Prince George, Duke of Kent
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Prince George | |
|---|---|
| Duke of Kent | |
 |
|
| Successor | Prince Edward, Duke of Kent |
| Spouse | Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark |
| Issue | |
| Prince Edward, Duke of Kent Princess Alexandra, The Hon. Lady Ogilvy Prince Michael of Kent |
|
| Full name | |
| George Edward Alexander Edmund | |
| Titles | |
| HRH The Duke of Kent HRH The Prince George HRH Prince George of Wales |
|
| Royal House | House of Windsor House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha |
| Father | George V |
| Mother | Mary of Teck |
| Born | 20 December 1902 York Cottage, Sandringham |
| Baptised | 26 January 1903 St George's Chapel |
| Died | 25 August 1942 Morven, Scotland |
| Burial | St George's Chapel |
| Occupation | Military |
The Prince George, Duke of Kent (George Edward Alexander Edmund; 20 December 1902 - 25 August 1942) was a member of the British Royal Family, the fourth son of King George V. He held the title of Duke of Kent from 1934 to his death in 1942.
Prince George is remembered for having had a rather more interesting personal life than is the norm in the twentieth century Royal Family, as well as the circumstances of his death at the height of World War II.
Contents |
[edit] Birth
Prince George was born at York Cottage, on the Sandringham Estate, in Norfolk, England. His father was The Prince George, Prince of Wales (later King George V), the eldest surviving son of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. His mother was The Princess of Wales (later Queen Mary), the eldest daughter of The Duke and Duchess of Teck. At the time of his birth he was fifth in the line of succession. As a grandchild of the British monarch, he was styled His Royal Highness Prince George of Wales.
He was baptised in the Private Chapel at Windsor Castle on 26 January 1903 by Francis Paget, Bishop of Oxford (with "ordinary" water, as opposed to water from the Jordan River, which is almost always used for royal christenings). His godparents were King Edward, Queen Alexandra, Prince Valdemar of Denmark, Prince Louis of Battenberg, The Dowager Empress of Russia and Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein.
[edit] Education and career
Prince George received his early education from a tutor and then followed his elder brother Prince Henry (later the Duke of Gloucester) to St. Peter's Court Preparatory School at Broadstairs in Kent. At age thirteen, like his brothers Prince Edward (later Edward VIII) and Prince Albert (later George VI) before him, he went to naval college, first at Osborne and later at Dartmouth. He remained in the Royal Navy until 1929, serving on the Iron Duke and later the Nelson. After leaving the navy, he briefly held posts at the Foreign Office and later the Home Office, becoming the first member of the British Royal Family to work as a civil servant.
In 1939 he was elected Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, an office he held until his death. [1]
At the start of World War II, he returned to active military service at the rank of Rear Admiral, briefly serving on the Intelligence Division of the Admiralty. In April, 1940, he transferred to the Royal Air Force. He temporarily relinquished his rank as Air Vice-Marshal (the equivalent of Rear Admiral) to assume the post of Staff Officer in the RAF Training Command at the rank of Air Commodore.
[edit] Marriage
He was created Duke of Kent, Earl of St Andrews and Baron Downpatrickand on 29 November 1934, the Duke of Kent married Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, the daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark and a great niece of Queen Alexandra, at Westminster Abbey. [2] It was the last marriage between a son of a British Sovereign and a member of a foreign royal house to date.
Princess Marina became known as HRH The Duchess of Kent following the marriage. Together the couple had three children:
- Prince Edward of Kent (born October 9, 1935)
- Princess Alexandra of Kent (born December 25, 1936)
- Prince Michael of Kent (born July 4, 1942)
[edit] Personal life
Dismissed by one bluff observer as cultivated, effeminate, and smelling too strongly of perfume, the Duke of Kent was unarguably the most interesting, intelligent and — in a non-pejorative sense — cultivated member of his generation of the Royal Family. He took a strong interest in the arts, and in interior decoration, an avocation he shared with Queen Mary but no other member of the family. He had a long string of affairs with men and women before and during his marriage. The better known of his partners were black cabaret singer Florence Mills, banking heiress Poppy Baring, Ethel Margaret Whigham (later Duchess of Argyll), musical star Jessie Matthews and actor Noel Coward, with whom he carried on a 19-year affair. [3] (Love letters from the Duke to Coward were stolen from Coward's house in 1942). There is some suggestion that the duke had an affair with Indira Raje, the Maharani of Cooch Behar (1892–1968), in the late 1920s, according to British historian Lucy Moore.
The Duke of Kent is also said to have been addicted to drugs (notably morphine and cocaine) — a weakness which his brother the Prince of Wales (not an otherwise notably respectable member of the family) was deputed to cure him of during the latter part of the 1920s — and reportedly was blackmailed by a male prostitute to whom he wrote intimate letters. Another of his reported homosexual affairs was with his distant cousin Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia; homosexual spy and art historian Anthony Blunt was reputedly another lover.[4] The Duke was known to have attempted to court the notably prosaic Queen Juliana of the Netherlands (mother of the current Queen Beatrix). She spurned the overture and married Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Bisterfeld instead.
