Grandmama of Europe: The Crowned Descendants of Queen Victoria

by Theo Aronson

  Trondheim had been transformed. The streets were gay with flags, stands had been built outside the old Cathedral, and at anchor in the harbour rode the yachts belonging to the various royal guests attending the Coronation. As the city had no palace, a special wooden building, the Stiftsgaarden, had been renovated for the use of the royal family. The rest of the royalties, including Maud's brother Prince George and his wife Princess May, were obliged to live on their yachts.

  The Coronation ceremony was an unpretentious affair. It was as though the government was determined to stress the democratic spirit of the régime. Although, in theory (because the Norwegian constitution was not altered until 1908 and Haakon thus inherited the 1814 constitution) the King possessed more personal power than any sovereign in Europe other than the Tsar, in practice he was very much a constitutional monarch. To underline this, he was crowned jointly by the Bishop of Bergen and the Prime Minister. He was declared duly crowned by the President of the Storting. And when, two years later, the constitution was altered, the symbolic crowning was abolished for future kings.

  'A revolutionary Coronation! such a farce,' wrote the unresigned Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz to Princess May. 'I don't like your being there for it, it looks like sanctioning all that nasty Revolution . . . .'

  But for all that, the ceremony was not unimpressive. King Haakon VII, so tall, erect and wearing an ermine-trimmed mantle, played his part with ease and authority. Queen Maud, in a dress of embroidered white satin, looked suitably regal. The watching Princess May considered it all 'fine and impressive – very well done and both Charles and Maud did it all in a dignified manner and both looked very well with the Crowns on their heads'.

  But Princess May's Aunt Augusta was not to be won over. 'How can a future King and Queen of England go to witness a Coronation "par la grâce du Peuple de la Revolution"!!! makes me sick and I should say, you too.'

  To this, the always tactful Princess May replied that 'The whole thing seems curious, but we live in very modern days.'

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Ena of Spain

  1

  In October 1887, the year of Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, her youngest child, Princess Beatrice of Battenberg, had given birth to a daughter. The girl had been christened Victoria Eugenie: Victoria after the Queen, and Eugenie after the ex-Empress of the French, who was living in exile in England. Throughout her long and often turbulent life, however, Victoria Eugenie was always known as Ena.

  Princess Ena had been the second of the four children of Prince Henry and Princess Beatrice of Battenberg; the only girl amongst three boys. Of all Queen Victoria's granddaughters, not one had been more closely associated with the daily life of the Queen. Ena's mother, the shy Princess Beatrice, had been the Queen's constant companion. It was a position which had in no way been altered by Beatrice's marriage, at the relatively late age of twenty-eight, to the dashing Prince Henry of Battenberg. The Queen, determined to keep at least one of her children always by her side, had insisted that Prince Henry and Princess Beatrice make their home with her. Thus, as Queen Victoria had moved, with unvarying regularity, between Windsor, Osborne, Balmoral and Cimiez in the South of France, so had the Battenbergs moved with her. The death of Prince Henry (he had died, somewhat unheroically, from fever while taking part in the Ashanti campaign, in 1896) had made very little difference to this pattern of life. For Princess Beatrice, it had meant that she must spend even more time in her mother's company; for her four children, it meant that their lives became still more closely involved with that of the Queen.

  They spent part of every day with their grandmother. Rising early, the young Battenbergs would breakfast with the Queen; on the lawns, under her parasol tent if it were fine, and indoors if it were not. They would devote the morning to study, join the Queen after luncheon for dessert, spend the afternoon out of doors and then rejoin the Queen for tea. To them, she was 'Gangan': a softly-spoken, loving, understanding grandmother, the fount of all 'treats'. To her, they were like a touch of spring, bringing to her old age a wonderful warmth and radiance. That the Queen's last years were distinctly less gloomy than her middle ones was in no small measure due to the constant presence of the four high-spirited, affectionate and endearing Battenberg children. 'I love these darling children so, almost as much as their own parents,' she exclaimed on one occasion.

