Figure 1.--Prince Leopold is seen here wearing a dress much like that worn by his sisters. His older brother wears a dark jacket and contrasting long trousers with a stripe. Prince Leopold also appears to also be wearing pantalettes. |
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The story of Prince Leopold (1853-1884) and his mother, the redoubtable Queen Victoria, might have been entitled the struggles of a single
mom with her disabled child. Leopold is probably the least well-known 19th-century British royal. Queen Victoria's nine children have received almost as much attention from biographers as they had in their lifetime from that Victorian invention, the illustrated press. Prince Leopold, her eighth child, has received less than his siblings, probably because his sisters occupied various European thrones and two of his older brothers were in line for
(Alfred) or reighed as King of England (Edward VII).
Leopold was Victoria and Albert's next tomlast child and fourth boy. He had a terrible time establishing a kife for himself separate from his string-willed mother.
Albert was the born into the royal family of a small German principality. He was stictly raised and very well educated. His mairrage to Victoria brought him to the throne of the most powerful country of the day. He was only the Prince Consort and not a co-ruler with his wife. His advise to his poorly educated wife, however, was of great value to England, especially his advise that England not support the South in the American Civil War. He took the education of their chiodren very seriously--especially heir, the future Edward VII very seriously. Despite the attention given to the care and education of the children. Albert's untimely death devestated the Victoria.
Queen Victoria was Britain's longest serving monarch. Her mairrage with Albert was the love story of the 19th century. She set the moral tone of the nation and helped shape Britain's emergence as a truly democratic nation. Victoria witnessed an extrodinary development of British power and influence. She and Albert changed how Britain's looked on their monarch. She became in many ways the gramdmother of Europe, forging dynastic ties
throughout the Continent. She also played a major role in influencing boys clothing around the world by the garments she selected for the young princes.
Leopold appears to have been Victoria's easiest delivery. The Queen's labor pains were eased by the newly developed chloroforum. The baby unfortunately did not thrive and remained thin. Dr. Clark diagnosed a weak digestion. The wet nurse was quickly changed. The problem of course was haemophilia--but it was diagnossed for some time. The Prussian Princess Augusta expressed an interest in being the baby's godmother. Albert saw this as an expression of Prussian interest in developing closer ties. His instincts in such matters were usually on the mark, but with Prussia Albert misjudged both Augusta and her family's willingness to persue a modern constitutional government. To help build a close relationship with Prussia, he promoted a Prussian mairrage for his favorite child--the Princess Royal.
Victoria and Albert had nine children, four boys and five girls. They saw themselves and in many ways were suitably enough an ideal Victorian family. The mairrages and offspring of
these children are truely remarkable. Victoria in more than name was the grandmother of
Europe. Ties were forged with Denmark, Prussia and other German states, Russia, and
Spain. Notably France was exepted from Victoria's dynastic web. Leopold was the youngest boy. He had three brothers and five sisters. Only Princess Beatrice was younger.
Despite his handicap, Leopold has been described as daring, strong willed, and full of high spirits. Prince Alber was mistified as he watched Leopold to see a strong vigorous personality facing his cripling handicap. He was a inteligent, adveturesome boy--in sharp contrast to his older brother Bertie. It was a tragedy for Leopold that is father died when he was so young. His fathered admired the boy's determination and drive and would have helped him flourish. [Bennett, p. 338.] The Queen simlply found him anoying.
