5 JUNE 1947, Page 5

I realised a little too late that I was at

fault last week in saying that Queen Mary was the first British consort of a British king since the sixteenth century. There was, of course, Anne Hyde, the first wife of James II. I excluded an earlier Queen Mary on the ground that she was not the consort of her husband William III but co-sovereign. As to Queen Mary herself not being British, she was born and brought up in Britain, and in all respects as British as King George V; no one has ever suggested he was anything else.