Within this is the question of what impact the abuse had on David, and whether it really ended with pinches and slaps.
It didn’t improve as he grew older thanks to an abusive nanny that would pinch him before he went to see his parents, a dynamic it took Mary nearly three years to catch on to. Once described as viewing her offspring as though they belonged to someone else, she was a remote and distant figure to her children and quite literally had no idea what to do with them. She saw her eldest son twice a day during his infancy, audiences that were marred by him crying as soon as he was handed to her. Twenty-seven, not fully embraced by her husband’s family and shy, the Duchess of York was uncomfortable with children, including her own. Theirs is hardly the first unhappy parent-child relationship in the Royal Family’s history, but it is one that feels more poignant thanks to how recently it unfolded, how much more we know about it and the fact that it was not devoid of natural affection.Įven so, perhaps there is something to be found from its start, which saw Mary as a new wife and mother at David’s birth in June 1894.
In the case of Edward VIII, or “David” as he was known to his family, and Mary, their relationship was complicated by how each viewed the function of the monarchy itself. The relationship between Edward VIII and his mother, Mary of Teck, is perfectly illustrative of not only the significance of a generational gap, but of how differing views on duty and happiness can be enough to drive a wedge between parent and child.
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