Queen Victorias Daughters Full Episode

queen victoria's first child her daughter princess victoria went to agonizing lengths to make her mother proud and impress her she later became the empress of prussia princess victoria was able to rise very high but her life ended with a giant crash victoria was born a disappointment she was born to the young queen and her husband albert on the 21st of november 1840 queen victoria had written in her letters that if the baby was born a girl that she would drown the babe so when she gave birth to her first child who was a daughter she was deeply disappointed even the doctor delivering the baby knew of the profound disappointment when he announced that the queen had sadly had a girl this was already a bad start considering she wished her a boy immediately after birth when she said don't worry the next one will be a boy when she grew up she went on to have issues with her mum she grew up to be very intelligent which her father loved and they grew very close to each other prince albert and the family lovingly called her vicky for the rest of her life her mother's relationship was very different although victoria did love her daughter in her own way their relationship was chilly and distant this was perhaps due to her strict upbringing in the palace the reason she grew up to be so intelligent was because she had to follow a rigorous educational schedule she was expected to perform perfectly with exceedingly high expectation placed upon her prince albert even went on to write a book about how he tried to educate his heirs to the highest level she went to great lengths to please her family just as her father was an over-achieving and talented man vicki would follow in his footsteps she spent most of her days learning everything from arithmetic to philosophy and took on liberal ideas part of her learning started at a very young age and at 18 months old she was expected to learn french and she would later go on to learn german from the age of four she was becoming an eligible princess fit to enter the marriage market as was often the case in royal families they started scouting for a suitor from a young age vicki was only 11 when a match with a man eight years older than her at 19 years old called prince frederick william he was an heir to the kingdom of prussia and he became a potential match at still only 11 years old it was arranged for the very young vicky to meet this older man in 1851 at the great exhibition in london the 11 year old child and the adult man were getting on brilliantly she was impressing him with her fluent german which was the prince's native language and she was eager to put her talents to the test to bag herself an eligible suitor this would go on to become one of the most stirring romances of the victorian era the prince returned home after his visit but the pair kept in contact through writing letters these letters between the peg got steamier and steamier as the years went on they wrote to each other for four years until the young girl was aged 15 and he was 23. her pen pal lover would take the relationship to the next level when frederick returned to britain in 1855 under the fail of diplomatic reasons however it was obvious that he was in love with the english princess and he had come to visit to determine whether she was suitable to be his wife against all odds she was frederick's family were disappointed in his match with victoria they were outraged by his crush on her as they believed the british monarchy was not an absolute monarchy and therefore it was weaker than other monarchies in the world they wished for him to marry a russian duchess instead but his love for the english princess was made all the more complicated by others perceiving her as ugly on top of everything else that they despised about her vicky was slightly older at 15 years old and this was a more acceptable age for marriage but she was still small at only 4 foot 11 and she looked very similar to her mother with a round face which was not the epitome of beauty at the time vicky was not made to feel much better about these facts when her own mother worried that frederick would get one glimpse of her and walk away but that's not what happened at all vicky needn't worry the pair got on amazingly when they were able to meet in person once again and after only three days together the prince proposed with the approval of queen victoria with only one rule in place that they waited until she was 17 years old before they got married this was four years of communication and love in the making they were finally together officially but their future was far from a fairy tale because the prussian people hated her and the british people hated her groom more the news of a royal wedding normally storms up excitement and celebration in the public but not this time the prussian people were disappointed in frederick's choice and bride and the british public were not a fan of vicky's groom either they branded his family a miserable dynasty in the press there were a few moments of peace between the two joining families and they quarrelled over the wedding details the prussian family were much more traditional than the british royal family vicky had requested to bring two of her own ladies and waiting with her to the foreign land but she was met with a hard and cold nine from berlin with the wedding approaching the fighting did not stop there it got worse because her mother insulted her husband's family the prussian family as the family of the groom they wanted to take charge of the wedding and they demanded that things went their way they insisted that the pair marry in front of the prussian court in berlin but queen victoria brutally responded that she absolutely would not stand for that luckily for her she got her own way with the wedding taking place in the st james's palace in london despite all of the issues between the family the couple did go on to have a fairytale wedding on the 25th of january 1858. vicky wore a flouncing huntington lace confection complete with an enormous three-yard train and delicate reefs of orange and myrtle blossoms as the bride of the groom with his own royal family vicky was set for a future in his native land and so she joined him in berlin shortly after where things did not go any smoother now that they were newlyweds because their in-laws were monsters hell-bent on making her life hell despite the issues both frederick and vicky were young and in love and they would have been looking forward to a beautiful honeymoon period but after years of quarreling between the two families and with years of growing hate towards vicky and they let him know on many occasions with very public insults from his extended family not only did they publicly humiliate they also punished her without words by putting them up in their new home which was far from a show of opulent wealth frederick's uncle king frederick william iv was the ruler of prussia and just like everybody else he was not keen on the match but it was too late instead he gave them a chilly reception and sent them to live in a derelict wing of the berlin royal palace this section of the building was shabby and outdated and it didn't even have a bath her in-laws continue to dislike her and despite having similarities in their political views with both being liberal this must have been very hard for a young girl of only 17 years old surrounded by a family that did not warm to her they did however expect her to perform her royal duties which often included appearing at formal dinners and public performances every night usually staying past midnight then she would have to wake up at the crack of dawn get dressed in full regalia and greet people at 7am vicky had always been caught in the middle of the prussian and british courts she was encouraged to remain a british princess first and foremost by her mother but was required to be a prussian princess by the other she could not win until eventually she was made to make an impossible decision when the duchess of orleans a distant relative of both her and her husband's family died this led to a choice being made the british family mourned and wore black for a month where the prussians did so for only a week she made the wrong choice in the eyes of her mother she decided to mourn for seven days alongside her husband's family queen victoria berated her daughter for not sticking to english traditions she received many demanding letters from the queen until prince albert insisted that the queen's stop petty disagreements broke out as a result of the hobbies that vicky decided to take up she had always enjoyed gardening and decided to start the simpheny home the prussians took this as an attack on their gardening styles and when the princess took inspiration from geometric and simple english gardens this led to a battle to make the palace's gardens as leafy as possible despite being a royal princess she struggled financially and her royal duties went without thanks king frederick wilhelm gave his nephew an allowance but it was so little for a royal expected to attend royal engagements of the highest standing and so vicky found herself having to go into her own dowry to keep them presentable at these engagements this was a far cry away from the life that she was used to in the british royal family and the transition took its toll on her vicky married young and went on to have children young too within a year of marriage she was pregnant as it would have been expected of her to be in late january 1859 the princess went into labor and the nightmare began where her son was injured the people responsible for ensuring that her labor went swiftly did not follow their duties to the highest of standards the maid delayed getting a doctor and vicky who was just wearing a flannel nightgown nearly died during the birth of her first child she had few attendants at the birth and the baby was in the breach position making the delivery long hard complicated and nearly fatal for her and her unborn child the baby was finally born but it wasn't without physical complications because her son had a devastating injury from the birth a caesarean was new at the time and had a very high maternal mortality rate so this procedure was out of the question had there been better medical care at the time the prince would have perhaps not been handicapped from birth the future kaiser wilhelm ii was forcefully and traumatically born into this world leaving him with an arm that did not work three days after birth his handicap was noticed by a nursemaid who noted that his damaged left arm hung limply at his side what was not known at the time was due to the lack of medical education was that the traumatic birth had caused a condition called herbs posing which leads to damage being made to the nerves and this caused his arm to be completely paralyzed with problems growing also princess vicky was embarrassed by the air that she had produced and although it was no fault of either the mother or child this male heir was supposed to represent strength and inability to strengthen the relationship between germany and britain to princess vicky her son's condition represented weakness and reflected badly on her perhaps this is why she went to such disgusting lengths to try to cure him when vicky saw the extent of her baby's injuries the doctors tried to convince her that the baby would heal and recover from his injuries but unfortunately this was not the case the trauma eventually led to the young child's arm withering leaving it 15 centimeters shorter than his right arm shocked and disbelieving the royal couple had to make a gut-wrenching decision vicki was under great scrutiny from the prussian court and her husband's family and she was afraid to announce that her first task for motherhood had been tainted by the baby's condition the couple therefore decided to keep it a secret she did tell her own parents but only four months after dealing with the situation on her own and finally losing hope that he would recover at such a young age it must have felt like the world was against her and it was the worst thing that could ever happen to her but this was proved very wrong as the tot grew older and began to walk princess vicki would tie his arm