Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires

by Justin C. Vovk

  Queen Victoria “was quite delighted” to hear of the engagement. She confided to her journal that Eddy came to see her. “I suspected something at once,” she wrote. “He came in and said, ‘I have some good news to tell you; I am engaged to May Teck.’” The queen concluded that her grandson “seemed very pleased and satisfied, and I am so thankful, as I had much wished for this marriage, thinking her so suitable.”210 Grand Duchess Augusta of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, May’s aunt, was quick to offer her opinion on the engagement. “How well the Queen worded her consent given in Council. ‘Pss Victoria Mary, Daughter of H R H The Pss Mary Ad. and of H H Duke of Teck’ quite as it is correct,” she wrote with her usual grandiose style with many words underlined for emphasis, “thus proving May’s descent from a Royal Mother; brave Queen! and just what May truly is, according to English notions.”211

  Some people expressed misgivings about the match. The Prince of Wales strongly disliked the Duke and Duchess of Teck. The Duke of Cambridge, May’s uncle, could not fathom how Eddy would make a suitable husband. The duke described him as “an inveterate and incurable dawdler, never ready, never there.”212 Dona sneered at the idea as well, since May’s parents could not afford to offer a dowry. The Empress Frederick wrote to Queen Victoria that she “cannot help laughing … when I think of … someone mentioning to Dona what a charming girl May was, & how nice it would be if her [Dona’s] brother thought of [marrying her]!” Vicky then bluntly added, “Dona was most offended & said to me that her brother would not dream of making such a mésalliance!!!”213 The queen shared her daughter’s reaction to Dona’s attitude toward May: “I am much amused that Dona turned up her nose at the idea of her charming brother thinking of May whereas I know it as a fact that he made demarches to obtain her hand wh. May refused at once!”214 Some twentieth-century historians like David Duff have argued that the Empress Frederick may have been transferring some of her own ill feelings onto Dona, since the former may have been “put out because of her daughters had not been chosen” as a bride for Eddy.215

  Dona was not the only person to look down on May and her family. Queen Victoria’s daughters Helena and Louise were against the match. Helena was especially hostile toward May, as Queen Victoria described in a letter dated December 16, 1891.

  [Helena] is not at all pleased at May’s Engagt. to Eddy, & does not unfortunately keep it to herself—& was (to my horror) positively rude to Mary [Adelaide] & May at Marlborough House when we went there on Monday 7th & both Mary and Alix [the Princess of Wales] were distressed at it (it made me so hot) & she has been imprudent enough to speak to other people abt. it. I can’t understand it. Louise also does not much like it, tho’ she admits May is a vy nice girl & L. was quite kind & civil.—But both sisters are jealous of Mary [Adelaide]’s popularity. May will I am sure be a very nice Niece & cousin.… she is a vy pretty girl,—very sensible & well informed, a solid girl wh. we want.216

  May and Eddy had grown up together. They played together as children at White Lodge and attended the same royal events. Eddy was born January 8, 1864, two months prematurely, the cause of which was believed to be stress and anxiety endured by his mother during the Second Schleswig War. Eddy knew May well enough, but they never perceived one another in romantic terms. She always thought of his family, the Wales brood from her childhood, as friends and playmates. And even in that context, she still had not thought highly of him. As children, Eddy bullied May and her siblings repeatedly. For his part, Eddy saw the Tecks as amiable if poor relations at best. Most of the time, he seemed apathetic to the world around him. According to one contemporary, he “never seemed to mind what he did or what happened to him.”217 By most surviving accounts, May had little inclination that she was seriously being considered for Eddy. Her father could certainly not afford a dowry. And the taint of her morganatic blood was not easily overlooked by princes on the continent. May seems to have resigned herself to being a spinster, an old maid who would spend her years caring for her invalid of a father.

