Exchanges of news and increasing declarations of devotion flew back and forth. At first, Princess Victoria Eugenie’s cards contained straightforward news of herself, interspersed with the occasional humorous comment. One of the earliest, for instance, was a photograph of her as a bridesmaid. Ena tells Alfonso how “we [the wedding party] have an air of fright, as if we were about to cry. It will amuse you!”
As the months passed and she became increasingly confident of King Alfonso’s devotion, the tone of Ena’s messages grew friendlier and bolder. Recounting how a man at a function in her house was Alfonso’s veritable double, Ena took the opportunity of assuring the real Alfonso, “But for me [the double] was not so nice as the original. “7
As their planned reunion in the South of France drew nearer, Ena grew excited. But in one card, she reveals her suspicions that she is more fond of Alfonso than he is of her, telling him: “I am convinced that [my friendship for you] is stronger on my part than yours is for me. I will fight with you if you feel the contrary!”8
During this time, Ena took it upon herself to begin learning Spanish, but she found the task difficult. She confessed to Alfonso, “I have no Spanish teacher whatsoever, what little I know, I have learned myself in books.”9 In December 1905, Ena wrote how determined she was to tackle this challenge: “I intend to do everything that I can to learn your language. But oh! the difficulties that I have with the grammar.”10 She eventually employed the services of a Spanish tutor, but her struggles with the language continued.
At the end of the year, the love-struck princess wrote a final message on the last day: “I am very sad at writing to you for the last time this year, [one] that has been so happy for me. Always one remembers with nostalgia a happy stage which now will never return. I hope the new year will be happier still.”11 As their reunion neared, Ena confessed that “it is too heavenly to think of meeting so soon now. God bless you darling and think of E. who loves you.”12
Princess Ena and King Alfonso met again in January 1906 in Biarritz. There, the besotted couple became unofficially engaged. After they parted, the correspondence continued. This time, evidence of Ena’s growing attachment to her admirer became more pronounced. In one postcard to Alfonso, Ena opened with “Mon cher Alfonso” and ended her message with the words, “mille et mille 000000 de ton Ena,” meaning she sent him thousands of kisses.13
Six days after she wrote those words, Princess Ena stepped onto Spanish soil for the first time. Accompanied by King Alfonso and her mother, the trio motored from Biarritz into Spain. One of Alfonso XIII’s courtiers, the Marquis of Villalobar, proclaimed to the princess, “Señora, we have set foot on Spanish territory,” to which Ena replied, “I am delighted that this moment has arrived; it fills me with joy and never shall I forget the first day on which I trod the soil of Spain.”14 The party continued on to the Miramar Palace in San Sebastian, where they were welcomed by Queen Maria Cristina. The residents of San Sebastian were ecstatic about their future queen, one journalist writing lyrically of Ena: “An enchanting face…an exquisite grace and a sweetness rarely frequent in women of the North.” Moreover, “her character is angelic…her blonde hair, graciously coiffed, her round face, with fine skin, a fine body and her dreamy eyes.”15 In sum, Ena was perfection personified.
Not everyone, however, was thrilled with the prospective marriage, largely due to the fact that Ena was not of the Catholic faith. As a Protestant, she would have to convert to Roman Catholicism in order to marry Alfonso. Just as it was unacceptable in Russia to have a tsarina who did not profess the Orthodox faith, so a queen in Spain could not be anything other than a Catholic.
Some in Spain grumbled about Ena’s Protestant background. But even more vociferous criticism came from Ena’s fellow Englishmen, once serious rumors about an engagement took root. A public campaign of indignation in England swept the press. Protestants voiced their disapproval of Ena’s march toward Rome. Groups such as the Protestant Alliance and the Church Association appealed to King Edward to forbid the marriage. The upper echelons of the Church of England (of which her uncle, the king, was head) were not immune from denouncing Ena’s probable repudiation of Protestantism. Both the Bishop of London and the Archbishop of Canterbury took it upon themselves to inform King Edward that the signs of “public disapproval” were very real.
