22

ENGLAND’S DAUGHTER

Even before Vicky and Fritz were married, misgivings were voiced about the union. Otto von Bismarck, the rising Prussian statesman, commented bluntly on the “English marriage”: “The ‘English’ in it does not please me … . If the Princess can leave the Englishwoman at home and become a Prussian, then she may be a blessing to the country … [but] if our future Queen … remains even only partly English, I can see our Court in danger of being surrounded by English influence.”¹ Many of Prussia’s ruling class shared Bismarck’s concerns. They were highly suspicious of England’s liberal concepts, such as a constitutional monarchy and expanded suffrage, both of which meant greater democracy. They recognized and were uncomfortable with one of the marriage’s main objectives—the promotion of interests advantageous to the bride’s country. In this, Vicky’s marriage was no different from those of Catherine of Aragon and Marie Antoinette; and ultimately Vicky’s task was no easier than Catherine’s or Marie Antoinette’s when it came to fulfilling those aspirations.

The seventeen-year-old had no illusions about her situation, writing to her father that “my position … has its difficulties which require to be considered.”² Vicky’s strongest detractors were the Junkers. Being the landed aristocracy, the Junkers, held a powerful position in Prussia—militarily, socially, and politically. Bismarck belonged to this class, which jealously guarded its privileges. Advocates of Prussia’s strident militarism, strong monarchy, and extreme conservatism, the Junkers disdained those who opposed them and their views. As potential disturbers of the equilibrium, liberal-leaning individuals such as Vicky were suspect in their eyes. Whereas Queen Victoria fondly referred to Vicky as “England’s daughter,”³ many Prussians derisively called her Die Engländerin, “the Englishwoman.” It may have been a fitting description for Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter, but the Junkers promoted the appellation in the pejorative, feeding nationalist paranoia.

Though Vicky had left her family in England, she was not independent of them. Nor did she find much in Prussia that was equal or superior to England and English ways. Within weeks of her arrival in Berlin, it was evident that Vicky would never shed her Englishness. When the Queen of Prussia reproached Vicky for sneezing in her presence, the princess, “looking rather like her mother,” gave her reply in a “clear voice ringing through the room”: “We do not have customs like that in our Court at home.”⁴ Vicky was never truly able to be discreet about her pro-English proclivities; and this indiscretion marked her out early for derision in Prussia. Added to this was the fact that Queen Victoria also wished to continue to have a strong influence over her daughter. Prince Albert concurred, telling Vicky that there was no conflict in her dual role of wife and daughter, but balancing that role would be a lifelong challenge for her. She confided to her father that “if I was to lose sight of my English title and dignity I should do myself and my husband much harm, besides be forgetting my duty to you and England.”⁵ Fritz himself knew and had always known that Vicky was English to the core. When, before their marriage, he returned to Bonn to further his education, Fritz intensified his English studies. Vicky, after all, “was England and England was Vicky, and if he could not be there he did everything he could to bring England to the banks of the Rhine.”⁶ Moreover, Fritz’s admiration for the British royal family and indeed the British agenda made him all the more supportive. As Fritz’s wife, Vicky never lost her pride as an Englishwoman.

The queen’s insistence on overseeing her daughter’s life mirrored Maria Theresa’s attitude toward Marie Antoinette. Confident in their maternal wisdom, both well-meaning mothers firmly believed that their daughters would be eager for their motherly advice. Vicky, like Marie Antoinette, was at once grateful and resentful. This was evident to Baron Stockmar, who, like Count Mercy before him, urged the royal mother to temper her zealous solicitude. Stockmar even approached Lord Clarendon, the foreign secretary, to seek his help in mitigating Queen Victoria’s zeal, confiding that “the Queen wishes to exercise the same authority and control over her [Vicky] that she did before her marriage; and she writes her constant letters full of anger and reproaches, desiring all sorts of things to be done that is [sic] neither right nor desirable.”⁷ Queen Victoria also demanded that Vicky write frequently, once complaining petulantly that “you have not written me one single word, for more than a week!! I am vexed, for you could easily have managed … to say: ‘I am well … . And this could have been done in 1 minute and would have given me pleasure … . You seem to think that if you can’t write to me a long letter you are not to write at all.”⁸ A contrite Vicky replied: “I promise never to let such a long time pass again without writing, but will you, dearest Mama, tell me that you have forgiven me.”⁹ Here again are shades of Maria Theresa and Marie Antoinette.

