The last princess : the devoted life of Queen Victoria's youngest daughter

This book is an engrossing biography of Queen Victoria's youngest daughter that focuses on her relationship with her willful mother -- a powerful and insightful look into two women of significant importance and influence in world history. Beatrice was the last child born to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Her father died when she was four and Victoria came to depend on her youngest daughter absolutely, and also demanded from her complete submission. Victoria was not above laying it down regally even with her own children. Beatrice succumbed to her mother's obsessive love, so that by the time she was in her late teens she was her constant companion and running her mother's office, which meant that when Victoria died her daughter became literary executor, a role she conducted with Teutonic thoroughness. And although Victoria tried to prevent Beatrice even so much as thinking of love, her guard slipped when Beatrice met Prince Henry of Battenberg. Sadly, Beatrice inherited from her mother the hemophilia gene, which she passed on to two of her four sons and which her daughter Victoria Eugenia, in marrying Alfonso XIII of Spain, in turn passed on to the Spanish royal family. This new examination will restore her to her proper prominence -- as Queen Victoria's second consort. - Jacket flap.

An engrossing biography of Queen Victoria’s youngest daughter that focuses on her relationship with her willful mother—-a powerful and insightful look into two women of significant importance and influence in world history.

Beatrice was the last child born to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Her father died when she was four and Victoria came to depend on her youngest daughter absolutely, and also demanded from her complete submission. Victoria was not above laying it down regally even with her own children. Beatrice succumbed to her mother’s obsessive love, so that by the time she was in her late teens she was her constant companion and running her mother’s office, which meant that when Victoria died her daughter became literary executor, a role she conducted with Teutonic thoroughness. And although Victoria tried to prevent Beatrice even so much as thinking of love, her guard slipped when Beatrice met Prince Henry of Battenberg. Sadly, Beatrice inherited from her mother the hemophilia gene, which she passed on to two of her four sons and which her daughter Victoria Eugenia, in marrying Alfonso XIII of Spain, in turn passed on to the Spanish royal family. This new examination will restore her to her proper prominence—-as Queen Victoria’s second consort.

Publishers Weekly

After the death of her beloved Prince Albert, Queen Victoria, an only child with a pathological fear of being alone, turned her ninth child, Beatrice, into her permanent companion, infantilizing her and robbing her of any chance of a normal life. The consequences for Beatrice were difficult: as Dennison shows, over the years the spunky young Beatrice turned docile and acquiescent. Some of her siblings resented her proximity to the seat of power. Victoria even determined never to let her companion marry, a vow she abandoned only when Beatrice, at age 27, fell in love with the German Prince Henry of Battenberg, who agreed to abandon his home and career and move in with his wife and mother-in-law. He died 10 years later, in the Ashanti War in Sierra Leone, where he had traveled with British forces in an effort to exert some personal independence. Beatrice mourned, then resumed her duties as her mother's companion. Dennison, a British journalist, does a fine job of laying out facts, but he doesn't spare readers his opinion. Though he's not impressed with Victoria's parenting skills and lack of consideration for Beatrice's emotional well-being, his compassion for his subjects is obvious. That, as much as his detailed portraits, will keep readers engaged. 16 pages of b&w photos. (Feb.)

Copyright 2007 Reed Business Information

Family trees 'It is a fine child' 'The most amusing baby we have had' 'Paroxysms of despair' 'The bright spot in this dead home' 'Beatrice is quite well' 'A nervous way of speaking and laughing' 'Auntie Beatrice sends you many loves' 'Youngest daughters have a duty to widowed mothers' 'The flower of the flock' 'A good, handy, thoughtful servant' 'She is my constant companion' 'Dear Beatrice suffered much from rheumatism' 'If only she could marry now' The handsomest family in Europe 'Many daughters have acted virtuously, but thou excelleth them all' 'The fatal day approaches' 'There now burnt a bewitching fiery passion' 'Capital fun' 'A simple life, with no great incidents' 'Blighted happiness' 'I have taken up my life again' 'I ... can hardly realize what life will be like without her' 'I have my dear Mother's written instructions' 'Osborne ... is like the grave of somebody's happiness' 'Please God the young couple may be very happy' 'Days of overwhelming anxiety' 'The older one gets more one lives in the past' 'She struggled so hard to "carry on"' A chronicle of Queen Victoria's youngest child, Beatrice, explores the close relationship between the princess and her mother, her romance with Prince Henry of Battenberg, and her role as literary executer after her mother's death.