Queen Victoria's Matchmaking

by Deborah Cadbury

  After three weeks Alix travelled with the queen and Beatrice to Balmoral. This draughty, forbidding mansion was the queen’s favourite retreat, hallowed ground rich with memories where she could almost regain the life she had lost. In this haven she could pull up the drawbridge and keep the world at bay. Balmoral, as at Windsor, harboured a particular atmosphere in the corridors that led to the queen’s apartments. ‘The hush round Grand mamma’s door was awe-inspiring, like approaching the mystery of some sanctuary,’ recalled another granddaughter, Alix’s cousin, Marie of Edinburgh. There were ‘silent soft-carpeted corridors’ that were somehow ‘always approached from afar off’, where people only spoke ‘in hushed voices and trod softly’. A series of doors opened noiselessly ‘like approaching the final mystery to which only the initiated had access’. The final door opened to reveal a little old lady in a flounced black silk gown whose voice was seldom raised and yet who projected a powerful presence. Although she was ‘small and unimposing’ she knew ‘so extraordinarily well how to inspire reverential fear’. Such was the queen’s cult of seclusion at Balmoral that Marie of Edinburgh could barely remember being invited to her apartments but only being permitted to see her outside. Despite this she still felt her grandmother ‘was the central power directing things . . . the arbiter of our different fates’. Her ‘“yes” and her “no” counted tremendously’, and she did not shrink from ‘interfering in the most private questions’.2

  But Alix found herself in a special position where she was not held at a distance like many of the queen’s other granddaughters. When Ernie returned to Germany on 24 August, she remained at Balmoral, accompanying her grandmother to her most sacred haunts, places of desolate beauty such as Corrie Mulzie, Dantzig Shiel, Glen Gelder and Linn of Muich. They went out in all weathers, sometimes stopping for tea with faithful staff or taking presents to people living on the Balmoral estate. Queen Victoria took a great delight in the Scottish Highlands, observing each change such as ‘the wild roses now in full bloom and the blue bells in quantities’. The ritual varied little regardless of the elements. In September the mists drew in and on one occasion the view was blotted out by an early fall of snow. The queen admitted it had ‘turned raw’, her one concession to travel in a closed carriage.3

  Their tranquil circle was breached by family news of the outside world. Recently bereaved Vicky was the most prolific correspondent and her letters invariably brought news of ‘the dreadful state of affairs at Berlin’. The queen was touched to receive a bracelet from her daughter ‘with dear Fritz’s hair’ on the anniversary of ‘poor dear Vicky’s engagement day 33 years ago. All so bright then and now! It is too sad,’ she wrote, feeling deeply that the calamity that had befallen her daughter was a misfortune for the whole of Europe.4 Without her husband to help, Vicky worried about her daughter Sophie’s forthcoming marriage to the heir to the Greek throne, Prince Constantine. She dreaded the great distance that would separate them, especially with ‘the future of Greece and the Dynasty not being very secure’ and the ‘East being such a powder barrel’. Queen Victoria found Vicky’s constant ‘grief and trouble . . . distresses me so’.5

  The chaos of the outside world was kept at bay at Balmoral where the queen appreciated the simple and unvaried routine. Their company for dinner was not large, revolving each evening around Beatrice and her husband, the queen’s private secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, her maid of honour, Harriet, with an occasional sprinkling of guests such as the Archbishop of Canterbury. Sometimes the gathering was enlivened by visitors from far away such as the tsarina, Empress Marie Feodorovna, who came to see her sister, Princess Alexandra. Queen Victoria noted with satisfaction that her granddaughter appeared to be able to hold her own well in the circle at Balmoral, overcoming her youthful reserve. Alicky was ‘in good heart and not shy now’, she told Victoria of Battenberg.6

  Prince Eddy did not join the party until 10 September, bringing a friend, Major Miles, ‘a very nice, gentleman-like & quite superior man’, wrote the queen.7 There were many opportunities for Eddy and Alix to see more of each other, sometimes joined by his mother and sisters. Any awkwardness about the situation could be deflected with talk of the season’s inevitable highlight: the theatricals planned for 5 October. The queen took a special delight in the tableaux that was not entirely shared by her grandson, ‘for they took up lots of time when I might have been stalking or doing things more amusing’, Eddy confided to his brother George.8 The queen obliged her guests to share her enthusiasm. On 25 September they visited the Ball Room and the queen ‘tired my hand at painting some of the scenery’.9 She returned with Alix later that day to see the lights tested. Over the coming days there was much to do; a stage was installed, scenery completed, costumes were devised and fitted, and early October was taken up with rehearsals.