One year after her wedding, Vicky had accomplished the paramount role required of every female consort—one that eluded Catherine of Aragon and took Marie Antoinette years to achieve. She delivered a male heir who lived. On January 27, 1859, Vicky gave birth to a boy, the future Kaiser Wilhelm II (Willy). Queen Victoria was naturally disappointed at not being able to be with her daughter for the confinement, but she did send an English physician and nurse to her. The birth was excruciatingly painful; Fritz wrote to her mother of his wife’s “horrible screams and wails.”¹⁰ Mother and child were in grave danger. So traumatic was the birth that the doctor who delivered Willy declared that he never wanted to go through such an experience again. Vicky and Willy survived the ordeal to the relief of many, especially Queen Victoria; however the breech birth caused permanent damage to Willy’s arm, making it useless to him.

The news of the future Kaiser Wilhelm II’s birth was relayed to Queen Victoria at Windsor Castle with the words “A boy! God preserve mother and child!” And within an hour, the queen replied by telegram: “Is it a fine boy?”¹¹ To the baby’s Prussian grandmother, Queen Victoria confessed her disappointment at not being in Berlin, saying, “It is particularly grievous to me not to have been nearer my own beloved child during the most difficult hours of her young life. And now having to sit here far away, unable to see her and her little child even for a moment, this is almost more than I can bear!”¹²

Queen Victoria was again disappointed at being unable to attend the christening. She complained how “it almost breaks my heart not to witness our first grandchild christened! I don’t think I ever felt so bitterly disappointed about anything as about this!”¹³ It was not until late 1860 that Queen Victoria saw Willy for the first time. When she beheld him, the queen was touched, exclaiming: “Such a little love! He is a fine, fat child … . He has Fritz’s eyes and Vicky’s mouth … . We felt so happy to see him at last.”¹⁴

As much as she loved Willy, Vicky was terribly disappointed about his deformed arm. In fact, “her shame on account of the ‘mutilation’ of her first-born son was so deep in part because she knew how her enemies at court would gloat over this ‘flaw’ and use it against her.”¹⁵ Vicky also lamented the therapies Willy had to endure. For an hour each day, Willy had to wear a ghastly machine that was supposed to help correct a drooping neck, a syndrome brought about by the deformed arm. Vicky bewailed this treatment, writing, “I cannot tell you what I suffered when I saw him in that machine … . To see ones [sic] child treated like one deformed—it is really very hard.”¹⁶

Willy’s handicap and the excruciating birth did not keep Vicky from expanding her family. She soon emulated Queen Victoria in giving birth regularly. Willy was followed by Charlotte (1860), Henry (1862), Sigismund (1864), Viktoria “Moretta” (1866), Waldemar (1868), Sophie (1870), and Margarethe “Mossy” (1872). Vicky delighted in being a mother, particularly of young babies. She wrote to Fritz in 1871 of her joys in motherhood: “To have a baby at one’s breast … is the greatest joy of womanhood.” And in another letter: “All the pain of labour is nothing compared to the happiness of having such a dear little creature to hold & to nurse oneself.”¹⁷ Queen Victoria, who preferred older children, could never understand her daughter’s fuss over small babies. She once told Vicky, “Hardly anyone I know has such a culte for little Babies as you have.”¹⁸

Motherhood appeared to bring Queen Victoria and Vicky closer. When the latter visited her mother in England months after Willy’s birth, the queen marveled at how she and Vicky could talk almost as equals: “We are like 2 sisters!” ¹⁹ Vicky was delighted at this newfound closeness and eagerly wrote of it to Fritz: “Mama shows a kindness & love for me that I have not hitherto known, & which touches me deeply & makes me happy. We are together all day, more like sisters than like mother & daughter. We are more in harmony than ever before.—Everything I do is approved of, even my clothes meet with approval!!!!!!!!!”²⁰

