Queen Victoria's Mysterious Daughter

by Lucinda Hawksley

  Nina Epton records in Victoria and her Daughters that the queen wrote after the ceremony that she ‘felt very proud’ of Louise. In her speech, the queen commented: ‘It gives me great pleasure to … witness the unveiling of this fine statue, so admirably designed and executed by my daughter.’ It was one of the few moments in Louise’s long life when she received glowing praise from her mother.

  CHAPTER 21

  Celebrating the Golden Jubilee

  Had a large family dinner. All the Royalties assembled in the Bow Room, and we dined in the Supper-room, which looked splendid with the buffet covered with the gold plate. The table was a large horseshoe one, with many lights on it … The Princes were all in uniform, and the Princesses were all beautifully dressed. Afterwards we went into the Ballroom, where my band played.

  Queen Victoria’s diary, 20 June 1887

  Despite the years of disgruntled comments about the queen’s refusal to ‘connect’ with her people, her golden jubilee was unforgettable. The queen had been something of a recluse for the best part of three decades, so her numerous public appearances in 1887 created a renewed fervour of enthusiasm for the monarchy. The newspapers had been busy with the preparations for months; one of the stories they followed with great excitement was the lengthy journey being made by the Queen of Hawaii, en route to London to join the celebrations. The Hawaiian queen would later publish her impressions of the jubilee in her autobiography. She mentions Louise by name only once, in an interesting passage about Lorne. They were all in attendance at a ball:

  Queen Kapiolani and I were conducted to seats on the dais, where the Princess of Wales, Princess Louise of Lorne, and other members of Her Majesty’s household, were seated. It was an excellent point from which to see the dancing, which soon began. While watching the dance, I happened to glance down to the farther end of the hall, and saw the Marquis of Lorne bend his arm cordially about that of my husband, Governor Dominis, and pace to and fro with him about the hall, the two gentlemen seemingly much interested in each other as they engaged in prolonged and pleasant conversation.

  Louise was kept busy all year, so it was fortunate that public appearances were something she excelled at. The jubilee forced Louise and Lorne to spend much more time with one another than usual. By the end of the year Louise would be suffering from ‘exhaustion’, causing concern for her health, both in the family and in the newspapers, although the reports seem to suggest that she was emotionally depressed rather than physically ill.

  One of their first jubilee appearances was at the American Exhibition in Kensington Gardens, which Louise and Lorne attended on 5 May 1887 with Bertie, Alix and their children. The exhibition caused great excitement in London, although it was not so favourably received by visiting Americans. One reviewer went back to New York, where he wrote disparagingly: ‘I am greatly disappointed with it. As a circus or Buffalo Bill show it may pass muster, but as an exhibition representing the abilities and products of the United States it is simply beneath criticism.’ Much of his distaste, however, seems to have been the result of his own racism and therefore his disgust with the ‘dirty Indians … drawing big crowds’. British newspapers were much more favourable and the Freeman’s Journal wrote with gory glee of the royal party’s visit: ‘The princesses displayed much interest in the papooses, to the great delight of the squaws. Amongst the relics of Indian warfare exhibited to the Royal party were a number of scalps with hair attached.’

  Louise and Lorne were amongst the massed members of the royal family who met Queen Victoria in the East End on Saturday 14 May 1887. The first jubilee event of ‘great importance’ was the opening of the Queen’s Hall at the People’s Palace, which had been created for the ‘recreation, amusement and education of the people of the East End’. It included a swimming pool, a school, lecture rooms, gardens and a gym.1 The route of the queen’s carriage ride, from Paddington in central London to Mile End in the east of the city, was thronged with people giving ‘thunderous’ cheers. The papers were pleased with the ‘tact’ shown by the queen in choosing to visit the East End on a Saturday, rather than a weekday when people had to be at work. A fashion journalist who signed herself ‘A Lady’ was not impressed with the queen’s sense of style, nor with the fact that the accompanying royal party had not considered how well their outfits would go together:

  The Sovereign did not look quite at her best … Her dress was not well draped, and, being of several materials suggested what had perhaps be better left unsaid. The Queen’s mantle was singularly unbecoming to her figure, which it in no way defined. And, unfortunately, the toilets worn by the attendant Princesses were opposed to each other in colour … Next to the Princess of Wales, Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne, is the best looking, and has the best taste in dress of any of the Queen’s daughters or daughters-in-law. At the opening of the Manchester Jubilee Exhibition, Princess Louise wore a … dress of a light shade of terra cotta … accompanied by a dark terra cotta plush jacket, with coffee-coloured lace trimmings; bonnet to correspond, with dark green foliage by way of decoration.