behind his back she hoped that by taking away the use of the arm he could use it would force him to use the arm that had been left free but that was paralyzed this meant that the tot no longer had use of any of his arms which caused him great distress and vicky noted that he gets so fretful and cross and violent and passionate that it makes me quite nervous sometimes if these rituals were not disturbing enough for the young boy he was also subjected to electrotherapy for most of his childhood the procedure would take place almost daily meaning he would suffer in pain every single day of his childhood for something that would never be cured this way during the procedure the young boy's head would hang to the side while he was strapped into an appliance so that he could not escape a metal rod was used to straighten his back and a screw to pull his head upright this therapy would have been agony for the young boy was it done out of love to fix his arm or was it done to try to cure the embarrassment his mother felt over his disability [Music] princess vicki was perhaps in denial that her son's condition was a permanent and lifelong one she tried to fix his arm she was convinced that the damage could be repaired this is when the start of some disturbing and bizarre rituals were done to make his arm work again at only six months when his mother had realized he was still paralyzed she began to give him animal baths twice a week his arm was put inside of a freshly slaughtered hair the idea was that the warm blood would transfer vitality to the limb and make it work again of course this did not work but was perhaps just more traumatic for the infant during her marriage to frederick the couple went on to have eight children none of the other births were as traumatic as her first in 1861 another horrific tragedy occurred her beloved father prince albert suddenly died which emerged the british public into a deep state of mourning with her mother becoming a recluse vicki was devastated and she returned to the uk to comfort her mother and to attend the funeral when she returned to prussia it soon all collapsed on itself vicki was hell-bent on raising her children herself she loved them dearly and refused to go on long trips away for fear that she would miss them too much this made what came next all the more devastating when she suffered a mother's worst nightmare vicky's fourth child was a baby boy called sigismund and he tragically died at only 21 months old in 1866 he caught a severe case of meningitis and with the medical care not being what it is today he could not be saved she was plunged into a grief that no one is ever prepared to face with little support from others around her although vicky was in mourning for her lost son no one else seemed to be another one of her sons waldemar passed in 1879 and again she received almost no sympathy from anyone in the prussian court her own mother was too consumed by her own grief for her father prince albert that she did not believe her daughter was in as much pain as her as her husband was worse to lose than a child [Music] she made a big error in judgment when she hired a tutor to teach her children that would go on to encourage wilhelm to embrace his right to rule and banish anyone who got in his way there was no time to worry about this yet as her country was in ruins frederick's father who was now king nearly abdicated the throne when the country was experiencing conflict the people hated vicki more than ever at this point and people thought she was a drama queen vicki tried to impress the court to gain their respect and get them to like her she set up a military hospital to tend to the wounded in the endless conflict of the country but the king blasted her actions and demanded that she stopped her theatre of charity still that wasn't the only time the emperor of prussia would disapprove of vicky and her husband the pair were snubbed by the king with him instead favoring their son wilhelm who he saw as a brash militant german this was perhaps a way to humiliate his son and to purposely exclude him from duties despite being next in line to the throne vicky tried to get the prussian people to like her but each time she was met with disappointment and rage they were never going to like her because the views of the germans were becoming ever more autocratic while she and frederick remained liberal in their views then suddenly the game got fatally dangerous vicki's husband frederick came close to his rightful throne but his health took a turn for the worse he was suffering with his throat and eventually he could barely talk at all the doctors did diagnose him with a non-cancerous tumor and encouraged him to have surgery to remove it despite this medical advice the pair refused any treatment for him which caused outrage among the children wilhelm traveled to see them and he accused his mother of being happy that frederick was so gravely ill no matter how much the children tried to convince them the royal couple refused all treatment and this led to one of the most bizarre circumstances in germany history fickey became the shadow impress frederick's father died on the 9th of march 1888 and he appointed vicki and frederick as emperor and empress they were shadow roles as they were expected to be replaced very soon due to the condition that frederick was in and so wilheim would take the throne anyway just before she gave up her empress role she took on a secret mission she was a smart girl and had always been smart enough to suss out the situation she wanted to protect herself and her legacy and so she hid three boxes of personal documents in windsor castle in england her hope was to stop her enemies from gaining access to the information and she was right to do this the couple ruled as shadow rulers for only 99 days when frederick died on the 15th of june 1888 only months after his father's death he passed the baton to his son wilhelm who immediately betrayed his mother by invading her privacy he ordered for his parents residents to be ransacked by soldiers to try and find information that would be incriminating nothing was found due to vicky's quick and pre-thinking she knew her son would waste no time in betraying her once he had the throne vicky was now merely a dojo empress and wilhelm ensured his mother knew that she was no longer in charge and that she had been demoted he punished his mother in other ways once he could find new incriminating evidence against her he banished her from the palace and tried to exclude her from society he signed her up to take on traditional doge duties by becoming a patron of the german red cross vicky did not take this treatment lying down and she got her revenge on her son through her words warham once wrote in a guestbook during his international travels the will of the king is the supreme law vicki mocked her son in an attempt to humiliate him when she snared the tsar an infallible pope a bourbon or a poor charles the first might have pronounced that phrase but a monarch of the 19th century by 1988 vicky was suffering from her own poor health as she was suffering from terminal breast cancer she had one final desire and dying wish she did not want her son to use her private letters against her and so she again smuggled them to england there was good reason to hide these letters due to some of the cruel words she had remarked about her own son in one letter she wrote to her parents when wilhelm was young vicky confessed he is really smart for his age if only he didn't have that unfortunate arm i would be so proud of him victoria devoted part of her final years to painting and to visit the artist colony of praneberg in her last days she used to walk in the morning and spend long hours writing letters or reading in the library of her castle the cancer she was suffering with was inoperable and it forced her to stay in bed for long periods of time the cancer had spread to her spine by the autumn of 1900 the empress dojo died on the 5th of august 1901 less than seven months after the death of her mother she was buried next to her husband in the royal mausoleum at potsdam on the 13th of august 1901 her tomb has a recumbent marble effigy of herself and top her two sons who died in childhood sigismund and waldemar are buried in the same mesolimb in the end wilhelm really should have listened to his mother after decades of autocratic rule and the outbreak of world war one wilhelm was the last emperor of germany in 1918 he lost all support and power and he had to flee to the netherlands yet wilhelm finally found out the will of the king was not supreme law being a daughter of queen victoria should have meant living a fairytale life full of wealth power and love instead she lived a life of betrayal loss and tragic endings this is part one of the forgotten story of princess alice she was born a royal disappointment from the moment of birth she was the third child and after a son was born last time the public eagerly awaited the birth of another son and heir to the throne however this was not to be when she was born a girl princess alice on the 25th of april 1843 at buckingham palace her birth was not a happy occasion the privy council even sent a letter to her father giving congratulation and condolence her life was different than people imagine a princess would live she lived with parents who were obsessed with each other but also obsessed with their children being the best that they could prince albert developed the children's education and it was a strict system that had to be stuck to allison's siblings dressed in practical humble clothing and they lived in unadorned lodgings without regular heating as their mother preferred the cold alice was different from her siblings she was extremely empathetic she was one of the middle children of the large royal brood and she got along with all of them although she did have a closer bond with her older siblings vicky and edward alice wanted more than her royal lifestyle she wanted to experience a life outside of her royal family she liked to visit the working class tenants at balmoral and find out how they lived this desire to see how other people lived led to her escaping her governess one day in order to attend the local church and sit in the pews rather than attend her royal mass at windsor castle chapel this hinted at her rebellious site as everybody has alice has two sides to her she was dependable and empathetic but she could also have a temper this was perhaps learnt as a way to protect herself as a middle child that would have been up against her other headstrong and opinionated siblings [Music] she was known to lash out with her tongue when she was angry with her siblings and this only got worse over the years when alice was old enough and her mother deemed her fit for marital matchmaking it was decided that she would be married while still a teenager her sister had just married frederick of prussia in 1858 and now it was time for her to be matched to an eligible bachelor victoria was keen on a love match for her daughter so long as it was one of the eligible european royal houses this did not leave a large scope for a real love match and the options were very far and few alice's newlywed sister vicky was in charge of compiling a list of eligible european bachelors she only found two men suitable william the prince of orange and prince albert of prussia albert of prussia was also vicki's husband's cousin and when princess alice was set up to meet these suitors she was not happy with it at all the family of the prince of orange were beside themselves with glee at the prospect of him marrying an english princess and so he traveled from the netherlands to windsor castle to meet the potential bride and her mother-in-law alice was brutal in her response and she was not keen at all and she told her mother she did not like him at all her second match seemed even more unsuitable because she was far too good for him the second suit was recommended as the cousin of alice's new brother-in-law frederick but frederick himself claimed his cousin wasn't good enough for alice who deserves the very best her options were now down to zero but there was another man an underdog of a suitor her sister vicky started to rack her brain for