Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires by Justin C. Vovk

1936, in Queen Elizabeth , Shawcross, p. 381.
    23. Cawthorne, Kings and Queens , p. 189.
    24. Edwards, Matriarch , p. 368.
    25. Carroll, Notorious Royal Marriages , p. 400.
    26. Ziegler, Edward VIII , p. 538.
    27. Daily Express , June 3, 1957.
    28. Edwards, Matriarch , p. 378.
    29. Elizabeth, Duchess of York, to Queen Mary, October 21, 1936, QM/PRIV/CC12/36, the Royal Archives, quoted in Queen Elizabeth , Shawcross, p. 370.
    30. Wheeler-Bennett, King George VI , p. 288.
    31. Farquhar, Behind the Palace Doors , p. 287.
    32. Queen Mary to King George VI, February 4, 1937, RA GVI/PRIV/RF/11 in Queen Elizabeth , Shawcross, pp. 421-422.
    33. Gelardi, Born to Rule , p. 361.
    34. Shaw, Royal Babylon (Kobo desktop version), chap. 9, para. 87.
    35. Queen Mary to King George VI, April 10, 1937, RA GVI/PRIV/RF/11, the Royal Archives, quoted in Queen Elizabeth , Shawcross, p. 421.
    36. Diary entry of Queen Mary, June 3, 1937, in Queen Mary , Pope-Hennessy, p. 585.
    37. Farquhar, Behind the Palace Doors , p. 288. Once Wallis secured her divorce from her second husband, Ernest Simpson, she resumed using her maiden name, Warfield.
    38. Duff, Queen Mary , p. 220.
    39. Shawcross, Queen Elizabeth , p. 401.
    40. Diary entry of Queen Mary, May 12, 1937, in Queen Mary , Duff, p. 220.
    41. Gelardi, Born to Rule , p. 368.
    42. Queen Mary to King George VI, May 12, 1937, RA GVI/PRIV/RF/11, in Queen Elizabeth , Shawcross, p. 404.
    43. Shawcross, Queen Elizabeth , p. 387.
    44. Palm Beach Post , March 13, 1938.
    45. Diary entry of Queen Mary, November 20, 1938, in Queen Mary , Pope-Hennessy, p. 588.
    46. Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary , p. 588.
    47. Habsburg Family Archives, Cassette No. 20, File 502, in The Last Empress , Brook-Shepherd, p. 252.
    48. Declaration of Archduke Otto, March 12, 1938, Habsburg Family Archives, Cassette No. 21, File 361, in ibid., p. 266.
    49. Volkzeitung , April 20, 1938.
    50. Queen Mary to King George VI, September 3, 1939, RA GVI/PRIV/RF/11, in Queen Elizabeth , Shawcross, p. 493.
    51. Declaration of Empress Zita, July 27, 1940, Habsburg Family Archives, “New York Trunk,” No. 3, File 261, in The Last Empress , Brook-Shepherd, p. 278.
    52. The idea of Queen Mary being kidnapped by the Germans was not so far-fetched. A few months earlier, the Germans had unsuccessfully tried to capture Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, who fled to safety in England.
    53. Duff, Queen Mary , p. 229.
    54. Queen Elizabeth to Queen Mary, September 13, 1940, QM/PRIV/CC12/135, the Royal Archives, quoted in Queen Elizabeth , Shawcross, pp. 522–523.
    55. Ibid .
    56. Diary entry of Queen Mary, December 19, 1939, in Queen Mary , Pope-Hennessy, p. 602.
    57. Queen Mary to Archduke Robert, undated, 1941, in The Last Empress , Brook-Shepherd, p. 286.
    58. Empress Zita to Queen Mary, undated, RA GVCC 45/1256, the Royal Archives, quoted in ibid., p. 287. In the original letter and in Brook-Shepherd, Zita addressed Mary as “ Chère Cousine, Sa Majesté la Reine-Mère d’Angleterre .”
    59. Edwards, Matriarch , p. 394.
    60. Queen Mary to Edward, Duke of Windsor, August 31, 1942, RA EDW/PRIV/MAINB/156, the Royal Archives, quoted in Queen Elizabeth , Shawcross, p. 552.
    61. Edward, Duke of Windsor, to King George VI, September 15, 1942, RA GVI/PRIV/RF/11, in ibid.
    62. Edwards, Matriarch , p. 403.
    63. “Queen Mary,” British Medical Journal , vol. 1, no. 4813 (April 4, 1953), p. 772.
    64. British succession laws required men to precede women, regardless of their birth order, to inherit the throne. Only in instances when the monarch or heir apparent had no sons (in the cases of George VI and Queen Victoria’s father the Duke of Kent) could women ascend the throne. This was changed on October 28, 2011, at the biennial Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in Australia when Queen Elizabeth II and the sixteen Commonwealth leaders agreed to give women equal succession rights with men. The new succession law is not retroactive, and the queen emphasized