  The culmination of this effort came on 5 October 1888 when guests gathered in the evening in the ballroom at Balmoral. All the staff from the estate were invited as well as guests from outside. This year the theatricals were designed to celebrate the birthday of Beatrice’s husband, Henry, with each tableau illustrating a different letter of his name: ‘Henry Maurice’. For the very first letter ‘H’, Eddy was on stage with Alix as they enacted a vignette called ‘Harvest’. The following evening they reached the ‘U’ in Maurice and it was Eddy’s embarrassing misfortune to have to parade before the company as a bridegroom to enact the word ‘Union’ at a Hessian peasant wedding. Whatever his feelings he managed to act the part of being in the raptures of love, despite being dressed in an uncomfortable and unflattering peasant costume. He was spared the charade of marrying Alix onstage. She took another part, while his sister, Louise, gamely played the bride. Fortunately, he managed to avoid having to double up as a ‘Romeo’ that evening for the ‘R’ – the part gallantly volunteered by a guest, Sir F. Edwards.10

  Queen Victoria was moved, finding the scenes and their sentiments ‘really beautiful’, blissfully unaware of any potential awkwardness. It perhaps occurred to Eddy that his stage role as bridegroom was uncomfortably close to a bigger charade playing out in his grandmother’s mind. The queen’s interest in Alix above all her other grandchildren was so apparent that neither he nor Alix could hardly miss her intention. But despite the openings created by the tableaux, he could not quite bring himself to the crucial point of making an approach to Alix. She was so young and he was unsure how to interpret her ambiguous signals. ‘Alicky is still here and is much grown,’ he wrote on 7 October to her brother-in-law, Prince Louis of Battenberg. Eddy had not corresponded with Louis for a long time, but now the theatricals were over he wrote at length, passing on all the family news and revealing a little of his admiration for Alix. ‘She’s looking prettier than ever, and will I am sure be very handsome when she grows up,’ he observed.11

  It was not until 10 October ‘that dear sweet Alicky left’. The queen found at once she ‘missed her so much’.12 Over the course of Alix’s visit of two and a half months rigorous assessments as to her suitability for Eddy had been made by her probing grandmother. Queen Victoria declared herself delighted. ‘Darling Alicky is dear & good & clever,’ she wrote to Vicky in Germany, perhaps a little insensitively since Vicky’s own daughters appeared to have been passed over. Alix stayed in Buckingham Palace on her way back to Germany, affording her another glimpse of the favoured prospect that could be on offer. She wrote to her grandmama thanking her ‘over and over again for all the kindness and affection you showed me’. Although there was no direct mention of Eddy in her letter, Alix referred to the very happy time she had had.13

  Queen Victoria’s plan appeared to be taking shape. On cue, indecisive Eddy seemed more sure of his feelings. He confided in his younger brother, George. Alix had only just left Balmoral, he wrote on 12 October 1888. ‘She’s a lovely girl now and everything that is nice, and I have got my eye on her; you know what that means.’14 Later he claimed to Alix’s brother-in-law, Louis of Battenberg, that it was at this point that he realised he was
in love. ‘Inwardly I was longing to tell her so,’ he wrote, ‘but thought I had better wait my time.’15 Everything augured well for the British throne.

  Even at a great distance, almost a continent away, Ella understood exactly what was going on and felt under no illusion as to what this could signify. Her youngest sister’s favoured position with the queen, the long drives in the country, the intimate luncheons, the careful attention: the message was all too plain. Grandmama intended Eddy and Alix to marry. Ella immediately poured out her feelings to her brother, Ernie. She found the very idea of Eddy ‘marrying Alix quite dreadful’. First cousins ‘is best to avoid’, she explained, ‘but the chief thing is that he [Eddy] does not look over strong & is too stupid – you would see that clever girl turn into a flirt as she is so pretty & England with a stupid husband not at all the place for her . . .’ Ella raised the subject of marriage to Eddy with Alix herself and was reassured that her sister ‘said she never would’. But Ella feared that she might be persuaded because ‘of the lovely country’ and being so close to family. Ella was convinced her sister ‘would not be happy’.16

