Beloved Mama: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the German Crown Princess, 1878-1885, Roger Fulford, ed.
This completes my self-imposed challenge of reading through the five volumes of published letters between Queen Victoria and her eldest daughter. I am wondering now, though, why this is the last volume of letters published, when both women lived until 1901, presumably writing to the end. Beloved Mama was published in 1981, and Roger Fulford, the editor, died in 1983. Perhaps no one else wanted to take on the tremendous effort of deciphering and transcribing the letters? Apparently Queen Victoria's handwriting was a particular challenge, as was her habit of slipping in German words. I do see, though, that the Folio Society has a new one-volume compilation of this correspondence, including letters up to 1901. I may look for a copy of their book at some point, because I feel like I've been left hanging in 1885.
I said in my post about the fourth volume (covering 1871-1878) that I thought it was a very sad book, with many disagreements between mother and daughter, leading to snappy responses and hurt silences. This final volume feels much less sad, though it chronicles many tragic events, including the deaths of two of the Queen's children. Her second daughter Alice died in 1878, on the anniversary of Prince Albert's death and shortly after the death of her own daughter Marie. The Queen's youngest son Leopold died in in 1884, leaving an infant daughter and an expectant wife. At the time of his death, the Queen was still mourning the loss of her beloved servant John Brown in 1883, and though her children sympathized, they did not share or even understand her devotion to him. The younger Victoria lost her favorite son, Waldemar, in 1879, and she found herself increasingly alienated from her oldest son, Prince William (the future Kaiser Wilhelm), and from her other children. It is difficult to understand why from these letters, which are in many cases only excerpts and of course present her side of the story, but the Crown Princess freely expresses her hurt and confusion to her mother. At the same time she remains alienated from the Prussian court, with strongly liberal ideas that are unwelcome in Berlin. I feel that I need a biography of the Crown Princess to fully understand her life, especially in the years after 1885.
After spending so much time reading these very frank letters, written over so many years, I do feel that in a small way I have gotten to know these two women, behind the public facades of Queen and Princess, as well as having an eye-witness view of some of the major events of English and Prussian history in the 1800s.
Showing posts with label Queen Victoria. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Queen Victoria. Show all posts
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Friday, September 9, 2011
A fourth volume of royal letters
Darling Child: Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia, 1871-1878, Roger Fulford, ed.
I haven't signed on for any reading challenges yet (though RIP VI looks like fun), but I have set myself the goal of reading all five books in this series, which together span the years 1858-1885. I posted about the third volume, covering the years 1865-1871, a week or so ago.
Of the four volumes I have read so far, I found this one the saddest. As in previous years, the Crown Princess has an uncomfortable relationship with her husband's family, and she writes constantly of interference from her father-in-law, the Emperor, particularly with her sons. The Crown Princess wants them brought up in English ways, and she resents and resists the traditions of Prussian society. This naturally makes her no friends at court. There are also conflicts with her mother-in-law the Empress, with Queen Victoria trying to act as peace-maker. The Crown Prince in these years is in much the same position as his brother-in-law, the Prince of Wales, standing for decades in the shadow of the throne, with no power and little influence.
At the same time, the letters chronicle frequent disagreements between mother and daughter, in words that must have been difficult to read. Where they used to discuss, now they seem quick to take offense. Both complain constantly of being misunderstood and misinterpreted by the other. Both express hurt feelings, and the Crown Princess in particular often retreats into silence. They disagree over religion, books, and art. They take different sides on the major political event of these years, the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, and over Prussia and England's roles in peace negotiations. The Queen accuses the Crown Princess of interfering in the marriages of her sons Alfred and Arthur, and her daughter Louise. But a simple passing reference to a future marriage of her youngest daughter Beatrice enrages the Queen, who is determined to keep "Baby" single and at home.
Discussions of the marriages among Europe's royal families lead to one of the Queen's favorite themes, a mother's sufferings when her daughter marries. The Crown Princess takes up the same theme at the marriage of her oldest daughter Charlotte in 1878, the first of the Queen's grandchildren to marry: "with an aching heart [I] left her, no more mine now - to care for and watch and take care of but another's and this a hard wrench for a mother."
