What The Royal Family Looked Like 100 Years Ago - YouTube

A future king named Bertie.

The tragedy of Prince John.

The most fabulous royal of their generation.

Everyone knows the British royal family as they are today — but what did they look

like a hundred years ago?

George V may have been a king firmly tied to the Victorian era, but he led his family

into a very different new century.

Ascending to the throne when his father, Edward VII, died in 1910, George reigned during the

First World War, which, incidentally, was fought against his first cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm

II of Germany.

Another first cousin, Nicholas II of Russia, who was killed by Bolsheviks in 1918, looked

like he could have been George's twin.

George V had served in the Royal Navy for 15 years in his youth, and he loved wearing

uniforms, naval or otherwise.

And in 1920, the Navy made the big mistake of changing a small detail of their uniform

without asking the king: the gold lace stripes worn on the cuffs of an admiral that denote

one's rank were made slightly thinner.

That may not sound like much, but George wasn't having it — he refused to wear the new stripes

and made sure no one in the royal family did either, something that holds to this day.

If you ever see one of the current royals in an admiral's uniform, they will always

have thicker stripes than anyone else.

But hey, that's the royal family, for you.

Despite presiding over a monarchy affected by war, communism, fascism, and the decline

of an Empire, George V lived to the respectable age of 58 and died in 1936.

Famously, his doctor euthanized him on his deathbed with a mixture of morphine and cocaine,

so that the king's death could be announced in the morning newspapers — rather than

the less respected evening journals.

Princess Victoria Mary of Teck married the future George V in 1893.

The year before, she had been engaged to his older brother Prince Albert Victor, but he

died before they could be wed.

So, just like any other family, the decision was made to treat Mary like a hand-me-down

and have her marry the next brother in line: George.

Mary was smart — smarter than her husband, in fact — but they were both relatively

reserved people.

As historian Hugo Vickers explains:

"She did look austere.

Underneath it all, she had a good sense of humor, but she was quite shy."

But Mary didn't let that shyness keep her from participating in the events required

of the royal family.

During WWI, a younger royal complained they were tired and hated visiting hospitals.

Mary informed her relative:

"You are a member of the British royal family.

We are never tired and we all love hospitals."

In the 1920s, the Prince of Wales was George V's eldest son, whom the family called David.

However, he would later go down in history as Edward VIII, the king who abdicated the

throne to marry the twice-divorced American Wallis Simpson.

After his abdication, Edward was known as the Duke of Windsor.

Edward was perhaps one of the most fashionable members of the royal family, and one thing

that comes through in contemporaries' comments about him is just how slick he was.

An American journalist once wrote of him:

"[He is an] arbiter of men's fashions, a fearless horseman, tireless dancer, idol of bachelors,

dream of spinsters."

Alexander Larman, author of The Crown in Crisis: Countdown to the Abdication, has said that

Edward was "an accomplished public speaker" who genuinely enjoyed being loved by ordinary

people.

It wasn't all good though.

Larman adds:

"Edward was a consummate performer whose charm, charisma, and good looks could not disguise

the vacancy at his core."

Gore Vidal once wrote that Edward, quote, "always had something of [...] riveting stupidity

to say on any subject."

After a brush with notoriety during WWII thanks to his associations with various high-ranking

Nazis, Edward and Simpson retired to France and lived a life of relative obscurity.

Edward died in 1972.

Called Bertie by his family, Albert, Duke of York, would eventually become King George

VI in 1936, after his brother abdicated the throne.

By that point, Albert was father to Princess Elizabeth, who would go on to become queen

herself.

While Albert was the second son of the family, he and his older brother Edward, Prince of

Wales, could not have been more different.

Alexander Larman tells Vanity Fair:

"[Albert] was a far less demonstrative man than his brother, and often sought the advice

and counsel of father figures rather than trusting his own judgment.

[...] Bertie disliked appearing in public and found any kind of public utterance somewhere

between a chore and an ordeal, thanks to his debilitating stammer."

"I'm sure......that we are all........happy to feel."

Unlike his brother's flashy friends and mistresses, Albert fell in love with the daughter of a

Scottish aristocrat, Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.

Larman says:

"The importance of Elizabeth in his life cannot be overstated."

In a piece discussing the six children of George V and Queen Mary, The Times opined

that, quote, "the middle two can be a bit forgettable."

One of those two was Princess Mary.

This is a shame, however, because her life was actually kind of amazing.

For one, she was no-nonsense and highly intelligent.

Her brother Edward, the Prince of Wales, is alleged to have claimed that she, as the cleverer

sibling, was better suited to the throne.

Mary was 17 when WWI broke out, and she immediately got to work supporting the troops.

She organized a Christmas gift for every single one, and as a 21st birthday present, she told

her father she wanted him to work in a hospital helping the wounded.

After the war, Mary didn't slow down, and was known to be one of the hardest workers

in the whole family.

She became chancellor of the University of Leeds and was the first woman to be an honorary

General of the British Army.

But the only thing that mattered at the time was that the tomboyish Mary reached her mid-20s

with no husband.

