Barbara Brackman's MATERIAL CULTURE: Stars in Her Crown

Showing posts with label Stars in Her Crown. Show all posts

Saturday, March 2, 2019

Stars in Her Crown #9: Beatrice, Princess of Battenberg

#9 Beatrice by Mark Lauer

The last of the royal offspring.

Beatrice and her nurse Mary Ann Thurston---

a photograph of a photographer taking the baby's picture?

Princess Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodore (1857-1944) was the ninth and youngest of Victoria and Albert's royal family. Prince Albert named Beatrice for a literary heroine, the lost love of the poet Dante. Feodore was her aunt's name and Mary a great-aunt. Always called Baby by her family, Beatrice was only four when her father died.

Beatrice in baby mourning

Mourning meant not only wearing black but behaving in sepulchral fashion with respectful quiet interrupted only by murmured conversations. Baby was the royal exception and in the months after the family tragedy she entertained the court with her witty and irreverent sayings.

Beatrice's future father-in-law Alexander of Battenberg wrote about the youngest: “A dear little girl with flying golden curls…but she seems to be thoroughly spoiled by everyone.” Being the baby didn't really spoil Beatrice who had a generous personality and grew up to be her mother's rock.

Beatrice in 1868, about 11

"Baby is a very sweet pretty child,

but her greatest merit is her amiable, contented disposition

and charming, even temper." Queen Victoria describing her 15 year old.

When brother Bertie married, six-year-old Baby vowed, “I shall never be married. I shall stay with my mother.” Unlike Leopold and Louise, the other members of the younger set, Beatrice was not a rebel. Her mother looked to her her for comfort, companionship and compliance and Beatrice was happy to fulfill the role. Victoria wrote that Beatrice was the only child who'd "never given one moment's cause of displeasure."

In 1874 Beatrice embroidered a silk cradle quilt for brother Alfred's son

A faint hint of a smile on the Queen's face

in a photo that seems to summarize their relationship

The smile faded when Beatrice told her mother she'd fallen in love with Prince Henry of Battenberg. Victoria was so angry she did not speak to Beatrice for seven months after the "dreadful engagement" was first discussed. Henry was unsuitable. He had no crown, no fortune and his mother was a commoner. But worse, when Beatrice married, Victoria would be alone.

Prince Henry (1858-1896) and Princess Beatrice

A compromise was reached. Beatrice and Henry would live with Victoria forever and Beatrice would continue her role as companion and secretary. She and Henry married in 1885. Her Prussian in-laws refused to attend the wedding of an upstart Battenberg.

Beatrice reading to Victoria as she crochets, 1894

Victoria actually liked Liko, as Henry was called, and he brought a renewal of small pleasures to family life. He encouraged the women to abandon evenings devoted to knitting for charity in favor of family musicales and theatricals.

Beatrice with her four children. Daughter Victoria Eugenie,

known as Ena, grew up to marry the King of Spain.

But Liko needed some purpose and persuaded the Queen to permit him to sail for Africa in a non-combatant role during the Ashanti War. Noncombatants could catch malaria, however, and Liko died off the coast of Sierra Leone, leaving Beatrice a widow at 38. She'd learned many lessons about widowhood and was determined to create a different kind of a home. “I try to be bright & cheerful for the dear children’s sake.”

The King and Queen of Spain at their marriage in 1906

Beatrice was a carrier of the family gene for hemophilia. Sons Maurice and Leopold inherited the condition. Ena was also a carrier with two of her boys hemophiliacs, one the heir to the Spanish throne. Her husband King Alfonso never forgave her or Beatrice although he was aware of the disease when her married. The current King of Spain Felipe VI is Ena's great-grandson.

Princess Beatrice of Battenberg.

The family name was changed to Mountbatten during World War I.

As the youngest Beatrice outlived her brothers and sisters, dying during World War II in 1944 at the age of 84.

#9 Beatrice by Denniele Bohannon

The Block

The larger pattern is for a 12" Block; the smaller for an 8" Block.

To Print:

Create a word file or an empty JPG file.

Click on the image above.

Right click on it and save it to your file.

Print that file 8-1/2" x 11". Check to be sure the inch square box measures 1".

You'll need 4 copies if you are going to piece it over paper foundations.