The letters are full of details about their health. Queen Victoria frequently cites her illness, weakness, and exhaustion to explain why she must spend so much time in seclusion, especially at Balmoral, and why she cannot receive visits from the Crown Princess and her family (another source of hurt feelings for her daughter). The Queen also reports regularly on the health of Prince Leopold, her youngest son, who suffered from hemophilia. Her grandson Fritz of Hesse, the child of her daughter Alice, was also a hemophiliac, and he would die from internal bleeding after a fall in 1873. Yet Queen Victoria insists "This peculiarity of poor little Fritz, like Leopold's which is such a rare thing and not in the family . . ." Of course it was in the family, and Fritz's sister Alix would later bring it to the Russian royal family.
In one exchange from 1874, the Crown Princess writes about the letters she has been collecting and keeping, and their eventual fate:
As both a reader and an archivist, I am glad that the Queen won that debate.
I haven't signed on for any reading challenges yet (though RIP VI looks like fun), but I have set myself the goal of reading all five books in this series, which together span the years 1858-1885. I posted about the third volume, covering the years 1865-1871, a week or so ago.
Of the four volumes I have read so far, I found this one the saddest. As in previous years, the Crown Princess has an uncomfortable relationship with her husband's family, and she writes constantly of interference from her father-in-law, the Emperor, particularly with her sons. The Crown Princess wants them brought up in English ways, and she resents and resists the traditions of Prussian society. This naturally makes her no friends at court. There are also conflicts with her mother-in-law the Empress, with Queen Victoria trying to act as peace-maker. The Crown Prince in these years is in much the same position as his brother-in-law, the Prince of Wales, standing for decades in the shadow of the throne, with no power and little influence.
At the same time, the letters chronicle frequent disagreements between mother and daughter, in words that must have been difficult to read. Where they used to discuss, now they seem quick to take offense. Both complain constantly of being misunderstood and misinterpreted by the other. Both express hurt feelings, and the Crown Princess in particular often retreats into silence. They disagree over religion, books, and art. They take different sides on the major political event of these years, the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878, and over Prussia and England's roles in peace negotiations. The Queen accuses the Crown Princess of interfering in the marriages of her sons Alfred and Arthur, and her daughter Louise. But a simple passing reference to a future marriage of her youngest daughter Beatrice enrages the Queen, who is determined to keep "Baby" single and at home.
Discussions of the marriages among Europe's royal families lead to one of the Queen's favorite themes, a mother's sufferings when her daughter marries. The Crown Princess takes up the same theme at the marriage of her oldest daughter Charlotte in 1878, the first of the Queen's grandchildren to marry: "with an aching heart [I] left her, no more mine now - to care for and watch and take care of but another's and this a hard wrench for a mother."
The letters are full of details about their health. Queen Victoria frequently cites her illness, weakness, and exhaustion to explain why she must spend so much time in seclusion, especially at Balmoral, and why she cannot receive visits from the Crown Princess and her family (another source of hurt feelings for her daughter). The Queen also reports regularly on the health of Prince Leopold, her youngest son, who suffered from hemophilia. Her grandson Fritz of Hesse, the child of her daughter Alice, was also a hemophiliac, and he would die from internal bleeding after a fall in 1873. Yet Queen Victoria insists "This peculiarity of poor little Fritz, like Leopold's which is such a rare thing and not in the family . . ." Of course it was in the family, and Fritz's sister Alix would later bring it to the Russian royal family.
In one exchange from 1874, the Crown Princess writes about the letters she has been collecting and keeping, and their eventual fate:
"I want your authorisation to burn all I have except dear Papa's letters! Every scrap that you have ever written - I have hoarded up, but the idea is dreadful to me that anyone else should read them or meddle with them in the event of my death. Will you not burn all mine? I should feel so much relieved." (Feb. 28, 1874)The Queen responds,
"I am not for burning them except any of a nature which affect any of the family painfully and which were of no real importance, and they should be destroyed at once. But all the papers and letters I have, are secured even as to my successor (excepting political ones). . . I am very much against destroying important letters, and I everyday see the necessity of reference." (March 1874)
As both a reader and an archivist, I am glad that the Queen won that debate.
Sunday, August 28, 2011
A third volume of royal letters
Your Dear Letter, Private Correspondence of Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia 1865-1871, Roger Fulford, ed.
