A Most English Princess Read online

  Dedication

  for

  JEMMA ROSE LASSWELL

  brilliant daughter

  Epigraph

  May your life, which has begun beautifully, expand still further to the good of others and the contentment of your own mind! True inward happiness is to be sought only in the internal consciousness of effort systematically directed to good and useful ends.

  —Prince Albert to his daughter Victoria, the Princess Royal, on the occasion of her twenty-first birthday, November 21, 1861

  The unification of Germany by the now defunct and almost forgotten Kingdom of Prussia was at once inevitable and absurd, artificial and harmful.

  —German historian Golo Mann, 1971

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Cast of Characters

  Prologue

  Part I: Daughter

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part II: Bride

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Part III: Wife

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Part IV: Mother

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  P.S. Insights, Interviews & More . . .*

  About the Author

  About the Book

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Cast of Characters

  In England: The Royal Family

  Mama, Queen Victoria, born 1819

  Papa, Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, formerly Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, born 1819

  Grandmamma, the Duchess of Kent, Mama’s mother, Papa’s aunt, earlier Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, born 1786

  Vicky, Victoria, the Princess Royal, born 1840

  Bertie, Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, born 1841, later King Edward VII

  Princess Alice, born 1843, later the Grand Duchess of Hesse

  Affie, Prince Alfred, born 1844

  Lenchen, Princess Helena, born 1846

  Princess Louise, born 1848

  Prince Arthur, born 1850

  Prince Leopold, born 1853

  Princess Beatrice, born 1857

  In England: The Royal Household

  Laddle, Sarah, the Lady Lyttelton, governess to the royal children, born 1787

  Baron Christian Friedrich Stockmar, adviser to Prince Albert, born 1787

  Tilla, Sarah Anne Hildyard, governess to the princesses Victoria and Alice, born circa 1829

  Henry Ponsonby, equerry to Prince Albert, later private secretary to Queen Victoria, born 1825

  Mary Bulteel, lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria, later married to Henry Ponsonby, born 1832

  Fritz, Frederick Ponsonby, second son of Henry and Mary Ponsonby, equerry to Queen Victoria and later private secretary to King Edward VII, born 1867

  In Prussia: The Royal Family

  King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, born 1795

  Queen Elisabeth, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV’s wife, earlier Princess of Bavaria, born 1801

  Prince Wilhelm, brother of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, later the Prince Regent, later King Wilhelm I, later Kaiser Wilhelm I, born 1797

  Princess Augusta, wife of Prince Wilhelm, earlier Princess of Saxe-Weimar, later Queen Augusta, later Kaiserin Augusta, born 1811

  Fritz, Prince Friedrich, son of Prince Wilhelm and Princess Augusta, later Crown Prince of Prussia, later Kaiser Friedrich III, born 1831

  Princess Louise, daughter of Prince Wilhelm and Princess Augusta, later Grand Duchess of Baden, born 1838

  Prince Karl, younger brother of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, born 1801

  Grand Duchess Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, younger sister of the king of Prussia, born 1803

  Prince Albrecht, younger brother of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, born 1809

  Fritz Karl, Prince Friedrich Karl, son of Prince Karl, born 1828

  Anna, Princess Maria Anna, daughter of Prince Karl, later the Landgravine of Hesse, born 1836

  Marianne, Princess Maria Anna of Anhalt-Dessau, wife of Fritz Karl, born 1837

  Crown Princess Olga of Württemberg, earlier Grand Duchess of Russia, niece of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, born 1822

  The Children of the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia

  Willy, William, Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, born 1859, later Kaiser Wilhelm II

  Charlotte, Princess Charlotte, born 1860

  Henry, Prince Heinrich, born 1862

  Siggy, Prince Sigismund, born 1864

  Moretta, Princess Victoria, born 1866

  Waldie, Prince Waldemar, born 1868

  Sophie, Princess Sophia, born 1870

  Mossy, Princess Margaret, born 1872

  In Prussia: The Royal Household

  General Helmuth von Moltke, aide-de-camp to Prince Friedrich, later chief of the army staff, later Prussian field marshal, born 1800

