The search for Prince Waldemar

From Queen Victoria to the Crown Princess

January 31, 1863

I fear Prince W. of H. would not do for Mary, unless he were rich and had a pleasant disposition.  Tell me dear all about him.  Poor M. is so much to be pitied.

**********

When I found this letter, I thought it would be a good way to introduce Mary Adelaide of Cambridge and the long search for husband for her. However, when I began my research I reached an unexpected dead end – the identity of Mary’s proposed suitor.  Victoria refers to him as Prince W. of H. probably to preserve anonymity and prevent gossip from leaking out.  Roger Fulford, the historian who edited most of Victoria’s published correspondence with Vicky, refers to this prince in a footnote as “Prince Waldemar.”  That’s it – just Prince Waldemar.

So I started looking for a Prince Waldemar that lived around this time, mostly likely a German.  From the time Vicky left for Prussia, one of her chief unofficial duties was to check out prospective spouses for her family members among the zillions of German states, kingdoms, duchies, and principalities.  Mary was one of the people of whom Vicky was searching for a spouse. 

Victoria gives the initial “H” as a designator of where Waldemar was from.  If the mystery Waldemar was indeed German, my first thought was that he was from Hanover, Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Hohenzollern, or one of the many Hessian landgraviates that existed at that time.  I didn’t remember ever hearing about a Hanoverian named Waldemar, and the Hanoverian royal family at that time was rather small.  I wasn’t shocked when I came up empty while searching for a Hanoverian Waldemar.

So I searched Wikipedia for Prince Waldemar, thinking I’d run into a Hessian/Hohenzollern/Hohenlohe Waldemar.  There were indeed several German Waldemars and even a Danish one, but none who would have been alive or of marriageable age in 1863.  I then cross-checked against the German-language version of Wikipedia.  I know what you’re thinking – Emily, you don’t speak or read any German.  Well no, I don’t, but I can sometimes muddle my way through to find more information about someone who doesn’t have an entry in the English language Wikipedia.  Still no dice on Waldemar.

Then I headed on over to The Peerage.  The Peerage is wonderful in the fact that it has such a vast amount of information on thousands of people - including plenty of obscure German princes.  I did a search for the name Waldemar and when several dozen options came up I figured the Waldemar I needed was in there somewhere. 

I was wrong. I could not find a single Waldemar, German or otherwise, who would have been old enough to marry in 1863.  So this leads me to believe that a) Roger Fulford was smoking something when he came up with this, or b) our Prince Waldemar is still out there somewhere, and possibly someone reading this post knows who he is. 

So I’m going to undertake a very 21^st century method to try to solve this mystery.  I’m going to crowdsource all of you for a possible identity on this mystery Prince Waldemar.  My guess that he would have been born sometime in the 1820s or 1830s, given Mary’s age at the time this letter was written (she turned 30 in 1863).  He may have even been older, given that the net was cast far and wide to find someone suitable for Mary. 

If you know anything about this mysterious Prince Waldemar, please send me an email or leave a comment her or on the Your Daily Victoria Facebook page!

What can never fade or die

Princess Alice to Queen Victoria

January 30, 1871

   

I forgot to say in my last letter how grieved I was about Beaty Durham's death (Beatrix, the daughter of the Duke of Abercorn, who died on January 21 shortly after giving birth). It is quite shocking!  And those numbers of children in so short a time. I earnestly hope none of us run such a chance, for on the whole our children have not been so close together. My last came sooner than I wished, and is smaller than his brother, but I hope now for a long rest. I have Baby fed, besides, so as not to try my strength. He is very healthy and strong, and is more like Victoria and my brothers and sisters than my other children, and his eyes remind me of Uncle Ernest's, and seem turning brown, which would be very pretty, as he is very fair otherwise.

  

************

(Friedrich Wilhelm or 'Frittie,' likely near the end of his very short life.  Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Today’s entry comes from a new source – a letter from Alice in Darmstadt. Like her sister Vicky, Alice kept in touch with her mother via letters typically sent a couple of times a week.  As with Vicky’s letters, Alice’s correspondence with her mother included discussion of politics and world events, family issues, and the comings and goings of those friendly with the family. 

