Queen Victoria's Matchmaking

by Deborah Cadbury

  Their opportunities to meet easily came to an abrupt end in 1889 when Queen Victoria’s plans intruded on their life in Malta. It had always been Prince Albert’s wish that his second son should inherit the Dukedom of Saxe-Coburg after his brother, the childless Duke Ernst. By the late 1880s Duke Ernst was unrecognisable from the once charming older brother who had accompanied Albert to England forty years earlier. A lifetime of excess combined with venereal disease to make his future uncertain. The queen judged it best for her son, Alfred, to move his family to Coburg in preparation for taking over the duchy. Alfred built a substantial home on the main square, which became known as ‘Palais Edinburg’, and settled his wife and children there. The young Princess Marie was transfixed at the sight of Great Uncle Ernst. It was hard to believe this ‘terrible figure’ was the brother of the almost sacred Grandpapa Albert, whose noble spirit was held up before them all. Ernst might ‘have been an ogre’, wrote Missy, squeezed into ‘a frock coat too tight for his bulk’, his eyes bloodshot, ‘his sallow face marred by liver spots’, and treating his wife with ‘abominable, insulting indifference’.20

  Inevitably, George saw less of Missy after her move to Germany, although there was one opportunity in 1890 when he visited Coburg with his father. George was still enchanted by the exuberant, irrepressible Missy. Her love of the outdoors remained untempered by the efforts of her new German governess, the disagreeable ‘Fräulein’, to turn her into more of a lady. Missy was an excellent horsewoman and critical of her German riding lessons, which were ‘not so amusing as riding out of doors, to keep going round in the school gets rather a bore’. She thought nothing of becoming caught in a thunderstorm in an open carriage despite the fact that ‘we all got very wet’ and loved to sit out late in the garden.21 George wrote to her afterwards. ‘What fun we had . . . when we danced’. He felt bold enough to address her as ‘Darling Missy’ when he wrote in the New Year of 1891. ‘You are constantly in my thoughts,’ he told her, signing himself ‘yr most loving & devoted old Georgie’. He sent her a crystal clock for Christmas 1891 inscribed endearingly ‘Darling Missy’.22

  Prince George had initially sought his mother’s advice about a formal approach to Missy in spring 1891 when Queen Victoria had first ‘gone mad’ about his marriage prospects in the wake of Eddy’s failed alliance with Hélène. Princess Alexandra was discouraging. Missy was not yet sixteen and it was too soon ‘in every way!!’, she wrote back, ‘particularly as the bride is not in long petticoats yet!!!’23 Princess Alexandra was not an entirely disinterested party. She doted on her son and was in no hurry for him to marry, and she also found much to dislike about the new German influences on the ‘Edinburgh girls’. Princess Alexandra could not know of the extent of Missy and her sisters’ revolt against their German tutor’s efforts to uproot their British past. ‘We loved England deeply and clung with all our hearts to that love,’ Missy wrote. The Edinburgh girls despised their German tutor, who they called ‘Dr X’, and pitted themselves against him ‘with that magnificent courage of children whose gods are attacked’. As for ‘Fräulein’, who became his fiancée, Missy soon decided that her ‘ingratiating’ and ‘honeyed’ style disguised a pernicious character that was ‘as destructive as a dangerous bacillus’.24

  But Princess Alexandra saw only that the Edinburgh girls ‘now have quite a foreign accent living so long abroad and surrounded by Germans,’ she told George. She also objected to the way Missy’s mother, the Duchess of Edinburgh, was rushing Missy’s entry into German society, ‘the girl being a perfect baby yet – altho Aunt Marie begging her pardon does all she can to make her old before her time which I think the greatest mistake which I know you think also and what do you say to Aunt Marie having hurried on the two girls confirmation & in Germany too, so that now they won’t even know that they have ever been English’.25 Princess Alexandra’s comments to George about Missy were insensitive enough to trouble any nervous suitor.