  The Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Fife had been prodding Eddy toward May for some time though. Queen Victoria was also keen on seeing Eddy and May together: “I think & hope that Eddy will try & marry her for I think she is a superior girl—quiet & reserved till you know her well,—but she is the reverse of oberflächlich [shallow or superficial]. She has no frivolous tastes, has been very carefully brought up & is well informed & always occupied.”218 All these questions about Eddy’s feelings for May prompted the Empress Frederick to write, “I wonder whether Eddy—will ever marry May?”219 By the winter of 1891, he decided to propose by candlelight at a ball in Lutton Hoo, at the home of the Danish ambassador. “To my great surprise Eddy proposed to me during the evening in Mme de Falbe’s boudoir,” May recorded in her diary. “Of course I said yes—We are both very happy.”220 Once she heard of the engagement, Queen Victoria immediately sent a letter to May at White Lodge welcoming her into the family. She rejoiced that May was becoming “My Grandchild” and assured her of

  how much confidence I have in you, to fill worthily the important position to which you are called by your marriage with Eddy.

  Marriage is the most important step which can be taken & should not be looked upon lightly or as all roses. The trials of life in fact begin with marriage, & no one should forget that it is only by mutually giving way to one another, & by mutual respect & confidence as well as love – that true happiness can be obtained. Dear Eddy is a dear, good boy …221

  Once the date was set for the wedding, May excitedly sent a letter off to Aunt Augusta in Strelitz: “Our wedding is fixed for Feb 27th at Windsor and afterwards we are to drive thro’ the principal streets of London on our way to St Pancras to Sandringham for the honeymoon.”222

  Like Dona Holstein with Wilhelm’s proposal, May Teck accepted Eddy on the spot. What most appealed to her was that since her fiancé was expected to ascend the British throne, her family’s financial future would be secure, and her parents would never have to worry about money again. The engagement did not come as a surprise to everyone, though. “We are much excited and delighted about the happy event of May Teck’s engagement to dear Eddy,” the Empress Frederick wrote to her daughter Sophie. “Aunt Mary Teck will be in the 7th heaven, for years and years it has been her ardent wish, and she has thought of nothing else. What a marriage, and what a position for her daughter!”223

  After the proposal was made, however, doubts about the match began to surface. May found to her dismay that Eddy’s listless side shone forth. She was soon being asked by the Prince and Princess of Wales to take an almost mothering role with their son. “Keep Eddy up to the mark,” Bertie reminded her, which was usually followed with, “See that Eddy does this, May,” or, “May, please do see that Eddy does that.” Within a month, she had taken on the role of her fiancé’s private secretary, answering stacks of correspondence. At one point, it proved too much for the princess, who cried to her mother, “Do you think I can really take this on, Mama?”224 The duchess’s reply was blunt and direct: “Of course you can. If I can put up with your father for twenty-five years, you can handle the Heir Presumptive of Great Britain.”225 May’s aunt Augusta was under no illusions about the future that lay ahead of her niece. “It is an immense position and has ever been your heart’s desire,” the grand duchess wrote to Mary Adelaide, “but it is a serious, great undertaking for poor May.”226

  In January 1892, in the midst of wedding plans, the British royal family gathered at Sandringham, their seven-thousand-acre estate in the Norfolk countryside, to celebrate Eddy’s twenty-eighth birthday—his last as a bachelor. Everyone seemed to be sick that winter. The Princess of Wales and Princess May both had heavy colds. Eddy’s sisters were virtually quarantined in their rooms with influenza. Toria had some type of lingering infection. And Prince George was recovering from typhoid fever. At first, Eddy seemed in the best health—relatively—with only a slight cold.

  During a celebratory hunt, he caught a chill and c
ame down with influenza. After only a few days, Eddy was on his deathbed. A simple bulletin was posted outside Marlborough House.

