1. VICTORIA ADELAIDE MARY LOUISA, Princess Royal. Born 21 November 1840. Married: 1858, Prince Frederick William of Prussia (1831–88). Became Crown Princess of Prussia and Empress Frederick of Germany. She had eight children including the autocratic and mentally unstable Wilhelm II (1859–1941), ‘Kaiser Bill’ of the First World War. She died 5 August 1901.
Princess Victoria was embarrassed and resentful over gossip at the German court regarding Queen Victoria and John Brown. She sent the queen a ‘rather formal message’ of sympathy on John Brown’s death.
2. ALBERT EDWARD, Prince of Wales.
Born 9 November 1841. Married: 1863, Princess Alexandra of Denmark (1844–1925). They had five children. Died 6 May 1910, having acceded to the throne on the death of Queen Victoria as Edward VII.
Harboured a lifelong hatred of John Brown, substituting the phrase ‘that brute’ for his name in conversation.
3. ALICE MAUD MARY.
Born 25 April 1843. Married: 1862, Prince Louis IV, Grand-Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt (1837–92). She had seven children. Died 14 December 1878.
Supported her elder brother and sister in trying (unsuccessfully) to get John Brown sacked.
4. ALFRED ERNEST ALBERT, Duke of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
Born 6 August 1844. Married: 1874, Grand Duchess Marie of Russia (1853–1920). They had five children. Died 30 July 1900.
Resented John Brown’s ‘power and confidence’ at court, and was the centre of many ‘Brown rows’ with Queen Victoria.
5. HELENA AUGUSTA VICTORIA.
Born 25 May 1846. Married: 1866, Prince Frederick Christian of Schleswig-Holstein (1831–1917). She had five children. Died 9 June 1923.
Admitted to being ‘wholeheartedly’ German and was irritated by ‘John Brown gossip’ in Prussian imperial circles.
6. LOUISE CAROLINE ALBERTA.
Born 18 March 1848. Married: 1871, John Douglas Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll (1845–1914). No issue. Died 3 December 1939.
Looked upon John Brown as a ‘mischief-maker’ and believed that he ‘tittle-tattled’ about her private life to Queen Victoria. Gave her an aversion to Highland gillies.
7. ARTHUR WILLIAM PATRICK ALBERT, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn.
Born 1 May 1850. Married: 1879, Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia (1860–1917). They had one son and two daughters. Died 16 January 1942.
Shared his siblings’ distaste for John Brown’s ‘interference’.
8. LEOPOLD GEORGE DUNCAN ALBERT, Duke of Albany.
Born 7 April 1853. Married: 1882, Princess Helena Frederica Augusta of Waldeck and Pyrmont (1861–1922). They had two children. Died 28 March 1884.
As a child he seems to have been on fairly friendly terms with John Brown, who took him and his brother Arthur fishing. Hatred of Brown (and his brothers) was demonstrated in the ‘Stirling Dismissal’ episode.
9. BEATRICE MARY VICTORIA FEODORE.
Born 14 April 1857. Married: 1885, Prince Henry Maurice of Battenberg (1858–96). She had four children. Died 26 October 1944.
To her John Brown was ‘the ever present faithful servant’ and when he was around ‘one was safe’. Princess Beatrice and Prince Arthur were the executors to Queen Victoria’s will, and as her mother’s literary executor Princess Beatrice ‘edited’ her personal papers and vast collection of correspondence, deleting and destroying any mention of John Brown that might be construed as ‘compromising’ and open to misinterpretation.