  Ella acknowledged that her strong stance on this issue reflected her own ‘selfish wish’ for her youngest sister to join her in Russia.17 Her letters to those closest to her do hint at the pain of separation from her immediate family. She had shared a room with her oldest sister, Victoria, all her life until she left home and ‘you can well imagine how I miss her’, she confided to Louis of Battenberg. ‘How I long to see you all.’ When Victoria became pregnant, Ella calculated the months before it was safe for her sister to travel and longed for each scrap of family information since ‘being far away news is so precious’.18 When a visit was arranged, ‘I hardly dare think of it for fear our pleasant plans being deranged.’ Sometimes the pain of isolation from her family was almost visceral. She was not looking forward to returning to St Petersburg where she felt like a bird in cage, she admitted to Louis, but she liked the Peterhof since once ‘we were all together there’.19 The memory of her family filling these echoing marbled halls brought comfort. Her oldest sister was happily settled, but perhaps her youngest sister could fill the void. Early in 1889 Ella and Sergei invited Alix to join them for six weeks.

  Alix returned to St Petersburg with her father Louis of Hesse and brother Ernie, and the visit could not have made more of a contrast to her recent trip to Balmoral cloistered with her elderly grandmother. The twenty-year-old tsarevich was at the Warsaw Station in St Petersburg to welcome the Hesse party, along with a number of grand dukes and Alexander III himself. Nicholas was struck at once with how Alix had changed; ‘she has grown up a lot and become much prettier,’ he wrote in his diary.20 The party went first to the imperial palace, the Anichkov, to take tea with Empress Maria Feodorovna. As the two families talked, the empress composed and at ease in surroundings of exquisite beauty, Alix could not know that the tsarina sometimes cried when she left her sister, Alexandra, in England at the thought of returning to her ‘Russian prison’. Indeed, as a guest of Grand Duke Sergei at the Sergeivsky Palace opposite the Anichkov, Alix did not detect the dangers in Russia that her grandmother described; she was cocooned in a world apart. The days that followed were carefree, filled with artless pleasures, larking around in the Jardin de la Tauride and the grounds of the Anichkov, playing in the snow, racing down the ice-bound hills in a sparkling winter world with no hint of threat. Nicky, as Alix now called the tsarevich, joined them every day and there are frequent references in his diary to the sheer joy of those afternoons skating together. He saw Alix at her best, at ease in the intimacy of family.

  At night, palaces of unimaginable splendour formed the backdrop to balls and entertainments on a lavish scale. Alix had a chance to meet St Petersburg society at concert balls at the Winter Palace, the bal noir at the Anichkov Palace, and at the Russian ballet and opera. The tsarina came alive in company; she drew people to her and charmed any gathering. By comparison, through Russian eyes the handsome German princess appeared tense. Ella had personally supervised Alix’s ‘coming-out’ in Germany the previous autumn. Her first ball had been held in the Neues Palais, Darmstadt, and Ella had travelled from St Petersburg to make sure it was a success. Alix in white muslin, with lily of the valley framing her face and her bodice, had made a striking impression.21 St Petersburg society proved to be much more demanding. Alix’s undisputed beauty was not enough; she needed poise and ease in company as well. She struggled, occasionally rigid with nerves on this vast marbled and gilded stage where the watchful audience sometimes appeared hostile to the provincial princess from Darmstadt.

  But for Nicholas, Alix stood apart, her loveliness undiminished by her nervousness. He sought her out at dances; the cotillion, the mazurka, they danced sometimes till they were exhausted. He felt himself to be strangely animated; everything felt uplifting and wonderful. She provoked a certainty in him that was out of character. ‘My dream is some day to marry Alix H,’ he wrote later. ‘I have loved her a long while and still deeper and stronger since 1889 when she spent six weeks in St Petersburg. For a long time I resisted my feeling that my dearest dream will come true . . .’22

  Ella noticed that Alix also was in buoyant mood, radiating happiness in the company of the tsarevich, becoming once again the ‘Sunny’ of her early years. The conflicts that Alix actually felt are perhaps indicated by a dream filled with anxiety that she faithfully recorded while she was in St Petersburg. She was in a hospital with her oldest sister, Victoria, and all of a sudden ‘Grandmama comes in and a shot is fired at her . . .’23 It was as though part of her mind was echoing the queen’s warnings, which did not tie up with her experience. The impressions Alix took back to Germany were all favourable; Russia was not as grandmama described. Ella appeared to be living the most wonderful life having made a very successful marriage to a Russian grand duke. The tsarevich himself seemed the very opposite of an autocrat in the making; he was gentle and fun. That spring she exchanged affectionate notes with Nicholas from Darmstadt.

