Alice, The Enigma - A Biography of Queen Victoria's Daughter

by Christina Croft

  Although she was still frail, Alice used the opportunity of the stay on the south coast to further her knowledge about her most recent philanthropic interest – the rehabilitation of prostitutes. As with her interest in medicine and mental illness, she was venturing into an area which was largely taboo for women of her station. The vast migration into overcrowded cities over the past century had led to a significant rise in prostitution and, while many respectable men were happy to avail themselves of their services, the prostitutes themselves were treated as outcasts by society. Studies of the time demonstrated that the majority of the women had been driven to their trade by poverty and alcohol, and many had lost respectable positions after being abused by unscrupulous employers. Nonetheless, ‘the Great Social Evil’ was blamed on the women themselves and, while various religious institutions attempted to provide them with an alternative way of life, they were still viewed with contempt by governments and the majority of the population.

  Throughout the 1860s and early 1870s, the plight of prostitutes had been highlighted in Britain by campaigners who sought to repeal the infamous Contagious Diseases Acts. Concerned by the number of soldiers and sailors suffering from venereal disease, the government had passed a series of laws by which women in the vicinity of military of naval bases could be forcibly detained and subjected to a medical examination. Apart from the inherent injustice of violating the human rights of the women while making no provision for similar examinations of their clients, not all of the women detained under the acts were prostitutes, and stories abounded of ‘respectable’ women being forcibly taken from the street as they went about their legitimate business. Women who were found to be suffering from venereal disease were labelled as ‘dangerous’, and confined in the so-called Lock Hospitals – a name stemming from the former leprosy hospitals when ‘locks’ or rags were used as bandages – where they underwent barbaric examinations and were treated more like prisoners than patients.

  At the time of Alice’s stay in Eastbourne, the ‘purity campaigner’, Ellice Hopkins had recently published a book entitled Women’s Mission to Women, in which she described the various missions, providing safe homes for the euphemistically named ‘female penitents’ of Brighton. In a preface, Alice’s long-time correspondent, Florence Nightingale, had ‘entreated’ the women of England to read the book, since:

  “This is the cause, one would think, of every Englishwoman; for to every Englishwoman Home and Family, here imperilled, with or without her knowledge, have a sacred name; the cause of every wife and mother, for the happy wife and mother (as was truly said by one of these) has the strongest reason to do something to help those who have no home and no happiness; the cause of God, who is the Father of the poor outcasts as well as of the happy homes.”[186]

  Among the institutions mentioned by Ellice Hopkins was the Albion Hill Home, which had been taken over some years earlier by a devout young widow, Mrs Vicars, who had risked ridicule and physical injury during her tours of some of the worst brothels and ‘dens’ in the town, before agreeing to manage the refuge. Eager to meet her and to learn from her experience, Alice travelled incognita to Brighton to see the:

  “…pretty building…bright and pleasant to look at, set round with its glossy evergreens, and overlooking the valley below…A bright looking home…with no workhouse air about it, though indeed a house of cheerful work – with its warm red brick facings, its high gables and belfry, and its trim plot of garden round.”[187]

  During a tour of the home, Alice was shown how the institution was organised. No one applying for admission was ever turned away, and, in the event that the house was full, applicants would be boarded in the homes of local Christian women. The day ran to a strict routine, wherein the girls rose between five-thirty and six-thirty, and their days were taken up with acquiring various practical skills, with the option of attending lessons in basic mathematics and literacy. They were free to leave the home whenever they wished, or to remain until a suitable position was found for them, in which case they were given a gift of ten shilling to take to their new employment. By the time of Alice’s visit, plans were underway to create a series of cottages within the grounds so that the women could be housed in groups, to make the refuge appear less institutional. Mrs Vicars’ commitment and initiative inspired Alice with ideas for establishing similar houses in Hesse – her only objection would surely have been the somewhat overly religious atmosphere of the home – and, after some deliberation, she accepted Mrs Vicars’ request that she should become the Patroness of Albion Hill.

