Marie Louise: The Princess of Nowhere

princess marie louise was born on august 12 1872 a granddaughter of queen victoria her dad clearly a history buff named her after napoleon's second wife but the family called her louis the royal press called her princess louise her parents princess helena and prince christian of schleswig-holstein lived at queen victoria's beck and call victoria's requirements for marrying helena had been that christian needed to a live in england and b accept the fact that when victoria said jump one or both of them needed to ask how high surprisingly christian was okay with that and he and helena had a happy marriage and four surviving kids that didn't mean he forgot about his homeland and he taught his kids german by reading them fairy tales the family's tutors also taught louise literature dancing deportment and french but her absolute favorite subject was history i suspect we would have gotten along just fine because her parents were so close to queen victoria louise spent a lot of time with her grandma once when victoria was watching the kids she sent helena this reassuring telegram children very well but poor little louise very ugly years later when louise asked her about this victoria simply said it was the truth louise inherited her grandmother's blunt honesty and her deep family loyalty she was extremely close to her sister thora and her cousin alex that cousin would grow up to be the last empress of russia alexandra fidorovna as kids louise played the joker to alex's batman teasing her about being too serious later louise would write this about alex there was a curious atmosphere of fatality about her one day louise said alex you always play at being sorrowful one day the almighty will send you some real crushing sorrows and then what are you going to do if you know the story of the last romanovs that quote will break your heart [Music] in the fall of 1890 eighteen-year-old louise was in berlin for a cousin's wedding there she met prince achibert of anholt when the tall handsome cavalry officer started paying attention to her she quickly fell in love but on that same trip her parents told her that someone else wanted to propose to her prince ferdinand of romania louise took a hard pass on that option so her cousin kaiser wilhelm ii decided to step in and make louise's dreams come true whatever he did worked louise and agribert got engaged on december 6th 1890 mere weeks after their first meeting louise met and passed muster with argebert's parents which isn't surprising because his father owned pieces of history that must have transfixed louise for example he owned staten castle the birthplace of catherine the great as well as the dress she wore for her entry into st petersburg louise and agribert married at windsor on july 6 1891. after a two-month european honeymoon they settled in germany first in his native desao then in berlin where he was stationed as an officer but the strict german court etiquette was more than louise could bear before she could say good morning to her sister-in-law she had to send her footmen to her sister-in-law's bookman to find out if now would be a convenient time for a personal greeting once she got in trouble for saying hi to a friend who was having lunch german princesses were not supposed to interrupt gentlemen at lunch another of her supposed transgressions according to a canadian newspaper she once came back from a visit to britain with a pair of boxing gloves and a punching bag when she had it set up and started shadow boxing in the palace her in-laws revolted at this un-princess-like behavior for what it's worth i really hope this story is true louise who had grown up in the comparatively casual british court environment chafed under these restrictions she only felt free when she traveled and she wrote lovingly of her trips to naples rome and tunis africa is sometimes called the claw she wrote and this is true for when once you have visited that continent you always want to return to it [Music] but there are some problems travel just can't solve louise and agribert were strangers they lived together but unless they had a dinner party days would pass without seeing each other increasingly miserable she lost weight and succumbed to a variety of illnesses the flu bronchitis and pneumonia according to author john van der keist her weight loss was actually due to anorexia about this time in her life she later wrote i was not wanted my presence was irksome to him in 1900 nine years after their marriage it seems ahibert was discovered with another man possibly a servant the details are murky clearly this isn't something any of the participants wanted publicized agribert's father blamed louise claiming she'd refused to have sex with his son angry ashamed and confused but certain she wasn't to blame louise bran in her memoir she tactfully glosses over this incident she says her doctors suggested she go to the u.s or canada for health reasons to which she said she'd have to check with queen victoria first agribert flipped his lid because in his mind husbands were supposed to be in charge of their wives not their grandmothers before louise left she committed one more faux pas she gave advance notice to the british ambassador to washington dc but not the german ambassador this she says was the cause of her fight with ahribert both of these versions of the story may be true they're not mutually exclusive louise's cousin crown princess maria romania wrote to her mom i wonder how the louise agribert story will end but i believe he was an awful man to live with and they say that he and his eldest brother have a horrible vice so even if louise's version of the story is true there was still plenty of gossip about ahribert the end result is that louise left home for north america she traveled incognito as countess von munsterburg