To understand this fervent hostility toward Ena’s planned conversion, one needs to recall that anti-Catholicism had been a prominent feature of English society for centuries. England, a Protestant country since the Reformation, had long sought to subjugate its Catholic minority. The Catholic Emancipation Act was passed—with dissenting voices heard—only in 1829. Anti-Catholicism in the Victorian era was widespread and, as one historian describes it, “quite unique. It was peculiarly related to popularly subscribed precepts about the ends and nature of the British state; it was chauvanistic and almost general.”17 Queen Victoria herself was not among those fired with a hatred for Catholicism; on the contrary, she had a streak of tolerance toward the faith and had stated: “I cannot bear to hear the violent abuse of the Catholic religion, which is so painful and so cruel towards the many innocent and good Roman Catholics.”18
Nevertheless, an anti-Papist atmosphere was still very much part of English political life, even after Victoria’s death. Thus, for staunch Protestants to see a granddaughter of Queen Victoria, whom they had seen grow up by the queen’s side and had long viewed as a British princess, choose to renounce her Protestant faith for Catholicism, was something tantamount to treason. Privately, King Edward was said to be unsympathetic, even hostile to Ena’s religious conversion. He, after all, had made a declaration in Parliament during the first year of his reign that was a blatant objection to, and renunciation of, the Roman Catholic faith. To Ena, however, King Edward tried to gloss over his disappointment, telling her: “I do not deny that your change of religion gives me a pang, but I am very liberal when it comes to religions and I believe it [the conversion] to be inevitable.”19
Not long after completing her Biarritz visit, Princess Ena embarked on a spiritual journey which was necessary in her position as the next Queen of Catholic Spain, undergoing religious instruction in her future faith from Monsignor Robert Brindle, the Bishop of Nottingham, who had been an esteemed and popular army chaplain during his service in Egypt.
Ena’s love for Alfonso was certainly a major factor in her decision to embrace Roman Catholicism. Nevertheless, her spiritual journey was not done simply in exchange for a crown. The teenage Ena took her religious guidance from Monsignor Brindle seriously; and her correspondence with King Alfonso at this time shows a princess clearly preoccupied by her lessons and by the impending ceremony itself. Alfonso told Ena of his wish to be present at her conversion. Ena thought otherwise. “I ask only one favor of you,” she wrote in February 1906, “that you do not come to the conversion ceremony, as I have already done so much for love of you.…Viens après. But, my darling, don’t come till after my conversion. Your presence would distract me.”20 The next day, Ena was again insistent: “Mon vieux cher ami, I see your strong reasons for coming to my conversion. But if you come my thoughts will be distracted.” And in a not so subtle hint that betrayed both the inner turmoil she was going through in renouncing her faith and the pressure she felt from rabid English Protestants and Spanish Catholics alike, Ena added: “When I am older and have sons and daughters I will advise them not to marry a monarch of another religion.”21
Clearly, Ena was not immune to the negativity, bordering on abuse, that was being hurled at her for her decision to convert. These objections sent her into fits of depression. Because Alfonso could never really empathize with what she was experiencing, Ena felt completely alone. It was all so novel and frightening. Accustomed all her life to being protected and loved, Ena now found to her dismay that what she was doing did not please everyone. Attacked by intolerant and bigoted Protestants and Catholics alike, who accused her simultaneously of being a traitor to her faith and
an insincere convert, Ena it seemed, was in a no-win situation. “I find myself in an insupportable and cruel position,” wrote a dejected Ena to Alfonso; “the English criticize me for becoming Catholic and the Spanish believe that I am not sincere.” Then, in a moment of apprehension, Ena confessed: “It seems to me that I should not live my life in a country in which I am not loved. Upon giving you my heart, I gave you my life and I hopelessly see from your letters that you believe I have no wish to see you.”22
Like Alix of Hesse before her, who suffered much in her decision to convert for the future Nicholas II, Ena of Battenberg too endured much personal turmoil in her journey of conversion for Alfonso XIII. In the end, Princess Victoria Eugenie’s reception into the Roman Catholic Church took place at the Spanish royal family’s home, the Miramar Palace, at San Sebastian, on 7 March 1906. Contrary to Ena’s wish, King Alfonso was present to witness his fiancée become a Catholic.
