Some Descendants of Marie of Mecklenburg(-Strelitz)





Some Descendants of Marie of Mecklenburg(-Strelitz)
                   
1. Viktoria MARIE Auguste Louise Antoinette Caroline Leopoldine, Herzogin zu MECKLENBURG(-STRELITZ), b. Neustrelitz 8 May 1878, d. Oberkassel bei Königswinter am Rhein 14 Oct. 1948, dau. of Adolf Friedrich V, Großherzog zu Mecklenburg(-Strelitz), and of Elisabeth, Prinzessin von Anhalt,
m. (1) Richmond, Kew, Surrey, 22 June 1899, div. ... 31 Dec. 1908, Georges Maurice Ernest Jametel, created 8 May 1886 "comes romanus" (Papal collation), b. St. Petersburg 18 Apr. 1859, d. Paris VI 13 March 1944, son of Ernst Jametel and of Marie Camille Sorelle,
m. (2) Neustrelitz 11 Aug. 1914, Julius Ernst Rudolf Friedrich Viktor, Graf und Edler Herr zur Lippe-Biesterfeld, from 25 Oct. 1905 Prinz zur Lippe, b. Oberkassel bei Königswinter am Rhein 2 Sept. 1873, d. Oberkassel bei Königswinter am Rhein 15 Sept. 1952, son of Ernst Graf und Edler Herr zur Lippe-Biesterfeld and of Karoline Gräfin von Wartensleben.
Issue by ... Hecht, palace footman (surname ... ):
a. ... [dau.], b. ... 1898.
See discussion below.
Issue by first husband (surname Jametel):
2 b. Georges Louis Marie Eulalio James, b. Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Seine-et-Oise, 3 Feb. 1904, d. Villejuif 27 June 1982.
3 c. Marie (May) Augusta Friederike, b. Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Seine-et-Oise, 11 Sept. 1905, d. Besselich bei Vallendar am Rhein 24 Sept. 1969.
Issue by second husband (Prinz/Prinzessin zur Lippe):
d. Elisabeth Caroline Adelheid Friederike Leopoldine Armgard, b. Dresden-Blasewitz 23 Jan. 1916.
     (in 1997 -- Lichtentaler Allee 100, D-76530 Baden-Baden)
Marriages and descendants easily traced elsewhere.
e. Ernst August Bernhard Alexander Eduard Friedrich-Wilhelm, b. Dresden-Blasewitz 1 Apr. 1917, d. Ansbach 13 June 1990.
Marriages and descendants easily traced elsewhere.



Generation II


2. Georges Louis Marie Eulalio James Jametel,, b. Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Seine-et-Oise, 3 Feb. 1904, d. Villejuif 27 June 1982, son of Georges Jametel, comes romanus, and of Marie Hzgin zu Mecklenburg [number 1],
m. Creysse, Lot, 12 Nov. 1948, Lise Marcelle Barbet, b. Sens, Yonne, 16 Aug. 1924, d. Creteil 26 May 1996, dau. of Louis Justin Barbet and of Marcelle Redon.
Issue (surname Jametel):
4 a. Isabelle Helene Macelle Celestine, b. Avallon, Yonne, 28 Feb. 1964.


3. Marie (May) Augusta Friederike Jametel, b. Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Seine-et-Oise, 11 Sept. 1905, created Gräfin von Nemerow 26 Jan. 1910, d. Besselich bei Vallendar am Rhein 24 Sept. 1969, dau. of Georges Jametel, comes romanus, and of Marie Hzgin zu Mecklenburg [number 1],
m. Dresden 8 May 1928, as his second husband, Karl Wilhelm Robert Walter von Barton gennant von Stedman, b. Ettlingen, Baden, 30 Sept. 1875, d. Neustrelitz 30 Sept. 1933 [he had m. (1) Frankfurt am Main 11 March 1915, div. Berlin 30 Nov. 1920, Daniela von Grunelius, b. Frankfurt am Main 6 June 1893, d. Möhringen, Baden, 5 Feb. 1965], son of Robert von Barton gennant von Stedman and of Elisabeth Kraul.
Issue (surname von Barton gennant von Stedman):
5 a. Ralph Joachim, b. Besselich bei Vallendar am Rhein 24 Feb. 1933, d. ... 10 Sept. 2004.



Generation III


4. Isabelle Helene Macelle Celestine Jametel, b. Avallon, Yonne, 28 Feb. 1964, dau. of Georges Jametel [number 2] and of Lise Barbet,
m. Maisons Alfort 22 Aug. 1995, Jean-François Georges Pérochon, b. Neuilly sur Seine 22 March 1966, son of Raymond Claude Pérochon and of Simonne Andrée Bruneau.
     ( ... )
Issue (surname Jametel-Pérochon):
a. Zoé Lise Marchelle, b. Paris ... 2000.


