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Born Mary Cecilia Leveson-Gower on 12th December 1917, Lady
Mary was the daughter of Lady Rose Bowes-Lyon and her husband,
William, 4th Earl of Granville. Mary’s mother was the elder sister
of The Queen Mother, and served as godmother to Princess Margaret.
This made Mary a first cousin to Queen Elizabeth, who is nine years
her junior.
As The Queen’s cousin, Lady Mary was filled with stories about Her
Majesty from the time when she was a Princess. In Sally Bedell
Smith’s book, Elizabeth the Queen: The Life of a Modern
Monarch, Mary recalls how The Queen “liked to imagine
herself as a pony or a horse. When she was doing that and someone
called her and she didn’t answer right away, she would then say, ‘I
couldn’t answer you as a pony.’ ”
In 1956, The Queen’s cousin married Samuel Clayton, with whom she
had two children, Gilbert and Rose. Lady Mary Clayton passed
away on the 13th February 2014. At the time of her death, she was
96 years old, perpetuating the longevity of Bowes-Lyon women, just
as The Queen Mother lived to be a hundred and one. Lady Mary is
survived by both of her children.
In attendance at her funeral was Her Majesty, who, earlier
that morning, had held an investiture ceremony at Windsor. She was
accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Beatrice, who
was representing her father, the Duke of York, and the Countess of
Wessex, who was representing herself and her husband, the Earl of
Wessex.
Photo credit: kev747 via photopin cc]]>
