Queen Victoria's Mysterious Daughter

by Lucinda Hawksley

  By the end of the year, Louise’s health had recovered enough for her to start attending public events again, but she was devastated on 20 November by the news that Alix had died at Sandringham, at the age of 80. Louise described her as ‘the dearest of sisters and friend[s] to me’. The elderly princesses attended their sister-in-law’s memorial service together at Kensington Parish Church; Beatrice was infirm and Louise was openly grieving. They were a melancholy sight.

  At the start of January 1926, Louise returned to the French Riviera. One journalist commented, ‘The Duke’s villa Les Bruyeres is one of the most attractive of the many around Beaulieu, and the princess will find many friends already installed nearby … Most artistic of our princesses, the Duchess will be able to indulge her taste for sketching, for the view from the Duke’s villa is superb.’ A newspaper noted that the elderly princess had been working very hard recently, often standing in for the much younger queen, and she was in need of a rest. Louise spent most of the spring of 1926 happily with her sole remaining brother, basking in the sunshine, sketching, painting and attending parties. All the time she was away, she kept in touch with her friends and family by sending regular illustrated letters. These letters had become such a feature of her personality that everyone was talking about them. A newspaper article was even written about Louise’s epistolary talent:

  She has a considerable amount of ‘big’ work to her credit, but I fancy that what her family most appreciate are the hastily dashed-off sketches accompanying this royal globe-trotter’s letters home. These impromptu illustrations lend piquant point to her racy, informative chats covering many pages. The Princess writes as naturally as she talks; and she can talk as wittily and amusingly of life and letters as of people and places. I have heard it said that in the Royal Family it is Princess Louise’s letters that are most laughed over.

  Back in London, Louise was full of praise for a new invention, which she described on several occasions as a ‘miracle’. This was the radio, or ‘the wireless’, and Louise was fascinated by it. At the end of April 1926, she was present for the opening of a new hospital radio system: ‘… and HRH, besides showing how deep the impression the marvel of modern broadcasting had made in her mind, spoke of the value of wireless in hospital wards, where it relieved the monotony of the sick bed … the Princess rightly held that the resulting influence should be a help towards recovery.’ Louise gave a speech over the hospital radio; outside the hospital, people who owned radios had been told of the occasion in advance and her broadcast could be heard throughout the country by anyone who wanted to tune into the frequency. A week later she took part in a radio concert, in aid of London hospitals, and her speech was, again, transmitted all over the country by the power of radio. Now even more of the king’s subjects were able to hear the distinctive, deep ‘guttural’ voice of the oldest member of the royal family as she embraced the newest technology. She had not lost her love of the new and exotic.

  At the start of July, Louise was ill again and unable to lay the foundation stone of a church that was being built as part of a new housing estate, but she had recovered enough by the end of the month to lay another foundation stone, of the new wing of the Latymer Road Mission, in west London. At the ceremony she gave a moving speech which included the words, ‘Whatever we wish for ourselves we should wish for our neighbours, and our love for our neighbours should be at least equal to our love for ourselves.’

  CHAPTER 30

  ‘This remarkable lady’

  Bob, Princess Louise’s dog … has sat outside Kensington Palace, close to the policeman on duty, for the past 14 years. He has such a partiality for policemen that he goes off and on duty with them, and asks for nothing better than to sit on his elderly haunches, quietly musing, in the shade of a pair of dark blue trousers. ‘In fact,’ said Mrs Wheelerbread, ‘Princess Louise often says that he is not her dog any longer, but belongs to the police force’.

  The Ottawa Citizen, 1937

  In the autumn of 1926, The Spectator published an unexpected book serialisation – the memoirs of the former kaiser. The autobiography of the now-disgraced German leader appears to have been written in such a way as to appeal directly to his estranged family in England (or, at least, that was the way in which it was serialised in Britain). Wilhelm described Queen Victoria as ‘the perfect Queen and … the perfect woman, mother, and grandmother … [she was] a real grandmother, and our relations to one another were never changed or dimmed to the end of her life’. He also makes the startling claim that Sir James Reid, the queen’s physician and confidant, told Wilhelm that the last visit Wilhelm made to his grandmother, shortly before she died, was the queen’s ‘last great joy’.