This is the third volume of letters between Queen Victoria and her daughter Victoria that I have read (the first covers the years 1858-1861 and the second 1861-1864). The writing style and tone of both women have become familiar, and reading this book felt like meeting old friends again and picking up the stories of their lives. This sense of intimacy is of course due to the frankness of these private letters between mother and daughter, which bridges the gap between their royal lives in the late 1800s and my American life in 2011. I was again sometimes taken aback at the frankness. Queen Victoria writes of the birth of one grandchild:
I was particularly interested in the discussion of Louise's marriage and the other references to her, having recently read Jehanne Wake's biography of her. And after reading Amanda Foreman's book on Britain and the American Civil War, I noted the few references to that war, including the appearances of Lord Lyons, minister in Washington during the war, who was later rewarded for his service with the plum appointment as Ambassador to France). On April 28, 1865, Queen Victoria refers to the letter of condolence she has sent Mary Lincoln, "whose husband was murdered by her side!"
As in the previous books of letters, the letters frequently talk about books read and recommended. The Queen often mentions Margaret Oliphant's books, which she enjoys for their Scottish settings. She sends several to the Crown Princess, and in one letter she mentions meeting the author. In 1868 Queen Victoria becomes a published author herself, when Leaves From the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands is published. She is clearly very proud of her book, sending copies to the different members of the Prussian Court, collecting reviews, noting sales figures, and above all reporting the praise she hears from all sides. The Crown Princess occasionally acknowledges receipt of the book or offers some brief comment on it, and the Queen is hurt by her lack of response. The editor Roger Fulford suggests in his introduction that Victoria's children were embarrassed by the personal nature of the book, with incidents from their childhoods, and that the Crown Princess chose to ignore what she could not praise with honesty.
The most significant events in these years are of course the Prussian wars. As this volume ends, Prussia has become an Empire, and the Crown Princess's father-in-law the Emperor. His new empire has annexed the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine from France, an action whose consequences would reach far into the 20th century. With the hindsight of history, it is uncomfortable to read the younger Victoria's letters celebrating Prussia's military might yet insisting on her peaceful intentions toward the rest of Europe.
This is the third volume of letters between Queen Victoria and her daughter Victoria that I have read (the first covers the years 1858-1861 and the second 1861-1864). The writing style and tone of both women have become familiar, and reading this book felt like meeting old friends again and picking up the stories of their lives. This sense of intimacy is of course due to the frankness of these private letters between mother and daughter, which bridges the gap between their royal lives in the late 1800s and my American life in 2011. I was again sometimes taken aback at the frankness. Queen Victoria writes of the birth of one grandchild:
"The baby - a mere little red lump was all I saw; and I fear the seventh grand-daughter and fourteenth grand-child becomes a very uninteresting thing - for it seems to me to go on like the rabbits in Windsor Park!" (July 10, 1868)This book covers more years than the previous two, and those years are busy ones, including two Prussian wars, with Austria and France. Because the scope of the book is wider, and the correspondence still voluminous, the letters are more heavily edited. I doubt any letter is printed in its entirety; in many cases, only a paragraph, sometimes only a single line is included. There are more letters, and more extensive excerpts, on some topics such as the two wars, the sudden death of the Crown Princess's baby son Sigismund, a domestic scandal in the Crown Princess's household, and the engagement of Princess Louise to the Marquis of Lorne. The Crown Princess and the Prussian Royal Family take offense at Louise's engagement to a British subject, rather than the match with a Prussian prince that they had been promoting.
I was particularly interested in the discussion of Louise's marriage and the other references to her, having recently read Jehanne Wake's biography of her. And after reading Amanda Foreman's book on Britain and the American Civil War, I noted the few references to that war, including the appearances of Lord Lyons, minister in Washington during the war, who was later rewarded for his service with the plum appointment as Ambassador to France). On April 28, 1865, Queen Victoria refers to the letter of condolence she has sent Mary Lincoln, "whose husband was murdered by her side!"
