AUTHOR’S NOTE
I fell in love with Greece when I first read The Splendour of Greece by Robert Payne.
When I went there, I found that this fascinating book answered so many questions and made me understand the mystery and beauty of the Ancient Gods.
Delos, where Apollo was born, is just as I have described it.
Some of the top Greek families are a part of my story, but the description of the Parthenon in the Erechtheion is exactly as I saw and felt it.
After 2,500 years Greece is still a mystical enigma to the Western World.
Just as Robert Payne puts it so clearly,
The splendour of Greece still lights our skies, reaching over America and Asia and lands which the Greeks never dream existed. There would be no Christianity as we know it without the fertilising influence of the Greek Fathers of the Church, who owed their training to Greek philosophy.
By a strange accident all the images of Buddha in the Far East can be traced right back to portraits of Alexander, who seemed to the Greeks to be Apollo incarnate.
We owe to the Greeks the beginning of science and the beginning of thought.
They built the loveliest Temples ever, carved marble with delicacy and strength and set in motion the questing mind which refuses to believe that there are any bounds to reason.
That is why we journey to Greece like pilgrims to a feast.
CHAPTER ONE ~ 1874
“No! No! No! I will not do it ‒1 will not!” Princess Marigold’s voice rose to a shriek on the last word.
Pulling off her slipper, she flung it as hard as she could at her Comptroller, Colonel Bassett, who was standing nearby
As this had happened to him before, he deftly side-stepped the missile.
The slipper landed on top of a cabinet, knocking over a pretty piece of antique Dresden china.
Princess Marigold was lying on the sofa and now she said in a slightly quieter voice,
“You can inform Her Majesty that I will not go to Greece and so that is the end of the matter!”
Colonel Bassett sighed and persevered.
“I am afraid, Your Royal Highness, that you cannot refuse a Royal Command from Her Majesty Queen Victoria.”
“Why not?” Princess Marigold asked sharply. “This is supposed to be a free country.”
Colonel Bassett did not reply and after a moment she carried on furiously,
“Free! Of course it is free for everyone, except someone like myself who is supposed to be Royal, but without a throne, and without anyone paying any attention to what I want or do not want to do!”
This again was something that Colonel Bassett had heard before and he remained silent.
Then unexpectedly the door opened and a voice came from it,
“Is anyone at home?”
The Princess sat up abruptly.
“Holden!” she exclaimed. “Thank Goodness you have come. What do you think has just happened?”
Prince Holden then came a little further into the room, nodded to Colonel Bassett and walked towards the Princess.
He was a tall, broad-shouldered and handsome young man but with somewhat Germanic features.
“I heard you shouting,” the Prince said, “so I knew that there was trouble.”
“Trouble!” Princess Marigold echoed. “Oh, Holden, Holden, what am I to do?”
The Prince took the Princess’s hand and raised it to his lips.
“You are upsetting yourself, but you promised me that I should cope with your troubles and you would not become agitated over them.”
“Agitated?” Princess Marigold exclaimed. “Of course I am agitated! Have you heard what that monstrous old woman here in Windsor Castle wants me to do?”
Prince Holden turned his head towards Colonel Bassett.
“What has happened?” he asked.
“Her Majesty,” Colonel Bassett answered, speaking in a somewhat pompous voice, “has now informed Her Royal Highness that she is to represent Great Britain at the funeral of His Royal Highness Prince Eumenus of Malia.”
“Oh, is he dead?” Prince Holden replied. “I had heard that he was ill.”
“His Royal Highness is dead and his body has been embalmed so that he can be buried in Athens in two weeks’ time,” the Colonel went on. “While he was not of any great Diplomatic importance, Her Majesty feels that she personally and so, of course, Great Britain, should be represented at the Ceremony.”
Prince Holden had been listening attentively.
Now he said quietly as he turned towards the Princess,
“You will have to go, my dearest.”
“And leave you?” Princess Marigold exclaimed. “Can you not see what Queen Victoria is up to? She has never approved of our engagement and now she is doing everything in her power to separate us!”
“She will never do that,” Prince Holden averred.
At the same time there was an anxious expression in his eyes.
After months of discussion Queen Victoria had finally allowed Princess Marigold, who was a near relation, to become engaged to Prince Holden of Allenberg.
No one could pretend that it was a marriage of prestige for the Princess.
But she had fallen madly in love with Prince Holden and she firmly refused to consider any other man who might be suggested to her.
Ever since she had been small, Princess Marigold had been what Queen Victoria thought of as a problem.
She had arrived to live in England with her father and mother after Prince Dimitri had been thrown out of Panaeros in a revolution.
It was a smallish Greek island where his family had reigned as Monarchs for generations.
Queen Victoria had, however, found the family a burden on her hands.
At first Prince Dimitri had begged Her Majesty over and over again to send British ships and British guns to restore him to his Throne by force if necessary.