another match after her first two choices crashed and burned eventually she landed on prince louis of hesse he came from a respectable german house and queen victoria invited him to windsor castle to meet his future bride she liked him immediately and the sparks were flying they got on amazingly in each other's company upon his departure he asked for her autograft as a keepsake and alice was impressed with him queen victoria immediately made plans to marry the pair but then tragedy struck and her grandmother died princess alice was immensely happy during the spring of 1861 she had met her life love and had gotten engaged in the april to prince louie but it was also full of sorrow for her maternal grandmother the duchess of kent when she died in her bed alice wasn't just close to the duchess she had also taken up the job of nursing her in her final weeks of life and so she had to watch as her grandmother deteriorated before sadly passing away her looking after her family members did not stop there she took on the role of family caregiver when her mother struggled with her emotions she was sent by her father to comfort her but tragedy struck again her father became gravely ill and again she took on the role of looking after him on december 1861 alice's father albert fell dangerously ill with complications from undiagnosed crohn's disease the prince had struggled with his health throughout his whole life but he had been particularly stressed out with the deported behaviors of his son edward who had been parading his mistresses in public queen victoria and princess alice believed they could save albert by tending and caring for him but their hope vanished when he passed away from his illness the fallout from his death plunged the public and the royal family into a deep state of mourning queen victoria blamed her son for killing her husband due to the stress he had bought to his door she even refused to notify her heir of his father's death [Music] alice was not one for tensions in the family but she was struggling with the morality of not telling her brother of her father's death and so she betrayed her mother when she went behind her back to sneak a telegram to edward victoria and edward never fully reconciled with the queen remarking that i never can or shall look at edward without a shudder this act of rebellion meant that her relationship with her mother was forever tarnished but alice had more to worry about than this her grandmother and father had not long died but she was still planning the wedding to her true love prince louis of hesse and so she got married among the most tragic time during the victorian era in pure british fashion and with a stiff upper lip queen victoria insisted that the ceremony go ahead even after prince albert passed the wedding went ahead on the 1st of july 1862 but it was not the fairy tale wedding she had hoped it was more of an extension of the family's morning than a wedding alice should have gotten married and it should have been the happiest day of her life but it turned more into a nightmare the whole palace was still in the depths of mourning prince abbott and no one was trying to hide it her large opulent wedding was downsized from a church to converting the dining room of her childhood home into a chapel not only was her wedding much smaller than anticipated she also wore black at her wedding she arrived to the ceremony in a white gown with a lace veil and an orange blossom and myrtle classic bouquet that represented a royal getting married but queen victoria demanded that everyone adhered to morning protocol and forced everybody to wear black before and immediately after the wedding the queen made the wedding all about her her feelings and her presence the queen had her sons take her into the makeshift chapel she had them stand in front of her to shield her from prying eyes throughout the entire ceremony while the pair married the monarch sat in an armchair near the altar and tried not to cry the nuptials were miserable with the queen even noting that it was more of a funeral than a wedding the poet alfred lord tennyson said it was the saddest day that i can remember the wedding was finished by 4 p.m and when the evening began to slow down queen victoria gave her a gift victoria presented princess alice with a gold bracelet inlaid with pearls and diamonds it was from both of her parents and it was inscribed with the words today alice from your loving parents albert and victoria are who thou visibly parted are ever united with the miserable day over with alice could finally look forward to her honeymoon but unfortunately this was no better than the wedding alice had a miserable wedding but she was living a happy marriage with her new husband she was extremely happy and this made things difficult with her mother who was grieving her husband the monarch was jealous of alice's happy content life and so the princess had to try to not look too happy when she was around her mother it was a difficult start to her married life and her relationship with her mother but it would take a much darker turn alice moved to louie's home in darmstead as royal brides often do she had to move out of the family home and into the family of her new husband's household she arrived there in 1862 and crowds of people welcomed her with cheers and she wrote to queen victoria i believe the people never gave so hearty a welcome despite the warm welcome from the people alice was extremely homesick she was also bored of her new life but she shouldn't have worried about being bored join me in part two to learn of how alice experienced further loss with the death of her own children before also losing her own life too her father-in-law disgraced her and hess simply couldn't accommodate someone of alice's considerable rank queen victoria had envisioned alice getting a newly built pristine palace over there but that's not what happened prince louise father had inadequate and declining resources and he refused to waste what little wealth he had left to find or build the newlyweds appropriate lodgings instead alice and her groom lived in a simple house overlooking a street in the rumbling old quarter of darmstadt this was a far cry away from what she was used to in england despite this alice tried to be accommodating and she tried her hardest to fit in as soon as she started to fit in her personal life imploded as was expected of her she started getting pregnant at giving birth to babies right after the wedding having two children victoria and elizabeth within the first two years of marriage this caused some tension with her mother alice was passionate about breastfeeding her babies which was less common at the time but the most resistance she experienced came from her own mother who hated the thought of her daughter doing it as the years wore on though the queen took her displeasure to new heights princess alice was confident and comfortable in her own skin and she also admired the bodies of others she took up a strong interesting nursing and she even became friends with the famous florence nightingale this traumatized her mother who was so horrified she wrote a warning to alice's younger sister louise about alice's perverse interests the queen was wary that alice would take a gynological stance with the princess and so the queen insisted don't let alice pump you be very silent and cautious about your interior there was an ulterior motive behind her actions with her daughter and that was because she was a very jealous woman she struggled with the idea of alice being happy and victoria didn't want to let her daughter go because she was so utterly miserable herself her response to this was to snipe at her instead and each year the sniping worsened alice was content and happy with her children she visited england less and less and the queen struggled seeing alice happy but she didn't have to wait long to see her miserable because on the 7th of october 1870 alice gave birth to her second son and fifth child frederick a.k.a freddy the new baby was the fan's favorite but something was seriously wrong with him due to a genetic condition that the queen had passed down to her own children called hemophilia this prevents blood clotting in male children and she had passed it right down to alice and then to little fritti the royal disease was being passed down all over europe due to the many marriages that were arranged by victoria and as a male with the disease it was nothing less than a death sentence at the time this disease went on to kill alice's brother leopold in 1884 unsurprisingly everyone feared the worst for the princeling frederick who would go on to die in a devastating way on the 29th of may 1873 the little boy fell 20 feet from his window when he was hanging out of it at home the fall would have injured and could have been fatal for any child but coupled with this royal disease meant he stood no chance at all the boy did not die on impact he awoke after the fall but even the best doctors in the land couldn't control his internal bleeding and so he devastatingly passed away leaving alice heartbroken alice was played with grief for years she never ever got over the loss of her beloved son she sent a letter to her mother who was not very empathetic of her grief only two months after the fall stating i am glad you have a little coloured picture of my darling i feel lower and sadder than ever and miss him so much so continually the years that followed started a dark spiral her mother did little to support her and she was far too filled with jealousy and bitterness that this dominated her emotions towards alice alice was stubborn and they often clashed but now they would go on to exchange vicious letters alice attempted to give some diplomatic advice to victoria but the monarch wrote back i do not think dear child that you should tell me what i ought to do for two years alice withdrew from public life to heal herself and look after her remaining two girls alex and marie and her son ernest she used her surviving son to cope with the loss of her other son and she kept him close by as well as promoting him to her new favorite and hardly letting him out of her sight at this time her marriage was also taking a battering the problem started out as minimal but worsened over time prince louis of hesse was a lovely kind man he was also a little soft-headed and could be emotionally stunted and he offered little support to the struggling princess she was disappointed with her husband's response to their son's death and by 1876 she was becoming increasingly full of resentment and she was not afraid to let him know she wrote to him accusing him of writing empty and bare letters that left her cold and alienated from her real self confessing that i feel myself through them that i have less to say to you than any other person despite the marriage woes the pair would be catapulted into higher ranking roles when in 1877 louise father passed away which made them the grand duke of hesse and alice the grand duck chess the pair knew the time would eventually come but the role was not what alice expected she had always struggled to settle into the life and hess and the local people could sense it describing her as a stiff princess she had a whole new level of responsibility on her shoulders and she felt extra pressure to perform as a new head of the country she wrote to her mother that she dreaded everything and it was more than she could stand in the long run her letters of concern fell on deaf ears with her mother who did little to comfort her the grim reaper came to her home on a dark cloudy night in november 1878. early in the month alice's oldest girl victoria took ill with a sore stiff neck they were not to know that her diagnosis was terminal and that she had contracted diphtheria a bacterial infection that was often fatal in the victorian era there was not long to get their heads around this as within days she died alice was able to dodge the infection at first but four of her children alex marie irene and ernest and even her husband fell ill within days of victoria showing no symptoms alice was used to caring for others and she tried to make everyone better but she couldn't on november the 15th alice's youngest daughter marie who was only