  One newspaper reported: ‘The ex-Kaiser says his favourite uncle was always the Duke of Connaught and says of the loss of their friendship … [that] “the war broke the bond, a grievous loss to me”. He says he always loved and admired Princess Louise, and for him she remained “the indulgent auntie”. “But this bond has been severed too,” the ex-Kaiser adds.’ If Wilhelm was hoping for a joyous family reunion, he was to be disappointed. Louise and Arthur were disgusted by their nephew and would never be interested in patching up the severed ‘bond’.

  Back in full health, Louise was also back on her official rounds and continuing her work with children. In 1926 she opened the Kensington Memorial Recreation Ground, a children’s playground that had been bought with funds raised in memory of those who had died in the war, and laid the foundation stone for the Princess Louise Hospital for Children.1

  She spent much of the summer of 1926 at Rosneath, her home in Scotland, working in the gardens. Since Lorne’s death, her visits had been sporadic, but her influence remained as strong as ever. As an article written in 1928 shows, Louise was ever present in the landscape around her husband’s former estate: ‘On the Argyll estates at Roseneath [sic], is a delightful inn, which was reconstructed and furnished to her designs, and she painted the swinging signs which hung over the door. Even the spoons used in the dining room were designed by her.’ The journey to and from Scotland and the harsher climate took its toll, however, and after returning to London that autumn she became, once again, ill and confined to her rooms in Kensington Palace. Beatrice had also been unwell and it was a measure of how much more elderly the youngest princess looked than her older sister that a newspaper, when writing that Louise was expected to visit her brother in Cap Ferrat again in the new year, got their ages muddled up and described Louise as ‘the Duke’s youngest sister’. Arthur had been given a new lease of life by the villa in Beaulieu. He was finally over his grieving for Louischen and wanted to enjoy life to the full. As such, he had commissioned builders to extend and improve his home, Les Bruyères, to make it fit for a bigger party of guests and to ensure that Louise would always have room to stay with him, no matter who else he had invited as well.

  By November, Louise was fully recovered and back on her hospital and charity rounds. She had become involved with the Ladies’ Guild of the Lifeboat Institution and attended their fund-raising meetings. Louise was also the proud possessor of a motor car, another recent invention which she had embraced with fervour – it was perfect for the princess who had always wanted to drive her horse carriage as fast as possible. Just as charities today hand out badges to those who have donated money, it was fashionable at the time to fix a charity or institution’s badge to one’s car. Louise, in common with several other members of the royal family, bought the RNLI’s ‘motor mascot in the form of a lifeboatman’, which her chauffeur attached to her car. Within a few months it had been joined by the motor badge in support of the National Association for the Prevention of Tuberculosis – a disease that was taking a frightening hold once again in the towns and cities of England. Louise also became a patron of the Margaret-Street Hospital for Consumption in central London.

  Another charity of which she had agreed to become president was the Women’s Farm and Garden Association, a body that helped women attain d
egrees or diplomas in agriculture. The intention was that many more women would end up running their own farms (the war having laid waste to the able-bodied men). That December, Louise attended another party at the East Ham Palace, this time for over 2,500 children. The children of the East End had become used to the smiling face of this elderly princess. On the same day, Louise visited Queen Mary’s Hospital for the East End and once again used hospital radio to talk to the patients in all the wards.

  At the start of 1927, Louise was with Arthur at Les Bruyères, together with his daughter, Princess Patsy. Aunt and niece spent many happy days sketching and drawing together. A photograph survives of Louise from this year. It was taken by the photographer Mary Galsworth and shows Louise seated and contentedly reading a book. It is a very attractive and informal photograph, in which Louise appears much younger than her 79 years. She appears absorbed in her book and has a slight smile on her face, her clothes are fashionably simple and in addition to her pearl choker, she wears the fashionable 1920s jewellery of a long string of beads, possibly black pearls.

