 |
| Daisy, Princess of Pless, c1891. Image from Lafayette.org.uk via Wikimedia Commons |
Born Mary Theresa Olivia Cornwallis-West on June 28, 1873 at Ruthin Castle in Denbighshire, Wales, United Kingdom, Daisy was the daughter of Col. William Cornwallis-West and his wife Mary "Patsy" FitzPatrick.
Her bloodline is impeccable, descending from a string of society beauties, which included her grandmother, Lady Olivia Taylour, who was expelled from the Buckingham Palace by Queen Victoria after she was caught flirting with Prince Albert. Also, her mother, at 16 years old, was alleged to have had an affair with the Prince of Wales, the eventual King Edward VII.
Daisy married one of German Empire’s wealthiest heirs, Hans Heinrich XV, Prince of Pless, Count of Hochberg, Baron of Fürstenstein, on December 8, 1891 in London. The union produced four children. At the wedding reception, Edward VII told Daisy, “…Learn German and become a faithful subject of your adopted country.”
Daisy spent her married life mainly at the enormous Castle of Pless (currently Pszczyna), a 600-room country palace larger than an English county. Daisy and Hans Heinrich went on to own coal mines and large estates in Silesia (currently Poland), bringing the Hochbergs enormous fortune and making the Pless family one of the richest families in Europe at the time.
Daisy received a 22-feet-long pearl necklace—one of the most expensive necklaces in the world—from her husband, who was well aware of his wife’s proclivity for beautiful jewelry. The princess would wear such an elaborate accessory during official meetings, making her an instant sensation. One legend, however, claims that the necklace was cursed by the diver who died while collecting the precious pearls, such that following Daisy’s demise, people started believing that it was the reason behind the many agonies in her life.
 |
| Daisy, Princess of Pless, as Cleopatra during the Devonshire House Ball in 1897. Image from National Portrait Gallery via Wikimedia Commons |
The Princess of Pless acted as peacemaker between William II, the German Emperor and King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. Daisy’s strong bond with the emperor, however, made headlines in newspapers and became a source of gossip in European courts.
During the First World War, Daisy became a member of the Red Cross and worked as a nurse. Commenting on the war in her memoirs, she stated: “Although many highly-placed European personages were alive to the danger, no one did anything very definite to try to avert it. I think that the young of all succeeding generations will ask accusingly why we were so timid, inert and fatalistic.”
The princess was later condemned for helping English soldiers during the war, and was even accused of being a spy. Her loyalty to her land of birth took a heavy blow on her marriage and Daisy and Hans Heinrich divorced in Berlin after the war, on December12, 1922. No longer comfortable with her life at Fürstenstein after losing the support of a lot of people because of her being an Englishwoman, the princess moved to Munich.
In order to make ends meet following the divorce, Daisy went on to publish three controversial and moderately successful volumes of memoirs, which were selected from diaries totaling 600,000 words. The memoirs gained popularity thanks Daisy’s bluntness in describing the English-German relations. One entry in her memoir revealed her experience during a trip to Hamburg via the Hamburg America liner, which she frankly described as “crammed full of awful American-German Jews”.
 |
| Daisy Princess of Pless bench at Pszczyna. Image from Zorro2212 via Wikimedia Commons. |
Daisy, Princess of Pless, born and raised to a life of comfort and privilege, died poor on June 29, 1943 in a villa in Waldenburg (currently Wałbrzych), Poland. She was 70 years old. A local legend alleges that Daisy was buried bedizened with her infamous “cursed” pearl necklace, which caused her remains to be moved many times. The claim, however, has since been quashed by family members who insisted that the pearls had already been sold in the 1930s. The family has kept secret Daisy’s ultimate grave so she may rest in peace.
A noted society belle during the Edwardian period, Daisy was hailed as the most beautiful British woman in 1907.
.png)
0 Comments