Posted by Janet
on 25/9/2009, 22:58:45, in reply to "Re: A different view on "eveyone's favourite granny""
81.158.141.31
: But as none was his official wife,
: Elizabeth's position as the second ranked
: lady in the land (right behind her
: mother-in-law, the formidable Queen Mary)
: was not threatened.
Elizabeth was never second lady of the land until the death of her husband and she was supplanted by her daughter. At the time of her marriage in 1923, she ranked 4th behind The Queen, Queen Alexandra and Princess Mary. She moved to 3rd following the death of Queen Alexandra but remained the third lady of the land until her husband became King and she was automatically transferred to first.
: This only underscores my point above:
: Elizabeth MUST have felt a certain
: possessiveness toward Edward -- as sort of
: an unofficial consort to him, as the wife he
: should have (in her mind) married him but
: didn't.
It does nothing of the sort.
Elizabeth was never the consort, be it unofficial or official to Edward VIII. She was the wife of the Duke of York and acted as such in public, when either Queen Mary or the Princess Royal were present they took precedence over Elizabeth. Unlike Princess Marina who complained about her status, there is no evidence to suggest that Elizabeth as Duchess of York made any such complaint, unquestionably she grew to love her position as Queen but it was not a position she aspired to hold as when one marries a second son its rather accepted that it is unlikely to happen.
: Edward would not have had to give up his
: throne to marry Wallis, had the
: establishment been willing to accept her as
: queen. The fact is that he wanted BOTH to
: be king AND have Wallis as his official wife
: (not just a mistress). If he could have had
: his way, he would have entered into a
: morganatic marriage with Wallis -- meaning
: that she would not have been crowned as
: queen, despite his being king. As it was, because morganaticism was illegal
: in the UK -- meaning that any legal wife of
: a king had to be acknowledged as queen
: (something that could not be countenanced,
: for a twice-divorced American commoner) --
: Edward was obliged to abdicate his throne.
: If it were simply a matter of blaming
: something or somebody, for the circumstances
: that placed her beloved husband (the Duke of
: York) on a throne he didn't want, then
: Elizabeth might have seen fit to blame the
: Establishment. After all: there should, in
: principle, have been nothing to stop them
: from approving Wallis as official queen
: (although practically speaking, it was
: hardly a feasibility, given the times.
: While a highborn titled British commoner,
: never divorced, might have been an
: acceptable wife for a royal after World War
: I, not the likes of Wallis).
Hardly likely, following the succession of her husband, Elizabeth became a fundamental part of the establishment, it was hardly sensible to resent something which symbolised everything she believed in and which afforded her and her husband and their children a unique position.
: I find this explanation revisionistic with
: respect to the British royal family -- i.e.
: the family of King George VI. The image of
: it being anti-German, anti-Nazi, and
: anti-Hitler is highly suspect: that may well
: have been the case OVER TIME -- as the years
: passed, World War II broke out, and Great
: Britain fought in the Allied cause.
How so?
George VI had no affiliation/interest with the Nazi party, Queen Elizabeth had a dislike of Germans and Germany, period!
: It's difficult to see this being the case
: before Germany's invasion of Poland. One
: should realize that durin the worldwide
: depression of the 1930's, most people were
: struggling to survive a daily existence --
: and hence were unaware of the goings on in
: the Nazi regime. In particular, Hitler was
: a master deceiver who fooled MANY people --
: the British royals being no exception. As
: such, there were many non-Nazis who actually
: admired him -- unaware of his atrocious
: policies as head of the Third Reich.
The point is that following the abdication,
a sensible man who was determined to support his younger brother would have retired quietly away to allow his successor to firmly establish himself, the Duke chose not to do so but to wander around Europe on a great progress socialising with all kinds of undesriables.
Its also been noted that he angered his brother greatly by lying to him about his income, the Duke of Windsor sold the trappings of monarchy such as Balmoral and Sandringham to his brother for a huge sum complaining of poverty, it only emerged afterwards that he had a huge private fortune.
: I can't see that King George VI was THAT
: significantly different from his older
: brother, in his perception of Der Fuehrer --
: at least prior to the war.
Whatever George VI's views were on Hitler, he kept them private, unless you have some information you'd like to share?
: This is highly debatable: there is good
: evidence that at least at an early point in
: her life, Elizabeth DID harbor ambitions for
: the throne. Why else was she so slow and
: relucant to accept the proposal of the Duke
: of York (twice, in fact, "the third
: time being a charm") -- when there was
: a much more eligible royal bachelor in the
: person of the Prince of Wales?
The fact that she refused a proposal three times off one man does not mean she was automatically after his brother?
People need to make up their mind, either Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was a scheming golddigger and after the greatest prize of all (Edward VIII) or she was forced to marry a man because the man she reportedly truly loved (Jamie Montagu) who wasn't of great fortune was spirited away at the orders of Queen Mary.
Either way she settled for a man she apparently did not love that much or who could afford her little beyond a royal status which within her social structure was not even that highly prized.
Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was raised within a family where royalty was almost looked down upon, her father was alleged to find court life distasteful and her mother thoughout the royals were like seals in a zoo performing for the masses. One also recalls the quote of the Duke of Buccleuch when his daughter Alice married the 4th son of George V "She could do better".
Elizabeth and Alice may not not have royal titles like Marina of Greece but they grew up in the kind of luxury that Marina could only have dreamed of, I'm not convinced either aspired to a royal life as within their social class, many looked down on the royal family as some common little family transplanted from Germany.
: I believe that the POW did, in fact, say
: that "it was me she wanted to
: marry" -- a view shared by the Duchess.
: As no proposal came from the better catch,
: Elizabeth really had no choice but to accept
: the lesser catch -- as some sort of
: consolation prize. One can rationalize
: things in many ways (she would be better off
: married to the Duke of York than not, she
: would upgrade her status to royalty, she
: would be the second officially ranked lady
: in the land as long as the Prince of Wales
: remained unmarried, the Duke was a fine man
: with admirable qualities she had previously
: overlooked, etc).
Rather confusing, if Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was only interested in money/status she could have found far greater characters with these things than the Duke of York, he might have been royal but he had no great estates or personal wealth which ultimately were the true ace cards even then.
: There are plenty of cases in royal history
: where a woman who aspired to something
: higher learned to gracefully accept
: something lower. In this case, as I
: suggested, Elizabeth (ironically enough)
: never experienced a demotion in rank --
: despite marrying into a position where this
: was a liability.
I'm not sure what this is based upon.
: I've always suspected a strong attraction
: between her and the Prince of Wales (without
: doubting the sincerity of love she
: eventually came to harbor for her husband)
: -- and that she was deeply resentful and
: jealous that someone so lowborn and
: disreputable as Wallis had managed to
: acquire a "hold" on him that was
: more than just fancy or infatuation (as in
: the case of his previous mistresses). That
: he was simply waiting for his sovereign
: father (King George V) to die, so as to make
: her into his wife.
I don't know of any evidence to support this sorry.