As closely as she followed Vicky’s life, Queen Victoria also considered the futures of Vicky’s siblings, especially Bertie and Alice. Bertie’s undistinguished showing continued to preoccupy her. She bemoaned his lethargy and interest in clothes, his obsession with theater and parties. Though the strict regimen imposed upon the prince by his parents reaped lackluster results, his training continued. The prince was next sent to Oxford and also undertook foreign tours. Then an earnest search for what Queen Victoria hoped could be his salvation—a wife—was begun. Here, the queen relied on Vicky, who sent lists of candidates to ponder. Vicky’s favorite was the attractive Princess Alexandra (Alix) of Denmark. “I never set eyes on a sweeter creature than Princess Alix,” wrote Vicky enthusiastically to her mother. “She is lovely! … She is one of the most lady-like and aristocratic looking people I ever saw! She is as simple and natural and unaffected as possible.”²¹ By 1861, Alix was the family’s choice, with Prince Albert telling Vicky, “We dare not let her slip away.”²²

Sad events, however, took priority over plans to marry off the Prince of Wales. In March 1861, Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, died. The years had eased the strain that had existed between mother and daughter during the early part of Queen Victoria’s reign, so that Victoria sincerely mourned the loss of “that precious dearly beloved tender Mother … without whom I can’t imagine life.”²³ In Prussia, death also visited Vicky and Fritz when his grandfather King Frederick Wilhelm IV died in January. This was the first time Vicky faced death close up, and it made a profound impression on her. The king’s death signaled the accession of Fritz’s father as King Wilhelm I, making Fritz and Vicky the crown prince and crown princess of Prussia and thus but one heartbeat away from the throne. Then, in December, a third death, the most devastating, shattered Vicky and most especially Queen Victoria.

For some time, Prince Albert had been plagued by ill health. Overworked and stressed, the prince also had a far weaker constitution than his wife. He confided to Stockmar that his sufferings were “frightful” and that “sleepless nights and pain have pulled me down.”²⁴ He added, “I am well-nigh overwhelmed by business, as I do my utmost to save Victoria all trouble.”²⁵ Anxiety over Bertie added to Albert’s stress. In November he and Victoria were mortified to learn of their son’s sexual dalliance with an actress while the prince was stationed in Ireland. Interpreting this as Bertie’s downfall, Albert wrote to him and then confronted his son in person. Upon returning home, Prince Albert, who had previously been soaked to the skin during a visit to Sandhurst, fell ill. Typhoid set in. With chills racking his body, Albert’s deteriorating condition petrified Victoria.

Prince Albert’s final moments came on December 14, 1861, in the darkened Blue Room at Windsor Castle in Queen Victoria’s presence. “Oh yes, this is death,” the queen murmured, “I know it. I have seen this before.”²⁶ Prince Albert died, making the queen a widow at the age of forty-two. Lady Augusta Stanley, one of the ladies who was with her when the prince died, described what then happened: “The Queen fell upon him, called him by every endearing name; then sank into our arms and let us lead or carry her away to the adjoining room, when she lay on the sofa; then she summoned the children around her, to clasp them to her heart and assure them she would endeavour, if she lived, to live for them and her duty, and to appeal to them from henceforth to seek to walk in the footsteps of him whom God had taken to Himself.”²⁷ Victoria accepted God’s will in this, the most heart-wrenching tragedy in her life. Lady Stanley was sure of this, noting, “She felt that the God whose law of love and truth had been so deeply engraved in the heart of that adored husband, is a God of love, and that in love He had taken her treasure.”²⁸

When Vicky, who had been in Prussia, heard the news, she wrote to her mother: “Why has the earth not swallowed me up? To be separated from you at this moment is a torture which I can not describe.” On the same day, the newly widowed queen began her letter to Vicky: “My darling Angel’s child—Our Firstborn. God’s will be done.”²⁹ Vicky tried to comfort her mother by letter, saying that “Papa’s memory, Papa’s love shines like a bright star in our darkness and God’s almighty hand has poured his heavenly peace into our crushed souls and broken hearts! … How I pray that God may support you through it as he has done through the rest! … How I long to be with you, to be near you, to speak to you and see you.”³⁰

