The cloud of sorrow descending over Windsor and Osborne following Princess Alice’s death was alleviated slightly by the cheerful preparations for the wedding of Queen Victoria’s favourite son. Healthy, handsome and untainted by scandal, twenty-nine-year-old Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, was since childhood his mother’s ideal of a prince. ‘[He is] really the best child I ever saw,’ she told Vicky when he was eight years old, and the passing of time only added to the charms of this ‘angel of goodness,’ on whose many virtues his mother loved to dwell.
The godson of the Duke of Wellington, after whom he was named, Arthur had always taken a keen interest the army and it was only to be expected that he would pass through the Royal Military Academy at Woolwich with distinction. Following his commission in the Royal Engineers, he had had taken an active part in several military expeditions and earned his promotions through personal displays of courage. His lack of affectation and insistence upon being treated like any other officer, had won the respect and affection of the troops and, in all his subsequent appointments, he made a favourable impression on the peoples of India, Canada and Ireland. Noble in every sense, he so resembled his father that he could not have pleased of Queen Victoria more:
“Arthur is dearer than any of the others put together,” she had once told Prince Albert, “and after you, he is the dearest most precious object to me on earth.”
In fact, Arthur seemed so perfect and so utterly chaste that she saw no reason for him to marry at all and was taken aback when he returned from a wedding in Potsdam in February 1878, to announce that he had chosen a bride.
With her preference for German spouses, the Queen might have been overjoyed that her favourite son had proposed to Louise (‘Louischen’) of Prussia, but for a cloud that shaded the princess’s background. Her father, a cruel and vindictive man, inflicted so many inhuman tortures on his children that his wife had deserted him, bringing disgrace upon the family. To nineteen-year-old Louischen, the dashing English soldier must have appeared like a knight in shining armour rescuing her from a terrible past and, though she was not the most beautiful of princesses, her devotion captured Arthur’s heart.
In spite of her initial shock, Queen Victoria could deny her favourite son nothing, and though she suggested he would do well to consider other more beautiful brides before rushing into marriage, she raised no objections to the match. After all, she could hardly complain of Louischen’s unfortunate background since it was not so different from that of her own beloved husband. When Prince Albert was still a child, his mother had likewise deserted an unfaithful husband for another man and for her sins she was never permitted to see her children again. The trauma had left Albert with a great horror of infidelity and doubtless Queen Victoria hoped that Louischen’s experiences would turn her into an equally faithful spouse.
Louischen was duly invited to Windsor where she made a pleasing impression upon everyone, despite shocking the Queen by riding unchaperoned with Arthur to Frogmore.
Even the recent death of Princess Alice was not permitted to impinge on the wedding celebrations, which took place on 13th March 1879 in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor. The occasion was commemorated in a poem by Tennyson, dedicated and addressed to Princess Alice:
“…and this March morn that sees
Thy soldier brother’s bridal orange-bloom
Break thro’ the yews and Cyprus of thy grave,
And thine Imperial mother smile again,
May send one ray to thee!”
After the wedding, the Connaughts moved into Buckingham Palace before settling at Bagshot Park in Surrey where, on 15th January 1882 their first daughter Margaret (Daisy), was born. A year later the Duchess gave birth to a son, Arthur, at Windsor Castle; and her youngest child, Victoria Patricia, (Patsy) was born on 17th March, 1886, at Buckingham Palace where her godparents included Aunt Lenchen and Cousin Willy of Prussia.
Queen Victoria was fond of Louischen, and visitors found her affable and charming with a pleasant sense of humour:
“[The Duke] is such a gentleman,” wrote one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting, “so courteous and kind, and they are both very simple in their ways and rather enjoy hardships.”
And yet, within her own home, the Duchess adopted an almost militaristic discipline that often left her daughters trembling in terror. It came as a relief to the girls when their parents travelled abroad leaving them in the care of their doting and indulgent grandmother. Freed from the Duchess’s restraint, Daisy showed all the boisterousness of her Hessian cousins and her antics so delighted the Queen that she made allowance for her cheeky vivacity because she was ‘a gt. Darling - & such a pretty little thing with such fine large eyes & such a pretty mouth & is so good.” So fond was the Queen of Daisy that when Arthur, as Commander-in-Chief of his regiment was posted to India in the autumn of 1886, she declared that the climate was unsuitable for a child of her age, and she should be left in England.