After the daliances of their predecesors, Victoria and Albert sought to set the standard for rectitude. Although historians vary somewhat the young family seems to have been very happy. The children were not relegated to a nursery and rarely visited by their parents. Albert deloghted in playing with the children. He not only joined in their games, but invented many for them. [Bennett, p. 128.] I'm less sure about Victoria's role. It is clear that the family participated in many activities together. The engaged in familt theatricals. Albert taught them games. They enjoyed producing tableaux vivants. Albert would read from books they could all enjoy like Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo. They also traveled together, taking may trips on the royal yacht, Victoria and Albert together. The children grew up thinking that papa knew how to do everything and Victoria her self with her limited outlook and education also came to look to her husband for guidance. In family maters after the Lehzen matter was resolved, Albert was the undisputed head of household. Victoria gradually turned to Albert on matters of state. In this regard, Albert very tactfully gained her confidence. There were little tiffs from time between Victoria and Albert, but they appear to have been a wonderfully happy family. Most of the disputes resolved around Victoria's frustration. She wanted him to be successful and admired, but as he rose in stature there were more demands on his time. This took him away from her which she did not want. The standards set by the royal couple with the chikldren and their family life was to set a standard that many of their descendents found difficult to meet. Edward in fact made no effort to do so and was a notorious philanderer.
We have little information at this time on Prince Leopold's clothes. We do know that as a little boy he wore dresses and pantalettes just like his sisters. Family portraits at Osbourne sow him wearing dresses. Brother Arthur wears a kilt in the same portraits and Bertie and Affie wear short jackets with long trousers.
The first child of Arthur's older sister Victoria, the future Wilhelm II, made quite a stir in the royal family. Arthur's younger sister Beatrice was the first to run afoul of Willie when he tossed her muff out the window of the cairrage on the way to the Prince of Wales' wedding. At the wedding, Willie who was done up in a higland kilt outfit began playing with the dirk in his kilt. I'm not sure how Leopold was dressed, but he may have been wearing a kilt as well. Willy finally threw the dirk noisily across the floor of the chapel. Prince Arthur who was about 13 years old and Prince Leopoldwho was about 10 and sitting near Willie tried to get him to behave. The result was that Willie bit them on their legs. [Van der Kiste, pp. 9-10.]
Some if the best sources of information on Leopold are the delightfully outspoken letters that Leopold
wrote to his old tutor, whom the Queen had dismissed. The Prince appears to have been an attractive and public-spirited prince. His life is a moving tribute to a prince who overcame much suffering, and details on his life gives us a better understanding both of Victorian royal history.
The relationship between Leopold and his formidable mother are perhaps the most interesting of all within the royal family. Leopold was the first of Victoria's descendants to show signs of haemophilia, which was to become known as the "royal disease." Hemeophilia was then only beginning to be understood. The Queen
found Leopold to be an especially an annoying child, even though she had a large staff to care for the children. It took her many years to come to terms with her son's severe illness. Not only was the
boy subject to sudden prolonged bouts of bleeding, but he also suffered from epilepsy. At first
she put his problems down to clumsiness, but once she realised the truth, she became increasingly protective. This is where Charlotte Zeepvat's biography excels: in portraying the struggles of a widowed mother trying to
cope with a disabled child.
Albert was greatly concerned about his youngest son. He made arrangements for the boy to spend the wunter of 1861-62 in the healthy climate of Cannes under the care of a doctor.
Prince Albert's early death was a tragedy for Leopold, as Albert had more understanding of his youngest son. Leopold was still only a boy when Albert died in 1861. Leopold inherited far more of his father's intellectual and artistic interests than his healthier, more vigorous brothers. The young Prince longed for a normal life--normal, at least, in the sense of his three brothers. He longed to do as much as he could while his mother battled to protect him from life. Her maternal concern was increased by her strong and often selfish desire to keep some of her younger children as companions. Since so many of Queen Victoria's battles were carried on in her extensive correspondance, we have marvellous letters available to follow this struggle in all its ramifications.
The Prince of Wale's fiancee, Princess Alexandra, was met on her arrival at Osborne by Princess Helena who was about 16 and and her younger brother Leopold who was about 9. Alix was to stay with the Queen for a few months befor the marriage. Leopold was worried about the bouquet that had been enbtrusted to him. Alix was charmed, took little Leopold in her arms and kissed him, forging a loving relationship with him. Alix soon made friendships with the Queen's daughters as well, especially Helena who was close to her in age. In later years she became quite close to Princess Louise. [Battiscombe, pp. 40-41.] Throughout Leopold's short like, Alix made a special effort to befriend him.
