She would eventually marry Prince Henry of Battenberg in 1885, but only after overcoming her mother's opposition to their union.īeatrice remained Queen Victoria's favourite among her five daughters, and became her mother's constant companion and later her literary executor, spending the years that followed Victoria's death in 1901 editing her mother's journals and voluminous correspondence. Her childhood coincided with her mother's extended period of mourning for her prematurely deceased husband, a circumstance which may have contributed to Victoria's determination to keep her youngest daughter as close to her as possible. Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodore, later Princess Henry of Battenberg, was the last-born - in 1866 - of Victoria and Albert's children, and she would outlive all of her siblings to die as recently as 1944.

'I have my dear Mother's written instructions' can hardly realize what life will be like without her' 'There now burnt a bewitching fiery passion'

'Many daughters have acted virtuously, but thou excelleth them all' 'Dear Beatrice suffered much from rheumatism' 'Youngest daughters have a duty to widowed mothers' This new examination will restore her to her proper prominence - as Queen Victoria's second consort. Sadly, Beatrice inherited from her mother the hemophilia gene, which she passed on to two of her four sons and which her daughter Victoria Eugenia, in marrying Alfonso XIII of Spain, in turn passed on to the Spanish royal family. And although Victoria tried to prevent Beatrice even so much as thinking of love, her guard slipped when Beatrice met Prince Henry of Battenberg. Beatrice succumbed to her mother's obsessive love, so that by the time she was in her late teens she was her constant companion and running her mother's office, which meant that when Victoria died her daughter became literary executor, a role she conducted with Teutonic thoroughness. Victoria was not above laying it down regally even with her own children. Her father died when she was four and Victoria came to depend on her youngest daughter absolutely, and also demanded from her complete submission. Beatrice was the last child born to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. This book is an engrossing biography of Queen Victoria's youngest daughter that focuses on her relationship with her willful mother - a powerful and insightful look into two women of significant importance and influence in world history.

The last princess by matthew dennison