Queen Victoria's Matchmaking

by Deborah Cadbury

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  Abbreviations

  Alix

  Princess Alexandra of Hesse (Alicky), later Empress of Russia

  Bertie

  Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, later Edward VII

  Ella

  Princess Elisabeth of Hesse, later Grand Duchess Elisabeth

  George/GV

  Prince George, later George V

  L of Battenberg

  Louis of Battenberg

  LPL

  Lambeth Palace Library

  MB

  Mountbatten Archives

  Missy (Marie)

  Princess Marie of Edinburgh, later Crown Princess of Romania

  PAV

  Prince Albert Victor (Eddy)

  PM

  Prime Minister

  Princess A

  Alexandra, Princess of Wales, later Queen Alexandra

  QV

  Queen Victoria

  RA

  Royal Archives

  Vicky

  Victoria, Crown Princess of Germany

  V of Hesse/

  Princess Victoria of Hesse, later Victoria of Battenberg

  V of Battenberg

  Notes and Sources

  PROLOGUE

  1 RA VIC/MAIN/H/43/19, The Earl of Dufferin, 14 March 1881.

  2 Ibid.

  3 Edvard Radzinsky, Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar, New York, Free Press (2005), p. 414.

  4 RA VIC/MAIN/H/43/39, The Earl of Dufferin, 16 March 1881.

  5 RA VIC/MAIN/H/43/2, Telegrams 1–10.

  6 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1881: 13 March.

  7 RA VIC/MAIN/H/43/39, The Earl of Dufferin, 16 March 1881.

  8 Standard, 15 March 1881.

  9 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1881: 13 March.

  10 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1839: 27 and 29 May.

  11 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1839: 27 May.

  12 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1839: 28 and 29 May.

  13 Radzinsky (2005), pp. 67–8.

  14 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1839: 29 May.

  15 RA VIC/MAIN/H/43/11, Vicky to QV, 14 March 1881.

  16 Ibid.

  17 Simon Sebag Montefiore, The Romanovs, 1613–1918, London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson (2016), p. 435.

  18 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1880: 18 February.

  19 Roger Fulford (ed.), Beloved Mama: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the German Crown Princess, 1879–1885, London, Evans Brothers (1981), p. 97; QV to Vicky, 16 March 1881.

  20 Standard, 15 March 1881.

  21 Morning Post, 15 March 1881.

  22 Freiheit, 19 March 1881.

  23 Fulford (1981), p. 98; QV to Vicky, 30 March 1881.

  24 RA VIC/MAIN/H/43/22, The Earl of Dufferin, 15 March 1881.

  25 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1839: 10, 14 and 15 October.

  26 A. N. Wilson, Victoria: A Life, London, Atlantic Books (2014), p. 100.

  27 Richard Hough (ed.), Advice to a Granddaughter: Letters from Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Hesse, Newton Abbot, Readers Union Ltd (1976), p. 19.

  28 RA VIC/MAIN/H/43/85, The Earl of Dufferin, 25 March 1881.

  CHAPTER ONE ‘A GOOD SENSIBLE WIFE’

  1 Arthur Ponsonby, Henry Ponsonby, Queen Victoria’s Private Secretary: His Life from his Letters, London, Macmillan & Co (1942), p. 72.

  2 Ibid., p. 79.

  3 Elizabeth Longford, Victoria R.I., Stroud, The History Press (1964; rev. edn 1999), p. 96.

  4 RA VIC/MAIN/F/47/15, A Sovereign’s Worth.

  5 Ponsonby (1942), p. 79.

  6 Hector Bolitho (ed.), Further Letters of Queen Victoria, from the House of Brandenburg-Prussia, London, Thornton Butterworth (1938), p. 185.

  7 Norman Davies, Europe: A History, London, Pimlico (1996), pp. 837 and 807.

  8 Ponsonby (1942), p. 69.

  9 Ibid., p. 70.

  10 RA VIC/MAIN/F/44–6.

  11 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1887: 20 June.

  12 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1887: 21 June.

  13 RA VIC/MAIN/F/46/120, 21 June 1887.

  14 Ibid.

  15 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1887: 21 June.

  16 RA VIC/MAIN/F/47/28, Lord Rosebery to QV, 7 July 1887.

  17 A. N. Wilson, Victoria: A Life, London, Atlantic Books (2014), p. 101.

  18 The Memoirs of Baron Stockmar, vol. 1, p. 132.

  19 Roger Fulford (ed.), Dearest Mama: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia, 1861–1864, London, Evans Brothers (1968), p. 30; 27 December 1861, QV to Vicky.

  20 Jane Ridley, Bertie: A Life of Edward VII, London, Vintage (2012), p. 313.

  21 Fulford (1968), p. 236, QV to Vicky, 27 June 1863.

  22 R. D. Blumenfeld, In the Days of Bicycles and Bustles, New York, Brewer and Warren (1930), p. 2.

  23 Georgina Battiscombe, Queen Alexandra, London, Constable (1969), p. 63.

  24 Fulford (1968), p. 236, QV to Vicky, 27 June 1863.

  25 Roger Fulford (ed.), Your Dear Letter: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia, 1865–1871, London, Evans Brothers (1971), p. 17, QV to Vicky, 27 January 1865.