  Ena, who was eight years old at the time of her father's death in 1896, looked the perfect English princess: golden-haired, blue-eyed, fresh-complexioned. As the only girl amongst three lively brothers, she tended to share their interests and pastimes. She could ride a horse, row a boat or handle a fishing rod as well as any of them. She adored the open air. Like her older cousin, Princess Maud, there was something tomboyish about Ena. She glowed with good health and had a frank, somewhat outspoken manner.

  Yet under this honest-to-goodness veneer lay a deeply sensitive nature. Even in childhood there was a vulnerability, a certain tristesse about Princess Ena of Battenberg. 'Ena has a charming disposition, so affectionate and full of feeling,' the Empress Frederick had once written, with some perspicacity, to her daughter Sophie. 'She is so sensitive that I fear she will never find life easy.'

  The death of Queen Victoria brought considerable change to the life of the widowed Princess Beatrice and her children. Overnight, they slipped down the scale of importance. With the royal centre of gravity swinging to her brother, King Edward VII, Princess Beatrice – who had been the Queen's right hand – became simply another relatively unimportant member of the family. Osborne House, which, more than any other of the royal residences, had meant home to the Battenbergs, was handed over to the Navy and Princess Beatrice was obliged to move into Osborne Cottage. Ill at ease in her brother's dazzling circle, the unsophisticated Princess Beatrice spent very little time at the new court.

  None the less, she still had a role to play. There were bazaars to open and hospitals to visit and functions to attend. And always with Princess Beatrice was her daughter, the fair-haired Princess Ena. In 1904, soon after her seventeenth birthday, Ena was officially presented at her uncle's court. By now, the somewhat rough-and-tumble girl had developed into an accomplished and dignified young princess. Only amongst her intimates did she reveal her warmth of heart and depth of feeling.

  One of these intimates was her godmother, the Empress Eugenie. Ever since the collapse of the French Second Empire in 1870, the Empress Eugenie had lived in England. Regarded as the 'Tragic Empress' because of the loss of first, her throne, then her husband, the Emperor Napoleon III, and finally her only child, the Prince Imperial, the Empress Eugenie lived in a vast, rambling mansion known as Farnborough Hill in Hampshire. At the time of the death of Queen Victoria, with whom she had been very friendly, the Empress had been in her mid-seventies.

  A woman of boundless energy, forthright views, considerable charm and enduring beauty, the Empress had always taken an interest in Princess Beatrice. Indeed, it had at one time been rumoured that this youngest daughter of Queen Victoria was to marry the Prince Imperial. His death, fighting for the British army in South Africa in 1879, had put an end to any such speculation, but the Empress had remained on the friendliest terms with Princess Beatrice and her family. It was some measure of the strength of this friendship with the British royal family that the sternly Protestant Queen Victoria had allowed the unquestioningly Catholic Empress to become godmother to the baby Princess Ena. Not many weeks went by without a visit by Princess Beatrice and her daughter Princess Ena to the fascinating old Empress at Farnborough Hill.

  As Eugenie had been born a Spaniard, and as she adored young people, Princess Ena often met young Spanish noblemen at Farnborough Hill. Among them were friends of the young unmarried King of Spain, Alfonso XIII. An inveterate matchmaker, the Empress had always been interested in the future marriage of the young Spanish King. She had also, of course, given a great deal of thought to the matrimonial prospects of her goddaughter, Princess Ena. In her opinion, Alfonso and Ena
would be very well suited. And what a brilliant match it would be for this relatively obscure English princess. The proposed state visit to England by the nineteen-year-old King Alfonso, in the summer of 1905, would see if she were right.

