Queen Victoria's Daughters

Princesses Victoria, Alice, Helena, Louise, and Beatrice

Sep 24, 2009

Queen Victoria of Great Britian and her husband Prince Albert had five daughters, the Princesses Victoria, Alice, Helena, Louise, and Beatrice.

Queen Victoria of Great Britain and her husband Prince Albert had a happy family life of nine children, five daughters and four sons. These parents respected their daughters and wanted them to marry for love, but after Prince Albert’s death Queen Victoria also wanted to keep her daughters close to her. Nevertheless, all their daughters married husbands of their choice, including German princes of various rank and a Scottish nobleman, and several of the children from these marriages also joined important European royal families.

Princess Victoria, Princess Royal, Empress Victoria of Germany (1840–1901)

Children: Emperor Wilhelm II, Charlotte, Heinrich, Sigismund, Victoria, Waldemar, Sophie, Margarete

Princess Victoria, “Vicky,” was her father’s favorite daughter, as she shared his intelligence and liberal-mindedness. Prince Albert was very in favor of her love match with Prince Frederick of Prussia, as he hoped the marriage would help spread his liberal political ideas throughout Europe. Unfortunately, Victoria’s liberalness and English ways meant that she never really settled in to life in the Prussian court, and her life in Germany was very strained and uncomfortable.

Fortunately, Frederick agreed with his wife’s liberalness and they had a very happy marriage. Unfortunately, they came into constant conflict with his father Emperor Wilhelm I and with their oldest children, particularly the future Emperor Wilhelm II, who tended to side with their conservative grandparents. Throat cancer killed Emperor Frederick III of Germany after a short ninety-nine day rule, after which the widowed dowager Empress Victoria lived out her life in relative poverty with her only comfort her younger children and grandchildren.

Princess Alice of Great Britain (1843–1878)

Children: Victoria, Elisabeth, Irene, Ernst Ludwig, Friedrich Wilhelm, Alix, May

Princess Alice was shy and intelligent, but also compassionate and felt things very deeply which may have led to the melancholy she suffered from later in life. She married Prince Louis, future Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, a small but important German duchy.

Her marriage was a love match that sadly cooled as tragedies and hardships continued to affect the couple. The Hesse royal family was relatively poor, and they were also under the constant threat of a Prussian invasion. Princess Alice was also a carrier of the blood disease hemophilia, which she passed on to one son who died as a child and also to two of her daughters, one of whom became Tsarina Alexandra and carried hemophilia to the Russian royal family. Princess Alice’s sad life was cut tragically short when she died of diphtheria at thirty-five, leaving her husband devastated and her children to be partly raised by her mother Queen Victoria.

Princess Helena of Great Britain (1846–1923)

Princess Helena, “Lenchen,” was the plainest of Queen Victoria’s daughters, obedient, amiable, and dependable, as well as being a bit of a tomboy. The queen wanted to keep her close, so after her marriage to the minor German Prince Christian of Shleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenberg the couple stayed in England near court. They had the most content and longest-lasting marriage of any of the daughters, living a peaceful and comfortable life together for fifty-one years. The marriage produced five children, one of whom sadly died in infancy. Princess Helena spent much of her time founding and supporting medical charities that helped train nurses and care for the poor.

Princess Louise of Great Britain (1848–1939)

Princess Louise was the prettiest, boldest, most independent and artistic of Queen Victoria’s daughters. She was the only daughter allowed to go to an actual school, attending the Kensington National Art Training School. She didn’t like any German prince, so she was finally allowed to marry a commoner, who nevertheless was a member of the titled nobility. John Campbell, the Marquess of Lorne and future Duke of Argyll, was heir to one of the most prestigious and richest Scottish noble families.

In marrying a commoner, Princess Louise gained the independence she desired and reveled in artistic and cultural pursuits away from court. She also pursued charitable interests, particularly ones involved with the arts and women’s education. Towards the end of her life, she was made a Dame Grand Cross of the British Empire because of her charitable work during World War I.

Princess Beatrice of Great Britain (1857–1944)

As the youngest of Queen Victoria’s daughters, obedient Princess Beatrice was required to serve her mother her whole adult life as her personal secretary and general helper. Her one act of rebellion was in insisting on marrying the handsome German Prince Henry of Battenberg, but even then Queen Victoria only let them wed if Henry would agree to live at court.

Beatrice and Henry had a happy marriage that lasted until his death a mere ten years later. The couple and Queen Victoria delighted in their four children. Unfortunately Princess Beatrice was a hemophilia carrier and passed it on to two of her sons and her daughter, who as Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain passed the blood disease on to the Spanish royal family.

Source:

Eilers, Marlene A. Queen Victoria’s Descendants. Falkoping, Sweden: Rosvall Royal Books, 1997.

Packard, Jerrold M. Victoria’s Daughters. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.

The copyright of the article Queen Victoria's Daughters in Georgian/Victorian Britain is owned by Emily Chauviere. Permission to republish Queen Victoria's Daughters in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.