Born to Rule: Five Reigning Consorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria

by Julia P. Gelardi

  In Norway, King Haakon VII went on to reign until his death in 1957. He was succeeded by his only son, King Olav V of Norway. His wife, Princess Martha, never became queen, having died in 1954. Olav never remarried. When he died in 1991, he was succeeded by Queen Maud’s only grandson, Harald. King Har-ald V’s daughter, Princess Martha Louise, brought the queen’s memory to the fore when the princess named her daughter (born in 2003) Maud Angelica.

  For the rest of the twentieth century, Greece alternated between a monarchy and a republic. Queen Sophie’s eldest son, King George II, returned to reign in 1935. In 1936, George’s brother, Crown Prince Paul, escorted the coffins containing the remains of King Constantine I, Queen Sophie, and Queen Olga from Italy to Greece. After an impressive funeral ceremony in Athens, the coffins were taken to Tatoi for burial. In 1938, Prince Paul married Princess Frederike of Hanover, a granddaughter of Kaiser Wilhelm II. Their eldest child, Princess Sofía, married Queen Ena’s grandson, Juan Carlos, in 1962. When King George II died in 1947, Paul and Frederike became King and Queen of the Hellenes. Their only son, Constantine II, succeeded his father upon King Paul’s death in 1964. In September 1964, the king married Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, making her then, at eighteen years of age, the youngest queen in the world. In 1967, a coup instigated by army officers took place. When a countercoup failed later in the year, King Constantine, Queen Anne-Marie, and their two children fled Greece. In 1973, the Greek government deposed King Constantine II. In a plebiscite weeks later, the result of the voting went in favor of a republic.

  Queen Sophie of Greece’s daughter, Irene, married Aimone, the Duke of Aosta, in 1939; Katherine married an Englishman, Major Richard Brandram, in 1947 at Athens. They settled in England. King George VI issued a royal warrant which granted Princess Katherine the style, title, and precedence of a British duke’s daughter, thereby allowing her to become Lady Katherine Brandram.

  Queen Sophie of Greece and Queen Marie of Romania were already doubly connected when their children married—Helen of Greece (d. 1982) to Carol of Romania (d. 1953) and George (d. 1947) of Greece to Elisabetta of Romania (d. 1956). In the next generation, Queen Marie and Queen Sophie’s descendants were again united when Sophie’s granddaughter, Princess Alexandra of Greece (d. 1993), married Queen Marie’s grandson, King Peter II of Yugoslavia (d. 1970). Their son, Crown Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia (b. 1945), currently resides in Belgrade with his second wife, Princess Katherine.

  Queen Marie’s grandson, Michael of Romania, became king again when his father, King Carol II, fled the country in 1940. King Michael’s mother, Helen, eventually returned to Romania and was given the courtesy title of Queen Mother. Queen Helen gave her son as much support as possible as she watched Michael battle Nazism and Communism almost single-handedly while only in his early twenties. Queen Marie would have been proud of her grandson’s actions during his turbulent reign. Only a young man during World War II, King Michael bravely dismissed Romania’s General Ion Antonescu in 1944. The pro-Nazi An-tonescu had placed Romania on the Axis side. After his dismissal, Romania fought on the side of the Allies. The Communists then gained power in 1946 with help from Moscow, eventually forcing King Michael to abdicate in 1947. He fled the country in 1948. King Michael married Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma in 1948, and they have five daughters. The king eventually returned to Romania in 1997. King Michael and Queen Anne now divide their time between Romania and Versoix, outside Geneva, where they have resided for many years.

  In exile, the former King Carol II and Magda Lupescu stayed together. They eventually married: in 1947 at a civil ceremony in Rio de Janeiro and in 1949 at a religious one in Lisbon. Carol died in Estoril, Portugal, in 1953, and Magda, also in Estoril, in 1977. Carol’s sister, Mignon (d. 1961), settled in England after her son, Peter II of Yugoslavia, was ousted by the Germans. Queen Marie of Romania’s second son, Nicolas, lived outside Romania and died in Spain in 1978. Queen Marie’s youngest daughter, Ileana, went to the United States with her family. She became a nun later (Mother Alexandra) and lived in a monastery in Pennsylvania. Ileana died in Ohio in 1991.

  In Russia, after the fall of Communism in 1989, a shift of seismic proportions has taken place. When the bones of Tsar Nicholas II, Tsarina Alexandra, and their children were found and later exhumed (1991) from a forest outside Ekaterinburg, DNA testing linked the skeletons to the imperial family. Two bodies, however, were missing: those of Alexei and one sister, most likely Marie. Boris Yeltsin agreed to a state funeral and burial in St. Petersburg in spite of disagreement from the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church in Russia, who disputed the authenticity of the bones. At the funeral, held eighty years after the murders, vast numbers of Russians paid their last respects. The family’s canonization by the Russian Orthodox Church has paved the way for their veneration as saints of the Orthodox Church.

