Queen Victoria's Daughters, Part 2

Queen Victoria's Nine Children The Daughters Part 2 Louise For the birth of her sixth child, the queen chose to use chloroform to diminish the pain, popularizing the use of anesthesia during childbirth. Louise was bright and inquisitive, earning the nickname, Little Miss Y. She showed artistic talent from an early age and was allowed to study sculpture Louise was 13 when her father died and the sudden plunge into perpetual mourning stifled the teenager. She was bored and often argued with her mother. At 17, she requested that the ballroom be open for her debutante presentation as it had been for her eldest sister, but her mother refused. Once her sisters left to be married, Louise filled the position of private secretary and companion to her depressed mother. Fellow art students were amazed that rather than a life of luxury, the princess left the studio each day to attend to her night job of writing political correspondence. Louise was an outspoken feminist and liberal with sympathies for the poor, even more issues on which she disagreed with her mother. At 18, Louise began an affair with her younger brother's tutor, Reverend Robinson Duckworth. Four years later, the queen discovered the affair, dismissed Duckworth, and began looking for a suitable husband for Louise. She was considered the most beautiful of Victoria's daughters, but rumors of her impurity marred her marriage prospects. Several foreign princes were put forth, but Louise rejected them all and announced that she wished to marry John Campbell, Marquess of Lorne and heir to the Duke of Argyll. No marriage between a monarch's daughter and a subject had been recognized since the Tudor era, and Louise's siblings, particularly Edward, objected. But the queen, wary of European political divisions playing out in her own family, supported the match and said it would bring much-needed new blood into the inbred family. The union was also a brilliant PR move with the British people, a la Will and Kate. Nearly a decade after Albert's death, the queen lifted the dour cloud that had hung over the weddings of Alice and Helena and allowed the couple to be wed at Windsor Castle. Louise wore a lace veil she designed herself, and the couple were greeted by a massive cheering crowd. But the marriage was not as blissful as Louise had hoped. The couple had no children and rumors circulated of Lorne's homosexual lovers. Seven years in, Lorne was appointed Governor-General of Canada, and the couple moved to Ottawa. The Canadian press painted them as haughty royals, an assumption the couple felt unfair as they were quite relaxed on social protocol. They threw open-house balls where anyone was welcome to attend, but it outraged prominent Canadians to dance next to common people so it seemed they couldn't win. Louise treated her homesickness by becoming involved in the arts and in winter sports like skating and slaying. The couple were seriously injured when a horse panicked, dragging their overturned sled 400 yards. Louise suffered a severe concussion. She spent the winter recovering in Bermuda, where she mingled with Black Islanders and reveled in not being recognized. Louise and Lorne returned to Britain in 1885, but their relationship had further deteriorated and they often lived apart. Louise also had a strained relationship with her sisters, Helena and Beatrice. Louise, the most beautiful sister, had grown up pitying the other two and was now terribly jealous of their happy marriages. She wrote that Beatrice's handsome husband would have been better suited to herself. There were rumors that Louise had affairs with her mother's secretary, Arthur Bigg, artist Edwin Lutyens, her equerry, Colonel William Probert, and sculptor Joseph Edgar Boone, who died while the princess was visiting him in his studio, supposedly mid-coitus. Louise often shunned the royal life and enjoyed traveling under the alias Mrs. Campbell. She became involved in the suffrage movement This outraged the queen, who thought women had no right to the vote or professions. Following their mother's death, she became closer to her brother, King Edward VII, with whom she shared most of her liberal views. Louise continued to practice sculpture and created this statue of her mother, which sits in front of Kensington Palace. She was devoted to physical fitness and when criticized would often retort, Never mind, I'll outlive you all. In 1905, the province of Alberta, Canada was named after Princess Louise Caroline Alberta. In the province, there is a Lake Louise and Mount Alberta. In 1911, Lorne, now Duke of Argyll, became senile and she nursed him devotedly until his death in 1914. Louise spent her twilight years at Kensington Palace She died in 1939 at the age of 91, while wearing the wedding veil she had donned 70 years earlier. Victoria, who disliked infants, enjoyed giving her youngest child baths and wrote that Beatrice was