The Silence and the Right View that Followed

Queen Victoria to the German Crown Princess

Osbourne

3 January 1885

My health is better, and I can walk and stand much better, but I fear I shall never walk for any great length of time again.  Still I can stand much better within the last 3 weeks and also can walk more than a mile at a time, for which I am thankful.

You second letter pleased me as I saw you take the right view of darling Beatrice’s engagement with Liko.  But you who are so fond of marriages which I (on the other hand) detest beyond words, cannot imagine what agonies, what despair it caused me and what a fearful shock it was to me when I first heard to her wish!  It made me quite ill.  For long I could not hear of it and hoped against hope that it would not be!  But alas! She was so determined that her health would have suffered if I had not relented.  It was her dear brother’s death which determined it.  She looks to him for advice. 

***********

(Princess Beatrice and Henry of Battenberg at the time of their engagement.  Photo credit: thefirstwaltz.tumblr.com)

This letter comes at the end of what is believed to be only major conflict between Victoria and her youngest daughter Beatrice.  Beatrice was only four when her father died, and following Albert’s death Victoria clung to her “Baby.”  Almost from the moment of her father’s death, Beatrice was raised with the understanding that she should not want marriage, family, or her own vocation, but that her place was at Victoria’s side.  Because of one uncharacteristically defiant move, Beatrice was to fulfill Victoria’s dream – but on her own terms.

As her two youngest children Leopold and Beatrice reached adolescence, Victoria was frightened to realize that she could soon be “alone” in her house with no blood relative to care for her needs.  Never a particularly independent person, Victoria found this potential scenario impossible to bear.  In her mind, Victoria, Beatrice, and Leopold would be happiest if they lived together forever as a trio – Beatrice as her companion, and Leopold as her unofficial advisor and confidante to his sister.  It is this imagined relationship between Leopold and Beatrice that Victoria alludes to in the last two sentences above.

To achieve her means, Victoria began infantilizing her two youngest children.  She used Leopold’s precarious health – hemophilia and possible mild epilepsy – to keep him under her supervision and idle as long as possible, declaring that because of his health Leopold couldn’t possibly live a “normal” life.  Beatrice was the baby of the family and naturally forever too young to be considered anything other than her mama’s little girl.

Leopold, however, cringed at his mother’s coddling and fought tooth and nail to escape from Victoria and her boring plans for him.  Leopold’s first victory was gaining his mother’s permission to allow him to attend Oxford University.  He later began traveling on his own (and refusing to travel with Victoria), assuming patronages and undertaking royal engagements, and finally marrying and fathering two children.  Leopold’s life was not far from that of a prince without serious health problems, which is exactly what he wanted.  Although he died an early death at age 30, he gained probably the most fulfilling of those years away from Victoria’s rather suffocating ways.

In reality, Beatrice and Leopold were not quite as close as their mother liked to believe. Beatrice represented all that Leopold wished to avoid – a life of continual service of Victoria – and with his excellent education and experiences, Leopold was closer to his more worldly sisters Louise and Alice.  Lacking Leopold’s distaste for their mother’s mundane lifestyle, Beatrice was not quite as determined to separate her life from Victoria.  Beatrice was linked to various princes – Napoleon Eugene, Prince Imperial being one of them – Victoria never seriously considered any potential suitors for Beatrice and eventually forbade all talk of marriage around her youngest daughter in hopes that Beatrice would never find the idea appealing.  But shortly after Leopold’s death in 1884, Beatrice embarked on her one act of hell-bent rebelliousness, an act that eventually gave her something of a life away from her mother.

In the late spring of 1884, Victoria and Beatrice headed to Darmstadt for the wedding festivities of Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, the eldest child of Victoria’s deceased daughter Alice.  Although Victoria traveled infrequently even for the weddings of her grandchildren, this wedding was a special one.  The Queen had taken her Hessian grandchildren under her wing after the death of their mother in 1878, and she was particularly close to her namesake granddaughter.  The groom was Louis of Battenberg, the bride’s first cousin once removed and the son of a controversial morganatic relationship between a countess and a Hessian prince. The elder Victoria was unbothered by Louis’ less regal background and merely wanted her granddaughter to be happy.

But Victoria was not a fan of all unequal marriages, happiness or not.  As the family was celebrating the marriage of the younger Victoria and Louis, Victoria’s father, Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse and by Rhine quietly married his mistress, a divorced Russian countess.  The rest of the family caught wind of the marriage and was absolutely shocked.  Queen Victoria was outraged that her son-in-law would marry again to someone with such a scandalous reputation and demanded the union be immediately annulled.  (It was, within a few months.)

In the excitement of the two weddings that had little to do with her, Beatrice had found a diversion – Louis of Battenberg’s younger brother Henry, a handsome officer in the Prussian army.  During their time in Darmstadt, Beatrice and Henry evidently got to know one another and liked what they saw.  Shortly after their return from the wedding, it is believed that Beatrice told Victoria that she wished to marry Henry of Battenberg.

