We are able to get some indication of the scale of the transfer thanks to an auction in January 2006 of some of the late Duke of Gloucester's possessions. When it comes to the provenance records, Mary’s name dominates. The auction also allows us to put a price on the items - the twenty-one lots once owned by Queen Mary fetched £137,580, the two most expensive items each went for £31,200. One was a late 19th century French rosewood table which was branded on the underside with the queen’s initial "M" next to a crown. The other was a Victorian Silver cup and cover which had been given as a christening present to Prince Henry's son William in 1942, with a card from her godmother, Her Majesty Queen Mary.33
Most of the gifts were given at key rites of passage such as a christening or confirmation. The latter had always been a significant date for Queen Mary because when she was growing up in the late 19th century you could not be presented at court or come out in society until you had been confirmed and the occasion was normally accompanied by the giving of jewellery and other presents by senior members of the family. The seventeen-year-old Mary had been given precious gems by her uncle and grandmother.
Prince William of Gloucester's confirmation present was a George V Silver Tray (worth £7,800 today) made in 1912 and owned by his godmother and grandmother, Queen Mary. Of the twenty-one lots, silverware was the favourite gift, accounting for seventeen items ranging from a set of silver dessert spoons (£660) and a silver sauce ladle (£1,920) to a silver coffee set (£6,000) and a silver basket (£13,200). The four remaining items were furniture or household goods - including a gilt wood stand (£2,880) and a maple oak chest (£4,560).
The later Christie’s auction of Princess Margaret's possessions also revealed another destination for Mary's missing millions. As we shall see in more detail in Chapter Eleven, her granddaughter received £782,000 worth of gifts at birthdays, Christmases and confirmation. These were only the presents that were put up for auction. We know that she also received from Mary the sapphire from the Romanov tiara but it is likely that there were other valuable items given by her grandmother that were never publicly disclosed.
It would be simplistic to assume that Mary’s gift making was driven by a single motive. As a generous matriarch she would have wanted to provide for her children and grandchildren and as an upholder of royal tradition she would have thought it appropriate to pass on jewels and precious objects to them at key family milestones. But as someone who was financially astute from an early age, she would also have been aware of how her fortune could be eaten away by death duties. In all likelihood she would have taken financial advice on the subject and it is notable that the man she chose as her executor, Lord Claud Hamilton, would have known many of the financial hazards having been Comptroller and Treasurer in her household for twenty years. The other executor, Charles Vivian, Lord Tryon, had also learned the financial ropes as Keeper of the Privy Purse and Treasurer to the Queen. It is believed that Mary may have set up trust funds for some of her close relatives: Princess Marina certainly received an annuity from her and the Queen Mother may also have been a bene-ficiary of her largesse.
Mary found other discreet ways of disposing of her valuables. Well before her own death, she gave to the London Museum all the mourning jewellery she had collected over the years. This included not just personal items such the Prince Francis brooch carved in memory of her dead brother but all the black royal jewels that the widowed Queen Victoria had amassed and the jet diadems that her mother, the Duchess of Teck, had helped acquire for Princess Alexandra after the passing of Edward VII.
On the whole, however, Mary preferred to keep the valuables in the family rather than give them to outsiders. Even her exiled son, the Duke of Windsor, was remembered with a several boxes and a set of candlesticks. When more details of her will leaked out, one friend was shocked that she had left nothing to her faithful lady-in-waiting, Lady Cynthia Colville. But this was normal behaviour for royals. Even Princess Diana left no cash bequests in her will for friends or charities. Her butler, Paul Burrell, gives an interesting insight into how Queen Mary's estate may have been divided amongst her family. In the aftermath of the death of Diana when all her personal property had to be listed, he claims that the Queen told him that when a royal passed away there was often a tendency to earmark personal items before they disappeared. She recalled that when her grandmother died she went across to Marlborough House and found stickers on everything. They had all descended on Mary’s personal possessions like vultures.34
One thing we know for sure about Mary’s will is that it included clear instructions about what should happen if she died before the coronation of Queen Elizabeth. In such an eventuality, mourning for her should be kept to a minimum so as not to disrupt the big day. Her wishes were faithfully followed and ten weeks after her death, there were street parties up and down the land to celebrate her granddaughter's succession to the throne.
