There are also factual errors - for example, at one point it is said that the Queen's grand-daughter Princess Alix of Hesse was born in 1871 she was actually born in 1872. Ironically, this mean that the best part of the book comes in the chapters dealing with the long years after Queen Victoria's death.There are other, less intrusive, faults - for example, speculation on Beatrice's relations with her siblings based on very little evidence, and some contradictory evidence - for example, it is emphasised that after her husband's death the princess was not hysterical (and by extension better than her mother) and then on the next page there is a quotation from an in-law which shows quite the opposite.
First, there is the author's determination to comment repeatedly and excessively on Queen Victoria's motives for treating Beatrice in the way that she did - something which is certainly relevant but does not need to be emphasised over and over again. However, it is spoilt by a number of things. This biography of Princess Beatrice fills a gap, in terms of bringing together in one place most of the salient facts about her life. This new examination will restore her to her proper prominence-as Queen Victoria's second consort. 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. And although Victoria tried to prevent Beatrice even so much as thinking of love, her guard slipped when Beatrice met Prince Henry of Battenberg. 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. Victoria was not above laying it down regally even with her own children. Her father died when she was four and Victoria came to depend on her youngest daughter absolutely, and also demanded from her complete submission. 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.īeatrice was the last child born to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert.
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