  Ella gave Nicholas a memento of her sister’s visit: a photograph of Alix with Ernie and herself, painting around the frame images of all the happy times they had shared. Nicky found it ‘charming’ and described it to Alix: ‘there is the ice, the big hall, the skates, a clown, the window with 3 lights, a cotillion-ribbon and a basket with flowers from Aunt Sacha Narychkine’s ball . . .’ and many other remembrances. Another photo of ‘you and her [Ella] together’ in their ball dresses he kept ‘constantly’ before him. When he saw Ella their conversation ‘always’, he told Alix, went back to her stay in St Petersburg. Ella encouraged Nicky in his feelings for Alix and told him explicitly, ‘I prayed so deeply for you both to bring you together in love for each other.’24 Ella also confided to Alix how much Nicky thought of her.

  Just how much the possibility of such a match was in the minds of the Hesse sisters is also hinted at by the papers of Victoria of Battenberg. It was around this time she made a serious study of the Romanov family tree and lists of all the Russian sovereigns in direct line and the key events of their reigns. To understand the Russian religion her notes show she went to the lengths of studying the schism in the Roman Catholic Church in the eleventh century in which the Eastern Church divided from the Western Church.25 Meanwhile their brother, Ernie, under instruction from Ella, was valiantly trying to manage ‘grandmama queen’. He had already written to her flatly denying any rumours. ‘Darling Grandmama, I want to tell you so much that all what is written in the newspapers is simply nonsense.’ He had watched Nicholas and Alexandra together closely, he told her, ‘& I can only say that not a single idea has come into his [Nicholas’s] head about it’. To add to the obstacles, the emperor and empress ‘think just as little about anything between A & N as we do’.26

  Queen Victoria was not fooled for one minute. She had a way of knowing exactly what was going on. There was no doubt in her mind of the urgency of taking the matter in hand. She invited Alix to Balmoral once again in the summer
of 1889 hoping that in the Scottish Highlands romance could flourish with Eddy. This time there would be no bashful holding back; no English reserve. She was quite resolved to raise the question of marriage with Eddy for herself. The queen was blunt about trying to establish beforehand what hope there was for Eddy. She knew that Alix had visited Ella in St Petersburg and therefore feared the worst. ‘She [Alix] shld be made to reflect seriously on the folly of throwing away the chance of a very good Husband, kind, affectionate & steady,’ she wrote to Victoria of Battenberg, ‘& of entering a united happy family & a very good position wh is second to none in the world! Dear Uncle and Aunt wish it so much & poor E. is so unhappy at the thought of losing her also!’ Fearing some Russian interest, she enquired ‘What fancy has she got in her head?’27

  Eddy could not be certain what had transpired in St Petersburg. As Alix’s visit approached, the prospective groom was in a state of some nervousness. Twenty-five-year-old Prince Eddy had to endure the pressure of courting his cousin under the searching gaze of his forceful grandmother. He was now certain that he loved Alix, that he had loved her the previous year, and wanted to declare his feelings. But he feared his grandmother’s meddling might work against him. Before he met Alix he confided his worries to her brother-in-law, Prince Louis of Battenberg.

  ‘For years’ he had been fond of Alix, he told Prince Louis on 6 September 1889. He had ‘told no one with the exception of my parents, and that only a short time ago. But last year Grandmama wrote to me on the subject, and was very nice about it; only I fear that she or someone else may have told Alicky, which was I think a great mistake, and as you say relations can only spoil my chance by mixing themselves up in the affair. I guessed that myself last year, and therefore was very careful how I approached Alicky and did not give her the slightest sign that I loved her.’ He felt extremely anxious, he told Louis, ‘but you may be sure I will do all I can to persuade Alicky that I love her for herself and for herself only and that my parents and relations have had nothing whatever to do with it as far as I myself am concerned . . . I can’t tell you what a happy creature I shall be if it only comes off right, for I do indeed know what a prize there is to be won . . .’28