Queen Victoria's Mysterious Daughter

by Lucinda Hawksley

  The public was thrilled by the prospect of a royal wedding – especially because it was the first time that one of Queen Victoria’s children would get married without having to leave the country afterwards. The future Princess of Wales had won over public opinion from the start. The Corporation of London was believed to have spent £10,000 on preparations for her visit and wedding gifts arrived from all over the world, many of which were later placed on public display. Lady Caroline Lyttelton (who would soon join the royal household) noted disparagingly in her diary on 27 April 1863, ‘Still warmer. The lilacs are all out. We went to the Kensington Museum to see the Princess’s wedding gifts, which were hardly worth the exertion. Most of the jewels have been taken away, and many things were in very bad taste.’

  On 7 March 1863 the Danish royal family arrived in Gravesend on board the royal yacht. Alix was greeted by enthusiastic crowds of around 80,000. The Illustrated London News reported a ‘bevy of pretty maids, who, ranged on either side of the pier, awaited, with dainty little baskets filled with spring flowers, the arrival of the Princess, to scatter these, Nature’s jewels, at the feet of the Royal lady’ and much was made of the way the 21-year-old prince ‘ran’ to his fiancée and kissed her. (In reality, the prince was running not because of passion but because he had arrived late.) In 1864, Henry Nelson O’Neil, a member of the Clique artistic group2 exhibited The Landing of HRH the Princess Alexandra at Gravesend, 7th March 1863. It shows fashionably dressed young women scattering flower petals over the red carpet along which the Prince of Wales leads his intended wife. The painting’s popularity, and the artist’s use of bright colours, emphasised how much this wedding meant to a public weary of the extended royal mourning.

  From Gravesend, the royal party travelled to London, where thousands of people turned out in the drizzle and cold of an early March day. Lord Ronald Gower wrote:

  … probably, since the day in Paris when Marie Antoinette3 was acclaimed by the French populace in the gardens of the Tuileries, no princess ever had so enthusiastic a reception, or so quickly won the hearts of thousands by the mere charm of her presence. St James’s-street was already densely thronged by nine o’clock in the morning, all about Pall Mall was bright with red cloth, banners and bunting, and garlanded with flowers. All the shops were transformed into places with benches and seats, which were filled by eleven o’clock … At two in the afternoon this part of London was hardly passable, and it was not easy to force one’s way … past four, a carriage appeared coming from out St James’s Street – first one, then a second and a third; but it was hardly possible to believe that these shabby, poorly-appointed vehicles formed the van of the royal procession for which all London had made holiday … These turned out to be the Westminster Corporation … they were certainly not ornamental … But now trot by a handful of Life Guards escorting an open carriage and four … and within, the Princess Alexandra, with her affianced husband … The Princess’s lovely face has won all hearts.

  The future Princess of Wales even proved herself a heroine. When a police horse became entangled in one of the carriage wheels, it panicked, unseating its rider. Alix managed to free the horse’s hoof and calm the terrified animal. The respected journalist William Howard Russell, reporting on the day, was moved to hyperbole, writing, ‘No generation of the British-born race had ever witnessed or ever taken part in such rejoicing.’ After their successful procession through London, the party went by train to Slough, where they were greeted by Bertie’s brothers and brothers-in-law and local dignitaries. Alix was welcomed into a waiting room ‘specially prepared for her with great taste by the Great Western Railway Company, and adorned with the choicest flowers from Turner’s Royal Nursery’. Six royal carriages and an escort of Life Guards was waiting and they began their procession to Windsor, cheered by enthusiastic crowds, including a party of fifty orphans from the British Orphan Asylum. The children had embroidered a banner for the princess – with words of welcome in Danish. The roads of Windsor and Eton were festooned with flowers, lanterns and banners, and houses and gardens that lined the royal route were lavishly decorated. Eton College spent a reported £400 on a triumphal arch decorated with ‘medallions of the Prince and Princess of Wales’. The Morning Post commented that when the procession of carriages arrived at the castle, ‘the Queen herself appeared at the window, and manifested the greatest interest on their arrival’. Inside, Louise and her sisters waited eagerly.