four years old felt severely ill the staff gave a grave diagnosis and suggested that the grand duchess should attend her bedside to say goodbye alice arrived but unfortunately before she arrived marie had choked and now her body was already turning cold she was so devastated by the death of her daughter that she kept it a secret from her other children so not to dampen their spirits while they were also fighting against the infection however she finally gave in to her son ernest when he wondered where she was he was so crushed by the news that he required comfort by his mother who gave him a kiss that would go on to be fatal alice had introduced a strict no contact order in the house but due to the young boy's grief she tragically went against this and instead became infected by her son she contracted the infection shortly after and on saturday the 14th of december alice felt incredibly ill with diphtheria so much so that she barely survived for a few more hours at 2 30 she spoke her heartbreaking last words whispering dear papa before losing consciousness and never waking up again on the anniversary of her father's death she had been reflected on her father's death while in the grips of the disease perhaps aware that her end was near too her final words were dear papa alice's sister victoria was heartbroken over the death of her sister but she was banished from attending the funeral due to tensions between the two nations queen victoria outlived her daughter by two decades and alice had been her first child to die queen victoria who was always looking for cosmic connections noticed this connection with her husband and she called it almost incredible and most mysterious and lamented that this terrible day come round again even after the deaths in the family the heartache did not end there alice and louie's daughters married into russian royalty which ended in tragedy for both of them their daughter alex went on to marry sar nicholas ii of russia and elizabeth married grand duke sergi alexandrovic of russia both women were brutally murdered by the bolsheviks mercilessly so were alex's five children this marked the end of the romanov dynasty [Music] astonishing facts about princess helena queen victoria's daughter as all of queen victoria's children experienced their lives were full of family drama civil rivalry and personal woes princess helena augusta victoria is the least remembered child of the bunch and most of what we know about her comes from her mother's diaries who did not always have the kindest of words to describe her third daughter helena's birth was played with panic when she was born blue on the 25th of may 1846 making her the least healthiest baby at birth thankfully she recovered well from the birth under the care of the royal doctors but her mother was still suffering from the difficult birth bringing one of the most powerful women in the world to her knees the hard-faced and strong queen had to pause her royal duties in order to recover from the birth it must have been bad if she was willing to do this she had once chastised her own husband for wanting more than two days off for their honeymoon together as she grew up she had to fight for attention against a growing brood of eight siblings this strengthened her character and she grew to stick up for herself against her brother's constant teasing on one occasion she even sucked them square in the nose she was competitive and wanted to be the best at everything she had many talents such as being an avid piano player she rode horses she had a talent for drawing as well as well as this her father was keen for her to learn to cook clean and farm she had many skills and she was the most talented of all of the queen's children she kept this role of the most talented child until her younger sister came along this started up a fresh spark of competition with her sister as well as her brothers when princess louise was born she was a new shiny toy in the family and helena felt like she had to compete against her louise began to become just as talented as helena if not more so poor helena was so overshadowed by louise and her other sisters and a family tragedy only made life worse for helena the death of her father impacted all of the siblings and devastated the life of her mother the family were plunged into a deep state of grief with helena writing to a friend i adored papa i loved him more than anything on earth he was my help and advisor these hours were the happiest of my life and now it is all all over her mother made her life all the more unbearable when she insisted that her sisters move out of windsor to join her at osborne house to live in mourning in isolation from the public you would think that the family would all be supporting each other during this difficult time but helena was left with little support for herself making her feel lonely helena was one that deemed emotionally unstable and she would be quick to burst into tears the slightest drama it was due to this that helena was not chosen to support her mother instead she chose louise as her assistant and her older sister alice as her secretary left to her own devices led her to fall into some tragic traps such as falling for the wrong man she had little support and affection from her immediate family and so she turned to others for this affection instead unfortunately helena found that affection in the form of carl rouland this romance was doomed from the start not only was ruling the former private secretary to her dad but he was roughly 13 years older than her queen victoria found out about the pair's romance which fueled some furious rows between the pair from the moment onwards she was not trusted with her own love life and so her mother took control of this area of her life queen victoria fired her lover and sent him packing back to germany helena was left heartbroken by the separation and panic stations were set in place to marry helena as quickly as possible to avoid this kind of scandal happening again her mother chose her husband for her and helena was deemed non-pretty compared to conventional beauty standards at the time she was chunky dowdy and double chinned meaning she was far away from the fairy tale princess look due to being a middle child of such a big brood it made the marriage prospects less secure her mother threw in one more condition that made mary and helena a difficult pill to swallow because she was underestimated her oldest sister had been married off in 1862 and so helena was forced in to replace her role as unofficial secretary something her mother had previously doubted her ability at much to her mother's surprise she excelled at the role and she made an excellent companion to the queen victoria then insisted that any suitor for her daughter will live in the queen's residence with them this was not a desirable situation and so many men refused to agree to the strict criteria the one that did agree went on to tear the royal family apart and he was no royal suitor you have to think about the type of man that would be willing to agree to this arrangement the man chosen for helena was prince christian of schwelswig holstein he was older than helena as well as being pretty poor in comparison and his family's duchies were being fought over by prussia and denmark helena's elder sister the crown princess was all for the match but her sister alice spoke out openly against it their proposed marriage caused many disagreements within the family and they weren't the only ones squabbling over it alexandra of denmark helena's sister-in-law and daughter of the king of denmark was especially outraged by the marriage she believed that the lands in dispute belonged to her father and to helena's sister-in-law the queen's decision to marry helena off to christian was nothing short of disgraceful it is obvious that helena's match to christian was a massive political scandal but what did helena herself had to say about all of this against all odds against the age difference despite him being from a poor family despite the family uproar the pair were extremely happy with the match for themselves she was happy with the match and she found him pleasing gentleman-like quiet and distinguished it didn't take much persuasion from her mother to find the match a perfect one and so the marriage went ahead against all odds but the marriage would do little to improve her standing in the royal family helena's wedding was organized for the 5th of july 1866 and the whole spectacle was a disaster there were members of the family that refused to attend including edward her brother and husband to alexandra they were in protest against the wedding and on top of this one of the guests had a sudden gout attack further to the trauma of the day one of the royal guests commented that helena looked like she was marrying an aged uncle it wasn't the best start to married life and the protest from family members only grew worse most people would have crumbled to the undoubted pressure that the newly married pair faced helena and her new husband defied all odds by having a relatively quiet marriage he was a perfect mum for her and they devoted themselves wholly to each other princess helena mostly found happiness in her marriage despite being the least eligible bride of the royal brute the pair had promised to stay close to the queen in her residence but helena was struggling with the responsibilities she was newly pregnant while juggling her role as her mother's personal secretary and best friend as well as being a new wife her body was taking a toll with the pregnancy and she became unwell frequently as a result helena took after her mother and became pregnant quickly giving birth in rapid succession she gave birth to christian victor in 1867 followed by albert in 1869 helena victoria in 1870 and marie louise in 1872 the pregnancies took their toll on her body and her health and she became unwell often which her mother was not very empathetic of because her mother struggled to believe that she was even ill at all and often accused her of hypochondria helena was absolutely not a hypochondriac she suffered from very real bouts of illness including rheumatism joint pain and severe congestion in her lungs there were some lifestyle choices that would have not helped her ill health she suffered from addiction her substance of choice was opium which would have been prescribed by her own doctor and her addiction spiraled out of control she went on to grow her own life with her husband and children but she suffered grief and loss of her own on the 12th of may 1876 helena and her husband welcomed baby harold the fifth of their children into their lives helena was overjoyed but this did not last long because the poor baby only lived to eight days old she went on to conceive again not long afterwards but this was followed by further tragedy when she gave birth to a stillborn child on may the 7th 1877 only five days shy of harold's first birthday the shock of losing two children back to back stunned helena and plunged her into a grief so deep that no one is ever prepared to face her grief led her to become angry angry at the world and the injustice she had faced as soon she gave up on life altogether the queen described her as being quite touchy and irritable due to her ill health she was possibly suffering from ptsd from the trauma despite her ill health she didn't want to do anything to cure it at all she refused medical attention which only worsened her condition further and led to her poor fate helena had become accustomed to grief her sister then tragically died from diphtheria helena was paralyzed by grief at this stage helen his sister although initially opposed her marriage to christian alice was the one to convince edward to show up to helena's wedding the pair had their differences as siblings often do but they were there for each other when it counted after everything she had experienced in life it pushed her further away from her mother perhaps due to the lack of emotional support given to her throughout her years of hardship she was pushed closer to the husband she had built a life with and consequently she began spending even less time with her mom the queen had matched the pair in a deliberate attempt to keep the