  Sandringham, 9:30am

  Symptoms of great gravity have supervened, and the condition of his Royal Highness the Duke of Clarence is critical.227

  Pneumonia set in, his fever skyrocketed to 107 degrees, and he fell into fits of delirium. The royal family—save for the queen, who was deemed too ill to make the journey from Osborne—stayed at Eddy’s bedside for days, racked with anxiety and fear. During this difficult time, it was observed that Princess May often sought consolation with Eddy’s brother, Prince George. Dr. Manby, the physician in attendance on the royal family at Sandringham, was gazing out the window one day and noticed George and May walking hand-in-hand. Lady Willens, Manby’s daughter, later said in an interview that her father “appears to have suspected that the prince and princess were, in reality, much closer than protocol made out.”228

  Eddy’s suffering ended after a six-hour vigil at 9:35 a.m. on Thursday, January 14, one month before his wedding to May. A few moments after Eddy died, May rose slowly from her chair and, coming around side of the Princess of Wales, leaned in and kissed her beloved’s brow. Eddy’s mild-mannered brother George was now heir to the throne, though it was a role he never wanted. “Gladly would I have given my life for his, as I put no value on mine,” George wrote to his mother. “Such a tragedy has never before occurred in the annals of our family.”229 The day that Eddy died, the Duchess of Teck wrote a grief-stricken note to the queen describing the suffering everyone was enduring.

  I clung to hope even through the terrible watch of that awful never to be forgotten night of agony. It wrung one’s heart to hear Him [Eddy], & to see Alix’s [the Princess of Wales] wretched, imploring face, Bertie’s bowed head, & May’s dazed misery. It seemed too much, too hard to bear! … All today telegrams have been pouring in & I have been much with darling Alix & the dearest girls and angelic George who is the tower of strength to us all! & in His room (where he lies amid flowers, chiefly Maiblumen—Her flower now being woven for the wedding train!) … his adoring Mother & poor May could not tear themselves away—they have just 11 o’clock borne him to the church … Bertie & Alix kindly wished to keep us on [at Sandringham], united as we all are in common sorrow—Our presence seems a comfort to them!—Of course their kindness to our May, I cannot say enough. They have quite adopted her as their daughter and she called Alix “Motherdear”—& hopes you will allow her to call you “Grandmama”? These privileges & two rings are all that remain to her, poor child! of her bright dream of happiness.230

  May was devastated, but even in the midst of her grief, she still thought of others first. Her heart went out to Eddy’s family. She wrote to Queen Victoria, “How too dear & touching of you in the midst of your sorrow to write to poor little me.… Never shall I forget that dreadful night of agony and suspense as we sat round His bed watching Him get weaker & weaker.… I shall always look back with gratitude to your great kindness to darling Eddy and me at Windsor last month.”231 Queen Victoria’s thoughts and prayers went out to Eddy’s heartbroken fiancée. She confided to her journal about how tragic it was for “poor May to have her whole bright future to be merely a dream!”232 The nation, shocked by Eddy’s sudden death, went into deep mourning. It was not long after that a ballad began circulating to the tune of “God Bless the Prince of Wales.” At one village in East Anglia could be heard the song:

  A nation wrapped in mourning,

  Shed bitter tears today,

  For the noble Duke of Clarence,

  And fair young Princess May.233

  It was the first death of an heir to the throne in nearly a century. As such, it was treated with appropriate dignity. Eddy’s body was laid out for five days at the small church near Sandringham, surrounded by exotic flowers and the silken Royal Standard. From Norfolk, the unpolished oak coffin was ceremoniously taken by gun-carriage to Saint George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle, the royal family’s traditional parish church. The mournful procession was led by the Prince of Wales and Prince George and included the Royal Horse Artillery, the foot guards, and the Tenth Royal Hussars—Eddy’s own regiment. When the coffin reached the Albert Memorial Chapel at Saint George’s Chapel, Princess May—wearing a long black dress with a white collar and cuffs—placed a wreath of orange blossoms on her beloved’s tomb.

