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PREFACE
PREFACE
M EMOIRS of Royal personages form not the least interesting part of the whole vast field of biography, in spite of the fact that such memoirs differ from the lives of most persons in a private station because of the reticence and discretion which are necessary, especially in regard to affairs of State and political characters. It is often not until a whole generation has passed that it is possible to publish a full biography of a member of a Royal House, and in the meantime the exalted rank of t
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CHAPTER I CHILDHOOD AND GIRLHOOD
CHAPTER I CHILDHOOD AND GIRLHOOD
B EFORE the birth of the Princess Royal in November 1840, no direct heir had been born to a reigning British Sovereign for nearly eighty years. The Prince Regent, afterwards George IV, was born in 1762, two years after his father’s accession, and the death in childbirth of the Prince Regent’s daughter, Princess Charlotte, when she was only twenty, was still vividly remembered. Queen Victoria was now but little older than Princess Charlotte, and the birth of her first child was regarded with a ce
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CHAPTER II BETROTHAL
CHAPTER II BETROTHAL
E VEN in the days of her extreme youth, Queen Victoria, owing to the fact that she was the reigning Sovereign, had to know much that is generally concealed from the young concerning the private lives and careers of their relatives. This is made abundantly clear in the extracts from her Majesty’s private diary which have already been published. In these intimate records, written by the girl Queen herself, we see that Lord Melbourne early decided never to treat his Royal mistress as a child. When
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CHAPTER III OPINION IN BOTH COUNTRIES
CHAPTER III OPINION IN BOTH COUNTRIES
T HE Queen and Prince Albert, as we know, much wished to keep the fact of the Princess’s engagement a secret from the public. But rumour was naturally busy with the visit of the Prussian Prince to Balmoral, and on the day after his departure, that is on October 3, there appeared in the Times a leading article, in which the proposed alliance of the Princess Royal was alluded to with anything but approval—indeed, in Germany the article was considered grossly insulting both to the King of Prussia a
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CHAPTER IV MARRIAGE
CHAPTER IV MARRIAGE
I T is the universal testimony that at the time of her wedding the Princess Royal was at the height of her youthful beauty and charm. This is not the mere flattery of courtiers, to whom all Royal ladies are beautiful as a matter of course; it is the opinion expressed by a multitude of observers in contemporary private letters, diaries, and reminiscences. And of all the descriptions of her at this time in existence the most lifelike we owe to a German lady of rank, one of the Princess’s future la
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CHAPTER V EARLY MARRIED LIFE
CHAPTER V EARLY MARRIED LIFE
T HE bridal journey to Berlin was in the nature of a triumphal progress, and it was well that the Prince and Princess were both young and full of healthy vitality. At Brussels they were present at a great Court ball given in their honour, but early the next morning they were again on their route, and all the way there were receptions, addresses of congratulations, &c., to be received and answered. It was probably at Brussels that the Princess received a touching letter from her father, w
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CHAPTER VI BIRTH OF PRINCE WILLIAM
CHAPTER VI BIRTH OF PRINCE WILLIAM
O N January 27, 1859, Berlin was on the tip-toe of expectation. The custom is that 101 guns announce the birth of a Prince, and only twenty-one that of a Princess, and as in Prussia the Salic Law still obtains, it may easily be imagined with what anxiety the Berliners counted the successive discharges. There was indeed no need to wait for the whole tale of the 101 guns, for the firing of the twenty-second was enough to spread the glad news. The story goes that when old Field-Marshal Wrangel, “Pa
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CHAPTER VII ADVICE FROM ENGLAND
CHAPTER VII ADVICE FROM ENGLAND
T HE year 1860 was on the whole a happy one for the Princess Royal. It brought her a long visit from her parents and the birth of her eldest daughter, but on the other side of the account the relations between her two countries, England and Prussia, became perceptibly worse. For the New Year her father sent her one of his customary letters of sagacious counsel, in which may be detected a certain note of uneasiness as to the development of his daughter’s powers of self-control: “You enter upon th