Patsy (‘such a beauty and so good’) was still a babe-in-arms at the time of her father’s posting, and deemed too young to be left behind. Instead she travelled to Bombay with her parents, remaining under the strict and unyielding discipline of her mother. Though as pretty as her sister, and a gifted linguist and water colour artist, Patsy quailed under her mother’s authoritarian regime, which gradually destroyed all her confidence. Quaking in her hand-me-down dresses and too tight shoes, Patsy would have preferred to sink into the background with the whispering Waleses than effervesce with the Edinburghs. It was a handicap that would remain with her throughout her childhood and adolescence.
In 1888 Daisy joined her family in India and following their return to England they resettled into Bagshot Park from where they made frequent visits to Windsor and Osborne. But their travelling days were far from over. In 1899, Arthur was posted to Dublin as Commander-in-Chief of the troops in Ireland. His family were provided with an official residence in the city and a house in Phoenix Park, loaned to them by a member of the Guinness family:
“It was a lovely house,” the Queen’s Equerry recalled, “with oak and tapestry and the Duchess of Connaught and Princess Patsy preferred it to the official house.”
Regular visits to Windsor, Osborne and Balmoral continued and the Queen found constant delight in Arthur’s ‘darling’ and ‘lovely’ daughters.
By the time of Arthur’s wedding, Queen Victoria’s fourth son, Leopold, longed more than ever to find a wife and a life of his own. Princess Alice’s recent death had come as a great blow to her brother, who had spent many happy holidays in Darmstadt, becoming a particular favourite of his Hessian nieces. Haemophiliac himself, he had understood better than anyone, Alice’s concerns for her son, Frittie, and, after the little boy’s death, had gloomily assured his sister that death was often preferable to a life that would bring nothing but suffering.
Leopold’s own childhood had been blighted as much by his mother’s near-neglect as by the agonizing effects of his illness. Although he was certainly the cleverest of her sons, Queen Victoria thought him the ‘ugliest and least pleasing child of the whole family…’ and since ‘an ugly baby is a very nasty object,’ there were times when she could hardly bare to look at him. When he was only five years old she complained to Vicky that he was ‘a very common looking child, very plain in face, clever but an oddity – and not an engaging child though amusing.’ As episodes of bleeding left him crippled, she found his bearing still more unattractive, again writing frankly to Vicky that:
“He walks shockingly and is dreadfully awkward - holds himself as badly as ever and his manners are despairing as well as his speech - which is quite dreadful.”
That Leopold was a badly-behaved little boy was largely the Queen’s own doing. While his family travelled around the country, he was often left in the care of governors and doctors, whose over-protective supervision made him rebellious and difficult. His father, who might have understood his frustration, died when he was only eight years old, and the Queen became too absorbed in her own grief to expend much energy on the ugly ducking in her nest.
In spite of his physical difficulties, however, Leopold intelligence was quickly becoming apparent. By the time he was fifteen, even his mother was aware of his ability, writing to Vicky that he:
“Is very clever, taking interest in and understanding everything. He learns, besides French and German, Latin, Greek and Italian; is very fond of music and drawing, takes much interest in politics – in short everything.”
Fortunately for Leo, the Queen was not the only one to recognize his considerable intellect and his tutors eventually succeeded in persuading her to allow him to attend university. The reports of his excellent progress came as pleasant surprise to the Queen and she finally began to realise that her son was a very gifted young man. So impressed was she by his achievements that, once his studies were complete, she took him into her confidence, allowing him access to government papers and relying on his advice in much the same way as she had once relied on the Prince Consort. While his elder brother, the Prince of Wales, remained firmly excluded from affairs of state, Leopold was even granted a much-coveted key to the Queen’s cabinet boxes.
Yet, while she appreciated his intelligence and trusted him implicitly, Queen Victoria, fearful for his health and determined to keep him by her side, continued to treat him as a child. In 1877, at the age of twenty-four, he begged her to allow him to represent her at an exhibition in Australia but she could not ‘bring herself to send her very delicate son…so great a distance.’ Later, he would ask to be appointed Governor of Victoria, Australia, but again his request was refused. Stifled and frustrated, Leopold dedicated much of time to worthy causes - in particular institutes for deaf children - and escaped from his duties at Court at every possible opportunity. In spite of his mother’s early misgivings he had grown into a handsome young man and his health did not prevent him from enjoying the pleasures of Paris and Monte Carlo, or the company of the ‘fast set’ at Marlborough House. He became a close friend of his sister-in-law, Marie, Duchess of Edinburgh and a firm favourite with all his nieces. But the devotion of his extended family could not alleviate Leopold’s dissatisfaction and his intense longing for independence with a wife and children of his own.
