For her sister, Sophie, there were a few more glorious hours. In 1920, following the death of her son, Alexander, she and Tino were invited to return from Switzerland to regain their thrones. For two years they enjoyed relative peace but in 1923, following the Greeks’ defeat by the Turks, Tino was forced to abdicate for a second time. He and Sophie left the country and, within a year, Tino was dead. Sophie spent the rest of her life in exile, enjoying a fairly peaceful existence until her death in Frankfurt on 13th January 1932.
Mossy, having seen two sons die in the trenches of the First World War, remained in Germany throughout the upheavals of Hitler’s rise to power. The Second World War brought further tragedy when another son, Philipp, was interred in a concentration camp, and his wife died in the infamous Buchenwald. A fourth son, Christoph, was killed in a plane crash in 1943. Mossy died on 22nd January 1954.
Following the marriage of her younger daughter, Maud, in 1923, the widowed Louise, Dowager Duchess of Fife, withdrew into the seclusion of her Scottish estates where her health rapidly deteriorated. In the autumn of 1929, she suffered a haemorrhage and was taken to London for treatment. For over a year she remained under the care of nurses at her house on Portman Square until the 4th January 1931 when she died peacefully in her sleep. Her body was buried on her Scottish estate at Mar.
The long-suffering Toria spent the remainder of her days paying dutiful visits to hospitals and nursing homes. After her mother’s death in 1925, she settled into a house named Coppins in Buckinghamshire where she became increasingly absorbed in religion. There, like her elder sister, she suffered a gastric haemorrhage and died peacefully on 4th December 1935. A month later, her elder and closest sibling, King George V, was also dead.
Maud, though frequently plagued by ill-health, continued to carry out her duties in Norway between her frequent visits to her beloved Appleton Lodge. In autumn 1938, while staying at Claridge’s Hotel in London, she fell ill. Immediate surgery was recommended but, though the doctors were optimistic, she died of heart failure three days after the operation. Her coffin was placed in the chapel at Marlborough House, where she had been baptised almost seventy years earlier, before being taken back to Norway for interment.
In 1920, Victoria Battenberg, still desperately seeking news of the whereabouts of Ella’s grave, chanced upon a magazine article describing the Russian Orthodox cemetery in Peking. Following various leads, she discovered that Ella’s friend, the monk Seraphim, fearing the desecration of the graves in Alapaevsk, had arranged for the transfer of the Grand Dukes’ coffins to China. It might have come as little surprise to Victoria to hear that, after all the upheavals, her saintly sister’s body was said to have remained intact and, according to several witnesses, often exuded the fragrance of flowers. Recalling Ella’s love for the Holy Land, Victoria arranged for her coffin and that of her faithful companion, Barbara, to be taken to the Orthodox Church in Jerusalem. On 15th January 1921, Seraphim oversaw the transferral of the bodies to Palestine where Victoria, her husband, Louis, and a huge crowd awaited them in Jerusalem. The following day Ella was laid to rest on the Mount of Olives in the Church of St. Mary Magdalene. She was subsequently canonised by the Russian Orthodox Church and many miracles have been reported through her intercession. In the summer of 2004, following the restoration of her convent, relics from her body were transferred to Moscow.
Nine months after attending Ella’s interment in Jerusalem, Victoria attended another funeral: that of her husband, Louis. He had contracted influenza during a holiday in Scotland and died on 11th September. He was buried at Whippingham Church on the Isle of Wight. Victoria continued her charitable works and lived to see the marriage of her grandson, Philip of Greece, to the future Queen Elizabeth II. In August 1950 she suffered a heart attack and, realising that she was no longer able to care for herself, asked to be looked after by Roman Catholic nuns. Her cousin Ena arranged for two Spanish nuns to attend her until her peaceful death on 24th September.
“When she died,” wrote Marie Louise, “she left a blank that nothing could fill, and not only her family but the many who had the privilege of knowing her and enjoying her friendship, realised that henceforth the world would be poorer for the passing of this great and courageous lady.”[185]
Irène outlived all of her sisters, her husband and two of her sons. Henry died shortly before the outbreak of the Second World War, and Irène, in true Hessian fashion, continued to put herself out for the rest of the family. She died in Hemmelmark on 11th November 1953.
