Prince George, Duke of Kent
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The Prince George, Duke of Kent (George Edward Alexander Edmund; 20 December 1902 - 25 August 1942) was a member of the British Royal Family, the fourth son of George V and Mary of Teck. He held the title of Duke of Kent from 1934 until his death in 1942.
BirthPrince George was born on 20 December 1902 at York Cottage on the Sandringham Estate in Norfolk, England. His father was The Prince George, Prince of Wales, the eldest surviving son of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. His mother was the Princess of Wales, the eldest daughter of The Duke and Duchess of Teck. At the time of his birth, he was fifth in the line of succession. As a grandchild of the British monarch, he was styled His Royal Highness Prince George of Wales. He was baptised in the Private Chapel at Windsor Castle on 26 January 1903 by Francis Paget, Bishop of Oxford (with "ordinary" water, as opposed to water from the Jordan River, which is almost always used for royal christenings). His godparents were his grandparents King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, his grand-uncle Prince Valdemar of Denmark, Prince Louis of Battenberg, and his grand-aunts The Dowager Empress of Russia and Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. Education and careerPrince George received his early education from a tutor and then followed his elder brother, Prince Henry (later the Duke of Gloucester), to St. Peter's Court Preparatory School at Broadstairs, in Kent. At age thirteen, like his brothers, Prince Edward (later Edward VIII) and Prince Albert (later George VI), before him, he went to naval college, first at Osborne and, later, at Dartmouth. He remained in the Royal Navy until 1929, serving on the Iron Duke and later the Nelson. After leaving the navy, he briefly held posts at the Foreign Office and later the Home Office, becoming the first member of the British Royal Family to work as a civil servant. In 1939, he was elected Grand Master of the United Grand Lodge of England, an office he held until his death[1]. At the start of World War II, he returned to active military service at the rank of Rear Admiral, briefly serving on the Intelligence Division of the Admiralty. In April 1940, he transferred to the Royal Air Force. He temporarily relinquished his rank as Air Vice-Marshal (the equivalent of Rear Admiral) to assume the post of Staff Officer in the RAF Training Command at the rank of Air Commodore. MarriageOn 12 October 1934[2], in anticipation of his forthcoming marriage to Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, his second cousin, he was created Duke of Kent, Earl of St Andrews and Baron Downpatrick. The couple married on 29 November 1934 at Westminster Abbey. The bride was a daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark and a great-niece of Queen Alexandra[3]. It was the last marriage between a son of a British Sovereign and a member of a foreign Royal House to date. Princess Marina became known as HRH The Duchess of Kent following the marriage. She and her husband had three children:
Personal lifeDismissed by one bluff observer as cultivated, effeminate, and smelling too strongly of perfume, the Duke of Kent was arguably the most interesting, intelligent and cultivated member of his generation of the Royal Family. He took a strong interest in the arts and interior decoration, avocations he shared with Queen Mary, but with no other member of his family. Both before and after his marriage, Kent had a long string of affairs with both men and women, a precursor to post and modern day Hollywood where many celebrities were his guests during his life. The better known of his partners included the African-American cabaret singer Florence Mills, banking heiress Poppy Baring, socialite Margaret Whigham (later Duchess of Argyll), musical star Jessie Matthews and actor Noel Coward, with whom he carried on a 19-year affair.[4] Intimate letters from the Duke to Coward are believed to have been stolen from Coward's house in 1942.[5] There is some suggestion that the duke had an affair with Indira Raje, the Maharani of Cooch Behar (1892–1968), in the late 1920s, according to British historian Lucy Moore. [6] The Duke of Kent is also said to have been addicted to drugs (notably morphine and cocaine) — a weakness which his brother the Prince of Wales was deputed to cure him of during the latter part of the 1920s — and reportedly was blackmailed by a male prostitute to whom he wrote intimate letters. Another of his reported bisexual liaisons was with his distant cousin Louis Ferdinand, Prince of Prussia; homosexual spy and art historian Anthony Blunt was reputedly another intimate.[7] The Duke was known to have attempted to court Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. She spurned the overture and married Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Bisterfeld instead. In addition to his legitimate children, the Duke is said to have had a son by Kiki Preston (née Alice Gwynne) (1898–1946), an American socialite whom he reportedly shared in a ménage à trois with Jorge Ferrara, the bisexual son of the Argentine ambassador to the Court of St. James's. Known as "the girl with the silver syringe", drug addict Preston, a cousin of railroad heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, was married first to Horace R.B. Allen and then, in 1925, to banker Jerome Preston.[8] She died after jumping out of a window of the Stanhope Hotel in New York City. According to the memoirs of a friend, Loelia, Duchess of Westminster, Prince George's brother (the Duke of Windsor) believed that the son was Michael Canfield (1926–1969), the adopted son of American publisher Cass Canfield and the first husband of Lee Radziwill, sister of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.[9] The Duke's early life is dramatised in Stephen Poliakoff's 2003 film The Lost Prince - a biopic of the life of his younger brother John, who suffered from epilepsy, was isolated from most of the family and kept away from public gaze, and who died at the age of 13. In the film, the teenage Prince 'Georgie' is portrayed as sensitive, intelligent, artistic and almost uniquely sympathetic to his brother's plight. He is shown to detest his time at Naval College, and to have a difficult relationship with his austere father. Much of his later life was outlined in the documentary film The Queen's Lost Uncle mentioned above. The Duke's bisexuality and drug addictions were explored in African Nights, a 2004 play written by American playwright Jeffrey Corrick. Political roleIt was once proposed that the Duke be made King of Poland, in a move to restore the Polish monarchy much as the Greek monarchy had been restored using imported Royals. In August 1937, the Duke and his wife visited Poland and were well-received. However, due to the invasion of Poland in World War II, the plan was called off. [10] In 1932 he was appointed as Royal Bencher of The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn, a position previously occupied by his father, the King. DeathPrince George was killed in northern Scotland on August 25, 1942 as a passenger in the crash of a Short Sunderland flying boat airplane. The plane was en route from Scotland to Iceland. Many questions remain about this mission and Prince George's role in it.[11] A scurrilous and unproven claim has been made that British Intelligence assassinated Prince George.[12] FuneralThe Duchess of Kent had given birth to their third child, Prince Michael of Kent, only six weeks earlier. His remains lay initially in St. George's Chapel, Windsor. Later they were buried in the Royal burial ground, directly behind Queen Victoria's mausoleum, at Frogmore, Windsor. He was succeeded as Duke of Kent by his eldest son, Edward. Titles, styles, honours and armsTitles and styles
Image:George Duke of Kent Arms.svg
Prince George's coat of arms
HonoursBritish honours
ArmsAround his elder brother, Prince Henry's twenty-first birthday, Prince George was awarded the use of the Royal Arms, differenced by a label argent of three points, each bearing an anchor azure.[13] AncestryAncestors of Prince George, Duke of Kent
See alsoReferences
External links
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