The ceremony itself, presided over by the Bishop of Nottingham and also by the Bishop of Vitoria and Sion, was simple but daunting, leaving a strong impact on the eighteen-year-old. Not only did Ena have to be re-baptized; she also abjured in the strongest manner her Protestant faith. Moreover, not a single member of her family attended the ceremony. The princess in this case was supported by Queen Maria Cristina and King Alfonso. Before a small gathering, Ena, dressed entirely in white, with a mantilla, professed her new faith. Behind her stood Alfonso XIII, who after the ceremony gave his fiancée a diamond-and-sapphire bracelet. Especially treasured by Ena was another of Alfonso’s gifts: a jewel-encrusted medal of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
In his official report of the ceremony to the Spanish government, the prime minister and president of the Council of Ministers, Segismundo Moret, described what he witnessed: “the act, although extremely simple, has been solemn and very meaningful.…The Princess was pale from emotion, and in attitude withdrawn and humble, giving off an angelic appearance.”23 The ceremony made an impact, even on Moret, a “liberal and mason,”24 who was moved to compose the following passage: “The religious silence, the absence of all music, the sun…which penetrated the windows of the room and flooded the nearby hills already covered in green, all contributed to touching our spirit, making more intense the emotion which this [ceremony] produced, unique in the annals of Spain.” Moreover, “in spite of our [the attendees] differences in ages, education and sentiments, we have been left profoundly impressed.”25 If someone as anti-religious as Moret was touched by this ceremony, one can only imagine what Victoria Eugenie must have felt. King Alfonso was clearly moved as he watched his intended bride take such a monumental step. Moret noted how “the King could not hide, during the reading of the rites of conversion, the emotion which overwhelmed him.
In comparing Ena’s conversion to that of Alexandra of Russia, it is interesting to note that Ena did not undergo a tremendous amount of inner turmoil over her decision to leave the Anglican Church. The pain that Ena endured stemmed mainly from the criticism heaped against her for her decision. In confronting the need to switch allegiance, Victoria Eugenie was not wracked by the same degree of doubt as Alexandra had been. It took years, after all, for Nicholas II to beat down Alexandra’s defenses when it came to exchanging Lutheranism for Orthodoxy. But where Ena was concerned, it did not take much prodding from anyone to get her to embrace Catholicism. In this case, Ena seems to have mirrored Sophie of Greece’s journey of faith.
Because her conversion was such a special moment, and because she had been vilified for choosing to take this step, Ena wished for the ceremony to be as private as possible. Nothing and no one was to distract her attentions at the time. Sadly for Ena, her wishes were rejected. Not only King Alfonso but other less familiar figures also witnessed the event. And because her conversion was publicly announced by the newspapers before she could explain to others—especially those in England—about her change of faith, Ena felt betrayed. Years later she recalled how “I would have wanted [the ceremony] to have been something intimate, but all the newspapers published it. The Daily News did so in a harsh manner. Because of this, when I returned to England many turned their backs on me.…It was very difficult.”27
According to Gerard Noel, Victoria Eugenie’s English biographer, Ena reacted to her own easy renunciation of faith by remaining “more Protestant than Catholic” in her religious leanings. When her life began to unravel, it was said that memories of her forceful repudiation of Protestantism had made Ena wonder whether she was cursed for such an action. Perhaps the anguish which came her way meant that “this curse was indeed operative and that such tragedies had come as a punishment for her apostasy.”28
The religious conversions of Queen Victoria’s granddaughters, Sophie of Greece, Alexandra of Russia, and Ena of Spain, all had distressing elements. For Sophie, her conversion caused a very public break with her brother, Kaiser Wil-helm II. For Alexandra, her conversion took place only after a protracted inner struggle; while Ena’s conversion caused consternation in England and Spain. Moreover, Ena’s re-baptism and strong denunciation of Protestantism at the actual ceremony made for a difficult experience. Even many years later, according to Noel, Ena was always hesitant to discuss this particular aspect of her life. But toward the end, she did talk about the conversion ceremony. She remembered her entrance into the Catholic Church as having been “hard, very hard. They made it as unpleasant as they could…it was public enough to make one suffer.” The re-baptism was particularly difficult for her to understand. Yet after the difficulties involved in the ceremony and the ensuing controversy, which prompted some of her friends to turn their backs on her, Ena did confess that “afterwards, I have been very happy in the Catholic faith.”29
With her conversion completed, Ena was set to marry Alfonso XIII. Ena’s mother, Princess Beatrice, was overcome with emotion at the thought of her daughter’s upcoming wedding:
Please God the young people may [be] very happy, as they are absolutely devoted to one another, and I have every confidence in the King making her the best of husbands. He has such a charming nature, that to know him is to love him, and though the thought of my child going so far from me, is a real trial, I feel I have really gained a son, who does everything to make things easy.30
Anxious at the thought that she was soon to leave the Isle of Wight, Ena confessed to a friend: “I am very sad at leaving my dear Island home where I have so many friends.”31 Within weeks, she left England for her new home in Spain. There, she was set to marry Alfonso XIII in a spectacular ceremony and settle into what Ena hoped would be a happy life with the man she loved.