  Perhaps for the first time in her life, May was utterly at a loss. She did not know how her life could possibly go on. Two days after the funeral, she wrote to her friend Emily Alcock, “It is so difficult to begin one’s old life again after such a shock. Even reading, of which I am so fond, is a trouble to me & I cannot settle down to anything—As for writing I simply cannot write … for it is so dreadful to have to open the wound afresh.”234 What she failed to realize was that she would have a greater role in life than to grieve for Eddy and step off into the shadows. Princess May of Teck was truly born to rule and one day would still be queen of England.

  5

  A Touch of Destiny

  (1892–94)

  The 1890s was a decade of tremendous change for Empress Augusta Victoria, May Teck, and Alix of Hesse. Dona, increasingly conservative but popular with her people, was reigning over the German Empire alongside her larger-than-life husband; May was grieving the unexpected loss of her beloved Eddy; and Alix longingly pined for her darling Nicky. In a remote corner of northwestern Italy, a new life was set to come into the world, which would complete the circle of the four royal women who were destined to preside over the fall of the age of empires.

  In the spring of 1892, Maria Antonia, Duchess of Parma, was in labor with her fifth child. Her husband, Robert I, Duke of Parma, already had twelve children from his first marriage to Princess Maria Pia of the Two Sicilies. So many hopes had been attached to Robert and Maria Pia’s union that their wedding was performed by Pope Pius IX himself in the Sistine Chapel. But because of the close blood ties between the couple235, three of their children died in infancy, while another six were mentally disabled. Maria Pia died shortly after giving birth to a stillborn child in 1882. So when Robert married Maria Antonia of Portugal in 1884, he made sure he and his new wife were not even distant relatives. The outcome was highly successful. Their first four children—like Maria Pia, Maria Antonia would eventually have twelve children—were lusty with strong constitutions. The Duchess of Parma had delivered her first four children in Austria. Her latest accouchement took place at Villa Pianore in Tuscany, Robert’s red-roofed, two-story Italian estate located between Pietrasanta and Viareggio, only a few miles from the Ligurian Sea. After a long delivery, the duchess delivered a healthy baby girl on May 9, 1892.

  At her baptism, the infant received the lofty names Zita Maria delle Grazie Adelgonda Micaela Raffaela Gabriella Giussepina Antonia Luise Agnese, which were made at the suggestion of her aunt and godmother, Princess Adelgundes of Bourbon-Parma. The first of her eleven names, Zita, proved prescient. It was chosen for the thirteenth-century saint who became the patron of servants, the pious, and the laboring poor, all qualities that would come to be associated with this future empress of Austria and queen of Hungary. Officially known by her first name, Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma was more than thirty years younger than Augusta Victoria of Germany—the empress with whom Zita’s political fate would be the most connected—and she could not have been more different. While Dona could be neurotic, prudish, haughty, and was convinced that she had been born to rule, Zita was the spitting image of her namesake and was content to lead a quiet life doing good works.

  Unlike Dona, May, or Alix, Zita had no real connection with Germany or the British royal family. Although she was born in Italy and her father was the Duke of Parma, Zita and her family thought of themselves first and foremost as Frenchmen. “We are French princes who reigned in Italy,” Robert once told Zita.236 Robert’s father had been assassinated when he was six, leaving the young duke to be raised by his French mother, Princess Louise of Artois,
who inculcated into her son a deep love for France. After leaving Parma during the turbulent Italian unification of the 1850s and 1860s, the Risorgimento, Robert spent most of his life living at the home of his uncle Henry, Count of Chambord. As the great-nephew of King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Henry was the sole heir to the entire French royal fortune. When the unimaginably wealthy Henry died in 1883237, he left his entire estate—a priceless treasury of monies, jewels, and palaces—to Robert. The connection Robert had with his ancestral home can be seen in the fact that many of his children were born in France and were given French names. Where Dona was unequivocally German, and Alix and May were fiercely British, Zita was devotedly French.