Imperial Requiem: Four Royal Women and the Fall of the Age of Empires (19 page)

On July 4, the imperial yacht
Hohenzollern
arrived at the port town of Sheerness in Kent. Traveling abroad was never a small affair for the emperor and empress. Dona’s suite alone was typically smaller than her husband’s. It consisted of “ladies and gentlemen in waiting, marshals, equerries, masters of the hounds, valets, chamberlains, treasurers, her overseers of the plate, gun-chargers, mouth-cooks, and the cloud of footmen, couriers, coachmen, and grooms.” When Dona’s foreign tours did not include royal stops, she also brought her own linens for her bed and bathroom.
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On this particular visit, Dona’s personal suite numbered almost a hundred individuals. When they docked at Sheerness, they were met by the three highest-ranking men in the British royal family: the Prince of Wales, his son Eddy, and his brother the Duke of Connaught. As a sign of respect, all three were dressed in the uniform of the Prussian Hussars, accented by the gold sash of the Order of the Black Eagle. Upon taking the train to Windsor, Wilhelm and Dona were received by the rest of the royal family.

On July 10, the emperor and empress were hosted by the Lord Mayor of London. They were cheered by thousands of people as they drove through the city streets. Dona calmly waved while Wilhelm returned the salutes of the crowd. Wilhelm felt he was greeted with the proper respect due to “the most powerful of Continental monarchs.” He was equally pleased to learn “that no foreign ruler—not even Napoleon III on his visit after the victorious war in the Crimea in 1855—had ever been greeted with anything approaching” this level of enthusiasm. There was no doubt that Wilhelm was a smashing success with the British people, but Dona—who was dressed in frumpy brown and gray dresses—managed to offend almost the entire royal court. She created “a very disagreeable impression by her stiffness, rudeness and arrogance towards the royal family and even towards the Queen.”
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Wilhelm’s cousin Princess Marie of Edinburgh described Dona’s attitude toward foreigners as a “stereotyped graciousness which too much resembled condescension to be quite pleasant.”
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Her growing Anglophobia took hold, prompting her to compare everything to life in Germany. She also made no effort to hide the fact that she distrusted non-Germans. Given Dona’s performance during the visit, it surprised many when she decided to remain privately in England for a few weeks while Wilhelm embarked on a trip to Norway aboard the
Hohenzollern
. This is perhaps the only time in Dona’s life—aside from childhood visits to her family—that she took a holiday in England. Declaring it a personal family vacation, she took her six sons, their tutors, governesses, and staff to Felixstowe in Suffolk.

Personal time with her children was tremendously important to Dona, whose family life was contented. She was devoted to each of her six sons yet had a unique relationship with each of them. Crown Prince Willy was brought up with more exacting discipline than his brothers, since he was the heir. There was a long-standing tradition of discord between fathers and sons in the Hohenzollern family. As far back as Frederick the Great and his father, King Frederick Wilhelm I, in the 1720s, Prussian rulers and their heirs had been viciously at odds. Wilhelm II had a difficult relationship with Frederick III, who had a difficult relationship with Wilhelm I, and so on. The Hohenzollern women tended to fall in line with their husbands as it pertained to raising their children, but Dona was more hands-on and affectionate with her sons than many of her predecessors. She was overly anxious and protective of Joachim, whose premature birth had left him sickly. Oscar was undoubtedly the empress’s favorite because she felt he had a chivalrous, brave personality. She also could not help but have compassion when his older, stronger brothers picked on him. Auwi and Adalbert gave their mother little frustration. Her second son, Eitel-Fritz, though Dona unquestionably loved him, was showing signs that concerned her. Even at a young age, the prince—who was ironically Wilhelm’s favorite son—was becoming willful, stubborn, and mischievous, all traits that his mother could not abide. They were also traits that would get substantially worse with time.

The birth of six sons meant that Dona was truly living in a man’s world. When she discovered at the end of 1891 that she was pregnant again, she earnestly hoped it would be a daughter. On September 13, 1892, she went into labor at the Marble Palace. Early the next morning, the Guards Field Artillery fired twenty-one shots over Potsdam to announce the birth of a daughter. Dona was overjoyed. She had a tradition that with the birth of each child, she kept a special diary for each day of their lives. “After six sons, God has given us our seventh child, a small but very strong little daughter,” she wrote in her daughter’s diary. “The pleasure over this little ray of sunshine was great, not just for us as parents and the nearest relatives, but indeed the whole nation rejoiced at the birth of the little girl. May she some day become a joy and a blessing for many and—as she has created happiness by her appearance—let her have happiness in life. Her father, who up to now had always wanted sons, was very happy and is marvelling still.”
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The following month, the infant princess was christened. The date chosen, October 22, was doubly significant: it was Dona’s thirty-fourth birthday. The baby was named Victoria Louise Adelheid Mathilde Charlotte. Like her mother, she was known officially by her first two names, Victoria Louise, but her family would affectionately call her “Sissy.”