  George was sufficiently concerned about Missy’s sudden removal to Germany and early confirmation to raise the matter with his grandmother. Queen Victoria, always ready to suspect an ulterior motive in other people’s behaviour, for some reason saw no harm in it. ‘Coburg is a second country to us all, being your dear Grandpapa’s country,’ she replied on 31 July 1891. Uncle Alfred’s prolonged absence in the navy ‘is not popular nor any good for him in Germany naturally’. This made it ‘quite essential’ that the Duchess of Edinburgh should live at Coburg with the children. As for the older girls’ confirmation, the queen told George this had arisen because Missy and her sister, Victoria-Melita, were ‘so very fond’ of their elderly religious instructor, Superintendent Muller, who had ‘so deeply impressed the girls’. The Edinburghs were ‘afraid he might not live to confirm them if he waited much longer’.26 If George was unconvinced by this explanation he did not press it further. The queen had a remarkable facility for not seeing anything that reflected unfavourably on herself and failed to spot that the hurried confirmation was an act of rebellion by the Duchess of Edinburgh.

  Missy’s Russian mother – also called Marie – was, in fact, anxious to consolidate her exit from Queen Victoria’s sphere of influence. The Duchess of Edinburgh had been delighted to move to Germany and her confirmation of the girls in the German Lutheran faith was a strong statement of her own independence and control after years of nursing long-held grievances at the British court. The speed with which she broke away from her British ties was just the latest in a long line of conflicts that had simmered throughout her marriage. Prince Alfred and Grand Duchess Marie had married in 1874 despite prolonged opposition from their parents, and within weeks problems had arisen that had prompted Alexander II to send complaints to Queen Victoria.

  As a daughter of a tsar and an ‘imperial highness’ in her own right, Grand Duchess Marie could not understand her lowly ranking in the British court. By marrying the queen’s second son, she came behind Queen Victoria’s daughters and Princess Alexandra in order of precedence. ‘I believe my mother felt this rather sorely,’ her daughter, Missy, observed later. The grand duchess believed in the superiority of her home country with a passion and held to Russian customs. She felt demeaned by the modesty of the British court in comparison with the palatial glamour of the Romanov court ‘and was always just a little in opposition to the times’, observed her daughter. Her rooms exuded a Russian air, the furniture from St Petersburg with a distinctive scent of leather and cedar wood, icons and Russian imagery on the walls. Even her boots were ordered from St Petersburg, both feet identical since the Duchess of Edinburgh did not agree with the British custom of a distinct left and right shoe.27

  Above all, the Duchess of Edinburgh resented Queen Victoria’s meddling ways. She was fully aware of the queen’s Russophobia and had seen her hostile letters during the Russo-Turkish War. The queen’s interference in the marriage of the grand duchess’s younger brother, Sergei, to Ella had antagonised her still further. The grand duchess could not fail to know of the queen’s prolonged opposition to any Russian match for Alix. As she prepared for the time when she would become Duchess of Coburg at the helm of a court of her own, she seized her opportunity to distance herself and her girls from this unbiddable and fussing old woman.

  After Eddy’s death, Prince George knew he must do his duty and marry soon; but he did not want to marry out of duty alone. He had always avoided exposing his own feelings and it was hard for him to find out whether Missy still had a special affection for him. She wrote again shortly after Eddy’s death. ‘My dearest George’, she began. ‘Let me also tell you how deeply I feel for you in your deep sorrow. How often I have thought of you all now, Oh! What a terrible blow for you all! Tell all cousins & dear Aunt Alix how sincerely we sympathize with them. How terribly sudden it must have been . . . But what is the good of making you unhappy by reminding you afresh. Only know that I feel sincerely for you all. Your loving Missy.’28

  The warmth expressed in Missy’s letter was ambiguous. It did not ru
le out the possibility that she nurtured feelings for him, but equally it did not stray beyond the bounds of decorum. Separated by being in different countries, aware that his every move was magnified by an inquisitive array of aunts and uncles as well as the all-consuming interest of the press, it was not easy for George to see how to transform his relationship from that of Missy’s beloved cousin to her suitor. But Queen Victoria lent her support to the idea. It was agreed that Bertie should make an initial approach to the Edinburghs. George, too, wrote directly to ‘Darling Missy’. All he could do was await her response.29

  During March of 1892 the days passed for Princess May waiting in the south of France, with no word from Prince George. The Tecks’ destination at Cannes, Villa Clementine, was all that her mother had promised: warmth, light, terraces with sea views, gardens ablaze with colour. The roses were in abundance, smothering the walls, tumbling over the olive and orange trees, scenting the salt sea air. Compared to the memories of Sandringham, the cold, cluttered rooms, the shocking scenes of Eddy’s deathbed, the strain of feeling an outsider who reminded the family of their loss, May was now in a place where wounds might heal in private. But nothing could quite erase the pain.