On the day after their father’s death, Alice sent a telegram to Vicky, saying: “Do come. Mama wants you so much.”³¹ But Vicky’s doctors ordered her to stay in Prussia. Fritz went to England in her stead. Despite her distress, the prince was full of admiration for his newly widowed mother-in-law, whose “greatness of soul in this most terrible of all unhappy times” shone through.³² One of the queen’s ladies noted a similar strength amid the despair, recording, “This frightful blow has left her in utter desolation; she is wonderful, however, saying, ‘they need not be afraid, I will do my duty.’”³³

Queen Victoria described herself to King Leopold as “utterly broken-hearted and crushed … . My life as a happy one is ended! The world is gone for me! If I must live on … it is henceforth for our poor fatherless children—for my unhappy country, which has lost all in losing him—and in only doing what I know and feel he would wish, for he is near me—his spirit will guide and inspire me! But oh! to be cut off in the prime of life—to see our pure, happy, quiet, domestic life, which alone enabled me to bear my much disliked position, CUT OFF at forty-two … is too awful, too cruel!”³⁴ Days later, Victoria described herself as dragging “on a weary, pleasureless existence! … I am also determined that no one person may he be so good, ever so devoted among my servants—is to lead or guide or dictate to me. I know how he would disapprove it. And I live on with him, for him; in fact I am only outwardly separated from him, and only for a time.”³⁵

Both Victoria and Maria Theresa were widowed suddenly in their forties. The queen and the empress not only reacted strongly to their husbands’ deaths but never ceased to mourn the men they loved. Yet in their desire to be left alone in their bereavement—a retreat from public life that Queen Victoria immediately sought—both women never lost sight of their duties as sovereigns. Though neither ceased to mourn her husband, both eventually emerged from their self-imposed seclusion to take their places in the world. Queen Victoria’s mourning and commemorating of the Prince Consort went beyond wearing widow’s weeds. She had the room he died in made into a shrine, and clothes were freshly laid out for Albert as if he were still alive. Victoria also erected a granite mausoleum at Frogmore, near Windsor, in the form of a Greek cross. There, both their remains would eventually lie together. The most spectacular memorial was the Victorian Gothic structure known as the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, which rose to 180 feet. Consisting of a bronze gilt statue of the prince under an elaborate Gothic canopy, the memorial continues to be one of London’s most striking monuments.

A month after the Prince Consort’s death, Queen Victoria was still reeling. She expressed her sorrow to Fritz in a letter: “Everything is going as badly with me as possible. I live on from hour to hour in the most horrible dream with my broken heart, and long to follow him soon! … I am inexpressibly unhappy.”³⁶

When Vicky was allowed to visit her grieving mother at Osborne in February 1862, the princess wrote of her impressions and feelings to Fritz: “How madly I long for you, my angel,” went the letter. “How I miss you and how I miss him whom I worshipped, his step, his dear dear voice, his beloved face … . Darling Mama, oh it is touching to see her, she looks so young and pretty with her white cap and widow’s weeds; she bears her sorrow so well in a resigned and Christian spirit, it grieves me deeply when I see her crying and think how formerly Papa comforted her, and now she is so alone.”³⁷ Vicky’s letters to Fritz at this time illustrate the bond that Queen Victoria and her oldest daughter shared, a bond so rare in royal circles: intensely happy marriages. “Mama is dreadfully sad,” Vicky wrote, “she cries a lot; then there is always the empty room, the empty bed, she always sleep[s] with Papa’s coat over her and his dear red dressing-gown beside her and some of his clothes in the bed! … Poor Mama has to go to bed, has to get up alone—for ever. She was as much in love with Papa as though she had married him yesterday, I see that daily, she feels the same as your little Frauchen … and is always consumed with longing for her husband. I should feel just the same … . Mama had so desperately longed for another child. The central point is missing, we wander around like sheep without a shepherd.”³⁸

After the Prince Consort died, Queen Victoria looked to Fritz to help sustain her, telling him: “You alone are my support in my infinite loneliness and boundless sorrow which increases day by day … . For I feel so strongly how inferior I am to him, that ingenious man, who was the pride and also the life and light of the house and country.”³⁹

