* British royalty Princess Alice children









Princess Alice: Children


Figure 1.--This is a colorized image of the Hessian royal family in May 1875. Clockwise from far left)—Ella, Grand Duke Ludwig holding Marie, Alice, Victoria, Irene, Ernie and Alix in the center. Frederick has tragically died 2 years earlier.

Princess Alice believed in brining up her children simply. An English nanny presided over the nursery. The children were given plain meals with deserts of rice puddings and baked apples. The girls wore plain dresses. They were taught to do housework, including baking cakes, making their own beds, laying fires, and sweeping and dusting their rooms. Princess Alice also emphasised the importance of good works. She often took her daughters on visits to hospitals and charities. While few now remember Pricess Alice, her descendents are quite well known. Louis and Alice had two well known children. Their oldest child was Princess Victoria, primrily because her grandson was Lord Mountbatten and great grandson was Prince Phillip, husband of Queen Elizabeth II. A younger dauhter, Alix, married Tsar Nicholas II. Several of the children, including Alix had tragic ends. Two children died tragic deaths at an early age. Alice was born into the nost pretigious royal familky in the world. Her children woukld gave commedctiins with the other two major royal famiklies--those of Germany and Russia. Whilke Hesse was aprincipality of little importance. Her older sister's marriage into the German royal family meant that Alice had a unique pakce within the German aristiocratic world. One reason one daughter wiuld marry the Tsarevitch and aniother would marry Kaiser Wilhelm's younger brother.

Victoria Alberta (1863-1950)

Alice's eldest child was her daughter Victoria. She proved rather a tomboy. One writer desibes her as a good companion for Prince Wilhelm during his visits while he was a university student at Bonn. Victoria was quite a bright child. She reportedly did well in the Oxford examps for girls. Victoria's childhood was essentially over when her mother died (1878). Although only about 15 years ols at the time, she began looking after the children and comforting her father. The family began staying more in England with Queen Vivtoria than in Darmstadt. [Vickers, p. 6.] Victoria married Prince Louis of Battenberg (1854-1921). Louis, a Hesssian had improbably pursued a career in the Royal Navy. He served in the British Royal Navy and drew up plans for using destroyers against heavier vessels. Victoria Alberta's father did not approve of the mairrage, because of the lowly origins of Louis' mother. Queen Victoria, however, did approve. In fact Queen Victoria after the death of her daughter Princess alice, insisted on overseeing the birt of Victoria Albert's first child, Alice (1885). [Vickers, pp. 1-3.] Their son Louis is better known as Lord Mountbatten who commanded Allied operations in Burma and was the last British Viceroy in India. His sister Alice (1885-1969) married Prince Andrew of Greece. Their son Prince Philip is the husband of the present Queen. Although Alice was the mother of the Duke of Edinburgh she was little heard of in Britain. I believe she later founded an order of nuns. The Marquis of Milford Haven, their eldest son, was offered that British sounding title at the end of World War I in order to obfuscate their German connections. Battenberg was supposed to sound Teutonic whilst the made-up name of Mountbatten sounded English. Incidentally, Mountbatten was also a cousin to the last Tsar and when they need to run DNA tests on the newly exhumed bones of the murdered Romanovs recently, his nephew Prince Philip (the present British Queen's husband) provided a DNA sample for matching.

Elizabeth (1864-1918)

Elizabeth was called Ella within the family. Prince Wilhelm was reportedly very fond of Elizabeth, a little more than a year younger than her sister Victoria. Elizabeth was the pertiest of the children. Uncharacteristically, when ever she spoke, he was silent. Wilhelm apparently wanted to marry her. His mother approved, but Elizabeth apparently gently declined, well aware of his personality. Wilhelm never really forgot her. Some historians believe that she may have had the strength of character to restrain Wilhelm exuberent personality. Wilhelm thought that he was rejected because of his arm, but his increasingly arrogant personality was surely a more important factor. Instead, Elizabeth married the handsome, but rather cold Russian Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich, the younger brother of Alexander III, at the Winter Palace (1884). Queen Victoria who distrusted the Russians in general, disapproved of the marriage. [Vickers, p. 17.] The Grand Duke apparently viewed her more as a daughter than a sister. After he was assasinated, Elizabeth became the mother superior in a convent. Like her younger sister Alix, she was killed by Bolshevicks (1918). Elizabeth had a very important impact on her niece Alice (Victoria Alberta's oldest girl).