  Sadly, Alice’s patronage would be very brief, for within two months of returning to Darmstadt, tragedy would strike her family, and within three months, Alice herself would be dead.

  Chapter 21 – Dear Papa!

  During the Hessians’ stay at Eastbourne, a disaster occurred which, with hindsight, appears to be something of an omen. On a balmy, late-summer evening, the 3rd September 1878, a paddle-steamer, named Princess Alice, was returning to London from Gravesend, where the majority of the seven hundred and fifty passengers had enjoyed a day trip to the Rosherville Gardens.

  The steamer was nearing Woolwich when it passed through a channel into which over seventy million gallons of raw sewage had been dumped earlier in the day; and, at the same time, a steam collier, the Bywell Castle, entered the same stretch of water. Due to a misunderstanding between the captains of the vessels, the Bywell Castle steamed directly into the starboard side of Princess Alice, cutting the boat in two and plunging all the passengers and crew into the filthy waters. Within four minutes the vessel had sunk and, despite desperate attempts at a rescue, over six hundred people died – many of them poisoned by ingesting the polluted water.

  As the inquiry into the disaster continued, Alice and her family returned to Darmstadt, where the therapeutic benefits of the holiday quickly faded. In early November, she wrote to the Queen:

  “I am but very middling, and leading a very quiet life, which is an absolute necessity. It is so depressing to be like this.”[188]

  Two days later, a contagion entered the New Palace, and Alice’s quiet life was thrown into turmoil.

  On the evening of 7th November, her eldest daughter, Victoria, was reading Alice in Wonderland to her younger sisters when she became hoarse and complained of cold-like symptoms. The following morning, the symptoms were far worse and diphtheria was diagnosed.

  One of the great killers of the era, the greatly feared and highly infectious disease, affects the throat and lymph nodes, causing the membranes to swell across the tonsils and, in extreme cases, across the airways, leading to suffocation. Known in Spain as ‘the strangler’, diphtheria leads to a very painful and unpleasant death, which is horrific to witness. Alongside the asphyxiating membranes, the toxins produced by the infection can lead to kidney, liver and nerve damage in victims whose immune system is already compromised or under-developed, which made it a particularly dangerous illness in children. The symptoms – a headache, sore throat and general malaise – do not usually manifest for five to ten days after the infection has been contracted, and so Alice’s decision to isolate Victoria was of little avail. Within four days, her younger sister, Alix, displayed the same symptoms and, by the 13th November, Louis, Iréne and May had been diagnosed with the illness. For their own protection, Ella and Ernie were duly dispatched to their grandmother’s home in Bessungen, but hardly had they arrived when Ernie, too, manifested the symptoms and was taken back home.

  Alice, already in frail health, was suddenly faced with the stress of nursing her husband and five of her children, all of whom could easily die from the ‘dreadful’ illness. Night and day, with the help of eight nurses, she cared for them all. Adhering to the doctor’s instructions, she refrained from hugging or kissing her patients, and arranged for the nurseries to be fumigated and many of their toys to be burned. Spraying herself regularly with disinfectant, she wore protective clothing when approaching their beds to administer the recommended treatment of a
steam inhalation of chlorate of potash (potassium chloride) – a poisonous substance, intended to kill the infection.

  Hastily written telegrams flew back and forth between Darmstadt, Berlin and England, where services were held throughout the country to pray for Alice and her family.

  By May 15th, Victoria was out of danger, and her youngest sister, May, appeared to be recovering. Shortly after midnight, Alice left May’s room to attend to her other patients when suddenly the little girl sat up and choked. Before Alice returned, she had died. Scribbling a pencilled note to Vicky, and dispatching a telegram to her mother, Alice waited until morning before breaking the news to Louis.