By 1891, May Teck had blossomed. Although not a classical beauty, she was stately and regal, standing at five feet seven inches tall. Her hair was most often described as light brown, but in the sunlight, it was noticeably golden. At her mother’s insistence, she wore her hair tightly braided atop her head, which had the unfortunate effect of making her appear more masculine and severe than she really was. It was her personality, which turned out so unlike either of her parents, that earned May a great deal of popularity. She was now nearly twenty-four, but despite her upstanding qualities, she had failed to garner very much attention from eligible bachelors. Her potential suitors were deterred by her family’s previous financial ruin and her morganatic blood. Most princes were obsessively concerned with royal rank and money and wanted nothing to do with her. Many people believed that May had a better chance of marrying a wealthy English aristocrat than ever finding a royal husband who would accept her family’s penury and low rank. Those who discouraged the idea that Princess May could ever have a glittering future were soon silenced because, in the winter of 1891, London was alive with gossip over the news of her engagement to Prince Eddy, whom the queen had created Duke of Clarence in 1890.

Queen Victoria “was quite delighted” to hear of the engagement. She confided to her journal that Eddy came to see her. “I suspected something at once,” she wrote. “He came in and said, ‘I have some good news to tell you; I am engaged to May Teck.’” The queen concluded that her grandson “seemed very pleased and satisfied, and I am so thankful, as I had much wished for this marriage, thinking her so suitable.”
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Grand Duchess Augusta of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, May’s aunt, was quick to offer her opinion on the engagement. “How well the Queen
worded
her
consent
given in Council. ‘Pss Victoria Mary, Daughter of H R H The Pss Mary Ad.
and
of H H Duke of Teck’ quite as it is
correct
,” she wrote with her usual grandiose style with many words underlined for emphasis, “
thus
proving May’s
descent
from a
Royal
Mother;
brave Queen!
and just what
May truly is
, according to English notions.”
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Some people expressed misgivings about the match. The Prince of Wales strongly disliked the Duke and Duchess of Teck. The Duke of Cambridge, May’s uncle, could not fathom how Eddy would make a suitable husband. The duke described him as “an inveterate and incurable dawdler, never ready, never there.”
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Dona sneered at the idea as well, since May’s parents could not afford to offer a dowry. The Empress Frederick wrote to Queen Victoria that she “cannot help laughing … when I think of … someone mentioning to Dona what a charming girl May was, & how nice it would be if her [Dona’s] brother thought of [marrying her]!” Vicky then bluntly added, “Dona was most offended & said to me that her brother would not dream of making such a mésalliance!!!”
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The queen shared her daughter’s reaction to Dona’s attitude toward May: “I am much amused that Dona turned up her nose at the
idea
of her
charming
brother thinking of May whereas I
know it
as a
fact
that he
made demarches
to obtain her hand wh.
May refused
at
once!
”
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Some twentieth-century historians like David Duff have argued that the Empress Frederick may have been transferring some of her own ill feelings onto Dona, since the former may have been “put out because of her daughters had not been chosen” as a bride for Eddy.
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Dona was not the only person to look down on May and her family. Queen Victoria’s daughters Helena and Louise were against the match. Helena was especially hostile toward May, as Queen Victoria described in a letter dated December 16, 1891.

[Helena] is not at all pleased at May’s Engagt. to Eddy, & does
not
unfortunately keep it to herself—& was (to my horror) positively rude to Mary [Adelaide] & May at Marlborough House when we went there on Monday 7th & both Mary and Alix [the Princess of Wales] were distressed at it (it made me so hot) & she has been imprudent enough to speak to other people abt. it.
I can’t
understand
it.
Louise also does not much like it, tho’ she admits May is a vy nice girl & L. was quite kind & civil.—But both sisters are
jealous
of Mary [Adelaide]’s popularity. May will I am
sure
be a very nice Niece & cousin.… she is a vy pretty girl,—
very
sensible & well informed, a
solid girl
wh. we want.
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May and Eddy had grown up together. They played together as children at White Lodge and attended the same royal events. Eddy was born January 8, 1864, two months prematurely, the cause of which was believed to be stress and anxiety endured by his mother during the Second Schleswig War. Eddy knew May well enough, but they never perceived one another in romantic terms. She always thought of his family, the Wales brood from her childhood, as friends and playmates. And even in that context, she still had not thought highly of him. As children, Eddy bullied May and her siblings repeatedly. For his part, Eddy saw the Tecks as amiable if poor relations at best. Most of the time, he seemed apathetic to the world around him. According to one contemporary, he “never seemed to mind what he did or what happened to him.”
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By most surviving accounts, May had little inclination that she was seriously being considered for Eddy. Her father could certainly not afford a dowry. And the taint of her morganatic blood was not easily overlooked by princes on the continent. May seems to have resigned herself to being a spinster, an old maid who would spend her years caring for her invalid of a father.