Darling Georgie by Dennis Friedman

Author:Dennis Friedman [Friedman, Dennis]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Peter Owen Publishers
Published: 2014-03-05T11:00:00+00:00

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What a hard task it is for us women to go through this very often

PRINCESS MAY DID not enjoy her first pregnancy. She disliked the changes in her body, believed she looked unattractive and began to withdraw from social life. She was comforted to find that she had an ally in Queen Victoria who had also never liked being pregnant. ‘Having children is the only thing I dread’ was the Queen’s comment during her first pregnancy. In a letter to her Uncle Leopold, the King of the Belgians, she wrote: ‘Men never think, at least seldom think, what a hard task it is for us women to go through this very often.’ Queen Victoria’s views had not changed when, fifty-four years later, seven months into Princess May’s first pregnancy, she wrote in similar vein to her eldest daughter Princess Victoria: ‘It is really too dreadful to have the first year of one’s married life & happiness spoilt by discomfort & misery; I have a most lively recollection of what it was before you were born—All sort of fuss & precautions of all kinds and sorts – displaying every thing & being talked abt & worried to death of wh. I think with perfect horror – in addition to wh. I was furious at being in that position.’

Queen Victoria’s non-maternal views did little to comfort Princess May. She continued to resent the gradual disappearance of her waistline and saw herself in appearance becoming more and more like her obese mother. The changes in her body were entirely outside her control and she did not like it. Her chaotic upbringing with a mother whose ‘can’t afford it’ responses to her daughter’s needs but ‘can afford it’ responses to her own had taught Princess May to play controlling role-play games in order to get what she wanted. Now no amount of control would change the course of events.

Princess May’s mother had brought her daughter up to believe that it was how you looked that was important, rather than who you were. Since Princess Mary Adelaide was not happy with her ‘poor relation’ perception of herself, she used her appearance to compensate for her lack of financial status. Princess May soon began to realize that what might have been true for her mother (who probably had little going for her until her daughter married Prince George) was also true for her. She was able to reassure herself that, as Duke of York and particularly as Duke of Cornwall, Prince George enjoyed an income from the vast ducal estates such that whatever future worries she might have they would never be financial ones. None the less, she was not comforted. With her swollen body she felt that no matter what her financial status she would be judged on her appearance. Resenting the child within her, she thought of how her mother had tried to compensate for her semi-illusory poverty by overeating. Princess Mary Adelaide had made obesity a feature of her life, had

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