  Princess May became aware of feeling her loneliness in a way that she had not before, she confided to her friend, Helene Bricka, her former governess. As she approached her twenty-fifth birthday she felt her chances of marriage were fast diminishing. Her confidence wavered and she worried that her intrinsic shyness was taking over, but felt powerless to prevent it. ‘I fear I am getting more reserved than ever,’ she admitted. There was no escape from a dull aching feeling as though something ‘pleasant’ had ‘passed out of one’s life forever’.30 She shrank from any discussions of her future and her father noted her alarm at the prospect of returning home.

  The awkwardness of her position is perhaps highlighted by the actions of Eddy’s sisters and mother. Although May had been Eddy’s official fiancée, they treated the French princess, Hélène, as his real love. They exchanged intimate letters with Hélène referring to their shared grief and sorrow. ‘He is buried with your little coin around his neck,’ Princess Maud revealed to Hélène. Maud and her mother had secretly placed it on his body ‘and nobody knew it’. For them, ‘you were the one he really loved and now he is yours still, and nobody can take him away from you’. The oldest sister, Louise, went so far as to imply that ‘God had been merciful’ in taking Eddy, ‘and done all for the best instead of him belonging to another’, and that he was being kept above in heaven for Hélène, ‘yours in death’.31 For the Wales sisters, Eddy’s idle summer days shared with Hélène at Mar Lodge had been the happiest of his life.

  Their letters served to underline the unromantic, inconvenient nature of Eddy’s alliance with May, as though it stemmed from duty only. Their sentiments implied that May was merely a cypher, someone to occupy the required position of ‘wife’. Eddy’s sisters told Hélène that Princess May ‘never knew and loved him as you did’. They were soon exchanging locks of hair, poems and other memorabilia with Hélène. Even Queen Victoria acknowledged Hélène’s special position, writing to her on 17 March 1892 ‘knowing your heart is still full’, enclosing ‘precious souvenirs’ of Eddy. She asked Hélène to refer to her as ‘Grandmama’, underlining the closeness of her grandson’s ties to the French princess and enclosing photographs of his burial place and dried flowers neatly preserved from bouquets placed on his coffin.32 Queen Victoria also believed that May had never been in love with Eddy, a view that conveniently made an alliance with his younger brother easier to accept.

  The Tecks spent uneventful days with carriage rides into Antibes, Nice and Grasse. The scenery was spectacular but it was an unsettling time to be in France. The press was full of what they called an ‘anarchist dynamite conspiracy’, which had suddenly erupted on the streets of Paris. ‘Propaganda of the deed’ had not been seen on this scale before in France and there was talk of a new phase of ‘French Terror’. The attacks appeared to be targeted at the judiciary, striking at the very heart of the Third French Republic under President Sadi Carnot.

  It all began shortly after the Tecks’ arrival in France when an explosion on 11 March 1892 in the Boulevard Saint-Germain ripped apart the home of a prominent judge, Edmund Benoit. The police soon established that this was revenge for Benoit’s tough sentencing of anarchists whose unauthorised march the previous year had ended in violence.33 A few days later there was a second explosion at a military barracks in Paris. A police search of the lodgings of thirty-five known anarchists led to a veritable weapons arsenal in the northern suburb of St Denis: cyanide, sulphate of potassium, acid, electrical batteries, six bombs and ‘various explosive machines’.34 None of this stopped a third massive explosion on 27 March that injured six people at the home of another lawyer involved in the earlier anarchist trials. After a tip-off from staff at a restaurant on 30 March, the police finally caught up with their key suspect for the bombings: the notorious French criminal and self-proclaimed ‘anarchist’, François Ravachol. The Tecks had been planning to visit Paris later that spring and followed this new development closely.

  Forty miles further along the coast, settled into a hotel in Cap Martin, Prince George also felt the intrusion of the outside world. Just before he left England a letter had come for him from Coburg in Germany. He had waited several years before he could bring himself to the point of enquiring about Princess Missy’s feelings. Now her reply did not allow for much hope.

