[Danielle]

Youth


Unfortunately the exquisite child grew into a lonely, sad, and repressed woman. She was not allowed to be in a room with a man unless she was accompanied. When she told her mother she had fallen in love, the Queen stopped talking to her. Beatrice stayed home with her mother all her life, eve after her marriage.


Prince Henry

Prince Henry's father was Alexander of the Rhine von Hessen, Prince of Hesse (1823- ). His mother was Princess Juia of Battenberg (1825- ) who was born a commoner. Prince Henry Maurice was born in 1858. He fell in love with Princess Beatrice, Queen Victoria's youngest daughter. Queen Victoria was horrified at the idea as she had planned for Princess Beatrice to stay by her as she grew older. Another account indicates the queen had hoped that Beatrice would marry Henry's brother Louis. [Vickers, p. 11.] Apparently the Princess was not to happy with that arrangement. Prince Henry found an unexpected ally in the Princess of Wales who was not normally fond of Germans, even members of the family. [Battiscombe, p. 173.] Another Battenburg, Prince Louis married Princess Victoria Alberta of Hesse in 1884. She was the daughter of Louis IV of Hesse on the German side. She was a grand daughter of Queen Victoria and daughter of Princess Alice on the English side and rose to First Sea Lord by the time of World War I.

Marriage

The matter was resolved when the Prince agreed that he and Princess Beatrice would live the Queen. They were married at Whippingham Church on the Isle of Wight in 1885. The marriage further linked the Hessian and British royal family. Princess Beatrice's elder sister Princess Alice had married Grand Duke Louis IV. Princess Beatrice's marriage occurred about the same time the affair between his brother Alexander and Princess Victoria, Princess Beatrice's niece, was unwinding. The marriage was criticised both in England and Prussia.


Continued Relationship with Queen Victoria

Even Beatrice's marriage to Prince Henry did not remove her from Victoria's side. A painfully shy person, Princess Beatrice was known to rest her shoulder against her neighbor's at dinner. Queen Victoria, however, became quite attached to Prince Henry. His name in the family was "Liko".

Tragedy

The marriage ended tragically. Prince Henry participated as a volunteer in the Ashanti Expeditionary Force to Sierra Leone where he contracted malaria. The Prince died at sea in 1896 while returning home. Princess Beatrice was devastated by her husband's death. The Queen was also devastated as she had come to rely on Prince Henry.


Children


Princesses Beatrice and Prince Henry had four children. After her mother's death in 1901, the widowed Beatrice lived for her children, principally her daughter, Victoria Eugenie. Mother and daughter shared much in common and, significantly, both were transmitters of hemophilia, as became tragically known after Victoria Eugenie, became Queen Ena of Spain.

• Alexander (1886-1960)

The first child, Alexander, was born in 1886. He became Mountbatten, Alexander of Carisbrooke, Marquees of Carisbrooke. He died in London during 1960.

• Victoria Eugenie (1887-1969)

Their eldest daughter, Victoria Eugenie, was born at Balmoral Castle in Scotland during 1887. She was Victoria Eugenie von Battenburg. Victoria Eugenie married Alfonso XIII, the long-serving king of Spain in 1906. She became Queen Ena. In 1907 she produced an heir, Prince Austrias, who was hemophilic. A second son, born the following year, was a deaf mute. Another was stillborn. Two daughters and one son were born healthy, but Ena's last child was a hemophiliac as well. Alfonso was deposed in 1931 by the Spanish Republic. She died in 1969 in Switzerland before the Spanish monarch was restored by Franco.

• Leopold Arthur Louis (1889-1922)

Beatrice's third child was Mountbatten, Leopold Arthur Louis, Lord Mountbatten. He was born in 1889. He died in 1922 in Kensington Palace.

• Maurice Victor Donald (1891-1914)

Their last child was Prince Maurice Victor Donald of Battenberg. He was born in 1891. He died during the first months of World War I at Ypres Belgium.

Later Years

Princess Beatrice died in 1944 at Bantridge Park, Balcome in Sussex.

Sources

Battiscombe, Georgina. Queen Alexandra (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1969).

Van der Kriste, John. Kaiser Wihelm II: Germany's Last Kaiser (Bodmin: Sutton Publishing, 1999), 244p.

Vickers, Hugo. Alice: Princess Andrew of Greece (St. Martin's Press: New York, 2000), 477p.

http://histclo.hispeed.com/royal/eng/royal-ukbea.htm