  “The pain is beyond words,” Alice told the Queen, “but God’s will be done.”[189]

  To prevent the further spread of the contagion, it was necessary for the coffin to be closed and the interment to take place as soon as possible, and so, two days later, the funeral service was carried out within the palace. Since Louis was still too ill to rise from his bed, and Alice deemed it better not to tell her sick children what had happened, she undertook all the arrangements and attended the service alone. When the time came to remove the little coffin from the house, she could hardly bear to look, and, turning away, watched the mournful procession through a mirror.

  “Thus do we learn humility,” she murmured to a lady-in-waiting.

  Keeping the news from her other children, was intensely difficult as she tried to maintain a cheerful appearance. When, almost a week after May’s death, her favourite child, Ernie, whose own life still hung in the balance, asked her to give his little sister a book, she could barely restrain her tears.

  “It made me almost sick to smile at the dear boy,” she told the Queen. “But he must be spared yet awhile what to him will be such sorrow.”[190]

  On 22nd November, Queen Victoria received Alice’s German librarian, Mr Sahl, who had recently arrived from Darmstadt.

  “He spoke with admiration of Alice’s courage, calmness & resignation, but said she looked dreadful. He had seen the doctors several times, who said, all the cases were of the severest kind.”[191]

  The Queen was left in no doubt that if Alice were to contract the disease she would lack the strength to fight it.

  By the end of the month, Ernie was out of danger and had begun to recover sufficiently for Alice to tell him the truth about May’s death. So distressed was he, that her natural response was to take him in her arms and kiss him – perhaps, thereby contracting the illness herself.

  By 6th December, the rest of the family was recovering, and Alice gained some relief from her vigils by taking a short carriage ride. The following afternoon she met her sister-in-law, Marie of Edinburgh, who happened to be passing through Darmstadt, but on Sunday 8th December, she woke with a sore throat and the unmistakable symptoms of diphtheria.

  Over the next few days, despite the typical appearance of the membrane across her tonsils, she was able to eat, and gave instructions to the staff for the care of her children as well as asking about the progress of her charities. For five days, her condition, though painful and distressing, remained stable, and the Queen’s doctor, William Jenner, who had been hastily dispatched to Darmstadt, held out hope of her eventual recovery.

  Friday 13th December marked a turn for worse and, though Alice herself appeared more composed and relaxed, the doctors agreed that she was dying. Throughout that night, attended by her mother-in-law, she gradually drifted into unconsciousness and as the new day dawned – 14th December 1878, seventeen years to the day since the death of her father – she peacefully passed away. Her final words were a murmured,

  “Dear Papa!”

  The father whom she loved so deeply had come to take her home.

  Three days after Alice’s death, her body was taken from the New Palace to the Grand Ducal palace, where her closed coffin, covered in wreaths and flowers, was placed on a bier in the Great Hall. From every part of the Grand Duchy, from those who had benefitted from her charities, those who had met her personally, and those whose hearts went out to her grieving children, wreaths and bouquets flooded in until, according to Theodore Martin, the black velvet pall was invisible beneath the array of colour.

  The following morning, a solemn crowd watched as her coffin, draped in the British flag, was carried through the silent streets of Darmstadt to the Rosenhőhe mausoleum. Her heartbroken children watched from an upstairs window, and among the mourners below were two of Alice’s brothers – Leopold, who had himself been so close to death on so many occasions; and a devastated Bertie, who wrote sadly, ‘we had gone through so much together.’

