Medallion - Marriage of George Duke of York and Princess Mary

Reverse

Commemoration

Script: Latin

Lettering:
TO
COMMEMORATE
THE MARRIAGE
OF H.R.H
THE DUKE OF YORK
AND H.S.H.
PRINCESS MAY
JULY 6TH
1893

Edge

Plain

Comment

The wedding of Prince George, Duke of York (later King George V), and Princess Mary of Teck (later Queen Mary) took place on 6 July 1893 at the Chapel Royal, St. James's Palace in London.

Mary of Teck's engagement to Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, eldest son of the Prince of Wales, ended after the duke's death on 14 January 1892. Even before the duke's death, his grandmother Queen Victoria had wanted to ensure the succession, and consequently desired that his younger brother and (now second-in-line to the throne) Prince George marry either Princess Marie or Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh. For his part, George was fond of his cousins, but did not want to marry early; "I still think marrying too young is a bad thing," he wrote to the Queen, and cited the circumstances surrounding the death of Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria as an example. Furthermore, the prince made it known, "The one thing I never could do is to marry a person that didn't care for me. I should be miserable for the rest of my life". In 1892 however, a tentative proposal of marriage was put forward to Marie's parents, but as she was influenced by her Anglophobe mother and governess, Marie rejected him.
Wikipedia