Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg
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| Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg | |
|---|---|
| Queen of Spain | |
 |
|
| Consort | 31 May 1906 - 28 February 1941 |
| Consort to | Alfonso XIII of Spain |
| Issue | |
| Infante Alfonso, Count of Covadonga Infante Jaime, Duke of Segovia Infanta Beatrice, Princess Alexander of Civitella-Cesi Infante Ferdinando de Borbón y Battenberg Infante Maria, Countess Enrico Marone Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona Infante Gonzalo de Borbón y Battenberg |
|
| Full name | |
| Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena | |
| Titles | |
| HM Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain HRH Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg HH Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg |
|
| Royal house | House of Bourbon House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha |
| Father | Prince Henry of Battenberg |
| Mother | Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom |
| Born | 24 October 1887 Balmoral Castle, Scotland |
| Died | 15 April 1969 Lausanne, Switzerland |
| Burial | Royal Vault, Escorial |
Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg (Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena; 24 October 1887 - 15 April 1969), was queen consort of King Alfonso XIII of Spain. She was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. The current King of Spain, Juan Carlos is her grandson.
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[edit] Early life
Victoria Eugenie was born on October 24, 1887 at Balmoral Castle, Scotland. Her father was Prince Henry of Battenberg, the fourth child and second son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine by Countess Julia von Hauke. Her mother was Princess Beatrice, the fifth daughter and youngest child of Queen Victoria.
As her father was the product of a morganatic marriage, Henry took his style of Prince of Battenberg from his mother, who had been created Princess of Battenberg in her own right. As such Henry's daughter would have been born Her Serene Highness Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, but on 13 December 1886 Queen Victoria decreed that Beatrice and Henry's children would bear the style of "Highness" (deemed higher than that of "Serene Highness" in non-Latin monarchies). She was named for her two grandmothers and for her godmother, Empress Eugénie, the Spanish-born widow of the former Emperor of the French Napoleon III, who lived in exile in England. The last of her given names was chosen because of her birth in Scotland (her younger brother Maurice would receive "Donald" as the last of his given names for the same reason): Princess Beatrice had written 'Eua' on the birth document (a Gaelic name), but this was misread by Dr Cameron Lees, who presided at her christening, as 'Ena'. To her family, and the British general public, she was ever afterwards known as Ena.
Victoria Eugenie grew up in Queen Victoria's household, as the British monarch had reluctantly allowed Beatrice to marry on the condition that she remain her mother's full time companion and personal secretary. She therefore spent her childhood at Windsor Castle, Balmoral, and Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Her father died while on active military service after contracting fever in Africa in 1896. After the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, the Battenbergs moved to London and took up residence in Kensington Palace.
[edit] Engagement
In 1905, Victoria Eugenie attended a dinner party hosted by her uncle, King Edward VII in honour of King Alfonso XIII of Spain. Having been rebuffed by the intended object of his marital expedition to England, Princess Patricia of Connaught, the Spanish king took a fancy to Victoria Eugenie, and commenced courtship upon being told that she was also a niece of King Edward's.
On 9 March 1906, the Spanish Royal Household announced the engagement of King Alfonso XIII (17 May 1886-28 February 1941), the posthumous and only son of Alfonso XII of Spain and his second wife, an Austrian archduchess, later Queen Regent Maria Christina of Spain.
The Spanish Queen Mother did not approve due to the obscure origins of the Battenberg line and its lowly style of Serene Highness, but was powerless to prevent the wedding since her son had attained his majority and she was no longer Spain's regent. Also it was pointed out that Victoria Eugenie was a potential carrier of haemophilia, the affliction transmitted genetically through Queen Victoria's female descendants. Her brother, Prince Leopold of Battenberg, was known to be a sufferer.
The news raised concern among many Spaniards because the prospective bride was a Protestant and not sufficiently "royal". Victoria Eugénie had been baptised in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, having been born at Balmoral, but was also in communion with the Church of England. Her background hardly seemed worthy, in the eyes of some Spaniards, for her to follow in the footsteps of the Bourbons and the Habsburgs who had provided the majority of Spanish queens since the sixteenth century.
Victoria Eugenie removed the first obstacle when she agreed to undergo instruction to convert to Roman Catholicism. She was received into the Roman Catholic Church by the Bishop of Nottingham at San Sebastián in Madrid two days before her wedding, taking the additional names María Cristina. Her uncle, King Edward VII, mitigated the second objection to the marriage when he issued Letters Patent on 3 April 1906, conferring upon her the style and attribute of Her Royal Highness. This grant neither made her a princess of the United Kingdom, nor changed her official precedence at court, but ostensibly reduced the gap in titulature between bride and groom, and manifested the dynastic support of the British monarch.