When she refused to do so and he died, his wife Helen, who was English and a cousin of the Queen, had died of a broken heart.
In fact she had never forgiven Queen Victoria for refusing her husband’s heart rendering request.
It was whispered amongst the Courtiers at Windsor Castle that she had put a Greek curse on the Queen before she herself had died.
Whether this was true or not, she had certainly left Her Majesty a considerable bundle of trouble in the shape of her only child.
The Princess had been christened ‘Mary Gloriana Amethyst Victoria’.
The names had been chosen as compliments to her grandparents, her Godmothers and, of course, the Queen of Great Britain.
As soon as she could talk, Princess Mary, as it had been decided she should be called, refused to answer to any other name except that of ‘Marigold’.
No one quite understood why it had taken her fancy and yet she insisted over and over again to her Nannies, her Governesses and anyone else who would listen, that her name was ‘Marigold’.
It became impossible to call a child by her real name who would not answer to anything but the name that she had chosen for herself.
First her Nannies gave in to her whim, then her Governesses and Tutors.
Finally through sheer exasperation, Queen Victoria herself gave in as well.
Princess Marigold she then became and was undoubtedly a major thorn in the flesh of her benefactress.
She was brought up at Windsor Castle and indeed there was plenty of room in that huge unwieldy edifice for a dozen or more children if necessary.
But it was often felt by those in attendance that it was too small for Princess Marigold and she was invariably in trouble of one sort or another.
However, as she grew up, she became extremely pretty, in fact a real beauty.
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She resembled her mother with her fair hair and pink-and-white English complexion. But her eyes were definitely Greek, dark, expressive and stunningly beautiful in their depths.
The combination was just so striking that whoever saw her looked at her and then looked at her again.
This made Queen Victoria even more determined to marry off Princess Marigold as soon as it was possible.
It would certainly mean a quieter and less turbulent atmosphere inside Windsor Castle.
Her Majesty might have known, however, that anyone she did chose for her troublesome relative would be totally unacceptable to her.
Usually before Princess Marigold had even seen the man in question she decided that she would not marry him. Crown Princes were suggested to her one after another.
All of whom were, as Queen Victoria knew, only too eager to be more closely associated with Great Britain and her ever-growing Empire.
Princess Marigold stamped her foot and cried, “No! No! No!”
Princes were invited to England and they came cocky and very pleased with themselves, confident that they would go home closely united through marriage to the British Throne.
They left with their tails between their legs.
A sharp little voice said, “no! no! no!” to everything they suggested.
Then unexpectedly and without any scheming by Queen Victoria, in fact it was without her knowledge, Princess Marigold met Prince Holden of Allenberg.
He had come to England to stay with some friends of his, who had studied at the same University.
His visit had not been notified as a special Royal Occasion to Buckingham Palace nor to Windsor Castle.
It was just by chance that Princess Marigold, having nothing at all to do one afternoon, thought that she would go to Ranelagh and watch the Polo.
She had been invited many times, but generally found that it was rather boring for the spectators. A lot of galloping about after a small ball.
However, when she looked in her diary, she found that there was nothing specific for her to do that day.
So she decided on an impulse that she would drive to Ranelagh.
A good-looking young Duke with whom she had danced the previous night had told her that he was playing against a team arranged by the German Embassy.
“I believe they rather fancy themselves,” he had said, “but I am quite certain, Your Royal Highness, that we will win. We are in tip-top form and have won every game we have played so far this Season.”
He had paused and then added,
“We would, of course, be very honoured if you would come to watch us play tomorrow afternoon.”
Princess Marigold had actually enjoyed herself that evening. No one had pestered her to go home early or told her that she could not dance for the third time with the same partner.
She had therefore given orders when she awoke that she would be going to Ranelagh.
This meant that she had to take a Lady-in-Waiting with her.
The one whose turn it was complained bitterly,
“I have a headache,” she told the other Ladies-in-Waiting. “So why cannot that tiresome girl stay here instead of gallivanting off to watch Polo where I will doubtless have to sit in the sun all afternoon.”
She gave a sigh before continuing,
“I shall then have to listen to her saying all the way home that she was bored.”
It must have been a real surprise to her later that Princess Marigold was in such a good temper.
Especially as, when they finally did drive back to Windsor Castle, it was quite late in the evening.
“I must see you tomorrow,” Prince Holden had said as he helped her into her carriage.
“You will not forget?” the Princess had replied in a soft voice.
“How could you imagine that I could forget anything that concerns you?” he asked.
They had looked into each other’s eyes.
It was with the greatest reluctance that the Prince moved away so that the footman could close the door of the carriage.
As Princess Marigold drove off, she bent forward to wave to him.
He then stood watching until the carriage was well out of sight.
*
Prince Holden had arrived at Windsor Castle the next day to pay his humble respects to Queen Victoria.