  A huge cathedral, the Cathedral on the Blood, has been built on the site where the Ipatiev house stood in Ekaterinburg. Moreover, the Monastery of the Royal Passion Sufferers, consisting of seven churches are being built at the site where the family’s remains were buried after their murders—one church for each family member killed. The largest, that of St. Nicholas, has seventeen onion domes in honor of 17 July, the day of their deaths. In a country now rediscovering and openly celebrating its religious heritage, many Russians are increasingly drawn to this family, whose piety in the face of adversity appears to be touching many hearts. Time, therefore, has not diminished people’s fascination with Queen Victoria’s five special granddaughters, who were born to rule.

  NOTES

  INTRODUCTION

  Elizabeth Longford, Queen Victoria: Born to Succeed (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), p. 341.

  Diana Fotescu, ed., Americans and Queen Marie of Roumania: A Selection of Documents (Ias¸i: The Center for Romanian Studies, 1998), p. 137.

  PART I

  ONE: MORE MOTHER THAN GRANDMOTHER

  Crown Princess Victoria to Queen Victoria, 25 July 1870, in Sir Frederick Ponsonby, ed., Letters of the Empress Frederick (London: Macmillan and Co., 1929), p. 80.

  Celia Clear, Royal Children, 1840–1980 (New York: Stein & Day, 1981), p. 58.

  George Plumptre, Edward VII (London: Pavilion Books, 1995), p. 97.

  David Duff, Hessian Tapestry (London: Frederick Muller, 1967), p. 121.

  Gerard Noel, Princess Alice: Queen Victoria’s Forgotten Daughter (London: Constable, 1974), p. 216.

  Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, to Countess Alexandrine Tolstoy, 9 November 1875, Mount-batten Papers, MB1/U24, Hartley Library, University of Southampton.

  Marie, Duchess of Edinburgh, to Countess Alexandrine Tolstoy, 3 November 1875, ibid. (“The gentle little one I produced, with the big eyes and a large nose, and small mouth, and plenty of hair, has the appetite of a monster. In a word, I am very proud of my production and a daughter, after all and above all these predictions. She is making a frightful noise and puts her ten fingers in her mouth because she is already hungry. I was stupefied and did not want to believe my ears.”)

  Noel, Princess Alice, p. 227.

  Tor Bomman-Larsen, Kongstanken: Haakon & Maud—I (Oslo: J. W. Cappelen, 2002), p. 119.

  Richard Hough, Edward & Alexandra: Their Private and Public Lives (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1992), p. 153; Clear, Royal Children, p. 60.

  Georgina Battiscombe, Queen Alexandra (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1969), p. 139.

  Arvid Møller, Dronning Maud: Et Portrett (Oslo: J. W. Cappelen, 1992), p. 13.

  Battiscombe, Queen Alexandra, p. 122.

  Bomann-Larsen, Kongstanken, p. 118.

  Ibid., p. 145.

  Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, My Early Life (New York: George H. Doran Co., 1926; AMS edition, 1971), p. 74.

  Princess Victoria of Prussia, My Memoirs (London: Eveleigh Nash & Grayson, 1929), p. 15.

  Victoria, Crown Princess of Germany, to Queen Victoria, 25 August 1881, in Roger Fulford, ed., Beloved Mama: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the Germa
n Crown Princess 1878–1885 (London: Evans Brothers, 1981), p. 106.

  Meriel Buchanan, Queen Victoria’s Relations (London: Cassell & Co., 1954), p. 7.

  Theo Aronson, Grandmama of Europe: The Crowned Descendants of Queen Victoria (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merril Co., 1973), p. 64.

  Queen Marie of Romania, The Story of My Life. Vol. I (London: Cassell & Co., 1934), p. 15.

  Ibid., p. 19.

  Marie, Duchess of Edinburgh, to Countess Alexandrine Tolstoy, undated, 1879, Mount-batten Papers, MB 1/U24, Hartley Library, University of Southampton (“her character is always delicious”).

  Duff, Hessian Tapestry, p. 189.

  Prince Christopher of Greece, Memoirs of H.R.H. Prince Christopher of Greece (London: The Right Book Club, 1938), p. 56.

  Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Hesse, 12 September 1879, in Richard Hough, ed., Advice to My Grand-Daughter: Letters from Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Hesse (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1975), p. 18.

  Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Hesse, 26 April 1884, in ibid., p. 65.

  “TWO: MAD. NEVER MIND.”

