5 JUNE 1947, Page 16

QUEEN MARY

Sra,—You say in The Spectator that Queen Mary is the first British consort of a British king since the sixteenth century. But surely this is not so. Queen Mary is the daughter of a Prince of Tech in Wurttemberg, and her mother was Princess Mary of Cambridge, a direct descendant of the first three Georges, who were all Germans and married German wives. Queen Mary is, therefore, purely German by blood, and it would be necessary to go back to James I to find some British blood. Three of the wives of Henry VIII were British (or English), as is, of course, the present Queen Elizabeth, but clearly Queen Mary cannot be described as

British in blood.—Yours faithfully, F. F. ParacErr.

• Junior Carlton Club, Pall Mall, S.W.I.