Nor, as she learned to her cost, was the taciturn Affie an ideal prince. Disliked by the servants, to whom he was often rude, his favourite occupation was drinking to excess and entertaining his guests with discordant tunes on his violin until it came as a relief to Marie that he spent much of his time at sea. Nevertheless, the marriage produced five children: one son and four daughters.
Nine months after the wedding, the Queen was delighted at the birth of ‘young Affie,’ but relations between mother- and daughter-in-law were less cordial a year later when it came to a second confinement. Queen Victoria, no doubt recalling Vicky’s traumatic experiences in Prussia, was convinced that English obstetricians were far more skilful and delicate than any of their foreign counterparts. It both annoyed and alarmed her that, when Marie retired to her country house, Eastwell Park in Kent, she insisted on being attended by German doctors. In spite of the Queen’s vociferous objections, Marie remained adamant in her choice of accoucheurs, and a perfectly healthy daughter, was born on 29th October.
The christening at Windsor Castle on 15th December brought further disagreements. Although delighted by her new granddaughter, Queen Victoria was most put out that the child was not to be called Victoria, but rather Marie Alexandra Victoria – though, within the family, she was known as ‘Missy.’ When Marie went further and insisted on breast-feeding the baby, Queen Victoria realised that, despite her disgust at the process, she had no option but to resign herself to the inevitable, with the stipulation that the fact should not be made public.
Whether or not Marie knew of the Queen’s aversion to breast-feeding, she was already growing weary of her overbearing mother-in-law’s constant meddling in all her affairs, and she looked forward to an imminent escape from England. At birth, Affie had been chosen as successor to his uncle, the Duke of Coburg, and the family would eventually settle in Germany[·]. In the meantime, his appointment as Commander of the Mediterranean fleet provided an opportunity to move to Valetta in Malta. There, in the secluded freedom of the San Antonio Palace the Duchess of Edinburgh came into her own for she was able to live:
“…entirely according to her desires, uncontrolled by Grandmama Queen and uncriticised by those who were inclined to find her ways foreign and out of keeping with British traditions.”[46]
In Malta a second daughter, Victoria Melita (Ducky) was born on the evening of Saturday 25th November 1876 and christened in the San Antonio Palace on New Year’s Day 1877. Three weeks later, leaving their children in the care of governesses and nannies, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh embarked on a tour of Greece.
Two years were to pass before Marie’s third daughter Alexandra (Sandra), was born in Coburg; and in 1884, she gave birth to her youngest child, Beatrice (Baby Bee), at Eastwell Park.
Just as Vicky had become increasingly determined to protect her children from the Prussian influence, so Marie, disenchanted with England, resolutely ensured that her children would be free from the English influence. Bearing in mind that her son would one day become Duke of Coburg, she dispatched him at the earliest opportunity to the military academy in Potsdam. Her daughters, too, were to be raised as Germans, attended by a German governess, who spoke no English and, as Marie also refused to speak to them in English, German became their first language causing the Danish Princess of Wales to carp:
“It is a pity those children should be entirely brought up as Germans. Last time I saw them they spoke with a very strong foreign accent - which I think is a great pity as after all they are English.”[47]
With her great love of all things German, the Queen might have been content, but their visits to England became so infrequent that she complained that she hardly knew the ‘darling…lovely children’ and wished she might see more of them. Vicky and the Princess of Wales were even more disgusted when Missy and Ducky were confirmed in the German Lutheran Church.
Histrionic and intriguing, the granddaughters of two of the most powerful monarchs in the world grew up with a love of adventure, an awareness of their own charisma and a Russian pride inherited from their mother. From their father, whom the Queen claimed they worshipped, they learned a complete disregard for convention, bordering on eccentricity.
Though strict and exacting, and less demonstratively affectionate towards her children than her sisters-in-law were, the Duchess of Edinburgh did everything possible to encourage her daughters to develop their many talents. Beautiful Missy, a gifted artist, sculptress and writer, was equally proficient at riding and dancing, and the mere sight of her was enough to make Cousin George of Wales’s heart race. She was deeply attached to her younger and taller sister, Ducky. Like their cousin, Victoria of Hesse, the girls had a passion for riding fast horses and they galloped apace through the Maltese fields on the ponies that their father had brought over from England or their mother had obtained from her brother in Russia, dispelling the tension in the household as their parents grew further apart.
