Mary of Teck

Mary of Teck (Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes; 26 May 1867 – 24 March 1953) was Queen consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress consort of India, as the wife of King-Emperor George V.

Although technically a princess of Teck, in the Kingdom of Württemberg, she was born and raised in England. Her parents were Francis, Duke of Teck, who was of German extraction, and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a member of the British Royal Family. She was informally known as "May", after her birth month. At the age of 24 she was betrothed to Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, but six weeks after the announcement of the engagement he died unexpectedly of pneumonia. The following year she became engaged to Albert Victor's next surviving brother, George, who subsequently became King. Before her husband's accession she was successively Duchess of York, Duchess of Cornwall and Princess of Wales.

Queen Mary

Queen Mary, Queen Marie, or Queen Maria may refer to:

Monarchs

Teck

Teck was a ducal castle in the kingdom of Württemberg, immediately to the north of the Swabian Jura and south of the town of Kirchheim unter Teck (now in the district of Esslingen). Burg Teck takes its name from the ridge, the Teckberg, 2,544 feet high, which it crowned. It was destroyed in the German Peasants' War (1525). The castle was reconstructed during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Foundation

In 1863, the title "Prince of Teck" (German: Fürst von Teck) was conferred as a courtesy title by King William I of Württemberg upon the children of his cousin Duke Alexander of Württemberg (1804–85) by his morganatic marriage with Claudine Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde (1812–41), ennobled as countess of Hohenstein. In 1871, Prince Francis, the eldest son of Duke Alexander, was created Duke of Teck. His eldest son Adolphus (born 1868) was the holder of the title in 1910.

Members

The most famous of the Teck family is considered to be Duke Francis's daughter, Mary of Teck, Queen consort to King George V of the United Kingdom and Empress of India.

Queen

A queen is a female monarch. Queen may refer to:

In government and monarchy

George V

George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936.

He was the second son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII), and the grandson of the reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria. From the time of his birth, he was third in the line of succession behind his father and his elder brother, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale. From 1877 to 1891, George served in the Royal Navy, until the unexpected death of his elder brother in early 1892 put him directly in line for the throne. On the death of his grandmother in 1901, George's father became King-Emperor of the British Empire, and George was created Prince of Wales. He succeeded his father in 1910. He was the only Emperor of India to be present at his own Delhi Durbar.

His reign saw the rise of socialism, communism, fascism, Irish republicanism, and the Indian independence movement, all of which radically changed the political landscape. The Parliament Act 1911 established the supremacy of the elected British House of Commons over the unelected House of Lords. As a result of the First World War (1914–18) the empires of his first cousins Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany fell while the British Empire expanded to its greatest effective extent. In 1917, George became the first monarch of the House of Windsor, which he renamed from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as a result of anti-German public sentiment. In 1924 he appointed the first Labour ministry and in 1931 the Statute of Westminster recognised the dominions of the Empire as separate, independent states within the Commonwealth of Nations. He was plagued by illness throughout much of his later reign and at his death was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward VIII.