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

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Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires Page 71

by Justin C. Vovk


  23. The formation of the German Empire did not inherently elevate the Hohenzollerns to the status of an “imperial family.” While the emperor and crown prince bore imperial rank and style, the rest of the Hohenzollerns continued to only be entitled to use the royal titles of Prussia. Going forward, the Hohenzollerns as a whole will be referred to as the Prussian royal family, distinguishing them from the emperor, empress, crown prince, and crown princess.

  24. Christopher Clark, Kaiser Wilhelm II: A Life in Power (Kobo desktop version, 2009: retrieved from http://www.kobobooks.com), chap. 2, para. 1.

  25. The Ernestine duchies are a number of Saxon states whose founders were the numerous sons of Ernest, Elector of Saxony (1441–86). There had been almost two dozen Ernestine duchies since the fifteenth century, but by 1871 only four still existed: Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Meiningen, Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. The word Saxe is the French form of Saxony (the German being Sachsen). Since the language of royalty until the nineteenth century was French, the German rulers identified themselves using French titles (i.e. Saxe-Coburg instead of Sachsen-Coburg).

  26. Clark, Kaiser Wilhelm II (Kobo desktop version), chap. 2, para. 4.

  27. Hesse was known after 1816 as Hesse and by the Rhine. Up until 1866, it was also more commonly referred to as Hesse-Darmstadt to distinguish it from the northern state of Hesse-Cassel.

  28. Matthew Dennison, The Last Princess: The Devoted Life of Queen Victoria’s Youngest Daughter (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007), p. 50.

  29. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 441.

  30. Robert K. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra (New York: Atheneum, 1967), p. 29.

  31. Sophie Buxhoeveden, The Life and Tragedy of Alexandra Feodorovna, Empress of Russia (London: Longmans, Green, 1928), p. 15.

  32. Catrine Clay, King, Kaiser, Tsar: Three Royal Cousins Who Led the World to War (New York: Walker, 2006), p. 111.

  33. Princess Alice of Hesse to Queen Victoria, undated, 1873, in Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1885), ed. Karl Sell, p. 313.

  34. Van der Kiste, Queen Victoria’s Children, p. 28.

  2: “Sleeping Beauty!”

  1. Geoffrey Wakeford, Three Consort Queens: Adelaide, Alexandra & Mary (London: Robert Hale, 1971), p. 158.

  2. Gelardi, Born to Rule, p. 8.

  3. Woodward, Queen Mary, p. 52.

  4. Dennison, The Last Princess, p. 51.

  5. David Duff, Hessian Tapestry (London: Frederick Muller, 1967), p. 121.

  6. Massie, Nicholas and Alexandra, p. 29.

  7. Coryne Hall, Little Mother of Russia: A Biography of Empress Marie Feodorovna (Teaneck, NJ: Holmes & Meier, 2001), p. 151.

  8. Princess Alice of Hesse, to Queen Victoria, March 23, 1877, in Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, ed. Sell, pp. 359–360.

  9. Princess Alice of Hesse, to Queen Victoria, June 6, 1877, in ibid., p. 362.

  10. Van der Kiste, Queen Victoria’s Children, p. 107.

  11. Julia P. Gelardi, In Triumph’s Wake: Royal Mothers, Tragic Daughters, and the Price They Paid for Glory (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 2008), p. 292.

  12. Packard, Victoria’s Daughters, p. 167.

  13. Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, to the Countess of Hopetown, December 17, 1878, in Her Royal Highness, Cook, vol. 2, p. 105.

  14. Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Hesse, December 14, 1878, in Advice to a Grand-daughter: Letters from Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Hesse (London: Heinemann, 1975), ed. Richard Hough, p. 9.

  15. Gelardi, Born to Rule, p. 8.

  16. Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, to the Dowager Countess of Aylesford, January 17, 1879, in Her Royal Highness, Cook, vol. 2, p. 105.

