Queen Victoria's Grandchildren, Part 2 Quiz

Answer: Frogmore House

Bertie was not present and the birth, and had been ice-skating before it and had to be recalled urgently. 'Eddy', as he was called, was a puny child, weighing only three pounds. Naturally, being the Prince of Wales' first son and someone who would likely succeed to the throne of England, he had to be called Albert Victor, after his grandparents.
When she saw the child, three days after his birth, Queen Victoria reported to her daughter the Crown Princess of Prussia that Eddy was 'quite healthy and thriving. It has a very pretty face, well-shaped, round head, with very good features, a nice forehead, a very marked nose, beautiful little ears and pretty little hands.'
Given the fact the Queen herself often referred to her own children as 'frog-like' when they were babies, this was a compliment indeed.

Answer: Queen Louise of Denmark

Alix's mother, Queen Louise, was delighted that it was another boy, a fact which undoubtedly secured Alix's position as Princess of Wales. This time, Alix and Bertie had predetermined the child's names. He was to be called George ('as we like the name and it is an English one') Frederick, after his Danish ancestors, and since two names is never enough for a prince, they tacked on Ernest and Albert as well.

He was always known as 'Georgy' in the family.

Answer: Rheumatic fever

This left Alix with a permanent limp, which was often copied by other society ladies as a fashion. Louise, thankfully, was quite healthy, though in later life she would be constantly abed with various illnesses.
She was christened on May 10th 1867, Louise after her grandmother the Queen of Denmark, Alexandra after her mother, Victoria (naturally) after her other grandmother and Dagmar after her Danish aunt, Alix's favorite sister ('Minnie' to the family). As a child, the princess was sometimes called Lulu.

Answer: John Dalton

The Prince picked Dalton because he believed that the man would encourage and instruct them without dampening the natural high spirits of the children. He stayed with Eddy and Georgy a long time, and seemed to regard educating Eddy as a divinely appointed mission, even when it became obvious in later years that the lethargic Eddy was a veritable imbecile.

Answer: Queen Victoria

The Queen could scarcely conceal her boredom at the arrival of this fourteenth grandchild and seventh granddaughter. She referred to the baby as a 'mere little red lump'. Victoria's comments were somewhat hypocritical - she herself had four children within four and a half years of marriage.

The Princess was called 'Toria' to distinguish herself from her aunt, the Crown Princess of Prussia ('Vicky') in family correspondence.

Answer: Harry

She was called this because she was a tomboy. The 'Harry' came from the Prince of Wales's friend, Admiral Harry Keppel. The very close friends of the family, though, knew Louise, Toria and Maud as 'Toots', 'Gawks' and 'Snipey' respectively. The obsession with nicknames in Queen Victoria's family was explained by the fact that they had so many people with the same name.

There were no less than eight Victorias among the grandchildren, if you included those christened with the name and those known by the name.

As for the boys, there were three Alberts.

Answer: Eddy needed the stimulus of Georgy's company to help him work

Despite the difference in character, Eddy seemed curiously dependent on Georgy, and hated being apart from his brother for any long stretch of time. Georgy was already showing signs of being like his father at a similar age (though the cultured Prince of Wales, who could speak four languages by the age of six, was by far more intelligent than his son).

He was hearty, robust and amusing. Eddy took more after Princess Alexandra. Even the resemblance between them was striking. Eddy was lethargic, seemingly so unintelligent it bordered on imbecility.

In fact, none of the Wales children received a particularly good education (like the children of George III, with the exception of George IV, and unlike the children of Queen Victoria), but Eddy was notably stupid.

Answer: Pollen

They had been visiting a botanical garden, and had sniffed some exotic flowers. While in the navy, though, Georgy did indeed get tattooed, on his forearms. It is very unlikely that his father ever knew about this, though he may have told his sympathetic mother.

Answer: 1919

John, the son of George V and Queen Mary, was an epileptic, and always kept away from the public eye. As for Alexander John, the Prince of Wales was so upset that he cried profusely at the infant's burial. Though the Princess of Wales was only 28, the loss of Alexander John soured her mind toward child bearing and there were to be no more additions to the Wales nursery.

After this, the name John was considered unlucky by the royal family (taking into account, also, the disastrous reign of King John from 1199 to 1216).

