Quote:
Originally Posted by attaininggrace
Quote:
Originally Posted by ysbel
Its hard to imagine Vicky as Georgie's mother. Based on her statement that she was considered a German in London and too English in Berlin, I got the sense that Vicky had a hard time fitting in anywhere. If she had been Georgie's mother, I imagine there would have been something about the society that she lived in that she didn't just fit into and that would have carried over to her relationships with her children. I suspect she had a genius IQ in a time where even male geniuses had a hard time much less female geniuses.
|
I can't really agree with this, Ysabel. I think that she was regarded as a German in London because public opinion turned against the Germans because of the three wars, especially the one against the French.
The German culture was extremely different from the English and I think the Germans found Vicky very assertive compared with German women. She didn't endear herself to them by constantly implying that English ways were superier, it must be admitted!
I think that if she'd married a more liberal-minded and dominating English lord or duke, she might have been perfectly happy.
Best Regards,
Attaining Grace
bookaddiction |
Well its hard to know exactly what Vicky meant by that comment and I agree with you that Vicky's attitudes about the English superiority totally antagonized the Germans with good reason.
But Vicky didn't seem to have any real friends in England other than her mother in a family where strong bonds did form between siblings. According to the book, Bertie was intimidated by Vicky's intellectualism and so he formed a strong bond with his younger sister Alice instead. Even before Alexandra, I don't think there was any great love between Vicky and Bertie. But I found it really remarkable that no one in the family seemed to complain when Victoria banned Vicky from one Christmas' festivities. The book pretty well makes clear that Victoria's children were willing to ignore their mother when they wanted but no one said or did anything contrary to Victoria's wishes this time. This may be because her other children had married small German princes who had been at war with Germany but I do think it speaks to Vicky's lack of good relations with the rest of her family that no one spoke out in her favour and throughout the whole book so far I have not heard of any of Victoria's other children speaking out for Vicky. In my opinion, the Prussian wars cannot totally explain this lack.
It would be intriguing if she had married a liberal-minded English duke, but I think when Vicky was first married, it was still strongly expected for a Princess Royal to marry a crown prince of an important empire. She seemed to like the fact upon the unification that she was raised to 'Kaiserlich und Königlich Hoheit' Imperial and Royal Highness so it appears titles and positions did matter to her. The problem was that outside Prussia there was no real power that could rival Britain except maybe Russia but Russia was very foreign to the British. It would have indeed been intriguing if Vicky had married Sasha's older brother Nixa for if they had had a son before Nixa died, that son would have been Alexander II's heir and Vicky would have had a father in law who matched her intellect and her outlook entirely. Given that Alexander II was killed by a bomb when his grandchildren were still children, chances are that Vicky's son would have come to the throne as a child and I shudder though to think of what a Russia would look like with child czar and a government ruled by Vicky as Empress Dowager.