  17. Princess Beatrice to Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, January 22, 1879, in The Last Princess, Dennison, p. 120.

  18. Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, to Lady Elizabeth Biddulph, February 25, 1879, in ibid., p. 107.

  19. Buxhoeveden, Alexandra Feodorovna, pp. 8, 12.

  20. Carolly Erickson, Alexandra: The Last Tsarina (New York: Saint Martin’s Press, 2001), p. 18.

  21. Buxhoeveden, Alexander Feodorovna, p. 111.

  22. Packard, Victoria’s Daughters, p. 286.

  23. Peter Kurth, Tsar: The Lost World of Nicholas and Alexandra (Toronto: Madison Press Books, 1998), p. 28.

  24. Buxhoeveden, Alexandra Feodorovna, p. 110.

  25. Gelardi, Born to Rule, p. 13.

  26. Marie Bothmer, Sovereign Ladies of Europe (London: Kessinger, 2005), p. 198

  27. Marguerite Cunliffe-Owen, Imperator et Rex: William II. of Germany (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1904), p. 52.

  28. Axel von Schwering, The Berlin Court Under William II (London: Cassell, 1915), p. 57.

  29. Bothmer, Sovereign Ladies, p. 199.

  30. Ibid.

  31. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 443.

  32. Urusula von Eppinghoven, Private Lives of the Kaiser and Kaiserin of Germany: Secret History of the Court of Berlin (New York: Henry W. Fischer, 1909) , vol. 1, pp. 180–181.

  33. Crown Princess Victoria of Germany to Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, May 7, 1878, in Young Wilhelm: The Kaiser’s Early Life, 1859–1888, trans. Jeremy Gaines & Rebecca Wallach (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998), John C. G. Röhl, p. 330.

  34. Cunliffe-Owen, Imperator et Rex, pp. 53–54.

  35. Prince Wilhelm of Prussia to Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, undated, 1879, in Young Wilhelm, Röhl, p. 337.

  36. Röhl, Young Wilhelm, p. 349.

  37. Karl Shaw, Royal Babylon: The Alarming History of European Royalty (Kobo desktop version, 2011: retrieved from http://www.kobobooks.com), chap. 5, para 42.

  38. Diary entry of June 1, 1880, in Gone Astray: Some Leaves From An Emperor’s Diary (New York: John Lane, 1918), Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia, pp. 92–93.

  39. Empress Augusta of Germany to Princess Augusta Victoria, February 20, 1880, Parcel No. 14, Hohenlohe Letters, Langenburg Hausarchiv.

  40. Lance Salway, Queen Victoria’s Grandchildren (London: Collins & Brown, 1991), p. 13.

  41. Georg Hinzpeter to Princess Augusta Victoria, February 7, 1882, Rep. 53A, Brandenburg-Preussischen Hausarchiv, Berliner Hauptarchiv.

  42. Princess Augusta Victoria to Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, September 23, 1880, in Young Wilhelm, Röhl, pp. 360–361.

  43. Princess Augusta Victoria to Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, undated, 1880, in ibid., p. 361.

  44. Princess Augusta Victoria to Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, undated, January 1881, in ibid.

  45. Thomas August Kohut, Wilhelm II and the Germans: A Study in Leadership (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), p. 63.

  46. New York Times, February 26, 1881.

  47. Bothmer, Sovereign Ladies, p. 204.

  48. Crown Princess Victoria of Germany to Queen Victoria, February 27, 1881, in The Letters of Empress Frederick (London: Macmillan, 1928), ed. Sir Frederick Ponsonby, p. 214.

  49. Diary entry of February 27, 1881, in Gone Astray, Wilhelm II, p. 94.

  50. Crown Princess Victoria of Germany to Queen Victoria, March 21, 1880, in The Letters of Empress Frederick, Ponsonby, p. 210.

  51. Gelardi, In Triumph’s Wake, p. 295.

  52. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 9n.