Exactly what happened during the months that followed is something of a curious mystery. Victoria’s surviving letters and her famous journal mention nothing of the relationship.  In fact, there is hardly a mention of Beatrice in her journal at all during this time.  Beatrice left no firsthand account of this time, and to my knowledge no writings from Henry survive from this period either.  One of the few to add any background information about this time is Alexander, Marquess of Carisbrooke, Beatrice’s and Henry’s son.  According to him, Victoria stopped speaking to Beatrice shortly after the latter announced her wish to marry Henry, and for several months the two communicated only by notes, all while living side by side as Victoria hints at above.  None of these notes, nor any correspondence between Henry and Beatrice, are known to have survived. 

Toward the end of 1884, the deep freeze between Beatrice and Victoria was finally beginning to thaw.  Although Victoria claims that the idea of the marriage upset her considerably, Beatrice and Victoria were likely relieved to end their standoff and return to their former warm relationship.  Victoria conveniently blamed Leopold’s death on Beatrice’s sudden decision to marry, clinging to her belief that had they been free from all outside influences, Victoria, Beatrice, and Leopold would have remained a perfectly happy little party of three.

While it is unknown exactly why the silence finally broke, there is some evidence that Beatrice’s older brother Bertie intervened and brought forth a compromise between the Victoria and Beatrice.  In the late fall of Victoria gave her permission for Beatrice and Henry to marry, provided that they always make their home with Victoria and never travel far or long without her.  Henry formally proposed to Beatrice in December, and stayed with the family over the Christmas holiday. 

Although the majority of Victoria’s family reacted positively to Beatrice finally finding some happiness of her own, Vicky’s Prussian relatives were horrified at the idea of a semi-royal prince marrying into the extended family.  In addition, Henry’s brother Alexander was something of an experimental ruler in Bulgaria who was not cooperating with his Russian overseers.  With one Battenberg prince causing trouble for Prussia’s ally, another marrying into the family was not seen as desirable.  In the letter above, Victoria praises Vicky’s support of the marriage that Victoria now deemed acceptable.  Vicky’s husband Fritz and sons William and Henry were less than enthused about the marriage and remained in Victoria’s doghouse for some time because of it. 

Beatrice and Henry married on the Isle of Wight on July 23, 1885.  The Prussians were pointedly not invited to the wedding (which sadly excluded Vicky, by extension), but the wedding was largely a happy occasion.  While in a letter to Vicky on the wedding day Victoria expresses her sorrow at Beatrice “leaving” her, Beatrice and Henry returned after a brief honeymoon to make their home with Victoria as planned.  Beatrice and Henry had four children, including future Spanish queen Victoria Eugenie (Ena) of Battenberg.  The Battenberg children provided Victoria some unexpected joy in her elder years, and Beatrice and Henry’s presence somewhat revived the stale court life that had existed in previous years. Nevertheless, Victoria never gave up her steadfast belief that one daughter should stay at home, preferably unmarried, and care for her parents.  She urged her daughters and daughters-in-law to expect this type of relationship with their own children. 

One thing about Beatrice’s rebellion and those silent few months that bothers me is the lack of an explanation of exactly what happened.  Should the Marquess of Carisbrooke’s account be accepted that mother and daughter did not speak for several months?  It is certainly possible, maybe even likely, that Victoria did indeed write much more about The Silence in her journal and letters at the time.  Any letters explaining the events could have been burned on Victoria’s request (she and Vicky were known to send ultra-secret correspondence between each other that was meant to be destroyed), or they may have otherwise not survived the years.  It is equally possible that Beatrice, in her recopying/revising of Victoria’s journals following her death, removed any talk of those silent months because they were too private or painful to share. 

Also, what and how did Beatrice and Henry discuss during that time?  As a young couple wanting to marry, it is unlikely that they were not in communication.  My theory is that Beatrice’s niece and future sister-in-law Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine acted as an intermediary between Beatrice and Henry, passing correspondence between the two.  It should be noted that to date no correspondence has surfaced and Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine never spoke of her part (if any) in helping Beatrice and Henry communicate. 

However it began, the Battenberg marriage came to a sudden end in January 1896.  Henry had talked his mother-in-law in allowing him to serve as an aide to Commander-in-chief General Sir Francis Scott fighting the Ashanti War in Africa.  Henry contracted either malaria or typhoid fever there and died off of the coast of present-day Sierra Leone.  A devastated Beatrice stayed with Victoria, a young widow as her mother had been.  After Victoria’s death in 1901, Beatrice finally moved into her first home away from her mother.  She spent her remaining days “editing” her mother’s journals, involving herself with various patronages, and visiting with her (mostly Spanish) grandchildren. Although Beatrice had spent most of her life fulfilling the sole purpose of caring for her mother, one stubbornly defiant act gave her the start of a separate life.