  Two days after the opening of the People’s Palace, Louise and Lorne arrived back in Liverpool, which welcomed the princess as a returning daughter. Louise was there to open the Royal Jubilee Exhibition on behalf of the queen. She requested an extra stop on her itinerary: she wanted to visit the School of Cookery, one of her pet projects promoting the education of girls. (The school also used its teaching rooms to run evening classes for working men and boys.) On the same day, Louise declared open the new buildings of the Deaf and Dumb Institute. Her schedule was exhausting. At the end of May, the organisers of the jubilee fête at Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire were disappointed when Louise didn’t show up – unaware that she was opening a new Working Men’s Club that day. While she worked through her numerous public engagements with a fixed smile, Louise was longing to get into her studio to work and unwind and to have the time to spend alone with Boehm.

  On 14 June, the Jubilee Yacht Race began from Southend Pier, with Bertie’s yacht, the Aline, one of the entrants. The jubilee began in earnest on 21 June and crowds thronged the streets to get a glimpse of the royal family; the Prince of Wales, once so despised, was greeted by loud cheers as he rode in the procession, in which all the queen’s children took part. It was especially exhausting for Beatrice, who was heavily pregnant. Every member of the family covered themselves in glory – except for Lorne who, according to The Times, humiliated himself (and his wife) by falling off his horse in full view of the crowds. The queen travelled to Westminster Abbey in a gold-coloured landau carriage; ‘drawn by six of my Creams’, as she noted in her journal. Vicky and Alix travelled with her, but the others rode in separate carriages. The queen gave her daughters, granddaughters and the wives of her sons and grandsons a special jubilee brooch. When the jubilee procession arrived at Westminster Abbey 9,000 guests had been squeezed into the normally cavernous interior.

  The months of June, July and August were spent in constant jubilee activities and Louise and Lorne attended most of them together. On 17 August, Louise travelled to Winchester where she unveiled a bronze statue of her mother by one of her friends, Alfred Gilbert (another of Boehm’s pupils).2 The statue is not a flattering portrait, but it is probably one of the most realistic of all the jubilee statues, showing the queen as she would have looked at the time: an elderly lady with a haughty expression on her face. The queen’s throne is surmounted by an ornate canopy composed of a crown held aloft by two female figures. Gilbert had used photographs of the subject to create his realistic likeness, but he also relied on his knowledge of his own mother, saying, ‘I realised my deduction of the Queen from my mother, and thus got a more spiritual representation than if I had merely reproduced the Queen’s features and form.’ The statue not only represents Gilbert’s tutelage under Boehm, it also echoes his Parisian training at the Ecole des Beaux Arts. The statue, especially its canopy, was one of the earliest examples in Britain of what would become known as art
nouveau. When Louise unveiled the statue, it was not finished and Gilbert spent another twenty-five years putting the finishing touches to it.

  In addition to the official jubilee celebrations, a large number of charity ideas were put into practice throughout the year, including meals being provided for the poor, foundrasing fêtes and parties, the opening of libraries, swimming baths and other public facilities, and prize-giving ceremonies including one at the Princess Louise Home for the Protection of Young Girls in Wanstead (which was presided over by Lorne, on behalf of the absent Louise). The charity had been set up in 1835 and renamed to honour Princess Louise’s patronage. Its object was:

  To save young girls (not thieves) between the ages of eleven and fifteen, whether orphans or otherwise, who are, from any circumstance, in danger of becoming abandoned; to educate, train, feed, clothe, and prepare them for future usefulness as domestic servants; to protect them during the most critical period of life; to land them safe into womanhood; to procure situations for them; to provide them with an outfit, and generally to watch over them; to advise, counsel, and reward them, and in every possible way to become their guardians.

