Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor by Anne Edwards

 

Summary (from the publisher): The life of Princess May of Teck is one of the great Cinderella stories in history. From a family of impoverished nobility, she was chosen by Queen Victoria as the bride for her eldest grandson, the scandalous Duke of Clarence, heir to the throne, who died mysteriously before their marriage. Despite this setback, she became queen, mother of two kings, grandmother of the current queen, and a lasting symbol of the majesty of the British throne. Her pivotal role in the abdication of her eldest son, the Duke of Windsor, is just one of the events that provide the backdrop for both thrilling biography and for narrating the splendors and tragedies of the entire house of Windsor.

Review: Always known as May within her family, Princess Mary of Teck was born the daughter of the Duke of Teck, a German nobleman and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a granddaughter of King George III. Although from a noble family - to the extent that Queen Victoria visited her after her birth - she grew up relatively impoverished. However, her fortunes changed when Queen Victoria selected her to marry Eddie, the Prince of Wales. But just six weeks later, he unexpectedly died of the flu and her family's dreams seems dashed. However, a year later she became engaged to Eddie's younger brother George, who became king. Not only was May Queen of England, she was Queen Mother to King Edward VIII who eventually abdicated and King George VI, and grandmother to Queen Elizabeth II. Reserved and stately to a fault, she was always a queen first and foremost, relegating her mothering duties to the bottom of her to do list. Known for her style, regal bearing, and signature poodle hairstyle, she had a Cinderella story that placed her in a great line of kings and queens. 

In so many ways Queen Mary seems like a little-known figure nowadays, yet her life spanned the Victorian era until 1953. She is a living bridge between Queen Victoria herself and Queen Elizabeth of modern times. It's fascinating to read about a time when the queen would hand select you to marry her son and heir, and when one brother dies, eventually marrying another. 

May was such a formal and distant person in so many ways that even in this extensive biography, I didn't feel I got much of an inside glimpse. She was distant and cold towards her children, rarely seeing them when home and leaving for months at a time on royal tours. When one of her younger sons was declared terminally ill due to his childhood epilepsy, he was moved away from the family, and she appears to have never spoken or written of him again and rarely visited. When her husband died, someone with whom she had had six children and ostensibly a close working partnership and marriage, she was never seen to shed a tear. She also coldly turned away from the plight of her family's relatives, the Czar of Russia and his family. She didn't seem to have many confidantes and her true feelings and thoughts on many subjects just can't be known. As a result, many of the later chapters of this felt more like a biography of the royal family in general than May in particular. 

Stars: 4

Related Titles: 

• The Queen Mother: The Official Biography by William Shawcross 
• Elizabeth by Sarah Bradford
• We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals by Gillian Gill 
• The Real Elizabeth: An Intimate Portrait of Queen Elizabeth II by Andrew Marr 
• Royal Childhood by Anna Reynolds and Lucy Peter 
• Victoria's Daughters by Jerrold M. Packard 
• The Romanov Sisters: The Lost Lives of the Daughters of Nicholas and Alexandra by Helen Rappaport 
• Wallis in Love: The Untold Life of the Duchess of Windsor, the Woman Who Changed the Monarchy by Andrew Morton