The block is constructed in triangles—-Triangles are flipped and pieced into squares, four to a block. Each pattern includes paper foundations for 8” & 12” blocks, which you can also use for template piecing. Add a 1/4” seam allowance when you cut the fabric using the templates.

In Block #9 the triangles are not identical. One set contains pieces A,B,C & D. The other contains pieces D & C except flipped over plus piece E.

Next week-the border.

Textile of the Week

The book Souvenirs from the Diamond Jubilee of Queen

Victoria includes a small scale print, saved in a patchwork quilt.

#9 Beatrice by Becky Brown

A fussy cut dotted stripe adds another level of pattern.

1886

The Queen, smiling again, with Beatrice standing

and Alice's daughter Victoria holding another Alice,

who grew up to become the mother of Prince Philip.

Becky's 9 blocks

Read a Book a Week:

The Last Princess: The Devoted Life of Queen Victoria's Youngest Daughter by Matthew Dennison.

Or Two:

Read more about Queen Ena and other royal granddaughters:

Born to Rule: Five Reigning Consorts, Granddaughters of Queen Victoria by Julia P. Gelardi.

Saturday, February 23, 2019

Stars in Her Crown #8: Leopold, Duke of Albany

#8 Leopold by Becky Brown

Prince Leopold George Duncan Albert (1853-1884) was named for his parents' common uncle. First cousins Victoria and Albert were close to their Uncle Leopold of Saxe Coburg-Gotha who'd decided when they were young that they should marry.

Their youngest son and eighth child was afflicted with serious health problems. Leopold suffered from seizures and hemophilia, an unfortunate combination as any falls resulted in bleeding episodes. He was diagnosed with hemophilia at about 7 years old but it was his seizure disorder that concerned his family the most. Victoria tried with limited success to restrict his activities.

"[Leopold] bruises as much as ever...he holds himself still as badly as ever and is very ugly....He is a very clever, amusing but very absurd child."

Leopold and elder sister Louise.

Both were musically gifted; Leopold played the piano and flute.

As younger children they had more freedom

although freedom required braving the Queen's wrath.

English winters are hard on a hemophiliac's joints so when he was eight Leopold began spending the winter months on the French Riviera in the company of a doctor and an elderly guardian Edward Bowater and his family. When Prince Albert died in December, 1861, Leopold was in Cannes where Bowater died the same day.

Leopold soon after his father's death,

miniature by William Charles Bell

Hemophilia, a hereditary blood clotting disorder, was little understood. When Leopold was 20 his mother wrote that a grandson had "the same constitution as Leopold. Only where does it all come from?"

Leopold, photographed by Charles Dodgson, 1875

John Ruskin: "He had no extraordinary taste for art,

although all his sisters are artistic;

his special gift was musical."

Leopold was bright, rebellious and practical. If rough sports were restricted he became a chess expert and popularized croquet. He graduated from Oxford and while there associated with a set of aesthetes, becoming friends with art professor John Ruskin, painter John Millais and composer Arthur Sullivan. Other friends included the Liddell family and Charles Dodgson (see Alice in Wonderland). Leopold named his daughter Alice and Alice Liddell named a son Leopold.

One can't imagine where Dodgson got the idea for Lewis Carroll's

unpleasant monarchs.

Leopold led an active life yet survived his hemophilia for a remarkable amount of time in the 19th century. He did have terrible attacks of internal bleeding. Ruskin wrote of a winter, 1878 visit to Leopold, " a prisoner on his sofa lately...he is very bright and gentle under severe and almost continual pain."

Victoria in signature Queenly fashion was concerned about 20-year-old Leopold's suffering but complained to Vicky who was worried about her brother, "You only speak of him and not of my constant anxiety and the terrible difficulties I have to contend with...."

After a later attack of bleeding in his leg: "Baby has written to you about that wretched Leopold--who has through constant carelessness...got a most dreadful leg."

Leopold married his German princess Helen of Waldeck-Pyrmont in 1882. On his birthday soon before his marriage the Queen wrote in her diary: "How often has his poor young life hung by a thread and how many and wearisome illnesses has he recover from....he has found a girl, so charming, ready to accept and love him in spite of his ailments."

It was a short but happy marriage. On his winter visit to Cannes in 1884 he fell and hit his head, probably dying of bleeding in the brain at the age of 30. Helen was expecting their second child.