Compared to her adventurous sisters, Sandra, having neither their healthy constitutions nor strength of will, appeared dull. Even her mother considered her ‘uninteresting’ but her more placid temperament provided a stabilising influence among the siblings and made her an easier companion than the youngest Baby Bee, who would later ‘almost lose her mind’ in the throes of unrequited love.
If the Wales children gaped in wonder at their fascinating cousins, the Edinburghs must have been equally baffled by the frailty of the English girls. No two families could have differed more starkly. While the Princess of Wales’ daughters fell ill at the slightest whim, the Duchess of Edinburgh insisted that her daughters must maintain their dignity and bearing in the face of tragedy or illness. Basically, they were not allowed to be ill; they must eat, without complaint, everything set before them and throughout their childhood they were encouraged and expected to participate in adult conversations.
Far from being coddled in sheltered nurseries, the Edinburghs were forced from their earliest years to confront the very real scandals and perils faced by many monarchies of the age. Not only were the girls aware of their parents’ unhappy marriage but they had also undoubtedly heard stories of their Russian grandfather’s affair with a woman thirty years his junior, who bore him four children. His wife, the sickly and consumptive Tsarina Marie, unable to tolerate the cold Russian winters, frequently repaired to the warmer climes of her native Darmstadt. In her absence the Tsar installed his young mistress in the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg and there, to the horror of the Imperial Family, the young woman remained, giving birth to his child even as his unhappy wife lay on her deathbed. With inordinate haste after the Tsarina’s death, the Tsar secretly married his mistress. The whole of Europe was shocked, sympathising wholeheartedly with the late Tsarina who had, in Vicky’s opinion, died of a broken heart.
Within the Russian Imperial Family a feud ensued that would remain unresolved for many more years than the brief spell that the Tsar enjoyed with his young bride.
One afternoon in March 1881, when Missy was barely six years old, her grandfather, Tsar Alexander II, was returning from a meeting at the Mikhailovsky Palace in St. Petersburg when a bomb exploded beneath his carriage. Miraculously, the Tsar emerged from the wreckage unharmed but as he turned to tend to his wounded guard, a second terrorist rushed forward hurling another device that exploded at his feet. Disfigured and bleeding, he was rushed to Winter Palace where, as his young wife fell hysterically upon his mangled body, he died in agony.
Marie hurried to St. Petersburg for the funeral and even the Russophobe Queen Victoria was aghast at the news. The shock waves rippled across the continent and nowhere were they felt more keenly than in the quiet Grand Duchy of Hesse-and-by-Rhine, where Princess Alice’s daughters were already struggling to come to terms with a tragedy of their own.
Chapter 7 - Grandmama Will Try To Be a Mother to You
Hessians
Alice: Queen Victoria’s second daughter
Louis: Alice’s husband, heir to the Grand Duchy o
f Hesse
Children of Alice & Louis:
Victoria
Ella
Irène
Ernie
Alix
May
Hohenzollerns (Prussians)
Vicky: Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter; Crown Princess of Prussia.
Fritz: Vicky’s husband, Crown Prince Frederick of Prussia.