And she had received him in her study without much enthusiasm.
Allenberg was a very small South German Principality and of no particular importance or standing in the world.
However Her Majesty was determined to prevent the unscrupulous way that the Russians were trying to exert influence in a number of the smaller Balkan States.
They had already infiltrated into Serbia and the other North Balkan States as well.
The Czar of Russia had fortunately not been successful in gaining control of Bulgaria.
Prince Alexander of Battenberg had refused to act as a Russian puppet.
Finally the Russians kidnapped the Prince and had then forced him to abdicate at pistol-point.
Queen Victoria had been furious.
“Russia behaves and has behaved shamefully and disgracefully!” she raged.
It was because of what had happened in Bulgaria that finally she became more amenable to the idea of Princess Marigold marrying Prince Holden.
However Bulgaria was a large country while Allenberg was a very small one.
Over and over again she told Princess Marigold how advantageous it would be for her to marry a man who could make her a Queen.
To Queen Victoria’s surprise, however, for almost the first time since the death of the Prince Consort, she found that she could not have her own way.
“I intend, Cousin Victoria,” Princess Marigold insisted firmly, “to marry Prince Holden even if I have to elope with him and am never allowed to set foot on English soil again!”
Finally and reluctantly, because nothing she could say would move Princess Marigold, Queen Victoria conceded.
The engagement between Prince Holden of Allenberg and the Princess Maigold was to be announced the following week.
Unfortunately the day before the engagement should have appeared in the newspapers, an elderly relative of the Queen and the Princess had died unexpectedly.
This meant that Royalty were now to be dressed in black for six months and there was no question of even a minor Royal Wedding taking place until the time of mourning was past.
The Queen therefore decided that their engagement was to be kept secret from everyone except those living in Windsor Castle and the public announcement would be made when the actual date of the Wedding was decided.
Now in a voice that was almost hysterical Princess Marigold pointed out,
“Do you not understand, Holden, that Her Majesty will use the death of Prince Eumenus as an excuse to keep us in mourning.”
She paused a moment to clear her throat before continuing,
“She is just hoping and praying that we will become bored with waiting and then she can marry me off to some doddering old King whose Throne is crumbling from under him!”
Prince Holden put his hand over the Princess’s.
“We have a little more than two months to go,” he said, “and I cannot believe that Prince Eumenus who was of little consequence, could expect us to mourn for any longer than that.”
“But I will not leave you and go to Greece,” Princess Marigold retorted. “I know exactly how Her Majesty’s mind works. She is thinking that because Papa was Greek, I might find someone there of more importance than you.”
Prince Holden was well aware that this was true.
But, as there was nothing more he could say, he raised the Princess’s hand to his lips.
“Also,” the Princess went on, “you promised that you would take me away in your yacht. I have not yet told the Queen, but I have decided who we would take with us as a chaperone, old Lady Milne.”
She smiled at him and then carried on,
“If we give her e
nough to drink, she will sleep all through the afternoon and evening and not interfere with us at all.”
“No one shall ever do that,” the Prince asserted firmly.
“But that is exactly what the Queen is trying to do,” the Princess said.
Now the anger was back in her voice.
“Surely there is someone else who would be able to go to Greece?” Prince Holden said turning to Colonel Bassett.
He was still standing somewhat uncomfortably by the door.
He was used to Princess Marigold’s tantrums. Yet he could never make up his mind if it was best to leave the room without permission or to stay and witness her performance.
If he did stay, he would have to listen to her raging endlessly at him or anyone else who might have antagonised her.
“Even if there was, Your Royal Highness,” he replied in answer to the Prince, “I doubt if Her Majesty would change her mind and send someone else in place of Her Royal Highness.”
“Nevertheless you had better find someone,” Princess Marigold said sharply. “For I am not going, even if I have to stay in bed and claim I am too ill to travel.”
“I do so want you to be with me,” Prince Holden said in a low caressing tone. “I was so looking forward to taking you across the North Sea to Denmark or anywhere else you would prefer.”
“And I want to be with you too,” the Princess sighed.
She was looking up into his eyes and for a moment they forgot that Colonel Bassett was in the room.
“I want to stand on deck at night and gaze at the stars,” the Princess said, “and I want to keep counting the days until we can be married.”
“That is what I am doing,” the Prince replied and his fingers tightened on hers.
“Then let’s defy the Queen,” Princess Marigold suggested, “and send someone else in my place. As long as there is someone in dismal black with a Union Jack hanging over their heads, no one will care whether I am there or not.”
“I agree,” the Prince smiled, “but I would really doubt if anyone would be brave enough to impersonate you and risk the terrible wrath of Her Majesty.”
“There must be someone if we could only find her,” Princess Marigold persisted. “Surely you know someone, Colonel Bassett?”
The Love Light of Apollo Page 1