As they had cared for their grandmother, Princesses Thora and Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein cared for their mother in her widowhood until her death at Schomburg House in Pall Mall London on the 9th June 1923. The sisters lived contentedly together and travelled frequently and extensively. In her later years Marie Louise published a book, ‘My Memory of Six Reigns’ recalling the halcyon days of European royalty. Thora died in Berkley Square, London in March 1948, and Marie Louise died in December 1956. Both were interred with their parents at Frogmore.
Two years after the Armistice, the Dowager Duchess of Coburg, who had become so inured to violence and assassinations, died peacefully in her sleep. Her death brought about a reunion of all four of her daughters in Coburg. Queen Marie was still riding high on a wave of popularity in Roumania, which contrasted sharply with her sister’s rather impoverished existence in France. Ducky and Kyril, having eventually escaped from Finland, were living in Brittany. Following Nicholas’ death, Kyril’s assertion that he was now the rightful Tsar of Russia provoked a good deal of criticism from the rest of the family who recalled his ungentlemanly desertion of the Tsarina in her hour of need. Nor did the struggles that Kyril and Ducky had endured together succeed in creating a happy marriage. By the early 1930s, Ducky had become estranged from her husband due to a discovery she had made about him which she refused to reveal to anyone. While visiting Coburg in early March 1936, Ducky suffered a stroke and died surrounded by her husband and her sisters, Marie and Beatrice. She was buried in Coburg but sixty years later, following the collapse of communism in Russia, her coffin was taken to the Imperial burials vaults in the Peter and Paul Fortress in St. Petersburg.
By the time of Ducky’s death, Marie had already nursed her husband, King Ferdinand, through his final illness until his death in 1927, and watched the monarchy slide into disarray under the rule of her wayward son, King Carol. Her popularity remained undiminished and she died at Sinaia of oesophageal varices on July 18th 1938, surrounded by flowers from well-wishers. In 1942 Sandra died peacefully in Wurttemberg, and Beatrice lived on in Spain until 1966.
In the immediate aftermath of the First World War, the gloom of London was lightened by the first public royal marriage. On 27th February 1919, the beautiful Patsy Connaught married her father’s aide-de-camp, Alexander Ramsay. Initially the Duke of Connaught had opposed the match not only because he was loath to lose his daughter but also because Alexander was a commoner. In marrying him, Patsy renounced her royal titles to become simply Lady Patricia Ramsay but it was a remarkably happy marriage that lasted for over fifty years and produced one son, born in the bathroom of Clarence House ten months after the wedding. Alexander died in 1972, predeceasing Patsy by two years.
Sadly, the popular Daisy, Crown Princess of Sweden did not live long enough to ascend the throne. A year after her sister’s wedding, she caught a chill and chicken pox while pregnant and died unexpectedly after giving birth to a still born baby in Stockholm on 1st May 1920. She was only thirty-eight years old.
The post war years brought a further deterioration in Queen Ena of Spain’s unhappy marriage. In 1931, revolutionaries demanded an end to the monarchy and she and Alfonso were forced to flee to Paris. They remained in exile, travelling separately across the continent, as their country was ravaged by civil war. The deposed king continued to enjoy his mistresses and openly humiliated his wife, even refusing to see her on his deathbed in 1941. Ena stayed briefly in England before finally settling i
n Switzerland where she received frequent visits from her cousins.
“I admire Ena from the depths of my heart for the way in which she had adapted to her altered circumstances,” wrote Marie Louise. “She has made her home in Lausanne, and her little chateau, Vielle Fontaine, is in every way very charming – but what a contrast to the splendours of Madrid! Yet never one word of complaint from Ena.”[186]
It was in Lausanne that Ena died at the age of eighty-one in 1969.