Prince Albert was impressed with her precociousness and wrote that she was Her eldest sister, 17-year-old Victoria, was just about to be married when Beatrice was born and adored her younger sibling. On the night that Prince Albert died, Victoria crawled into bed with Beatrice and cuddled her. As she grew and her sisters left one by one with their husbands, the mourning queen leaned increasingly on her youngest child for emotional support. She served as the queen's secretary for many years, and unlike her siblings, she liked and supported her mother's relationship with her Scottish servant, John Brown. Fourteen-year-old Beatrice, undoubtedly echoing her mother's desperate hopes, remarked, I don't like weddings at all, I shall never be married, I shall stay with my mother. In 1870, Emperor Napoleon III of France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War and moved his family to Britain. Victoria became friends with his wife, Empress Eugenie. In her early twenties, Beatrice became romantically attached to the emperor's son, Louis-Napoleon, and it was announced that the couple would be wed. But Louis was killed in the Anglo-Zulu War and Beatrice was heartbroken. Following the death of her elder sister Alice, the Prince of Wales suggested that Beatrice marry Alice's widower, Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, and raise Alice's young children in England. But at that time, it was illegal for a person to marry their deceased sibling spouse, see Catherine of Aragon. A bill was put to Parliament to change the law but was voted down on religious grounds and the queen was relieved to keep her youngest daughter by her side. Prince Louis of Battenberg pursued Beatrice, who was interested but the queen invited him to dinner and sat between the young people. She instructed Beatrice to ignore Louis throughout the dinner and the prince went away rejected. He instead married Alice's daughter, Victoria, and while attending the wedding in Germany, Beatrice met the love of her life, Louis's brother, Prince Henry. When she told her mother of her love and plans to wed, Victoria was horrified and though they lived side by side, she gave her daughter the silent treatment for seven months, communicating only by note. Eventually, her older children convinced the queen that their father Albert would have wanted Beatrice to be happily married, so she relented under the condition that Henry renounce his foreign obligations and move to England. Beatrice wore her mother's wedding veil. The queen walked her youngest child down the aisle and managed to keep her composure through but burst into tears the moment the happy couple departed on their honeymoon. After a short holiday, the newlyweds returned to fulfill their promise of living by the queen's side. They had a happy union and seemed to fall more and more in love as the years went on. But Henry often felt stifled by his mother-in-law and her constant need for companionship. On one occasion, he went to Corsica with his brother and the queen sent a warship to bring him back home. To give him an occupation, Victoria appointed Henry governor of the Isle of Wight. After 11 years of marriage, Henry grew bored of the dour life at court and begged the queen to allow him to join the British army in the Anglo-Ashanti War in West Africa. She relented but had grave misgivings about the adventure. And sure enough, Henry contracted malaria and died in Africa at the age of 37. Beatrice now shared her mother's widowhood and the pair grew even closer in their grief. Beatrice's preoccupation with her mother often left her four children feeling neglected and they acted up at school. When Victoria died, her youngest child's life was overturned. She wrote, I, who have hardly ever been separated from my dear mother, can hardly realize what life will be like without her, who was the center of everything. Her place at court was greatly diminished as she did not get along with her brother, now King Edward VII. Per her mother's request, Beatrice spent the next 30 years transcribing the queen's journals. She edited out so much that they were reduced by two-thirds and she destroyed the originals, so much of Queen Victoria's inner thoughts have been lost. Beatrice spent most of her time at her home on the Isle of Wight, where she had been named governor after her husband's death. She saw her daughter become queen of Spain and two of her sons die young, Maurice in the First World War and Leopold after complications of hemophilia. Beatrice lived to see three more kings crowned and was the last living of Queen Victoria's children. She died in 1944 at the age of 87. In the next episode, we'll learn about the lives of Queen Victoria's four sons, her eldest destined to become the king of the British Empire at the height of its power, two who traveled the world representing Britain, and the youngest who was held back by the royal disease, hemophilia.