The terms of the marriage were settled by two agreements, a public treaty and a private contractual arrangement. The treaty was executed between Spain and the United Kingdom in London on 7 May 1906 by their respective plenipotentiaries, the Spanish Ambassador to the Court of St. James's Don Luis Polo de Bernabé, and the British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey, Bt. Ratifications were exchanged on 23 May following. Among other conditions, the treaty stipulated:
BE it known unto all men by these Presents that whereas His Catholic Majesty Alfonso XIII, King of Spain, has judged it proper to announce his intention of contracting a marriage with Her Royal Highness Princess Victoria Eugénie Julia Ena, niece of His Majesty Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British Dominions beyond the Seas, Emperor of India, and daughter of Her Royal Highness the Princess Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodore (Princess Henry of Battenberg)...Article I. It is concluded and agreed that the marriage between His said Majesty King Alfonso XIII and Her said Royal Highness the Princess Victoria Eugénie Julia Ena shall be solemnized in person at Madrid as soon as the same may conveniently be done. II. His said Majesty King Alfonso XIII engages to secure to Her said Royal Highness the Princess Victoria Eugénie Julia Ena from the date of her marriage with His Majesty, and for the whole period of the marriage, an annual grant of 450,000 pesetas. His said Majesty King Alfonso XIII also engages, if, by the will of Divine Providence, the said Princess Victoria Eugénie Julia Ena should become his widow, to secure to her, from the date of his death, an annual grant of 250,000 pesetas, unless and until she contracts a second marriage, both these grants having already been voted by the Cortes. The private settlements to be made on either side in regard to the said marriage will be agreed upon and expressed in a separate Contract, which shall, however, be deemed to form an integral part of the present Treaty...III. The High Contracting Parties take note of the fact that Her Royal Highness the Princess Victoria Eugénie Julia Ena, according to the due tenor of the law of England, forfeits for ever all hereditary rights of succession to the Crown and Government of Great Britain...[1]
The treaty's reference to the forfeiture of Ena's British succession rights reflected neither the British government's censure of the alliance, nor to any renunciation made by her. Rather, it was an explicit recognition of the fact that by marrying a Roman Catholic, Ena lost any right to inherit the British crown as a consequence of Britain's Act of Settlement. This exclusion was personal and limited: those among her descendants who do not become Roman Catholic remain in the line of succession to the British throne.
The treaty did not constitute compliance with the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, which requires that descendants of King George II obtain the British sovereign's prior permission to marry by Order-in-Council. While an exception to this requirement exists for descendants of royal daughters that marry "into foreign families", Ena's father had been naturalised a British subject prior to his wedding. Nevertheless, concern about reaction to the marriage among Protestants prompted the British government to avoid having the King consent to the marriage in his Privy Council. This omission would have rendered the marriage void in Britain, but the Government took the position that Ena was not bound by the Royal Marriages Act, apparently relying upon the law's use of the flexible construction "foreign families", since Prince Henry's father had been German and his mother Polish.
[edit] Queen of Spain
Victoria Eugenie married King Alfonso at the Royal Monastery of San Geronimo in Madrid on 31 May 1906. Present at the ceremony were her widowed mother as well as her cousins, the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King George V and Queen Mary),
After the wedding ceremony, the royal procession was heading back to the Royal Palace when an assassination attempt was made on the King and his new consort (now called "Queen Victoria Eugenia" or, less formally, "Queen Ena"). Anarchist Mateu Morral threw a bomb from a balcony at the royal carriage. Ena's life was saved because, at the exact moment the bomb exploded, she turned her head in order to see St. Mary's Church, which Alfonso was showing her. She escaped injury, although her dress was spotted with the blood of a guard who was riding beside the carriage.
After the inauspicious start to her tenure as Queen of Spain, Ena became isolated from the Spanish people and was unpopular in her new land. Her married life improved when she gave birth to a son and heir to the kingdom, Don Alfonso. However, while the baby prince was being circumcised, the doctors noted that he did not stop bleeding — the first sign that the infant heir had haemophilia. Ena was the obvious source of the condition, which was inherited by her eldest and youngest sons. Contrary to the response of Nicholas II of Russia, whose son and heir by another granddaughter of Queen Victoria was similarly afflicted, Alfonso is alleged never to have forgiven Ena nor to have come to terms with what had happened. In all, King Alfonso XIII and Queen Victoria Eugenia had seven children, five sons and two daughters. Neither of their daughters is known to have been a carrier of haemophilia.
After the birth of her children, Ena's relationship with Alfonso deteriorated. Alfonso was suspected of having numerous affairs, including a dalliance with Ena's British-born cousin, the Infanta Beatrice d'Orléans-Borbón.
Ena devoted herself to work for hospitals and services for the poor, as well as to education. She was also involved in the reorganization of the Spanish Red Cross.
