Queen Victoria S Children

Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort had nine children who despite their very different characters, remained a close-knit family. Inevitably, as they married into European royal families their loyalties were divided and their lives dominated by political controversy. This is not only the story of their lives in terms of world impact, but also of their own personal achievements, their individual contributions to public life in Britain and overseas and in their roles as the children of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort.

‘Satisfyingly replete with eye-popping stories’ Observer What was so dangerous about Queen Victoria’s artistic tempestuous sixth child, Princess Louise? When Lucinda Hawksley started to investigate, often thwarted by inexplicable secrecy, she discovered a fascinating woman, modern before her time, whose story has been shielded f from public view for years. Louise was a sculptor and painter, friend to the Pre-Raphaelites and a keen member of the Aesthetic movement. The most feisty of the Victorian princesses, she kicked against her mother’s controlling nature and remained fiercely loyal to her brothers – especially the sickly Leopold and the much-maligned Bertie. She sought out other unconventional women, including Josephine Butler and George Eliot, and campaigned for education and health reform and for the rights of women. She battled with her indomitable mother for permission to practice the ‘masculine’ art of sculpture and go to art college – and in doing so became the first British princess to attend a public school. The rumours of Louise’s colourful love life persist even today, with hints of love affairs dating as far back as her teenage years, and notable scandals included entanglements with her sculpting tutor Joseph Edgar Boehm and possibly even her sister Princess Beatrice’s handsome husband, Liko. True to rebellious form, she refused all royal suitors and became the first member of the royal family to marry a commoner since the sixteenth century. Spirited and lively, The Mystery of Princess Louise is richly packed with arguments, intrigues, scandals and secrets, and is a vivid portrait of a princess desperate to escape her inheritance.

Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort had nine children who despite their very different characters, remained a close-knit family. Inevitably, as they married into European royal families their loyalties were divided and their lives dominated by political controversy. This is not only the story of their lives in terms of world impact, but also of their own personal achievements, their individual contributions to public life in Britain and overseas and in their roles as the children of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort.

Written entirely in the first person and fully based on accurate historical accounts, Michael Farah imagines how this royal family would have described the events of their extraordinary existence, scandals, loves, triumphs and tragedies.

Sketches the childhood of the English Queen's nine children, her relationships with each of them, and how they lived their later lives

A captivating exploration of the role in which Queen Victoria exerted the most international power and influence: as a matchmaking grandmother. As her reign approached its sixth decade, Queen Victoria's grandchildren numbered over thirty, and to maintain and increase British royal power, she was determined to maneuver them into a series of dynastic marriages with the royal houses of Europe. Yet for all their apparent obedience, her grandchildren often had plans of their own, fueled by strong wills and romantic hearts. Victoria's matchmaking plans were further complicated by the tumultuous international upheavals of the time: revolution and war were in the air, and kings and queens, princes and princesses were vulnerable targets. Queen Victoria's Matchmaking travels through the glittering, decadent palaces of Europe from London to Saint Petersburg, weaving in scandals, political machinations and family tensions to enthralling effect. It is at once an intimate portrait of a royal family and an examination of the conflict caused by the marriages the Queen arranged. At the heart of it all is Victoria herself: doting grandmother one moment, determined Queen Empress the next.

Queen Victoria's favourite child - the true story of a royal mother-daughter relationship that changed history Beatrice was the last child born to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Her father died when she was four and as Matthew Dennison relates Victoria came to depend on her youngest daughter absolutely, but she also demanded from her complete submission. It is an enthralling story, not just of a mother/daughter relationship, but of a Queen and subject relationship. 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. She edited and bowdlerised her mother's Journals that cover 70 years and where possible her voluminous correspondence. Although Victoria tried to prevent Beatrice even so much as thinking of love, her guard slipped when Beatrice was 29. She met Liko, Prince Henry of Battenberg, and fell in love. Beatrice, however, did not end up simply as a wife and mother. She loved music and composed a military march which remains in the repertoire of British regimental bands, she sang and she painted. Matthew Dennison draws on extensive new material to restore Princess Beatrice to her rightful place as a key figure in the Victorian dynasty.