  Alfonso XIII had been born a king. His father, the debonair young King Alfonso XII, had died six months before his birth. His mother, the reserved Queen Maria Cristina (she had been born an archduchess of Austria) had acted as Regent until his official coming of age, at sixteen, in 1902. That this young monarch should marry and start a family as soon as possible was the dearest wish of his Ministers. The history of Spain during the nineteenth century had been one of continuous and bloody strife: a succession of assassinations, uprisings and wars. The monarchy had been repeatedly threatened and even overthrown – sometimes by revolution, sometimes by the rival branch of the royal family, more recently by anarchists. Only in Russia did royalty live so constantly under the threat of an assassin's bomb. A royal visit to Spain was always looked upon as an extremely hazardous undertaking; King Edward VII stoutly refused to venture any further into the country than San Sebastian, the royal seaside home lying so reassuringly close to France. It was small wonder that Spanish politicians considered that the sooner their young monarch secured the succession, the better.

  Nor were Alfonso XIII's Ministers the only ones anxious that he should marry. The other sovereigns of Europe were hardly less impatient. Not for years had so eligible a bridegroom come onto the market. Young Alfonso might not have been conventionally handsome but for a king – and a Spanish Bourbon at that – he was not at all bad. Slightly above average height, he was lean, lithe and athletic. His skin glowed with good health. His beak-like Bourbon nose jutted proudly from his long head; his eyes were alive with youth and high spirits. His smile was dazzling; his expression alert.

  The same animation marked his personality. He was quick-witted, precocious, something of a prodigy. His charm was exceptional. Only on closer acquaintance did one come up against his failings: his wilfulness, his imperiousness, his determination to get his own way.

  Still, whatever his faults, it was not every day that a princess of one's house had the opportunity of becoming the Queen of Spain. With Germany chock-a-block with marriageable princesses, some of them Catholic, Kaiser Wilhelm II wasted no time. Brushing aside a nice point as to whether Alfonso should not, in fact, have visited him first, the Kaiser descended on Vigo and there reviewed the Spanish fleet. King Edward VII, no less anxious but rather less impulsive, confined his attentions to sending his brother, the Duke of Connaught, to bestow the Order of the Garter on the young King. As the Duke of Connaught had an eligible daughter, Princess Patricia, King Edward VII hoped that the gesture would draw Alfonso's attention to his niece. The idea of an English alliance was eagerly taken up by Liberal politicians in Spain. Photographs of Princess Patricia began to appear in Spanish journals with embarrassing frequency.

  However, Alfonso was not going to be hustled into a political marriage. He would never, he assured a friend, choose his bride by photograph; he would see her for himself. The proposed state visits to Paris and London in 1905, soon after his nineteenth birthday, promised him just such an opportunity.

  In republican France, of course, there was no hope of being offered a royal bride. At the opulent court of King Edward VII, on the other hand, there was every likelihood. Throughout a week of magnificent ceremonial during all those sumptuous banquets and glittering receptions, Alfonso kept his eyes open for a suitable princess. With Princess Patricia he seemed to make no headway at all. At the supper table at Londonderry House the chair beside his was empty while Princess Patricia chatted upstairs. At luncheon the following day he turned from Princess Patricia on his right to the Duchess of Westminster on his left with the remark that he must be very ugly as he did not seem to please the lady on his right.

  There were, however, plenty of other ladies and one of them was Princess Ena. Alfonso first met the seventeen-year-old Princess at a family dinner party at Buckingham Palace on the night of his arrival. As the hopes of a match between himself and Princess Patricia faded, so did Princess Ena find herself more and more the object of his attentions. At first, amongst that bewildering galaxy of princesses, Alfonso could never remember her name. He would refer to her as 'the fair one'. But within a few days he came to know it very well. He danced with her at Buckingham Palace, he sat beside her at Covent Garden, he sought her out at every reception. As predicted by the Empress Eugenie, the two young people were falling in love. By the time Alfonso's week in England was up, there was little doubt that Ena would be his choice.

  One evening a few months later, when the court was at Windsor, Princess Beatrice asked her brother the King if she could speak to him on an urgent matter. 'I have heard from Queen Cristina,' she told him, 'and she says that Alfonso is set on marrying Ena.'