As in the previous books of letters, the letters frequently talk about books read and recommended. The Queen often mentions Margaret Oliphant's books, which she enjoys for their Scottish settings. She sends several to the Crown Princess, and in one letter she mentions meeting the author. In 1868 Queen Victoria becomes a published author herself, when Leaves From the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands is published. She is clearly very proud of her book, sending copies to the different members of the Prussian Court, collecting reviews, noting sales figures, and above all reporting the praise she hears from all sides. The Crown Princess occasionally acknowledges receipt of the book or offers some brief comment on it, and the Queen is hurt by her lack of response. The editor Roger Fulford suggests in his introduction that Victoria's children were embarrassed by the personal nature of the book, with incidents from their childhoods, and that the Crown Princess chose to ignore what she could not praise with honesty.
The most significant events in these years are of course the Prussian wars. As this volume ends, Prussia has become an Empire, and the Crown Princess's father-in-law the Emperor. His new empire has annexed the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine from France, an action whose consequences would reach far into the 20th century. With the hindsight of history, it is uncomfortable to read the younger Victoria's letters celebrating Prussia's military might yet insisting on her peaceful intentions toward the rest of Europe.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
A second volume of royal letters
Dearest Mama, Letters Between Queen Victoria and the Crown Princess of Prussia, Roger Fulford, ed.
This is the second of five volumes of letters between the Queen and her eldest daughter Victoria that Roger Fulford edited and published. I posted about the first book, Dearest Child, back on July 29th. The letters in this volume date from late 1861 to mid-1864, starting with those written in the immediate aftermath of Prince Albert's death on December 14th. As with the first book, most of the letters were previously unpublished.
Dearest Mama is an interesting contrast to the first book. The title suggests one of most important differences, to my mind: at least half the letters are from the Crown Princess. In Dearest Child, probably 80% of the letters were from Queen Victoria, and her voice dominated. Here we get clearly the voice of the younger Victoria, a wife and mother of three children, a veteran of the complexities of the Prussian Court, moving out the shadows of her formidable parents.
Grief over the death of Prince Albert of course dominates the letters of 1861 and 1862. The Queen dwells on her sorrow, her agonized sense of abandonment, her shattered nerves and inability to cope without Prince Albert. She makes elaborate plans for his monuments and marks every anniversary. In the early months, the Crown Princess's letters focus on her own grief and on attempts to comfort her mother. By the middle of 1862, though, when she sets off on an extended trip through Italy, her letters are full of the excitement of travel, to the Queen's distress. The Princess is traveling on the first anniversary of her father's death, and the Queen is horrified at what she rates almost as sacrilege.
Two important themes carry over from the first book. One is the marriages of Queen Victoria's children, first Princess Alice to Prince Louis of Hesse, and even more importantly, the Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra of Schelswig-Holstein. The Crown Princess and her husband had worked behind the scenes to further both matches. However, in both cases the weddings are overshadowed by the Queen's grief. Though the Queen deplores the early and frequent pregnancies of Victoria and Alice, both she and Victoria express disappointment and concern when Alexandra does not immediately conceive. Mother and daughter are also busy over possible spouses for Prince Alfred (there are constant refrains that "he ought to marry early" due to immoral tendencies) and for Princess Helen (the Queen insisting on a spouse who will remain in England after marriage).
Another major theme is Prussian politics. The Crown Prince and Princess have liberal political ideas, which put them at odds not just with the Prussian royal family, but with powerful conservative politicians, including the Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismark. As the heir to the throne, though, the Crown Prince has no real power. The situation is complicated by the 1864 war between Germany and Denmark over the Duchies of Schelswig and Holstein, which also creates complications within the English Royal Family. The Crown Princess writes at length about politics, at times in almost a hectoring tone. The Queen is quick to point that out: "I forbear answering your letter the tone of which was not quite the thing to your own Mama." Yet the Queen's letters often have a sharp tone of their own, especially at any perceived neglect.
As in the first book, the two also discuss books, music, and family gossip. To my surprise, religion is a frequent topic, particularly church politics. Mother and daughter also discuss the Prussian grandchildren in detail, especially the treatment for Prince Willy's arm, damaged at birth and never to heal. No small part of the fascination of reading these letters is the historical foresight, knowing now where this story is going, what will happen to these people, whose future is hidden from them.
This is the second of five volumes of letters between the Queen and her eldest daughter Victoria that Roger Fulford edited and published. I posted about the first book, Dearest Child, back on July 29th. The letters in this volume date from late 1861 to mid-1864, starting with those written in the immediate aftermath of Prince Albert's death on December 14th. As with the first book, most of the letters were previously unpublished.