It took Queen Victoria some time to accept that her frail son was not content to devote his entire life to her service and, considering the fragility of his health, she despaired more of his ever finding a bride than she had of Lenchen ever finding a groom. Nevertheless, moved by his evident unhappiness, she agreed to help where she could. To add weight to his position, she created him Duke of Albany, granted him the moderate freedom of his own home, Claremont House at Esher near London, and encouraged him to seek out a bride among the numerous German princesses. Shortly before Arthur’s wedding, she packed him off to Darmstadt with his Hessian nieces, from where he could visit an old friend, Frederica, daughter of the blind King of Hanover. The visit was unsuccessful. Fond as she was of the prince, Frederica had to admit that she had fallen in love with someone else, and Leo, accepting her refusal with good grace, returned home disappointed.
The following winter Queen Victoria invited Daisy, the seventeen-year-old stepdaughter of Lord Rosslyn, to Windsor with a view to ‘looking her over’ as a prospective daughter-in-law. She was sufficiently impressed to recommend the girl to her son but again, the plans again came to nothing since neither Leopold nor Daisy was attracted to the other. Within months, Daisy had announced her engagement to Lord Brooke, the future Earl of Warwick. For Leopold, perhaps it was a lucky escape - the flighty ‘babbling Brooke’ became renowned for taking numerous lovers, among them Leopold’s brother, the Prince of Wales.
In the autumn of 1880, Queen Victoria had a brainwave; twenty-year-old Princess Helen of Waldeck-Pyrmont lived in Arolsen not far from Darmstadt. She was intelligent, well-educated and well-travelled and would certainly be worth a visit. Leopold made the journey and was sufficiently impressed to inform his mother that here was a woman he would be more than happy to marry. He thought her pretty and she came with the highest recommendation from his Hessian nieces. To the Queen’s surprise the princess was equally enamoured of him, and her genuine delight in their happiness was made all the greater by her admiration for the spirited Helen. Unlike most newcomers to the court, Helen was not in the least overawed in the presence of the Queen and, although her appearance was unremarkable, her charm and grace immediately endeared her to the household:
“Though the idea of his marrying makes me anxious, still,” Queen Victoria wrote, “as he has found a girl so charming, ready to accept and love him, in spite of his ailments, I hope he may be happy and carefully watched over.”
The wedding took place at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor on 27th April 1882, a fortnight after Leopold’s twenty-ninth birthday. Though the prince had hurt his leg and was forced to lean on a stick throughout the service, it was a happy occasion made all the brighter by obvious elation of the young couple.
The Albanys moved into Claremont House where Helen proved a devoted wife, nursing her husband through his numerous episodes of bleeding and paralysis.
“I pity her,” Queen Victoria wrote to Vicky, “but she seems only to think of [Leopold] with love and affection.”
If his mother was pleasantly surprised that Leo had at last found the happiness he craved, she was still more astonished to hear that only a month after the wedding, Helen was pregnant. Queen Victoria had not believed her frail son capable of fathering a child but a perfectly healthy daughter was born at Windsor on 25th February 1883, and named Alice after her late aunt. Uncle Louis of Hesse and Aunt Vicky were among her godparents, as was Queen Victoria herself who, for once, was able to enthuse about the ‘beautiful child, so plump and so big with such neat little features and such a complete head of hair.’
The Queen was still more enchanted by Alice’s eyes which were soon, ‘becoming quite brown which is what I so much wished – as since the Stuarts we have had no brown eyes in the family.’
Delighted by his little daughter, Leopold continued his duties and charitable works, but there was no relief to his medical condition. A year after Alice’s birth, he was troubled by particularly painful swelling in his joints and his doctors recommended a trip to the warmer climes of the south of France. By then Helen was again in the early stages of pregnancy and not well enough to accompany him to Cannes. Although his life had often hung in the balance, as she watched him depart she had no idea that she would never see him again.
One afternoon, he slipped on the tiled floor of his hotel and banged his knee. A painful swelling ensued and the subsequent haemorrhage was so severe that he did not recover. After less than two happy years with Helen, he died in Cannes on 28th March 1884.
“My beloved Leopold!” Queen Victoria wrote, “That bright clever son who had so many times recovered from such fearfull (sic) illnesses, and from various small accidents has been taken from us! To lose another dear child, far from me, and one who was so gifted and such a help to me, is too dreadful.”
Later, in a more tranquil moment, the Queen reflected that death had almost come as a blessing. So often, in his hours of agony, Leopold had cried out that death would be preferable to his suffering and his mother noted that ‘there was such a restless longing for what he could not have; this seemed to increase rather than lessen.’