  The jubilee also encouraged other forms of enterprise; one Manchester philanthropist was so deeply concerned about the dangerous conditions of mining that he offered £600 to anyone able to invent a ‘perfect portable electric miners’ lamp’ by the end of the jubilee year.

  Although the jubilee was considered an overwhelming success in Britain, it still had its detractors, not least those who hated the fact that so much money was being spent on pomp, ceremony and numerous statues of the ageing, usually glowering queen. Overseas newspapers were particularly critical in their reporting of the celebrations. One newspaper in Sydney reported,

  It is satisfactory to note by the English papers that the grand old lickspittle movement of grovel and Jubilee has bored down to an abysmal depth of flunkeyism and social abasement absolutely impossible to our colonial Jingoes even in their wildest dreams of sickening silver and abject toadyism. An English print records that the Prince of Wales attended some football matches last year, the proceeds from which were devoted to charitable institutions. This year, it is reported, he was asked to do the same thing, and consented on condition that the proceeds should be given to swell the funds of the Jubilee Imperial Institute craze!

  As soon as the summer of celebration came to an end, Louise left England again for Aix-les-Bains. She was depressed, ill and anxious to be out of the limelight. She also spent a week in Evian, where the papers reported she would ‘continue a course of baths for the benefit of her health’. After Aix she travelled to Copenhagen to visit Alix’s family, then on to Italy, where she enjoyed a holiday in Venice with Fritz, Vicky and their children. Fritz had been suffering for months with a sore throat and in the autumn of 1887 he was diagnosed with throat cancer.

  While Louise was away, Beatrice gave birth to a daughter, Ena3 (who would grow up to become Queen of Spain). Louise returned to England in time for Christmas 1887, but all was not well. The queen’s letters to Vicky from this time are full of concerns about Louise, with her mother fearing that she was emotionally as well as physically unwell; and she reiterated her earlier comments about how unsuited Louise and Lorne were, something she had been writing to Vicky about for several years now. Louise was also being used as a go-between in problems Arthur was having with the queen and Beatrice. Arthur wrote from India (where he and Marie were living) complaining to Louise, ‘Of course I know as well as you do that neither Mama nor Beatrice understand children and I fear ours have rather high spirits.’ The queen was insisting that the children should come to live with her and Beatrice, and both Arthur and Marie were adamant they should not. In 1886, Prince Arthur sent a letter to Louise in which he wrote: ‘Now that Beatrice has got a baby we feel more than ever that our children would be much better away as they must be “de trop”.’

  While Louise and Lorne’s marriage was becoming an obvious travesty, Bertie and Alix celebrated their silver wedding anniversary, on 10 March 1888. Louise (and sometimes Lorne) spent much of 1888 travelling, going back to Malta and Italy and to Algiers, a destination much recommended by doctors in the nineteenth century. As usual, the royal couple attempted to travel in secrecy, but were easily recognised by savvy hoteliers and staff, who often tipped off the papers. When they were staying in Naples, the New York Times praised them for being content to travel ‘in simple, unostentatious fashion’. Louise made just a few public appearances in the summer and autumn, once to watch a contingent of visiting Canadian marksmen taking part in a competition in Wimbledon. In November she and Lorne travelled to Newcastle where she opened a new wing of the College of Science and presented prizes at Gateshead Girls’ School. They also went to stay with the pioneering inventor and engineer Lord William Armstrong at his home, Cragside, the first house in the world to be lit by hydroelectricity.

  The world was changing rapidly. As Louise recovered from her depression she was caught up in the excitement of the new styles of art that she and Boehm witnessed as they visited galleries and talked to artists newly arrived in London from other artistic centres, such as Paris and Vienna. An intriguing and unidentified note survives from the summer of 1889: signed simply ‘Ted’, it is a letter that shows how much a part of easy-going artistic London Louise was: ‘My dearest Angel, I beg most respectfully to transmit these beautiful cards for your gracious acceptance. Ever thine most humbly, Ted.’ The note may have been from a man or a woman, from a lover or a friend. These brief lines demonstrate perfectly how Louise was perceived outside royal circles and how at home she felt in bohemian London; one cannot imagine any of Louise’s sisters (perhaps with the exception of Alice) having been happy to receive such an informal note.

