Grandmama of Europe: The Crowned Descendants of Queen Victoria

by Theo Aronson

  They returned to the port and the King boarded the Dubrovnik. Husband and wife kissed each other good-bye. Mignon had a feeling that this was no ordinary farewell. She felt vaguely troubled. As she drove back to the station she admitted to Prince Paul her feeling that all was not well. That night she boarded the train for France.

  As it would not have done for the King and Queen to arrive separately in Paris, it had been arranged that they should meet at Dijon. By then Alexander would have paid his visit to Marseilles, and the two of them would travel on together to the French capital. But on the afternoon of 9 October, 1934, with the Queen already travelling through France, the Prefet of Doubs, a M. Peretti de la Rocca, boarded her train. He warned her that he had bad news. The King had been assassinated in Marseilles.

  Immediately her train was diverted to Marseilles. The Queen arrived there at five on the morning of 10 October. Her husband's body lay in a small candle-lit chapel. He was wearing his Admiral's uniform. His hands were folded on his sword, his body was covered to the waist by the Yugoslav flag, at his feet were massed flowers.

  The Queen was told the full story. King Alexander had been driving through the streets of the city in an open car. Beside him sat Louis Barthou, the French Minister of Foreign Affairs; opposite sat General Georges. The King was smiling his faint smile at the cheering crowds. Suddenly a man leapt onto the running-board of the car. He fired a revolver, first at the King, then at Louis Barthou and General Georges. After that, all was confusion; a confusion caught by a photographer and preserved for posterity. The King, slumped in his seat, was quickly driven away from the milling crowd of horse guards, police, photographers and spectators, and along the processional route to the Prefecture. Here his body was laid out on a sofa. The doctors examining him pronounced him dead. He had been shot twice; the first bullet had killed him. Louis Barthou had also died. General Georges recovered. Had Queen Marie been with him, she would probably have been shot as well.

  The King had been murdered by a hired assassin named Velučko Kerin. The murder had been planned by a Croat organisation, supported and instructed by Italians. Its purpose had been the break-up of Yugoslavia, the creation of an autonomous Croatian state and the taking over of Yugoslavian Dalmatia by Italy. None of these results followed the murder; Yugoslavia remained quiet and intact. Kerin, wounded in the mêlée, died a few hours later.

  Queen Marie having seen her husband's dead body, it was put aboard the Dubrovnik and carried back to Split, in Yugoslavia. Mignon then travelled on to Paris. As her eldest son, the eleven-year-old Peter, was at school in England, arrangements had been made for the boy to come over to Paris to meet her.

  Peter had been woken early in his dormitory on the morning of 10 October and told that he must leave the school at once. Imagining that he was being punished for some misdemeanour, he dressed, took leave of the headmaster and was driven to London. Only on arriving at the Yugoslav Embassy was he told the truth. The normally impassive Ambassador was in tears. 'They have killed our King,' he cried. 'Long live Your Majesty.' The boy – Queen Victoria's great-great-grandson – was now King Peter II of Yugoslavia.

  Luckily Peter's grandmother, Queen Marie of Romania, was in London at the time and she accompanied the little King to Paris. They arrived there late that same night. Not until the following morning was Peter taken to the Yugoslav Legation to meet his mother. Mignon, dressed in black and heavily veiled, was waiting for him in the main reception room. 'We embraced and wept together,' says Peter. 'I was terribly upset.'

  For mother and son, the next few days were an ordeal. The train journey back to Yugoslavia was unbearably mournful. At Belgrade station they faced a formidable reception committee. The boy King, with a black band on his overcoat sleeve, was obliged to shake the hands of innumerable Ministers, generals and officials. Every eye was on him. Finally, overcome by emotion, he turned to the dark, veiled figure behind him. 'Mama,' he begged, 'please let's get home as soon as we can.'

  But there was still more to be gone through. That afternoon the King, his mother and Queen Marie of Romania went to the Old Palace where King Alexander's coffin, now arrived from France, lay in state. During the following two days they had to welcome the guests arriving for the funeral and on the third day they attended the grandiose ceremony in Belgrade Cathedral. That over, they travelled in the funeral train to Topola. Not until King Alexander's body had been laid to rest in the crypt of the ornate family mausoleum at Oplanac, could they retreat from the public gaze.

