Mizpah jewelry was first created in the 1850s and was considered to be a sentimental token of affection. Victorians also believed that if they wore Mizpah pieces it would help their relationship to grow. Genesis 31:49: And Mizpah; for he said, The Lord watch between me and thee, when we are absent from one another.
Lady Alexandrina Gailey is a fictional character, and Hoburg is a fictional country. It is inspired by Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the small German duchy that Prince Albert was from. Like Drina’s mother, Queen Victoria’s mother (also named Victoria or ‘Victoire’) was first married to her dead aunt’s husband, Emich Carl, 2nd Prince of Leiningen and they had two children together: Feodora, who is mentioned in this book, and Carl, 3rd Prince of Leiningen. Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld’s second marriage was to Prince Edward Augustus, the Duke of Kent. They had one daughter together: Alexandrina Victoria.
Queen Victoria (1819–1901) married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. They had nine children together. Their eldest son, known to the family as Bertie, became King Edward VII and was infamous for his many romantic affairs. Most of Queen Victoria’s dialogue in this book are things she either said or wrote. In a letter in 1870, she wrote: “The Queen is most anxious to enlist everyone who can speak or write to join in checking this mad, wicked folly of ‘Women’s Rights,’ with all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly feeling and propriety.”
Princess Alice Maud Mary (1843–1878), the third child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, met Prince Louis of Hesse during the Ascot Races in June 1860. He was invited to stay at Windsor Castle for the holidays. He proposed to Alice and was accepted on November 30, 1860. They wouldn’t be married for two more years, because first her grandmother, the Duchess of Kent, died and then did her father, Prince Albert. Alice tirelessly nursed both of them until their deaths.
Princess Alice and Prince Louis were married July 1, 1862. They loved each other, but their marriage wasn’t without difficulties. They were constantly short on cash. It would be several years before he inherited the Duchy of Hesse. They had difficulties within their families and with their international loyalties, particularly during the Austro-Prussian War in 1866. Her elder sister, Vicky, was married to the heir of the Prussian emperor and was the victorious “enemy.”
Alice was passionate about nursing and corresponded with Florence Nightingale. She created the Women’s Union in Darmstadt, an organization that trained nursing assistants for wartime. She established the Alice Society for Women’s Training and Industry, which was dedicated to educating women for employment. She also started the Alice Hospital in Darmstadt, which treated sick people without charging.
Louis and Alice had seven children together. Their son Friedrich Wilhelm, called “Frittie,” was diagnosed with hemophilia. In 1873, he fell from a window and bled to death internally. In 1878, her eldest daughter, Victoria, became infected with diphtheria. The infectious disease spread to four of her other children: Alix, May, Irene, and Ernie. May choked to death as a result of her illness. Alice contracted the disease and died shortly after on December 14, 1878, (the same day that her father died, seventeen years prior).
Her most beautiful daughter, Alix, would go on to marry Tsar Nicholas II. They were very happy together and had four daughters (including the famous Anastasia) and one son.