From today, the former Mary Donaldson's, 51, home base will be Copenhagen's breathtaking Amalienborg Palace, with its huge entourage of guards, servants and courtiers.

How very different from the life of her ancestor Marion Horne, who was recently widowed at the age of forty and lived a life from hand to mouth in a shabby two-storey fisherman's cottage on the east coast of Scotland.

Like almost no other queen in history, Mary's story is truly one of rags to riches – for as we can now reveal, she is descended from a pauper.

It's hard to imagine a more difficult life for a mother of four, with no plumbing, no heating – and absolutely no money.

Marion's entry in the 1861 national census humiliatingly lists her as a 'pauper' – someone who had to survive on alms from friends and former shipmates of her late husband John, who had died at sea the year before.

In many ways, Marion's life mirrors the history of the Princess of Wales's miner ancestors, first revealed by me in a Daily Mail article in 2010.

In the 19th century, Kate's ancestors were part of an exploited underclass in the coal mines of northeast England, sent into the mines as children and doomed to a life in darkness.

A short one too, because life was cheap: the sea and the coal mines greedily swallowed up lives, regardless of age.

And so it was for the fishermen of Tranent, Port Seton and Prestonpans, proud, hard-working communities a few miles from the glory of Edinburgh, but in Victorian times a lifetime away from wealth and warmth.

Working fishermen could only guarantee themselves one day off a year, as they proudly paraded through the city with a chest of money they had raised to distribute to widows and those injured at sea.

The pauper Marion would be very grateful if that day came every autumn.

But like Kate Middleton's ancestors, Mary Donaldson's ancestors had a backbone of steel — and they realized that to move forward, you had to get out of it.

When Marion's daughter Annie married fisherman Peter Donaldson in June 1871, the family's centuries-long connection to the area was about to change.

Peter's grandson – also Peter – finally made the move that would truly transform the family fortunes when he emigrated to Tasmania in 1963.

A successful merchant navy captain, he had endured shipwrecks and the high seas to build a new life far from the bleak winters of Scotland's east coast.

Peter followed in the wake of the local pioneer, a swashbuckling explorer named Francis Cadell, who, after arriving in Australia in 1852, became the first person to navigate the Murray River, the all-important waterway that opened southeastern Australia to business. and trade.

The local connection between Scotland and Australia was established – but fortunately sea captain Peter Donaldson did not suffer the fate of his predecessor Cadell, who was murdered by the chef's mate after complaining about the ship's food.

Peter's son John – Queen Mary's father – maintained his Scottish connections, having married a local girl before emigrating to Tasmania and starting a career in higher education.

He first taught mathematics before being appointed professor and teaching at universities such as Oxford, Montreal and Houston.

In 2004, with the marriage of his daughter to Crown Prince Frederick, John Donaldson finally erased the pauper label from the family tree when he – along with Mary – was given a coat of arms by the Danish royal family to signify his social elevation.

It features an eagle and a boat symbolizing their Scottish heritage, along with a lion from the Scottish coat of arms which, by a happy coincidence, also appears in the heraldic coat of arms of Tasmania.

So like some of Catherine's ancestors, the Donaldsons have made the journey, over several generations, from the lowest rung of the social ladder to the very highest.

And two royal families today are all the better for that journey.

HER ancestors came from across the social spectrum: from wealthy factory owners, coal and wool magnates to colliers, a street sweeper and a convict in Holloway Prison.

But Kate Middleton had one ancestor whose adventurous spirit and tempestuous love life prevailed.

Indeed, Mary Eleanor Bowes was one of the most infamous yet brilliant women in Georgian England with a personal story of social disgrace and ultimate triumph that might have come from the dark chapters of a Janes Austen novel.

The wealthy heiress Mary Eleanor Bowes was descended from Sir Thomas Blakiston Conyers, a direct ancestor of both Catherine, Princess of Wales and the late Queen Mother.

Despite her wealth and a prominent position in society, Mary would engage in additional marital affairs, undergo a series of illegal abortions, and marry an evil fraudster who controlled her, then kidnapped her when she tried to leave.

No wonder she was known as the ‘unfortunate countess’.

Yet Mary Bowes would ultimately triumph as a brilliant botanist and pioneer of divorce law, whose tombstone stands in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey.

Mary Eleanor Bowes was born on 24 February 1749, the only child of Sir George Bowes MP, and his second wife Mary.

This is the same wealthy Bowes family that would eventually unite with the noble Lyons family of Scotland, producing Elizabeth Bowes Lyon, queen consort of George VI, later known as the Queen Mother.

Mary Bowes grew up on the beautiful Gibside estate in the Derwent Valley, Tyne & Wear, with a landscape so beautiful it was painted by Turner.

Mary’s father was a successful businessman and landowner who controlled a cartel of mines.

He encouraged Mary’s education and by the age of four the girl could read fluently. Mary became a gifted linguist.

But at the age of 11, her father died, leaving Mary as Britain’s richest heiress.

On her 18th birthday, Mary married John Lyon, 9th Earl of Strathmore, owner of Glamis Castle, the Queen Mother’s childhood home.

To protect her inheritance, her father’s will stipulated that her husband should adopt her surname – a change allowed by Parliament. (In time, the Bowes Lyon family would use both names.

The earls unfortunately contracted tuberculosis in the early years of their marriage and died at sea en route to Portugal, in 1776, leaving Mary Bowes a widow and mother of five children at the age of just 27.

Not that the Countess was heartbroken.

By the time her husband died, Mary was already pregnant thanks to a lover named George Gray, who had made and squandered a fortune working for the East India Company.

Hating Gray marrying him (because it would have made her lose her title), Mary induced an abortion by drinking “a black, inky kind of medicine.”

She continued the affair, becoming pregnant repeatedly and having two more abortions.

Mary was pregnant for the fourth time and finally decided to marry Gray, after which her life took another colorful turn.

Despite being engaged to Gray, she was seduced by a cunning adventurer named Andrew Stoney, who forced his way into both her household and bed.

Calling himself Captain Stoney – he was really only a lieutenant – he pretended to engage in a duel with the editor of the Morning Post, who had published sordid articles about her, and, claiming that he had been mortally wounded, brought her on the somehow managed to marry him in 1777.

Stoney took control of Mary’s fortune and subjected her to eight years of physical and mental abuse before she managed to escape.

But her ordeal was not over: when she filed for divorce in 1785, Stoney kidnapped her, threatened to rape and kill her, gag her and beat her, carrying her through the countryside on horseback before being arrested .

Both his trial – he was sentenced to three years in prison – and the divorce case proved sensational and were the talk of 18th century London.

Nevertheless, she became the first woman to divorce and keep her land.

Mary Bowes would eventually find peace, reconcile with her family and become involved in local charities.

She was a keen amateur botanist and maintained greenhouses on the Gibside estate and at her London home, Stanley House, Chelsea, which was adjacent to the Chelsea Physic Garden.

She ordered exotic plants from all over the world.

Mary was described by surgeon and author Jesse Foot as ‘the most intelligent woman botanist of the day’.

It’s somewhat of a shame that, instead of going down in history as a brilliant naturalist, she is known as a pioneer in the field of divorce.

Mary Bowes died on April 28, 1800 and was buried in Westminster Abbey. Her gravestone is in Poets Corner.