  Katherine Hudson, A Royal Conflict: Sir John Conroy and the Young Victoria (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1994), p. xvii.

  Longford, Queen Victoria, p. 50.

  Queen Marie, My Life, p. 157.

  Ibid., pp. 156-57.

  Arthur Christopher Benson and Viscount Esher, eds., The Letters of Queen Victoria: A Selection from Her Majesty’s Correspondence Between the Years 1837 and 1861. Vol. III (London: J. Murray, 1907), p. 321.

  Queen Marie, My Life, p. 180.

  Giles St. Aubyn, Queen Victoria: A Portrait (London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1991), p. 60.

  Queen Marie, My Life, p. 43.

  Queen Victoria to Victoria, Crown Princess of Prussia, 17 July 1878 and 21 August 1878, in Fulford, ed., Beloved Mama, pp. 23 and 24.

  10. Tsarevitch Nicholas, diary entry, 31 May 1884, in Andrei Maylunas and Sergei Mironenko, eds., A Lifelong Passion: Nicholas and Alexandra: Their Own Story (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1996), p. 10.

  Duff, Hessian Tapestry, p. 186.

  Marie, Duchess of Edinburgh, to Countess Alexandrine Tolstoy, undated, May 1885, MB 1/U24, Hartley Library, University of Southampton.

  Marie, Duchess of Edinburgh, to Countess Alexandrine Tolstoy, 13 January 1885, ibid.

  Queen Victoria to the Empress Frederick, 17 July 1888, in Agatha Ramm, ed., Beloved and Darling Child: Last Letters Between Queen Victoria and Her Eldest Daughter, 1886–1901 (Stroud, Glos.: Alan Sutton, 1990), p. 74.

  Gerard Noel, Ena: Spain’s English Queen (London: Constable & Co., 1984), p. 3.

  Evelyn Graham (pseud. Netley Lucas), The Queen of Spain: An Authorized Life Story (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1929), p. 26.

  Egon Caesar Corti, The English Empress: A Study in the Relations Between Queen Victoria and Her Eldest Daughter, Empress Frederick of Germany (London: Cassell & Co., 1957), p. 301.

  Ibid., p. 302.

  Empress Frederick to Queen Victoria, 15 June 1888, in Ponsonby ed., Empress Frederick, p. 316.

  Interview with Lady Katherine Brandram, 2 May 2001, Marlow, Bucks.

  Princess Victoria, My Memoirs, p. 4.

  Lord Howard of Penrith, Theatre of Life: Life Seen from the Pit, 1863–1905 (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1935), pp. 93–94.

  Empress Frederick to Queen Victoria, 25 October 1889, in Ramm, ed., Beloved and Darling Child, p. 77.

  Bomann-Larsen, Kongstanken, p. 188.

  Ibid.

  Sir James Rennell Rodd, Social and Diplomatic Memories, 1884–1893 (London: Edward Arnold & Co., 1922), pp. 187–88.

  Tsarevitch Nicholas to Empress Marie, 20 October 1889, in Edward J. Bing, ed., The Letters of Tsar Nicholas and Empress Marie: Being the Confidential Correspondence Between Nicholas II, Last of the Tsars, and His Mother, Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna (London: Ivor Nicholson & Watson, 1937), p. 39.

  Prince Nicholas of Greece, My Fifty Years (London: Hutchinson & Co., 1926), p. 96.

  G. Nicholas Tantzos and Marlene A. Eilers, eds., A Romanov Diary: The Autobiography of H.I. & R.H. Grand Duchess George (New York: Atlantic International Publications, 1988), p. 41.

  Ibid., p. 42.

  Ponsonby, ed., Empress Frederick, pp. 393–94.

  Arthur Gould Lee, ed., The Empress Frederick Writes to Sophie, Crown Princess and Later Queen of the Hellenes (London: Faber & Faber, 1955), pp. 52–53.

  Bomann-Larsen, Kongstanken, p. 314.

  Queen Victoria to Victoria of Hesse, 25 May 1894, in Hough, ed., Advice to My Grand-Daughter, p. 123. The “Uncle” referred to here is the Prince of Wales.

  James Pope-Hennessy Queen Mary, 1867–1953 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1960), pp. 314–15.

  Battiscombe, Queen Alexandra, p. 200.

  Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary, p. 315.

  Empress Frederick to Princess Sophie, 1894, in Lee, ed., Empress Frederick. Writes to Sophie, p. 162.

  Bomann-Larsen, Kongstanken, p. 332.

  Plumptre, Edward VII, p. 97.

  Prince Maximilian of Baden (1867–1929) was the last chancellor of Imperial Germany. In an effort to salvage the monarchy, Max had asked Kaiser Wilhelm II to abdicate during World War I. When the Kaiser refused, Max himself announced the abdication, thus putting an end to the rule of the Hohenzollern dynasty in Germany in November 1918.

  Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary, p.296.

  Bomann-Larsen, Kongstangken, p. 349.

  Lee, ed., Empress Frederick Writes to Sophie, p. 59.

  Queen Victoria to the Empress Frederick, 20 July 1890, in Ramm, ed., Beloved and Darling Child, p. 113.

  Anonymous, The Royal Family of Greece: King Constantine, Queen Sophie, Their Royal Relatives and Some Events (Toronto: Warwick Brothers & Rutter, 1914), p. 4.

  Také Jonescu, Some Personal Impressions (New York: Frederick A. Stokes, 1920), p. 286.

  Hannah Pakula, An Uncommon Woman: The Empress Frederick, Daughter of Queen Victoria, Wife of the Crown Prince of Prussia, Mother of Kaiser Wilhelm (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), p. 562.

  Corti, English Empress, p. 337.

  Ibid., p. 338.

  Count Robert Zedlitz-Trützschler, Twelve Years at the Imperial German Court (London: Nisbet & Co., 1951), p. 82.

  Lee, ed., Empress Frederick. Writes to Sophie, p. 74.

  Ibid., pp. 85–86.

  Ibid., p. 86.

  Ibid.

  Corti, English Empress, p. 339.

  Interview with Lady Katherine Brandram, 2 May 2001, Marlow, Bucks.

  THREE: “GANGAN”

  David Duff, The Shy Princess: The Life of Her Royal Highness Princess Beatrice (London: Evans Brothers, 1958), p. 154.

  Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Hesse, 12 October 1889, in Hough, ed., Advice to My Grand-Daughter, p. 105.

  Graham, Queen of Spain, p. 21.

  Genevieve de Vilmorin, “The Queen of Spain’s Own Story,” Chatelaine (May 1962), p. 92.

  Queen Victoria’s journal, 10 February 1894, in George Earle Buckle, ed., The Letters of Queen Victoria, Third Series: A Selection from Her Majesty’s Correspondence Between the Years 1862 and 1885 and Between the Years 1886 and 1901. Vol. II: 1891–1895 (London: John Murray, 1931), p. 359.

  Michaela Reid, Ask. Sir James: Sir James Reid, Personal Physician to Queen Victoria and Physician-in-Ordinary to Three Monarchs (New York: Viking, 1987), p. 105.

  Lee, ed., Empress Frederick. Writes to Sophie, pp. 162-63.

  Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Hesse, 15 February 1894, in Hough, ed., Advice to My Grand-Daughter, p. 122.

  Emperor William II to Queen Victoria, telegram, 25 February 1894, in Buckle, ed., Letters of Queen Victoria, p. 363.

  Queen Victoria’s journal, 3 March 1894, in ibid., p. 371.

  Queen Victoria’s journal, 10 March 1894, in ibid., p. 380.

  Sir Charles Petrie, King Alfonso XIII and His Age (London: Chapman & Hall, 1963), p. 46.

  The Carlists were supporters of Don Carlos, brot
her of King Ferdinand IV of Spain (r. 1814–33), who did not recognize the king’s promulgation of the pragmatic sanction, which allowed for female succession to the throne, at the expense of a close male relative to the king. In so doing, Ferdinand IV paved the way for his daughter, Isabella II, to reign (1833-68). Such a move by Ferdinand, which cost Don Carlos the throne, was unacceptable not only to Carlos but to his followers, precipitating this dynastic crisis. Three wars were fought throughout the nineteenth century over this very dispute.

  Petrie, King Alfonso XIII, p. 49.

  Robert Sencourt (pseud. Robert Esmonde Gordon George), King Alfonso: A Biography (London: Faber & Faber, 1942), p. 64.

  Petrie, King Alfonso XIII, p. 43.

  John D. Bergamini, The Spanish Bourbons: The History of a Tenacious Dynasty (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1974), p. 307.

  Queen Marie, My Life, p. 140.

  Hannah Pakula, The Last Romantic: A Biography of Queen Marie of Roumania (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985), p. 57.

  Queen Marie, My Life, p. 137.

  Pakula, Last Romantic, p. 127.

  Queen Victoria to Victoria of Hesse, 24 September 1893, in Hough, ed., Advice to My Grand-Daughter, p.120. Missy also had another cousinly admirer, the Grand Duke George Michaelovitch, from the Russian side of her family. Though just as unlucky as Prince George of Wales in failing to secure Missy as a wife, Grand Duke George never seemed to come close to being remembered as fondly by Missy as was her cousin George of Wales.

  Queen Marie, My Life, pp. 226, 223.