Paradoxically, Alice of Athlone, the only daughter of Queen Victoria’s sickly son, Leopold, outlived all her cousins, her husband and her sons. The princess, who had enjoyed the glories of Queen Victoria’s Golden and Diamond Jubilees, was present at Queen Elizabeth II’s Silver Jubilee celebrations in 1977 and died peacefully in Kensington Palace four years later on 3rd January 1981 at the age of ninety-seven.
Appendix I - Thoughts on the death of Prince Albert
At the time of his death, it was reported that Prince Albert died of typhoid, probably due to the dirty drains at Windsor, and this story was repeated for decades. There are several reasons to doubt this diagnosis and it is my belief that the prince was suffering – and had been for a long time – from some pernicious illness which, combined with his mental state, eventually led to his premature death.
It is interesting that no one else in the household was reported to be suffering from typhoid in December 1861 (yet it usually occurs in epidemics) and, more noticeable, is the fact that his family – including four-year-old Beatrice – came to him during his last illness, held his hand, kissed him and sat on his bed. Would anyone allow a four-year-old child approach a person with an infectious and potentially fatal fever?
Prince Albert’s symptoms did not quite fit the typical typhoid symptoms. He certainly had a high temperature and weakness but there is no mention of the purplish rash that sometimes occurs on the chest, or any sign of delirium. To his last breath, he was speaking coherently with his daughter, Alice, and with the Queen.
Most significant of all, though, is the very long history of Prince Albert’s ailments throughout his life. Queen Victoria believed him to be a hypochondriac and he seems to have had a weak constitution. When he first met Queen Victoria, he was recovering from sea-sickness and fainted while they were dancing. There are many other reports of sea-sickness and, more strikingly, serious stomach problems. One of the difficulties he faced when he first arrived in England was adjusting to late breakfasts, which he could not digest and so felt exhausted throughout the day. Quite often he fainted while suffering from stomach cramps and various gastro-enteric complaints; and if he contracted any other infection (colds, measles, ’flu’ etc.) his sufferings seemed to be worse than would be expected and the illness lasted far longer than was common.
In the last year of his life, his symptoms dramatically increased: toothache (with no apparent cause – and then abscesses), hair loss, weight loss, swollen ankles, muscle and joint paint extreme cold, exhaustion, the familiar digestive problems and even irritability to name but a few. Bearing in mind that he was only forty-one years old when these symptoms became so extreme, it suggests that there must have been some underlying cause that remained undiagnosed.
I believe that Prince Albert might have suffered from some form of malabsorption syndrome, which was not recognised and could have escalated into something even more pernicious. It was this, I think which killed him.
It is significant, too, that Prince Albert’s ailments were so closely connected to his mental state. Shortly after the engagement of his daughter, Vicky, Prince Albert, a young man at the time, was struck with an acute rheumatic condition which affected his shoulder and left him confined to bed for quite some time. He is said to have contracted the fatal typhoid after hearing of the death of his cousins in Portugal who died of that disease, and while being shocked by his son, Bertie’s escapade with the actress in Ireland. His final illness was certainly connected in some way to his reaction to these events.
In the end, Albert decided he was dying. He had exhausted himself completely and basically ‘gave up the ghost’.
Appendix II – Queen Victoria’s Excessive Mourning
The story of Victoria and Albert is seen as one of the great royal love stories of all time and, while it cannot be denied that the Queen adored her ‘beloved angel,’ there is something about the excesses of her mourning (including her refusal to be cajoled from it – she actually wrote to her daughter, Vicky, that she enjoyed thinking of her sorrow!) that gives me the impression of ‘she doth protest too much’.
Perhaps Queen Victoria was what is now called co-dependent. Her love, though genuine, was perhaps not in the least what might be called real/mature love in which the object of one’s affection is seen as a person in his/her own right with his/her own needs. When Queen Victoria loved someone, she ‘needed’ them and, in some ways, seemed to sap the life from them. It is interesting, though very sad, that Prince Albert, John Brown and Disraeli were all such men, and, though the Queen would do anything to defend and support them, such support seemed to spring more from a need in herself, rather than a mature, respectful acceptance and love of another individual. It might even be said that her treatment of Melbourne was the precursor for this. She so needed him that she was prepared to cast the constitution aside and override parliament, even putting the monarchy at risk in order to keep him by her.