  Late Victorian Britain was an inspiring time to be an artist, but for many other people it felt a very frightening place. Crime seemed to have escalated and the world to have become more dangerous. Advances in technology allowed newspapers to report stories from all over the world, so readers who had previously known only what was happening locally were bombarded with faraway tragedies. In the same week, newspaper readers in Britain knew not only that Dumfries in Scotland had been hit by what the papers described as a ‘minor’ earthquake (in modern measurements, 3.4 on the Richter Scale), but that the Russian imperial family had been involved in a devastating train crash. (Although twenty-one people were killed, the family escaped without major injuries.) It was a time of great advancements and of sharp contrasts. In London in the summer of 1888, around 1,400 female workers – women and young girls – at the Bryant & May match factory went on strike, protesting over their appalling, health-endangering working conditions. In the same year, Clementina Black, the Secretary of the Women’s Trade Union League, secured the very first resolution in Britain on equal pay for men and women at the Trades Union Congress. In central London, police were trying to solve the Whitehall mystery – the murder of a woman whose dismembered body was found in several locations; while in the East End, Jack the Ripper was stalking women on the poverty-stricken streets of Whitechapel.

  Louise was always affected by the news and the weather. She began the new year craving sunshine, longing to escape the miserably grey British winters as much she had been to escape from the harshly cold Canadian winters. The royal Christmas of 1888 had been tense and the family theatricals, performed in the new year, were notable for Louise and Beatrice’s furious bickering. Despite being adults, Queen Victoria’s daughters remained incapable of living harmoniously. The diaries of members of the royal household, including Henry Ponsonby and Dr James Reid, record many instances of the sisters falling out with each other: the queen had brought them up to vie with each other for her attention and the learnt behaviour of resentful competitiveness blighted their relationships into old age.

  For Louise, the first two months of 1889 were spent in a round of official appearances and social engagements, including spending time with Vicky, who was in England, and cel
ebrating the engagement of Louise’s niece and namesake. Like her aunt, Princess Louise of Wales had become engaged to a Scottish nobleman, and once again the family was divided, with some members angered by this seemingly ‘low’ engagement. Princess Louise wrote enviously of her niece to her friend Connie Battersea, ‘Fancy marrying a man you love and living in that beautiful property!’ The thought of having the luxury of marrying for love was intoxicating.

  In March, Louise and Lorne travelled to Arcachon in south-west France, where she celebrated her fortieth birthday. The queen, Beatrice and Liko were staying in Biarritz, and on her birthday they sent a special messenger to deliver letters directly to her. The holiday did not lift Louise’s spirits and she returned to England grumpy and snappish. Perhaps one reason was that, despite Beatrice’s reported dislike of ‘kissing’, her marriage seemed to be the kind of sexual relationship that Louise felt should have been her right. In May 1889, Louise felt surrounded by children: she travelled to Leicester to open a new children’s hospital and Beatrice gave birth to her third child, a son. He was named Leopold – and ironically he would be diagnosed with haemophilia. Like his uncle, he was fated to die young.

  Louise was unhappy, and as a result her behaviour was so unpleasant that Vicky’s daughter, Moretta, was prompted to write to her mother from Windsor Castle: ‘Auntie Lou is not right at all – she complains at every sort of thing, but is charming as usual to look at.’ The following month, the family learnt that Vicky’s husband Fritz had died. When Vicky most had need of her children, Wilhelm was being entirely unsupportive. Queen Victoria wrote in her journal of how unpleasant her grandson was being to Vicky and that his first speech as Emperor indicated a hatred of England. For once Louise was unable to keep an official engagement. She was too ill to travel to Bath, where she was to open the new baths. Her cancellation was notable because it was so unusual; it seems that Louise was suffering a severe depression. Boehm was working exhaustively, mostly on an enormous equestrian statue of Prince Albert, and caring for his wife Frances, who was dying from a debilitating and painful illness. He could spare little time to spend with Princess Louise. By the end of the year, she did not even have her new chosen friend to confide in, because Liko had left the country for three months, leaving Beatrice and the children behind, to go on a sailing trip.