visiting new york washington dc and canada but just as she was about to board a train west to get to canada's pacific coast she got a telegram a nasty gram to be exact her father-in-law ordered her to get back to germany like yesterday louise wasn't having it nothing she said would induce me to do so an hour later she got another telegram this one was from queen victoria tell my granddaughter to come home to me it said you can guess which order louise obeyed [Music] once she arrived in england louise's parents had more bad news they'd gotten a letter from afebert here's how louise described that situation in her memoir he had written that life with me as his companion was intolerable i refrained from using the much stronger expression written by him and he had therefore requested his father to exercise his sovereign right and declare the marriage null and void he stated that he was a young man and had the right to live his life in his own way so long story short agribert got his way his father used a medieval privilege allowing him to pass one-off laws that only applied to family members so he passed a law unknowing louise's marriage but louise had been married in england where german laws weren't valid so her father called a divorce lawyer that lawyer couldn't even bring himself to read her the list of charges achebert had thrown at her the one thing he didn't accuse her of louise wrote was infidelity what were those charges louise's memoir sheds no light on her husband's accusations however it's pretty clear that this was a character assassination and newspaper gossip at the time hinted that louise was a little too fond of cigarettes brandy and opium it's likely that her husband accused her of being a drunk and a drug addict it was no secret that yes she smoked and yes she drank but then again so did her uncle the future king edward vii her crime it seems was living the life she wanted not the life others wanted for her that december louise and her father went to berlin where he handled the legal details for their split they also met with kaiser wilhelm the second louise's cousin and matchmaker did wilhelm try to convince louise to stay or was he just trying to get to the bottom of why she and agribert had split we may never know what we do know is that there was some hostility there louise's dad prince christian threatened to go before the german federal council and tell them all why his daughter had left her husband faced with the public scandal of epic proportions wilhelm agreed that louise's marriage should be dissolved the annulment was proclaimed in anhalt on december 10 1900 but that didn't solve the problem for louise she believed she was still married according to the laws of the church of england and for the rest of her life acted as such she never dated or remarried louise's uncle soon to be king edward vii is believed to have said poor marie louise she came back just as she went the implication louise's marriage had never been consummated and she was still a virgin many years later in her memoir louise took partial responsibility for the collapse of her marriage she wrote i was impetuous and i fear often intolerant of the restrictions imposed upon me by what i considered the narrow-minded outlook of those with whom i had to live after she left augiebert louise moved into a house in london in south kensington and then something strange happened one day she was putting away books in her sitting room when her oldest brother christian victor walked in he said i just came to see that you were all right and happy he sat down in a chair by the fire they talked for a few minutes and then he said she was not to follow him downstairs that he was happy and everything was all right after he left and closed the door behind him she realized he'd been wearing khaki but not his military metal ribbons and then she remembered that during the boer war british officers were ordered not to wear their metal ribbons which marked them as high value targets for the enemy that's when she remembered christian victor had died of enteric fever 18 months ago in pretoria her sister thora came over that afternoon and louise told her what had happened thora sitting in the same chair said i know he has been here i can feel it as a newly separated woman louise had a lot of time on her hands luckily her mom knew exactly how to help her give her new life meaning and purpose after all helena was the one who'd founded the military nursing service and helped create a national registry of nurses so helena nudged louise into helping with her hospital and charity work the habit stuck for the rest of her life louise raised money for hospitals and the arts chaired committees visited patients and founded support organizations along with her mom and sister louise helped lay the foundation for the modern role of a working royal as she took on more work and made more appearances her name showed up in the newspapers frequently she was referred to as princess louise which confused people because they didn't know the papers meant her or her aunt princess louise queen victoria's fourth daughter so in 1908 the palace said it would be referring to louise as princess marie louise from here on out in 1913 prince felix yusuf visited england for the first time he went to lunch with princess victoria of battenberg the older sister of the russian empress alexandre fudorovna when felix said he wanted to enroll at a university in england victoria suggested he go talk to louise she was the one with friends and contacts in the academic world so felix did and louise recommended oxford he took her advice and in his memoir he said that she often came to visit him there as an undergrad of course this was several years before he became world famous as one of the conspirators who murdered rasputin in 1916. still wouldn't you just love