Queen Victoria's Mysterious Daughter

by Lucinda Hawksley

  At this time Louise owned a property named Ribsden, near Windlesham.2 As almost all her gardeners had been called up, Louise, to keep the garden as it should be, tired herself out working in it. When her lady-in-waiting told her, on a dark and cold autumn afternoon, that she was doing too much, Louise responded, ‘If the work has to be done it doesn’t matter who does it, so we shall finish it.’ Louise was brutal about other people’s gardens, telling them in no uncertain terms if she disliked or disapproved of their horticultural choices. The postmaster at Rosneath, Mr Eakin, would often tell people of the time the princess visited his home Kilarden. As they took a walk around the garden she criticised a sweet briar he had planted. Mr Eakin was very proud that he managed to convince her that ‘the scent was so beautiful that one could overlook its drawbacks’. One of Louise’s goddaughters recalled that whenever Louise visited, ‘She used to bring a saw in her car and if she didn’t like any of our trees the poor chauffeur was made to cut it down, regardless.’ According to this goddaughter, ‘she was very good to children and always refused invitations unless we, as well as our mother, were included’.

  Louise continued her hospital visiting, often doing so on behalf of the king and carrying messages of his thanks to the wounded troops. She supported financially, and became patron of, a charity that had been set up to finance the production of artificial limbs for wounded soldiers. A number of hospitals throughout the British Isles are indebted to Princess Louise and several were named after her, including the Princess Louise Hospital for Scottish Limbless Sailors and Soldiers.

  In the summer of 1915, while recuperating from another debilitating illness, she made an official tour of south-west England, spending time in Devon and Cornwall, where she admired the architecture of Exeter Cathedral and visited Launceston Castle. She returned to London via Sussex, where she visited military wards and schools. After she had opened up her own home to the wounded, her great-nephew David wrote in response to her birthday letter to him: ‘It was a sad day this year with this ghastly war on, and so many of one’s friends killed … How splendid of you having had all those wounded officers in your house; what a real rest and change it must be after the trenches. I suppose some of them must have been pretty bad.’

  A few years before the outbreak of war a new artist had arrived in London from Hungary, who would produce one of the most striking portraits ever painted of Princess Louise. Following the tragic death of their baby, Philip de László and his wife Lucy had decided to leave Hungary and move to Vienna (where Louise’s lover Boehm, who was half Hungarian, had also lived and trained). In 1907 the de Lászlós had moved again, this time to England, where they settled in London and raised their five sons. This was the age of fashionable portraiture, led in London by artists including John Singer Sargent and Giovanni Boldini. De László’s unique style of portraiture was immediately successful and he was taken up by King Edward VII. He became a friend of Louise’s and would often visit her at Kensington Palace. In 1915, he painted a portrait of Louise dressed in widow’s mourning, but a beautifully draped, aesthetically pleasing version of the black mourning. Resting on her chest are loops of pearls and a large, irregular, thick silver cross, possibly (judging from their description) the same piece of jewellery that had so impressed the visitors to Osborne House when Louise was young, a necklace she had made herself. Her hair is artistically and fashionably arranged and, at the very centre of her forehead, just at the point where her hair is swept up and back, rests one long, pendulous pearl. It draws the viewer’s eye directly down to Louise’s penetratingly blue eyes, that gaze not at the viewer but just off into the distance. She looks piercingly intelligent and indomitable, the image of elegance. This is not a portrait intended to flatter (although it does) or to dissemble – it is a portrait of an independent and single-minded woman who is living through the horrors that everyone else is experiencing and empathising with their plight. It depicts a grand old lady of the British Empire and one who, the viewer may imagine, will still be standing strong when the troops return. De László’s Princess Louise is going to endure.

  Louise still visited Scotland regularly, staying at Rosneath. Inveraray Castle was now the property of the 10th Duke of Argyll and another of Louise and Lorne’s Scottish homes, Dalchenna House,3 was doing its bit for the war effort, having been lent to the Women’s Land Army. On her regular journeys between London and Scotland, Louise not only visited schools and hospitals; now she also inspected munitions factories, about which she reported back to the king. These visits were extremely important to her because she wanted to show female solidarity and express how proud she was of the women working in the factories. A contingent of journalists visited one such factory shortly after Louise. Under the headline ‘Women Better than Men’ a reporter commented on how ‘remarkable’ it was that this hastily trained, formerly unskilled workforce was able to achieve such impressive results. One woman interviewed had been given merely ‘three hours’ instruction’ before starting her job. ‘In several cases the girls were asked what had been the effect of the sudden change from domestic conditions to the factory from the point of view of strain. “A little trying for the first few days,” was the invariable reply, “but we now find the work most interesting, and should be sorry to leave it”.’

  In 1917, Louise travelled to Bristol to open the newly enlarged YWCA hostel on Whiteladies Road, which was vital for the many women who travelled to the city to work in the factories. Helena’s husband, Christian, died just a few days before Louise’s intended visit and the people of Bristol feared she would cancel, but Louise turned up as arranged and spoke of the ‘beautiful comradeship’ found in all-female institutions.

