont, heir to the Italian throne, to Princess Marie Jose, daughter of the King of the Belgians, will shortly be announced.”
Princess Marie Jose ended up marrying the Prince of Piedmont, Umberto, in 1930 and they would become King and Queen of Italy in 1946. Their reign lasted just one month before the monarchy fell and they went into exile. Their time together was unhappy and dramatic and played out against a rapidly changing world where no one, not even royalty, could count on things staying the same. In those spring days of 1926, Marie Jose was a picture perfect princess and a reminder to all those who might also hold the title that bring royal was far from an easy role.