  For everyone except Queen Victoria, the wedding day was glorious. The queen at least had the satisfaction of knowing that all was being done according to her plan – ‘scandalous’ relations of Alix, no matter how close the relationship, had not been invited. At the queen’s insistence, the wedding took place in Windsor, not St James’s Palace (the first time a Prince of Wales had been married at Windsor since the fourteenth century). Denmark had been offered no political benefits from the match (meaning the queen did not have to deal with Prussian anger) and even the Archbishop of Canterbury had been cowed: when the intended date of the wedding was announced, the archbishop had pointed out that it was during Lent, when weddings were not performed. The queen overruled him and the date was set.

  On Tuesday 10 March, from the early morning onwards, London’s Paddington station was thronged with immaculately dressed men and women waiting to board the special trains to Windsor. For Louise, it was a magical day that did much to dispel the gloom of the previous months. This marriage represented not only the arrival of a new and friendly sister-in-law, but also the much-craved opportunity not to wear black. The queen’s insistence on her entire household continuing to wear mourning was lifted, albeit temporarily, for Bertie’s wedding. Louise and her sisters were finally given the opportunity to dress in pretty, celebratory clothes. Their bridesmaid dresses were brilliant white, trimmed with pale purple, and Louise was allowed to wear her pearls, a necklace bequeathed by the grandmother after whom she was named, Louise of Coburg. At the end of the day, the happy couple were photographed with a mournful Queen Victoria and a bust of Prince Albert. The queen noted that Louise was the only one of her daughters not to cry and saw this as a sign of Louise’s sullen, difficult personality – but there was no reason for Louise to cry. Her brother was happy, finally he had a wife to take care of him, and she adored Alix. For her, the wedding was a very happy occasion.

  The month after Bertie and Alix’s wedding, Louise became an aunt again when Alice gave birth to a daughter, Princess Victoria of Hesse. She was born at Windsor and the young princesses rushed to visit their niece. It was a year in which the royal family could begin to be happy, yet the queen wrote to Vicky that Beatrice was ‘the only thing I feel that keeps me alive’. A few weeks after Bertie’s wedding, the queen was in Coburg, visiting Albert’s birthplace. In a letter to Louise, she wrote ‘it is all the same – lonely and pleasureless – and dreadful without my own darling Angel! Nothing interests or attracts me any more.’ In 1863 Lady Sarah Lyttelton, one of the queen’s former ladies of the bedchamber, was invited to visit for the first time since Albert’s death. She recalled that when she saw Helena and Louise, both dressed in the pale grey of mourning, she was struck by the fact that their ‘poor plain faces’ were almost the same colour as their dresses. The girls looked absolutely miserable and yet the queen seemed oblivious to their unhappiness. She talked to Lady Lyttelton about her own misery and all the physical ailments she claimed to be suffering from, which Lady Lyttelton felt was ‘quite a delusion, poor thing’.

  The effect that Queen Victoria’s depression had on all her children is seldom mentioned or explored, yet it was profound and had long-term consequences for all of them. In 1867, when Victoria was disconcerted to realise her feelings of grief were beginning to subside, she wrote to Vicky about the years following Albert’s death in which she ‘longed’ to die every day and every night. She noted in her journal her envy of a husband she had heard of, who had died a few weeks after the death of his wife. Even before their father’s death, the queen’s children
had been nervous of offending her; now they lived in constant fear of displeasing her, terrified of saying the wrong thing or making their mother cry.