  During the war, Louise became patron of several charities that sound intriguing, including the Duty and Discipline Movement4 and the Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Dental Aid Fund. She also declared open the first Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Hut for Rest and Refreshment, at King’s Cross station in London. Several of these refreshment huts were set up by the YMCA. On her way to open another one, Louise was involved in a car crash on the Fulham Road. Her car was hit by what the newspapers described as ‘a heavy lorry’ and the front of her vehicle was completely caved in. Louise, her chauffeur and her lady-in-waiting escaped uninjured and, as the accident had happened right by the gates of the hospital where the hut was to be opened, she continued on to her appointment. She also participated in a public education programme, opening an exhibition on Domestic Economy at the Institute of Hygiene, which it was hoped would help eliminate the wasting of food through ‘carelessness and ignorance’ at a time when every scrap was precious. In her speech she talked of ‘the importance of domestic economy’ that was at last being widely recognised ‘under the pressure of this terrible war’.

  At regular intervals throughout the war Louise was forced to give up her public appearances because of poor health. In addition to catching regular coughs and colds she was prey to crippling sciatica, but she always went back to work as soon as possible. She maintained her close connections with Canada and paid regular visits to wounded Canadian troops in British hospitals. In 1916 she presented a silk banner (or flag) and silver shield to the people of Canada, at a ceremony in Kensington. These had been donated by the ‘women and children of the United Kingdom’ as thanks for the selfless help Canadian troops had given to the British war effort. Louise was also a regular visitor to the Weir Hospital at Balham, where she took particular interest in all overseas soldiers, knowing how desperately they must want visitors yet having no family near enough to visit them. According to a nursing assistant, Louise frequently used to visit a hospital in Palace Green, Kensington, where she would slip in without anyone noticing her, bringing flowers from her gardens. The sister at an East End hospital also recalled Louise visiting her ward: ‘She was very bright and cheerful to all the patients and chatted away to them quite easily and was very sprightly and bright with the children.’

  On the first anniversary of the atrocities at Ga
llipoli, Louise attended a special ANZAC matinée at Her Majesty’s Theatre, in London, at which four soldiers were awarded the Distinguished Service Medal.5 She also took a special interest in her own regiment, as one of the soldiers, W.A. Morgan, remembered many years later:

  I served in the 13th London Regiment during the war of 1914–18 … On the outbreak of the War the Regiment recruited for a second Battalion, and the Countess of Ilchester gave permission for the grounds of her house, Holland House, to be used for drill purposes. Now the Countess considered that the Holland House Dog Show was of more importance than the drilling of recruits. Our then Colonel, later Brigadier Maclean, approached Princess Louise in the matter and she at once gave permission for the training to take place in the grounds of her residence Kensington Palace.

  In 1914, Louise had begun sharing her Kensington Palace apartments with one of her nieces, Helena’s daughter Princess Marie-Louise of Schleswig-Holstein. After the end of the war, Princess Beatrice and her haemophiliac son Leopold also moved into the palace. Early on in the war, Louise gave up Kent House on the Isle of Wight to one of her favourite relations, as Lord Louis Mountbatten recalled with great fondness:

  my great aunt, Princess Louise … to me she was a most affectionate and charming great-aunt, indeed more of an aunt than a great-aunt. We used to have regular rooms in her apartment at Kensington Palace when my family came to London. I remember my uncle Lorne (the Duke of Argyll) fairly vividly too. I can only say that she was very kind and considerate in spite of her rather gruff voice. Nothing was too much trouble. In particular, I remember, that although she had arranged to leave Kent House in the Isle of Wight to my mother in her Will … when my father had to resign from the Admiralty at the end of October 1914 and we had nowhere to go, she immediately made Kent House over to my mother at once. A typical kind thought of hers.6

  Louise’s ‘gruff voice’ is one of the most often remarked-upon characteristics, particularly by those who were young when she was elderly. A number of people who responded to the researcher Michael Gledhill’s newspaper advertisements of the 1970s commented on how Germanic Louise’s accent was, especially in any words containing the letter ‘R’. One of Lorne’s nieces said how much she enjoyed hearing Louise call for her husband, as somehow she managed to imbue the word ‘Lorne’ with a rolling Germanic R. The same comment was often made about King Edward VII’s voice. Queen Ena’s daughter, Maria Cristina, however, remembered Louise’s accent as slightly softer than those of her siblings; she attributed this to Louise’s having been married to a Scot and to having spent so much time in Scotland.

  The relationship between Louise and Beatrice was still not entirely harmonious. They were very different personalities, and the differences between them were exacerbated by age. Louise was growing ever more cantankerous and she enjoyed creating a fuss – she had never lost her love of shocking people. Louise’s lady-in-waiting during the First World War wrote:

  one occasion she and princess Beatrice were to attend a memorial service for soldiers who had died in hospital and each was to drive up separately and be received by the Mayor of Kensington at the door of St Mary Abbots Church. At the last moment she said that she was going to walk there, when I protested she said that ‘Beatrice could get all the kudos, which she liked’ and that she wished to walk. So we set off and went to a side door and quietly entered the empty church. At once we were spotted by one of the church wardens who not recognising her ordered us out most officiously saying that Royalty was expected and that we had no right to butt in like that. I managed to stop him and explain who she was. Then of course he recognised her and said ‘How naughty of you your Royal Highness.’ We were put in a front seat and she thoroughly enjoyed it all.

