Queen Victoria's Mysterious Daughter

by Lucinda Hawksley

  It was always assumed that Louise and her husband would soon leave Grosvenor Crescent and move into royal quarters, and in 1873 this became possible. Following the death of the Dowager Duchess of Sussex, the queen granted her daughter and son-in-law the dowager Duchess’s apartments in Kensington Palace.2 Immediately, Louise set about making them habitable. It was a long, laborious job in which she enjoyed playing an active role. The National Archives contain the many detailed accounts of the plans for Louise and Lorne’s new home – and of the large amount of bureaucracy that had to be overcome for every change. Very little care had been taken over the apartments for many years; in particular, Louise insisted they had to have proper bathrooms before she and Lorne could move in. In Kensington Palace, the drains were poor, partition walls had been erected on a whim and the lighting was archaic, but that was all part of the project’s charm.

  The original palace had been built in the reign of King William and Queen Mary, when Kensington was a small village outside London blessed with ‘healthy air’, so vital for the severely asthmatic king. The palace had grown up on the site of a former grand home, Nottingham House, and over the centuries had been added to and extended, with King George I hiring the best architects and designers of his day and making it one of the most important buildings in London. Since his reign, however, the palace had enjoyed only the most necessary of structural work and modernisation and Louise and her architects had an enormous task to make it suitably comfortable.

  Until she was given her own home, Louise had been forced to live with her mother’s choice of decor – and as one of her mother’s companions, Lady Knightley, noted in her letters, Queen Victoria’s idea of style was not something many others wished to emulate. In 1896, the queen’s friend and former attendant would record her impressions of the queen’s lack of artistic style following a recent visit to Osborne House:

  Made a long expedition to the Isle of Wight to see Osborne … I was immensely struck with the Indian room which had been built, at enormous cost, since I was there and is certainly beautiful in its elaborate simplicity. But for the rest of the house – well I never did admire Her Majesty’s taste and never shall. There are of course a good many beautiful and interesting things scattered through the house but mixed with the most appalling rubbish.

  Every year at Christmas, the difference between Queen Victoria’s and Princess Louise’s taste would be made vocally apparent and the royal servants remembered constant squabbling about how things should be decorated. At last, with her own apartments, Louise had the chance to give her artistic mind full rein. She commissioned the newly fashionable architect George Aitchison to remodel the interiors of their new home. Aitchison had become famous in the 1860s for his masterful design of the artist Frederic, Lord Leighton’s home. The house (which is now a museum) was a short walk away from Kensington Palace, in the newly fashionable artists’ enclave of Holland Park. Louise’s new home was in the heart of Aesthetic London. In Kensington Palace, Louise’s interior decoration has not survived, but it is still possible at Leighton’s former home to witness how one of the leading lights of the Aesthetic movement chose to decorate his home. On entering the hall at Leighton House one walks into a visual feast of colour – rich peacock blue tiles, a brilliant gilt-covered ceiling and, at the end of the hall, the vivid blues, greens, pinks and golds of Leighton’s now-famous Arab Hall. Every aspect of Leighton House was considered from the Aesthetic point of view: even the door frames are beautifully carved.

  For Kensington Palace, Louise and Aitchison settled upon: ‘green woodwork and green and red walls in the ante-room; brown woodwork and dull pink walls in the small dining-room; green woodwork and gold walls in the drawing-room; red woodwork and gold walls in the large dining-room’. Louise also looked to contemporary furniture designers, including Richard Norman Shaw and Edward William Godwin (the former lover of the actress Ellen Terry and the father of Ellen’s two children). He was the most innovative architect and designer of the Aesthetic movement, and Louise had been introduced to him by her sister-in-law, Janey Campbell. In 1877 Godwin produced an expensive catalogue of his furniture designs; he dedicated the catalogue to Princess Louise.