couple close to her so when they drifted away she was truly annoyed and angered she pushed for radical solutions and in 1887 helena became the president of the british nurses association she used her influence as the president to support the radical idea of creating a nurse registry in order to improve the education and status of those devoted and self-sacrifice women she took her role seriously she was not interested in just being the face of the project she wanted to put her passion into action when some members opposed her ideas helena wasn't afraid to shut them down helena was a natural leader she was a smart cookie and was talented in many areas one of her most natural skills was her ability to lead just like her mother the queen she ran the organization she led with brutal efficiency anyone that questioned her was met with her power and confidence that her wish was sufficient a reason to go ahead in her private life she did not exceed such confidence she was battling with an opium addiction still and it was spiraling out of control the family were becoming concerned her mother who had never been concerned of her health before was worried as well as her husband who begged the doctors to stop supplying her with it of which helena was furious about when she found out she could not stop now her addiction had taken a grasp her entire being and it nearly broke her rather than the request that her husband had made to the doctors helena demanded the doctor supply her with more drugs to which he responded by refusing to give her anything at all withdrawal from opiates will make you extremely ill and helena was no different she even complained of losing her sight luckily with a bit of family support from her elder sister she was able to give up the habit it was an amazing personal accomplishment but a tragic family event cut helena's celebration short helena was impeccably proud of her children and her eldest son had become a major in the british army which saw him take trips away to battle when he left to depart on another trip to south africa she never imagined that she would not see him again but her son died during this trip when he caught malaria she received the news by telegram on the 25th of october 1900 that he was dangerously ill despite having the best medical care at his disposal five days later second devastating telegram with the news that he had died from the illness helena was used to grief she had already lost many members of her family but queen victoria did not take the news very well at all she was quite elderly and her own health was deteriorating helena and her sister beatrice comforted their mother on her deathbed while they watched her slowly wither away finally on january the 22nd 1901 helena's mom brewed her last breath her death would mark the end of the victorian era and with this came great change especially the power dynamics of the family which shifted meaning more family drama and personal calamity helena's siblings disappeared from her life one by one but the loss of edward hit her especially hard edward vii had been almost abandoned by his own mother as she blamed him for their father's death but he was the heir to the throne and next line for the crown edward the seventh accompanied by his wife alexandra of denmark kept helena at arm's length his wife was full with extreme jealousy of the royal family which didn't bode well for a close sibling relationship between helena and edward not only this alexandra never really forgot the betrayal that was helen and marrying her husband and she got revenge on helena as queen consort helena's passion for nursing was evident in her actions alexandra decided she was now keenly interested in the cause so she demanded that her position as president was replaced this led to things becoming increasingly toxic and nasty the removal of her role as president was removed which led to helena feeling resentment against her brother and his wife she had been outranked by her sister-in-law and so she handed the reigns over to alexandra ever the dutiful princess helena continued supporting the monarchy but she didn't serve the new king for long edward was an avid smoker which ultimately led to his death after a short rule of only nine years the pneumonic passed as he suffered multiple heart attacks and met zen only four years later world war one broke out across europe this plunged helena's family into personal strife when her own son fought for the prussian army rather than the british army her son betrayed her he battled and fought for the germans who were wholeheartedly against helena and her homeland she lost contact with him due to the wall and she would do nothing but wait for it all to come to an end what she found out afterwards shocked her to her core none of helena's children had gone on to reproduce children of their own or so she thought she had gotten used to the idea that she would never be a grandmother that all changed when albert admitted to having a secret affair that resulted in a daughter named valerie marie though he never revealed the identity of the girl's mother in the most gut-wrenching way possible helena now had a granddaughter despite giving up her title as president helena's passion for nursing never left her she spent her spare time visiting hospitals during world war one and her motivation was to improve the spirits of people staying there she was loved by the ordinary public for her passion for the cause and her charity work during world war one helena and her husband enjoyed their 50th wedding anniversary this marriage that so many were against had stood the test of time and it was the longest out of all of her siblings that didn't mean her husband was totally perfect though he was the perfect husband and the perfect father but he was pretty useless when it came to his influence on the royal family he wasn't interested in helping the princess with her royal duties but despite this she loved him anyway the couple were happy together and deeply in love but the beginning of their relationship started off in an awkward footing when he believed he was meeting the queen to become her new husband instead of helena's the couple had been married a long time but in 1917 her husband died at the age of 86. she was plunged into deep mourning again a state she was probably becoming accustomed to the commissioners with little empathy for her situation tried to evict her from her two residences due to the expense of running her households six years later in the spring of 1923 helena fell victim to a disease which marked her end weeks later in may the now elderly princess suffered a heart attack and was gone by the morning of june the 9th 1923 most of what we know comes from her mother's journals who often made mean remarks about her children growing overweight and being ugly but despite what her mother journaled about her she was far from weak and quiet person that the biographers had painted her ass bad facts about princess louise the rebel daughter of queen victoria born on the eve of europe's first wave of revolutions queen victoria recognised that her daughter princess louise was certain to be distinct and distinct she was princess louise was an intelligent child who ripened into a provocative secretive revolutionary strap yourself in and join me learning about the queen's most rebellious daughter her mother knew she would be special princess louise was born and presented to the world on the 18th of march 1848. the year she was born in was one of troublemaking and rebellion and in 1848 the europe's age of revolutions occurred and it seemed that the year's rebellionness would rub off on the little princess louise when queen victoria gave birth to her daughter she envisioned that louise would be something peculiar and she was right her birth was scandalous because after the queen endured five painful labors queen victoria reasonably wanted some pain relief she ignored her royal advisors and she insisted on trying the new controversial treatment called chloroform the queen said it made labor delightful and the birth was scandalous because the queen was basically high during the birth which was against all conventions at the time louise was a curious cat and the royal family believed in the old philosophy that children should be seen and not heard but louise was not going to go along with this she was born rebellious and from an early age she was a firecracker who was almost too curious for the royal family's tastes louise asked so many questions that the family nicknamed her little miss y we'll see the princess's desire to rebel only nurtured greater as she matured however louise was not accustomed to grief and she struggled to handle it when louise was just 13 years old her beloved father prince albert tragically passed away in 1861. even though louise and victoria didn't have the calmest relationship louise was her father's favorite child and the death of her father was extremely hard for princess louise with her mum so engulfed in her own grief she did not have anyone around her to help her through her grief and she felt so alone queen victoria was so beside herself with her own grief that she could hardly keep herself composed and in many parts of her life she was not composed or present she struggled to support her children through their father's parson and she basically lost both of her parents and one swoop and so louise became withdrawn and stubborn but even with the probabilities waited against her she was a fighter it took nearly four years after prince albert's passing for louise to finally rejoin public life unfortunately her mother had other ideas for her grand balls were huge part of victorian culture the elite young women entered society with an extravagant party called a coming out ball louise was a 17 year old princess who was justifiably thrilled about the party but she was disappointed when her mother cancelled the whole occasion the queen had decided that mourning protocols for prince albert was more important even though it had been years since his parson this kept the family in a state of grief unable to move on louise was furious she stomped around the palace in place of the dancing that she should have been doing instead but she'd make her own fun soon enough louise would go on to work with her mother despite the pair not having the calmest of relationships louise could wind her mother up incessantly and she knew just the buttons to press but her mother was hell-bent on following tradition anyway and so this meant promoting her troublemaker daughter louise to serve as her personal secretary louise was surprisingly good at the work but she found it boring and that was until she met a certain gentleman of whom she would have been forbidden from having an affair with while louise worked as her mother's secretary scandalous rumors were spreading throughout england the rumors suggested that princess louise was having a scandalous affair with her younger brother's tutor the commoner robinson duckworth and that she was falling in love with him as well as the royal tutor he was also a reverend and he was 14 years older than young princess louise when her mother found out she intervened queen victoria was no fool victoria could see what was happening between the pair it did not take a lengthy time for her to dismiss the celebrated tutor from the royal palace victoria believed she had squashed the scandals and rumors with her action but louise's love life would throw many more scandals at the queen her mother took caution queen victoria began to grow wary of her teenage rebellious daughter and it didn't take long for their relationship to sour the queen frequently disapproved louise non-compliance called her indiscreet and said that she was an imprudent child who got pleasure from arguing it appeared like no topic was safe in the royal residences because louise merely refused to hold her tongue thankfully a change of scenery would give the royal family some relief when louise broke the mold when she became the first princess to attend a public institution as all of the siblings endured the children were used to their father's strict and rigid tutoring system this perhaps encouraged louise to seek out the education she wanted for herself and