  The young baron, Baron Ernest Alfred Stockmar, son of Baron Christian Stockmar, private secretary to Princess Victoria, born 1823

  Dr. Wegner, court physician, born circa 1815

  Wally, Walburga Hohenthal, later Lady Paget, lady-in-waiting to Princess Victoria, born 1839

  Marie, Countess Marie zu Lynar, lady-in-waiting to Princess Victoria, born 1840

  Also Appearing

  Lord John Russell, the prime minister, born 1792

  Napoléon III, emperor of the French, earlier president of France, born 1808

  Empress Eugénie, wife of Napoléon, born 1826

  Herr Otto von Bismarck-Schönhausen, later Count von Bismarck, later Prince von Bismarck, minister-president of Prussia, chancellor of the German Empire, born 1815

  Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, older brother of Prince Albert, born 1818

  Sir James Clark, court physician, born 1788

  Adie, Adelheid, Duchess of Augustenburg, earlier Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, niece of Queen Victoria, cousin of Princess Victoria, born 1835

  Fritz, the Duke of Augustenburg, husband of Adie, claimant to the throne of Schleswig-Holstein, born 1829

  Alix, Princess Alexandra of Denmark, later Princess of Wales, later queen consort, born 1844

  Mr. Robert Morier, British diplomat, born 1826

  Mr. Augustus Loftus, later Lord Loftus, British ambassador to Prussia, born 1817

  Dr. Georg Hinzpeter, tutor to the children of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess, born 1827

  Poultney Bigelow, an American author and journalist, born 1855

  Prologue

  Kronberg im Taunus, February 1901

  Fritz Ponsonby shifts uncomfortably in the corner of the carriage, trying to find an easeful place to rest his head, and pulls his overcoat tighter. Even with the luxuries provided the royal party—a large private yacht for the channel crossing and plush sleeping compartments on the train to Frankfurt—the trip overnight from London has been taxing,
and he feels queasy and his temples throb. Private secretary to the new king, he’ll have a full day’s work to do when they arrive. Beside him, softly snoring, is Francis Laking, a Harley Street physician, whom the king enlisted for this visit to his ailing sister, the dowager empress of Germany. The morning sun shines brightly but the air is very cold. He listens to the jingle of harnesses and the clopping of horses’ hooves as they pull five carriages up the hill. Finally, his eyes close.

  A sharp turn to the left, and Ponsonby is jostled awake. Laking, too. The carriage judders to a stop at a high iron gate and soldiers approach on both sides, peering in the windows. After the vehicle lurches forward again, Ponsonby can see helmeted men marching four abreast in a courtyard on the left. Ahead, under an ornate stone entrance portico, he spies a cluster of officers. As the first carriage—the king’s—trundles up to the door, the whole file halts. Ponsonby cranes his neck and watches two footmen dart forward to help out the honored guest. A small band somewhere out of sight strikes up a hearty, unrecognizable oompah-pah tune.

  “No ‘God Save the King’?” asks Laking.

  “Not Wilhelm’s style,” Ponsonby answers. “Only he is lord and master in Germany.”

  A stocky figure Ponsonby recognizes instantly as the German kaiser steps forward to embrace his uncle. In brown tweeds and soft homburg hat, the English king looks strangely incongruous, mousy, a mere civilian surrounded by military brass.

  “We have come to an armed camp,” the doctor observes.

  “Apparently so,” Ponsonby replies.

  THE KING PLANS to stay at Schloss Friedrichshof, his sister’s castle near the village of Kronberg, for only six days. He won’t absent himself from England any longer, during these, the first weeks of his reign, when so many in London watch to see how he will be different from his mother, Queen Victoria, who occupied the throne for sixty-three years.

