Unseen pictures from a Unique royal collection
For 70 years, the Duke of Kent has lived a life of quiet devotion to Queen and country, recorded in a remarkable assortment of photographs. Here the Daily Express shares some of his favourites
Royal biographer and historian
BY ANY standards it has been a remarkable life. Aged 16, the Duke of Kent walked behind the coffin of his uncle King George VI and, a year later, paid homage to his cousin, the new Queen Elizabeth II, at her coronation. He was riding beside her when 17-year-old protester Marcus Sarjeant fired six blank shots during the 1981 Trooping The Colour parade. And as Colonel of the Scots Guards, he was the oldest soldier on parade at the Cenotaph in November 2020.
He has represented the Queen at home and abroad, served 21 years in the Army, worked tirelessly for at least 140 charitable organisations and presented the trophies at Wimbledon for more than half a century.
Now the Duke of Kent has become the first member of the Royal Family to have spoken extensively of the modern reign and his part in it.
Like so many of us during the Covid-19 lockdown, the Duke was stuck at home and could do little for his charities and regiments so the idea formed that he might write something. Our resulting book, A Royal Life, is based on personal conversations we had over Zoom during the pandemic.
A keen amateur photographer, he has often carried a camera and recorded a series of striking images, some of which are included in the book.
Of the Trooping The Colour incident, he recalled: “I was right behind the Queen, then Prince Philip and Prince Charles. As we came round the corner from the Mall to go down to Horse Guards, shots were fired. You can imagine the startled horror. We and the police were rushing about, but the Queen carried on imperturbably.” Although the Duke has been present at such key moments of 20th and 21st century royal history, it is also a deeply moving story of individual duty.
His mother, Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, came to Britain knowing few people when she married Prince George, the fourth son of King George V, in 1934. Two children were born in quick succession: the Duke himself, Prince Edward, in October 1935, his late sister Princess Alexandra a year later and a second son, Prince Michael, in 1942. Then, tragedy struck.
His father was killed in a wartime air accident on his way to Iceland when his Sunderland flying boat crashed into a Scottish hillside. He was the first front line royal to die on active service since King James IV of Scotland was killed during the Battle of Flodden in 1513.
PRINCE George’s allowance had ceased on his death, so his widow Marina brought her young family up alone at their home in Coppins, Bucks, with very little money. But she instilled into her children a sense of duty – that their lives belonged to the nation and not just themselves.The children adored Coppins and visitors included Marina’s young cousin Prince Philip, Winston Churchill and other notables like Noël Coward, Cecil Beaton, Danny Kaye and Sir Malcolm Sargent.
Fine gardens to roam, an orchard and fruit beds to steal strawberries from, ponies to
ride and the local school in Iver to attend, conjures an idyllic life with music, laughter, party games and, after the war, a host of international cousins to play with.
But the young Prince did not have an easy time. He was bullied for being a duke at Ludgrove School, Berks, by boys and masters alike – fared better at Eton, and was then sent to Le Rosey, a Swiss boarding school, from which he was forever being summoned home. He walked in the funeral processions of the King (the first time he met his uncle, the Duke of Windsor) and Queen Mary and played a significant role at the Coronation in 1953. Seated in the front row of the peers near his cousin, Prince Philip, nobody told him there would be a cue card for him to read – so he was petrified by the fear he might forget his lines.
“It is extraordinary to think that the Coronation took place nearly 70 years ago. Most people will only know it through films or television,” he admits. “My chief anxiety was that I would forget my lines. I had been given the impression I had to remember them so I had learnt them by heart. Of course, when the time came, the Bishop of Durham – Michael Ramsey – held up a card with the words on it so I had not needed to worry.
“I knelt down and read aloud, ‘I, Edward, Duke of Kent, do become your liege man of life and limb, and of earthly worship; and faith and truth I will bear unto you, to live and die against all manner of folks. So help me God.’ It was quite daunting.”
On other occasions, the Duke was thrown in at the deep end – summoned home to meet foreign Kings at the airport, stepping in to do an investiture when the Queen was ill (being rushed to the Palace from his office in Hounslow, while his uniform was whisked there from his home), and, in his
twenties, sent to give Independence to Sierra Leone and Uganda on behalf of the Queen.
Throughout his life, duty has been his watchword, and he has seen the importance of helping his cousin the Queen. The most successful members of the Royal Family are those who support the monarch without competing with her, and this he has done since the 1950s and still does to this day.
The Duke’s mother was one of the socalled ‘Fabergé aunts’ – with two sisters to whom she was close – Princess Olga of Yugoslavia, and Elisabeth, Countess Toerring. Her austere Russian grandmother, Princess Nicholas of Greece, lived in Athens surrounded by cats.
I had met the Duke many times since he first came to a lecture I gave on his mother Princess Marina in 2001. So we undertook the project together over a number of Zoom calls in which I asked the Duke questions and gently probed his memories. I managed to bring in other members of his family to talk about Princess Marina, Coppins, the Coronation and what has emerged is a kind of unique royal oral history such as has never been done before, somewhat as George Plimpton did in America with books on Edie Sedgwick and Truman Capote.
I hope it shines a light on a remarkable tale of public service and duty, and offers a unique insight into a life with a seat at the ringside to many of the most significant
moments of the Queen’s reign.
●●A Royal Life by HRH The Duke Of Kent & Hugo Vickers (Hodder, £25) is published on Thursday. For free UK delivery, call Express Bookshop on 01872 562310 or order via expressbookshop.com