The next day, Sunday, February 27, 1881, Princess Augusta Victoria became the first of the four special women to marry. It was only the third time in history that a Prussian prince had married a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein. Breaking with the tradition of many other Hohenzollern weddings, Willy and Dona were married in the marble chapel of the Stadtschloss. A mustachioed pastor performed the solemn, extraordinarily complex Lutheran service, which lasted six interminable hours. During the nuptial sermon, the pastor told the young couple, “And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”83 These would be three qualities Dona would carry with her always. Because of the chapel’s relatively small size, hundreds of guests stood in the palace’s other gilded halls awaiting the conclusion of the ceremony. As Willy took his vows, he turned to his grandfather, Wilhelm I, and made the traditional bow, as if to ask the old emperor one last time for his permission to marry. Dona wore a dress of gold-and-light-blue fabric with diamonds adorning her head and neck; her train was so long that it had to be carried by six bridesmaids. Vicky happily reported to Queen Victoria that “Dona looked charming and everyone was taken with her sweetness and grace.”84 At the crown princess’s request, the wedding reception included a massive English wedding cake surrounded by orange blossoms.
The day ended with the spectacular Fackeltanz, a torchlight dance performed at Prussian royal weddings that could only be danced by the bride and men with the style of Royal Highness or higher. As the grand hall was bathed in blazing reds and oranges, Dona danced with her new father-in-law, Fritz, while pages held aloft glowing candles set in silver candelabras. The only person who did not seem to bubble over that day was the groom. Willy’s diary entry was simple and nondescript: “I was married to-day in the chapel of the Castle. We shall settle in Potsdam, where I am to continue my service in the Hussars of the Guards.”85
The nuptial festivities in Berlin lasted for days. On Monday, February 28 Dona and Willy made their first public appearance together as husband and wife during a carriage ride through Berlin. Along the entire route, crowds of people clamored for a glimpse of the newlyweds. For Dona, a woman so unused to being the center of attention, these were heady days. But through it all, the new princess of Prussia was radiant, smiling, and genuinely enthusiastic about everything she did and everyone she met. This exuberance was an asset to Dona immediately after her wedding. During the first week of March, she and Willy received the more than two hundred royal deputations that had come to Berlin for their wedding, including Willy’s maternal uncles, the Prince of Wales, the Grand Duke of Hesse, and the Duke of Edinburgh; his great-uncle the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; and the king and queen of Saxony. These audiences were held for several reasons. Etiquette demanded that these senior members of reigning families be properly received; many of them were related to the groom, bride, or both; and it was also intended to give Dona her first taste of life in Prussia.
The Prussia of the 1880s in which Dona went to live was a kingdom that Vicky described as full of “thorny people … with their sharp tongues [and] their cutting sarcasm about everybody and everything.”86 Thankfully for Dona, her new home was not the intrigue-ridden Berlin but the city of Potsdam, almost fifteen miles away. Potsdam was often called the Windsor of Prussia for its magnificent royal residences. Poultney Bigelow, a childhood friend of Willy’s, remembered it as “a wilderness of palaces, barracks, fountains, temples, [and] esplanades with innumerable marble divinities waving their naked arms and legs as though begging in vain for warm clothes in the damp and cold of the Brandenburg swamps.”87
Potsdam’s main attraction was the awe-inspiring Neues Palais. Used by Willy’s parents as their official residence, it was built by Frederick the Great in 1763 to impress his enemies. It was more than three stories tall and contained over two hundred rooms, multiple gathering halls, and a theater. The suites were filled with ornate silver furniture, silk tapestries, and Savonnerie carpets. Keeping with his unpredictable personality, once Frederick the Great completed the palace, he declared it to be an architectural monstrosity and refused to ever live there. Most people who visited it agreed that it was a cavernous old building that was meant to do little more than impress, which was evidenced by the fact that it exited out onto a military parade ground on the western side of Sanssouci Park.
Located nearby was the less imposing but equally beautiful Marble Palace, which was set aside for Willy and Dona. They spent almost all their time here in the first years after their wedding, since they were given no other official residences—the only accommodations they had outside Potsdam were a few austere, unfurnished rooms at the Stadtschloss in Berlin. For Dona, the Marble Palace was more than commodious. The palace, nestled on the shore of the Heiligen Sea, derived its name from its interior design. Its rooms were decorated with black-and-white marble floors, statues, and columns stretching high to its frescoed ceilings painted in the neoclassical style that was popular in nineteenth-century Germany. Considered warm and intimate by Prussian standards, the palace actually had working bathrooms and limited plumbing, which were added in a recent renovation. There were few royal residences in Germany that were equipped with modern amenities. In most castles and palaces, the carpets were threadbare, floors were dirty, and lavatories were few and far between. Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, Dona and Willy’s mutual cousin, wrote about the poor living conditions: “It is very hard to convey to English readers the medieval conditions in which people in our state of life lived in Germany.”88
Unlike the close family atmospheres enjoyed by the Teck and Hesse families, the Hohenzollerns were rife with discord. Nowhere was the contrast more evident between the loving family ties of May and Alix’s intimate families and Dona and the Hohenzollerns than following the latter’s wedding in 1881. One woman in particular made herself the bane of Dona’s existence for the first few years of her married life. She was none other than Willy’s eldest sister, Charlotte (“Charly”).