In death as in life little was left to chance. There would be a seamless succession. Not for nothing did Prime Minister Winston Churchill in his parliament-ary tribute call Queen Mary "practical in all things.”
7.THE DUCHESS AND THE COUNTESS - 1960-1968
"Like so many wealthy people, particularly those of royal blood, he [Lord Mountbatten] was always convinced he was poor"
Brian Hoey, biographer of Lord Mountbatten1
On her death Queen Mary left her daughter-in-law, Marina, Duchess of Kent, a small personal allowance to supplement some of the fabulous Romanov jewels she had given her earlier as a wedding present. These were the sapphires and diamonds that she had bought in 1921 from the estate of Marina's grandmother Grand Duchess Vladimir, the daughter-in-law of the Tsar.
It was a welcome windfall. A widow at thirty-five with three young children, Princess Marina was still struggling to make ends meet. Despite a new £5,000 annuity from the recently crowned Queen Elizabeth, she was seriously strapped for cash and having to rely on the thrifty habits (including the ability to make her own clothes) learned as an impoverished exiled Greek princess in Paris in the 1920s. She cut staff wages to the bone (causing one bitter former employee to lambast her as “a beautiful and spoilt woman"), borrowed dresses from fashionable designers for one evening's wear only and even recycled floral gifts.2 Her butler (who was paid a mere £225 a year) tells the story of how on receiving a bouquet of red roses from her friend the conductor Sir Malcolm Sargent, she substituted the card with one in her own name and forwarded the flowers to Princess Marie Louise.3
In the end she was obliged to auction some of her Russian heirlooms. In June 1962 a few pieces by Faberge and other objets d'art went under the hammer to realise a much-needed £12,426 bonus to the household purse. By this time she had vacated the Coppins country home in Buckinghamshire for her newly married son Prince Edward and daughter-in-law Katharine and moved into a grace-and-favour apartment at No 1 Kensington Palace. She was now benefiting from financial guidance from Philip Hay, her former Private Secretary who became Comptroller of her finances, confidant and ultimately her lover. A friend of the family described him as "the pivot of her life" - although he remained married to Margaret, a former lady-in-waiting to Princess Elizabeth, with whom he had three sons.4 Reliably discreet, he was on hand to give emotional support to a widow at thirty-five who never remarried despite retaining her good looks and attracting many suitors from the world of show business, including the comedian Danny Kaye. During his twenty years of service, the Harrow-educated courtier also acted as a much-needed financial advisor to her son, Prince Michael, and dutifully accompanied her on long and tiring royal tours of South-East Asia and South America. He had many of the hallmarks of a royal consort, his stately bearing was - in the eyes of Marina’s butler - reminiscent of the Duke of Windsor.5
Over time Marina began to acquire a significant international profile based on her work for the Commonwealth. In 1957 she represented the Queen at the independence celebrations in Ghana and then in 1966 she performed the same role when Botswana and Lesotho b
ecame independent. As a travelling ambassadress she enjoyed a more affluent lifestyle abroad - on one tour of Canada she was accompanied (much to the derision of some members of the press pack) by two ladies-in-waiting, one aide-de-camp, three maids and one secretary.6 At home, she had to make to do with a butler, sub-butler, head housemaid, two ladies maids and three housemaids. They took personal pride, according to one staff member, in helping her “dress to kill” and present a glamorous image to the outside world. Wearing her hat as President of the All England Lawn Tennis Club, she became known to television viewers round the world as the duchess who handed out the silverware at the end of Wimbledon fortnight. In July 1968 she presented Billie Jean King with the women’s plate for winning the singles final.
