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.

  

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(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!