May Queen

(See front cover)

Victoria ruled, Alexandra dazzled, Mary keeps house and home. George V has said: "You know, among ourselves--in the family, I mean--we never speak of 'Buckingham Palace'; we always call it 'home.' "

Compared to Mary the late great Victoria was a spendthrift. The present Queen Empress is the most economical housekeeper Buckingham Palace has ever had. She has cut the twelve-course Royal dinners which were standard before the War down to five courses. When that august Court functionary Sir Derek Keppel at first protested, Her Majesty said lightly but inflexibly:

"Oh, I shall not starve anybody! You may have six courses at the household table if you like. But at the King's table we shall have five."

Compared to Mary's the moral standards of Alexandra seem, almost lax. Clemenceau has said: "Edward VII . . . one day . . . invited me to a party where there were twelve women, every one of whom had been his mistress. . . . Nevertheless his wife . . . had great veneration for, him." The present Queen Empress is both a good woman and an indomitable influence for good. Last week the wives of the Delegates to the London Naval Parley twittered and chatted about her, then chatted and twittered all over again, comparing notes. For they had just had dishes of tea at the "home" of Her Majesty Queen Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes, Empress of India.

The parties a good woman gives are usually, and perhaps should be, dull. Everyone knows that Buckingham Palace is deadly dull, as dull as it was gay under . Edward VII. Point One: the Queen bade to tea only the wives of such members of the Delegation and Diplomatic Corps as had themselves been received by George V at levee. Point Two: the Queen, while graciousness itself to everyone, did not precisely enthuse Mrs. Henry Lewis Stimson (two of whose ancestors were May-flowerites) by chatting longest with another U. S. guest. Point Three: after the ladies had had their tea Queen Mary said a few last gracious words, then surprised her guests by walking straight at a wall consisting of a huge mirror in front of which stood a half table. Just when it seemed that the 62-year-old Queen Empress' eyesight must be failing, that she had mistaken the mirror for a passage, the whole contraption suddenly revolved, mirrored wall and table turning upon noiseless hinges, and Mary vanished into wonderland.

This disappearance is merely Queen Mary's way of retiring to her boudoir. To be put through by telephone to the Queen Empress' boudoir one must give first a private number to the central operator, such as "K. Rose." If one does know the number and combination, one is put through instantly. Thus it happened, in the Pankhurst days of violent "Suffragets " that Queen Mary received the terrible shock of answering her boudoir telephone and having rudely shouted at her: "Are you for votes for women?" The Suffragets had wormed the secret code out of Miss Constance Selby, the Queen's dresser, for whose ability to arrange tastefully a shop-window-full of diadems on the royal person (see front cover) Her Majesty had such respect that she did not discharge the wretch.

For a fairy queen who vanishes behind crystal doors, May might be a better name than Mary. And His Majesty does call Her Majesty "May." To all the world she was "Princess May," as many people have forgotten, until she became "Queen Mary" on May 6, 1910.

Strangely enough the last three queens of England have all known comparative poverty in girlhood. Everyone remembers that Alexandra was the daughter of a petty prince who by a fluke became King of Denmark, and that she used to scrimp and help her sister make dresses before the latter became the Tsarina Maria Feodorovna of all the Russias and Alexandra herself Britain's Queen Empress. But everyone does not remember a far more important fact: that in the same bedroom at Kensington Palace which Victoria the Great used as a girl was born Mary the Good, daughter of her first cousin, the Duchess of Teck.

Queen Victoria, with a sentiment typically "Victorian," never forgot the coincidence which linked herself with "Dear Little May," and some historians hold that this was uppermost in the old lady's mind when she decided that the blooming girl should wed the Heir of Britain.

The heir was not "Georgie" but "Eddy." At Cambridge this languid and effeminate prince was called by his fellow undergraduates "Collar and Cuffs" (the present Prince of Wales was "Pragger Wagger" at Oxford. An ejaculation which "Collar and Cuffs" could be depended on to utter in almost any circumstances was "Really!" in a particularly flat drawl. Nevertheless he, the Duke of Clarence, was definitely the favorite child of his proud mother, later Queen Alexandra. Possibly apocryphal but thoroughly typical is the following tale:

"Collar and Cuffs" had been told by Queen Victoria to propose to May and had languidly assented. Some weeks later the Great Queen asked him with some asperity why he had not done so. "Really!" exclaimed "Collar and Cuffs." "I had quite forgotten that idea. Really!" And languidly but respectfully quitting the Imperial presence, C.&C. went straight off to May, who accepted on the spot.

When poor C.&C. was swept away by untimely influenza, the Great Queen did not waver in her wish to improve on coincidence and make a queen of May. "Eddy" was dead, but "Georgie" was left. May should marry Georgie, decreed Victoria. But Alexandra was violently opposed. What--this girl who was supposed to be grief-stricken for Alexandra's eldest and favorite son--should she be allowed to switch her affections to No. 2? Was it decent? Was it right? In effect, should May be allowed to get away with it?

