Princess Elisabeth of Hesse
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
-
This article is about the daughter of Grand Duke Ernest Ludwig of Hesse. For information on Princess Elisabeth of Hesse, Grand Duchess Sergei of Russia, see Grand Duchess Elizabeth Fyodorovna.
| Princess Elisabeth of Hesse | |
|---|---|
 Princess Elisabeth of Hesse
|
|
| Born | March 11, 1895 Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany |
| Died | November 6, 1903 Skierniewice, Poland |
| Occupation | Royalty. |
| Parents | Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha |
Princess Elisabeth of Hesse (Elisabeth Marie Alice Viktoria) (11 March 1895 - 6 November 1903), nicknamed Ella, was the only daughter of Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and his first wife, Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Contents |
[edit] Life
Elisabeth's paternal grandparents were Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom. Her maternal grandparents were Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Maria Alexandrovna of Russia. Alice and Alfred were siblings.
Her parents 'Ernie' and 'Ducky' did not have a happy marriage. The cousins had married against their wishes by the unanswerable will of their common grandmother, Victoria of the United Kingdom. [1]
Princess Victoria Melita was eighteen at the time of Elisabeth's birth. She was fond of Elisabeth but in an absentminded way. Her father, on the other hand, was enchanted by his daughter from her earliest days. With enthusiasm, he took over her care, convinced - even before she could speak-that he alone could understand her.
At the age of six months, she was scheduled to move to a new nursery and her father 'consulted' her on her color preferences. He claimed that she made 'happy little squeals' when he showed her a particular shade of lilac material. Ernie then decorated her nursery in shades of lilac. [2] Ernie later had a playhouse built for his daughter that stood in its own garden. Adults were forbidden to enter "much to the frustration of royal nurses and tutors, who could be seen pacing up and down impatiently outside as they waited for their high-spirited young charges to stop their games and emerge." [3]
Margaret Eagar, a governess for the daughters of Tsar Nicholas II, described Elisabeth as "a sweet and pretty child, with wide grey-blue eyes and a profusion of dark hair. She was much like her mother, not only in face, but also in manner." The four-year-old Elisabeth wanted a baby sister and tried to persuade her aunt and uncle to let her parents adopt one of her first cousins, Tatiana or Maria. [4]
In his memoirs, written more than thirty years after her death, her father wrote of Elisabeth's "deep sensitivity" and "very large heart." He wrote that "I never knew a child who had so much influence on adults. Her inner personality was very strong, and she had a natural quality that protected her from being spoiled." [5]
Around October 1901 her parents divorced, her mother having previously embarked on an affair with another cousin, her future husband, Grand Duke Kyril Vladimirovitch of Russia. Her parents' divorce meant that Elisabeth divided her year between Darmstadt and her mother's new home in Coburg. Elisabeth was mistrustful of her mother; however, Ducky enjoyed turning her daughter into an outstanding horsewoman. But otherwise, Elisabeth did not fit into her mother's adult world.
In his memoirs, Ernie said he had difficulty persuading Elisabeth to visit her mother. Before one visit, he found the child "whimpering under a sofa, full of despair." He assured Elisabeth that her mother loved her too. "Mama says she loves me, but you do love me," Elisabeth replied. [6]
Margaret Eagar thought the child's eyes were the saddest she had ever seen. "Looking at her I used to wonder what those wide grey-blue eyes saw, to bring such a look of sadness to the childish face," she wrote. Eagar wondered if Elisabeth had a premonition of her own death because she often told her cousin Grand Duchess Olga Nikolaevna of Russia that "I shall never see this again." However, despite Elisabeth's sad eyes, she was generally a sweet, happy child who was a peacemaker when her cousins had a dispute. [4]
[edit] Death and Funeral
In 1903, Elisabeth and her father went to stay with Ernie's younger sister, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia and her family. At the imperial family's hunting lodge in Skierniewice, Poland, Elisabeth awoke with a sore throat and pains in her chest, which the Russian Court doctor put down to too much excitement with her cousins the previous day. The imperial party went ahead to the theater as planned. By the evening Elisabeth was in even more severe pain and had started gasping for breath. The doctor was certain she had a virulent form of typhoid, although rumours flew that she had eaten poison intended for uncle-by-marriage Nicholas II of Russia.
The doctor gave her injections of caffeine and camphor to stimulate her slowing heart, but without success.
"Suddenly she sat up in her bed and looked from one to the other of us with wide, frightened eyes," wrote Eagar. "She cried out suddenly, 'I'm dying! I'm dying!' She was coaxed to lie down again, but remained agitated. "The child turned to me, and said anxiously, 'Send a telegram to mama.'" Eagar promised it would be done. "She added, 'immediately.' ... We continued to fan the feeble spark of life, but moment by moment it declined. She began to talk to her cousins, and seemed to imagine she was playing with them. She asked for little Anastasie and I brought the wee thing into the room. The dying eyes rested on her for a moment, and Anastasie said, 'Poor cousin Ella! Poor Princess Elizabeth!' I took the baby out of the room."[4]
Doctors told Alexandra that the child's mother should be notified, but the telegram did not arrive until the following morning, when Elisabeth had already died. [7]
Elisabeth was placed in a silver casket, a gift from Nicholas II, for the long journey home to Darmstadt. Her father arranged a white funeral, with white instead of black for the funeral trappings, white flowers, and white horses for the procession. In his memoirs, the still heartbroken father declared that the devastating journey on the funeral train would remain seared into his memory until his own death. 'My dearest Elisabeth,' he wrote, 'was my only sunshine'. [8]
Elisabeth was laid to rest in the Rosenhohe. In a final gesture to Elisabeth and Ernie, Victoria Melita placed her badge of the Order of Hesse, granted to her upon her marriage, into Elisabeth's coffin. [9]
| House of Hesse-Darmstadt Born: 25 November 1868; Died: 9 October 1937 |
||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by: Louis IV |
Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine 1892-1918 |
Succeeded by: Grand Dukedom abolished |
| Titles in pretence | ||
| Preceded by: None |
* NOT REIGNING * Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine (1918-1937) |
Succeeded by: Georg Donatus |
[edit] Notes
- ^ Sullivan, Michael John (1997). "A Fatal Passion: The Story of the Uncrowned Last Empress of Russia", Random House, ISBN 0679424008
- ^ Sullivan, p. 142
- ^ Sullivan, p. 148
- ^ a b c Eagar, Margaret (1906). "Six Years at the Russian Court". alexanderpalace.org. Retrieved on December 10.
- ^ Sullivan, p. 217
- ^ Sullivan, p. 218
- ^ Sullivan, p. 223
- ^ Sullivan, p. 224
- ^ Sullivan, p. 225
[edit] References
- Margaret Eagar, Six Years at the Russian Court, 1906. [1]
- Michael John Sullivan, A Fatal Passion: The Story of the Uncrowned Last Empress of Russia, 1997.