  At Kensington Palace Louise built her first proper studio. It was built in the palace gardens, at a secluded distance from prying eyes, and designed by Edward Godwin, who consulted both Louise and Boehm while drawing up the plans. The original plans are now in the National Archives, drawn up by Godwin’s hand. The studio was designed in red brick with a green slate roof. Godwin gave the following description of it to his students:

  I built a studio 17ft high and put over it a kind of Mansard roof, with windows looking onto the garden. It is about 25 ft square and has an ante-room attached for the Marquis of Lorne, a little hall and three entrances … All the light is reflected so as to reduce the horizontal ceiling as much as possible. This studio seems perfectly satisfactory to the Princess, to Mr. Boehm, the sculptor (for it is a sculptor’s studio), and also to myself.3

  The studio was built close to the old wall of the palace garden and its roof was fitted with an enormous north window – north light being a vital source of natural light for an artist, as it does not change throughout the day, no matter what position the sun is in.4 Once her studio was completed, Louise had her own place in which she could work as she pleased on her sculpture and where she could meet Boehm without fear of gossip.

  It was not only her introduction to the artistic elite that made Louise happy: she revelled in the chance to run her own home. In the early years of their marriage, the Lornes also had their country house, Dornden. Vicky, in a homesick moment writing to her sister from Prussia, recalled, ‘You cannot think with what pleasure I remember the lovely balmy sunny evening when I saw your sweet little country house in its nest of ivy, how picturesque, how inviting it seemed!’ The queen was less impressed than Vicky, reports had reached the queen that local newspapers were commenting on the influx of people visiting the area, in the hope of seeing Louise, and she was concerned that her daughter would be unable to move around without being ‘molested’. One of Louise and Lorne’s frequent, and welcome, visitors to Dornden was Ronnie Gower.

  Gower was actually Lorne’s uncle, but as they had been born just two days apart they were more like brothers than uncle and nephew. Gower was a charming and amusing man, who won over Queen Victoria far more easily than most. The queen wrote in her diary, shortly after Louise’s engagement, that Lord Ronald was ‘very pleasing & amiable’. Gower noted Louise’s strong attachment to her home (which Lorne nonetheless sold within a couple of years, despite Louise’s pleas to him not to) and wrote,

  it is pleasant to see the busy German housewife strongly developed in her here; she bustles about all day, looking after and superintending all the domestic arrangements, carving at meals, and making herself generally useful. After dinner we stroll out in the grounds of the pretty little domain, and visit the stables and the kitchen-garden; and generally finish the evening by a game of billiards or pool, on a capital table, given them, when they were married, by the Prince of Wales.

  Louise always loved the domestic duties she had been taught in childhood and amazed Lorne’s sisters and nieces by teaching them basic household tasks, including how to sew on buttons.

  There could also have been another reason why Louise so loved Dornden. Until recently, the house next door to Dornden had been owned by Sir Charles Locock and Frederick, Mary and Henry had been regular visitors. At the end of August 1874, Mary Locock died after a long illness; at the end of her life the family were staying at a hotel in Seveonaks, and she died there. Louise would have known that Henry Locock would be left motherless very soon. With the family staying close to Dornden, the princess could spend time with her son without anyone becoming suspicious. It would be quite acceptable for her to want to help take care of the grieving son of a family friend.

  Louise’s obvious contentment in her new life prompted the queen to exclaim that the only one
of her daughters she could rely on was Beatrice, as ‘no married daughter is of any use’. Louise did, however, continue with her public appearances and assisted her mother when needed. In 1873, she was present when the Shah of Persia and the Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire visited England. In his book about his mother, Lady Augusta Stanley, the Dean of Windsor commented: ‘In June of 1873 the Shah of Persia came to England and although he later amused Aldershot by appearing on a horse with tail dyed pink, and … was said to have slaughtered a sheep as a sacrifice on the floor of his room at Buckingham Palace, his arrival was a splendid occasion.’ The dean’s mother’s journal recorded a conversation she had had with the queen about his visit, ‘Does your Majesty know one of the Shah’s titles “Asylum of the Universe”!!’ Louise was fascinated by the visiting dignitaries and their entourage. This was the era when the ‘exotic’ and ‘oriental’ were fashionable artistic subjects and Louise was enthralled by the different materials and styles of clothing that the Persian party wore. After they had left, she painted a portrait of the Shah from memory.