  Louise at least had an occupation that could, temporarily, take her mind away from her mother’s frightening behaviour. During the summer of 1863, Louise was at Osborne without her mother, as the queen was travelling overseas. It was a creative time, when the aspiring artist was able to spend more time than normal in her cramped little studio. Louise was interested in many forms of artistic expression and, for Bertie’s twenty-second birthday, she made him a carpet, which she had woven herself. Her interest in sculpture had not dimmed as her parents had assumed it would and she took every opportunity to watch sculptors at work. Queen Victoria was not pleased that her daughter wanted to follow a pursuit she considered unfeminine, but as it became apparent that sculpting was where Louise’s talent lay, she relented. In the mid-1860s, Susan Durant became Louise’s first sculpting tutor. When she became ill, one of the queen’s favourite artists, Mary Thornycroft, was engaged in her place. In addition to being a great sculptor herself, Mary Thornycroft (née Francis) was the daughter, the wife and the mother of successful sculptors. She had been trained by her father, John Francis, and had exhibited for the first time at the Royal Academy at the age of 24, with Bust of a Gentleman. Most of her later works would be modelled on children, such as those she made of the royal babies. She had made her debut in the royal household in 1843 after her father had shown the queen and prince consort examples of her work; it was then that she started to receive her first royal commissions. In 1840, at what was then considered the very late age of twenty-nine, Mary had married the sculptor Thomas Thornycroft. Her husband recognised the importance of her work and, for many years, put his career on hold in order to work as Mary’s assistant.4 Thanks to the patronage of the royal couple, Mary had been chosen to exhibit at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and at the International Exhibition of 1862. In her work and in the way in which she lived her life, Mary Thornycroft was an inspirational role model for the young Princess Louise.

  Mary helped Louise learn all aspects of sculpting, showing her how to sketch out designs on the block of marble – something Louise often felt nervous about doing – and giving her the confidence to make the first chip. Throughout her career, Louise often required help from her tutors and friends. Her work shows that she was a very talented sculptress, but she frequently lost interest in her creations before they were finalised; what she seems to have enjoyed was the early, physical work, the thrill of creating, not the technical ‘finishing off’. Many critics unkindly claimed that none of her work was ever truly Louise’s own, that everything was finished by her tutors, which was not the case. Even early in Louise’s artistic career, Henry Ponsonby, not always Louise’s greatest fan, wrote to his wife that he was very impressed with the princess’s drawings and that he knew no one else had given her any ‘help’ with them.5 At the end of 1863, Alix wrote warmly to her sister-in-law, ‘The little statuette is really admirably modelled, and I strongly advise you to continue taking lessons with Mrs Thornycroft as you certainly have great talent in modelling, and may perhaps become some day an eminent sculptress.’ She was particularly impressed when the sixteen-year-old Louise presented her with a sculpture of Princess Beatrice as a birthday present (noting in her journal: ‘Louise’s bust of Baby is charming and so like’).

  In 1863, in addition to enjoying the friendship of her new sister-in-law, Louise was cheered by a new face in the royal household. Lady Caroline Lyttelton had just been appointed maid of honour to the queen and she was only seven years older than Louise. Lady Caroline’s grandmother, Lady Sarah Lyttelton, had been the royal governess for the first two years of Louise’s life. Sadly for Louise, Lady Caroline was destined to spend just six months with the family, as she became engaged to Lord Frederick Cavendish (a son of the Duke of Devonshire). During her few months at court, Caroline and Louise became friendly – Caroline records in an unhappy entry in her diary that Louise was punished by her mother for taking Caroline riding without having requested permission from the queen. Louise was a very confident and competent horsewoman and loved the freedom of riding. During one of their rides, she asked Caroline about her life before she came to court. Caroline and another member of the household (Miss Bowater) talked with glee about the fun of country house parties, whereupon Louise said wistfully, ‘Ah, that is one thing we are deprived of.’ Caroline was quite relieved to leave her life at court and admitted in her journal that she considered Louise’s life ‘rather monotonous’.

