Princess Margaret and Princess Marina: A Jovial Relationship Gone Cold

Princess Marina and Princess Margaret. Images from Wikimedia Commons

When the handsome Prince George, Duke of Kent, married the glamorous Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, it was the last time that the British people would witness one of their own princes marry a European princess. After all, Marina claimed ancestry to every European royal house. Her father, Prince Nicholas, was  Prince of Greece and Denmark, whose parents were King George I of Greece (born Prince William of Denmark to King Christian IX, the father-in-law of Europe, and Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel) and Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, a granddaughter of Czar Nicholas I of Russia. Her mother, meanwhile, the Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia, was the only daughter of Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich ( the fourth child of Czar Alexander II of Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse-Darmstadt) and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, notorious in Saint Petersburg society as the "grandest of the grand duchesses."

 Their wedding ceremony was celebrated on November 29, 1934 in the most grand fashion at Westminster Abbey. Four-year-old Princess Margaret provided the event with some form of entertainment.

Bored by the service, the young princess, who was seated in full view of the congregration tried, as much as she can to remain prim. But she couldn’t help but relax until the royal panties  became visible. Her mother and her grave elder sister hurriedly called her to decorum.

Princess Margaret grew up liking the Duke and Duchess of Kent, calling them “beautiful couple.” In her book Princess Margaret: A Biography, Theo Aronson speculated that had the duke of Kent survived and lived through old age, the princess would have developed a close relationship with her “artistic and hedonistic uncle.”

While Princess Margaret and Princess Marina initially nurtured a close relationship, it turned from warm to tepid until it cooled when the Duchess of Kent, tremendously  aware of her own royal pedigree, “made it clear that she felt that Princess Margaret was not neatly conscious”² of her lineage.

Sources:

[1] Chase, Edna Woolman and Chase Ilka. Always in Vogue, Golanz, 1954. In Aronson, Theo. Princess Margaret A Biography. Michael O’Hara Books, 1997.

[2] Aronson, Theo. Princess Margaret A Biography. Michael O’Hara Books, 1997.