In 1922, she married Viscount Lascelles, who was 15 years older.

Rumor has it that she was pressured into her marriage.

As a child, Prince Henry had a laundry list of physical ailments.

He had to wear splints to fix his knock-knees, he lisped, he was constantly sick, and he

was generally small and frail.

Despite this, he managed to live a very energetic life indeed.

Amazingly, Henry was the first son of an English monarch ever to go to school instead of being

tutored at home.

After attending prep school, he studied at Eton College, after which he enrolled at the

military academy Sandhurst in 1919.

Two years later, Henry enlisted in the British Army.

He was also quite the athlete and enjoyed, among other things, cricket, running, tennis,

and polo.

There was a darker side to Henry, though: even at the time, he was noted as an alcoholic.

He also allegedly had an affair with a married woman, Beryl Markham, which resulted in Henry

paying her hush-money until she died.

As the story goes, King George frequently tried to keep his son busy so he wouldn't

have time to disgrace himself — by and large, he failed.

If there's any member of the Windsors who can beat out Edward for most fashionable,

it was his brother, Prince George, Duke of Kent.

Even the undoubtedly stylish Edward later talked about how much they had in common,

saying:

"Although George was eight-and-a-half years my junior, I found in his character qualities

that were akin to my own.

We became more than brothers — we became close friends."

George attracted equally attractive people to him, including his wife, Princess Marina

of Greece and Denmark, who he once described as a "lovely, chic creature."

Still, he couldn't limit himself to one person — or indeed, one gender.

George slept with a who's who of 1920s society and may have had at least one illegitimate

child.

There's also rumor of drug abuse, with legend stating Edward had to forcibly get his brother

to stop taking morphine and cocaine.

Despite all this, his marriage to Marina was very happy, with the couple often entertaining

their famous and titled friends at their lavish home.

Tragically, however, George was killed in a plane crash in 1942, just before his 40th

birthday.

Prince John's life is one of the most tragic stories of the modern royal family.

The youngest child of King George V, it's thought John may have been autistic, since,

around 4 years old, he began showing certain symptoms — although it's impossible to be

sure when diagnosing someone from history.

It is known that he suffered from terrible seizures, however.

As he got older, things got worse for John.

He was isolated away from the rest of the family in one of the many houses on one of

their estates.

His governess wrote:

"We dared not let him be with his brothers and sister, because it upsets them so much,

with the attacks getting so bad and coming so often."

However, his grandmother Alexandra, the Queen Mother, made a garden especially for him to

play in, and his parents arranged playdates with local children, some of whom he became

close to.

Tragically, John died at the age of 13, having suffered a seizure in his sleep.

The family's private reactions demonstrated their complicated emotions over the loss of

the young boy.

King George wrote that his son's passing was, quote, "the greatest mercy possible," while

Queen Mary's diary entry records:

"[It was] a great shock, tho' for the poor little boy's restless soul, death came as

a great relief."

In 1920, Albert, Duke of York attended a ball, where he met the woman who would be the love

of his life: Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, daughter of a minor aristocrat.

Albert spent the next two years courting Elizabeth, before he finally asked her to marry him.

But Elizabeth took some convincing.

While their relationship was destined to be a huge success, he had to ask her three times

before she agreed.

Elizabeth's personality was very different than that of her shy and retiring husband.

She was extremely kind and outspoken.

In fact, she told Albert once — while turning him down for marriage — that she couldn't

be with him because:

"[I am] afraid never, never again to be free to think, speak, and act as I feel I really

ought to."

As she got older, however, Elizabeth's tongue became looser, and she became particularly

well-known for her many quips.

That said, compared to the glamorous Wallis Simpson, the mistress and then wife of her

brother-in-law Edward, Elizabeth was more or less ordinary.

Despite the cruel nicknames Wallis reportedly had for Elizabeth, the Queen Mother's mark

on history would be all the greater.

Mother to a very famous daughter of the same name, Elizabeth died in 2002 at the age of

101.

"My family and I always knew what she meant for the people of this country.

And the special place she occupied in the hearts of so many."

While George V became king after the death of Edward VII in 1910, his mother, Queen Alexandra,

lived until 1925.

While she was still striking in old age, when Alexandra was younger, she was reportedly

stunning.

That's not something you can say about a lot of people born into royal families in any

time period, but Alexandra, apparently, was an exception.

Basically everyone who met Alexandra had to mention how beautiful she was.

Her mother-in-law, Queen Victoria, called her a "dear, lovely being."

Meanwhile, her future sister-in-law wrote at length about how stunning she was after

meeting her, saying:

"[She has] a lovely figure but very thin, a complexion as beautiful as possible.

Very fine white regular teeth and very fine large eyes — with extremely prettily marked

eyebrows.

[...] Her voice, her walk, carriage and manner are perfect, she is one of the most ladylike

and aristocratic looking people I ever saw."

Alexandra was so glamorous, in fact, that, when an illness left her with a pronounced

limp, other women started copying the limp — not to make fun of her, but because literally

everything the Alexandra did quickly became fashionable.

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