Dearest Mama is an interesting contrast to the first book. The title suggests one of most important differences, to my mind: at least half the letters are from the Crown Princess. In Dearest Child, probably 80% of the letters were from Queen Victoria, and her voice dominated. Here we get clearly the voice of the younger Victoria, a wife and mother of three children, a veteran of the complexities of the Prussian Court, moving out the shadows of her formidable parents.
Grief over the death of Prince Albert of course dominates the letters of 1861 and 1862. The Queen dwells on her sorrow, her agonized sense of abandonment, her shattered nerves and inability to cope without Prince Albert. She makes elaborate plans for his monuments and marks every anniversary. In the early months, the Crown Princess's letters focus on her own grief and on attempts to comfort her mother. By the middle of 1862, though, when she sets off on an extended trip through Italy, her letters are full of the excitement of travel, to the Queen's distress. The Princess is traveling on the first anniversary of her father's death, and the Queen is horrified at what she rates almost as sacrilege.
Two important themes carry over from the first book. One is the marriages of Queen Victoria's children, first Princess Alice to Prince Louis of Hesse, and even more importantly, the Prince of Wales to Princess Alexandra of Schelswig-Holstein. The Crown Princess and her husband had worked behind the scenes to further both matches. However, in both cases the weddings are overshadowed by the Queen's grief. Though the Queen deplores the early and frequent pregnancies of Victoria and Alice, both she and Victoria express disappointment and concern when Alexandra does not immediately conceive. Mother and daughter are also busy over possible spouses for Prince Alfred (there are constant refrains that "he ought to marry early" due to immoral tendencies) and for Princess Helen (the Queen insisting on a spouse who will remain in England after marriage).
Another major theme is Prussian politics. The Crown Prince and Princess have liberal political ideas, which put them at odds not just with the Prussian royal family, but with powerful conservative politicians, including the Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismark. As the heir to the throne, though, the Crown Prince has no real power. The situation is complicated by the 1864 war between Germany and Denmark over the Duchies of Schelswig and Holstein, which also creates complications within the English Royal Family. The Crown Princess writes at length about politics, at times in almost a hectoring tone. The Queen is quick to point that out: "I forbear answering your letter the tone of which was not quite the thing to your own Mama." Yet the Queen's letters often have a sharp tone of their own, especially at any perceived neglect.
As in the first book, the two also discuss books, music, and family gossip. To my surprise, religion is a frequent topic, particularly church politics. Mother and daughter also discuss the Prussian grandchildren in detail, especially the treatment for Prince Willy's arm, damaged at birth and never to heal. No small part of the fascination of reading these letters is the historical foresight, knowing now where this story is going, what will happen to these people, whose future is hidden from them.
Friday, July 29, 2011
Mother to daughter, queen to princess
Dearest Child, Letters Between Queen Victoria and the Princess Royal, Roger Fulford, ed.
When people ask me about my job, about what an archivist does, I sometimes tell them that I spend all day reading other people's mail. It might be letters from the 1850s, or from the 1990s - and some days it's more financial reports and building plans and committee minutes. But I do read an awful lot of other people's mail. I even do it for fun, in book form, whether it's fictional mail like Jane Austen's Lady Susan, or Jean Webster's Daddy-Long-Legs; or real-life mail, Abraham Lincoln's, or in this case, the British Royal Family's.
When I was reading Jehanne Wake's biography of Princess Louise, I saw this book cited in the sources and remembered that I had checked it out from the library once but never read it. I also discovered that there are four other published volumes of letters between the two Victorias, mother and daughter, and I expect I will be reading them as well.
The letters in Dearest Child cover the years 1858 to 1861. The first was written on the day of the Princess Royal's marriage, at age seventeen, to Prince Frederick William of Prussia. The last was written three days before the Prince Consort's death in December 1861. They are mainly from Queen Victoria to her daughter, though some of the Princess's are included, primarily in answer to her mother's or to add additional detail. The letters are obviously edited and culled; in some cases, only a line or two is given. Faced with hundreds of letter, the editor, Roger Fulford, was very selective in what he included, yet he had a broad goal: "to retain the heart of the correspondence, revealing the life of the Queen, her interests and preoccupations."
