Lascelles was the son of
Henry Lascelles, 5th Earl of Harewood, and
Lady Florence Bridgeman, daughter of
Orlando Bridgeman, 3rd Earl of Bradford. He was born at the London home of his maternal grandfather, 43 Belgrave Square.
Inheritance and wealth In 1916 Lascelles inherited the vast fortune of the
2nd Marquess of Clanricarde, his great-uncle. In a letter to his mother dated 20 April 1916, Lascelles estimated the gross value of his inheritance from Lord Clanricarde at £2,750,000, with a net value of around £2,000,000 after
estate tax and expenses. From this, he anticipated that he would receive an annual income of £80,000, from which he would pay approximately £34,000 in
income tax; privately, he expressed his disappointment that a fortune of nearly £3,000,000 would be reduced by taxation to a net annual income of £46,000.
Estates and residences During Lascelles' youth, his father had sold the family's grand London townhouse in
Hanover Square, Mayfair, in 1893. This house, also known as Harewood House (previously Roxburghe House), had been purchased by his great-great-grandfather
Henry Lascelles, 2nd Earl of Harewood from
John Ker, 3rd Duke of Roxburghe in 1795. In 1894, the 5th Earl of Harewood purchased a smaller London townhouse, 13 Upper Belgrave Street, which was later used by his mother following his father's death in 1929. The house was sold following the death of the Dowager Countess of Harewood in 1943. In April 1918, an agreement was reached with the Dowager Lady Burton, widow of
Michael Bass, 1st Baron Burton, for the purchase of a palatial London townhouse,
Chesterfield House, for £140,000. The sale was finalised after the end of the First World War, and Lascelles took up residence there in 1919. In 1925, he purchased a country house and horse stud, Egerton House in Newmarket, Suffolk, which he used during the annual racing season. Following his death, Egerton House was sold. In 1931, King George V and Queen Mary purchased 32
Green Street, Mayfair, as a London home for Princess Mary, rendering Chesterfield House surplus to the couple's needs. The Harewoods vacated Chesterfield House in early 1932. Queen Mary reportedly expressed an interest in purchasing 32 Green Street as a London house for her daughter in 1931, and consent was obtained from property's owner,
Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Duke of Westminster with the proviso that Grosvenor Estates could maintain the right to repurchase the house at a future date if its use as a royal residence ceased. The couple continued to occupy № 32 Green Street when in London until the outbreak of War in 1939, and the House was repurchased by
Grosvenor Estate in 1946; the house was later repurposed as the
Embassy of Brazil.
Marriage to Princess Mary Lord Harewood
married Princess Mary, only daughter of
King George V and
Queen Mary, at
Westminster Abbey, on 28 February 1922. His best man was
Sir Victor Mackenzie, 3rd Baronet. After their marriage, Lord Harewood and Princess Mary split their time between their homes,
Chesterfield House in London;
Goldsborough Hall, part of the Harewood Estate; and
Harewood House itself, in
Yorkshire, which became their family home in 1930, after the death of
his father in October 1929. They had two children: •
George Henry Hubert Lascelles, 7th Earl of Harewood (born at
Chesterfield House on 7 February 1923, baptised at St Mary's Church,
Goldsborough, on 25 March 1923, and died on 11 July 2011); •
Gerald David Lascelles (born at
Goldsborough Hall on 21 August 1924, and died on 27 February 1998). Their elder son, the
7th Earl of Harewood, wrote about his parents' marriage in his memoirs,
The Tongs and the Bones, and described their relationship, saying that "they got on well together and had a lot of friends and interests in common". He also noted that "[s]hy, aloof and worse, I have heard my father called since; but that was not how his friends knew him [or] how his family felt about him; and I knew then, and know still, that when I was 24 I lost potentially the best friend and mentor I could ever have – at precisely the moment I discovered this was so". ==Military career==