  Back in London, Louise celebrated her birthday in March, presenting the London County Council with sixteen Cornish elms for the Kensington Memorial Recreation Ground. Once again, however, soon after returning to the colder climate of England, Louise became ill with bronchitis. She was nursed back to health in time to take part in the Empire Day Parade and service at St Paul’s Cathedral on 21 May. On that day, almost 3,000 members of the British Empire League – an organisation intended to promote harmony and friendship throughout the empire – marched through the streets of London. Louise stood proudly on the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral to receive the procession as it arrived for the service.

  That summer, Louise paid her first visit to the Isle of Wight in many years. As the Mountbatten family now had Kent House as their home, the princess stayed in Beatrice’s Osborne Cottage. Local newspapers remarked wistfully how seldom the island received royal visitors now and how the younger set of royals did not seem to appreciate Britain’s coastal beauty, preferring to head off to the warmer climes of the Mediterranean.

  Her artistic ability affected by the process of ageing, Louise had begun to turn again to one of her first loves: music. She attended festivals and would eventually become president of the Stratford Music Festival. At the end of 1927, after attending the British Music Festival, she had told the papers how tired she was of hearing jazz2 and that she abhorred the way it dominated the British music scene. She was quoted as saying, ‘It would be much to the good if some of the fine old English music were more often heard.’ She also championed the work of fellow sculptors, some of whom she hired to work in her studio. One of these was Peter Russell McCrossan, the visiting modelling master at St Martin’s School of Art. Although he was much younger than the princess he predeceased her by over a decade. His students erected a memorial plaque to him and Louise unveiled it and praised his talent.

  Louise was not always so magnanimous in her praise, however – and she did not always give credit where it was due. One art student recalled how, just before the First World War, Louise had ‘got into difficulties’ while designing an embroidered table cover. The girl had been a student at the Glasgow School of Art and had a diploma in Design and Decorative Art. She was invited to Rosneath, where she and Louise spent some time improving the design (the girl admitted to her sister that she didn’t think much of Louise’s original design). The table cover was exhibited and when the student read a review of the exhibition it mentioned the princess’s work but with no reference to the help she had received.

  A more favourable mention of the princess’s patronage was revealed in the newspapers by a Mr and Mrs Wheelerbread. After leaving the navy, Mr Wheelerbread was struggling to support his family on his small pension; as he had been a cook, he began making and selling sweets from a stall near Kensington Gardens. His wife ran a second stall, but they were not making much money and knew that they were in danger of being prosecuted for trading illegally. When Princess Louise stopped to chat with Mrs Wheelerbread one day, she was told their history and immediately ‘granted them permission’ to trade in the park. ‘And she bought a penny packet of chocolate,’ added Mrs Wheelerbread to a journalist. ‘Whenever she is going on a hospital visit she stops and buys supplies of chocolate and sweets.’ For many years, on Princess Louise’s birthday, Mrs Wheelerbread would go to the tradesmen’s entrance of Kensington Palace and deliver a pot of daffodils. Mrs Wheelerbread told the journalist, ‘Whenever she passes she never fails to stop and ask me how I am.’

  On 18 March 1928, Louise celebrated her eightieth birthday. She was in good health and was feeling contemplative about the past. A few weeks later, she made an impromptu announcement about her childhood, surprising everyone with her sudden and genuine outburst: ‘Luckily the habit of moulding children to the same pattern has gone out of fashion. It was deplorable. I know, because I suffered from it. Nowadays individuality and one’s own capabilities are recognised.’