In his introduction, Fulford speculates that Queen Victoria, isolated within her position, longed for equal friendships, particularly with women. Once her daughter married, Victoria immediately put her into that role, as a confidant, while retaining of course her motherly prerogatives of advice, probing questions, and demands. The letters bear this out with frank discussions. Did it bother her daughter, the first-born child, to read more than once how furious Victoria was to be "caught" in her first pregnancy, how much she resented the disruption that children brought to her early married life? Commenting frequently on the Prince of Wales, the Queen could find nothing good to say about her eldest son: his head small, his chin weak, his features outsize, his hairstyles ridiculous, his nature lazy and boorish. At the same time, the Queen enlisted his sister in the search for prospective brides, about whom both commented very freely as well. The Princess Royal also helped arrange the marriage of her sister Alice, to another German prince.
In addition, the letters focus on the younger Victoria's married life in Prussia, both at court and in her husband's divided and quarrelsome family. The Princess bore her first child, the future Kaiser Wilhelm, in the first year of marriage. Two years later, as the letters ended, she had borne a second child and was pregnant with her third. Naturally, pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing were frequent subjects in the letters, but so were Prussian politics and the strained family relationships.
In March of 1861, the Queen's mother, the Duchess of Kent, died. Victoria's grief overwhelmed her, and she withdrew even from family life. It was an eerie, unconscious rehearsal for the greater loss that she would face that December.
What draws me to letters and diaries, especially those written privately with no expectation that anyone but the recipient would ever read them, is the life and personality that flow through the words. It is very different from biography. Even when heavily edited, as these are, it is the people themselves who speak to us across the years. That is the fascination of archives.
When people ask me about my job, about what an archivist does, I sometimes tell them that I spend all day reading other people's mail. It might be letters from the 1850s, or from the 1990s - and some days it's more financial reports and building plans and committee minutes. But I do read an awful lot of other people's mail. I even do it for fun, in book form, whether it's fictional mail like Jane Austen's Lady Susan, or Jean Webster's Daddy-Long-Legs; or real-life mail, Abraham Lincoln's, or in this case, the British Royal Family's.
When I was reading Jehanne Wake's biography of Princess Louise, I saw this book cited in the sources and remembered that I had checked it out from the library once but never read it. I also discovered that there are four other published volumes of letters between the two Victorias, mother and daughter, and I expect I will be reading them as well.
The letters in Dearest Child cover the years 1858 to 1861. The first was written on the day of the Princess Royal's marriage, at age seventeen, to Prince Frederick William of Prussia. The last was written three days before the Prince Consort's death in December 1861. They are mainly from Queen Victoria to her daughter, though some of the Princess's are included, primarily in answer to her mother's or to add additional detail. The letters are obviously edited and culled; in some cases, only a line or two is given. Faced with hundreds of letter, the editor, Roger Fulford, was very selective in what he included, yet he had a broad goal: "to retain the heart of the correspondence, revealing the life of the Queen, her interests and preoccupations."
In his introduction, Fulford speculates that Queen Victoria, isolated within her position, longed for equal friendships, particularly with women. Once her daughter married, Victoria immediately put her into that role, as a confidant, while retaining of course her motherly prerogatives of advice, probing questions, and demands. The letters bear this out with frank discussions. Did it bother her daughter, the first-born child, to read more than once how furious Victoria was to be "caught" in her first pregnancy, how much she resented the disruption that children brought to her early married life? Commenting frequently on the Prince of Wales, the Queen could find nothing good to say about her eldest son: his head small, his chin weak, his features outsize, his hairstyles ridiculous, his nature lazy and boorish. At the same time, the Queen enlisted his sister in the search for prospective brides, about whom both commented very freely as well. The Princess Royal also helped arrange the marriage of her sister Alice, to another German prince.
In addition, the letters focus on the younger Victoria's married life in Prussia, both at court and in her husband's divided and quarrelsome family. The Princess bore her first child, the future Kaiser Wilhelm, in the first year of marriage. Two years later, as the letters ended, she had borne a second child and was pregnant with her third. Naturally, pregnancy, childbirth, and child-rearing were frequent subjects in the letters, but so were Prussian politics and the strained family relationships.
