PRINCESS HELENA
The birth of Princess Helena Augusta Victoria at Buckingham Palace, London, on 25th May 1846, was a traumatic affair for all involved.
Not only did her father Prince Albert, report the baby princess “came into this world quite blue” but her mother, the usually unflappable Queen Victoria, “suffered longer and more than the other times.”
It may have taken a while, but Queen Victoria did eventually get back to full health, and lived on for another half a century.
She also gave birth to four more children.
Princess Helena loved being the baby of the family, almost as much as she loved being one of the most talented daughters.
She could draw, play the piano, and ride horses.
She was also skilled in farm work, cooking, and cleaning ~ all of which Prince Albert insisted his daughters learn.
There was a great deal of rivalry in the royal nest, and Helena’s brothers were known to tease her at every opportunity.
Helena, however, had a simple solution for when their boyish behavior became too much ~ she bopped them on the nose!
When a new princess was born, however, the shine was soon taken away from Helena.
New baby, Princess Louise, not only took over the title of youngest girl, but she was also even more talented than Helena in almost everything ~ something which did not go down well with the now-older Helena.
The whole family was hit hard by the loss of Prince Albert in 1861, but 15-year-old Helena felt it particularly acutely.
She had been a ‘papa’s girl’ and might have turned to her mother for support, but the grieving queen handled the loss of her husband badly.
Victoria insisted on whisking the whole family away to Osborne House, on the Isle of Wight.
Queen Victoria naturally turned to her next oldest unmarried daughter, Princess Alice.
Alice began working as an impromptu secretary for Victoria, but soon found there was too much work for one daughter.
Naturally, Alice looked to her younger sister Helena as the next in line to help, but the Queen had other ideas.
Helena was deemed too emotional and too prone to tears, so Victoria bypassed her and recruited her childhood rival Louise instead.
Princess Helena was now pushed out of the family palace, and pushed aside from royal duties.
Helena was left feeling isolated and unsupported.
For four years from 1859 to 1863, a german man by the name of Carl Rulan, worked in the royal household.
He was a personal secretary and librarian to Prince Albert.
After Albert died, and Helena lost the emotional support of her family, she turned to Rulan and developed a romantic interest in him.
Upon finding out about the inappropriate affair, Queen Victoria immediately dismissed Rulan, and sent him back to Germany.
She then turned her attention to finding a suitable husband for her errant daughter, whether Helena liked it or not.
Princess Helena was described as “chunky, dowdy and double-chinned”.
She was not thought of as a classic beauty, even in the 19th century, so Queen Victoria’s plan to marry her off did not exactly inspire a raft of applicants.
After Helena’s sister Alice married in 1862, Queen Victoria was forced into giving her “emotional” daughter a chance at helping at the palace.
Much to Victoria’s surprise, Helena was excellent in the role, and became a valued companion to her previously dismissive mother.
Helena’s presence at the palace became so important to the Queen, that Victoria insisted any man who would marry her middle daughter, must come to live at the palace with them.
The husband chosen by Queen Victoria for Princess Helena caused divisions across Europe.
Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein was a minor Danish-born German prince, and not wealthy at all.
At the time of the engagement he was 34 years old, Helena was 19.
The young bride-to-be found her fiance, pleasing, gentlemanlike, quiet and distinguished.
The marriage went ahead, despite the ongoing protests from leading members of two of Europe’s royal families.
Helena and Christian would become husband and wife regardless of who was upset by their union.
The official royal wedding of the United Kingdom’s Princess Helena, and Germany’s Prince Christian, took place on 5th July 1866.
Princess Helena’s agreement to stay close to Queen Victoria, was fine in principle, but when Helena fell pregnant and gave birth in 1867, things inevitably changed.
Helena didn’t stop at one child.
Her second was born in 1869, a third in 1870, and a fourth in 1872.
The combined strains of constant pregnancy, raising a brood of young children, being a good wife to her husband, and an aide and confidant to her mother, soon became too much for Helena ~ and she found herself suffering from regular sickness.
Between 1869 and 1871, during which time she was almost continually pregnant, Helena suffered joint pain, rheumatism, and severe congestion in her lungs.
Her illnesses forced Helena to cancel several royal engagements, much to her Mother’s annoyance.
Victoria even accused her daughter of being a hypochondriac.
It wasn’t just the pressure of a complicated life, repeated pregnancies, and motherhood that contributed to Princess Helena’s poor health ~ she had also developed a reliance on drugs.
After being prescribed laudanum by her doctor, Helena became addicted to the tincture and to its root, opium.
Helena moved away from the royal court, and from her mother’s influence, and tried to find some peace in her life.
For much of 1873, Helena moved away to France to rest, recuperate, and rebuild her life.
After a gap of almost four years, by far the longest time of not being pregnant since her marriage, Princess Helena discovered she was expecting her fifth child.
After suffering years of poor health, Helena and Christian were overjoyed to see the child born on 12th May 1876, just two weeks before Helena’s 30th birthday.
Tragically, the child they named Harold did not survive long.
He died on May 20th.
Helena quickly became pregnant again, and gave birth almost exactly a year later, but the child was stillborn.
