Court Circular

BALMORAL CASTLE It is with the greatest pleasure that the King and Queen announce the betrothal of their dearly beloved son, the Prince George, to Princess Marina, daughter of the Prince and Princess Nicolas of Greece, to which union the King has gladly given his consent.

It came as something of a jolt to the Empire last week that the King's youngest son should thus have plunged into the deep Balkans to find himself a bride.

Tall, brunette Princess Marina's swarthy brother-in-law, Prince Paul of Jugoslavia, has a castle near Bled amid the wild beauty of the Slovene Alps. There the courtship ripened as George, 31, and Marina, 27, swam in the icy lake, galloped over mountain trails and strolled in the great park. The couple were dogged constantly by Inspector Harry Evans of Scotland Yard who has dogged Mahatma Gandhi, spends much time dogging Cabinet Ministers. One night Prince George sent a long cablegram to King George at Balmoral Castle amid Scottish scenery even wilder than the Slovene. Next day Prince Paul and his wife Princess Olga, eldest sister of Princess Marina, chaperoned her and Prince George on an excursion out of the Balkans to the Salzburg music festival. A few hours before King George announced the engagement, Prince George appealed to Austrian newshawks: "Please say there is no truth in all these rumors."

When the Court Circular touched off the cannonade of news, London editors leaped to their telephones, called up everyone they dared in Salzburg, did not dare to call Prince George. Readily Princess Marina answered: "I cannot tell you how happy I am. I hope we shall be married very soon!"

Said Their Royal Highnesses' innkeeper: "The Prince was humming a little song to himself when he greeted his fiancee this morning before breakfast. The Princess was radiant. We noticed yesterday that the Princess was wearing an engagement ring. So interested were the people of Salzburg that a rumor at once started that the Princess and Prince are married. That, of course, is ridiculous."

Inspector Evans warned correspondents that "To speak to them would be a violation of a tradition of the Royal Family." Prince George, however, was too happy to stand upon tradition. With Princess Marina on his arm he cried: "The cat's out of the bag! It was all sudden and unexpected. I don't know when the wedding will be but we're both most happy!"

"Even Prince George's visit to Bled was a complete surprise!" chimed in Princess Marina. Then, with a shy glance at Prince George: "So was his proposal at Bohinska Lake. I expect the wedding will be in November."

Back to Bled next day went George and Marina. Correspondents who followed them into the Balkans were stood off by Inspector Evans with lavish treats of Serbian beer. He made copy with such jokes as "Now there, keep away. I have a policeman stationed behind every tree. No photographs!" When the correspondents grew restless Major Humphrey Butler. Adjutant to Prince George, joined Inspector Evans in describing at length the prowess of His Royal Highness. "He can outwalk either of us," they said. "Once the Prince climbed to Prince Paul's hunting hut in an hour and 45 minutes. Even the native mountaineers consider it good going to make the hut in two hours and a quarter."

To the Empire this was brave news, for Prince George, cheerful, popular and hand some, has all his life been rated physically below par. Organic indigestion drove him from the Royal Navy into the Foreign Office where he was made a third secretary. This proved too strenuous. Sympathetic Edward of Wales took him along on a tour of South America, did all the heavy speech-making himself. Prince George seemed to perk up and catch on. Senoritas praised his dancing, called him "more fascinating than the Prince of Wales." His digestion seemed to improve. He seemed to be able to drink his royal quota of champagne. By careful practice he learned to speak so exactly like the Prince of Wales that equerries to the royal brothers vow that with their eyes shut they cannot tell which prince is which.

Vastly encouraged about Prince George, King George sent him out last winter to do South Africa and Australia. Seventeen thousand miles of South Africa was all he could stand (TIME. Jan 29). Sadly King George announced that the "heavy strain" of Australia would be too much for his fourth son, appointed his third son the Duke of Gloucester to do Australia this autumn. Last week loyal London editors hinted that perhaps Prince George's romance was the real reason for the substitution. They were confident that he will be equal to the strain of marriage. When Prince George got back from South Africa, they recalled, his gruff old uncle, the Earl of Athlone, told him publicly at a banquet: "You had better think of marrying soon!"

Left to himself Prince George thinks up such escapades as the ball in Danzig to which he went dressed as a girl and was presented to Danzig swains, few of whom speak French, as Mlle Fifi du Jardin des Plantes ("Miss Fifi of the Paris Zoo"). This joke few stolid Danzigers understand even today. King George was thinking last week, according to Court function aries, of celebrating Prince George's marriage by creating him Duke of Edinburgh.

"Marina is the most beautiful princess in Europe!" exclaimed the Infanta Eulalie of Spain in Paris last week. "Of course it is a love match. Marina is so beautiful that any man would fall in love with her!" Other friends warmly declared that no picture ever taken of Princess Marina does her justice. To bring her to England, King George will send the royal yacht Victoria and Albert. She may repeat the furore created when King George's mother, Denmark's radiant Alexandra, was similarly yachted to Britain to marry the future Edward VII.

Since her parents are frankly poor, Princess Marina has been living chiefly in the cheap Balkans, with occasional trips to England where she met Prince George. Her father. Prince Nicolas, is the uncle of deposed King George II of Greece and of tragic Princess Helen of Greece and Rumania, the deserted and divorced wife of scapegrace King Carol. Helen lives in England under the protection of George V whose language, when Carol is mentioned and ladies are not present, is apt to become sulphurous. Last week Helen was believed to have helped Marina with King George if not with Prince George. Under the Royal Marriage Act of 1772 His Majesty has tsaristic powers over the mating of British Royalty. In 1923, when he consented to the Duke of York's marriage to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the announcement went forth: "Not for two centuries and a half has a Prince in direct succession to the Throne received the King's consent to contract marriage with a subject."

No subject is Marina but a wholesome young Princess fond of country sports, horses, dogs, bright lipstick, plenty of rouge, considerable mascara, books, sketching and amateur theatricals in which she is a clever mimic. Dropped by her nurse in babyhood, she now wears a left shoe somewhat higher than her right. She is clever at cookery, less successful at making her own clothes. Last week Paris dressmakers who had hoped to get her trousseau order were vexed by rumors that she will "Buy British." Queried by long distance telephone, her father, Prince Nicolas, replied from bed: "The male members of my family always have bought their clothes in England. Now one feminine member, at least, will follow suit."

In the reigning tradition of Balkan Royalty, Princess Marina recently placed her endorsement of Pond's beauty preparations in trusted hands. For that the Empire is more than ready to forgive an inexperienced girl. The Pond's advertisement had been scheduled to appear next month but last week British Royalty was expected to squelch it easily.

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