  26 RA VIC/ADDU/32: 17 March 1872.

  27 Sir Harold Nicolson, King George V: His Life and Reign, London, Constable (1952), pp. 30–2.

  28 Ibid., p. 39.

  29 Michael Harrison, Clarence: The Life of HRH the Duke of Clarence and Avondale, London, W. H. Allen (1972), p. 68.

  30 Sir Philip Magnus, King Edward the Seventh, London, John Murray (1964), p. 158.

  31 RA VIC/MAIN/Z/92/5, QV to PAV, 19 December 1879.

  32 RA VIC/MAIN/Z/92/21, QV to PAV, 6 January 1883.

  33 RA VIC/MAIN/Z/92/31, PAV to QV, 9 January 1884.

  34 RA VIC/MAIN/Z/92/10, 12 and 15, PAV to QV, 28 December 1880, 5 March 1882 and 19 May 1882.

  35 RA VIC/MAIN/Z/474/15, Dalton to Bertie, 9 January 1882.

  36 Magnus (1964), p. 169.

  37 RA GV/PRIV/AA39/1, PAV to George, 15 June 1883.

  38 RA GV/PRIV/AA39/2, PAV to George, 20 June 1883.

  39 RA GV/PRIV/AA39/28, PAV to George, 26 February 1886.

  40 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1883: 3 September.

  41 RA VIC/MAIN/Z/474/63, Stephen to Dalton, 30 August 1883.

  42 Ibid.

  43 RA VIC/MAIN/Z/92/29, PAV to QV, 23 December 1883.

  44 RA VIC/MAIN/Z/474/15 and 17, Dalton to Bertie, 9 January 1882 and 20 October 1881.

  45 Theo Aronson, Grandmama of Europe: The Crowned Descendants of Queen Victoria, London, Cassell & Co (1973, rev. edn 1994), p. 74.

  46 RA VIC/MAIN/Z/92/38, PAV to QV, 17 November 1885.

  47 James Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary, 1867–1953, London, George Allen & Unwin (1959), p. 192.

  48 David Newsome, On the Edge of Paradise: A. C. Benson – The Diarist, London, John Murray (1980), p. 327.

  49 RA VIC/MAIN/Z/92/61, PAV to QV, 10 January 1888.

  50 International-Autograph-Auctions /catalogue-id-in310035.

  51 Andrew Cook, Prince Eddy: The King Britain Never Had, Stroud, The History Press (2008), p. 133.

  52 RA VIC/MAIN/Z/92/68, George to QV, 1 January 1888.

  53 RA GV/PRIV/AA39/50, PAV to George, 25 September 1888.

  54 RA GV/PRIV/AA39/45, 46 and 52, PAV to George, 27 May 1888, 2 June 1888 and 27 October 1888.

  55 Harrison (1972), p. 71.

  56 Theo Aronson, Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld, London, John Murray (1994), p. 117.

  57 Bolitho (1938), p. 264.

  CHAPTER TWO VICKY AND FREDERICK

  1 Count 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), pp. 242–3.

  2 Agatha Ramm (ed.), Beloved and Darling Child: Last Letters between Queen Victoria and her Eldest Daughter, 1886–1901, Stroud, Sutton Publishing (1990), p. 52, QV to Vicky, 27 May 1887.

  3 R. D. Blumenfeld, In the Days of Bicycles and Bustles, New York, Brewer and Warren (1930), p. 2.

  4 Ernst Alfred von Stockmar, Memoirs of Baron Stockmar
, 2 vols, London, Longmans Green & Co (1873), pp. xv and xcviii.

  5 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1855: 14–29 September.

  6 A. N. Wilson, Victoria: A Life, London, Atlantic Books (2014), pp. 101, 266–7, 272.

  7 E. F. Benson, The Kaiser and English Relations, London, Longmans, Green & Co (1936), p. 8.

  8 Frank Lorenz Muller, Our Fritz: Emperor Frederick III and the Political Culture of Imperial Germany, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press (2011), p. 67.

  9 Corti (1957), p. 46.

  10 Ibid., p. 78.

  11 Stanley Weintraub, Uncrowned King: The Life of Prince Albert, New York, The Free Press (1997), p. 355.

  12 Corti (1957), p. 78.

  13 Roger Fulford (ed.), Dearest Mama: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia, 1861–1864, London, Evans Brothers (1968), p. 40, QV to Vicky, 15 January 1862.

  14 Ibid., p. 29, Vicky to QV, 26 December 1861.

  15 Corti (1957), pp. 81–2.

  16 Weintraub (1997), p. 438.

  17 Fulford (1968), p. 85, QV to Vicky, 2 July 1862.

  18 Ibid., p. 172, QV to Vicky, 4 February 1863.

  19 Corti (1957), p. 88.

  20 Fulford (1968), p. 96, Vicky to QV, 19 July 1862.

  21 Corti (1957), pp. 83–4.

  22 New York Times, 1 July 1866.

  23 Hector Bolitho (ed.), Further Letters of Queen Victoria, from the House of Brandenburg-Prussia, London, Thornton Butterworth (1938), p. 149.

  24 Ibid., p. 177.

  25 Corti (1957), p. 283.

  26 Roger Fulford (ed.), Beloved Mama: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the German Crown Princess, 1879–1885, London, Evans Brothers (1981), p. 49, Vicky to QV, 5 July 1879.

  27 Ibid., p. 63, Vicky to QV, 29 January 1880.

  28 John C. G. Röhl, Young Wilhelm: The Kaiser’s Early Life, 1859–1888, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press (1993), p. 27, Vicky to QV, 25 February 1860.

  29 Ibid., p. 28, Vicky to QV, 23 January 1861.

  30 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ/1861: 5 July.