blossom into the person she was meant to be louise refused to be stuck and trapped within the royal palaces and living by the queen's endless rules and protocol and so she decided to venture into the world where she would make a scandalous impression she became a famed artist she had learned her skills during her enrollment at the national art training school where she left england unfounded by becoming a sculptor becoming an artist was a man's role it was scandalous for a woman to become an artist again louise followed her own dreams against all society rules she rebelled and caused controversy by being a royal princess entering the male dominated world of sculpting it would have been expected of her to follow more traditionally feminine art forms such as painting or singing but even louise's unconventional career choices didn't compete against her scandalous and dramatic personal life she was a busy woman louise connected with numerous men during her lifetime and the gossip on no occasion seemed to stop some sources claim that she had affairs with one of the queen's later personal secretaries along with the famed architect edward lewtons louise was passionately liberal woman although she preferred to keep her affairs a secret perhaps to shield herself from her mother's wrath the royal family were far more concerned with concealing even greater things than affairs she was beautiful and it was not hard to see why so many men were falling over themselves to be with her the princess was absolutely gorgeous she had pale skin dark hair and a slender figure unlike some of her other sisters louise was the victorian era's idea of a jaw-dropping beauty to this day she is often called queen victoria's most striking daughter she kept another huge secret louise was a handful for queen victoria she was often having to intervene in covering up her daughter's explosive personal life in order to protect the royal family it is alleged that the royal princess didn't just have an affair with leopold's tutor duckworth but that she also had an affair with another of her brother's teachers as well this time the man was walter sterling and his relationship with louise would send the royal family into a state of panic this scandal was pushed far down into the deep realms of other royal secrets but a scandal that has been resurfaced is one that would have caused great shame at the time it is rumored that louise had given birth at the young age of 18 out of wedlock and this would have brought endless shame and scandal to the royal family it was queen victoria's doctor cell charles lowcock that had started the rumor he had helped deliver all nine babies that victoria birthed and it was charles lowcock's son frederick who adopted baby boy called henry in 1867 which was a strange thing for a single man to do and lucox seemingly started getting a fairly sizable allowance he had also been given a grace and favor apartment in st james's palace when henry was old enough and had his own children he started to share the news that princess louise was his mother and this story passed down throughout the next generations the descendants of henry lowcock applied for permission to test the dna from henry's coffin to compare against louise's niece brethressar alexandra of russia but unfortunately it was refused by the court of archers meaning the truth was never fully known in between all of her personal affairs princess louise was still able to dedicate herself to philanthropy even as a young woman she felt passionately that she shouldn't just serve the royal family but that she should work for the british people she used her influence as her mother's secretary when she helped open a hospital for children and became the face of royal philanthropy louise was able to enjoy her twenties but time was ticking and the expectation of marriage was being forced on her with greater pressure one thing she did not want was to marry royalty the queen set about finding her daughter a husband as she did for all of her children and many of her grandchildren her sisters had all married royalty and the queen proposed many princes from across europe to louise but louise was hell-bent on never marrying a man who was a member of any royal family she already had to struggle with her own stuffy royal family she did not want to cope with another louise knew what she wanted and she wouldn't concede defeat her family was busy showcasing her across europe and louise grew keen on a regular man named john campbell he was not a royal but he was a noble to the royal family you were a prince or you were nothing and despite him being a good pick the royal family strongly rejected the scandalous marriage eventually queen victoria saw sense and conceded she even stood up for her daughter against those in the family who disputed the marriage in 1871 louise and campbell walked down the aisle with the queen's approval however the queen did snub the nobleman refusing him a kiss on the royal cheek instead insisting he kissed her hand instead louise could not escape the rumors and scandals and her wedding was another event that caused a stare she had not married a royal and so this would go down in history for centuries the affair caused so much curiosity from the public and so many people showed up to the ceremony that the authorities implemented for the first time in britain chain link barriers to protect the couple from the massive crowds louise had style she was an artist and she knew her own fashion and what suited her she decided to dress herself even designing her own wedding veil sadly the marriage did not end happily ever after once married louise went straight back to her charity work she helped create the influential ladies work supply in 1871 a foundation that designed created and sold embroidery to help those in poverty the organization selected louise as their president and she also worked as one of their designers louise traveled far and wide even saturn foot in canada as the first british royal where she helped promote the founding of the national gallery of canada and the royal canadian academy of arts the people of canada loved her and they even named the province of alberta and beautiful lake louise after her while away in canada she was given the news that her favorite sibling her sister the beautiful princess alice alongside two of alice's daughter had all died of diphtheria what was also devastating was she died on the anniversary of louise's father's death however her time here was not without drama when she was lucky to survive in 1880 she was involved in a shocking experience when she got into a dangerous sleigh accident louise was dragged through the snow for 400 meters when the carriage overturned luckily she only had a concussion but she also had her earlobe torn into two she was a tough woman but this started the beginning of a period of delicate health for louise her delicate health was not helped because she liked to follow fad diets some of them very strange the princess was continuously excited about exercise and she worked hard to uphold her slim body it was noted however that at a dinner party all she ate was just four brussels sprouts her obsession with her weight was allegedly so that she did not end up just like her mother queen victoria there was a reason that the canadian people loved louise she had a good heart and this was evident when she used her wealth and influence to create a medical fund and hired a doctor to provide medical attention to the men fighting on both sides of the northwest rebellion no matter their race creed or colour to her these were human beings that regardless of their beliefs needed help her good deeds were not without praise from her siblings who were jealous of her rebellious behavior perhaps jealous that they were trapped under their mother's strict protocols when louise returned to england her homecoming was anything but rosy one of the members of her family that she got on well with was her sister beatrice's husband prince henry of battenberg who she potentially got on a bit too well with during a period when scandals were society's form of entertainment her relationship with henry did not go unnoticed and people began to suspect that she was having a twisted affair although louise didn't care what people thought of her and she didn't care much for appearances either she was able to ignore the rumors and the true information on this affair will never truly be known but when henry passed in 1896 louise remarked that he was almost the greatest friend i had i too miss him more than i can say because of the rumors that louise was secretly romancing her own sister's husband it's not hard to believe that princess beatrice would get angry and lash out louise alleged that her sister got her own revenge by spreading a dark rumor that she was romantically involved with the queen's private secretary arthur big louise struck back by spreading a rumor of her own she said that beatrice made the whole thing up because she was jealous and then louise poured salt in the wound after princess beatrice's handsome husband prince henry passed away louise threw the ultimate insult when she claimed that she and henry were much closer than henry and beatrice she even went so far as to say that beatrice meant absolutely nothing to her husband the affair rumors were fueled further by her ever-dwindling marriage to her own husband upon their return to england it was not a secret that louise preferred the company of other men and the pair lived very individual lives staying away from each other for long periods but why was she having such problems with her husband it is alleged that her husband had a dangerous secret rumors and scandal were spreading that her husband was in fact gay louise was fairly open-minded as the rebel of the family and she didn't seem to care much for her husband's sexuality as the marriage was mostly built for convenience and she was able to keep company with other men so it didn't really impact her despite her open-mindedness there was one aspect of her sexuality that she was bothered about and this was his night prowling one of the ways she tried to stop him was by closing off the windows to their apartment louise was keeping her own secret as she was living a life for the feminist movement as a suffragette this is something her mother was absolutely against she did not believe in any of their ideas but louise was unfazed that her mother disagreed and she did it anyway showing off her rebellious side once again victoria did support her daughter with her artwork however which was not the most conventional of careers for women she openly disobeyed the queen when she became a vocal supporter for the suffragette movement she even made friends with elizabeth garrett the first british woman to publicly practice medicine part of her passion was to ensure that women were cared for and one of the things she did was to randomly drop in on factories where women were working and to ensure that the owners and co-workers were treating them properly she used her wealth yet again to help the ordinary people she was passionate about helping widows and she would offer to pay so that they could have proper burials for their husbands while her private life with her husband was dwindling further and further she began to spend time with a scandalous man her husband was always away giving in to his own desires which left time for her to explore her desires while living in canada she had a love affair with an indigenous man that was modelling for her art this caused huge scandal and rumors began to circle once more her mother was set to celebrate 50 years of ruling and the sculpture was being commissioned for the event rather than her mother give her the job she didn't give her child a free pass instead she made her submit her work anonymously and the best piece would be chosen when it was revealed that the piece had been made by louise the people doubted that it was her instead they believed the piece had been made by her male teacher and lover joseph edgar boehm louise was a dedicated wife despite very different lifestyles they grew old together and remained married until the very end as the years went by their bond was nurtured and their friendship grew