It is a well known secret that the Queen had to bail out her mother affectionately known as Queen Mum on several occasions. It is also firmly established in the minds of many, at least of the older generation, that Queen Mary was a most Royal Queen and strict to boot. Lets have a look at the skeletons in her closet, then. Apart from other hiccups, there was a bankruptcy on her family’s way to present her as Her Serene Highness, Princess of Teck, and fiancee of the future King of England.
Queen Mary’s father Francis was born in 1837 as the son of Duke Alexander of Wurttemberg and his wife Countess Claudine Rhédey of Kis-Rhéde. As Hungarian-born Claudine was not descended from a ruling family, the marriage of the two was morganatic. That meant that Claudine did not become Duchess with the marriage and that their children were excluded from their father’s titles as well as from their rights of succession in the Kingdom of Wurttemberg.
Under these circumstances, the children would have been born untitled commoners. But Emperor Ferdinand of Austria (and King of Hungary) came to the rescue and accorded Claudine the title of Countess of Hohenstein (in her own right), whereby Francis was born a Count of Hohenstein. Claudine died in a freak accident in 1841 and consequently Alexander descended into depression and eventually madness. In a late redress, King William of Wurttemberg accorded the title Prince and Princess of Teck to Francis and his two sisters in 1863. The title was an invention taken from Castle Teck above the town Kirchheim Under Teck where the Wurttemberg Royal family had a residence. With it went the accolade of being addressed as Serene Highness.
In 1866, Queen Victoria was faced with the dilemma of finding a husband for her cousin Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge (known as Fat Mary). She found the perfect bridegroom in Francis, now Prince of Teck, with the necessary Royal pedigree if penniless due to his morganatic descent. Fat Mary at 33 was not in a position to be choosy and accepted the marriage. Her request to accord her husband the title of Royal Highness was not granted by the Queen, though.
This new Royal connection impressed King Charles of Wurttemberg enough to rifle his desk for a more appropriate title than the trumped up Prince of Teck. He found it at the bottom of the drawers covered in dust, probably, and created Francis Duke of Teck in 1871. The title of Duke of Teck had been given to the Counts of Wurttemberg in 1495 by Emperor Maximilian along with their elevation to Dukes of Wurttemberg. The title is actually much older and historically more important than the Wurttemberg title, being first used in 1197 by a branch of the Dukes of Zähringen.
The Prince and Princess of Teck had to live off £5,000 Parliamentary annuity as Francis was not entitled to any subsidence from Wurttemberg. They were accorded an apartment in Kensington Palace and the use of White Lodge in Richmond Park by the Queen as well. They still amassed huge debts living the high life and had to flee England for the Continent to escape their creditors in 1883. The recipe for living off their relatives on the Continent with an added time on low profile in Florence worked wonders for their finances and they returned from their self imposed exile in 1885. In 1887, Francis was accorded the title Highness by Victoria in preparation for her Jubilee.
Mary Adelaide changed her ways in later life from profligate spender to become one of the first members of the Royal family to extensively support a bevy of charities.
But Francis and Mary Adelaide are probably better remembered as the parents of Queen Mary consort and wife to King George V, as well as Adolphus Marquess of Cambridge and Alexander Earl of Athlone. All members of the Teck family adopted the family name Cambridge after the Letters Patent issued by King George V in 1917.
This story was instigated by a curious question from a reader in the Daily Mail about an inscription found on the Roaches Rock in Staffordshire, which reads: ‘Visited by the Prince and Princess of Teck, August 23, 1872.’ Looking at the dates above, you’ll see that the inscription is wrong; it should refer to the Duke and Duchess of Teck. I was intrigued enough to dig the archives and send the answer to the Daily Mail for publication.
Further reading
Prince George, Duke of Cambridge
William and Kate: Title History
Princes: Not All That Glitters
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