  53. Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Meiningen to Dr. Ernst Schweninger, undated, 1903, in Young Wilhelm, Röhl, p. 109.

  54. Röhl, Young Wilhelm, p. 354.

  55. Paul-Louis Hervier, The Two Williams: Studies of the Kaiser and the Crown Prince (London: Eveleigh Nash, 1916), p. 111.

  56. Anonymous, The Real Crown Prince: A Record and An Indictment (London: George Newnes, n.d.), p. 9.

  57. Diary entry of May 6, 1881, in Gone Astray, Wilhelm II, p. 94.

  58. Nine months after the wedding, Frederick Ferdinand succeeded his father and became the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. He inherited the title Duke of Schleswig-Holstein in 1931 when the Auguste
nburg line became extinct.

  59. Gelardi, In Triumph’s Wake, p. 300.

  60. Dennison, The Last Princess, p. 160.

  61. Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary, pp. 52–53.

  62. Sarah Bradford, King George VI (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989), p. 20.

  63. The calculation is based upon http://www.measuringworth.com/calculators/exchange/result_exchange.php (viewed on April 14, 2011).

  64. Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary, p. 97.

  65. Letter of Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, June 6, 1883, in Her Royal Highness Princess Mary Adelaide, Cook, p. 125.

  66. Woodward, Queen Mary, p. 74.

  67. Duff, Queen Mary, p. 47.

  68. Ibid., pp. 47–49.

  69. Woodward, Queen Mary, p. 76.

  70. Gelardi, Born to Rule, p. 17.

  71. Packard, Victoria’s Daughters, p. 224.

  72. Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Battenberg, June 27, 1884, in Advice to a Grand-daughter, Hough, p. 67.

  73. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 409.

  74. Gelardi, From Splendor to Revolution, p. 107.

  75. Kurth, Tsar, p. 28.

  76. Tor Bomman-Larsen, Kongstanken: Haakon & Maud—I (Oslo: J. W. Cappelen, 2002), p. 119.

  77. Clay, King, Kaiser, Tsar, p. 102.

  3: Ninety-Nine Days

  1. Duff, Queen Mary, p. 52.

  2. Diary entry of Princess May of Teck, May 25, 1885, in ibid., p. 58.

  3. Cook, Her Royal Highness Princess Mary Adelaide, vol. 2, p. 165.

  4. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 428.

  5. Ibid.

  6. Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary, p. 151.

  7. Princess May of Teck to Emily Alcock, July 25, 1887, in ibid.

  8. E. J. Feuchtwanger, Albert and Victoria: The Rise and Fall of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2006), p. 202.

  9. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 430.

  10. Ibid.

  11. Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, Memoirs of the Crown Prince of Germany (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922), p. 34.

  12. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 430.

  13. Cook, Her Royal Highness Princess Mary Adelaide, vol. 2, p. 177.

  14. Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary, p. 190.

  15. Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, to the Marchioness of Salisbury, April 18, 1889, in Her Royal Highness, Cook, p. 189.

  16. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 543.

  17. Gelardi, In Triumph’s Wake, p. 332.

  18. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 130.

  19. Ibid., p. 21.

  20. Tyler-Whittle, The Last Kaiser, p. 76.

  21. Ibid., p. 78.

  22. Bennett, Vicky, p. 215.

  23. Röhl, Young Wilhelm, p. 362.

  24. Pakula, An Uncommon Woman, p. 536.

  25. Röhl, Young Wilhelm, p. 315.

  26. Crown Princess Victoria of Germany to Queen Victoria, May 25, 1886, in Letters of Empress Frederick, Ponsonby, p. 231.

  27. Eppinghoven, Private Lives, vol. 2, p. 311.

  28. Catherine Radziwill, The Royal Marriage Market of Europe (New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1915), p. 32.