In the immediate aftermath of Albert’s death, the queen leaned heavily on her second eldest daughter, Alice. Victoria’s emotions had crashed to precipitous lows. Without the eighteen-year-old Alice’s assiduous ministrations and mature countenance, the queen might easily have collapsed into a profound melancholia. Not as brilliant as Vicky, who would have easily helped Victoria had she been by her side in those days right after Prince Albert died, Alice was nevertheless indispensable. From her seclusion, the grieving queen relied on Alice to deal on her behalf with ministers. Alice also tried to rally the queen. In a letter to her mother, who had remained in seclusion at Osborne House, Alice urged: “Take courage, dear Mama, and feel strong in the thought that you require all your moral and physical strength to continue the journey which brings you nearer to Home and to Him. … Bear patiently and courageously your heavy burden, and it will lighten imperceptibly as you near him, and God’s love and mercy will support you.”⁴⁰

Alice did not stay by Queen Victoria’s side for long, since Victoria had given her permission to marry Prince Louis of Hesse in July 1862, largely because this had been settled while Prince Albert was still alive. The wedding ceremony, held in the dining room at Osborne House, was a forlorn event, with a trousseau consisting largely of black gowns. Even Queen Victoria described the ceremony to Vicky as “more funeral than a wedding.”⁴¹ The bride looked somber and haggard, far older than her nineteen years.

With Vicky’s and Alice’s futures settled, concerns regarding Bertie persisted. The queen continued to blame her eldest son for his father’s death, albeit indirectly and unfairly, and told Vicky, “Oh! that boy … . I never can or shall look at him without a shudder … . I try to employ and use him—but I am not hopeful.”⁴² And in another letter the queen told Vicky: “Poor Bertie!—he is very affectionate and dutiful but he is very trying … his listlessness and want of attention are great, and cause me much anxiety.”⁴³ Prussia’s crown princess commiserated and also feared for her own son, telling the queen: “Poor Bertie, how I pity him!—but what sorrow he does cause … . The education of sons is an awful responsibility and a great anxiety and it is bitter indeed if they do not repay one for one’s care and trouble—it makes me tremble when I think of my little William and the future!”⁴⁴

All still perceived the solution to Bertie’s dissipation as marriage. After the Prince Consort’s death, Vicky continued to champion Princess Alix and acted as matchmaker, motivated by the approval Prince Albert had given the match before his death. The couple married in March 1863 at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, with the queen watching from Catherine of Aragon’s Closet above the altar, dressed in mourning. Vicky’s four-year-old son, Willy, created a scene when he bit his hemophiliac uncle, Leopold, on the leg. Queen Victoria came to like her daughter-in-law, whom she later described to Vicky as being “calm and sweet and gentle and lovely. Very clever I don’t think she is, but she is right-minded and sensible and straightforward.”⁴⁵

Since the queen persisted in being the reclusive widow, the Prince and Princess of Wales soon became the leaders of London society. During the early years of her marriage, Alix’s increasing deafness and frequent pregnancies did not stop her from trying to keep up with her husband’s entertaining. Soon, fashionable society centered on their London home, Marlborough House. Queen Victoria disapproved of the prince’s late nights and parties and, later, his infidelities. She was grateful that Alix remained devoted to Bertie through it all, choosing to focus on her children: Eddy, George, Louise, Victoria, and Maud. Pleased to see the succession to the throne secured with the Wales children, Queen Victoria nevertheless confided to Vicky about her disappointment in the first three, describing them as such “miserable, puny, little children (each weaker than the preceding one) that it is quite a misfortune.”⁴⁶

The Prince of Wales could never live up to Queen Victoria’s ideals as embodied by the late Prince Consort. She complained to Vicky about Bertie and Alix, “both looking as ill as possible. We are seriously alarmed about her—for though Bertie writes and says he is so anxious to take care of her, he goes on going out every night till she will become a skeleton … . I am quite unhappy about it. Oh! how different poor, foolish Bertie is to adored Papa whose gentle, loving, wise, motherly care of me when he was not 21 exceeded everything.”⁴⁷

Much as she disapproved of the couple’s social whirl, Victoria was herself partly to blame. As she remained reclusive—even five years after Prince Albert’s death still absenting herself from London—high society hungered for arbiters, naturally gravitating toward her heir. The queen finally began emerging from seclusion when she opened Parliament in 1866—but then only grudgingly. She may have worked assiduously in private, but she still clung to her grief “with all the intensity of her nature” and in the process plunged the court “into its long period of mourning.”⁴⁸ This mourning largely took place at Osborne and Balmoral, Queen Victoria’s favorite homes.