  Later that year Louise travelled incognito, with her maid but without Lorne, to a party in a chalet in Switzerland. Henry Ponsonby wrote tellingly to his wife, ‘I believe [Louise and Lorne] get on as well as possible’ – but they got on much better when they were apart, free to pursue their own interests. The Swiss chalet was owned by Jacques Blumenthal, the pianist and composer, and his wife Léonie. The guests included Gertrude Jekyll, with whom Louise became good friends, and her brother Walter.5 The guests at the Blumenthals’ chalet were pleased to discover a princess without pretensions. As on her honeymoon, Louise travelled as Lady Sundridge, one of her favoured incognito names, and was nicknamed ‘Hoheit’ by her fellow guests. (Gertrude was nicknamed ‘Stiegel’.) The group spent their days sketching, walking and enjoying the gardens, while in the evenings they played games, listened to music and sang to entertain one another. The Blumenthals had invited one of their artist friends to be the art ‘tutor’, the impressively named Hercules Brabazon Brabazon (a friend of John Singer Sargent and soon to become one of the New English Art Club). Writing to his sister about the party, Brabazon told her what a good artist Louise was and commented, ‘we are all a most pleasant party’. In common with several of Louise’s artistic friends, Brabazon was homosexual, something that was no secret to his friends.

  Several of Lorne’s friends were also known to be gay, including Ronnie Gower, who was said to have inspired Oscar Wilde’s character Lord Henry Wotton in The Picture of Dorian Gray (1891). Lorne was an important part of Ronnie’s circle of friends, which included the artist Frank Miles (who once shared a house with Oscar Wilde), Wilde himself, Frank Shackleton6 and other members of the homosexual ‘underworld’. It has been claimed – usually by historians who insist that Lorne was heterosexual – that neither Louise nor Lorne knew Ronnie was gay until much later in their friendship, and that they were deeply shocked when they discovered it. This is an unconvincing assertion. Ronnie was a regular visitor to their home, they travelled overseas together, and Lorne and Ronnie had been holiday companions for years; Lorne also went on holiday with Ronnie and his lovers. Amongst his friends, Ronnie made no secret of his sexuality. That a couple firmly ensconced in the world of Aestheticism, the Souls and the artistic elite of London and Paris could possibly have been shocked by the realisation that someone they knew very well was gay, seems highly unlikely.

  Although in the twenty-first century we look back with hindsight at how homophobic Victoria’s Britain was, as the queen presided over laws to make life as unpleasant as possible for homosexual men (while refusing to believe that homosexual women existed), those people living at the time, in the artistic worlds of music, the theatre, literature and fine art, would have known that certain members of their circle were homosexual. It was expected not to be talked about to strangers, and behaviour was expected to be discreet, but no one in that circle would genuinely have been ‘shocked’ at the discovery that Lord Ronald Gower, a ‘confirmed bachelor’, was interested in men rather than women.

  While Louise and Lorne were fitting into each other’s lives – working out the best way to live as individuals, often separately, within their marriage – Louise’s siblings were getting married, having children or, in the case of Beatrice, being thoroughly cosseted to the point of stiflement and not permitted even to think of marrying and leaving her mother. In 1874, Prince Alfred married Grand Duchess Marie of Russia, the daughter of the Tsar. Very few family members were able to attend the wedding, which took place in Russia, and Louise did not meet her new sister-in-law until the couple had been married for some weeks. The two women did not get on well. Marie did not endear herself to many people in the family by insisting that as the daughter of an imperial tsar she ranked higher than anyone else in the family. The queen, however, was won over by her new daughter-in-law and wrote, when the couple had left, that ‘everyone’ must like Marie but ‘not one likes’ Affie. As usual, she was the harshest critic of all when it came to her own children. The marriage was to prove miserably unhappy and Affie would sink into a world of alcoholism and depression.

  Affie was getting married, Beatrice was to be confirmed and Helena, who had four children, was preparing for motherhood again, although she would be tragically thwarted twice, giving birth to a son who died after a few weeks, in 1876, and having a stillborn son in 1877. Meanwhile Bertie was getting into debt – and having his scandals gossiped about all over London (The Times published an article about his debt-ridden lifestyle). He was also made a Grand Master in the Freemasons. His mother was not amused by Bertie at this date, writing to Louise that he was ‘not in a satisfactory state – so stout and puffy’.

