Princess Mary Had Two Sons — What Happened to Them After She Died?

Princess Mary, the Princess Royal, was the only daughter of King George V and Queen Mary of Teck, the sister of King Edward VIII and King George VI, and the aunt of Queen Elizabeth II. When she suddenly collapsed and died of a heart attack on the lawn at Harewood House on 28 March 1965, aged just 67, the compass that had held her two sons steady disappeared almost overnight. This deep dive uncovers the full, mostly forgotten story of what happened to George Lascelles, the 7th Earl of Harewood, and Gerald David Lascelles after their mother's death, and why the two years that followed produced the biggest British royal scandal of the 1960s. Born in 1897 at York Cottage, Princess Mary became known as "the face on the tin" after her 1914 Christmas Gift Fund sent brass boxes to more than two and a half million British servicemen. She trained as a nurse, married Viscount Henry Lascelles in 1922 at Westminster Abbey, and quietly raised two boys inside one of the greatest treasure houses in England. Harewood House, with its Robert Adam interiors, Capability Brown grounds, and Thomas Chippendale furniture, was built with the profits of Barbados sugar plantations worked by enslaved Africans, a history the Lascelles family publicly acknowledged in 2020. The elder son, George, survived something extraordinary. As the nephew of King George VI, he was imprisoned at Colditz Castle as one of the Nazi "Prominente," elite Allied prisoners Hitler planned to use as bargaining chips. In March 1945 Hitler signed his death warrant. SS commander Gottlob Berger disobeyed the order and spared his life. George returned to Harewood in May 1945, inherited the earldom in 1947, married pianist Marion Stein in 1949, and later fathered a son with Australian violinist Patricia Tuckwell while still married. His 1967 divorce and remarriage in New Canaan, Connecticut, was shunned by Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, the Queen Mother, and Princess Margaret, who all refused to attend the wedding. The younger son, Gerald David Lascelles, took a quieter path. He loved motor racing and jazz, served 27 years as President of the British Racing Drivers' Club from 1964 to 1991, directed the Silverstone circuit, collected more than 4,000 jazz records, lived for years at Fort Belvedere, the former home of his uncle Edward VIII, and eventually retired to Bergerac in the south of France, where he died in 1998. Like his brother, he too fathered a son outside his first marriage and later married that child's mother in Vienna in 1978. This is the story of two royal brothers who inherited the long twilight of the British aristocracy, lived through the end of the Empire, the arrival of mass media, the collapse of the old aristocratic rulebook, and the slow public reckoning with the slavery money that built their inheritance. Sources used in researching this video: Wikipedia, Mary, Princess Royal and Countess of Harewood Wikipedia, George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood Wikipedia, Gerald David Lascelles Wikipedia, Marion Stein Wikipedia, Patricia Lascelles, Countess of Harewood The Canadian Encyclopedia, Princess Mary, Countess of Harewood Yorkshire Post, How Harewood House was built with the profits of slavery University of York, Lascelles Slavery Archive Leeds University Library, Special Collections: George Lascelles Harewood House official site, harewood.org Motor Sport Magazine, Farewell to a modest man, February 1992 The Jewish Chronicle, The three lives of Marion Thorpe Unofficial Royalty, George Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood Elisabeth Basford, Princess Mary: The First Modern Princess, 2021 George Lascelles, The Tongs and the Bones, 1981 memoir #PrincessMary #PrincessRoyal #BritishRoyalFamily #RoyalHistory #RoyalScandal #HarewoodHouse #Lascelles #EarlOfHarewood #QueenElizabeth #KingGeorgeV #Colditz #WorldWarTwo #BritishHistory #RoyalDocumentary #ForgottenRoyals #AristocracyHistory #PatriciaTuckwell #MarionStein #JeremyThorpe #BritishMonarchy #RoyalFamily #HistoryDocumentary #UKHistory #RoyalBiography #EdwardVIII #GeorgeVI #RoyalMarriagesAct #YorkshireHistory #BritishAristocracy #RoyalLives #FortBelvedere #Silverstone #BritishEmpire