The queen’s Scottish retreat, hundreds of miles from London and in a desolate area where Victoria could enjoy the cold, damp weather, was particularly appealing. Impervious to the cold, Victoria, like Maria Theresa, preferred to have windows open even when it was chilly outside. Also at Balmoral was the queen’s favorite gillie, John Brown. In his late thirties, the blue-eyed, bearded Brown had an undeniably masculine appeal, and certainly the queen had always appreciated manliness. But it was Brown’s bluntness, devotedness, and observations that most struck a chord with the middle-aged Victoria. By 1865 he was a permanent fixture at the queen’s side. She told Vicky, “As for Brown I never saw such an unselfish servant … and my comfort—my service are really his only objects.”⁴⁹ His brusqueness seemed like fresh air to the highly circumspect queen. Unperturbed by familiar talk from Brown, Victoria was instead comforted by it. In one such exchange, Brown was heard shouting at the queen after she pricked her chin, “Hoots, then, wumman, can ye no hold yerr head up?”⁵⁰

The unlikely closeness between the rugged Scots gillie and the imposing monarch was such that by 1868 whispers of “Mrs. Brown” could be heard in reference to the queen. Brown remained by Victoria’s side for nearly twenty years, until his death. Whatever people thought of the gillie, and many, including the queen’s older children, found him unbearable, there was no denying that he helped Victoria emerge from her grief over Prince Albert. Moreover, Brown’s support helped Victoria take the reins in leading her family. With Baron Stockmar and King Leopold also dead, Queen Victoria’s value as an adviser within the family correspondingly rose.

As monarch, matriarch, and adviser, the queen now had complete command over her family. This was in evidence during a family dinner party, dominated by her awe-inspiring presence. Of that evening, Prince Nicholas of Greece recorded: “Despite the fact that it was an intimate family circle, I noticed that my uncle and aunt and all my other relations seemed somewhat intimidated, and whenever the Queen asked them a question they replied with an expression of the deepest reverence.”⁵¹ Prince Nicholas was also struck by Victoria’s imposing presence. Despite being small in stature and dressed in her habitual black widow’s weeds and veil, the queen had an appearance “marked by a dignity and majesty so great that anyone who saw her for the first time could not help being profoundly impressed.” She was, concluded the prince, “a Queen in everything and at all times.”⁵²

Head of an ever-burgeoning family, Victoria embraced the mantle of matriarch. And nowhere were her attentions more focused than toward Vicky and Prussia. Queen Victoria continued to pay close attention to the situation in Prussia, where she hoped Fritz’s father would move toward a constitutional monarchy in the British model, as Prince Albert had envisioned. Vicky and Fritz nearly had their chance in September 1862, when Wilhelm I threatened to abdicate because of a dispute with Parliament. Vicky urged Fritz to accept his father’s offer of the throne, but he refused. He was too attached to his father and the Hohenzollern traditions to seize the opportunity. Fritz noted forlornly: “We are faced with the worst—the idea of abdication! May God help us!”⁵³ His reticence inadvertently opened the door to Otto von Bismarck’s domination of German affairs. Since Fritz would not step into the breach, Bismarck did, becoming King Wilhelm’s first minister. It was one of those unheralded roads not taken. Had Wilhelm I abdicated, “the name Bismarck would never have been heard of outside Germany. Thus the third week of September in 1862 may be seen as one of those turning points in history, silent, unnoticed, but almost infinite in their consequences.”⁵⁴

The political maelstrom that erupted in 1862 in Prussia placing liberals against conservatives extended to the senior members of the Prussian royal family, pitting the king, who naturally leaned toward the conservatives, against his wife, Fritz, and Vicky. When Fritz daringly opposed his father’s unconstitutional leanings, the crown prince and princess found themselves in a quandary. Vicky told her mother of being “in a dreadful position, the country loudly clamouring for Fritz to come forward and he receiving the most peremptory commands from the King and no thanks for the tact and self denial Fritz has been showing the last whole year—only reproaches for having opposed the King.”⁵⁵ “We are,” added Vicky, “in a sad state of perplexity and alarm and quite alone—without assistance or advice.”⁵⁶ She concluded the letter with the anxious words “Dear Mama, pity us and think of your much tormented and affectionate and dutiful daughter.”⁵⁷ The princess also confided to her mother that “we are surrounded with spies, who watch all we do, and most likely report all to Berlin, in a sense to checkmate everything we do.”⁵⁸