  It was felt by Louise’s staff that Louise was jealous of Beatrice for having children. Beatrice’s granddaughter, Maria Cristina, however, felt that the jealousy was not one-sided. In a letter written in 1978, she remembered her great-aunt with obvious fondness:

  … what I can remember of my charming old Aunt Louise. A beautiful face, smooth pale skin and lovely white hair – very like my granny, her youngest sister Beatrice – only a straight nose and wider mouth and a cordial smile and not a bit timid like her sisters. She was charming and not frightening at all. One felt at once she liked children and not watching to see if we were well brought up … tailor made clothes, scarfs and felt hat, when the others wore ribbons and flounces. I only saw her at Kensington Palace informally for teas and lunch when she visited her sister – once we were scolded for having devoured everything on the tea table, after we thought our elders had finished. And the dear old soul stuck up for us and said ‘Stop this nonsense, the poor children are happy and it is only fair after having to sit in silence, I would have done the same’ – and then the sisters started an argument over how to educate children etc and we felt so guilty but touched at the defence of the old Aunt. As a result of her understanding we asked how many children she’d had. Another disaster! My mother felt like murder. Granny choked over our tactlessness and we were bid to return to our rooms. Seeing our confusion, the Aunt said. ‘I was just leaving (for something or other) so please children will you help me down the stairs?’ And later she said ‘It was always my greatest pity not to have any children and I’m happy when I see them’ – so we hugged her so warmly, we nearly knocked her off balance and she laughingly said ‘I said help me, not throw me down them!!’ Dear old lady.

  Maria Cristina finished her letter to Michael Gledhill with the words: ‘I hope I have helped to give you the impression that in spite of Q. Victoria this lady [Louise] was human and had a sense of humour. All say her husband was a bore – but she loved her simple life.’

  During the war, the British royal family, so many of whom had grown up with German as their first language, refused to speak any German. A member of Louise’s staff recalled an occasion when Prince Arthur, returned from Canada, came to visit during the war: ‘[he] came for tea and they talked of the old days at Balmoral and in the nursery when the Prince [Albert] came in to play with them … they both got more and more guttural in their pronunciation, but never a word of German.’

  Kaiser Wilhelm was now despised by his English relations. In 1917, the 10th Duke of Argyll visited Louise and as they talked she railed with fury about her nephew. The king had taken the decision that the family should dispose of their old Hanoverian associations: the family’s new name was to be Windsor. At around this time, Louise was growing deeply concerned about her niece Alexandra (Alice’s daughter), who had married the Tsar of Russia. After receiving a letter from her niece, in which Alex confided her adoration for the monk Rasputin, Louise fretted even more. She told members of her household, ‘I don’t like the affair at all for Alex can be so foolish and unwise. I shall write at once and tell her to be very careful, she is no judge of characters.’

  During 1917, both Helena and Arthur were widowed. All the surviving children of Queen Victoria were now on their own again, and they turned to their siblings in the same way as they had in childhood. Arthur’s wife, Louischen, died a few months before Helena’s husband, Prince Christian. Following the death of Louischen, Arthur and Louise grew even closer and, from this time onwards, the brother and sister often went on holiday together.

  The war was still raging when Louise celebrated her seventieth birthday, on 18 March 1918. A few weeks later, her nephew, the king, formally recognised her indefatigable contributions to his people by making Louise a Dame Grand Cross of the British Empire in the King’s Birthday Honours List. This was for her work as ‘Member of the Council and President of the Kensington Branch of the British Red Cross Society’. As the war moved into its final months, King George V and Queen Mary celebrated their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary and Arthur, Helena, Louise and Beatrice jointly presented them with a painting by John Lavery. He was an Irish artist who had studied in Paris and London, moved in the same Aesthetic circles as Whistler and Princess Louise and who, in 1917, had been appointed an
Official War Artist. The painting selected for the silver wedding gift was Lavery’s Air Station, North Queensferry, 1917 (1917). The prince and princesses paid the artist 75 guineas.

  The Great War came to an end on 11 November 1918. On Tuesday the 26th, Louise, Arthur and Helena attended a thanksgiving service at St John’s Church in Clerkenwell, which was led by the Archbishop of York. In early December, several members of the royal family waited at London’s Cannon Street station to welcome home repatriated prisoners of war. A journalist who interviewed the returning men on the day they met the royal family wrote passionately: ‘A private in the Royal Fusiliers said that right up to the signing of the armistice the Huns behaved like wild beasts to the British. “No torture or insult was too great for us. Hundreds will never return alive to their friends. When the Government sent us food recently German women offered us jewellery in exchange for their rations. ‘Let us be friends,’ they begged, but none of us would accept their handshakes.”’