  Ponsonby can’t suppress a smile as he’s escorted across the baronial, wood-beamed entrance hall and up a set of wide red carpeted stairs. What a contrast this royal residence is with the king’s own home in Norfolk—poky, stuffy Sandringham, reminiscent of an undistinguished Scottish golf hotel. From the outside the Schloss looks like an amalgam of an Italian Renaissance palazzo and a medieval castle, with a Gothic roof and tower, and Tudor-style timber framing on the side wings. But inside it’s modern country house deluxe: light oak paneling; vaulted ceilings painted cream; well-proportioned, airy rooms furnished handsomely with elegant Biedermeier pieces and velvet-upholstered chairs. Entering his third-floor room, he notices the white-tiled bathroom off to the left, and ahead a broad, curtained bed that he longs to crawl into; beside that a plush roll-arm sofa, two tall windows overlooking the Taunus mountains, and a desk set in front of a large stone fireplace. Someone, thoughtfully, has lit a fire.

  His valet, Barlow, is hanging three suits and his dinner jacket in the wardrobe on the far side of the bed. Ponsonby sits down in the desk chair and sighs. No possibility of a nap. He feels oppressed already by the voluminous paperwork that will arrive daily from London, need careful reading, and require answers dispatched back to the capital, and to British legations abroad. He inquired about bringing along an equerry, or at least a shorthand clerk, but the king refused—pronouncing, “Fritz, this is a purely personal visit.” The new sovereign hasn’t yet grasped that he is never off duty and traveling with a small staff is no longer practical.

  Still, Ponsonby didn’t insist, so now he’s stuck.

  ONCE DR. LAKING examines the dowager empress, he confirms that her cancer has advanced beyond cure, to the bones. He has turned his efforts to easing her constant, agonizing pain, since the German doctors seem to have little relief to offer. Because she is too weak to leave her suite, the king spends an hour there with her each morning, and another in the afternoon. Ponsonby pictures the diminutive empress instructing and advising, even shaking an admonitory finger at her brother from time to time, while he smokes and listens with an affectionate smile.

  On the afternoon of the third day, Ponsonby is deciphering a telegram from Whitehall at his desk when a footman knocks and enters to say the empress wishes to speak with him. Getting up to follow the man, his stomach twists anxiously—not the worries of a nervous courtier but the dread of a fond acquaintance, for the empress is his godmother, and he’s known her most of his life. Mortal illness will have changed her, and indeed, ushered into a sunny, apricot-colored lounge a few minutes later, he encounters a shrunken figure, clad in a simple gray smock, a black crocheted shawl over her shoulders, sitting supported by cushions on a chintz sofa, head bobbling slightly. Her face is yellow and swollen, her eyes closed, and her mouth fixed in an ugly grimace.

  “Warten Sie mal,” says a nurse, standing next to the sofa. “She’s just had an injection. It requires some short time to take effect.”

  Ponsonby’s throat tightens and his nose starts to run. Twenty years previously on a spring afternoon the empress, then a mere crown princess, came on a visit to his mother’s workroom in the Norman Tower at Windsor and he saw her for the first time. He recalls her light rose scent, the red woolen dress and dainty hat she wore, her kindness to him, an ungainly and self-conscious youth. Ever after—they’ve met on two dozen or so occasions—he felt that somehow she’d taken his measure and concluded he was capable, worthy of notice. Terrible to see her skeletal, barely upright, and confined to the faintly sour fug of this sickroom.

  She opens her eyes and looks up. “Fritz, dear,” the empress whispers, “forgive me. I have been slow to properly welcome you to Friedrichshof.” She closes her eyes again.

  “Your home is beautiful,” Ponsonby says.

  “Please sit,” she says, reaching a trembling, wasted arm over the cushion tower to indicate a place on the right. “I will speak to my godson now, Fräulein, thank you,” she says to the nurse.