It was not only with those to whom she formed a romantic attachment, however, that she behaved in this way. Her reluctance to allow her daughter, Beatrice, to marry, and then her insistence that Beatrice and her husband remain living with her, is a similar example. “I must have a daughter with me...” she wrote to Vicky.
Another interest fact is that in March 1861, the death of Victoria’s mother threw her into a state of utter despair to the extent that even Albert felt compelled to tell her to basically ‘pull herself together’. There was a great deal of guilt involved in her sorrow, due to her disregard of her mother in the immediate years following her accession. Did she also feel a sense of guilt around Albert’s death? Is that why she was so excessive in her mourning and in her need to preserve his memory?
None of this is meant as a criticism – merely as an observation. The starkness of her childhood, the cruelty of John Conroy and the early death of her father seem to have left her as a very needy person. At no time in her adult life was she without a ‘prop’ – whether it was Melbourne or the Munshi – and such was her dependence on these people that when they (excepting the Munshi, who outlived her) died she truly felt as though a part of her own soul/being had been wrenched from her.
Appendix III - Queen Victoria & Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Queen Victoria’s friendship with Alfred, Lord Tennyson is very fascinating. Being a neighbour on the Isle of Wight, Tennyson was sometimes invited from his home, Farringford (now The Farringford Hotel) to Osborne House, where Queen Victoria, who enjoyed his work, liked to spend time in his company, though, as she wrote to her daughter, Vicky, she found him rather dark and gloomy at times and described him as looking ‘very old’.
The role of Poet Laureate cannot have been more difficult for any other poet than it was for Tennyson. With so large a family and numerous weddings and funerals, the Queen frequently asked him for a new poem to mark the occasion. Consequently, some of Tennyson’s dullest and most trite poems are dedicated to various members of the royal family and nowadays sound a little like doggerel.
The Queen undoubtedly asked him to write these things and had such faith in him because she was so impressed and comforted by his ‘In Memoriam’ for beloved Albert. “Next to the Bible, In Memoriam is my comfort...” she wrote, a year after Albert’s death. At the same time, the Queen told her daughter, Vicky, that she found some of his work difficult to understand and Vicky – that brilliant mind! – replied that she couldn’t make sense of it either!
Queen Victoria, however, not only asked him to supply suitable poems, she also asked him if he could find a way t
o remove Gladstone from office – a request to which Tennyson politely and tactfully replied that it was beyond his capabilities!
Appendix IV – Queen Victoria’s Favourite Authors
Alongside being a prolific letter-writer, Queen Victoria was an avid reader who greatly enjoyed poetry and contemporary novels, particularly those about the lives of ordinary people. Among her favourite authors were Dinah Craik, whose novel John Halifax. Gentleman was probably her most successful work (and, incidentally, made into a BBC television series in the 1970s).
Mrs. Oliphant was another of the Queen favourite authors and, with her love of all things Scottish, she greatly enjoyed Merkland which she described as ‘An old – but excellent Scotch’ novel.’ In 1868 the Queen met Mrs Oliphant whom she considered, “very pleasant and clever looking.’
Naturally, her friendship with the Prime Minister, Disraeli, led her to greatly appreciate his novels, too, and, when her own Leaves from a Highland Journal was published, she was greatly flattered when he spoke to her as a fellow-writer, “We authors, ma’am…”
Marie Correlli - a writer of popular novels – also appealed to the Queen, as did Wilkie Collins, Dickens and George Eliot, regardless of the scandal of the latter’s private life. Harriet Beecher-Stowe’s biography of Byron, however, Queen Victoria considered shocking since it included information about the poet’s incestuous relationship with his sister.
“That Byron scandal is too shameful; I have not read it as I have a particular horror of scandal and gossip, and it is quite untrue. Mrs. Stowe has behaved shamefully.”
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