5. Ralph Joachim von Barton gennant von Stedman, b. Besselich bei Vallendar am Rhein 24 Feb. 1933, d. ... 10 Sept. 2004, son of Karl von Barton gennant von Stedman and of May Gfin v Nemerow [number 3],
m. Besselich bei Vallendar am Rhein 25 Nov. 1964 Asta Knorr, b. Vallendar am Rhein 13 Jan. 1948, dau. of Wilhelm Knorr and of Irene Hecht.
     (in 2004 -- ... )
Issue (surname von Barton gennant von Stedman):
a. Gloria Veronika, b. Koblenz 15 Dec. 1964.
     (in 2004 -- ... )
6 b. Stephanie May, b. Koblenz 6 Nov. 1968.



Generation IV


6. Stephanie May von Barton gennant von Stedman, b. Koblenz 6 Nov. 1968, dau. of Ralph von Barton gennant von Stedman [number 5] and of Asta Knorr,
m. ... 10 June 1994, Frank Bastian, b. ... 7 Nov. 1967, son of ... Bastian and of ... .
     (in 2004 -- ... )
Issue (surname Bastian):
a. Johanna, b. ... 24 Oct. 1995.
b. Carolin, b. ... 8 March 1997.
c. Andreas, b. ... 7 Dec. 2002.
d. Robert, b. ... 6 Aug. 2004.




NOTES




1 -- For the parentage and ancestry of Georges Jametel, see L'Allemagne Dynastique, Tome VII [1994], pp. 560-563.



1 a -- See James Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary [New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960], pp. 333-337.

On 1 March 1898, the future Queen Mary (then Princess May, Duchess of York) joined her Aunt Augusta, the Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg(-Strelitz), at Menton, Alpes-Maritimes (spelled "Mentone" in British English), a resort in the south of France. "With the Grand Duchess, and indeed the actual reason for the old lady's presence at Mentone, was her eldest grandchild, Marie, Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, who was then a girl of nineteen." (Pope-Hennessy, p. 334).

The Grand Ducal court at Neustrelitz was run with extreme inflexibility and formality. Equally rigorous was the etiquette at the Erbgrossherzog's palace, where Marie, her sister, and their two brothers were raised. Quoting at length from Pope-Hennessy (pp. 335-337):

The "two daughters were in the hands of governesses, who formed a screen between them and their parents, so that these latter had no real contact with their children. The two girls were raised in a total ignorance of life ... .

Inflexibility of mind and habits has dangers all its own. Rigidity of manners is analagous to the rigidity of a carcase, for, like a carcase, it can breed corruption. The result of so much stiffness in their surroundings was that the two daughters of the Erbgrossherzog Adolphus were supervised but not looked after. In 1897 it was suddenly brought to the attention of the incredulous Erbgrossherzogin Elizabeth's attention -- very late in the day -- that her eldest daughter seemed to be about to have a child.

In the tempest of recriminations which followed this discovery it was established that the real cause of the misfortune was one of the many inflexible rules of the Grand Ducal Court: that all the lamps in all the rooms, including those of the young Duchesses' bedrooms, were to be carried in by the footmen and never by the maids. The responsibility for the crime was quickly traced to one Hecht, a young married footman, who was immediately dismissed without a character. When he applied for another position in the neighbourhood, his prospective employers wrote to the Hofmarschallamt of the court of Strelitz to ask why he had left. They were told that Hecht had been dismissed for stealing. Hecht thereupon took the train to Berlin and consulted a lawyer. This lawyer happened to be a Social-Democrat. He released the story to the eager anti-monarchical press of the capital. The Strelitz family thereupon pensioned off Hecht, but omitted to stipulate that he must first leave Strelitz. He stayed on in the town, hoping to extract more money by his presence.

Meanwhile the story had spread from court to court across Europe. Queen Victoria told the Grand Duchess Augusta that she had heard it from the Empress Frederick, adding: "I believe she has done much harm in writing to all the Courts!" At Strelitz the wretched Duchess Marie's parents would have nothing more to do with her. They insisted on the child being sent away at once. "It is too awful & shameful & almost sinful to send the poor Baby away," wrote Queen Victoria. "I hear fm a reliable source that the family have forbidden that poor unhappy girl's name ever being mentioned in the family ... I think it is too wicked", the Queen wrote in a later letter on the same subject. The Grand Duchess Augusta alone of her German family championed her granddaughter, in whose fundamental innocence she believed: for it was clear that the girl had been either terrorized by Hecht -- as the Grand Duchess thought -- or "drugged", which was Queen Victoria's theory. The German Emperor fancied she had been hypnotized, a possibility also entertained by the Duke of York.