  Almost all the royal children seemed to be creating lives for themselves, except for Beatrice – who was still young enough for her mother’s possessive behaviour to be considered acceptable – and Leopold, who was hampered in his bid for independence by debilitating ill health. The extent of the pain Leopold’s condition caused him was made explicit in letters to Louise. In 1870 he had written to her: ‘I am mad with pain … I am in such agonies at this moment’, and ‘I go on as usual suffering frightfully, at this moment I am in agonies of pain; my knee gets worse daily and I get more desperate daily.’ At times the pain was so bad that he would have to break off from writing; he told Louise that he was ‘tortured’ and worried that the constant pain would cause him to become insane. That Queen Victoria was horribly jealous of the closeness of Louise and Leopold, to the point of cruelty, was demonstrated in the winter of 1874–5.

  As expected, Louise was spending Christmas of 1874 with Lorne’s family, in Scotland. The queen and several of her children were at Windsor, when Leopold became extremely ill. He was desperate to see Louise and regularly called out for her. When she heard he was unwell, Louise was equally anxious to visit him – but she had to request permission from her mother, as queen, to leave Scotland and visit her brother. The queen refused to grant her permission, ordering her daughter to stay with her husband’s family. The distraught princess was trapped in Scotland, a long journey away from her ailing brother, who she knew would be getting more ill from the stress of not seeing her. Major Robert Collins, Prince Leopold’s tutor, recorded his disgust at Queen Victoria’s callousness and lack of maternal feelings. He knew that Louise’s presence was urgently needed and was incensed to witness the deliberate cruelty of his monarch, who seemed to take a malicious pleasure in being able to punish her son and daughter for the disobedience of loving each other more than they loved her. Major Collins even tried, bravely, to reason with the queen, but she was stubbornly resolute. He was a good friend to both the prince and princess, sending secret letters to Louise to keep her up to date with Leopold’s condition.

  Despite the queen’s letters to Louise, insisting Leopold was in no danger, the household knew that the young prince might die at any time; as Major Collins wrote to Walter Stirling, Dr Jenner thought that Leopold was ‘dangerously i
ll’. When Leopold lost a large amount of blood in a haemorrhage from his bowels, the doctors were convinced he was dying. The queen finally relented and allowed Louise to begin the time-consuming journey from Scotland. Beatrice wrote to tell her to come and she recorded Leopold’s ‘look of delight’ on hearing that he would finally be able to see his favourite sister. It defies belief to think that a mother should take such an active part in ensuring the unhappiness of two of her children. Major Collins was convinced that Louise would arrive too late; he confessed in a letter to a friend that his feelings towards Queen Victoria had become ‘a loathing dislike’ which he concealed with great ‘difficulty’.

  Louise reached Windsor in time to see Leopold make a very slow and painful return to health. After Louise’s arrival the queen remained domineering. Louise wanted to be useful in the sickroom by helping to nurse her brother, as she had done so many times before, but their mother refused. The queen also enforced a strict limit on how much time the siblings were allowed to spend together, permitting them around an hour of contact a day; however, when the queen was not present, the doctors allowed Louise to visit for as long as she liked. On those visits, she read Leopold his favourite books and they talked for hours. She wrote to her brother-in-law, Archie Campbell, ‘I am a good deal with my poor brother … he takes interest in all that goes on.’ The whole household noticed how much happier Leopold was when his sister was around, and how much his health improved under her care. The household was in collusion with the siblings, keeping their time together a secret from the queen. Major Collins noted, ‘It was an immense pleasure to him to have his sister sitting with him.’ As soon as Leopold was out of danger, the queen sent Louise back to her husband; as Collins wrote in a letter, ‘Alas! She is gone again. The Queen was I think waxing jealous, at any rate she wouldn’t let her tarry any longer.’ A few months later, the queen sent Vicky a letter in which she warned her that she would discover as her children grew up that they would be a bitter disappointment to her.