Princess Alice to Queen Victoria
Darmstadt, February 14, 1864
We have been in sledges to-day, and everybody
drives about the town in them; it sounds so pretty, all the jingling bells.
Shakespeare's words came home to one —
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.
Thank God, my husband has none! I thank the
Almighty daily for our peaceful homely life, in which sphere we can do a good
deal of good to our fellow-creatures, without having to mix in those hateful
politics.
Our life is a very very happy one. I have nothing
on earth to wish for, and much as I loved my precious Louis when I married him,
still more do I love him now and daily; for his character is worthy of love and
respect, and a better husband or father, a more unselfish and kind one, there
does not live. His love for you, you know; and on our return how glad we shall
be to be near you once more.
**************
(Alice and Louis, early in their marriage. Photo credit: Tea Time at Winter Palace)
Alice’s very sweet letter regarding her love for
her husband is an excellent one to discuss for Valentine’s Day. The
holiday as we know it now was actually quite popular in Victorian
Britain. Paper cards were sent between lovers – or anonymously – often
with surprisingly erotic text. But Alice’s letter was simply a cheerful
recount of a woman then happily in love.
Like Alice, Victoria was also quite pleased that at
this time Louis had no crown. Victoria
was naturally still in her deepest phase of mourning; she thought this meant
that Louis had no official functions within the duchy, and therefore he and
Alice could spend the better part of their time in Britain. At Alice’s and
Louis’s wedding in 1862, Victoria had taken a decided dislike to Alice’s new
mother-in-law (Elizabeth) due to Elizabeth being “unamiable…about Alice’s
living a good deal here and about what is right and proper.
It is possible that Alice tacked on the last line
in her letter as a way of soothing her mother by reminding her that she and
Louis would soon be in Britain once more. And indeed the couple did spend
a considerable amount of time in Britain during their first few years of
marriage. At first the couple’s home was
not yet built nor was funding even decided; Louis and Alice lived temporarily
in a tiny house near the palace. They
spent the first winter and spring of their marriage in Britain partly because
their tiny house was inadequate.
Louis spent much of the extended visit in Britain
touring military and industrial establishments, on shooting expeditions, or
making various visits. Alice’s devotion
to her new husband was clear in the letters she sent in his absence speaking of
how “she kissed his picture each morning. The couple stayed on to witness
Bertie’s and Alexandra’s wedding in March.
Their eldest child, Victoria, was born in Britain the next month.
Alice and Louis returned to Germany in time to
move to Kranichstein Castle, a summer property the Grand Duke (Louis’s uncle)
had restored for the couple for use as a summer home. Their Darmstadt home, aptly named the New
Palace, was not completed for several more years; the two divided their time
among Kranichstein, Britain, and the little house near the palace. Everything seemed to be going so well for the
daughter who literally kept the Queen together after Albert’s death.
Alice’s view of married life soured in her later
years. It’s a bit of an unexpected turn from the first years of marriage,
when Louis’ optimistic and cheerful demeanor seemed to please and comfort Alice
so much. However, by the late 1870s Alice had experienced two wars
(Franco-Prussian and Austro-Prussian) which had affected Hesse greatly.
She had also weathered the hemophilia and subsequent loss of her son
Frittie. Her relationship with Victoria had experienced some memorable
ups and downs and was particularly poor at that point.
Although she remained fond of Louis, she felt he
was neither her intellectual equal nor did he seem to understand her idealism
and her passions. She wrote in 1876 of her resigned bitterness at the
state of their marriage:
I have tried again and again
to talk to you about more serious things, when I felt the need to do so – but we
never meet each other – we have developed separately – away form each other;
and that is why I feel that true companionship is an impossibility for us – because
our thoughts will never meet.
The couple scarcely had time to think about what
this meant, as they became Grand Duke and Grand Duchess in the middle of
1877. Alice was also not particularly
popular in Darmstadt, which frustrated her due to the work she had done
there. A likely clinically depressed Alice found her new duties as Grand
Duchess to be burdensome and overwhelming.
Alice’s frustration with her status in later life
makes her frustration with her elevated status in Darmstadt makes her
Shakespearian quote all the more prophetic.
In almost a pleading letter to her mother shortly after she became Grand
Duchess, Alice had the following to say:
The questions long discussed
between Louis and some people, as to complications and difficulty of every kind
that will at once fall upon us are really dreadful, and I am so unfit just
now! The confusion will be dreadful…
“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown” indeed.
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