Victoria and Leopold frequently clashed, and the Prince could be sarcastic about her in his private correspondence. Their battles often centred on Scotland. While the Queen had dedicated him at birth to her northern kingdom, Leopold grew to detest the cult of Scottishness that she created round her. He absolutely hated her laconic servant, John Brown, about whom so much has been written. Brown's brother had been
Leopold's extremely cruel valet. Not only that, but he also could not stand the family's Scottish estate, Balmoral. Leopold did everything he could to avoid the long annual visit.
Leopold was the only one of Victoria and Albert's children that expressed any serious interest in scholarly matters. He wanted to attend university, but his mother objected, obstensibly on health grounds. He eventually won the Queen's consent to attend Oxford--although he was forbidden to mix with most undergraduates. There, he established friendships with leading Victorian writers such as Ruskin and Lewis Carroll. He started to give carefully thought-out speeches supporting social reforms.
Leopold eventually he became a secretary to his mother and helped her with her enormous correspondence. In this period, some authors accuse the Prince of being a political intriguer. Not all historans, however, agree.
He managed to make an exceptionally happy, although brief, marriage to a German Princess Helen of Waldeck.
Leopold and Helen had only two children for gis untimely death.
They had a daughter, Princess Alice. Leopold died while she was still a baby. She married Prince Alexander of Teck, a brother of Queen Mary, King George V's wife. She and her husband after World war II attempted to hel[ her brother Charles who was a arrested by the Allies as a war criminal. Princess Alice lived until 1981.
The vacant title of the title of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was the subject of consultations between Queen Victoria, Prince Arthur and Kaiser Wilhelm II. They eventually decided to convey the principality to Carl-Edward, prince of Great Britain, Duke of Albany, who was the posthumous son of Victoria's youngest son, Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany. Leopold had died a victim of hemophilia in 1884. Charles became Duke when his uncle Prince Alfred died. He was only 15 years old at the time. Court sources record that he was bullied by the Kaiser in reputedly "playful" sessions. One witness reported an incident where the Kaiser pinched and slapped so violently that it was more like a beating. Charles-Edward married a niece of the Emperess Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, wife of Kaiser Wilhelm II. His wife was von Princess Schleswig-Holste (Schleswig-Holstein) Victoria Adelheid. They married in 1905 at Glücksburg Castle in Holstein. They had five children: The oldest was Prince Johann Leopold Wilhelm Albert (1906- ). Princess Sibylla Calma Marie Alice (1908- ) married into the Swedish royal family. Prince Hubertus Frederick William (1909-43) became a Luftwaffe pilot during World War II and in 1943 was killed in Romania, presumably defending the Ploieste oil fields from Allied bombing. The two youngest children were: Princess Caroline Mathilde Ludwige Helena (1912- ) and Prince Friedrich Josias Carl Eduard (1918- ). During World War I (1914-18), the Duke remained loyal to the Kaiser Wilhelm II. This allegiance cost Carl-Edward his English titles. In fact his situation was even more complicated because his only sister, Princess Alice of Albany, was married to the Duke of Teck, Queen Mary's brother. The malestorm of World War I eventually cost him in crown. Carl-Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha abdicated on November 14, 1818.
Leopold suffered from haemophilia. He died from burst blood vessel in his head in 1884 at the age of only 30, only 5 years after his sister Alice. His mother Quewwn Victoria was devestated. Notably at the funeral it was on Alix's arm that the Queen wept.
Battiscombe, Georgina. Queen Alexandra (Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1969).
Charlotte Zeepvat, Prince Leopold: the Untold Story of Queen Victoria's Youngest Son (Sutton, 1989).
Van der Kriste, John. Kaiser Wilhelm II: Germany's Last Emperor (Bodmin: Sutton Publishing, 1999), 244p.
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