For most of her adult life, Charly lived in a constant state of manic frenzy. She suffered violent moods swings and acute health problems that baffled her doctors. She outlined her symptoms to the world-renowned physician Dr. Ernest Schweninger. “My nerves are in shreds, although my appearance does not show it,” she wrote. “But a terrible headache on one side & dizziness on the left side so depress [sic] me, & completely irregular feelings of malaise, with a rash & itching.”89 Most historians now agree that Charly suffered from a disease she inherited from Queen Victoria known as porphyria. The disease, which—like hemophilia—is genetic but is suffered by both men and women, is believed to be responsible for driving Charly’s great-great-grandfather—King George III—mad. And when Dona married into the Hohenzollerns in 1881 by becoming Willy’s wife, it brought out the worst in Charly, sending her unstable personality soaring to new heights. She resented Dona for being “silent, barely communicative and very shy.”90 Charly’s venomous personality grew worse when she married Prince Bernard of Saxe-Meiningen in 1878. He was brutal in his assessment of Dona. He became something of a polemicist toward her, claiming she was stupid, tactless, and virtually illiterate compared to the modern, fashionable lifestyle he and his wife shared.
As hurtful as the insults hurled upon Dona by her sister-in-law and brother-in-law may have been, by September 1881, they mattered little. She excitedly told her family that a baby was on the way. On May 6, 1882, the guns of Berlin fired off a salute to mark the arrival of Dona’s firstborn child, a son, who came into the world at the Marble Palace. The delivery at the Marble Palace was a difficult one. Had it not been for the intervention of adroit doctors, both mother and child could have been lost. Waiting outside the delivery room were Fritz, Vicky, the emperor, and his aides, all dressed in full military uniforms. When Willy came out to announce the birth, he walked across the room directly to the emperor and said, “Grandfather, it is a boy!”91 There, surrounded by his son, grandson, and great-grandson,
the emperor exclaimed, “Hurrah, hurrah! Four Kings!”92 Willy confided to his diary his pride over being a father and the significance of the birth for Germany.
My son was born to-day. He is the first heir to the German Empire, and I feel that I have performed my duty towards this Empire, in providing our dynasty with a successor in the direct line. My grandfather is so happy, far happier than my father, at least outwardly. He never expected to have this wish of his granted before he died, to see his family continued by me. In the country, also, the event has been hailed with immense joy, and I have received any amount of congratulations. The Reichstag even sent a deputation to assure me of its satisfaction and that of the whole Empire. Now I can think of the future with a certain amount of pride which I could not feel before, when I had not done anything for the welfare of my country or of the dynasty of which I am one day to be the head.93
In keeping with the tradition of the Prussian court, Dona’s firstborn son was given the names Frederick Wilhelm Victor August Ernest, which was later shortened to Wilhelm. His family took to calling him “Little Willy,” to distinguish him from his father; while the English-speaking world perennially dubbed him Frederick William, to avoid any confusion with his progenitors. The birth of another great-grandchild to Queen Victoria was received well in England, where a solemn photograph was distributed depicting the old emperor seated with Little Willy on his knee and Fritz and Willy standing behind them.
With the German succession now secured indefinitely, and her dynastic role fulfilled, Dona began to take on an air of haughtiness that she had not displayed before. Many people felt she developed this attitude from her husband, who was obsessed with his position as heir to the Prusso-German throne. Dona’s growing sense of her own importance is not at all surprising, given the environment in which she lived. In a country that had very clearly defined views on gender roles, she was becoming the ideal embodiment of everything a woman, wife, and mother was to be. Eager to please the Hohenzollern men, she was a willing pupil of the more seasoned members of the royal family. Otto von Bismarck was also pleased to find her receptive to his own self-serving brand of guidance. The fact that the royal family was the very nucleus of Prussia meant Dona was surrounded by hordes of sycophantic ladies, servants, and other staff. As the increasingly popular wife of the heir presumptive—and having given birth to another heir only a year after her wedding—meant Dona had ample reason to feel proud of herself, at least, according to Prussian standards.
The princess’s growing sense of her own importance and popularity may have fit perfectly with the Hohenzollerns and the aristocrats in Berlin or Potsdam, but it caused a great deal of friction within her own family when she returned to Primkenau in March 1885 for the wedding of her sister Calma. Since before Dona’s own marriage, a search had been underway to find a suitable husband for her next sister. At one point, Calma had been the leading candidate to become the wife of Queen Victoria’s youngest son, Leopold, Duke of Albany. A marriage with the duke would have been difficult for Calma because of his hemophilia, but as a son of the queen, his position would have ensured his wife’s comfort for the rest of her life. Before the couple could run off and get married, a letter was discovered, written by Fritz Holstein before his death, forbidding the union. In the end, Calma settled on a distant relative—Prince Frederick Ferdinand of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.94 Although most of the guests at the wedding were royalty, they all ranked considerably lower than Dona, a fact she repeatedly made clear to everyone, especially Frederick Ferdinand’s family.
