It’s been a rocky road for Britain’s House of Windsor of late. Ever since the end of World War II, it has wobbled dangerously close to the cliff's edge of abolition, only to catch a breather and soldier on.

Currently, it’s the alleged antics (illegal and unamusing) of Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor, the Royal formerly known as Prince, that’s putting the monarchy back on the endangered species list.

Whether or not it survives isn’t of concern to this column. However, the current scandal, and this being Women’s History Month, provides the perfect opportunity to revisit the tale of how one woman single-handedly kept the royal family on the throne. And that woman just happened to wear a diamond tiara.

Talk about being born with a silver spoon in your mouth! Mary of Teck seemed destined for royal greatness from the moment she was born in 1867 in the same room in Kensington Palace where her first cousin Queen Victoria had been born 48 years and two days earlier.

Officially, her title was Princess Victoria Mary of Teck. To her family, she was “May,” nicknamed for the bright and sunny month of her arrival. A bright and sunny girl herself, her childhood, although happy, was strict. From the moment she learned to walk, she was groomed to move elegantly through the highest level of Britain’s aristocracy.

That preparation paid off in 1891 when she became engaged to Prince Albert Victor. He was second in line to become king, the very same position young Prince George holds today.

But the prince died in a global pandemic just six weeks later. Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales didn’t want to let this prize get away. So, they persuaded Albert Victor’s brother, Prince George, to marry her instead.

After they tied the knot in 1893, royal watchers were stunned by what came next. The couple were genuinely happy together and developed a deep bond.

The prince finally became King George V on May 6, 1910. And his wife was now styled Mary of Teck, Queen of the United Kingdom and British Dominions and Empress of India. Talk about winning a royal flush!

You’ll know Queen Mary if you’ve seen the hit TV series, “The Crown,” or the Academy Award-winning film, “The King’s Speech.” Was portrayed in both exactly as she was in life: coldly strict, emotionally remote and personally intimidating. Britons of the time appreciated her devotion to duty. They respected her, but they didn’t love her. However, George V did, and that was all that mattered.

Their lives ran smoothly. Until World War I erupted.

And Queen Mary was the first to sense that the global conflict presented a clear and present danger to what is now called “the firm.” It was a threat that grew more serious as the war dragged on.

There was a delicious irony in the predicament. Because the man who symbolically led Great Britain in its fight against Germany came from a German family. A very German family, in fact.

When the Great War (as World War I was called at the time) began, the sovereign was head of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. German regals had married into the British monarchy for centuries. In fact, the English royals often spoke German among themselves in private. George V was even a first cousin of his Teutonic rival, Kaiser Wilhelm II.

That posed a serious problem in London. British wartime propaganda had skillfully whipped up a frenzied hatred of all things Germanic. It was greatly aided in its work by the Kaiser himself, who had once urged his soldiers to act like the vicious barbarians led by Attila the Hun in the 5th century. The enemy was labelled “the Hun” and anything even remotely associated with him—including beer, sausage and sauerkraut—was given the boot.

Queen Mary sensed danger. With anti-German sentiment spreading like a cancer, it was only a matter of when, not if, it would reach Buckingham Palace. She was not only the first royal to recognize the growing threat… she was the only one.

But her husband remained unmoved. She slowly but steadily worked on him until she eventually won him over to her way of thinking. And in July 1917, George V issued a royal decree. From that moment on, the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was gone, replaced by the House of Windsor, a name taken from the family’s beloved Windsor Castle solely because it “sounded English.” Britons enthusiastically cheered the change.

In Berlin, Cousin Wilhelm sneered, saying he looked forward to attending a performance of the “Merry Wives of Saxe-Gotha-Coburg.”

Yet within 16 months, Wilhelm and his House of Hohenzollern were off the throne in Germany. As was the czar’s House of Romanov in Russia and the emperor’s House of Habsburg in Austria-Hungary.

While the Windsors survived.

As for Queen Mary, a world-famous ocean liner, a battleship and even a university were named in her honor, all because she had the steel-eyed calculation to spot a threat at the outset and the courage to neutralize it before it metastasized.

Have comments, questions or suggestions you’d like to share with Mark? Message him at jmp.press@gmail.com.