  Missy wrote that she held him in affection as a cousin but he ‘must not think that there was anything definite in the friendship that had sprung up between them at Malta’.35 Could this reflect her true feelings? The carefully chosen words did not sound like Missy, who had always been so spontaneous. George could not know that the letter had been dictated by her mother, only that the understanding he had been convinced they had shared might never have existed. Had he misunderstood her? All around him the beauty of the Mediterranean was a vivid reminder of their time together in Malta, colourful childhood memories that now seemed to recede. George was not a man of overpowering passion; all his life he had done what was correct and approved. He did not have enough self-assurance when it came to his feelings to make a definite move. Instead, he let himself be guided by his parents as he struggled to adjust his state of mind.

  Bertie passed on the disappointing news to Queen Victoria and on 2 March 1892 a letter duly arrived from Windsor for George casting a probing spotlight on his feelings: ‘I know how much you did wish to marry her Missy some day,’ wrote the queen, ‘& they say that you declared that you wld never marry anyone else! But then you did not know that she did not care to marry you nor that you wld be placed in a totally different position – which may oblige you to marry earlier when she would be almost too young and above all very inexperienced. I should also be glad however, to know what your own feeling is about it, for dear Eddy told me all about himself and showed me great confidence & I am sure you wld do the same. It is moreover necessary that I shld know the exact state of the case, so that I can be able to help you . . .’36

  There at a stroke were so many of the queen’s characteristics: the insensitivity of her blunt reference to Missy ‘not caring’ for him; the straight talking about his obligations, including his duty to marry quickly; and her desire to meddle which required that she knew his feelings. But George did not feel the need to take his grandmother into his confidence in his reply. Nor was he in any hurry to contact Princess May of Teck as the queen wished.

  George waited several weeks until the end of March before he sent Princess May a note. He and his father were visiting Cannes, he explained. Could they come over for dinner one night? George’s letter to May hinted at his somewhat gloomy frame of mind. ‘What a bore it is pouring today. There is nothing to be done but look out of the window and see the rain fall,’ he wrote, evidently feeling trapped indoors. The sudden death of Uncle Louis of Hesse had also prompted painful thoughts. ‘I am so
sorry for all the poor cousins who are now orphans,’ he continued. No note of optimism could be detected by May in George’s letter; little to suggest hope.37

  The Wales’s yacht, the Nerine, eased into Cannes harbour in early April, joining the many boats in this private sun-soaked world, but not quite dismissing the anxieties for May about what might happen. Prince George had hoped their visit would not attract attention, but there was no chance of that. One or two more sober newspapers confined themselves to the facts, discreetly noting that Prince George was among the guests joining the Tecks for dinner in Cannes, but most did not stop short of speculation even running to wedding presents. According to the Yorkshire Evening Post, a dinner service made for Prince Eddy’s wedding was being held over for Prince George and since ‘the present is to be the same, Princess May will be the bride’.38

  Prince George’s arrival in Cannes crossed with another letter from the queen, revealing her increasing impatience. ‘Have you seen May and have you thought more about the possibility or found out what her feelings might be?’ she wrote brusquely on 6 April.39 Less than two months had passed since Eddy’s death and already she was expecting George to consider his dead brother’s fiancée. But the prince had not come to Cannes to talk about a wedding.

  George was attentive to May, but self-contained, his behaviour readily understandable as polite interest rather than affection. There was plenty of opportunity for each to assess the other discreetly since they were rarely alone. Gatherings of relatives and friends met to dine on the Nerine or one of the other yachts, or to go for a drive or a picnic – which on one occasion turned into a ‘frog hunt’, hardly a situation that might help romance along.40 Her cousin was guarded, apparently the perfect English gentleman, his feelings hard to read. George was equally detached in his reply to his grandmother, taking pains to ensure she knew he had done his duty, while giving nothing away of his emotions. He wrote of the great heat, the fine air and the beautiful flowers in Cannes. Then he added, ‘We saw Aunt Mary & May every day & dined with them twice at Villa Clementine where they are staying. I thought all three of them looking wonderfully well, the change and quiet there has done them good . . .’41