#mary nunburnholme

[corallapis]

Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Vol. 1), 1918-38, entry for 28th May 1923

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Monday 28th May — Fairlawne¹

A large Friday to Tuesday party at the Cazalets here to meet HRH Princess Alice² and Lord Athlone. I found Princess Alice delightful, human and pretty in an unostentatious way and even chic. I sat next to her two evenings at dinner and though we had great gossips she was always most kind. She told me only a sense of humour saves her. She is much the easiest of royalties and she rather prides herself on it; she has none of the stupidity nor dullness, yet has their dignity sweetness, and also their esprit de concierge³ . . . the royalties always know more gossip than anyone else. The Earl of Athlone is affable, polite, meticulous and rather and the German cavalry officer in his sense of detail for uniforms, orders, etc. He is less distinguished than his brother, Lord Cambridge⁴ and I am suspicious he minds more being degraded to the rank of a simple per. Mrs Cazalet⁵ always ‘bobs’ to him and refers to him as ‘Prince Algy’. I fancy he does not mind. But then of course we all know the story of how she ‘bobbed’ to the telephone on hearing a royal voice. The Athlones and the Cazalets are old, devoted friends. It is extraordinary Mrs C’s flair for royalty. Even the WC[s] are hung with the Queen’s photographs. On the Monday there was a pageant with 3,000 people looking on. It was opened by the Princess Alice, who enjoyed the three hours watching it in spite of the drizzle which threatened to ruin our costumes. The gardens were an excellent setting. I was Charles II, complete except for the spaniels, and I was much the most applauded. I looked as rakish and as imperious as possible . . . . Lady Irene Curzon⁶ was a corpulent Henrietta Maria. Baba Curzon and Lady Mary Thynne⁷ because of their great beauty were let off with selling programmes to the gaping proletariat.

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1. An estate in west Kent, near Tonbridge, owned by the Cazalet family from 1880.

2. Princess Alice Mary Victoria Augusta Pauline (1883-1981), daughter of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, youngest son of Queen Victoria; she was therefore the King’s cousin. She married in 1904 Prince Alexander of Teck (1874-1957), brother of the future Queen Mary; his title was anglicised in 1917 after the creation of the House of Windsor and he was granted the earldom of Athlone, after which his wife was known as Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone.

3. The spirit of a concierge; collecting gossip about all who pass through.

4. Adolphus Charles Alexander Albert Edward George Philip Louis Ladislaus, Duke of Teck (1868-1927). Like his brother, he relinquished his German titles in 1917 and, as brother of the Queen Consort, was created 1st Marquess of Cambridge. His younger brother was one rank below him in the peerage.

5. Maud Lucia Heron-Maxwell (1868-1952), married in 1893 William Marshall Cazalet (1865-1932); she was the mother of Victor Cazalet.

6. Mary Irene Curzon (1896-1966), known as Lady Irene Curzon after her father’s advancement to an earldom in 1911, was Lord Curzon’s eldest daughter. On his death in 1925 she inherited the barony of Ravensdale, and in 1958 was enabled to sit in the House of Lords by being granted a life peerage. She never married, declining a proposal from Victor Cazalet.

7. Lady Mary Beatrice Thynne (1903-74), third daughter of the 5th Marquess of Bath; she married in 1927 Charles Wilson (1904-74), 3rd Baron Nunburnholme.