  'What I require,' King Alexander had said shortly before his death, 'is forty years of peace in which to build up a tradition of honest administration.' His far from peaceful reign had lasted for little more than a dozen. Within half a dozen years more, even this uneasy peace would have collapsed and his dynasty – the Queen, the boy King and the Regent Paul – would be grappling with a situation far more serious than King Alexander had ever known.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  Ingrid of Denmark

  1

  One of the characteristics of the Kings of Sweden was, and still is, their longevity. For a Swedish king to die at eighty is for him to die young. Thus, when the apprehensive Louise Mountbatten became the Crown Princess of Sweden on her marriage to Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf in 1923, she need have had no fears of becoming Queen before she was ready. Ten years after her marriage, her seventy-five-year-old father-in-law, King Gustaf V, was still very much alive. He lived, in fact, to be ninety-two.

  In 1930, however, Queen Victoria of Sweden had died. Although the Queen had never played a very active public role, her death meant that Crown Princess Louise was obliged to take on some additional duties. To those honorary posts, previously held by the Queen, Louise was able to bring her considerable energy, expertise and open-mindedness. Her years of nursing experience in the First World War proved particularly valuable. 'I find it difficult to be only a patron,' she would say, 'as I've been used to practical work of my own, like an ordinary person, before I married.'

  Of the late Queen's deeply ingrained sense of royal exclusiveness, Louise had almost nothing. She was far too natural and democratic for that. Raised in an enlightened home, she brought this same enlightenment to her duties. And she was gratified to see it being applied to the political life of the country as well. To her, the workings of Swedish democracy seemed as near-perfect a political system as could be imagined.

  'Look at Sweden,' she would say in her quick, emphatic fashion. 'No slums, no unemployment.'

  The rise of European fascism during the 1930s filled her with alarm. It was contrary to everything she believed in. 'I boil internally with indignation and helpless rage,' was her comment on one of Mussolini's more outrageous political moves. Indeed, it would be almost impossible to imagine the progressively-minded and outspoken Louise in any Continental country other than a Scandinavian one.

  With each passing year Crown Princess Louise identified herself more closely with the life of her new country. She still loved England and had great difficulty in tearing herself away after a visit, but Sweden was now her home. Although, she and her husband usually spoke to each other in English, her voice began to take on that slightly lilting quality of the Swedish language. In her letters too, her phrasing became less English. 'Can one be anything but grateful,' she once exclaimed, 'for being able to live in a country like Sweden and to have a husband like mine?'

  The royal couple had four homes. Their town residence was the north-west wing of the Royal Palace on the island of Gamla Stan in Stockholm. Outside the capital was Drottningholm, a splendid seventeenth-century palace set in formal gardens and surrounded by water. In the spring and autumn they went to Ulriksdal, but their favourite home was undoubtedly Sofiero. Here they spent the summer. Both passionately interested in gardening, the couple delighted in planning, planting and walking through their grounds. The rose garden and the orchard were their particular joys. At Sofiero they could get away from the cares of their position and lead a relaxed, cheerful and unp
retentious family life. Louise was a born organiser and her households were run with care and efficiency. She left nothing unsupervised. Generous to those in need, she would tolerate no extravagance in the running of her homes. She was often heard exclaiming at the prices of things in the shops.

  On herself, she spent very little. She was not particularly interested in her appearance. She always looked neat but she found the whole business of choosing and fitting clothes irksome. Yet, on those great state occasions which she so disliked, she always looked impressive. Her state robes – a dark velvet dress and train trimmed with ermine – were particularly elegant; the Swedish royal jewels, some of which had belonged to Napoleon's Josephine, were extremely fine. With her thin-faced, long-nosed, essentially aristocratic features, Louise might never have looked beautiful but she always looked unmistakably royal.