Victoria was beside herself with worry, telling Vicky: “Oh! dearest child! How distressed I feel for you both! And darling Papa, not being here to help us and advise us! If I only could be of any use I would do anything to save you sorrow and anxiety!”⁵⁹ The queen added, “This house—your old home—sad and shaken as it is—is open for you. Come here with the children and you can be with us or in town, or in the country or wherever you like—only don’t stay in Prussia.”⁶⁰ Vicky could not help but compare Prussia with her homeland, writing to her mother: “The way in which the Government behave, and the way in which they have treated Fritz, rouse my every feeling of independence. Thank God, I was born in England, where people are not slaves, and too good to allow themselves to be treated as such.”⁶¹ And in another letter, Vicky wrote, “If it becomes necessary for us to leave the country, I can hardly say how grateful we shall be to be once again with you, in that blessed country of peace and happiness!” ⁶² Vicky must have been gratified to read her mother’s words: “You are the best and wisest adviser [Fritz] could have … . May God bless and protect you and guide you in your arduous and difficult task!”⁶³ The crisis eventually passed, but the experience confirmed Vicky’s suspicions about Bismarck, who did nothing of significance to help Fritz during this trying time.

With Bismarck’s fortunes in the ascendant, Vicky saw trouble ahead. Already in 1859, she had warned Queen Victoria that he was a “false and dangerous adversary.”⁶⁴ And to Fritz in 1862, the princess lamented: “For God’s sake, anyone but him as minister.”⁶⁵ Bismarck was, after all, the mastermind of German unification who in 1862 had famously proclaimed that the great questions of the day were not to be decided by parliamentary speeches and majority votes but by “iron and blood.”

The arrival on the political scene of Otto von Bismarck as minister-president in 1862 meant increased difficulties for Vicky and Fritz. A proponent of fiercely conservative views, Bismarck was to use every opportunity to undermine the couple. To counter their influence and cement his own, he cleverly cultivated Wilhelm I’s natural conservatism. Once Bismarck became a power to be reckoned with, he “played Wilhelm I like a virtuoso … . It was a fine performance, signifying a unique talent that Bismarck would use to the awe of his supporters and the despair of his enemies.”⁶⁶ Vicky saw through it all. The crown princess related Prussia’s political troubles to her mother in writing: “Our affairs here are in a lamentable state—indecision, confusion and mistakes of all kinds … . The reactionary party get stronger every day and have the King now completely on their side and in their power.”⁶⁷ Vicky foresaw nothing but trouble in the man who would become the architect of the German Empire. “This country seems to me like a ship tossing about … a reckless, inexperienced and short-sighted man (B) at the helm and storms gathering around—ourselves and our children at his mercy!” she complained to the queen.⁶⁸

Victoria sympathized with her beleaguered daughter’s plight, urging Vicky to remember: “Always, dear child, write to me anything you hear and are anxious about, just as you did to dear Papa.”⁶⁹ The remarkably close relationship between Victoria and Vicky was forged during these difficult years, when the crown princess was in her early twenties. Though Vicky was not yet empress and the German Empire not yet proclaimed, 1861 to 1864 “are important years in the history of the [royal] family and of the two countries, for they mark the slow—the pitiably slow—emergence of the Queen from the shadows of sorrow and the alarmingly rapid development of Prussia, bringing in its train the beginning of the rivalry between England and Germany which was to last for eighty years.”⁷⁰

Prussia’s rising status took on added momentum under Bismarck’s leadership. With the goal of unifying the German states under undisputed Prussian domination, Bismarck engineered three wars that would lead to the creation of the German Empire. In 1864, in the first of these wars, Prussia and Austria together wrestled the provinces of Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark’s control in an easily won conflict. Within Queen Victoria’s own family, the war over Schleswig-Holstein generated heated feelings. Alix, the Princess of Wales, naturally sided vehemently with her father, with Bertie staying loyal to Alix. To the princess, Prussia was the predator bent on stealing Denmark’s provinces. Vicky, meanwhile, supported Prussian ambitions. Annoyed at the carping within her family, Victoria finally ordered the subject out of bounds in her homes. Thus, Otto von Bismarck’s shadow had extended even into the British royal family.