With all the strength that was in her proud soul, with all the ingenuity of a mother championing the dignity of her dead son, Alexandra tried to prevent the match between Georgie and May. But how could she succeed when against her were arrayed triumphant Obstinacy, personified by Queen Victoria, and triumphant Cynicism in the person of Alexandra's own husband, later Edward VII? It is reported on excellent authority that the Great Cynic laughed at his wife: "You are a sentimentalist, Alix, I am glad May is not. One in the family is enough."

The paradox of this, the double paradox, was that Edward VII to his dying day had a contemptuous dislike for May, and enjoyed humiliating her even when he was King and she Princess of Wales. On one occasion he commanded this good woman to accompany himself and Queen Alexandra to dinner with the late Lord (Baron Nathan) Rothschild, a person whom May considered "fast" and unfit to be even the guest of Royalty, much less its host. "Well, May," said King Edward when he triumphed on this occasion and took the good Princess to eat the salt of a wicked Rothschild, "I am glad you have not the face to refuse me."

But very few other people have ever bent the will of May. Her mother the late, tremendous Duchess of Teck-was never able to manage May, or even to see that the child was managing her. "May always does as she is told," the Duchess would beam, and this in a sense was true. But when told to do something she preferred not to do, May would become so sweetly silent and courteously sad that her sympathetic mother would try to cheer the poor child up by letting her do as she pleased.

"Ask May if she isn't so clever that she always gets her way," said the future King Edward VII once to May's father, the perpetually impecunious and twice bankrupt German Duke of Teck. The young girl turned on her tormentor with the indignation a magician feels when his best trick is unmasked. Sweetly, modestly she said. "I don't think I am at all clever, Sir."

In later years even Edward VII saw that despite her invariable obedience to his commands, May still almost always had her way. "It is so tiresome!" fumed His Majesty. "It is such a lot of trouble to make May do things!"

When King Edward was stricken with appendicitis, the Good Princess, if authorities are to be believed, exclaimed to her husband, who was on the verge of becoming King Emperor: "For your sake, George, I will pray that your father may live."

The last great cross but one which the Good Queen has had to bear was lifted by the death of King Edward's widow (TIME. Nov. 30, 1925). To the last the proud royal mother-in-law styled herself on engraved invitations, "The Queen," and to the last Queen Mary used the same engraver's weapon to remind Alexandra that she was only "The Queen Mother." Today there is perceptible coolness between Alexandra's favorite daughter, Queen Maud of Norway, and the Good Queen.

With the Queen Mother dead, Queen Mary went, after a decent interval, to Sandringham and unlocked two doors on which Alexandra had turned the key. In one bedroom everything down to the smallest shirtstud, was exactly as King Edward had left it. On the bureau in the other bedroom lay a little pile of coins, exactly as they had fallen 34 years before from the languid hand of "Collar & Cuffs." As the Great Cynic had observed, Queen Mary is not a sentimentalist. Up went the windows and with brooms, scrub brushes and finally paint her minions briskly obliterated all trace of Edward VII and C.&C.

Since then the latest trial which Her Majesty has magnificently borne was the long excursion of George V to the very brink of Death (TIME, Dec. 3, 1928 to July 15). Night and day she intelligently aided the doctors to save her husband, the statesmen to rule his realm. As presiding officer of a specially created Council of State she signed for His Majesty hundreds of state papers, among which the following Order in Council was not the least: "It shall not be lawful to import any hen or duck eggs in shell into the United Kingdom, nor to sell or expose for sale in the United Kingdom any imported hen or duck eggs in shell, unless they bear an indication of origin.

"The indication of origin shall be conspicuously and durably marked in ink on the shell of each imported egg in letters not less than two millimetres in height."

Today, with the health of His Majesty substantially restored, the chief worry of Her Majesty is, of course, Edward of Wales. Soon after he set out for Africa (TIME, Jan. 27), his mother went to see the African hunting film, Tembi. She sat through it tense and anxious. As the theatre manager bowed her to the royal motor, Queen Mary said: "I am very nervous at the thought of the Prince of Wales being near so many dangerous beasts."

Soon thereafter cables flashed that, while H.R.H. was getting on very well with the job of bagging beasts, he had caught a touch of malaria.

Shortly, Queen Mary set off in the Royal Daimler with trusty Humphreys at the wheel to inspect the new Prince of Wales's wing in Alexandra Military Hospital at Westminster. While there she made avery special request. Soon the hospital's best, most splendiferous and highest-powered microscope was trained on a fresh and potent germ culture. Placing her eye as directed, the Queen squinted into a microscopic realm where savagery holds lawless sway, stood face to face with the hungry microbes of MALARIA.

What were the Good Queen's thoughts? She said nothing, quietly motored home. Soon cables told that Edward of Wales had shaken off the malaria in record time, was again, last weekend, hot after bigger beasts.

* No woman ever carrier weight with better grace. Once when a charitable committee was debating whether a new staircase was needed for an orphans' home, H.R.H. amiably interposed. "There is no need. / have recently descended that staircase without accident."

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