Children of Vicky & Fritz:
Willy (Wilhelm, William)
Charlotte
Henry
Moretta (Victoria Moretta)
Waldemar
Sophie
Mossy (Margaret)
Throughout the 1870s it was clear to Princess Alice that the effort she had put into her children’s upbringing was bearing fruit. High-spirited and boisterous as they were, she confidently informed her mother, that they were also considerate, well-behaved and ‘very unspoilt in their tastes, and simple and quiet children, which I think is of the greatest importance.’[48]
While the younger girls, Irène, Alix and May remained in the nursery in the charge of a kindly English nanny, Mary Anne Orchard (Orchie), their elder sisters, Victoria and Ella were making rapid progress in the schoolroom. Victoria’s enthusiasm for learning was undiminished and her mother was soon observing that she was ‘immensely grown and her figure is forming. She is changing so much – beginning to leave the child and grow into the girl.’[49]
For Victoria, on the brink of adolescence, life in Darmstadt was also on the brink of change. In March 1877, the death of Louis’ father cast a cloud over the New Palace and brought him one step nearer to inheriting responsibility for the Grand Duchy. A month later, the gloom was broken by a visit from Vicky and the Hohenzollern cousins – an event which the Hessian princesses had anticipated with excitement. It was some time since they had met and they ‘wished they knew [their cousins] better’ but it not did not take long to realise that Charlotte was no more companionable now than she had been seven and a half years earlier in Cannes.
With an air of assumed sophistication, Charlotte strolled flirtatiously through the New Palace, puffing at her cigarettes; her show of worldly-wisdom and boasts of her imminent marriage making her appear far older than her sixteen years. More disturbing for twelve-year-old Ella was the sudden, excessive attention shown her by Charlotte’s brother, Willy, a student at the University of Bonn. As they played tennis or boated on the lake, Willy found the days in Darmstadt ‘happy beyond description’[50] but Ella was more unnerved than flattered by his growing adulation and promises that he would visit more often.
Barely had the Prussians left, when Alice and Louis were urgently summoned to Seeheim where Louis’ uncle, Grand Duke Louis III, was dangerously ill. With great trepidation they set out from Darmstadt, fearing the worst:
“I am so dreading everything,” Alice wrote to the Queen, “and above all the responsibility of being the first in everything and people are not being ‘bienveillant.’”[51]
By the time they reached Seeheim the eccentric old man was dead, leaving Louis and Alice as the new Grand Duke and Duchess of Hesse-and-by-Rhine. Along with the title and responsibilities came several castles and hunting lodges and, for the first time since their marriage, they had money to spare. Typically Alice threw herself with greater devotion than ever into her new responsibilities, establishing the Alice Nurses and a home for unmarried mothers, while struggling to support her husband into his new role. The work load was immense and years of childbearing, depression and commitment to her numerous charities frequently left the thirty-four-year-old princess exhausted.
“I have been doing too much lately,” she confessed to her mother that autumn, “and my nerves are beginning to feel the strain, for sleep and appetite are no longer good. Too much is demanded of one; and I have to do with so many things. It is more than my strength can stand in the long run.”[52]
By New Year, 1878, Alice was too exhausted to travel to Berlin for Charlotte’s wedding[·]. It was clear that she desperately needed a holiday and so, in the summer, Louis decided to use his new-found wealth to take the whole family on a Grand Tour of Europe. After paying another visit to Vicky, the Hessians enjoyed a restful cruise through the Baltic with the Duke and Duchess of Baden. When they arrived in England in July, Queen Victoria was delighted by Alice’s ‘truly beautiful children’ but was deeply disturbed by how pale and drawn their mother appeared. The Queen hoped that the fresh sea air at Eastbourne and the Isle of Wight might help restore her daughter’s vigour but even a month later she had to concede that Alice still looked very weak and delicate.
In autumn, when the Hessians had returned home, Alice enjoyed a series of visits from her brothers and sisters, and life appeared to be settling into its usual routine when suddenly the unthinkable happened. One evening in early November, as Victoria was reading to her sisters, she became aware of a swelling in her throat. What was initially believed to be a cold or mumps was soon diagnosed as diphtheria. One of the great killers of the age, the disease spread rapidly through the family, affecting each of the children in turn. Only Ella was spared and for her own protection she was sent to stay with her paternal grandmother in nearby Bessungen. Throughout Hesse prayers were said for the children’s recovery and a series of telegrams flew to England, keeping Queen Victoria informed of their progress.
Night and day, Alice nursed her children, adhering to the doctors’ instructions that, in order to prevent the spread of the contagion, she must neither touch nor kiss them. In spite of Alice’s tender care, four-year-old May, died in mid-November.