  She and Gustaf Adolf had no children of their own. In 1925 Louise had given birth to a stillborn girl. She felt the loss of this child, and the lack of others, keenly, for she was very fond of children. However, she did have five stepchildren. There had been talk, soon after Louise first arrived in Sweden, that she could not be bothered with her stepchildren, that she did not seem motherly enough. For this latter claim, there were some grounds: so angular, so sharp-witted and quick-tempered, Louise cut an anything but conventionally motherly figure. Her look was spinsterish. But for the accusation that she could not be bothered with her stepchildren there was no justification whatsoever. She was devoted to them and they quickly established a happy relationship.

  Like Louise herself, these five stepchildren were all great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria. Their late mother had been, of course, Princess Margaret of Connaught, the daughter of Queen Victoria's son Arthur, Duke of Connaught. Therefore, when the only girl amongst them, Princess Ingrid, married the heir to the King of Denmark, yet another throne was in time to be added to those already occupied by Victoria's direct descendants.

  Princess Ingrid of Sweden had been born in 1910, nine years after the death of Queen Victoria. Thus of all the direct descendants of Victoria who had first become queens of the various Continental countries, Ingrid was the only one not to have been born in the old Queen's lifetime. Yet her ties with her great-grandmother's country were strong. Her mother, Princess Margaret of Connaught, was usually described as being 'typically English'. To the court at Stockholm she had brought, says the Infanta Eulalia, 'just a touch of the elegance of the Court of St James's'. Princess Ingrid had thus been raised along English lines: in looks, attitudes and interests she was very like a British princess. In praising Ingrid's love of horses, one patriotic English society columnist pronounced it as perfectly understandable, 'for her English mother, Princess Margaret of Connaught, insisted on educating her according to the best of English traditions'. From her mother, too, continued the columnist smugly, came Princess Ingrid's 'truly British love of dogs'.

  The death of Ingrid's mother, in 1920, by no means weakened the girl's ties with her mother's country. She paid long and frequent visits to her grandfather, the old Duke of Connaught, either at Clarence House or Bagshot Park. Her father's remarriage, to Lady Louise Mountbatten, merely strengthened the association. Speaking perfect English, fond of dancing, tennis, riding and gardening, Princess Ingrid was thoroughly at home in English society. And the British public was equally fond of her. In England, the pretty, cheerful and unassuming Princess Ingrid was always very popular. In fact, in 1932, when the Princess was twenty-two, there was a rumour that she would marry King George V's youngest son, Prince George, afterwards Duke of Kent. But the affair came to nothing and, two years later, Prince George married the Greek Princess, Marina.

  There was more to Princess Ingrid, however, than met the eye. She was not merely the bright, attractive, sports-loving county girl that she seemed. For one thing, she was extremely practical. She could turn her hand to almost all household duties. There was a natural, sensible, honest-to-goodness quality about her; she had a very strong sense of proportion. And if, from her English mother, she had inherited her love of the outdoors, from her father, Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf, came her enthusiasm for the arts. She had a decidedly un-English passion for opera; she was interested in books and furniture. Exceptional, too, was her highly developed dress sense. In time she would become one of the best-dressed royalties in Europe, but even in her early twenties Ingrid dressed with style and simplicity. At an age when most girls looked overdressed or frumpish, Princess Ingrid of Sweden always appeared poised and elegant.

  Not until she was twenty-four, in March 1935, did Ingrid become engaged. Her fiancé was the thirty-five-year-old Crown Prince Frederik, the eldest son of King Christian X of Denmark.

  A better-looking prince, Ingrid could not have hoped to find. Crown Prince Frederik was six foot three inches tall, handsome, well-built and superbly fit. With those splendid looks went an easy, informal, democratic manner. He was without a trace of arrogance or conceit. Having joined the Danish Navy as a cadet at the age of fourteen, Frederik had worked his way through every rank to that of Rear-Admiral. He was widely travelled and, during the course of these travels, had been all but covered with tattoos.

  Other than for the Navy, his enthusiasms were for two widely different subjects: mechanics and music. He had a passion for all mechanical things and was an accomplished musician. One of Frederik's joys was to conduct the Royal Danish Symphony orchestra.

