£1,000 from Prince Henry

Prince Henry of Battenberg

It was apparent that Prince Henry of Battenberg, the husband of Princess Beatrice, had a very modest fortune. After being admitted to probate, it was found that Queen Victoria’s son-in-law had left his wife Princess Beatrice and their young children with only £1,000 worth of personal fortune.

Prince Henry was the son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine, and his wife by morganatic marriage, Countess Julia von Hauke. Prince Alexander was the third son and fourth child of Grand Duke Ludwig II of Hesse and Wilhelmina of Baden. Julia was never accepted by Alexander’s family as a suitable wife to a prince of a reigning dynasty, being only a countess. As such, Henry and his siblings were barred from inheriting his father's title or name. He was, instead, styled His Illustrious Highness Count Henry (Heinrich) Maurice of Battenberg. When Countess Julia was raised to Princess von Battenberg and given the higher style of Her Serene Highness by Alexander's older brother, Louis III, Grand Duke of Hesse, Henry and his siblings shared in their mother's new rank. He became His Serene Highness Prince Henry of Battenberg, although he remained ineligible to inherit the throne of Hesse or to receive a civil list stipend.

Prince Henry and Princess Beatrice met in Darmstadt and the two instantly fell in love with each other. Queen Victoria, at first, resisted Beatrice’s desire to marry Henry but finally consented on the condition that Henry would give up his career in the Prussian Army and move to England where he and Beatrice would live with her. With not a fortune of his own, Henry had nothing to lose. Following their wedding Parliament settled Princess Beatrice with £6,000 in annuity, the couple’s primary source of income.

Wanting to busy himself in England, Prince Henry was appointed Governor of Carisbrooke Castle and Captain-General and Governor of the Isle of Wight in 1889. He was made Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army in June 1887, Colonel in February 1893, and appointed to the Privy Council on November 20, 1894.  Finally, Prince Henry persuaded Queen Victoria to allow him to go to West Africa to fight in the Ashanti War, where he served as military secretary to the commander-in-chief of British forces, General Sir Francis Scott. However, he met his fate and contracted malaria when the expedition reached Prahsu. He died aboard the cruiser HMS Blonde off the coast of Sierra Leone.  Beatrice confessed to her mother that with Henry’s death, “the life is gone out of me.”