Dona’s growing hauteur not only alienated some of her immediate family, it also caused increasing tensions with her in-laws, Fritz and Vicky. Fritz, despite his friendship with Dona’s late father, still had difficulty accepting her as being sufficiently ebenbürtig for a German heir. Dona’s morganatic lineage was something she shared with May Teck, though the former never spoke of it publicly. Willy and Dona’s attitudes also damaged their relationship with his British relatives when, later in 1885, his aunt Princess Beatrice married Prince Henry of Battenberg. It was an event that brought together much of Queen Victoria’s family. Fourteen-year-old Alix of Hesse-Darmstadt was a bridesmaid for her aunt. The princess from Hesse stood at the altar alongside her cousins Marie of Edinburgh (the future queen of Romania) and Maud of Wales (the future queen of Norway). Dona, who was growing increasingly obsessed with royal rank—possibly having been left somewhat unnerved by the relatively low company at her sister’s wedding—made it known to everyone that she disapproved of the marriage on the grounds that Henry possessed morganatic blood.
When Beatrice and Henry paid Vicky and Fritz a visit while on their honeymoon, Willy and Dona made it a point to snub them. Their reaction could, at least in part, have something to do with the fact that Beatrice was only a year and a half older than Willy, who saw her more as a contemporary rather than his aunt. It may have seemed easier for him to pass judgment on her marriage, though it was by no means justified. Queen Victoria was incredulous, writing to Vicky of their “extraordinary impertinence and insolence.” She commented, “that if the Queen of England thinks a person good enough for her daughter what have other people got to say?”95 She reiterated this sentiment when she wrote to Vicky, “As for Dona, a poor, little, insignificant Princess raised entirely by your kindness to the position she is in, I have no words.”96
To outsiders, the Duke and Duchess of Teck were a study in contradiction. Loving, selfless, and charitable, Mary Adelaide freely gave to all who were in need, especially the poor. She was adamant that her children visit the poorer communities in London to see how others lived. Carr Glyn, the vicar at Kensington Palace who was responsible for giving the Teck children Bible lessons, recalled one of the family’s outings. “On one of these expeditions,” he wrote, the duchess “sent a dinner to a destitute family, and gave instructions that the children were to stop and see the poor people eat it, showing at once her practical mind and her goodness of heart.”97 Though the duchess was socially conscious, Francis continued to be worldlier. He lacked the social graces that could have made his difficult qualities more manageable. His elevation to the rank of Duke of Teck did nothing to improve his petulance. He flew into wild public rages when he felt he had been snubbed in some way. He found himself shunned by London’s social leaders, who feared one of the duke’s temper tantrums at their parties. More often than not, the duchess was seen attending official functions without her husband.
The Tecks also continued to be plagued by financial woes. They never seemed to have enough money to cover their surfeit spending. Royals visiting London made the requisite courtesy visits to the Tecks at Kensington Palace, where Mary Adelaide insisted on throwing extravagantly expensive dinner parties in their honor. The family’s money problems were not the duchess’s fault alone. Francis’s fanatical obsession with being treated properly according to his rank as a royal duke was also a contributing factor. He insisted on having as many servants as possible, filling their Kensington Palace flat with a ludicrously oversized entourage. Since the duke found himself on few social guest lists, he threw expensive parties to ensure he was not entirely shut out of the London social scene. He paid for the servants and the parties with most of his wife’s annual allowance and on credit. “Poor man,” May later wrote of her father, “if only he was less proud and foolish about that sort of thing, what can it matter how many servants one has as long as one can live comfortably?”98
After nearly twenty years of marriage, the Tecks were worse off than ever. They could no longer afford tutors to educate their children. Their lessons had to be taken over by Mary Adelaide’s mother, the Duchess of Cambridge. By 1883, the debts of May’s parents finally caught up with them. Their bills exceeded £68,000—more than $7.3 million today.99 Requests to Queen Victoria for emergency loans were refused. Gone were the days of Parliament fronting the bills for squandering members of the royal family. Creditors were seen constantly lurking around Kensington Palace and Whit
e Lodge. When bailiffs showed up in the summer to reclaim their property, the duke and duchess—influenced heavily by their frustrated relatives—had no choice but to temporarily leave England. Since they could not even cover the most basic expenses at either of their homes, Kensington Palace had to be vacated completely, and White Lodge was only to be maintained as the building required. “Well, you see, my parents were always in short street, so they had to go abroad to economize,” May explained years later.100 Her parents’ financial ruin made a profound impact on seventeen-year-old May. She realized for the first time just how fallible her parents were and how royalties were just as vulnerable to money problems as ordinary people. From that point on in her life, she made it a priority to never live beyond her income so as to never lack money again. For the Duchess of Teck, their very public, humiliating bankruptcy was almost too much to bear. “I do my best to keep up my spirits,” she wrote to a friend, “for alas! a great trial is before me. On Saturday next we are going up … to Kensington Palace to wind [sic] there, and break up the beautiful, happy home, that has sheltered us for the last sixteen years, in which all our children were born. You can guess the wrench it will be to us.”101
Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires Page 8