  He’s settled beside her, and the empress lays a hand on his forearm. Her sweet smile evokes her former self.

  “I watched my father build two splendid houses. I was so fortunate to have the chance to build one of my own,” she said.

  “You were more inspired by Balmoral here, I would say, than Osborne.”

  “Yes, although nowhere is lovelier than Osborne.”

  “You were not tempted to build at the German seaside?”

  “With Bad Homburg so close, I could count on a stream of English guests, my brother most constant.” She smiles again. The famous casino at the Rhineland spa town of Bad Homburg—five miles distant—was frequented for years by the erstwhile Prince of Wales.

  “It’s a great pleasure for all of us to be here,” Ponsonby says.

  “My brother and I have had excellent talks. But I don’t quite take in that he is king now.”

  “His Royal Highness is himself still adjusting, I believe.”

  “And not to be with my mother at the end. I cannot tell you how I suffered when the news came.” She shakes her head.

  “I imagine, Your Royal Highness.”

  “I try to believe that the queen and I were together so much and so often that it doesn’t matter that I was absent in the last days.”

  “Yes.”

  “My son boasts he cradled his dying grandmother.” The empress’s tone is ironical.

  “He maneuvered himself into position by the bed and sat propping her up with his right arm, my mother recounts.”

  “Determined to be foremost even at that bedside!” she exclaims.

  Picturing the kaiser pushing in at a most inappropriate moment, they both laugh.

  Maybe their merriment alarmed the nurse, for now she’s back. “You mustn’t stay long. She’s easily tired,” she tells Ponsonby sternly.

  But the empress raises her hand slowly. “No, no. I need a few more minutes.”

  The nurse scowls and departs. The empress closes her eyes and sits silent for a while. Gathering strength perhaps. When she opens them again she says, almost casually, “I need you to do something for me, Fritz dear. I need y
ou to take charge of my letters and take them back to England.”

  “Letters?”

  “Letters I received, and those I sent to my father and my mother, during the years I’ve lived here. When I was last in England I retrieved from Windsor the ones I wrote. I thought to use them for a book. No time now.”

  Ponsonby looks away. Too distressing to acknowledge that.

  She pats his arm. “Dear Fritz. Listen now. Tonight, late, I will have them brought to your room.”

  He nods.

  “No one must know that they will be taken away. When I am dead my son will send men to search my papers, taking what he wants burned. Remember, after my husband . . .”

  He nods again, recalling that dreadful episode at the Neues Palais, nearly thirteen years ago now.

  “Keep them, and in future, well, I hardly know. May I give them to your care?”

  “A pleasure, ma’am, I’m happy to do so.” He hears his voice quavering.

  She responds with another light pat. “And if I don’t see you again, you will greet your mother,” she says.

  “Yes.”

  “And do not despair.”

  “No.”

  “The Catholics call that the unpardonable sin. As your godmother, I can instruct in such matters.” She smiles. It’s remarkable: she looks so dreadful and then her smile is from the soul, still aglow.

  He’s on the edge of a sob but fights it back. He must answer her dignity with his own. “Yes, Your Royal Highness.”

  “Goodbye, Fritz, God bless you.”

  He rises to his feet and bows before leaving.

  IT SHOULDN’T COME as a surprise, Ponsonby supposes, back at his desk, that the antipathy long extant between mother and son endures, even now that she’s on death’s doorstep. The two look at the world completely differently. Such a tragedy, all liberal Europe agrees, that the empress’s late husband, Kaiser Friedrich, enjoyed only the shortest of reigns. And since that noble man was replaced by his son, the continent’s most powerful nation has a volatile, attention-seeking man-boy at the helm, constantly flexing his muscles. Far from floating above politics, he shamelessly supports right-wing parties. Bismarck, whose wars forged the German Empire, afterward used his diplomatic wiles to keep the peace. No German minister today has his finesse, and all must contend with their erratic, irascible kaiser.