  That summer, she was the guest of honour at the Costers’ and Street Traders’ Show. The display of East End culture had travelled across London, as the participants had been invited to show off their wares in Kensington Palace Field. Louise handed out prizes to the pearly kings and queens, chatted with them and their families and visited the stalls. A British Pathé film shows the fashionably dressed princess smiling and laughing, stroking one of the costermongers’ donkeys and looking as though she is genuinely enjoying herself. Soon afterwards, she spent three days in Kent with her regiment, of which she had been made the Colonel-in-Chief. The reports of her schedule proclaimed, ‘On Monday night the “Retreat” was carried out; on Tuesday an inspection of the Battalion; and on Wednesday rifle practice.’ A few days later the elderly princess attended an antiques fair at Olympia, in London, and once again made the newspapers: at one stall she picked up a piece of valuable antique china to examine it, whereupon a policeman immediately asked her to put it down. Louise reportedly said, with chagrin, ‘You are quite right’ and moved on to the next stall. Journalists gleefully reported that once the stallholder had explained to the policeman whom he had just admonished, the policeman said dispassionately ‘Orders is orders.’

  At the end of 1928, the country was poised for bad news. The king and his aunt were very ill, both suffering from a ‘severe chill’. As their obituaries were being prepared, George V and Princess Louise rallied and at the start of the new year, Louise was once again at Victoria station to take the boat train to France. There she remained for several months, and in April Arthur held a special music party with visiting musicians including Auguste Mangeot – who had recently established the Ecole Normale de Musique de Paris – and the pianist Lyell Barbour. Although she returned to England in time for summer, Louise carried out few public engagements, although she did preside over the British Empire Union garden party in July. That autumn, she and Beatrice went to stay with Arthur, but this time at his imposing country home Bagshot Park in Surrey. In October, Louise officially opened the new isolation hospital at Hendon and in November she attended the wedding of the youngest daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire (she gave one of her watercolours as a wedding present).

  The following year, Princess Louise became the very first royal subject to pose for a newly fashionable photographer, Cecil Beaton. She is photographed holding a book and wearing simple but fashionable clothes. Beaton discovered that she had very decided opinions not only on her own art, but on his as well, as she offered him many suggestions on how best to light his photographic subjects and told him what she was not happy with in some of the photographs. She took an active interest in his career and it is largely due to Louise’s patronage that Beaton became a household name. On her eighty-first birthday, a journalist from the Daily Telegraph shared his own portrait of the venerable princess: ‘This remarkable lady … walks briskly, has a cheery smile for everyone, and greets any joke with a hearty laugh. Moreover she is still able to keep up her hob
by of painting … “And,” she told a friend the other day, “I have been opening bazaars for 66 years”.’

  At the start of 1931, Beatrice suffered a serious fall at Kensington Palace. Louise sent a message to tell Arthur that she could not come and join him as usual; she would have to delay her trip to France until Beatrice had recovered. It was several weeks before Beatrice was fit enough for her sister to feel comfortable about leaving her, but Louise was able to celebrate her eighty-third birthday with Arthur on the French Riviera. On this holiday, she visited Nice, where she spent time with John Shirley Fox (a portrait painter from Bath) and his wife; at some point that year, he painted her portrait. By mid-April she was back in England, distributing prizes to artistic children at the Dulwich Picture Gallery. This was a scheme she had helped to set up in her role as president of the Royal Drawing School; the scheme had been given the nickname the Children’s Royal Academy.

  Louise saw out the end of the year at the exclusive Fortfield Hotel in Sidmouth, Devon. It was a new discovery of Arthur’s, who was finding the travelling to and from France rather arduous. He and Louise would become some of Sidmouth’s most regular visitors. The town was thrilled. When Louise returned to London from Devon, it was because Beatrice was about to have a cataract operation. It was a success and Beatrice recuperated at Kensington Palace, but, hindered by a heart condition, it took a long time for her to regain her full strength. By contrast, Louise seems to have been in good health throughout the coming year. She attended several weddings, travelled back and forth to visit Arthur in Devon and Bagshot, attended art galleries and went to parties with the king and queen. By the autumn, however, missing her usual months of Riviera sunshine, Louise was at a low ebb. The following spring, she was determined to go back to Cap Ferrat. The Western Morning News announced: ‘The Duke of Connaught is to have as his guest for two or three weeks his favourite sister, the Princess Louise, who left London yesterday to join him at Bruyere, Cap Ferrat … Her Royal Highness was 86 last month and is two years older than the Duke, who will be 84 in May next, but both are wonderfully active for their years.’