to hear what they talked about during those lunches when world war one broke out louise had no problem deciding between great britain and germany although she believed she was still legally married to alphabet she was british through and through she moved into kensington palace to keep her aunt beatrice company when her two sons were called up for military duty she was there to comfort beatrice when her youngest son prince morris was hit by shrapnel and died during the first battle of ibr on october 27 1914 like many royal ladies louise wanted to help with the war effort she set up a 100 bed hospital in bermondsey and ran it herself for six years from 1914 to 1920. there she saw victims of mustard gas die without a word of complaint it made her all the more determined to do what she could to cheer them up so when she went to work there she never wore any sort of uniform instead she wore her best dress and hat which she thought the wounded soldiers would appreciate more in 1916 her cousin king george v teased her by saying her husband had done her a solid by kicking her out what would she have done if she'd been stuck in berlin with the war going on louise said she'd have run away anything to get back to england george still teasing said he'd have had to intern her not missing a beat louise replied that would have been infinitely preferable to remaining in germany she wasn't the only one who felt that way in 1917 anti-german sentiment in great britain was so high that george v changed the name of the royal family from zak's coborg to windsor and ordered the rest of the family to give up and stop using their german titles that's how louise formerly a princess of schleswig holstein zunderborg augustenburg after her father's title became the princess of nowhere unlike other members of the royal family louise and her sister weren't given new titles but why not it might have been because neither had heirs to pass them on to or it might have been because their dad from whom their titles descended was still alive and retitling them during his lifetime could have been interpreted as a sign of disrespect in any case from this point forward she was formerly known as her highness princess marie louise of no place in particular one day in the summer of 1918 louise and her mom and sister had gone to windsor castle to have lunch with king george v and queen mary they waited downstairs for longer than usual and when george finally appeared one look at his face told them something terrible had happened helena asked him what was wrong and he said he'd just heard that sar nicholas ii his wife and five kids had all been murdered by the bolsheviks he was keeping the news out of the press until alexandra's sister victoria had been notified louise volunteered to take the horrible news to victoria since she was already on her way to victoria's home on the isle of wight george gave louise a letter for victoria and she left the next day when she arrived louis mountbatten victoria's husband came out to meet her on the dock she told him about the terrible letter she had with her and he said it would be better if he showed the letter to victoria louise agreed later that day restless and overwhelmed victoria suggested she and louise go out into the garden every day for the next three weeks that's what they did worked out their grief in the garden together she and victoria never spoke of the romanov murder again later victoria wrote her a letter thanking her for just being there and supporting her in silence in her memoir louise wrote i have often had to face difficult situations that have needed both tact as well as courage but never anything so terrible as to inform someone that a much-loved sister and brother-in-law and their five children had all been murdered [Music] for almost 40 more years louise was a beloved fixture on the british philanthropic scene just a few of the organizations she supported included the wayfarers trust the dockland settlement guide dogs for the blind the british asthma association the british rheumatic association the ymca women's auxiliary the united nations association and the three arts club her favorite causes were clubs for boys and girls and the arts the arts were a good fit for her she was passionate about painting music and dancing enameling was one of her favorite hobbies and she also painted watercolors that still belong to the royal family today she had an enameling studio in her kensington house at queensbury place and often donated her products to charity but her life wasn't all ballrooms and teacups once while filling in for her sister at a ymca meeting in county durham louise's itinerary included a stop at a coal mine when asked if she'd go down into the mine she said why not so they put her in a raincoat helmet and goggles and took her down to the bottom of the mine there she met a miner lying on his back on a ledge working louise asked him if his job was as hard and exhausting as it looked he said why don't you see for yourself so she did she crawled up onto the ledge stretched out and took the pickaxe he gave her get on with it he told her so she cut a stint of coal working until the men told her she could stop when she turned around she saw them putting the hunks of coal she'd cut into their pockets as souvenirs louise also learned to drive and had her own car she once said that if she were younger and a man she'd have taken up racing she was said to be the first member of the royal family to smoke in public the first royal princess to go up in an airplane and the first to live in a flat she shocked george v by telling him she sometimes rode the bus and if the bus had standing room only used the hanging strap to hold on for dear life in 1925 she visited ghana then called the gold coast she arrived 24 hours after the prince of wales the future edward viii had