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CHAPTER VIII DEATH OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA
CHAPTER VIII DEATH OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA
O N January 2, 1861, died the King of Prussia, Frederick William IV, and his brother, the Prince Regent, succeeded as William I. Prince Frederick William became Crown Prince of Prussia, and henceforth the Princess Royal was called, both in England and in Germany, the Crown Princess. In the Letters of Queen Victoria there is a most impressive account, written by the Princess Royal, and there published for the first time, of the death of the King of Prussia. The event moved her the more deeply bec
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CHAPTER IX FIRST RELATIONS WITH BISMARCK
CHAPTER IX FIRST RELATIONS WITH BISMARCK
A FTER the death of Prince Albert, the relations between the Crown Princess and Bismarck become of absorbing interest to the student both of politics and of human nature. Bismarck seems to have first met Prince Albert in the summer of 1855, when Queen Victoria and the Prince paid their state visit to Paris. In his Reminiscences , Bismarck says that in the Prince’s manner to him there was a kind of “malevolent curiosity,” and he convinced himself—not so much at the time as from subsequent events—
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CHAPTER X THE WAR OF THE DUCHIES
CHAPTER X THE WAR OF THE DUCHIES
P ALMERSTON is reported to have said on one occasion, that there had been only three men in Europe who really understood the Schleswig-Holstein question. One of them was himself—and he had forgotten it; the second man was dead; and the third was in a mad-house. But the members of the Royal Houses of England, Prussia, and Denmark considered that, without being either jurists or diplomatists by profession, they understood the question quite well enough to take different sides with ardent enthusias
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CHAPTER XI HOME LIFE AND RELIGION
CHAPTER XI HOME LIFE AND RELIGION
T HE successful campaign against Denmark had drawn all German hearts together. Neither the Crown Prince nor the Crown Princess had ever been unpopular with the army, who felt really honoured by that honorary colonelcy which had so much amused the Princess. The Danish War greatly increased their popularity, and the year that followed was probably one of the happiest of their lives. They adored their children, who were being thoroughly well brought up, and, with the one paramount exception of the
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CHAPTER XII THE AUSTRIAN WAR: WORK IN THE HOSPITALS
CHAPTER XII THE AUSTRIAN WAR: WORK IN THE HOSPITALS
W E come now to the outbreak of the war with Austria, which arose directly out of the war with Denmark, and which, as we now look back upon it, seems to fall naturally into its place as part of Bismarck’s politique de longue haleine for the unification of Germany. The Royal personages of his time were to Bismarck only pawns in the great game on which he was ever engaged. It is impossible to read his life and other literary remains without being struck by the contempt which he entertained for at
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CHAPTER XIII THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR
CHAPTER XIII THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR
T HE year 1870 opened with no premonition of the tremendous events it was to bring forth. Princess Victoria had been born on the eve of the Austrian War in 1866, and now, on the eve of this yet greater struggle, on June 14, 1870, the Crown Princess gave birth to her third daughter, Princess Sophia Dorothea Ulrica Alice, who was destined to become Queen of the Hellenes. The candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen for the throne of Spain was announced on July 4, and after fruitle
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CHAPTER XIV PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ACTIVITIES
CHAPTER XIV PUBLIC AND PRIVATE ACTIVITIES
W HEN the great struggle was over at last and peace was declared, the Crown Princess had a pleasant opportunity of exercising the generosity and delicacy which formed perhaps the most notable part of her many-sided and impulsive character. M. Thiers had sent to Berlin as French Ambassador the Comte de Gontaut Biron. Although allied by birth to several great German families, M. de Gontaut, as he was generally styled, found his position in Berlin a very painful one. France lay in the dust at the f