tighter during the last years their marriage their relationship really flourished however john campbell became unwell and in 1911 he became so senile that louise had to nurse him louise had lost many family members by this stage of her life and as she became older she also became increasingly unwell her husband's passing led to a new level of loneliness alongside her grief it led to a breakdown she wrote to a friend my loneliness without the duke is quite terrible i wonder what he does now luckily she was able to save the relationship with her younger sister beatrice who she had fought with over the years queen victoria gave them neighboring houses when she passed away perhaps as a plot to force the sisters back together to rekindle their relationship and it worked when the sisters became weak and unwell towards the end of their lives they lived in kensington palace and neighboring rooms louise did live until her 90s which was a mean feat and perhaps her obsession with exercise and healthy foods contributed to this she once proclaimed that she would outlive everyone who had made fun of her fitness regime and louise did well and almost was able to stick to her word when she passed at the very old age of 91 years old on the 3rd of december 1939 she remained a rebel even after her death and one of her addictions was to cigarettes and she owed a local shopkeeper 15 shillings which is around 300 today she kept this addiction to herself right into adulthood as her mother would have chastised her for it beatrice was the youngest child of queen victoria and prince albert and is often the case with the last born child into a family they are treated as the baby this did not stop her being subjected to her mother's judgment of her children and her domineering behaviour to all that she could control her life as a princess was no fairy tale and as many of queen victoria's children and grandchildren she suffered greatly throughout her life her birth was scandalous beatrice was born in 1857 she was the ninth child of queen victoria who was famous for not liking children pregnancy or childbirth it was her dislike and discomfort in labor that led the public to view her birth and child in a scandalous manner the use of pain relief was looked down upon at the time as it went against nature and god's law but queen victoria decided to use chloroform to dull her labor pains which displeased the public greatly beatrice became a scandal even before she was born and had taken her first breath she was the baby of the family as the youngest of the royal brood she was treated better at the beginning of her life and both her parents spoiled her more than the others queen victoria who believed all babies were ugly had called her her last child a pretty plump and flourishing child prince albert was overjoyed that the child would go on to become an intelligent woman so that he could have intellectual debates with her as she grew older this love did not come for free as it was later revealed she was subjected to emotional burden all of her other siblings were adults and they had all had their own issues and scandals the future king edward was living a debauched lifestyle that the royal couple disapproved of and beatrice was the last child living in the household and it was due to this that they relied so heavily on emotional support from their only four-year-old child and that is a burden that was put on her that no child could possibly bear she was the favorite when her grandmother died she was left to further support her mother in grieving for her victoria had pushed the majority of her children away so that she could grieve in peace but she did allow beatrice to comfort her something a young child should not be responsible for doing she lost her father at a young age only a few months after her grandmother passed her father then died suddenly from a lifelong issue such as crohn's that led to a problem with his bowel that later turned to sepsis beatrice was only a toddler she was not equipped to death with such a devastating loss queen victoria did not believe her grief was as great as hers princess beatrice had to grow up very fast when her father died her mother plunged into such a deep despair that she basically lost her mother too she famously dressed in black for the rest of her life and truly never got over albert's death withdrawing from her royal duties and her family duties too her mother used her like a living doll queen victoria pushed all of her children away during her grief but beatrice was a chosen one and she was expected to comfort her mother and one of her tasks included laying in her mother's bed at night there are reports that the queen would pull beatrice out of her bed and lay there sleepless clasping to her child while the queen was wrapped in the night clothes of a man who could wear them no more she endured intense pain for her mother beatrice was intelligent and she was also a talented piano player this hobby is something she was forced to give up due to an illness called rheumatism which caused her pain and stopped her playing queen victoria was not sympathetic of her daughter's pain and forced her to go out with her in sub-zero temperatures even though it made her condition worse although you would expect this to push beatrice away from her mother it in fact did the opposite she wanted to be a spinster the child had become the queen's closest confidante and she depended on her baby for her emotional support beatrice declared at her sister's wedding that she wished to become a spinster and live with her mother forever unfortunately this turned out to be a tragic premonition her mother was possessive and during the 1870s beaches became of age and was ready to find a suitor to marry as a royal princess she became one of the most eligible brides of europe victoria reminisced on the words spoken by her daughter earlier that she wanted to live with victoria and the queen was not ready to give up her real-life living doll taking beatrice's young words to heart victoria genuinely didn't want to give up the girl she encouraged her daughter to stick to her word in becoming a spinster so that she could be her confidante and personal secretary forever but she had a crush on a french prince it was not long before this idea of becoming a spinster was long forgotten when eligible suitors began knocking at beatrice's door one of the handsome suitors was that of napoleon eugene the son of emperor napoleon iii and queen victoria's close friend empress eugenie the younger napoleon was a european pedigree with a mass of connections and queen victoria could finally envision her daughter with this man that that was only until tragedy struck this eligible man her suitor met a terrible fate beatrice received a telegram in 1879 that turned her heart to ice when she received the news that the eligible groom napoleon eugene had died on the battlefield after he entered the anglo-zulu war beatrice then announced the news to her mother who took the news empathetically when the pair shared a tearful and stunned time together but her mother had a deranged plan for her it was the death of the leading suitor of beatrice that led to her mother suggesting something that was completely illegal and immoral queen victoria wished for beatrice to marry her dead sisters widower louis iv grand duke of hesse her sister had not long died only a year before and beatrice was nearly fated to marry the grieving husband she almost betrayed her sister but the british royal family felt that beatrice would be a perfect fit to care for the large brood of young children that her sister had left behind the queen thought beatrice could act as a substitute mother for them and she was used to being the emotional crutch of her mother so would have made a perfect match to a grieving husband the happiness of beatrice was completely ignored and she was also grieving the loss of her future husband and her sister luckily for her it was against the law to marry her sister's widower and her family went to great lengths to change the law to make it legal but fortunately for beatrice they failed to do so she attracted attention from all over europe queen victoria did a full 180 and flipped straight back to the idea of beatrice becoming a spinster and living at home with her forever however the eligible bride was back on the market and her availability attracted men from all over europe once again several suitors came out of the woodwork including prince louis of battenberg queen victoria did everything in her power to stop this courtship [Music] following on from part one find out how queen victoria tried to stop her daughter from marrying a prince she ghosted a prince prince louie was interested in the eligible bride but queen victoria was not keen on the idea she wanted to appear to be playing nice so she invited him to dinner she took this opportunity to sit right in the middle of the matching pair in an attempt to interrupt any blossoming romance between them after the dinner she then demanded that beatrice ignore louie completely the pair did not go any further and it wasn't until years later that louie understood from beatrice why she had ignored him this was the beginning of the end for her relationship with her mother her ex went on to marry someone else louie went on to marry someone else after being rejected from the british princess he instead opted for the easier goal of beatrice's niece victoria of hess princess beatrice was invited to the royal wedding of which she attended perhaps to show her what she was missing out on but just as her ex had left the market another one came along so she went on the rebound it was at the wedding that the groom's brother caught her eye which must have been difficult for louie to witness she spent the wedding day with prince henry of battenberg and they enjoyed each other's company talking dancing and sharing flirtatious romance beatrice returned home and told her mother she was to wed prince henry queen victoria was in charge of the matchmaking between the members of her family and her permission was required for a marriage to go ahead beatrice was over succumbing to her mother's demands and so she no longer cared for her opinion on the matter so her mother gave her the silent treatment the queen's response for the princess's rude approach to her match was to famously ignore her victoria was devastated at the prospect of her youngest child leaving her she retaliated with cold and cruel silence and refused to respond to her at all she ignored beatrice for seven months only writing notes to her if she needed to communicate something so beatrice had to make a big sacrifice a year and a half after the princess had announced her engagement to prince henry the queen finally agreed to speak to her daughter face to face but she was armed with a selfish ultimatum victoria was incessant on not giving up her child living with her and she very selfishly demanded that if beatrice wished to marry her prince charming that the newly married pair would move in with her after the wedding this was an attempt to control her daughter and she had a lot of time to think of the best tactic to do this with few other options beatrice agreed and it would eventually end in tears she went on to have a fairy tale wedding and beatrice finally got to the wedding she desired and in the summer of 1885 she had a very opulent wedding flaunting the wealth of the british royal family in a fairy tale event she finally married prince henry of battenberg and queen victoria gave her daughter her wedding veil as beatrice had always loved lace this was something that her other sisters were not privileged to receive despite the public display of wealth and happiness behind the scenes the princess was miserable because her mother stole the show beatrice's big day was plagued by the sadness of her mother who made the whole spectacle all about her and her feelings as she walked down the aisle to the loving husband she had waiting so long to marry her mother held back obvious tears and the married pair didn't get a real honeymoon the queen forbid a honeymoon that reflected the opulence of the wedding day instead she meddled in their blossoming marriage and requested that the newly married pair