In addition to his legitimate children, the Duke is said to have had a son by Kiki Preston (née Alice Gwynne) (1898–1946), an American socialite whom he reportedly shared in a ménage à trois with Jorge Ferrara, the bisexual son of the Argentine ambassador to the Court of St. James's. Known as "the girl with the silver syringe", drug addict Preston, a cousin of railroad heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, was married first to Horace R.B. Allen and then, in 1925, to banker Jerome Preston.[5] She died after jumping out of a window of the Stanhope Hotel in New York City. According to the memoirs of a friend, Loelia Westminster, Prince George's brother the Duke of Windsor believed that the son was Michael Canfield (1926–1969), the adopted son of American publisher Cass Canfield and the first husband of Lee Radziwill (sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis).
Much of this history was outlined in the documentary film The Queen's Lost Uncle mentioned above. The Duke's bisexuality and drug addictions were explored in "African Nights", a 2004 play written by American playwright Jeffrey Corrick.
[edit] Political role
It was once proposed that the Duke be made King of Poland, in a move to restore the Polish monarchy much as the Greek monarchy had been restored using imported royals.[citation needed] In August 1937, the Duke and his wife visited Poland and were well-received. However, due to the invasion of Poland in World War II, the plan was called off. [6]
In 1932 he was appointed as Royal Bencher of The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, a position previously occupied by his father, the King.
[edit] Death
[edit] Conspiracy theories
The Duke was killed in a plane crash on active service in World War II at Eagles Rock near Dunbeath, Caithness, Scotland on August 25, 1942. The Short Sunderland he was flying in was officially heading to Iceland where the Duke was to meet senior members of the US military. However the Duke's death at the height of World War II has led to various conspiracy theories surrounding the plane crash. Some theories state that the Duke was actually heading to Sweden for secret peace talks with the Germans. Related to this are claims that the Duke was travelling with Rudolf Hess, the deputy to Adolf Hitler; a reported additional, unexplained body at the scene of the crash has been attributed as Hess', with the man later tried at Nuremberg allegedly an impostor. [7] Other claims state the Duke was at the controls of the plane, and his inexperience may have caused the plane to crash.
In 2003, Channel 4 broadcast an alternative theory. This stated that the Duke was involved in the events surrounding the capture of Rudolf Hess. This theory however, states that the Duke was working with British Intelligence as part of a plot to fool the Nazis into thinking that the Duke was plotting with other senior figures to overthrow Winston Churchill.
[edit] Funeral
His wife had given birth to their third child, Prince Michael of Kent, only six weeks earlier. He was initially buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor: his remains were later moved to the royal burial ground, adjacent to Queen Victoria's mausoleum, at Frogmore, Windsor. He was succeeded as Duke of Kent by his elder son, Edward.
[edit] Titles from birth to death
Here is a list of the titles the Duke of Kent held from birth to death in chronological order:
- HRH Prince George of Wales (1902–1910)
- HRH The Prince George (1910–1934)
- HRH The Duke of Kent KG KT GCMG (1934–1942)
[edit] See also
[edit] Notes and references
- ^ Picknett, Lynn, Prince, Clive, Prior, Stephen & Brydon, Robert (2002). War of the Windsors: A Century of Unconstitutional Monarchy, p. 153. Mainstream Publishing. ISBN 1-84018-631-3.
- ^ Picknett, Prince, Prior & Brydon, p. 82.
- ^ Picknett, Prince, Prior & Brydon, p. 56.
- ^ Picknett, Prince, Prior & Brydon, p. 57.
- ^ Picknett, Prince, Prior & Brydon, p. 58.
- ^ Picknett, Prince, Prior & Brydon, pp. 142–143.
- ^ Picknett, Prince, Prior & Brydon, p. 186.
[edit] External link
| Honorary Titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn |
Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England 1939–1942 |
Succeeded by: Henry Lascelles, 6th Earl of Harewood |
| Peerage of the United Kingdom | ||
| Preceded by: New Creation |
Duke of Kent 1934–1942 |
Succeeded by: HRH Prince Edward |
Prince George (1934-1942) · Prince Edward Augustus (1799-1820) · Henry Grey (1710-1740)
Categories: Articles with unsourced statements | Dukes of Kent | English and British princes | Dukes in the Peerage of the United Kingdom | Royal Air Force air marshals | British Freemasons | Knights Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George | Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order | Knights of the Garter | Knights of the Thistle | Bailiffs Grand Cross of St John | Recipients of the Royal Victorian Chain | Aviators killed in aircraft crashes | Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Dutch Lion | 1902 births | 1942 deaths