The woman to whom Alice refers above was the former Beatrix Hamilton, the second child of James Hamilton, 1^st Duke of Abercorn.  James is an ancestor of the late Diana, Princess of Wales, Alice, Duchess of Gloucester, and Sarah, Duchess of York, although none of these women descend through Beatrix.  Anyway, Beatrix had married George Frederick D'Arcy Lambton, 2nd Earl of Durham in 1854.  Alice wasn’t kidding when she expressed shock over Beatrix’s large family - between 1855 and 1871, she gave birth to thirteen children, including a set of twins.  Beatrix died on January 21, three days after the birth of her youngest child, Francis.    

Death in childbirth was something that was probably never far from any woman of childbearing age during this time.  While royal and aristocratic women may have had access to better health care and more sanitary conditions to have their babies, childbed fever was still poorly understood during the Victorian era and women of all walks of life succumbed.  Plenty of other birth related issues for which there was little to no treatment at the time (such as Vicky’s breech birth, which nearly claimed her life) caused even more women to lose their lives. 

If women were fortunate enough to survive one or more confinements, their children often weren’t so lucky.  The fact that all nine of Victoria’s children survived to adulthood was due to a combination of excellent drainage from her residences (poor sewage control was a breeding ground for typhoid fever, among other diseases) and pure luck.  Her daughters and daughters-in-law weren’t as fortunate with their own children; Alix, Alice, Helena, and Vicky lost children during their infancy or childhood, while Marie and Helena each had stillborn sons. 

It is one of these unfortunate children to whom Alice discusses in her letter.  The “Baby” was second son and fifth child Friedrich Wilhelm.  At the time this letter was written, Friedrich Wilhelm (nicknamed “Frittie” within the family) was nearly four months old and the baby of the family; he was to have to younger sisters followed him.  Frittie was born during the Franco-Prussian War while he father was fighting in France.  Frittie had not yet been christened at this time; the talk of the armistice above raised Alice’s hopes that Louis would be home in time for Frittie’s christening on February 11, but it did not happen.  Louis did not see his new son until the middle of March 1871. 

But Frittie’s christening went on anyway, with the rest of the family in attendance.  Along with Fritz and Vicky, Empress Augusta (Fritz’s mother), and Friedrich Karl of Prussia (Fritz’s cousin), Alice had asked her youngest brother Leopold to serve as godfather to his new nephew.  Close to his sister and delighted to fulfill such a role, eighteen-year-old Leopold made the trip to Darmstadt in February.  No one could have known that Leopold’s role would prove to be a tragically ironic one.

Frittie’s babyhood seems fairly unremarkable.  Although he was smaller than his older brother Ernest at the same age, Frittie seemed perfectly healthy as Alice describes in her letter.  He was also sweet and quite cheerful; his aunt Vicky once described him as a “very pretty winsome child.”  Frittie’s glowing health seemed to prevail until shortly after his second birthday, when he became ill and had difficulty with his joints. When a cut on Frittie’s ear failed to stop bleeding for three long days in February 1873, a terrible truth was confirmed.  Frittie was a hemophiliac, the second in the family diagnosed after his uncle and godfather Leopold. 

Despite the scare and dismay in the diagnosis, Frittie recovered remarkably quickly and well following the cut.  Frittie’s bounce back into good health made her feel comfortable enough to take a trip to Italy, one she had planned for some time.  Upon her return in May, she confirmed with Leopold that Frittie wasn’t showing any signs of bruising and that all had gone fairly well since the ear incident. 

Sadly, Alice did not have long to worry about Frittie’s health.  Just a few weeks after her return from Italy, Frittie and Ernest were playing in Alice’s room one morning.  The two boys were trying to wave at one another from perpendicular windows in the L-shaped room.  Alice went running to catch Ernest when he was about to slip out of the window, but she could not prevent Frittie from doing the same.  Frittie fell two stories onto a railing in the courtyard.  Although he seemed only dazed at first, he died later that night of a brain hemorrhage. 

Alice and Louis were crushed at the death of their little boy.  For Alice it was doubly difficult, knowing that the accident had happened on her watch and Frittie’s hemophilia came from her line.  Family members tried to comfort Alice with the fact that Frittie would not have to suffer through years of ill health.  Even Leopold, a person who had had to live as a hemophiliac for twenty years at the time of Frittie’s death, said that perhaps it was all for the best.  Leopold did express his deepest grief to his sister, saying that he would always be very fond of his little nephew and godson.  Leopold was given a photograph and a bust of Frittie and a lock of his hair; these possessions were among those Leopold treasured most.