“The pain is beyond words,” Alice telegrammed her mother, “but God’s will be done!”[53]
By now Louis, too, had contracted the illness and a heart-broken Alice had to attend their daughter’s funeral alone. Such was her grief that, having prayed by the tiny coffin, she could not bear to see it carried from the house and watched only through a mirror. The strain was enormous and, as Queen Victoria read the reports from Darmstadt, she could only praise her daughter’s resignation and courage, while fearing that worse was to follow.
Victoria and her father recovered but the younger children remained dangerously ill and when Ernie asked daily for reports of May’s progress, his mother could not bring herself to tell him that his little sister had died. Only when he began to improve did she break the sad news. Ernie was so distraught that Alice could restrain herself no longer and, disregarding all precautions, took him in her arms to kiss him. It was, as Disraeli later told the British Parliament, ‘the kiss of death.’ Within days she too, had succumbed to the disease.
As soon as the news of Alice’s illness reached England, Queen Victoria dispatched her own doctor, William Jenner, to Darmstadt but, worn out by weeks of worry and sorrow, the princess had no strength left to fight.
“At times,” wrote her sister, Lenchen, “she spoke in a most touching manner about her household, also enquiring kindly after poor and sick people in the town. Then followed hours of great prostration.”[54]
Whispering her final instructions for her children’s upbringing, she lapsed into semi-consciousness and died at the age of thirty-five on Saturday 14th December 1878 – the seventeenth anniversary of Prince Albert’s death. Her final words were a whispered, ‘Dear Papa!’
As the rest of the family gradually recovered, Ella returned to Darmstadt to find the household in mourning. From an upstairs window, she and her sisters watched their mother’s coffin draped in the British flag, carried through the streets of Darmstadt, followed by their father, Uncle Leopold, Uncle Christian, Uncle Bertie and crowds of weeping Hessians.
Messages of condolence poured in from all over the world, from Prussia to Russia, and from Canada to England, where a devastated Queen wrote of her terrible grief at the loss of her beloved child. All past disagreements forgotten, in a letter to Vicky she paid Alice the finest compliment she could give: a comparison with her angelic father:
“She had darling Papa’s nature, and much of his self-sacrificing
character and fearlessness and entire devotion to duty!”[55]
Across the British Empire flags flew at half-mast, public houses were closed, curtains were drawn across the windows of Buckingham Palace, political engagements were cancelled and bells tolled in the churches in Windsor.
Noticeable for her absence among Alice’s mourners was her closest sister and confidante. To Vicky’s great sorrow, her father-in-law, the Kaiser, fearing she might bring the contagion back to Berlin, forbade her to go to Hesse for the funeral. In the event, the Kaiser’s precautions proved futile. Within months, the epidemic had spread through Prussia, claiming Vicky’s son, eleven-year-old Waldemar, among its victims.
Waldemar’s illness, coming so soon after the death of Alice and May, was a great blow to his family. The brightest and most loveable of the Hohenzollern brothers, his cheerful good nature had been an endless source of amusement for his parents and siblings. Now, only too aware of the fate of their aunt and cousin in Darmstadt, they could only wait and pray for his recovery.
The Crown Princess, nursing her son herself, adopted all the precautions that Alice had taken. She wore protective clothing, bathed him in carbolic and sprayed herself with disinfectants before leaving the room. For a while he seemed to be improving: ‘The doctors feel quite cheerful about him,’ she told her mother on the 26th March, ‘but of course all cause for anxiety is not over yet!’[56]
The note of caution was well-founded. At three-thirty the following morning, Waldemar died. ‘The grief of my parents for the loss of this splendid son was unspeakable;’ wrote Willy, ‘our pain deep and cruel beyond words.’[57]
Even so, the Prussian journalists used the tragedy to further denigrate the Crown Princess. Accusing her of neglecting her children, one newspaper went so far as to state that God had sent her this tragedy as a punishment for her cold-heartedness. At least, as her second son, Henry, now a sailor in the Prussian Navy, hurried home from Hawaii, she could find some consolation in the knowledge that her often-divided family was for once united in grief.
Queen Victoria's Granddaughters 1860-1918 Page 7