left locals thought she must be his wife and gossiped about why they weren't traveling together while there she laid the foundation stone of a hospital inaugurated a war memorial and went with the governor on a 1400 mile tour by car through ashanti and the northern territories there she wore pants lived in a tent and did the camp cooking herself as she explored the area in 1926 she published a book of the letters she wrote to her sister on that trip called letters from the gold coast she illustrated it with dozens of pictures she'd taken and developed herself in 1927 she famously danced with the pearly king at the annual fundraiser for the national association of street traders the pearly kings and queens raise money for charity and they do it while wearing suits and costumes covered in mother of pearl buttons the first pearly king henry croft was a victorian street sweeper who wore a sequined suit to raise money for charity that year louise was their guest of honor at their fundraising dance when she saw john marriott the pearly king of finsbury in an outfit with sixteen thousand pearl buttons she was fascinated and asked to dance with him marriott was nervous but said that she was so nice that he lost his nervousness and ended up having a great time he also liked the fact that she didn't call him by his name she just called him pearly later in her memoir she told lots of small funny stories about the royal family during these interwar years nothing political nothing earth shaking just human moments of laughter and connection for example one time she her sister thora and archbishop lang were guests of king george v at balmoral george asked thora what she was gonna do that afternoon she said she was playing golf with the archbishop george replied oh i will come and walk with you to hear the archbishop swear when you beat him see what i mean there's nothing political in that anecdote it won't change history but it made me laugh and it humanizes people who are otherwise just distant names on a page now you might also be familiar with queen mary's dollhouse louise had a hand in that too in 1921 at easter she found her mom and sister collecting miniature furnishings for queen mary who wanted to create a dollhouse so louise asked her architect friend sir edwin legends to design one legends liked the idea and together they took it a step further they envisioned the project as a sort of time capsule that could document royal life as well as the era's great painters writers and craftsmen louise acted as a project manager writing over 2 000 letters during the course of the project in the end she got more than 1500 writers artists and craftsmen to contribute for example she asked 170 great british writers to contribute original works for the tiny library in the dollhouse all the writers she asked said yes except for george bernard shaw whom she said was very rude when it was complete the dollhouse had miniature artworks newspapers wine bottles the king's red dispatch boxes and king george's daimlers in the garage all exact copies of the real things the house also had electricity elevators and running water when it was complete it was presented as a gift to queen mary in 1924 when it went on display at wembley more than 1.5 million people visited today the dollhouse is on display at windsor castle during these years louise and her sister lived in london at schaumburg house they threw parties hosted concerts and continued their philanthropic work when louise accepted a patronage it wasn't in name only she took her duties seriously which meant in many cases acting like a boss someone who served on a charity committee with louise later said she can pull a chattering committee together in less time than anyone i ever saw louise also indulged her love of history or as she put it in her memoir most people have a hobby my hobby is napoleon she collected as much napoleonic memorabilia as she could on her trips to france she always kept an eye out for items that had been monogrammed with n and the imperial bees buying them whenever possible she even visited saint helena to see the place napoleon had lived in exile after waterloo she went to visit his empty tomb and the governor of the island gave her a cutting from a nearby willow tree the same willow trees napoleon had requested to be buried beneath if the british buried him on that island [Music] when world war ii broke out louise and thora were already old women and thora wasn't well the authorities told them to leave london they didn't want to be responsible for two old women who lived alone very close to government buildings that were targets for bombings so she and thora rented top floor apartments from a friend who had a house near ascot louise wrote about watching the british squadrons fly over ascot as they left on a bombing run she would count them and count them again when they returned to see how many never made it back both she and thora refused to go down to the bomb shelter at night as she put it we came to the conclusion that we would prefer to go down on top of the remnants of the house rather than that the house should come down on our remains thora she said slept through all the bombings anyway they both made it through the war although their london home was nearly destroyed and they never went back instead they moved to 10 fitzmaurice place a building off curzon street that had been designed as a shelter for the royal family if buckingham palace had been destroyed it wasn't a palace or a gorgeous georgian mansion it was just a blocky building reinforced with concrete but louise didn't mind the less than royal look or living on the fourth floor she had no private secretary or official lady in waiting no security guards were posted outside their home and if the phone rang louise answered it herself it was just louise and thora and a