Although Leopold’s haemophilia had prevented him from entering the armed forces, he was given a full military funeral. His coffin, having been returned to England on the royal yacht Osborne, was carried by eight Seaforth Highlanders and laid in the vault in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor.
As ever in a crisis Queen Victoria’s heart went out to the twenty-two-year-old widow and she insisted on being present at Claremont House when, six months later, the Duchess gave birth to a son, Charles. It was ‘heartbreaking’ to see little Alice, ‘a very intelligent and such a healthy child’ deprived of her father, and, as with her Hessian granddaughters, she promised to do all she could to help in her upbringing. To Alice her grandmother was nothing like the prudish old lady of popular myth; she found her so kind, approachable and interesting. Her affection was returned in full, and the Queen’s admiration for Helen was boundless; she was:
“So good and such an example to all, I do love respect and admire her, poor darling – always a kind sweet smile on her poor, sad face and cheerful and always thinking of others and not herself.”
In fact so great was the Queen’s affection for the Albanys that at times it aroused a little jealousy among other members of the family. On one occasion the Queen felt obliged to ask Vicky to persuade the Duchess of Connaught to be a little kinder to her.
Like so many of her sisters-in-laws the Duchess of Albany - ‘such a dear and so un-stiff’ - devoted much of her time to charitable works. She took an interest in nursing and, along with Princess Beatrice, the Duchess of Connaught and the Princess of Wales, she obtained a first aid qualification from the recently formed St. John’s Ambulance. The Duchess, too, paid special attention to the fate of ‘fallen women’ and established an Institute in the Deptford market for the improvement of the slaughterhouse girls, providing them with regular meetings for Bible reading, singing, sewing and the occasional treat.
The loss of her father at such an early age had none of the dramatic effects on little Alice that the loss of her mother had on Cousin Alix of Hesse. Inheriting the strong spirit of both parents, and the appearance of her father, she was a confident, vivacious child. While the Queen thought her ‘pretty,’ ‘merry’ and ‘good,’ visitors were not always so impressed by her precocity. Following a meeting with the six-year-old Alice, the author Lewis Carroll wrote to a friend:
“The little Princess I thought very sweet but liable, under excitement, to betray what is called ‘self-will’ (it’s really weakness of will) and that selfishness which is the besetting sin of childhood. Under weak management, that child wd, I should fear, grow up a terror to all around her.”
Fortunately, Alice was brought up under the strong management of her mother and grandmother and Carroll’s fears were not realised. The death of Prince Leopold had drastically reduced the Duchess’ income and as a result Alice, like her Hessian and Christian cousins, was brought up in relative simplicity and not allowed to become inflated by her royal status. What was more, though the Duchess was devoted to her children, she raised them strictly and the effect became apparent. Two years after their first meeting, Lewis Carroll’s opinion of ‘little Alice’ changed considerably. She was, he thought:
“ improved…not being so unruly as she was two years ago: they [Alice and her brother Charles] are charming children. I taught them to fold paper pistols, and to blot their names in creased paper…”
While Alice and her brother were young, their mother spent many hours in their nursery, reading to and playing with them. As they grew older she encouraged them to study a wider range of subjects alongside the usual accomplishments of riding, music and dancing, and even arranged for Alice to travel into London to attend extra classes.
Like her cousins, Alice was fortunate in having so many relations across the Continent with whom she could spend happy holidays. Among the chief pleasures of her childhood were the visits to her mother’s native Arolsen where many happy family reunions were enacted with cousins squabbling over toys and running boisterously through the woods. Usually among the guests was her mother’s widowed sister, Emma, Queen Regent of the Netherlands with her little daughter Queen Wilhelmina. When Alice was thirteen her young cousin joined her at Balmoral where Queen Victoria’s lady-in-waiting was much amused by Alice’s description of Wilhelmina’s plans to have a year of freedom before taking up her responsibilities as Queen:
“What would she do? Give balls and parties?’
‘No,’ replied Princess Alice, ‘She only likes dancing by herself, twirling round on one leg or in a ‘valse’ but when she is really Queen she means to visit her own Indies and she is learning the language one lesson at a time.’
I replied, ‘The Duchess won’t let her out of the country.’
‘Oh, she has thought of that. She will leave her mother as Regent. Grandmama goes abroad, why should she not?’
It was amusing to see how these children confidently look up to the Queen as an example to all sovereigns and meant to model their conduct on hers.”
Apart from visits to Arolsen, the Albanys often holidayed in France with the Queen, who was present with them in Cannes in 1898 for Alice’s confirmation in a chapel built as a memorial to her father.
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