  29. Hervier, The Two Williams, p. 112.

  30. Christopher Clark, Kaiser Wilhelm II: A Life in Power (London: Penguin Books, 2009), p. 31.

  31. Diary entry of March 9, 1888, in Gone Astray, Wilhelm II, pp. 146–147.

  32. Empress Victoria of Germany to Queen Victoria, March 9, 1888, in Letters of Empress Frederick, Ponsonby, p. 287.

  33. Charles Lowe, The German Emperor William II (London: Bliss, Sands, & Foster, 1895), p. 59.

  34. Ibid., p. 60.

  35. Gelardi, In Triumph’s Wake, p. 310.

  36. Empress Victoria of Germany to Queen Victoria, March 16, 1888, in George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, Carter, p. 75.

  37. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 436.

  38. Diary entry of Queen Victoria, April 26, 1888, in ibid., p. 437.

  39. Ibid.

  40. Gelardi, In Triumph’s Wake, p. 315.

  41. Ibid., p. 316.

  42. Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Battenberg, July 4, 1888, in Advice to a Grand-daughter, Hough, p. 95.

  43. Clark, Kaiser Wilhelm II (Kobo desktop version), chap. 2, para. 1.

  44. Pakula, An Uncommon Woman, p. 498.

  45. Gelardi, In Triumph’s Wake, p. 319.

  46. Ibid., p. 334.

  47. Pakula, An Uncommon Woman, p. 536.

  4: “Bitter Tears”

  1. Clay, King, Kaiser, Tsar, p. 156.

  2. Gelardi, From Splendor to Revolution, p. 51.

  3. Clay, King, Kaiser, Tsar, p. 156.

  4. Ibid., p. 157.

  5. For more information on the theories regarding Eddy, refer to Andrew Cook, Prince Eddy: The King Britain Never Had (Stroud, Gloucester: The History Press, 2011).

  6. Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Battenberg, March 31, 1889, in Advice to a Grand-daughter, Hough, p. 100.

  7. Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Battenberg, October 30, 1889, in ibid., p. 105.

  8. Erickson, Alexandra, p. 36.

  9. Prince Albert Victor of Wales to Prince Louis of Battenberg, October 7, 1889, Southampton University archive MB1/T77/f2, in Cook, Prince Eddy (Kobo desktop version, 2012; retrieved from www.kobobooks.com), chap. 7, para. 116-17.

  10. Queen Victoria to the Empress Frederick, May 7, 1890, in Matriarch: Queen Mary and the House of Windsor (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1984), Anne Edwards, p. 24.

  11. Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Battenberg, July 15, 1890, in Advice to a Grand-daughter, Hough, p. 106.

  12. Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Battenberg, December 19, 1890, in Queen Victoria in Her Letters and Journals (New York: Viking Penguin, 1985), ed. Christopher Hibbert, p. 318.

  13. Erickson, Alexandra, p. 43–44.

  14. Tyler-Whittle, The Last Kaiser, p. 129.

  15. Shaw, Royal Babylon (Kobo desktop version), chap. 5, para. 2.

  16. John C. G. Röhl, Wilhelm II: The Kaiser’s Personal Monarchy, 1888–1900 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001), p. 129.

  17. Gordon Brook-Shepherd, The Last Habsburg (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968), p. 3.

  18. Queen Emma of the Netherlands was the second youngest. She was a mere three months and ten days older than Dona. Her title as the youngest reigning consort was short-lived, lasting only fourteen months. On October 19, 1889, King Charles I ascended the Portuguese throne. His wife, Queen Amélie, was twenty-four.

  19. Clay, King, Kaiser, Tsar, p. 139.

  20. Röhl, Wilhelm II, p. 625.

  21. Lamar Cecil, Wilhelm II: Emperor and Exile, 1900–1941 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996), pp. 3–4.

  22. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 96.

  23. Feuchtwanger, Albert and Victoria, p. 95.

  24. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 88.

