Victoria, Britain’s brilliant princess royal and Germany’s liberal but longsuffering empress
Victoria, Princess Royal and later known as the Empress Frederick, was intelligent and liberal minded but also suffered from a terrible fate in her adopted land of Germany. She was empress for all but 88 days and was criticized by the Prussian court officials for her liberal leanings and English origin.
On November 21, 1840, Queen Victoria gave birth to her first child. When the court physician told her that she bore a girl, she replied, "Never mind, next time it will be a prince!" From the time she was born until the birth of her younger brother, Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, in November 1841, Victoria was the heiress presumptive to the British throne. On 19 January 1841, her mother proclaimed her Princess Royal, a title sometimes conferred on the eldest daughter of the sovereign.
At the age of three, the little princess was "quite a little personage, who speaks French and English with great fluency and choice of phrases." The teaching of her father, Prince Albert, produced great effect upon her mind, for she had from her earliest years been his constant companion. He delighted in her quick intelligence and lively mind. She often accompanied him in his walks, when he taught her how to know every herb and plant by its English, German, and Latin name.
Precocious and intelligent, Victoria began to learn French when she 18 months old. She began to study German at four and learned Greek and Latin eventually. At six years old, she was taught arithmetic, geography and history, and her father tutored her in politics and philosophy. She also studied science and literature. Her school days, interrupted by three hours of recreation, began at 8:20 and finished at 18:00. She was a total opposite to her brother, whose educational program was even more severe, Victoria was an excellent student who was always hungry for knowledge. However, she showed an obstinate character.
By the time she was 13, her father taught her about political and diplomatic matters to which were added studies on political economy. She profited much by her father's instruction that the Prince Consort on one occasion said to his future son-in-law, "You will find that your wife was the heart of a child with a man's head."
In 1851, Prince William of Prussia (future King and Emperor Wilhelm I), together with his wife Augusta, and two children Frederick and Louise, went to London to attend the Great Exhibition. For the first time, Victoria met her future husband, and despite the age difference (she was 11 years old and he was 19), they got along very well and Victoria even guided him on the exhibition. Frederick, for his part, was impressed by the liberal ideas of the Prince Consort and the relatively relaxed atmosphere of the British court.
For the next four years, Victoria and Fredrick maintained close correspondence. In 1855, Frederick visited the Royal Family in Balmoral to see Victoria. On the third day of his stay with the family, Frederick eventually sought Victoria’s hands for marriage. The Queen gave her approval on condition that the marriage should not take place before Vicky's seventeenth birthday and that the announcement of their engagement be postponed until then.
The news of the Princess Royal's betrothal to the heir of the kingdom of Prussia was received very unfavourably in Great Britain, The Times calling the Hohenzollerns as a "miserable dynasty". In Berlin, the match was also met with disdain since courtiers hoped that their prince would marry a Russian grandduchess. The British Parliament granted the Princess Royal with a dowry amounting to 40,000 pounds and an annuity of 8,000 pounds. The groom’s uncle, King Frederick William IV, meanwhile, provided his nephew an annual allowance of 9,000 thalers, although the income was not enough to meet the expenses befitting the his nephew’s position, hence, Victoria had to rely on her own income.
Their marriage was held on January 23, 1858 at the Chapel Royal in Buckingham Palace. Princess Victoria's English upbringing was met with popular disdain in the Prussian Court. She nevertheless did not hesitate to continue her English ways in her new home. According to the stiff etiquette of the Prussia , a princess was not allowed by her mistress-of-the-robe to take up a chair to remove it to a different part of the room. One day the princess was caught by Countess Perponcher moving the chairs around and the noblewoman quickly reprimanded her royal mistress.
"I'll tell you what," replied the princess, "you are probably aware of the fact that my mother being the Queen of England." The countess bowed in assent. "Well," resumed the princess, "then I must reveal to you another fact. Her Majesty The Queen of Great Britain and Ireland has not once but very often so far forgotten herself as to take up a chair. I speak from personal observation, I can assure you. Nay, if I am not greatly deceived, I noticed one day my mother carrying a chair in each hand, in order to set them for her children. Do you really think my dignity forbids anything which is frequently done by the Queen of England?" The countess bowed again, and retired.
Other incidents of a similar nature were enacted by the objections were all driven back by the same answer, "My mother did so at home." She committed even a graver breach of court manners, according to Prussian ideas, by calling the servants to order and personally reproving them when she saw anything wrong.