  It was largely because of this monotony that Louise’s adolescence was so troubled. When the queen was absent, she ordered her staff to inform her about all aspects of her children’s behaviour, so the royal children grew up aware that they were being spied upon, knowing that Victoria was their servants’ and friends’ queen, and required from them absolute fidelity. Louise was excitable and enthusiastic: she would be praised for this often in adulthood but in adolescence it was seen as a serious defect – as a sign of mental illness. If the queen considered Louise too similar to Bertie it would explain why she believed her daughter needed constant correction and punishment. Louise was trapped in an atmosphere she found stultifying and depressing. She was fiercely loyal to those who showed even the slightest interest in her and this led to another of the queen’s punishments. It was discovered that Helena and Louise had been reading novels, something of which the queen disapproved, but which they had been permitted to do by the French governess, Madame Hocédé, or ‘Lina’. When she was questioned, Louise, fearful of getting Lina into trouble, claimed she had found the novel by chance. Lina was dismissed and Louise was punished both for reading a novel and for telling a lie – even though it was told to protect someone else. The queen insisted that Lina and the novels had caused Louise to become ‘deceitful’ and to have ‘dis-obeyed orders’. She wrote to Vicky that Lina had done Louise ‘a terrible deal of harm’.

  Just as she had done with Bertie, the queen attempted to ensure that all members of her household understood the ‘truth’ about Louise’s personality, telling them what they should think about the princess before they could judge for themselves. When Lady Caroline arrived in Windsor, her initial impression of Louise was that she was ‘very pretty’ and eager to be friendly. Yet Caroline was immediately informed by another maid of honour, the Hon. Horatia Stopford, to be on her guard: ‘H.R.H. seems to be rather naughty, with a mischievous will of her own.’ Despite Horatia’s reservations, Louise, as a child starved of friends, had grown very fond of her. The following day, Caroline recorded that ‘Prss. Louise sent for Horatia, and cried and sobbed at the thought of losing her on Monday, after their long bit at Osborne together.’ Louise was desperate for close friends she could confide in. Her mother was equally insistent that Louise should have merely companions, not friends or confidantes; the queen’s constant need to warn people how ‘difficult’ Louise was was an attempt to ensure they would keep their distance. This controlling tactic stemmed from the queen’s jealousy when any of her children showed a desire to spend time with, or confide in, anyone except their mother.

  Queen Victoria’s attempt to prevent Louise from forming close friendships failed with one companion (who had been hand-picked by the queen herself). Sybil Grey, the daughter of General Grey,6 formed a strong bond of friendship with the lonely princess. Sybil was Louise’s secret ally against her mother and the two girls had confidential chats about the problems in the royal family. At the end of 1863, the Danish king died and Alix’s father was crowned King Christian IX. Unfortunately his right to rule over the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein was immediately challenged by the King of Prussia (Vicky’s father-in-law). Because of Louise’s love for Alix, and Sybil’s love for Louise, the two girls became fervent supporters of Denmark in the ensuing battle – although Louise had to keep this under wraps at home, as the queen made her partiality for the Prussian cause well known. This caused a great upset in the family.
Alix was devastated by her motherin-law’s behaviour. Sybil’s diaries contain girlish confidences from Louise, such as which of her siblings had fallen in love and with whom. The two girls had tea together as often as they could, and when they were apart they sent each other notes and letters. As they grew older and Sybil was allowed greater freedom than the princess, they were saddened by how much time they had to spend apart. While Sybil was free to attend coming-out parties and balls, Louise was often forbidden to do so, so she lived vicariously through Sybil’s descriptions.

  Within a few weeks of joining the royal household, Lady Caroline had made up her own mind about Louise. ‘She has an exceedingly pretty manner … compounded of dignity and kindliness,’ she wrote in January 1864 and, as so many other people would observe, the princess made dull evenings fun, full of ‘laughing and talking gaily’. This aspect of Louise’s personality incensed her mother, who was determined that life without Albert should not be fun, or frivolous. Even Henry Ponsonby, who was very loyal to his monarch, began to realise that what he had been told by the queen about her daughter was not necessarily the truth. His son, Arthur, in a book about his father based on Henry’s letters and journals, wrote that Louise ‘found no more favour with her mother than any of the others and her rather Bohemian habits were watched and disapproved of. On her making some suggestion with regard to the heating of the new room at Osborne the Queen wrote: “Yes. But she must not interfere too much. She is not practical.” … [Henry] Ponsonby … repeatedly refers to the liveliness of Princess Louise’s conversation at the Queen’s dinner [parties] and the relief this gave to the too frequent dullness amounting sometimes to gloom.’