couple of close friends like a royal version of the golden girls [Music] until that is 1948 when her beloved sister died but even without her best friend and companion louise kept doing what she'd always done supporting her charities and fulfilling her duties as the patron of dozens of cultural organizations there are a few stories floating around about how much she loved her gin and tonics it's said that she got drunk before queen elizabeth ii's coronation and had to be pulled back from the window of her carriage so she wouldn't fall out obviously this isn't something she brought up in her memoir but she did give the recipe for an alcoholic pick-me-up she highly recommended to make it drop an egg white and a tall glass then fill the glass with iced champagne and whisk the whole thing to make it frothy she described this as a stimulant but booze only ever makes me sleepy so i'll probably skip this recipe if you've tried it and liked it please let me know as louise aged her doctors warned her to slow down she didn't listen i found one story in the london weekly dispatch about a charity event she and her doctor attended he reminded her that she'd promised to go home and go to bed at 10 but it was already 11. oh don't be such an old woman louise said she loved having a busy schedule she thought it kept her young and that schedule didn't change not ever she got up at 7 am every day no matter how late she got in the night before and every evening she put on a formal gown for dinner at least three nights a week she was out at a ball or charity function when someone asked her if she wouldn't just rather have dinner in bed she reportedly answered no never in fact sometimes she crashed events she wanted to go to because well she could in october of 1954 she heard that her friend lady nutting would be at a meeting of the leicestershire branch of the british red cross society louise showed up uninvited and told the group so here i am a gatecrasher her excuse my mother was one of the original members of the red cross when it was started during the franco-prussian war she said i didn't expect to find her mentioned in a newspaper story about a robbery in december of 1951 she went out to get some groceries and set her wallet down while giving her order at the counter someone stole that wallet which had eight pounds in it no word on whether she ever got it back in 1954 queen elizabeth ii suggested louise write her memoirs she agreed but wanted to do every bit of it herself and refused all offers to help she ended up using a combination of dictation and transcription to finish the book despite her arthritis she even kept working on it during a trip to africa in 1955 when she flew over victoria falls recreating a flight she'd taken back in 1928 also in 1955 she realized she'd never launched a ship one of the few traditional royal duties that had never come her way so she mentioned this to the first lord of the admiralty and what do you know he arranged for her to christen a frigate called leopard on may 23 1955 it just goes to show if there's something you want it never hurts to ask when her book came out she had a bad case of laryngitis she still attended a literary lunch in her honor accepted a round of applause and designated a friend to do the talking for her in that book she wrote the following life is such an adventure so full of unexpected happenings even i at my age am thrilled at all that is taking place and the developments of this modern time in 1956 the year she published those memoirs she had been a subject of six british monarchs queen victoria king edward vii king george v king edward viii king george vi and queen elizabeth ii she encouraged everyone reading her book to stand by the new queen who had devoted her life to public service louise died on december 8th 1956 at age 84 the oldest living member of the royal family at that time ironically several obituaries called her queen victoria's last surviving granddaughter but she wasn't that honor went to princess alice countess of athlone who died in 1981. louise was buried at frogmore in windsor castle's great park right next to her sister thora traditionally when we think of a princess we think of a woman whose main job is to provide her husband with an heir but luis shows us there's an alternate path for princesses doing work that means something pursuing hobbies writing books and making lasting friends she had wit charm intelligence kindness humor loyalty and a strong sense of duty i would have loved to sit down with her have a gin and tonic and talk about napoleon thanks so much for watching if you enjoyed this video please leave a comment like or subscribe as always i did my best with the foreign pronunciations in this video i apologize if i got anything too terribly wrong for more fascinating stories about royal women check out my website at girl in the tiara dot com and sign up for my mailing list i put links for both of them in the description you can also support me on patreon for as little as a dollar a month that support helps pay for books and research subscriptions to help me track down more information on little known royal women to all my patrons who are watching thank you so much your support helps me keep this site and channel going thanks so much for watching until next [Music] time [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] you

Channel: The Girl in the Tiara

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Rating: 4.9396682 out of 5

Keywords: royal history, royalty, Girl in the Tiara, The Girl in the Tiara, 19th century, 19th century history, women's history, English history, English royal family, British royals, British royal family, European history, kings and queens, Princess Marie Louise

Id: XhukCcFVOZE

Length: 35min 28sec (2128 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 23 2021