  The King was astounded. He had always assumed that Alfonso would want to marry Princess Patricia.

  'No,' said his sister, 'Ena. It has been Ena all the time.'

  Edward was delighted. Unlike his mother, Queen Victoria, he had no objections to crowns and titles. With one nephew as the German Kaiser, a niece as the Empress of Russia, a daughter about to become the Queen of Norway, two more nieces due to become the Queens of Greece and Romania, how gratifying to have yet another niece as the Queen of Spain. Thus far, in the spread of Coburg influence through Europe, Spain had remained immune. There were Coburgs in Portugal, but not Spain. Indeed, during the past half-century, the British royal family had had very little to do with Spain. Queen Victoria had visited it only once. This had been in 1889, when she had been holidaying in Biarritz. She had driven over to nearby San Sebastian to visit Queen Maria Cristina, who had at that time been Regent for her three-year-old son Alfonso. Victoria's most memorable comment on the day's visit concerned the undrinkability of the tea provided for her. 'I only touched it,' she noted in her Journal.

  On the subject of the Spanish national sport of bull-fighting, Queen Victoria, in marked contrast to the majority of her subjects, had always proved surprisingly tolerant. She once remarked that she considered Sir Henry Layard very prejudiced 'to object to this sport which the Spaniards love more than we love our foxhunting here'.

  Inevitably, there were some objections to the match. Amongst certain Spanish reactionaries, the choice of an English princess represented a triumph for liberalism. A Hapsburg bride would have been far more acceptable. In some royal circles, too, Princess Ena of Battenberg was looked upon as unsuitable. Ena's father, Prince Henry of Battenberg, had been one of the sons of a morganatic marriage, and not all the royalties of Europe were as sensible as Queen Victoria had been on the subject of morganatic blood. At the time of the marriage of Prince Henry to Princess Beatrice, certain Prussian royalties had had the temerity to write to the Queen expressing their reservations about the suitability of the match. Victoria had been furious. How dare they address her in that tone? It would never do to inquire too deeply into the history of the royal families of Europe, had been her pointed reply; one would discover many 'black spots'.

  However, all these years later, the prejudice still persisted. 'So Ena is to become Spanish Queen!' wrote the astounded Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz to her niece, Princess May, 'a Battenberg, good gracious!'

  But the main obstacle to the marriage was the religious one. It was said that Ena had always been attracted to her godmother, the Empress Eugenie's, religion but how could a British princess possibly forswear her Protestantism? No sooner had the news of a possible engagement become known than there was an uproar. 'Beatrice,' wrote the Prince to the Princess of Wales, 'is advised . . . to keep Ena quiet somewhere, at Osborne, and not to bring her to London as the feeling is so strong.' In letters to the Press, by way of public protests and private appeals, staunch churchmen voiced their disapproval.

  It was all to no effect. The Coburgs had seldom hesitated to barter faith for a crown and in this King Edward VII proved no exception. He sid
e-stepped the issue by robustly declaring that Ena was a Battenberg princess, not a British one. That her father, Prince Henry, had become a naturalized Englishman on his marriage to Princess Beatrice, the King blithely ignored. As a German princess, Ena could adopt any religion she liked. However, to play down the controversial business of her conversion, Edward suggested that Ena undertake her religious instruction out of England. The Empress Eugenie had offered Princess Beatrice the use of her villa in the South of France but it was decided that mother and daughter would go to Versailles instead.

  On 7 March 1906, while visiting Queen Cristina at San Sebastian, Ena was received into the Catholic Church. That done, she returned to England where King Edward insisted that, as a Catholic, she sign away her rights of succession to the British throne. As these rights were, to say the least, remote, it was not much of a sacrifice. Knowing something of the uncertainties of the Spanish throne, King Edward warned his niece not to come whining back to England if things went wrong.

  With this somewhat unnerving piece of advice ringing in her ears, Princess Ena, accompanied by her mother and an imposing suite, arrived in Spain for her wedding in May 1906.