Alice’s children mourned the loss of their little brother.  Ernest, the child who had witness the whole incident, felt terribly guilty for not accepting some flowers his brother had picked him the previous day.  Ernest said later that he placed some lilies of the valley in Frittie’s hands during the wake when no one was looking.   Alice’s eldest daughter Victoria wrote a sad poem urging her mother not to cry, for Frittie was now in heaven. 

And Alice…she lost something after Frittie’s death.  She was to say later that she often saw flowers she knew Frittie would like and had to stop herself from automatically picking them once she remembered that he was gone.  An avid and able piano player, Alice loved to play with Frittie on her lap.  She couldn’t even look at a piano for months after his death as it meant playing without him.  Alice’s feelings after Frittie’s death are probably best described by Alice herself in a letter to Queen Victoria in July 1873:

I feel lower and sadder than ever and miss him so much, so continually.  There is such a gap between Ernie and Sunny [Alix, who was born in 1872 and was the next child], and the two boys were such a pretty pair, and were to become such companions.  Having so many girls I was so proud of our tow boys!  The pleasure did not last long, but he is mine more than ever now.  He seems near to me always and I carry his precious image in my heart everywhere.  That can never fade or die!

Vicky, Wilhelm, and the bungled birth

Queen Victoria to the Princess Royal

Windsor Castle, January 29, 1859

God be praised for all his mercies, and for bringing you safely through this awful time!  Our joy, our gratitude knows no bounds.

My precious darling, you suffered much more than I ever did – and how I wish I could have lightened them for you!  Poor dear Fritz – how he will have suffered for you!  I think and feel much for him; the dear little boy if I could but see him for one minute, give you one kiss.  It is hard, very hard.  But we are so happy, so grateful!  And people here are all in ecstasies – such pleasure, such delight – as if it was their own prince and so it is too!  All the children so delighted!  You will and must feel so thankful all is over!  But don’t be alarmed for the future, it never can be so bad again!  Your’s and baby’s healths were drunk on Thursday evening and the Sydneys were here! 

We are starting for Wellington College and so I must stop.  God bless and protect you.

Dear Papa is so happy too.

*********

(Vicky and newborn Wilhelm, both exhausted after a nightmarish childbirth.  Photo credit: gogmsite.net)

The event described above was the start of a long, incredibly complicated relationship between Wilhelm and his parents – especially Vicky.  It was the birth of Wilhelm, the eldest child of Vicky and Fritz, the start of a new generation of heirs presumptive to the Prussian throne.  No one could have foretold – or would have wanted to face the fact that Wilhelm would be the last.

Seventeen-year-old new bride Vicky became pregnant about three months after her wedding.  Victoria had been dismayed when she was told of Vicky’s pregnancy in May 1858.  While Vicky was delighted to be pregnant, Victoria felt it would have been better had the couple had at least a year together before trying for a baby.  (Birth control and knowledge of it being what it was during that time, it’s a wonder how Victoria believed Vicky and Fritz would avoid it.)  Victoria herself had found that becoming pregnant so soon after her own wedding meant less time with her beloved Albert, and she did not want the same to happen to Vicky. 

Despite her misgivings about the pregnancy, Victoria advised her daughter on such things as the care of her teeth and preservation of her modesty during childbirth.  She fretted that she could not be with Vicky for the actual event, as she needed to be in London for the opening of Parliament (a task which she’d later avoid.)  Victoria also commended her daughter on saying nothing of the pregnancy to Affie who, when visiting Vicky, commented on her visible larger stomach.  It was Victoria’s distaste with most of the more intimate matters of childbirth that put Vicky at a distinct disadvantage going into the actual event.  Vicky didn’t exactly receive any prenatal care during her pregnancy – out of modesty, she spoke of her symptoms to Fritz, who then relayed them to Dr. Wegner, the court physician. 

Vicky had had what were likely Braxton-Hicks contractions during the days leading up to January 27.  Her labor began in earnest during the night the day before.  Vicky spent most of the night and early morning hours alternately walking and lying on a couch.  By 9:00 AM on the morning of January 27, Vicky was in bed in believed to be ready to delivery.  But the baby wasn’t coming, and Vicky was screaming out in pain.

In lieu of being there herself, Victoria sent to Berlin her midwife, Mrs. Innocent, her obstetrician, Dr. Clark, and chloroform to aid in Vicky’s delivery.  However, the German royal family had their own team of doctors to direct the delivery – Dr. Wegner, and Dr. Eduard Martin, the head of obstetrics at the University of Berlin.  During an examination of the laboring Vicky, Dr. Wegner guessed (although not through physical examination) that the baby was not in the correct position.  Dr. Martin had been sent a note the night before alerting him of the princess’s labor, but a concern Dr. Wegner sent a footman to find Dr. Martin when Vicky wasn’t making any progress. 