As the years passed, the battle between Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter and the wily Prussian Junker intensified. In some respects Bismarck and Vicky were similar. Though he was twenty-six years her senior, Bismarck, like the crown princess, was perceptive and fought tenaciously for a chosen cause. Neither was docile or unambitious; both were daring and unafraid of provocations. Here then were “two remarkable personalities, each watchful and guarded like two expert duellists who realise the skill of the other.”⁷¹ Well aware of Vicky’s abilities and forcefulness, Bismarck was always extremely wary of her influence on Fritz and her impact on Prussia. The first minister was correct in this, for Vicky did not hesitate to tell Fritz her political opinions, but she did so always with his and Prussia’s best interests at heart. In one letter, Vicky warned her husband: “You owe it to your future, to the country and to your children to keep aloof from everything which might lead the people to have an erroneous idea of your political convictions, or that might shake the confidence which you have won by your liberal attitude and your collaboration with Ministers holding those opinions. This is really your duty and in no way conflicts with that to your father. Please, please, dearest, listen to your little wife who only thinks of your welfare and who lives for you and is so proud of you. I am afraid you are too good and think that you are doing your duty by sacrificing your opinion to that of your dear Papa. You have other duties, which in my opinion, take first place.”⁷²

Vicky’s lot in Prussia was not an easy one. The crown princess may have had a loving husband who shared her political convictions, but they were thwarted in their attempts to promote a liberal agenda, especially with Bismarck watching their every move. In a long letter to Queen Victoria, Vicky had poured out her frustrations: “You cannot think how painful it is to be continually surounded by people who consider your very existence a misfortune and your sentiments evidence of lunacy! … Do not think it easy, dear Mama; it costs me many and many a hard struggle. I know what a responsibility I take upon myself in taking advantage of my husband’s reliance on my judgement and in giving any advice as positively as I can.”⁷³ Vicky was conscious of her reputation in Berlin and told her mother so: “It is very disagreeable to me to be thought meddling and intriguing … . I should like to conciliate all parties and particularly to live in peace with all those by whom we are surrounded, whose affection I know I could gain if I sought it by having no opinion of my own. But I should not be a free-born English-woman and your child if I did not set all those things aside as minor considerations. I am very ambitious for the country, for Fritz and the children and so I am determined to brave all the rest!” However, she also confessed, “I have not a bright prospect before me,” especially when she admitted that many look “upon me with jealousy as a stranger and as an Englishwoman … continually say[ing] I dislike Germany, I cannot get accustomed to live out of England, I wish to change everything and make everything English.”⁷⁴ Queen Victoria replied with understanding, agreeing that “your position is indeed a very difficult one.”⁷⁵ It would not become easier.

Four years later, the tone in Vicky’s letters to her mother continued to highlight her struggle at the Berlin court. “Our children,” went one, “are universally pitied for having the great misfortune of having me for their Mama with my ‘unglücklichen englischen Ideen’ [unfortunate English ideas] and ‘unpreussichen Gesinnungen’ [un-Prussian views]. It is supposed they cannot possibly turn out well. This I am so accustomed to hear that I have got quite used to it and do not care a straw for all their ‘bosh.’ I trust my children may grow up like my Fritz, like Papa, like you—and as unlike the rest of the Prussian royal family as possible; then they can be good patriots and useful to their country, call it Prussia or call it Germany.”⁷⁶

In 1870, Fritz confided sadly in his diary that in Berlin, “the order of the day is to vilify my wife.”⁷⁷ At least Vicky took consolation in the crown prince, as she proudly admitted to her mother: “I have a husband who loads me with undeserved kindness, indulgence and confidence, with whom I live in unity and happiness and whom I daily learn to respect, admire and love!”⁷⁸