Royal Wedding Special -- Installment One -- Princess Marina

 

H.R.H. Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, in 1940, "whose nobility was printed on features of the utmost refinement" -- Harold Acton  (photograph by Dorothy Widing)

          In view of the imminence of next week's royal wedding in Great Britain, I thought I would offer my acknowledgment of the grand event here by posting an excerpt or two from Sophia Watson's highly interesting, entertaining, and at times very moving 1994 biography of Great Britain's much-beloved Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent (1906-68), the great-great aunt of Prince William, to whom she is related through both Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh.

  

H.R.H. Prince George, Duke of Kent, 1920s by Paul Tanqueray

       Born Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, the glamorous wife (and then young and lifelong war widow) of the somewhat tragicomic Prince George (Duke of Kent and younger brother of Kings Edward VIII and George VI), Princess Marina's and Prince George's November 29, 1934 wedding ceremony at Westminster Abbey was the first royal wedding to be broadcast live over radio throughout Europe, which The Times' wireless correspondent described as an "unparalleled technical feat" on the part of the BBC.  

  

The Duke and Duchess of Kent, October 1934 (photogravure after Dorothy Widing)

          Sophia Watson describes Princess Marina's background as follows in her introductory chapter, "The World Into Which Marina Was Born":

"Marina of Greece was in fact anything and everything but Greek.  Her mother, Grand Duchess Helen and paternal grandmother, Queen Olga, were Russian.  Her paternal grandfather, George I of Greece was born Danish and her maternal grandmother was a German duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.   Yet her father, Prince Nicholas of Greece, had been brought up to regard himself as Greek and, as the historian C.M. Woodhouse declares, ‘the only practicable definition of a Greek is that he is somebody who thinks he is a Greek.’  To that extent Marina was a Greek until the day she died.

Royal Palace in Athens, 1920s

          Prince Michael of Greece wrote:

‘The Greek royal family is the fruit of an unlikely union, a union between the descendants of Vikings with those of antiquity and Byzantium.  Yet, as frequently occurs in such odd alliances, the result has been, and still remains, a happy one.  Although we did not start in Greece we belong to Greece.  Unless one speaks with a racial bias, Greekness does not imply membership in an ethnic group.  On the contrary, it always used to mean (and, I like to think, it still does mean) partaking in a certain spiritual outlook, religion and language; sharing a common body of knowledge and appreciation of a way of life.’

          Greece has had a troubled recent history, and to understand its ups and downs one must look further back than Marina’s immediate family.  Throughout the centuries boundaries changed and different nationalities emigrated to Greece, adding their blood and cultures to the ancient Hellenic race.  Despite, or because of, their mixed blood the Greeks are a fiercely patriotic breed."

Concert at the Royal Palace in Athens, 1907 

        During the course of her 62 year life, in addition to her many royal engagements and duties, and her service as the longtime president of the All England Tennis and Croquet Club in Wimbledon, Princess Marina was awarded the following official honors:

British Honours 

CI:  Companion of the Order of the Crown of India

GCVO:  Dame Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order

GBE:  Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire

GCStJ:  Dame Grand Cross of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem

Royal Family Order of King George V

Royal Family Order of King George VI

Royal Family Order of Queen Elizabeth II

Foreign Honours

Greece: The Order of St. Olga and St. Sophia, 1st Class

Greece:  Grand Cross of the Order of Beneficence

Mexico:  Grand Cross of the Order of the Aztec Eagle

Peru:  Grand Cross of the Order of the Sun of Peru

Chile:  Grand Cross of the Order of Merit

Brazil:  Grand Cross of the Order of the Southern Cross

Argentina:  Grand Cross of the Order of Liberator San Martin

Honorary Military Appointments:

Colonel-in-Chief of The Kent Regiment

Colonel-in-Chief of The Queen's Own Royal West Kent Regiment

Colonel-in-Chief of The Dorset Regiment

Colonel-in-Chief of  The Essex and Kent Scottish Regiment

Colonel-in-Chief of The Devonshire and Dorset Regiment

Colonel-in-Chief of  the Corps of Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers

Colonel-in-Chief of The Queen's Regiment (Allied)

Honorary Colonel of the Buckinghamshire Battalion, The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry 

Honorary Colonel of the 4th Battalion, The Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry

Honorary Colonel of the 431 LAA Regiment RA

Honorary Colonel of the 299th (Royal Buckinghamshire Yeomanry, Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars, and Berkshire) Field Regiment, RA

Honorary Colonel of the Buckinghamshire Regiment, RA (Territorials)

Colonel of the Queen's Own Buffs

Honorary Commandant of the Women's Royal Australian Naval Service

 

Princess Marina on her wedding day, November 29, 1934

Text excerpted from:  Sophia Watson, Marina:  The Story of a Princess.  London, Weidenfield & Nicholson, 1994.

The Modern Egyptians: Tobacco and Coffee (Edward William Lane)

        The tobacco smoked by persons of the higher orders, and some others, in Egypt, is of a very mild and delicious flavour.  It is mostly from the neighborhood of El-Ladikeeyeh, in Syria.  The best kind is the "mountain tobacco", grown on the hills about that town.  A stronger kind, which takes its name from the town of Soor, sometimes mixed with the former, is used by most persons of the middle orders.  In smoking, the people of Egypt and of other countries of the East draw in their breath freely; so that much of the smoke descends into the lungs; and the terms which they use to express "smoking tobacco" signify "drinking smoke" or "drinking tobacco: " for the same word signifies both "smoke" and "tobacco".  Few of them spit while smoking:  I have very seldom seen any do so.

Edward William Lane (1801-1876)

        The coffee ("kahweh") is made very strong and without sugar or milk.  The coffee-cup (which is called "fingan") is small; generally holding not quite an ounce and a half of liquid.  It is of porcelain, or Dutch-ware, and being without a handle, is placed within another cup (called "zarf"), of silver or brass, according to the circumstances of the owner, and both in shape and size, nearly resembling our egg cup.  In preparing the coffee, the water is first made to boil:  the coffee (freshly roasted and pounded) is then put in, and stirred; after which the pot is again placed on the fire, once or twice, until the coffee begins to simmer; when it is taken off, and its contents are poured out into the cups while the surface is yet creamy.  The Egyptians are excessively fond of pure and strong coffee, thus prepared, and very seldom add sugar to it (though some do so when they are unwell), and never milk or cream; but a little cardamom-seed is often added to it.  It is a common custom, also, to fumigate the cup with the smoke of mastic; and the wealthy sometimes impregnate the coffee with the delicious fragrance of ambergris.

Ambergris

An Egyptian Coffee-Service by Saad of Egypt Silversmiths, Cairo, 20th Century, former collection of 

HRH The Prince George Duke of Kent, KG, KT and HRH Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent, CI, KCVO and their families.  (Each chased overall with foliage, comprising: a coffee-pot; a circular salver and eight zarfs with blue glass liners, the salver and coffee-pot each applied with a label, contained in a fitted case the salver 12¾ in. (32.5 cm.) diam.)

Text excerpted from:  Edward William Lane,  An Account Of The Manners And Customs Of The Modern Egyptians (1836), Chapter V, Domestic Life 

King Farouk (1920-1965)

Princess Fawzia (b. 1921), born Her Sultanic Highness Princess Fawzia bint Fuad, sister to King Farouk I and currently the most senior member of the deposed Muhammad Ali Dynasty residing in Egypt.