Francis von Teck

Prince Francis ( "Frank" ) Joseph Leopold Fredrick von Teck , GCVO , DSO (born January 9, 1870 in Kensington Palace , today in London , † October 22, 1910 in London), was a British nobleman of Württemberg descent. He was a younger brother of Queen Mary of Teck .

"Frank" , caricature from Vanity Fair (1902)

Life

His Serene Highness Prince Francis (called Frank , German name Franz ) was the second son of Duke Franz von Teck , the founder of the unequal Württemberg branch line Teck and his wife, the British Princess Mary Adelaide .

Francis with his siblings Adolphus, Mary and Alexander and his mother (1884)

While his sister Mary got engaged to the future heir to the throne and his brothers Adolphus and Alexander made careers in the military and were socially respected, Francis was considered the " black sheep " of the family. Already at boarding school - he and his older brother were the first members of the British royal family to attend a public school from 1882 - he was noticed by his bad behavior. He had to leave Wellington College after throwing the headmaster over a hedge and then went to Cheltenham College .

He had inherited the inability to handle money from his chronically troubled mother, whose favorite son he was. He was a gambler who gambled away most of his fortune in horse racing . Handsome and unmarried all his life, Prince Francis had - not without good reason - the reputation of a notorious womanizer ; He was said to have had numerous affairs and even illegitimate children. The actress Sarah Miles claims to be his descendant. An advantageous engagement with his relative Princess Maud , who was extremely interested in him, turned down Francis.

After attending the Sandhurst Military Academy , Prince Francis joined the Royal Dragoons Regiment in 1890 . After losing £ 10,000 on a single horse bet in 1895 and unable to pay, he was transferred to India in 1896 , where he served as the commandant's aide-de-camp in Quetta . In 1897/98 he served in the Anglo-Egyptian army and took part in the final suppression of the Mahdi uprising in Sudan (Nile campaign, battles of Atbara and Khartoum ). After serving in England and Ireland, he fought in South Africa in the second Boer War in 1899/1900 . In 1901 he left active military service with the rank of major , where he was popular with his comrades. He eventually became chairman of Middlesex Hospital , for which he raised funds.

In 1907 the New York Times announced the engagement of Prince Francis to Nora Langhorne , the daughter of the American railroad company Chiswell Langhorne and sister of Nancy Astor , which was denied the next day. Francis', however, probably the only "true love" with whom he actually had a long-term, unspoken relationship, but well-known among family and friends, was Ellen "Nellie" Constance Baldock . Nellie Baldock, the daughter of MP Edward Holmes Baldock , was not only significantly older, but was already married to the Earl of Kilmorey , mother, and possibly a former mistress of Edward VII.

In 1910, Prince Francis underwent nasal surgery. To recover, but also to improve the broken relationship with his siblings, he spent the summer in Balmoral , Scotland , the summer vacation home of the royal family. His sister had become queen shortly after the death of her father-in-law. Francis' condition worsened here, however, and he was treated by the royal personal physician James Reid . However, when serious pleurisy (according to other sources pneumonia ) was discovered, he was quickly transported back to London and operated on, but it was too late; At the age of only 40, he finally died of blood poisoning in the presence of the royal couple .

With the sympathy of his family, he was buried in the crypt of St. George's Chapel in Windsor Castle ; later a reburial took place on the Royal Burial Ground in Frogmore .

Testament: Scandal over the Cambridge Emeralds

His family's grief turned into outrage when Francis' will became known: he bequeathed an important family heirloom , the Cambridge Emeralds , not to his sister, as had been widely expected, but to his lover Nellie Baldock. Such an open admission of his relationship had the potential to discredit his sister, whose coronation was imminent. Queen Mary therefore decided to have his will sealed by a court order and thus withdrawn from the public (in contrast to the wills of ordinary citizens, which are made public). This practice has been maintained for all members of the royal family since then and was upheld in court in 2007 after a lawsuit relating to Princess Margaret's will .

The Cambridge Emeralds are around 30 to 40 emeralds that were acquired by Auguste, Duchess of Cambridge , Francis' grandmother, and her husband. As an inheritance, the jewels came to Francis' mother, who in turn passed them on to him. After his death and inheritance to his mistress, Queen Mary secretly bought the Emeralds back from Nellie Baldock for the significantly inflated price of £ 10,000; the jewels were then worked into the parure that Mary wore at the imperial coronation in India and have been in royal possession ever since.

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Individual evidence

personal data
SURNAME	Teck, Francis of
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Teck, Franz Prince of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION	British nobleman and officer of Württemberg descent, brother of Queen Mary
DATE OF BIRTH	January 9, 1870
PLACE OF BIRTH	Kensington Palace (now London)
DATE OF DEATH	October 22, 1910
Place of death	London

[1] The Guardian : Secret wills of the royals - a tale of mistresses, jewels and cover-ups (March 27, 2007)

[2] BBC News : Princess's 'son' court bid fails (July 5, 2007)