In the same summer Marina started to notice a weakening in her left leg. She had long had a limp caused by a birth defect which left one leg slightly shorter and thinner than the other but recently she had begun to lose her balance and stumble in a more troubling way. After being admitted to hospital for tests, she was diagnosed on July 18 with an inoperable brain tumour and her children were told that she had six months to live, although she was not informed of the seriousness of her condition. After a visit for tea on July 25, Noel Coward wrote in his diary how shocked he was about her deteriorating condition.7 By now she had returned to her Kensington Palace home where on August 26 she had a fall in her bathroom, cracked her head and sank into a coma. She died the next morning at 11.40 with her doctors at the bedside. She was just sixty-one. Following a private funeral attended by royalty from all the great European houses, she was buried on August 30 next to Prince George in the royal plot at Frogmore.
On October 17 it was announced that she had left an estate with a gross value of £54,121 which after tax and debts was reduced to £17,398. One biographer described it as “one of the smallest fortunes” ever left by a member of the royal family.8 Another argued that it proved to any who doubted it that Marina “had not been as rich” as her position might lead one to predict.9
Although Marina was not flush with cash, she was hardly leading a life of penury in her palace apartment surrounded by antique furniture and fine art. Her silver safe, according to her butler, was chock a block with jewellery and jade work, as well as the more usual tableware.10 She had a circle of affluent and famous friends - including Cecil Beaton, Frederick Ashton and Douglas Fairbanks Jr - and enjoyed travelling to official engagements in her blue Rolls-Royce and sometimes by helicopter.
Noel Coward had been a friend since 1923 when she and Prince George met him backstage after a performance of the play “London Calling” and following the death of her husband he often acted as a chaperone on visits to the races or theatrical and film premieres. She still cut a glamorous figure with her elegant clothes and stunning jewels. At one glittering first night with Coward, on hearing a familiar drum roll begin to rumble they both stood up for the national anthem and all the audience dutifully followed their cue only to discover after a minute or two that the music was in fact the overture to that evening’s entertainment. The two sat down sheepishly trying in vain to stifle a fit of giggles.
But in an echo of Queen Mary there remains the mystery of what happened to her family jewellery - and in particular the Romanov jewels which she inherited not just from her mother-in-law but also her own mother, Princess Nicholas, daughter of Grand Duchess Vladimir of Russia - and which given their great monetary value could clearly not all have been included in her small estate. The only explanation for their absence is that despite the suddenness of her death she had the foresight to gift them during her lifetime to her three children: Prince Edward, Prince Michael and Princess Alexandra. According to one authority on royal jewellery, Suzy Menkes, she is believed to have followed the Greek tradition of leaving jewels to her sons rather than daughter on the basis that sons of the family have wives to support,11 although another jewellery expert, Leslie Field, suggests that Alexandra may have received a diamond necklace, an emerald brooch and other gems from her mother's jewel box.12
For all her outward show of informality and sense of fun, Marina was at heart a blue-blooded duchess of the old school, a dedicated upholder of royal tradition. She could never approve of her brother-in-law marrying a twice divorcée like Mrs. Simpson and refused to visit the couple after their wedding, earning her the lasting mistrust of the Duke of Windsor. Even the wife of her other brother-in-law, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (the later Queen Mother) was famously dismissed as "that common little Scottish girl" on account of her lack of royal pedigree. She is also thought to have harboured reservations about her son Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, marrying Katharine Worsley, a commoner (although well-born) and therefore insufficiently schooled in Windsor protocol.
If Marina was in need of advice on how to dispose of her precious possessions in the most appropriate fashion, she may well have turned to her loyal courtier Sir Philip Hay who had been knighted in 1961 and served from 1962 as Treasurer to the Duke and Duchess of Kent. A fellow stickler for protocol and a highly cultivated man, he had worked in the picture department of the auctioneers Spinks before he joined her household and would later be appointed a director of Sotheby's. Left in a state of utter misery by her death, he was given the unenviable task of putting her papers and belongings in order and closing down her apartment at Kensington Palace.
