

Queen Victoria's Empire : Her Majesty : Her Children

Her Children

Victoria and Family.
Victoria and Family.
Royal Society
Princess Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise (1840-1901)
She married Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia in 1858. Friedrich became the emperor of Germany, but died after only three months. Their eldest son became Wilhelm II of Germany (also known as Kaiser Bill of World War I). This obviously caused friction within the Royal Family -- it is claimed that Queen Victoria's favorite grandson was Wilhelm. Princess Victoria had eight children in total. Her daughter Sophie went on to marry a Greek Prince and later became Queen of Greece. Princess Victoria died August 5th, 1901, only eight months after the death of Queen Victoria.

Prince Albert Edward Wettin (1841-1910)
Prince Albert became King Edward VII in 1901. He took the family name of his father, Prince Albert, and hence on his coronation the monarchy moved from the House of Hanover to the House of Wettin. In 1917 his son, George V, in an outburst of anti-German feelings engendered by the First World War, changed the name of his house and family from Wettin to Windsor. Victoria and Albert imposed a strict regime upon Edward; this had the opposite effort than the one Victoria and Albert had hoped for, and he rebelled constantly with indulgence in food, drink, women, gambling and sport. He married at the age of 22 to Princess Alexandra of Denmark. She turned a blind eye to his extramarital activities, which continued well into his sixties, despite the fact he was implicated in several divorce cases. He had six children in total -- Albert, George, Louise, Victoria, Maude and John. Maude went onto marry into the Norwegian royal family and became the Queen Consort of Norway.

Princess Alice Maude Mary (1843-1878)
When she was 17, Queen Victoria decided it was time for Princess Alice to marry. She personally chose Prince Ludwig and Hesse as an ideal choice for her third daughter. Ludwig went on to become the Grand Duke Louis XIV. Within six months of arranging the introduction, they were married. Unfortunately, the marriage began in the shadow of Prince Albert's death (he had died shortly after arranging the introduction between Alice and Ludwig). Alice went onto to have seven children -- Victoria, Elizabeth, Ernst-Ludwig, Irene, Friedrich Wilheim (Frittie), Alix and Marie. Again, tragedy was to strike with the accidental death of her son Frittie. Alice saw her toddler run to the window. To her horror, she found out too late that the window was not locked. The toddler fell 20 feet and landed on his head. Frittie was dead within a few hours. This lost weighed deeply on Alice and she went through a great depression. She mourned the loss until her own death, and always talked about being reunited with Frittie in heaven. Her daughter Alix married Nicholas II the last Russian tzar.

Prince Alfred Ernest Albert (1844-1900)
Prince Alfred married the Grand Duchess Marie, daughter of Tzar Alexander II of Russia. He became the Duke of Saxe-Coburg. His eldest daughter Marie married the crown Prince of Romania, who later became King Ferdinand I. Alfred was probably the most widely travelled of all his brothers and sisters. In fact, he was the first member of the Royal family to visit Australia. Unfortunately, during his in 1868, there was an attempt on his life in Sydney. An Irishman made the attempted assassination, and when it emerged that the would be assassin was a Catholic, it only helped harden bigotry towards the Irish Catholics. Alfred's mother was to outlive him by a year -- his death in 1900 was due to cancer of the throat.

Princess Helena Augusta Victoria (1846-1923)
Princess Helena was also known as "Lenchen." She was born a "blue baby," possibly because her mother was at the height of anxiety over the loss of her first trusted Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel. In 1866, she married Prince Frederick Christain of Schleswig-Holstein. Her name lives on in today's royal family -- one of Princess Eugenia's middle names is Helena.

Princess Louise Caroline Alberta (1848-1939)
Although it's not unusual for British royals to marry outsiders today, this was not the case in 1871, when Princess Louise married John Douglas Sutherland Campbell, a commoner who would later become the Duke of Argyll. Princess Louise was determined when she got to marriageable age not to follow the route her sister had; Princess Victoria had married a German Prince, and her royal duties stopped her from pursuing her artistic aspirations. As it turned out, Princess Louise's engagement to John was supported not only by her mother, but also by Disraeli. Unexpectedly, the match also pleased the British public, which had feared yet another German marriage, which in the general population feelings had already occurred too often. Her husband became prominent in public life as an MP, and later on became governor-general of Canada. It was during this time that Lake Louise near Laffan in the Rocky Mountains was named after her. The couple never had children, but despite this lack in their lives, Louise and John led an active and happy life together. This was undoubtedly one of the great-unsung royal love matches. When her husband died in 1914, Louise went into mourning -- not quite as severe as her mother's had been for Albert, but severe enough. She became something of a recluse until her own death in 1939 at the age of 91.

Prince Arthur William Patrick (1850-1942)
Prince Arthur married Princess Louise Margarete of Prussia. It was said that Arthur was the Queen's favorite son. He felt destined for the army from a very early age, and he spent a great many years in the armed forces. He rose in rank and became promoted in 1902 to the rank of Field Marshal. Due to his family ties, as well as interest, he became very involved in German affairs, and this may have been the reasoning behind his transfer in 1911 to Canada, which distanced him from the military aspects of a deteriorating German situation. In Canada, he became the Governor General. He had two daughters and a son. Their younger daughter, Princess Patricia, is well known to Canadians as Lady Patricia Ramasey, and gave her name to a famous Canadian army regiment, Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry. The Prince was a freemason. He became Grand Master in 1901 when his brother, who had held that post previously, became King. He served as Grand Master until his death in 1942.

Prince Leopold George Duncan (1853-1884)
Prince Leopold married Princess Helena Frederica of Waldeck. He was a hemophiliac, and died two years after his marriage. His son became Duke of Saxe-Coburg. He is considered by many to have been the most intelligent and probably most interesting of Victoria's sons. He had an immense thirst for life, which despite his illnesses (he also was an epileptic), studied at Oxford and became friends with Lewis Carroll, John Ruskin and Oscar Wilde. He acted as an unofficial secretary of the Queen, so it is interesting to conject what his influence was on her. His brief experience of happiness during his marriage was cut short by his death.

Princess Beatrice Mary Victoria (1857-1944)
Princess Beatrice was only four years old when her father, Prince Albert, died. Almost immediately, Victoria turned to her youngest child as her sole confidant. Victoria's aim was to keep Beatrice at her side at all times, and managed to snuff out an affair that could have happen between Beatrice and Louise Napoleon when Beatrice was 16 years old. She would have to wait a further 11 years before she found her love match in Prince Henry of Battenberg. They meet at a family wedding and quickly fell in love, but Victoria was violently opposed to the engagement, and it took eight months of arguments for Victoria to finally to relent and allow her daughter to marry. The only condition was that they should always live with her in Britain. Henry, who was from a poor German royal family, was only too happy to agree to this. Over the next few years, their only activity was producing children. Unfortunately, Beatrice was to pass on the hemophiliac gene to her sons, and her daughter, Victoria, who became a carrier, too, introduced the gene into the Spanish royal family. Prince Henry persuaded the Queen to let him leave the country with an expedition to Ashanti in Ghana; he was never to return, as he contracted fatal malaria while in Africa. Beatrice continued a quiet life living in Osborne Palace on the Isle of Wight, and maintained her role as the Queen's confidant. This was something her elder brother, Edward, could never forgive her for, for he felt as the future King, it should have been him who his mother turned to. Consequently, on her death Edward made it difficult for Beatrice to stay at Osborne Palace, and she had to live on a cottage on the estate. She ended her days in bad health, a constant sufferer of rheumatism, and died in 1944 aged 87 years old.

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