On 6th July 1868, when told of the birth of her
seventh granddaughter, Queen Victoria remarked that the
news was ‘a very uninteresting thing for it seems to me
to go on like the rabbits in Windsor Park.’ Her apathy
was understandable – this was her fourteenth grandchild,
and, though she had given birth to nine children, she
had never been fond of babies, viewing them as
‘frog-like and rather disgusting…particularly when
undressed.’ The early years of her marriage had, she
claimed, been ruined by frequent pregnancies; and large
families were unnecessary for wealthy people since the
children would grow up with nothing worthwhile to do.
Nevertheless, her initial reaction to the birth of
Princess Victoria of Wales belied the genuine concern
that Queen Victoria felt for each of her twenty-two
granddaughters. ‘As a rule,’ she wrote, ‘I like girls
best,’ and she devoted a great deal of time to their
wellbeing and happiness, showering them with an
affection she had seldom shown her own children. By
1914, through a series of dynastic marriages, the
Queen’s granddaughters included the Empress of Russia,
the Queens of Spain, Greece and Norway, and the Crown
Princesses of Roumania and Sweden. As their brothers and
cousins occupied the thrones of Germany, Britain and
Denmark, Prince Albert’s dream of a peaceful Europe
created through bonds of kinship seemed a real
possibility. Yet in little more than a decade after
Queen Victoria’s death, the Prince Consort’s dream would
lie shattered in the carnage of the First World War.
Royal cousins and even siblings would find themselves on
opposing sides; two of them would die horrifically at
the hands of revolutionaries and several others would be
ousted from their thrones. They had lived through the
halcyon days of the European monarchies but their lives,
like the lives of millions of their peoples, would be
changed forever by the catastrophe played out on the
battlefields of France.Through all the upheavals,
tragedies and conflicts one person had bound them
together and, even when wars had divided their nations,
to the end of their lives, they would look back and
remember ‘dearest grandmama’ with love.
|
|