  The popular and attractive couple were married in Stockholm on 24 May 1935. The wedding marked the greatest gathering of royalty since before the War: three kings and more than sixty princes and princesses attended the ceremony. It was as if the halcyon days of King Edward VII and Kaiser Wilhelm II had come back. The water city looked its glittering best. For days, the ornate royal barge, all flashing gilt and fluttering fringes, ferried royal guests from the yachts to the Royal Palace. Medals glinted, feathers fluttered, furs gleamed. Everything looked confident and secure. Yet, in four years' time, the majority of these happily beaming royalties would once again be subjected to conditions of danger, hardship and humiliation.

  The day of the wedding was one of brilliant sunshine. It was celebrated in the old Storkyrkan Church beside the Royal Palace. The bridegroom was in naval uniform; the bride in a slim-fitting, classically severe white satin dress with a lace veil falling from a single wreath of orange blossom.

  'That indescribable summer light of the far north . . .' wrote one enraptured witness, 'glowed on the golden copes of the three bishops at the altar and flashed on the steel breastplates of the Palace Guards standing with drawn swords the whole length of the aisle . . . The choir sang shrilly hymns both Swedish and Danish, the organ thundered, and jewelled orders, the Swedish blue and Danish scarlet of the Kings and Princes, the diamonds and pale gleaming gowns of the Queens and Princesses standing near the altar steps made a mass of colour as dramatic as a bed of glowing flowers.

  'White and still in the heart of so much brilliance, Princess Ingrid looked as pale as one of her own lilies.'

  Only on emerging into the dazzling sunshine outside the church did Ingrid break into a smile. Holding high her bouquet of madonna lilies, she waved it with a gesture so warm and spontaneous that it was answered with a roar of acclamation from the normally undemonstrative Swedish crowd.

  That afternoon, escorted by squadrons of cavalry, the couple drove in an open carriage through the streets of the capital. The cheering was vociferous. Later, when they had changed their clothes, the royal barge carried them to the waiting Dannebrog and they set sail for Copenhagen.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Marie, Maud and Mignon

  1

  The assassination of her son-in-law, King Alexander of Yugoslavia, was merely one of the sorrows to cloud the last years of Queen Marie of Romania's life. By now, she had come to count for almost nothing in Romania. Her son, King Carol, theatrically uniformed and increasingly bombastic, saw to it that she played no part is the country's affairs. His mistress, Elena Lupescu, wa
s the power at court. Looking slimmer and more soignée by the year, Madame Lupescu had become the fount of all honours, the channel through which men sought promotion and favours. No one consulted Queen Marie any more. She was not even allowed any say in the upbringing of her grandson, Crown Prince Michael. Twice a year, and each time for a period of a month only, the youngster was allowed to visit his mother, Carol's ex-wife Helen, in Florence. For the rest of the time he was kept under his father's eye. To Marie's disappointment, this unnatural régime was turning Michael into an exceptionally undemonstrative, almost sullen-looking youth; so different from the open and vivacious sort of person she preferred. Disappointing, also, was the marriage of Marie's second son, Nicholas, to a commoner and a divorcee; a woman whom Marie called 'a hardhearted, painted little hussy'. The court, which in Queen Marie's time had always been the brilliant centre of national life, was now rather tawdry; throughout the country, there was strong disapproval of King Carol's irregular life.

  Politically, too, things were in a sorry state. Although Carol's intentions, and some of his achievements, were admirable, he was battling with a difficult situation. Romania, like so many Continental countries during the 1930s, had strong communist and fascist elements. With the rise of Nazi Germany, the Romanian fascists, calling themselves Iron Guard Legionaries, became increasingly powerful. With the Anschluss – the absorption of Austria by Germany early in 1938 – the Iron Guard became bolder still. In an effort to keep out of Germany's tentacles, King Carol assumed dictatorial powers. It did no good. It was too late now to check German aggression or to contain Romania's own green-shirted, bullying, pro-Nazi Iron Guard.