A Musical Comedy in Belgrade

Bertie and Elizabeth on a lark in Yugoslavia

Now that King Charles III has been to Romania and back for his annual visit to walk in the Transylvanian wildflower meadows and check his properties, let’s revisit the journey to Eastern Europe made by his maternal grandparents, the future King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, 100 years ago when they were newly married and footloose.

The trip caused a rift between Bertie (as he was informally called) and his longtime mentor, Louis Greig. In my biography, George VI and Elizabeth: The Marriage That Saved the Monarchy, I chose to emphasize and explain the disagreement between the two men, which meant less space in the book for the trip itself—the royal couple’s first mission abroad on behalf of the British government. Biographers make choices like that every day. Now, thanks to Royals Extra, I can give my subscribers exclusive details from my archives on the rather madcap Balkan journey of the Duke and Duchess of York, as they were known then, along with rare photographs. If you are a free subscriber, please consider upgrading to the paid category so you can receive all the benefits of Royals Extra.

As grandfather King Ferdinand of Romania looks on, Elizabeth holds the hand of Queen Marie (“Missy”) of Romania, with her grandson Prince Peter in her lap

In September 1923, twenty-seven-year-old Bertie and twenty-three-year-old Elizabeth were abruptly commanded by his father, King George V, to travel to Belgrade for the Eastern Orthodox baptism of Prince Peter, the newborn son of Serbian King Alexander, the ruler of the recently created kingdom of Yugoslavia. Bertie was to serve as the “Koom,” or godfather, and he was also tapped to be best man the next day for the wedding of Prince Paul of Serbia—a first cousin of King Alexander—to Princess Olga of Greece.

Bertie and Elizabeth counted Oxford-educated Prince Paul in their circle of friends and enjoyed the company of Princess Olga.  The previous year, Bertie had attended the wedding of King Alexander to Princess Marie (nicknamed “Mignon”), a daughter of King Ferdinand and Queen Marie of Romania. As a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, Queen Marie—an exuberant character known as “Missy”—was George V’s first cousin. When the future George V was twenty-seven, he had fallen in love with seventeen-year-old Missy. But she turned down his proposal and married Ferdinand instead. George went on to wed Princess May of Teck—the future Queen Mary.

When Charles III began his recent Romanian vacation, he briefly remarked on the connection to his great-grandfather’s cousin Missy and her Romanian family. He would have needed a Venn diagram to describe the multiple links between the British royal family and the rulers of Greece, Serbia and Romania who attended the christening and wedding in 1923.

The Duchess of York (right) in the wedding procession with the Queen of Greece (left) and the Crown Princess of Romania—both of them relatives of the Duke of York

While it was mostly a family affair, the British government wanted the trip to show support for the new kingdom of Yugoslavia uniting the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Bertie and Elizabeth, who would later be admired for their dedication to duty, bridled at George V’s summons, which interrupted their autumn shooting holiday. Bertie commented that Lord Curzon, the Foreign Secretary, “should be drowned” for insisting on the trip at short notice.

“I am getting very bored at the thought of going out to Serbia,” Elizabeth wrote to her mother before their mid-October departure. “We are off to Suburbia tomorrow morning,” she joked in a letter to her former governess, Beryl Poignand. “Three whole days in the train, two days there & then home again! What a life!”