In March of 1861, the Queen's mother, the Duchess of Kent, died. Victoria's grief overwhelmed her, and she withdrew even from family life. It was an eerie, unconscious rehearsal for the greater loss that she would face that December.
What draws me to letters and diaries, especially those written privately with no expectation that anyone but the recipient would ever read them, is the life and personality that flow through the words. It is very different from biography. Even when heavily edited, as these are, it is the people themselves who speak to us across the years. That is the fascination of archives.
Tuesday, July 12, 2011
An unconventional princess
Princess Louise, Queen Victoria's Unconventional Daughter, Jehanne Wake
I enjoyed Jehanne Wake's book Sisters of Fortune so much that I immediately looked to see what else she has written. This book, her first published, caught my eye. All I knew about Princess Louise was that she married the Duke of Argyll (and I was wrong about that, since at the time of their marriage he had the title of Marquis of Lorne). I was intrigued to find out more about her, especially how one of Queen Victoria's daughters managed unconventionality.
Princess Louise was born in 1848, the sixth child and fourth daughter of Victoria and Albert. By that time, her parents relaxed some of the strict disciplines that the older children had suffered under, but Louise still lived a very restricted, regimented life, seeing her mother rarely. She was also frequently ill; an attack of tubercular meningitis at age sixteen may have made it impossible for her later to have children. Louise was only thirteen when her father died. Most of her adolescence and young womanhood passed in her mother's obsessive mourning. Victoria, selfish in her grief, insisted that everyone else share it. She made no allowances for the children's resiliency and quashed any high spirits as disrespect toward their sainted father. I have read other accounts of Victoria's problems as a mother, but reading this was like seeing her from inside the family circle, and I felt little sympathy for her.
In this atmosphere of mourning, and as her sisters were married off to Europe's princes, Louise began to carve out her own place. A gifted artist, she managed to persuade Queen Victoria to let her study sculpture, at that time considered too robust for women. Her studies brought her into contact with a wider world, and sometimes a less respectable one, than Royal Princesses normally met. She also took an interest in women's rights, especially education and access to professions. Once she sneaked off to visit Elizabeth Garrett, the first woman doctor to practice medicine in England. Princess Louise would become a great philanthropist, especially interested in women and children, in hospitals and schools. Not content with simply lending her name, or giving money, she was an active (some thought overactive) patroness, poking into everything.
Louise's marriage was also unconventional for the time. Selfishly, the Queen wanted to keep her daughter in England, though the married Princess Helena and her husband lived close to her, and the youngest daughter Beatrice was still at home. The Queen's solution was marriage to an Englishman or Scotsman. The search for the right young man reads almost like a farce at times, with Queen Victoria enlisting a reluctant Lord Granville of the Foreign Office to vet candidates, with a constant stream of letters deluging the poor man. John (Ian) Campbell, the Marquis of Lorne and the heir of the 8th Duke of Argyll, was an early candidate, and after some false starts he was eventually accepted. His position as a non-royal Royal husband would prove a difficult one, which put strains on their marriage, as did their inability to have a child and Louise's continued ill-health.
I enjoyed this book, though it wasn't an easy read. It seems to have a cast of thousands, and Wake seems to assume a familiarity with the Court circles and the great families of England. There are family trees of the Royal Family and the Campbells on the endpapers, and I referred to them constantly (I had a complete blank spot about Princess Louis of Battenberg and had to look her up every single time she was mentioned). But there are others who play important parts in Louise's life, who aren't fully identified or placed in context. Lord Ronnie Levenson-Gower first appears on page 37 as a playmate of the royal children, and he remained an important part of Louise's life until his death in 1916. I had to google him to learn he was Lorne's uncle, his mother's brother, since her family isn't identified by last name on the family trees, just by titles. The index is unusual in that it lists subjects by first name ("Sophie, Lady - see McNamara, Sophie") but it would have been helpful to work quick identifications or reminders into the text. There were constant crises and feuds in both the Royal and Campbell families, which were sometimes difficult to follow in all their twists and turns. At the same time, there are interesting omissions. There is no discussion, not even a single reference, to the murders of the Romanovs in 1918, though Alexandra was Louise's niece (and the sister of the ubiquitous Princess Louis of Battenberg). Nor, despite Louise's early interest in women's rights, was there any discussion of women's suffrage in the 20th century. Did Princess Louise ever vote?