The grief caused Helena to become despondent and withdrawn.
She lost hope, and stopped seeking any treatment for her illnesses.
More sadness engulfed Helena, when her sister Alice died suddenly of diphtheria on 14th December 1879.
Helena was heartbroken.
Helena gradually found a way to move beyond the tragedies of her early thirties.
Helena decided to concentrate on spending time with her husband, and surviving children.
Helena also developed a passionate interest in Women’s Rights and organisations……something which shocked her mother to the core.
Queen Victoria was many things, but a feminist she was not.
During the 1880s, Princess Helena used her royal status to support the causes she believed in.
Helena saw nursing as a fundamentally important women’s industry, and made moves to support it in any way she could.
Having already been a patron of the British Red Cross since 1870, Helena became president of the newly founded British Nurses’ Association in 1887.
By 1892, the organization had received a royal charter, and had been renamed the Royal British Nurses’ Association (RBNA).
Helena campaigned for the creation of an official nursing registry, believing it would “improve the education and status of those devoted and self-sacrificing women.”
Despite her sickly and emotional reputation, Princess Helena thrived in being the leader of her organisations.
Taking a leaf from her mother’s book, she ruled with confidence and authority, not letting herself be hindered by what were now, quite severe emotional problems.
Princess Helena might have found her calling as a strong-headed leader for the projects she felt a passion for, but her drug addiction was still going strong.
By 1894, it was so severe both her husband and her mother were worried enough to intervene.
Prince Christian demanded Helena’s doctor begin weaning her off the drugs she had come to rely on.
The doctor agreed but Helena was furious, and demanded he stop restricting her supply.
In response, the doctor cut his patient off completely, and forced her to go cold turkey.
Helena became incredibly ill from withdrawal, and even lost her sight for some periods.
Eventually, the tough love approach worked, Helena had kicked her habit.
Meanwhile, Helena’s son Christian ~ now aged 33, had become a member of the British Army.
He had fought in battle and progressed to the rank of Major.
In 1899, Christian travelled to South Africa to join the British effort in the Second Boer War.
On 25th October, Helena received a telegram carrying the news Christian had contracted malaria while serving in Pretoria.
On 30th October, she received a second note.
Christian had died on 29th October, and would never return home.
He was buried in Pretoria, South Africa, on 1st November 1900.
Queen Victoria was 81 years old, when her grandson died in South Africa, she had already lost her eldest son Albert, in July of that same year
The Queen traveled to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight for Christmas, and soon fell into decline.
Princess Helena and her younger sister Beatrice, spent much of their time at their mother’s bedside.
As January began, Victoria was feeling “weak and unwell”
On 22nd January 1901, the great Queen Victoria died.
By now, Princess Helena had lost three children, two siblings, her father, and her mother.
On 5th August 1901, less than seven months after their mother’s death, Helena’s oldest sister Vicky, died.
Vicky had been diagnosed with inoperable breast cancer in late 1898.
The cancer then spread to her spine, and she was almost completely bedridden.
The tally of grief Helena carried, was increased once again.
Helena’s brother, King Edward VII, who smoked twenty cigarettes and twelve cigars a day, was crowned on 9th August 1902.
Just nine years later, on 6th May 1910, he suffered several heart attacks.
King Edward died at 11:45 pm that evening.
It was the second death of a monarch for the United Kingdom within a decade ~ and a fourth sibling lost for Helena, who was now the oldest survivor of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s children.
Four years after the death of Edward VII, the world went to war.
Helena’s second-oldest son Prince Albert, had taken a place in the military.
Albert, however, had joined the Prussian Army, and fought on the side of Germany throughout World War I.
For all its horrors, World War I brought an opportunity to the floundering Princess Helena.
Nurses had never been more in demand, and Helena’s passion and support for their work, meant she was already heavily involved in a number of nursing organisations.
Helena kept herself busy through the war, by making personal visits to as many hospitals as she was able to.
The British public loved her, for what was seen as her support for the ordinary working people.
Her husband, on the other hand, who she had now been married to for 50 years, was much less active.
Prince Christian was 86 years old when he died on 28th October 1917, at Schomberg House, one of the couple’s residences in London.
The last six years of Princess Helena’s life were, in public terms, very quiet.
She was a private person, who was never considered a senior royal.
By now, Helena had lost a great number of those close to her, and she lived out the remainder of her days in relative seclusion.
Although four of Princess Helena’s children reached adulthood, only one of them married.
Princess Marie Louise, Helena’s youngest daughter, married Prince Aribert of Anhalt.
However, the marriage only lasted nine years before it was annulled, and the two never had children.
It seemed Helena was destined never to become a grandmother.
That was until Prince Albert, who had fought for Germany in World War I, admitted he had fathered a child….
The daughter was born out of wedlock, and was therefore illegitimate.
The discovery of her existence was less a source of joy to Helena, than it was one of shame and scandal.
Shortly before her 77th birthday, Helena contracted influenza.
On 9th June 1923, she died of a heart attack at Schomberg House, the same place her husband had died less than six years previously.
The life of Princess Helena, middle child of Queen Victoria, was over.