Despite the fact that her will was sealed, it is now widely believed that the bulk of her estate went to her eldest son Edward, the Duke of Kent. One valuation of his inherited wealth estimated that he owned £10.25 million worth of jewellery and heirlooms - of which some may have come from his father, but much must been passed on by his mother.13 His wife, Katharine, has been identified wearing one of the most stunning of the Romanov jewels - a pair of antique diamond chandelier earrings that had once belonged to the Grand Duchess Vladimir. The Duchess of Kent has also been seen sporting a magnificent diamond necklace that had been George V's wedding gift to Marina, a diamond bandeau tiara that Queen Mary gave to Marina and a pearl and diamond pendant brooch once owned by Marina.
Some of Marina's other jewellery was left to Prince Michael of Kent. Although he was unmarried at the time of her death, it is believed that she made provision for his future wife. Princess Michael of Kent whom he wed in 1978 is known to possess a large oval diamond brooch which was bought by Queen Mary in 1929 from the estate of the Dowager Empress of Russia and given to Marina, a diamond and emerald three-leaf brooch - again given by Mary to Marina - and a favourite ring of Marina's featuring a large pearl and cluster of diamonds.
Asset-rich but cash-poor, the Kents have long been regarded as the "poor relations" of the House of Windsor. Unable to afford its huge maintenance costs on his army pay of £3,000 a year the Duke of Kent was forced in 1974 to sell the Coppins, his parents’ family home, to the businessman Eli Gottlieb, for £400,000. For no doubt similar financial reasons in 2006 his brother Prince Michael sold his country home in Gloucestershire, Nether Lypiatt Manor, for £5.75 million. At the time, Princess Michael famously told a reporter: 'For the first time that terrible word came into my life when our private secretary said, "Ma'am, you have to downsize." It was the worst word I'd heard in ages.'”14
Their London residence also became a financial burden. Around this time the peppercorn rent of £69 a week on their five bedroom apartment in Kensington Palace was raised to a real market rate of £120,000 a year.15 With no money available from the Civil List, Prince Michael was obliged to earn his own living, setting up a business and public relations consultancy, Cantium Services, which earned him criticism for trading on his royal name but no sustainable income. In November 2009 both brothers decided to auction at Christie’s in London some two hundred family heirlooms that once belonged to their parents. The sale realised £2.1 million including £187,000 paid for the highest priced item, a pair of mahogany hall benches dating to the reign of George III. A few minor pieces of jewellery went under the hammer - including a Victorian diamond brooch and a torque neckla
ce - but significantly nothing from Princess Marina's valuable collection of Romanov gems.
So, at least as far as jewellery is concerned, the secrecy of her estate was preserved. But the Duke of Kent could have opted for transparency. As executor of her estate, he was equally entitled not to apply to the family courts to seal her will. To understand better this alternative avenue, it might be useful to compare Marina's estate with that of Edwina, the Countess Mountbatten and wife of Earl Mountbatten of Burma.
At first sight, the parallels are remarkable. Both were great beauties who married into the British royal family. Both were disliked by the matriarch of that family, the Queen Mother, who dismissed Edwina as a bit of “a rake” and, according to Cecil Beaton, hated Marina – at least until her death.16 Both became close friends of Noel Coward and Douglas Fairbanks Jr. and both died suddenly in the 1960s within a year of their sixtieth birthday.
The differences, however, lie in the scale of their wealth and how they handled it. One was exceedingly rich and a spendthrift, the other relatively poor and thrifty. But the one who had had every reason to hide her huge wealth decided not to do so and in due course had to pay a small fortune in tax. In short, it shows what can happen if you turn your back on estate planning.
When the Rt Hon Edwina, Countess Mountbatten of Burma, died on 21 February 1960 in the town of Jesselton on an official visit to British North Borneo, she left behind an estate of £589,655 and after a massive £335,153 had been deducted in tax and probate granted on 21 March 1960 to her three executors, Lord Mountbatten, the Marquess of Camden and (Baronet) Sir Harold Wernher, her proven will was made available for inspection to any member of the public. For the widow of such a prominent member of the royal family - the quintessential pillar of the establishment - it is a remarkably candid and comprehensive document running to eleven closely typed pages including two codicils.
Royal Legacy: How the royal family have made, spent and passed on their wealth Page 12