Queen Mary visits new Queen

February 7, 1952

As ever, Queen Mary has put duty before grief.  at 4:42 p.m., today, the 84-year-old Dowager Queen left Marlborough House by "a big-old-fashioned limousine," for the short drive to Clarence House, reports United Press.

Britons "stood silently outside" Marlborough House, a red brick mansion, as men "doffed their hats and women bowed" to the "erect figure in the back seat." 

Mary, the widow of George V, and the mother of King George VI,  has a very strong and "inflexible rule for a Queen duty comes before devotion." 

Grieving for her son -- the third of her sons to die --would come after paying her respects and "her allegiance to her own granddaughter, the new Queen." 

Her first duty -- "to curtsy to her new ruler."  The former Princess Mary of Teck has suffered numerous tragedies in her life.  She was engaged to the Duke of Clarence, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII, who died from pneumonia in January 1892.  A year later, she became engaged to and married the Duke of Clarence's younger brother, Prince George, Duke of York. 

King George V and Queen Mary were the parents of five children,  Edward, Albert (George VI), Mary, Henry, George and John.  The youngest son, Prince John, was mentally handicapped and suffered from epilepsy.  He died in January 1919.

King George V died in 1936.  Perhaps "the bitterest blow of all" for Queen Mary was when her "beloved eldest son," Edward VII abdicated the throne to marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson.    Six years later,  Prince George, Duke of Kent, was killed in a plane crash.