With Norway and Sweden slowly but surely taking the inexorable steps toward dissolving their union, the question was, should Norway become a republic or a monarchy? Among those who favored a monarchy, the candidature of Prince Charles of Denmark as Norway’s king increasingly took hold. At only thirty-three years of age, Charles was still a relatively young man. He already had a son and heir aged three, who could easily grow up into a true Norwegian. Charles’s consort, Maud, was also a Protestant; more important, as a daughter of Edward VII, she would bring added prestige to the Norwegian throne and royal family. Norway’s future kings would then be descended from England’s own Queen Victoria, who elicited widespread respect in all corners of the globe.
Destiny, it seemed, was closing in on Charles and Maud. Like it or not, they were being drawn ever closer to sharing their fate with the Norwegian people. Charged with the delicate task of negotiating and convincing Charles to accept the offer of the crown was the Norwegian minister to Denmark, Baron Fritz Wedel. In a conversation with the baron, Prince Charles emphasized that “the Norwegians would have to take me for who I am.”32 But the prince was also well aware that in choosing him as their king, Norwegians would receive Maud as their queen. Thus did Prince Charles wisely bring up his concerns about his wife. Charles stressed that because of Maud’s delicate health, it was necessary for her to make prolonged visits to England, whose temperate climate suite
d her better than the harsh Scandinavian winters. This naturally meant that Maud would have to live for months at a time away from Norway.
Officially, the British government took a neutral stand in the proceedings. But Edward VII was not about to let a once in a lifetime opportunity pass Charles and Maud by. Wherever he could, the king took an active role in pushing for Charles’s candidature. Supported in this stand by the British minister in Copenhagen, Alan Johnstone, Edward stepped up the campaign to see his son-in-law become Norway’s new king. In June 1905, Edward VII wrote to the British Embassy in Copenhagen to say that he could allow his ministers to tell the Danish crown prince that the King of England “would gladly see Prince Charles of Denmark accept the throne of Norway (in which Queen Alexandra concurs) should the King of Sweden not wish any of his (Bernadotte) family to ascend the Throne.”33
There was no denying the fact that Edward VII saw the possible accession of Charles and Maud to the Norwegian throne as another prestigious connection to add luster to an already burnished crown. With a niece as the Tsarina of Russia and others poised to become queens of Greece and Romania, why not see one of his own daughters become Queen of Norway? On the other hand, there were also the diplomatic stakes, which had to be taken into account. Astute observers were well aware that if the ever meddlesome Kaiser Wilhelm got his way, he would have gladly installed one of his numerous sons, certainly a candidate more amenable to him than the King of England’s son-in-law as Norway’s new king.
Edward VII assumed that his nephew, Willy, was conniving against Charles. The Kaiser’s machinations plus pleas from Britain’s minister in Copenhagen urging Edward to promote his son-in-law’s candidature helped seal Charles and Maud’s fate. Edward VII then “made strenuous efforts to persuade Prince Charles to take up the throne and to secure British recognition for him.”34 Like it or not, there was really little Charles or Maud could do in the matter. More and more it looked as if events were moving beyond their grasp and the crown of Norway would be theirs to lose. In July 1905, Maud’s father was anxious to resolve the question of Prince Charles’s candidature, telling him in no uncertain terms: “I strongly urge that you should go to Norway as soon as possible to prevent someone else taking your place.”35
Born to Rule: Five Reigning Consorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria Page 19