The Memoirs of Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester by Princess Alice, Duchess of ...

In 1929 she made the break and set off on her travels, finding what she described as a wonderful freedom. She found the endless round of debutante dances 'dreadful', and as season followed season, she felt the need to lead a life other than that of 'pointless and boring' dilettantism. Alice was very shy and plump, and, she said, spent most of the evening hiding behind a pillar. She watched fascinated as Countess Brassova, the morganatic wife of the Grand Duke Michael of Russia, fitted the cigarette into a long holder, and then, to the amazement of all, called for a servant to light it.Īlice made her 'miserable' debut into society in 1919, at a dance given by the King and Queen for their daughter, Princess Mary. In her autobiography, Memories Of Ninety Years (1991), she recalled a rather grand luncheon before the first world war, when she saw, for the first time in her life, a woman smoking a cigarette. A special train would be hired to carry the family, servants, carriages, horses, and eight tons of luggage. (A spartan touch was that they all shared the single bathroom.) The family moved like highly privileged nomads between their several houses: Eildon Hall, in the Scottish borders Drumlanrig Castle, Dumfriesshire Dalkeith House, near Edinburgh Bowhill, outside Selkirk, and Boughton, Northamptonshire. As a child she would watch from a window as her paternal grandparents set off in the ornate Buccleuch state coach for banquets and balls at Buckingham Palace.ĭuring the height of the London season, the house was full, with up to 70 people, including servants, in residence.

Lady Alice Christabel Montagu-Douglas-Scott, third daughter of the seventh Duke of Buccleuch and ninth Duke of Queensberry, was born at Montagu House, the family's London mansion in Whitehall.

The Memoirs of Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester by Princess Alice, Duchess of ...