It will be seen that under these curious circumstances the fact that the Duchess of York went publicly to stay with her young cousin, and was to be seen driving with her daily, was indeed a noble and protective gesture. On Princess May's advice, her Aunt Augusta went with her to see Queen Victoria, then at Cimiez, and told her the whole story. The Prince of Wales was also talked round by Princess May. "He has been so kind about it," Princess May wrote to her husband, "& At A. is so grateful to her English family for behaving so well & upholding her views -- At. looks much better & happier since I came." "I certainly think the English relations have behaved better & are more sensible about it all," Prince George replied. "The parents are the worst & ought to be ashamed of themselves." The old Grand Duchess never forgot that the attitude of the "English family" was almost solely due to the energy and sense of justice of Princess May.

It was not the sort of situation with which Princess May had ever been faced before. But her quiet gift for coping with the difficulties of life now amounted to a kind of genius. Her only regret was that she had not been consulted earlier. "The more she [Aunt Augusta] tells me about it the more I feel how utterly the whole thing was mismanaged -- What a pity when it could easily have been arranged to send the girl away on the plea of ill-health," she wrote from Mentone to Prince George.

The poor young Duchess Marie was fated to have an unhappy life for many years to come. Her parents refused to see her, and they would not even attend her wedding to a Frenchman, Comte Jametel, nearly twenty years her senior, in 1899. This marriage proved a failure, since Comte Jametel was found to have married Duchess Marie for her money, and continued his very public liaison with a Spanish Infanta. After many legal difficulties and with the loss of her fortune she divorced him in 1908, and later made a second, happier marriage. Throughout all these troubles her "Aunt May" continued to give her moral support; for, once the Duchess of York had taken up a cause, she invariable saw it through."


End of extracts from Pope-Hennessy. Note that Pope-Hennessy does not mention the result of Duchess Marie's pregnancy, whether there was a stillbirth or a live birth, and, if live, the sex of the child, its name, or anything about its subsequent history. This is not surprising, as Pope-Hennessy was writing a life of Princess May, later Queen Mary, and not a life of Duchess Marie, nevertheless it is a lacuna. Pope-Hennessy doesn't even mention the date or location of Duchess Marie's confinement, though it was presumably at Menton and shortly after 1 March 1898 (when Princess May arrived there).

Later writers and genealogists are similarly reticent. The only other place I've found which mentions Duchess Marie's out-of-wedlock pregnancy is Le Royaume-Uni de Grand-Bretagne et Irlande du Nord [Les Manuscrits du C.E.D.R.E.] II:145, which says that the resulting child was a daughter, and describes her in these terms:

"Fille, élevée sous la protection de son arrière-grand-mère la princesse Augusta de Grand-Bretagne et Irlande (1822-1916), épouse du grand-duc Frédéric Guillaume de Mecklembourg-Strelitz, née en 1898."


Though this account provides the sex of the child (a daughter) and a vague date of birth, the location of the birth is not specified, and no name is given. Presumably she outlived her great-grandmother Augusta, and would have been about eighteen years old when Augusta died, at Neustrelitz on 5 Dec. 1916.

It's not likely that Duchess Marie's out-of-wedlock daughter would still (2007) be alive. One wonders why the veil of secrecy has not yet been lifted.

Oddly, the palace footman who impregnated Duchess Marie, and the mother-in-law of Duchess Marie's grandson Ralph (number 5, above), both have the same surname (Hecht).

Some of the discussion available in December 2006 at the Alexander Palace Time Machine includes details not found elsewhere, such as the claim that the daughter "was given to a family to raise", and that Hecht "later opened a small hotel in Lubeck". The discussion also includes undated photographs said to be of Duchess Marie and of some of her children.



2 -- For the most current, though incomplete, information on the Jametel family, see http://www.angelfire.com/in/heinbruins/SaxeA.html, towards the bottom of the page.



3 -- meckl.-strel. Gfnstand als "v. Nemerow" Neustrelitz 26.1.1910. For the Barton gen. v. Stedman family, see Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels 57 [Adel B XI 1974] 15-16.



4 -- See the "jfperochon" database at geneanet.org.



6 -- Information on Stephanie and her descendants was extracted in December 2006 from http://www.emecklenburg.de/Niklot/i0704.htm.











William Addams Reitwiesner


wargs@wargs.com