stay local only miles from her home at quoi abbey house on the isle of wight it was while she was on this very low toned honeymoon that she lost her innocence victoria likely spent her daughter's entire honeymoon breaking out into hives beatrice who was young and naive was unaware of what her cares on one's wedding night and her mother loathed her daughter's further loss of innocence perhaps unsurprisingly then victoria also insisted they stay away only for a short amount of time beatrice was to become housebound and she began to feel suffocated by the increasing demands of her mother the married couple returned to the queen's side as was agreed in the selfish ultimatum the queen was now demanding that the princess and her husband not travel away from the home at any time as she relied on them too heavily for them to leave her side it didn't take long for this suffocating behavior to turn into feuding and her husband got restless prince henry loved beatrice dearly and it was evident in the long strenuous engagement and the fact that he had put up with his mother-in-law's demands and ultimatums but the prince had other ambitions in life and he had his eye on a successful military career he wanted to see the world but victoria had forbid him to leave her side which probably only made his desire to escape more exacerbated he began to beg his wife to gain approval from the queen for him to become an officer in the military their request was refused the queen did not want him to be put in harm's way henry had to get his kicks from somewhere and this led to the breakdown of their marriage because his love strayed prince henry was extremely handsome and his masculine appearance attracted all of the ladies and well the prince also noticed them right back when henry attended a carnival one year word got back to beatrice that he was keeping low company and that his eyes and his body had wondered this led to beatrice taking desperate measures when she decided to spy on her husband princess beatrice was extremely upset and jealous as most wives would be at hearing the news that their husband is cheating on them she was curious of her husband's actions and she dispatched one of her own royal navy officers to tail henry and keep an eye on him her motivation was to stop him from keeping company again but unfortunately her plan backfired beatrice not surprisingly inherited just a small amount of her mother's clinginess the princess had always been happy with henry and she loved and enjoyed his company these feelings were not always reciprocated however and due to the intense pressure he was put under by his mother-in-law he began to feel restless by his marriage and royal duties he started to take more opportunities to slip away from the palace until one year he went out in the worst way when he literally ran away prince henry had completely reached his breaking point and he very unconventionally for a prince escaped the palace for good or so he thought he ran away to corsica on a boys trip with his brother louie what he faced next shocked him to his core queen victoria used her extreme power and wealth to show him that he could not wander away as he pleases in true royal fashion she sent a warship to find and bring back beatrice's errant husband an expensive retrieval of someone's husband but an effective one a mother's worst nightmare the young princess had to admit that she had consummated the marriage with her husband to her mother when she announced that she was expecting a child beatrice had miscarried in the very early months of her marriage and she was determined not to lose this child too she therefore reduced her physical activities and social engagements to reduce the risk to her unborn child but this action led to some very unpleasant consequences because her mother judged her harshly most of the royal household was used to treating beaters like a child but upon hearing the news queen victoria treated her with contempt beatrice was still living with victoria and so when she was resting during her pregnancy the queen would get moody due to her daughter not spending enough time with her victoria called her resting moping and boasted that when she was pregnant i regularly came to dinner except when i was really unwell up to the very last day beatrice went on to have a royal brood of her own and that november beatrice gave birth to a son the newest heir to the british throne they named him alexander with the nickname draino the couple went on to have three more children getting pregnant and giving birth every other year until 1891. their other children were called victoria leopold and maurice but her husband still wanted to abandon her and in 1895 an old ghost came back to haunt beatrice her husband was back on his quest to join the military and as he had produced a royal brood of children he felt even more entitled to it he had his eye on the ango assant war in modern day ghana and his request was finally accepted by the queen and so beatrice had a long goodbye ahead of her in december of that year beatrice waved goodbye to her beloved henry as he went off to fight for queen and country after only a couple of weeks the fatal truth that victoria had previously envisioned came true and henry died he had contracted a deadly case of malaria they sent him home to be with his family but he did not make it back alive because her husband had died a horrible death beatrice had heard the news that her husband was sick and she was relieved that he would be coming home but what happened next she did not expect she went to meet the boat back from africa but when she expected to see her husband she was instead greeted with a telegram telling her the news of her husband's death beatrice was understandably heartbroken she had grown up in a household full of grief and so she did what she knew best she grieved for the prince henry who she would never see again and she withdrew from the court and she refused to take part in many aspects of her life she began to neglect her family just like her mother once did with their family the queen surprisingly attempted to cheer her daughter up and she organized for her to have a dark room for her hobby and photography but this gesture was not enough to pull her out from despair the princess was unwilling to drag herself out of mourning and this led to a breakdown of her relationship with her own children history was repeating itself again through generations the children began acting out in school with her daughter becoming troublesome and rebellious and her elder son alexander telling unwarrable truths after all of the heartache that she had experienced in her life she completely lost her purpose on january the 22nd 1901 beatrice's life changed forever this was the day that her mother died ending the victorian age and leaving her free of her mother's influence for the first time ironically her mother died on the fifth anniversary of the day she had learned of her husband's death which led to a double dose of heartbreak not only this but she also then began to have sibling rivalry and when her mother died she fell out of favour in the court as she was not in a privileged position as she was previously there was a giant gap in the ages between king edward vii and beatrice which led to a relationship or bond never really forming when edward created his inner circle beatrice was completely emitted from it she had completely fallen out of place in the hierarchy of the royal family and she went on to make a huge mistake in the eyes of her brother as the sister of the new king she was still expected to act in the correct manner and attend all official events one of the most important events she was invited to was the coronation of her brother as king she had become clumsy during the service and she dropped her prayer book taken the attention completely away from the new king and putting it onto her and this absolutely infuriated her royal brother so he went on to portray her [Music] bitch's and her husband had spent the majority of their marriage at osborne house and it was her mother's favorite home and also her place of death edward however wanted to sell it much to her dismay but she begged her brother not to and only partially succeeded with the king extending the grounds for her own osborne cottage she knew queen victoria's deepest thoughts though and after victoria passed away beatrice as her secretary was responsible for transcribing and editing the queen's lengthy and detailed diaries for posterity and publication there were hundreds of volumes and victoria did not leave out any details and she covered her candid opinions on both her family and her country so beatrice took it upon herself to censor her mother as her mother's close of confidant she knew of her desire for privacy and so bear just opted to remove enormous parts of her victoria's memories she reduced the hundreds of journals to just 111 volumes and that took a whopping 30 years to complete beatrice's nephew the future king george v despised what his aunt was doing to his grandmother's legacy but no one could stop her because she knew a big secret the queen deeply mourned the loss of her husband albert for years but it is rumored that she did eventually find happiness again in the comfort of the arms of her scottish personal attendant john brown we may never know for sure due to beatrice removing much of her mother's journal entries and so there is no proof of an affair the queen however was buried with a lock of his hair which would be a very unusual thing for a colleague to do unless there was more to it sadly beatrice's later years provided very little happiness her children were becoming part of the reason four had to be unhappy her daughter married alfonso the 13th of spain and she had climbed high up the hierarchal ladder but this marriage led to disaster and beaches spent many times consoling her upset daughter when she returned back to england on many occasions beatrice was to suffer even more heartbreak when her son repeated history in 1914 beatrice saw the outbreak of world war one and history repeated itself in the life of her son he joined the military in his father's footsteps and just like she had also had decades before beatrice stayed home and prayed for her young son's safety once again history repeated itself to horrible effect and she lost her favorite child world war one only began in the late july of 1914 but prince maurice was killed in action before the year was even up he was caught up in a shell explosion while leading his men across a ridge he was only 23 years old and beatrice was completely devastated yet again by the loss in her life she once again withdrew from public court after losing her youngest son she carried the royal disease the royal family was plagued with a blood clotting disorder passed down by queen victoria the royal disease was a dangerous and often fatal disorder called hemophilia and it spread all across europe through the many marriages that victoria made both the queen and beatrice were carriers of the disorder and the evidence of this came to light the hard way in 1922 her son leopold needed knee surgery but as a hemophiliac whose blood could not clot he died at only 32 years old in the end beatrice and george long passed so many of the people that she loved she even outlived her nephew king george and publicly laid reefs in memory of him she only passed on october the 26th 1944 at the ripe old age of 87. please continue to support my channel by subscribing please comment like and subscribe if you wish for more stories and leave your suggestions below and i will endeavor to cover them

Channel: Past People

Views: 354,654

Keywords: royal family, princess louise, princess louise duchess of argyll, victorian era, queen victoria, queen victorias children, queen victorias daughters, royal scandal, british royal family, victorian royals, victorian london, feminist women, women in history, victorian, princess helena, princess beatrice, princess alice, princess vicky, prussian empress, last german royal, royalty, the crown, Queen victoria, victoria empress of germany, Alice, Helena, Louise, Beatrice

Id: SEWTWSuSlo4

Length: 126min 26sec (7586 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 04 2022