There has not been a royal John since, though there were rumors that Diana, Princess of Wales, wanted to call her elder son John after her father but was informed of this tradition.

Answer: Prince Charles of Denmark

Charles (Carl in Danish) was the son of Maud's uncle, Crown Prince Frederick, the Princess of Wales's eldest brother. Though she moved to Denmark to live with Charles, Maud retained a house on the Sandringham estate, Appleton, a gift from her father, where she spent six to eight weeks every year. Maud's quiet world was turned upside down in 1905, when Charles was elected king of the newly independent Norway.

As his queen, Maud performed her duties admirabley, though she still stayed out of the spotlight whenever possible.

Answer: Victoria

Toria spent her whole life looking after her mother, the rather possessive Queen Alexandra. For a time it had seemed as though she would marry the Liberal Prime Minister Lord Roseberry, but Edward VII felt that this was inappropriate. Toria became akin to an unpaid servant to her mother, and many a time Toria would interrupt something she was doing to rush to Mama's side only to find that Alix had forgotten what she wanted in the first place.

It was noted that wherever Their Majesties went, Princess Victoria was in attendance like a devoted maid.

As a result, Toria eventually became an embittered and sharp tongued old maid, whose young relatives hated her. The Duchess of Beaufort, Queen Mary's niece, recalled that 'as a child, we all absolutely hated Princess Victoria.' Toria's own nephew, the future Edward VIII, declared that she was 'a bitch of the first order.' Whenever the idea of Toria's marriage would be broached to Alix, the Princess would appear to agree, and then later protest that she had not heard a word of the conversation.

It soon became clear that the Princess of Wales wasn't afraid to use her deafness as a weapon.

Answer: Duke of Fife

Macduff was eighteen years Louise's senior, but she seemed happy enough. A daughter, Alexandra, was born in 1891 and another, Maud, in 1893. King Edward VII promoted these girls to the style of Their Highnesses, Princesses Alexandra and Maud of Fife. At the same time (1905), he made Louise, Princess Royal.

She lived life as a recluse, and only the presence of her glamorous daughter Alexandra, who became Duchess of Fife when Macduff died in 1912, at society parties served to remind the public of her existence. Alexandra married her cousin, Prince Arthur of Connaught.

Answer: Alicky of Hesse

Queen Victoria said that Alicky rejected 'the greatest position there is' when she lost the chance to become Duchess of Clarence (Eddy had been made Duke of Clarence in 1890), Princess of Wales and eventually Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India. Needless to say, Eddy didn't mind - he had already lost his heart to first Princess Helene d'Orleans and then to Lady Sibyl St Claire Erskine.
Finally a suitable girl was found in Princess Victoria Mary ('May') of Teck, daughter of Duke Francis of Teck and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, granddaughter of George III. May was intelligent and attractive, if a little serious. Best of all, she venerated the throne, and had great respect for Queen Victoria.
In 1891, Eddy dutifully proposed, and May accepted him.

Answer: Inflammation of the lungs

Princess Alexandra felt the blow of Eddy's death very hard - he had always been her favorite child. Thus she considered it an insult to Eddy's memory when the Duke of York (Georgy) became engaged to May soon after Eddy's death. She soon came round however, and Georgy married May in 1893.

As Queen Mary, she would make an admirable consort, living on till 1953, seventeen years after her husband's death in 1936.

Answer: Maud

Louise, always delicate, died in 1931. Ironically, the public often confused her with her aunt, Louise, Duchess of Argyll, daughter of Queen Victoria, who lived on until 1939 and exercised her duties with the energy of a woman a fraction of her age.
Toria, miserable and bitter, died in 1935, alone in her house in Buckinghamshire. She had always been Georgy's favorite sister, and her death signaled the end for him too. In January 1936, the King's physician Lord Dawson of Penn reported that King George V's life was 'moving peacefully toward its close.' He died on 20th January.
Queen Maud of Norway was the sole surviving Wales grandchild of Queen Victoria now. She died suddenly but peacefully in her sleep in 1938.
All in all, the children of Edward VII had not proved particularly robust - of all of them, only George V reached the age of seventy, compared to Queen Victoria's last three surviving children, who outlived all of them to die in their eighties and nineties.