[edit] Exile
The Spanish royal family went into exile on 14 April 1931 after municipal elections brought Republicans to power in most of the major cities, leading to the proclamation of the second Spanish Republic. Alfonso XIII had hoped that his voluntary exile might avert a civil war between the Republicans and the Nationalists. The royal family went to live in France and later Italy. Ena and Alfonso later separated, and she lived partly in England and partly in Switzerland. In 1939, after World War II started, Ena was asked to leave the United Kingdom, as she was no longer a member of the British Royal Family.[citation needed] She purchased a chateau, the Vielle Fontaine, outside of Lausanne.
In 1938, the whole family gathered in Rome for the baptism of Don Juan's eldest son, Juan Carlos of Spain. On 15 January 1941, Alfonso XIII, feeling his death was near, transferred his rights to the Spanish crown to his son Don Juan de Borbon, Count of Barcelona. On 12 February, Alfonso suffered the first heart attack. Alfonso died on 28 February 1941.
Ena returned briefly to Spain in February 1968, to stand as godmother at the baptism of her great-grandson, Infante Don Felipe, the son of Infante Don Juan Carlos de Borbón y Borbón Dos-Sicilias (later King Juan Carlos I of Spain) and Princess Sofia of Greece and Denmark (later Queen Sofia).
[edit] Later life
Ena died in Lausanne on 15 April 1969, exactly 38 years after she had left Spain for exile. She was interred in the church of Sacré Coeur in Lausanne. On 25 April 1985, her remains were returned to Spain and reinterred in the Royal Vault in the Escorial, outside Madrid, next to the remains of her husband, Alfonso XIII, and her sons, Infante Don Alfonso, Infante Don Jaime, and Infante Don Gonzalo.
Ena's grandson Juan Carlos is the present King of Spain. She was also the godmother of Albert II, Prince of Monaco, the current Sovereign Prince.
[edit] Titles, styles, honours and arms
[edit] Titles
- 1887-1906: Her Highness Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg
- 1906: Her Royal Highness Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg
- 1906-1941: Her Majesty The Queen of Spain
- 1941-1969: Her Majesty Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain
[edit] Issue
| Name | Birth | Death | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| HRH Infante Don Alfonso de Borbón y Battenberg, Prince of Asturias, later Count of Covadonga | 10 May 1907 | 6 September 1938) | renounced all rights to the Spanish throne for himself and his descendants (because of his intended unequal marriage), 11 June 1933; m. 1st 1933 (div. 1937) Edelmira Ignacia Adriana Sampedro y Robato (5 March 1906-23 May 1994); m. 2nd 1937 (div. 1938) Marta Ester Rocafort y Altazarra (18 September 1913-4 February 1993). He died in a car crash in 1938 |
| HRH Infante Don Jaime de Borbón y Battenberg, Duke of Segovia, later Duke of Anjou, Madrid, and Segovia | 23 June 1908 | 20 March 1975 | renounced all rights to the Spanish throne (because of his physical infirmities), 21 June 1933; m. 1st Rome 1935 (div. 1947 and 1949) Emanuela de Dampierre (8 November 1913-); m. 2nd 1949 Charlotte Tiedemann (2 January 1919-3 July 1979). At the age of four he suffered from double mastoiditis and the resulting operation left him deaf; his speech never developed properly |
| HRH Infanta Doña Beatriz de Borbón y Battenberg | 22 June 1909 | 22 November 2002 | m. 1935 Don Alessandro Torlonia, 5th Prince di Civitella-Cesi (7 December 1911-12 May 1986) |
| HRH Infante Fernando de Borbón y Battenberg | 1910 | 1910 | stillborn |
| HRH Infanta Doña María Cristina de Borbón y Battenberg | 12 December 1911 | 23 December 1996 | m. 1940 Count Enrico Marone (15 March 1895-23 October 1968), and had issue |
| HRH Infante Don Juan, Count of Barcelona | 20 June 1913 | 1 April 1993 | recognized as heir apparent to the Spanish throne and held the title Prince of Asturias from 21 June 1933, but preferred to use the title Count of Barcelona; renounced his claim to the throne in favor of his son, Juan Carlos on 14 May 1977; m. 1935 HRH Princess Maria de las Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies (23 December 1910-2 January 2000), and had issue |
| HRH Infante Don Gonzalo de Borbón y Battenberg | 24 October 1914 | 13 August 1934 | also a haemophiliac. He died in a car accident in Austria |
[edit] References and notes
- "Queen Victoria Eugénie, Granddaughter of Queen Victoria (Obituary)," The Times, 16 April 1969, p. 12, column E.
- "Franco at Bourbon Prince's Baptism," The Times, 9 February 1968, p. 4, column 4.
- Eilers, Marlene A. (1987). Queen Victoria's Descendants. New York: Atlantic International. ISBN 0-938311-04-2.
- ^ Hoelseth's Royal Corner. Spanish royal family links. Dag Trygsland Hoelseth. Retrieved on 2006-11-11.
| Preceded by Maria Christina of Austria |
Queen Consort of Spain 1906–1931 |
Vacant Title next held by Sophia of Greece |