  25. Ibid., p. 97.

  26. Diary entry of March 15, 1890, in Gone Astray, Wilhelm II, p. 200.

  27. Gelardi, In Triumph’s Wake, p. 325.

  28. Diary entry of July 5, 1890, in Gone Astray, Wilhelm II, pp. 204–205.

  29. Schwering, Berlin Court Under William II, p. 56.

  30. Clark, Kaiser Wilhelm II (Kobo desktop version), chap. 3, para. 11.

  31. Shaw, Royal Babylon (Kobo desktop version), chap. 5, para. 51.

  32. Cecil, Wilhelm II, p. 4.

  33. John Van der Kiste, Kaiser Wilhelm II: Germany’s Last Emperor (Gloucestershire: Sutton Publishing, 1999), p. 79.

  34. Pakula, An Uncommon Woman, p. 539.

  35. Gelardi, Born to Rule, pp. 25–26.

  36. Arthur Gould Lee, ed., The Empress Frederick Writes to Sophie, Her Daughter, Crown Princess and Later Queen of the Hellenes: Letters 1889–1901 (London: Faber & Faber, 1955), p. 76.

  37. Pakula, An Uncommon Woman, p. 539.

  38. Empress Frederick, to Crown Princess Sophie of Greece, undated, 1890, in The Empress Frederick Writes to Sophie, ed. Gould Lee
, p. 74.

  39. Spokane Falls Daily Chronicle, December 18, 1890.

  40. Pakula, An Uncommon Woman, p. 540.

  41. Tyler-Whittle, The Last Kaiser, p. 145.

  42. Pakula, An Uncommon Woman, p. 537.

  43. Ibid., p. 540.

  44. Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg was a first cousin to both Wilhelm and Augusta Victoria. Her mother, Princess Helena, was Queen Victoria’s daughter; and her father, Prince Christian, was Fritz Holstein’s younger brother. Marie Louise’s mother and Wilhelm’s mother were sisters, and Marie Louise’s father and Augusta Victoria’s father were brothers.

  45. Carter, George, Nicholas and Wilhelm, p. 129.

  46. Eppinghoven, Private Lives, vol. 2, p. 295.

  47. Röhl, Wilhelm II, p. 361.

  48. Queen Marie of Romania, The Story of My Life (London: Cassell, 1934), vol. 2, p. 227.

  49. Diary entry of Empress Augusta Victoria, undated, September 1892, in The Kaiser’s Daughter, Viktoria Luise, p. 1.

  50. Diary entry of Queen Victoria, December 5, 1891, in Queen Victoria in Her Letters, Hough, p. 320.

  51. Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz to George, Duke of Cambridge, December 25, 1891, in Queen Mary, Pope-Hennessy, p. 207.

  52. Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 541.

  53. Pakula, An Uncommon Woman, p. 556.

  54. Queen Victoria to the Empress Frederick, undated, November 1891, in Queen Mary, Pope-Hennessy, p. 172.

  55. Duff, Queen Mary, p. 75.

  56. Queen Victoria to the Empress Frederick, December 16, 1891, in Queen Mary, Pope-Hennessy, p. 204.

  57. Ibid., p. 41.

  58. Queen Victoria to the Empress Frederick, November 19, 1891, in ibid., p. 196.

  59. Gelardi, In Triumph’s Wake, p. 332.

  60. Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary, pp. 198–199.

  61. Queen Victoria to Princess May of Teck, December 13, 1891, in Matriarch, Edwards, p. 41.

  62. Princess May of Teck to Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, December 16, 1891, in Queen Mary, Pope-Hennessy, p. 208.

  63. Gould Lee, The Empress Frederick Writes to Sophie, p. 103.

  64. Edwards, Matriarch, p. 42.

  65. Duff, Queen Mary, p. 77.

  66. Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, to Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, December 7, 1891, in Matriarch, Edwards, p. 42.

 

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