Alice, Helen and Charles Edward, the Duke of Albany

The Duchess of Albany worked to keep her husband's memory alive. The Queen

kept her and the children close until they moved to Germany.

Bench dedicated to Leopold in Cannes

When Leopold and Helen's son Charles was sixteen he was chosen as heir to the throne of Saxe Coburg & Gotha. Helen and Alice moved to Germany to be with him. The first Leopold's plans to unite England and Germany in common fellowship would seem to be working but World War I upset it all.

Carl Eduard and his family in 1925

Charles who changed his name to Carl Eduard fought for Germany. During World War I Parliament stripped him and his cousins of their German titles. Between the wars he became a Nazi and is thought to have spied for Hitler on his English relatives, particularly King Edward VIII, to determine how willing the English cousins were to thwart Germany's plans for European domination.

The Windsors visiting Hitler and the German cousins, 1937

After the King abdicated Carl hosted a dinner for newlyweds the Duke and Duchess of Windsor on their ill-advised trip to Germany. Through Carl's family, Leopold the Duke of Albany is great-grandfather of the King of Sweden Carl Gustav XVI.

#8 Leopold by Mark Lauer

The Block

The larger pattern is for a 12" Block; the smaller for an 8" Block.

To Print:

Create a word file or an empty JPG file.

Click on the image above.

Right click on it and save it to your file.

Print that file 8-1/2" x 11". Check to be sure the inch square box measures 1".

You'll need 4 copies if you are going to piece it over paper foundations.

In Block #8 the triangles are identical except four are flipped over.

In the sketch those four have a different color for Point A and strip C to give a shaded effect (although as you can see the model makers shaded them in various fashion.)

1-8 by Denniele Bohannon

One more block to go.

Mark's is quilted too.

Quilter: Jennifer Strauser

Textile of the Week

What looks to be a printed silk pocket square "England's Hope" with the eighth child Leopold as the youngest so we can guess it's from about 1853.

Artists had a hard time portraying children but this one

was exceptionally off.

Arthur and Leopold in 1863

Read a book a week:

Prince Leopold: The Untold Story of Queen Victoria’s Youngest Son by Charlotte Zeepvat

Saturday, February 16, 2019

Stars in Her Crown #7: Arthur, Duke of Connaught

#7 Arthur by Becky Brown

"The First of May" painted by Franz Xaver Winterhalter,

to celebrate Prince Arthur's first birthday and the Iron Duke's 82nd.

Victoria's seventh child Prince Arthur William Patrick Albert (1850-1942) was born on the birthday of Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. The baby was named for the hero of Waterloo.

Arthur at 7 (posed as a Rafael angel in reverse)

I wonder if one could have persuaded Bertie and Affie to pose naked and wear lip rouge.

Queen Victoria played favorites and her third son, "lovely and engaging…sensible & clever,”

was "dearer than any of the others put together."

After her husband, "the dearest and most precious object to me on earth."

The two youngest boys Leopold and Arthur in kilts

are at the bottom of the family photograph.

Portrait of Arthur by his sister Louise in 1869

Artist Louise was two years older than Arthur.

He also painted in watercolors.

Arthur dreamed of soldiering and joined the army when he was sixteen. Ten years later his mother praised him: "I have excellent accounts of Arthur....He is called 'the model Prince' for his wonderfully steady and perfect conduct. He at least follows in his beloved father's footsteps as regards character and sense of duty."

Victoria created the title Duke of Connaught and Strathearn for him when he was 24.

Arthur gave his mother little trouble until he fell in love with Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia, a cousin of sister Vicky's husband. The Queen did not like her looks and frowned upon her scandalous parents who were separated. (Who is good enough for a favorite son?)

"I shall no doubt be reconciled to [the marriage]...and...no doubt be very fond of her. I wish she were prettier!"

Louise Margaret, Duchess of Connaught

by John Singer Sargent, 1908

Louise Margaret and Arthur had three children. Their eldest girl Margaret may have been the most successful of the royal grandchildren if we consider the long-term goals of Uncle Leopold, Albert and Victoria for a Europe unified by cousins. Margaret married the heir to the Swedish throne; her offspring are the royal families of Sweden, Denmark and Greece.