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CHAPTER XV THE CROWN PRINCE’S REGENCY
CHAPTER XV THE CROWN PRINCE’S REGENCY
I N the January of 1874 the Crown Princess went to Russia to be present at the marriage of her brother, the Duke of Edinburgh, with the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna. Unlike most Royal personages, many of whom regard such functions as weddings as duties to be endured, the Crown Princess thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The Emperor Alexander was charmed with her cleverness and enthusiasm, and gave her a ruby bracelet, which she was fond of wearing to the end of her life. The Princess had the
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CHAPTER XVI SILVER WEDDING: THE CROWN PRINCE’S ILLNESS
CHAPTER XVI SILVER WEDDING: THE CROWN PRINCE’S ILLNESS
T HE Crown Prince and Princess now looked forward to celebrating their silver wedding on January 25, 1883. The festivities were rather dashed by the sudden death, only four days before, of Prince Charles of Prussia, the Emperor’s brother. The old Prince had never liked his English niece, and it was whispered in the diplomatic world that he had much preferred to die before rather than after the celebrations in which she was to be so conspicuous a figure! Preparations for commemorating the anniver
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CHAPTER XVII THE HUNDRED DAYS’ REIGN
CHAPTER XVII THE HUNDRED DAYS’ REIGN
O N the morning of March 9, 1888, the Crown Prince was walking in the gardens of the Villa Zirio, when a telegram was brought to him. He took it up with languid interest, but when he read the address, “To His Imperial Majesty the Emperor Frederick William,” there was no need to open the envelope, and it is said that his habitual self-control deserted him, and he burst into tears. A pathetic, and yet in its way a magnificent, scene followed in the great drawing-room on the ground floor of the vil
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CHAPTER XVIII EARLY WIDOWHOOD: THE FALL OF BISMARCK
CHAPTER XVIII EARLY WIDOWHOOD: THE FALL OF BISMARCK
I T is said that one of the last acts of the dying Emperor was to place Bismarck’s hand in that of the Empress as a token of reconciliation. But there was no reconciliation. On the contrary, the Emperor Frederick was no sooner dead, than Bismarck once more became all-powerful, and ruthlessly he used his power. The accession of the young Emperor William was followed by an astounding outburst of violence against the Empress Frederick on the part of Bismarck’s tools, his agents in the Press and els
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CHAPTER XIX THE PLANNING OF FRIEDRICHSHOF: VISIT TO PARIS
CHAPTER XIX THE PLANNING OF FRIEDRICHSHOF: VISIT TO PARIS
T HE Empress’s relations with her son improved after the fall of Bismarck. She was particularly touched by the many tributes which he paid to his father’s memory, and she now felt encouraged to try and build up again the fragments of her tragically broken life. The Emperor William had placed at his mother’s disposal the palace in Unter den Linden in Berlin where the Emperor and Empress Frederick lived while they were Crown Prince and Princess, as well as the Charlottenhof at Potsdam, and the Sch
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CHAPTER XX LIFE AT FRIEDRICHSHOF
CHAPTER XX LIFE AT FRIEDRICHSHOF
F OR many interesting details and anecdotes in the following chapter, we are indebted to a valuable pamphlet entitled, “Reminiscences of Victoria Empress Frederick,” by Professor G. A. Leinhaas, her honorary librarian. During the building of Friedrichshof the Empress took up her residence at Homburg and drove over every day, being on the friendliest terms, not only with the architect and builder, but also with the masons and the other workmen. One might say that she watched the laying of nearly
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CHAPTER XXI LAST YEARS
CHAPTER XXI LAST YEARS
D URING the last years of her life, the Empress Frederick paid repeated visits to England, where she had many attached friends. She much enjoyed a visit to the Bishop of Ripon in 1895, when she was able to study the wood carving in the cathedral, as well as Fountains Abbey and other places of historical interest. It was characteristic of her that only a few moments before she left Ripon, while she was actually waiting for the carriage to take her to the station, she exclaimed, “How much I should
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