Irene Marie Louise Anna (1866-1953)

Irene was the third child and third daughter. Her maternal grandparents were Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Her paternal grandparents were Prince Charles of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Elizabeth of Prussia. Her first name was the Greek word for 'peace' because she was born at the end of the Austro-Prussian War (1866). Like her younger sister, the Tsarina, Irene was a carrier of the hemophilia gene. Her mother had considered Irene an unattractive child and wrote to her sister Victoria that Irene was 'not pretty'. Though perhaps not as pretty as her sister Elizabeth, she was not unattractive. She had a pleasant, even disposition and most importantly managed to avoid the Russians. Irene married the Kaiser's brother Prince Henry (1888). Henry was a much more mellow individual than Wilhelm, making for a more tranquil marriage. Prince Henry was dominated by Wilhelm, especially after his brother became kaiser. Wilhelm was also her first cousin. Prince Henry persued a naval career. They had three children: Waldemar (1889), Sigismund (1896), and Henry Victor Louis (1900). Two of the children carried the hemolphilaia gene and died from it, Henry in childhood and Waldemar at tge end of World War II. (American military authorities diverted meddical resources to treat nearby concentration camp victims. The needed transfussion was not made.) Sigismund produced the only grandchildren, two sons but he emigrated to Costa Rica (1927). The SS Prinzessin Irene, a liner of the North German Lloyd was named after her. She lived in tumultuous times: German unification, World War I, fall of the monarchy, rise of the NAZIS, and World War II. Irene would lose her sisters Alix and Elisabeth in Russia to the Bolsheviks. She would survive and out live all her siblings.

Ernest Louis (1868-1937)

Like his siblings, he contrcted diptheria as a child, but survived. Prince Ernest was called Ernie. He became Grand Duke of Hessse in 1892 when his father died. As a brother-in-law to the kaiser's brother, Prince Henry, and the Tsar, he had ties to the British, German, and Russian royal families. He was deposed in 1918 in the aftermath of World War I. He mairred twice and had four children. Ernest died 2 weeks before his younger son was due to marry. His widow and elder son were tragically killed in an air crash on their way to the postphoned wedding.

Frederick (1870-73)

Prince Frederick 'Frittie' was Alice's youngest and favorite son a haemophiliac fell out of an open upsatairs window and struck his head on the balustrade. He died hours later of a brain hemorrhage, bleeding to death. He had been playing hide-and-go-seek with his older brother Ernie. The family was devastated. Alice never really recovered from his death. Consumed with grief, Alice wrote to her Queen Victoria, seeking solace. "I feel lower and sadder than ever and miss him so much, so continually." Alice frequently took her children to his grave to pray. she was reportedly sadened by anniversaries associated with him.

Alexandra Fedorovna (1872-1918)

Princess Aleandra was called Alix. Wilhelm II as Kaiser took a special interest in Alix. He and others strongly advised her to accept the mairrage offer of Tsar Nicholas. Wilhelm had gotten on badly with Nicholas' faher, Tsar Alexander III. He hoped to return to good graces by brokering the marriage and perhaps help move Russia away from the dangerous alliance with France (which he had helped make possible). She married Tsar Nicholas II of Russia in 1894. Unlike many royal marriages which involved politics, the marriage proved to be a love match. Nicvholas and Alexandra loved each other and created a warm and loving family. Alix was less successful as Tsarina. She and her husband and all their children were assasinated by the Bolshevicks on Lennin's orders in 1918.

Marie Victoria Fedore (1874-78)

Princess Marie was called 'May'. She died as a small child of diptheria in 1878. Most of the family contracted the disease. There mother bhad been resting in Balmoral, but rushed home when she vlaerned that the children were sick. May died before she reached home. In cosoling Frederick who had contracted the diusease, she kissed him. A week after she died, her mother who had been nursing the children contracted the disease and also died.







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Created: 2:31 AM 9/10/2020
Last updated: 2:31 AM 9/10/2020