  Noticeable for her absence at the funeral was Vicky, whose father-in-law had forbidden her from travelling to Darmstadt in case she should bring the infection back to Berlin.[x] Her grief, though, was intense, as she wrote to her mother:

  “Sweet darling Alice is she really gone? So good, and dear, so much admired. I cannot realise it, it is too awful, too cruel, too terrible.”[192]

  Messages of condolence poured in from around the world, and nowhere was the grief felt more deeply than in Britain, where the people still remembered Alice’s selfless devotion to her mother in the days after Prince Albert’s death. Flags flew at half-mast across the Empire, public houses were closed, political engagements were cancelled and, as the curtains were drawn in the windows of Buckingham Palace, a bell tolled in Windsor. In his typically flamboyant fashion, Disraeli address the House of Lords:

  “A Princess, who loved us though she left us, and who always revisited her Fatherland with delight –one of those women the brightness of whose being adorns society and inspires the circle in which she lives – has been removed from this world, to the anguish of her family, her friends, and her subjects. The Princess Alice – for I will venture to call her by that name, though she wore a Crown – afforded one of the most striking instances that I can remember of richness of culture and rare intelligence combined with the most pure and refined domestic sentiments.”[193]

  But it was the Queen herself who paid Alice the compliment which she would have most appreciated:

  “She had darling Papa’s nature, and much of his self-sacrificing character and fearlessness and entire devotion to duty!”[194]

  Nothing would have pleased Alice more than being compared to ‘dear Papa.’

  Epilogue

  For all their past disagreements, Queen Victoria was deeply affected by Alice’s premature death, and her heart went out to her daughter’s bereaved children and husband.

  Louis, she decided would need help to raise his growing daughters, and her thoughts turned quickly to her own youngest daughter, Beatrice, who, she hoped would make an excellent replacement for Alice. Since neither Louis nor Beatrice was attracted to the other, and Beatrice was a mere six years older than her eldest Hessian niece, it was fortunate for them both that – to Queen Victoria’s disgruntlement – the Church of England prohibited marriages between brothers- and sisters-in-law. In time, Louis consoled himself with instead with a Polish mistress, Alexandrine de Kolomine, whom, to the horror of his extended family, he surreptitiously married in 1884. Suspecting that the unsuitable Mme Kolomine was a gold-digger, Queen Victoria hastily enlisted the Prince of Wales to arrange an immediate annulment. Louis raised few objections and remained single to the end of his life. He died following a stroke, at the age of fifty-four in the spring of 1892.

  On the same day as her father contracted his secret marriage, Alice’s eldest daughter, Victoria, married the dashing Prince Louis of Battenberg, a son of her father’s uncle, Prince Alexander of Hesse. Victoria would go on to become the grandmother of the present Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Queen Elizabeth II. She died in 1950 at the age of eighty-seven.

  Two months after Victoria’s wedding, her younger sister, Ella, having already rejected a proposal from her cousin, the future Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, married Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich, a younger brother of Tsar Alexander III of Russia. Following her husband�
�s assassination in 1905, Ella devoted her life to the care of the poor and sick, becoming the Abbess of a religious order which she founded in Moscow. Despite her saintly reputation, she was murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918 and was subsequently canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church.

  In 1888, Alice’s third daughter, Irène, married her cousin, Henry of Prussia – the second son of ‘Aunt Vicky’. Unfortunately, she had inherited the haemophilia gene and passed it on to two of her three sons, the youngest of whom died of the illness aged only four. Following the collapse of the German monarchy in 1918, Irène and Henry retired to their estate in Hemmelmarck, where Irène died at the age of eighty-seven in 1953, having outlived her husband, two of her sons and all of her siblings.

  In 1892, Ernie succeeded his father as Grand Duke of Hesse and, two years later, through the machinations of Queen Victoria, married his cousin, Victoria Melita, daughter of the Duke of Edinburgh and Coburg. It was an unhappy marriage which ended in divorce following accusations of Ernie’s homosexuality and the tragic death of the couple’s only daughter, Elizabeth. In 1905, Ernie married Princess Eleanore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich with whom he had two sons. Renowned as a patron of the arts, Ernie was horrified by the outbreak of the First World War but served in the headquarters of his cousin, Kaiser Wilhelm II. During the German Revolution of 1918, he refused to abdicate but, nonetheless, lost his title and authority. He died in the family’s country schloss at Wolfsgarten in 1937.