The princess also followed her parents in her kindness for the poor and suffering. This was conspicuous throughout her private life as well as during great national calamities. At the time of the Franco-Prussian war she took up her residence at Homburg, to be near the seat of a war, and had under her direct superintendence she ordered, arranged, and planned relief for the wounded, and nursed all over the country. Victoria attended daily and spoke to the patients. After the war the prince and princess returned to the quiet life they loved and busied themselves over their children's education, and in various philanthropic and charitable works. She also attempted to promote the higher education of women, but did not meet with much success.
The prince and princess’ liberal stance stood at odds with the conservative views of Frederick’s parents. In 1860, King Frederick William IV died and his brother succeeded as king. Frederick became the crown prince and Victoria was now Crown Princess of Prussia. Wilhelm I refused to increase his son’s allowance and prevented his heir from leaving Prussia without his permission, in the hopes of limiting their trips to the United Kingdom. Frederick had openly criticized his father’s conservative policies. With the ascension to power of the king’s chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, the couple became more and more isolated from state affairs. Despite Bismarck’s opposition, they never wavered in their liberal and Anglican views and opposed his despotic measures. In retaliation, the Iron Chancellor campaigned against the royal couple and even attempted to pass an act that would disinherit Frederick in favour of their son, Wilhelm. Bismarck had likewise won over the young prince to his side and the last days of Frederick were embittered a rivalry between him and his wife on one side and Wilhelm and Bismarck on the other. After succeeding as King and Emperor, Wilhelm found out that he was deceived, dismissed Bismarck and reconciled with his mother.
Frederick was already terminally ill by the time he succeeded as King of Prussia and German Emperor in 1888. His 88-day-reign was chiefly spent in making provisions for his wife for, as matters stood then, it looked as though, she would be left penniless on his death. During his anxious times, the empress nursed her husband with every attention. Shortly after his death, the empress visited England and spent a short time with her mother, where she received solace for her doubly wounded spirit. After her return to Prussia, she left the court and lived a quiet, unobtrusive life near Kronberg, where she bought a small estate and built her residence, Schloss Friedrichshof, named in honour of her late husband. With a substantial windfall from her friend, the Duchess of Galliera, who left her £150,000 and a further £50,000 from the rich Berliner, Herr Tornow, she was able to complete the construction of Friedrichshof in 1894. Victoria she spent most of her time in the property with her younger daughters, and left only when she travelled abroad. Contrary to the desires of the kaiser, who preferred that she leave Germany permanently, Victoria formed her own court and maintained close relations with liberal circles. The marriage of her daughters had left her isolated but she spent a good deal of her time in her final years painting and visiting the artists' colony of Kronberg, where she regularly met with the painter Norbert Schrödl. In her last days, she used to walk in the morning and spent long hours writing letters or reading in the library of her castle.
In 1898, she was diagnosed with inoperable breast cancer. The cancer had spread to her spine by the autumn of 1900, leaving her in utmost pain most of the time. Anxious that her private letters might fall into the hands of the Kaiser once she died, she requested Frederick Ponsonby, her godson and private secretary to Edward VII to bring these letters back to Great Britain. The plan succeeded following a covert operation made, when King Edward VII, learning of his sister’s terminally ill condition, hastened to Kronberg to make his final visit. The empress dowager died in Friedrichshof on August 5, 1901, less than seven months after the death of her mother. Her letters were later edited by Sir Frederick Ponsonby and published into a book in 1928.
The Empress Frederick had eight children: Wilhelm II( 27 January 1859 – 4 June 1941), who reigned from 1888 until his abdication as the last King of Prussia and Emperor of Germany on November 9, 1918; Charlotte (4 July 1860 – 1 October 1919), later Duchess of Saxe-Meiningen as the wife of Bernhard III, the duchy's last ruler; Henry (14 August 1862 – 20 April 1929) who married his cousin, Princess Irene of Hesse; Sigismund (15 September 1864 – 18 June 1866), who died from meningitis, the first of Queen Victoria's grandchildren to die; Victoria (12 April 1866 – 13 November 1929), later Princess Adolf of Schaumburg-Lippe; Waldemer (10 February 1868 – 27 March 1879), who died during the diphtheria outbreak; Sophie (14 June 1870 – 13 January 1932) , who married Constantine, heir to the throne of Greece and later King of the Hellenes; and Margaret (22 April 1872 – 22 January 1954), who married Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse, elected King of Finland but renounce the throne on 14 December 1918.
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