Dr. Martin arrived by Vicky’s bedside at around 10:30 AM.  Vicky was screaming in pain while Fritz found valiantly to keep her from hurting herself as she thrashed out.  In between painful contractions, Vicky cried out for forgiveness for her making such a scene.  Dr. Martin quickly determined that the baby was breech and would not likely be able to come out without assistance.  Fearing the worst, obituaries were quickly written up for Vicky and her unborn child.

Dr. Martin believed the baby was alive and had the expertise needed to deliver him with (hopefully) a happy result.  He gave Vicky ergot to stimulate her uterus; as the contractions would be stronger and more painful (yet hopefully productive), Dr. Martin instructed Dr. Clark to give Vicky chloroform to quiet and give the poor woman a break. 

After a long and painful scream, she calmed down and Dr. Martin set about manually turning Wilhelm.  By mid-afternoon, the doctor and pulled the baby out from the waist down.  He noticed that the baby’s umbilical cord was still pulsating, although at a slower and weakened rate.  This indicated that sufficient oxygen was not reaching Wilhelm, and Dr. Martin had only a very short time before the baby would be severely disabled or dead.

The doctor had a particularly difficult time with Wilhelm’s arms, both of which were far above and behind his head.  Dr. Martin had to manipulate the left arm in a rather gruesome way to get it out of the birth canal and free the baby’s head.  By the time the baby was finally delivered at around 3:00 PM, he was neither crying nor moving.  One of the German midwives, Miss Stahl, rubbed and gently slapped the baby (despite the shock at such a treatment for a royal infant!) until he let out a lethargic cry.  The birth was over, and Vicky and Wilhelm were lucky to be alive.

Although Vicky had produced the much-desired heir for Prussia, the birth had left said heir deformed.   A few days after his birth, Mrs. Innocent noticed that Wilhelm did not move his left arm.  It is now believed that nerve damage on Wilhelm’s arm as a result of his being pulled out from Vicky’s body resulted in his injury.  A mild form of cerebral palsy resulting from oxygen deprivation has also been suggested; many cases of cerebral palsy center stem from problematic births.  Wilhelm had to endure countless painful exercises, medical devices, and special training to encourage use of his left arm - with no real improvement. 

To compensate, Wilhelm and his family did their best to hide the disability, knowing that at that time a leader with such an affliction would not be looked upon as suitable.  He relied on specially placed pockets in his coats, holding his left hand with his right, placing his arm behind his back, or setting his left hand on the handle of an overturned sword to maintain the appearance of a typical arm and hand.  To my knowledge, no photos exist that clearly show the damage that had been done to Wilhelm’s arm. 

One unique aspect of this letter is Victoria’s empathy for Vicky and what she had gone through.  Although it is understandable that any parent would be so concerned for a daughter who had had endured such an ordeal, Victoria tended to believe that no one else’s experiences ever topped her own.  Had Vicky gone through such a problematic childbirth shortly after Albert’s death, her mother may have responded quite differently.  When Vicky grieved over the loss of her toddler son Sigismund to meningitis in 1866, Victoria had less patience with her daughter, claiming that the loss of a child could not compare to the loss of a spouse.

It is uncertain whether or not Victoria knew that Vicky had been given only a very small amount of chloroform toward the end of the birth; if she knew, it’s surprising she didn’t place the blame of Vicky’s suffering on the lack of anesthesia.  Regardless of what Victoria knew use of anesthesia earlier in the labor may have saved Vicky some pain and shortened her recovery time. It is also possible that had Wilhelm been extracted more quickly, he may not have suffered some of the mental and personality issues that were evident in his later life.  Whether or not this affected Wilhelm’s personality and behavior in later life is unknown, but it is a curious detail. 

Dr. Martin does not seem to have been given the credit he was due for saving Vicky’s and Wilhelm’s lives.  Vicky was more or less delirious during the final stages of childbirth and in the following days; in the confusion, she respected Dr. Wegner’s choice not to physically examine her.  Feeling violated, she blamed Dr. Martin for his “rough” treatment and for Wilhelm’s injured arm. Oddly, no one thought to inform her that Dr. Martin’s intervention had made the outcome a happy one. 

Little did Vicky know that like his birth, life with Wilhelm would always be a very wild ride.