Unconventional to the end, Louise was the first member of the Royal Family to be cremated, at her death in 1939. Due to wartime restrictions, she could not be buried with her husband in Scotland, so she was reunited with her parents in burial at Windsor.
I enjoyed Jehanne Wake's book Sisters of Fortune so much that I immediately looked to see what else she has written. This book, her first published, caught my eye. All I knew about Princess Louise was that she married the Duke of Argyll (and I was wrong about that, since at the time of their marriage he had the title of Marquis of Lorne). I was intrigued to find out more about her, especially how one of Queen Victoria's daughters managed unconventionality.
Princess Louise was born in 1848, the sixth child and fourth daughter of Victoria and Albert. By that time, her parents relaxed some of the strict disciplines that the older children had suffered under, but Louise still lived a very restricted, regimented life, seeing her mother rarely. She was also frequently ill; an attack of tubercular meningitis at age sixteen may have made it impossible for her later to have children. Louise was only thirteen when her father died. Most of her adolescence and young womanhood passed in her mother's obsessive mourning. Victoria, selfish in her grief, insisted that everyone else share it. She made no allowances for the children's resiliency and quashed any high spirits as disrespect toward their sainted father. I have read other accounts of Victoria's problems as a mother, but reading this was like seeing her from inside the family circle, and I felt little sympathy for her.
In this atmosphere of mourning, and as her sisters were married off to Europe's princes, Louise began to carve out her own place. A gifted artist, she managed to persuade Queen Victoria to let her study sculpture, at that time considered too robust for women. Her studies brought her into contact with a wider world, and sometimes a less respectable one, than Royal Princesses normally met. She also took an interest in women's rights, especially education and access to professions. Once she sneaked off to visit Elizabeth Garrett, the first woman doctor to practice medicine in England. Princess Louise would become a great philanthropist, especially interested in women and children, in hospitals and schools. Not content with simply lending her name, or giving money, she was an active (some thought overactive) patroness, poking into everything.
Louise's marriage was also unconventional for the time. Selfishly, the Queen wanted to keep her daughter in England, though the married Princess Helena and her husband lived close to her, and the youngest daughter Beatrice was still at home. The Queen's solution was marriage to an Englishman or Scotsman. The search for the right young man reads almost like a farce at times, with Queen Victoria enlisting a reluctant Lord Granville of the Foreign Office to vet candidates, with a constant stream of letters deluging the poor man. John (Ian) Campbell, the Marquis of Lorne and the heir of the 8th Duke of Argyll, was an early candidate, and after some false starts he was eventually accepted. His position as a non-royal Royal husband would prove a difficult one, which put strains on their marriage, as did their inability to have a child and Louise's continued ill-health.
I enjoyed this book, though it wasn't an easy read. It seems to have a cast of thousands, and Wake seems to assume a familiarity with the Court circles and the great families of England. There are family trees of the Royal Family and the Campbells on the endpapers, and I referred to them constantly (I had a complete blank spot about Princess Louis of Battenberg and had to look her up every single time she was mentioned). But there are others who play important parts in Louise's life, who aren't fully identified or placed in context. Lord Ronnie Levenson-Gower first appears on page 37 as a playmate of the royal children, and he remained an important part of Louise's life until his death in 1916. I had to google him to learn he was Lorne's uncle, his mother's brother, since her family isn't identified by last name on the family trees, just by titles. The index is unusual in that it lists subjects by first name ("Sophie, Lady - see McNamara, Sophie") but it would have been helpful to work quick identifications or reminders into the text. There were constant crises and feuds in both the Royal and Campbell families, which were sometimes difficult to follow in all their twists and turns. At the same time, there are interesting omissions. There is no discussion, not even a single reference, to the murders of the Romanovs in 1918, though Alexandra was Louise's niece (and the sister of the ubiquitous Princess Louis of Battenberg). Nor, despite Louise's early interest in women's rights, was there any discussion of women's suffrage in the 20th century. Did Princess Louise ever vote?
Unconventional to the end, Louise was the first member of the Royal Family to be cremated, at her death in 1939. Due to wartime restrictions, she could not be buried with her husband in Scotland, so she was reunited with her parents in burial at Windsor.
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