‘Anyone who is Russian will do, Cousin Nicky preferably, for then Missy will one day be an empress. However, Ma says there’s little chance of her marrying Nicky, as Russian royals aren’t allowed to marry first cousins. She does have someone else up her sleeve though. Nando Hohenzollern. If Missy marries Nando, she’ll be Queen of Romania when his uncle, King Carol dies, and for some reason the thought quite pleases Ma.’

The wedding went off without a hitch. Eight bridesmaids followed Marie-Louise down the aisle – none of them a day older than her. Granny Queen wore her habitual black bombazine and if she was miffed that the groom wasn’t one of her choosing, she didn’t allow any displeasure to show. As always when Willy was in her company, she made a great fuss of him, for although his behaviour often caused him to be in her bad books – and he’d been in them for several days, when she had been told of the part he had played in Marie-Louise and Aribert’s engagement – he was also her firstborn grandchild and, to lots of people’s irritation, she was never displeased with him for long.

Willy and Dona were combining their presence at the wedding with a state visit. Since he’d become Kaiser, there was always tension where Willy’s visits to England were concerned, for his mood and temper could never be counted on. He was either full of hearty bonhomie or explosive indignation at some imagined slight. He always thought he knew everything, and whereas his ministers rarely summoned up the nerve to tell him he was often wrong – and his wife never did – his family weren’t so intimidated. And when they weren’t, sparks flew.

On this visit, taking centre-stage as the person responsible for the matchmaking that had resulted in the wedding, and having enjoyed enthusiastic cheers and shouts of ‘Good Old Willy!’ and ‘God bless the Kaiser!’ on his carriage rides through London’s flag-bedecked streets, Willy, to his family’s relief, was full of goodwill to all men.

On the evening of the wedding, when the dancing began, Willy came up to May and said, ‘I’d like the chance of a private word about the Ernst Gunther debacle, and the only way of managing one is if we take to the floor.’

In a state of high tension, May allowed him to lead her out onto the floor. For a man who only had the use of his right arm, Willy was a surprisingly good dancer and, as he skilfully ensured they were always as far away from other dancers as it was possible to get, he said, ‘Lord knows that, for your own sake, I didn’t want to see you married to my Dummkopf of a brother-in-law, May, but by refusing his proposal, you caused me to be at the receiving end of huge domestic tantrums.’