Engagements
In December 1891, May was engaged to her second cousin, once-removed, Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. The choice of May as bride for the Duke owed much to Queen Victoria's fondness for her, as well as to her strong character and sense of duty. However, Albert Victor died six weeks later, in the worldwide influenza pandemic that swept through Britain in the winter of 1891–2.
Albert Victor's brother, Prince George, Duke of York, now second in line to the throne, evidently became close to May during their shared period of mourning, and Queen Victoria still favoured May as a suitable candidate to marry a future king. In May 1893, George proposed, and May accepted. They were soon deeply in love, and their marriage was a success. George wrote to May every day they were apart and, unlike his father, never took a mistress.
Read more about this topic: Mary Of Teck
Famous quotes containing the word engagements:
“What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics,
Of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest
remains?”
—Walt Whitman (1819–1892)
“I’ve given parties that have made Indian rajahs green with envy. I’ve had prima donnas break $10,000 engagements to come to my smallest dinners. When you were still playing button back in Ohio, I entertained on a cruising trip that was so much fun that I had to sink my yacht to make my guests go home.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)