Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine

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Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine; Princess Henry of Prussia

Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine as a young woman.
Born July 11, 1866(1866-07-11)
Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany
Died November 11, 1953 (aged 87)
Germany
Occupation Royalty
Spouse Prince Albert Wilhelm Heinrich of Prussia
Parents Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom

Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine (Irene Luise Marie Anna) (11 July 1866 – 11 November 1953) was the third child and third daughter of Princess Alice of the United Kingdom and Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine. Her maternal grandparents were Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Her paternal grandparents were Prince Charles of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Elizabeth of Prussia. She was the wife of Prince Albert Wilhelm Heinrich of Prussia, her first cousin. Like her sister Alix, Irene was a carrier of the haemophilia gene. Two of her three sons were haemophiliacs.

Her younger sister, Alix, become the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna of their paternal second cousin Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and her younger brother Ernst became Grand Duke of Hesse. Her eldest sister Victoria married their father's morganatic first cousin Prince Louis of Battenberg, later Marchioness and Marquis of Milford Haven, and another sister Elizabeth, (later canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church as St.Elizabeth the Martyr) married their father's first cousin Grand Duke Serge Alexandrovich of Russia.

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[edit] Early life

She received her first name, which was taken from the Greek word for "peace," because she was born at the end of the Austro-Prussian War.[1] Alice considered Irene an unattractive child and once wrote to her sister Victoria that Irene was "not pretty."[2] Though not as pretty as her sister Elizabeth, Irene did have a pleasant, even disposition. Princess Alice brought up her daughters simply. An English nanny presided over the nursery and the children ate plain meals of rice puddings and baked apples and wore plain dresses. Her daughters were taught how to do housework, such as baking cakes, making their own beds, laying fires and sweeping and dusting their rooms. Princess Alice also emphasized the need to give to the poor and often took her daughters on visits to hospitals and charities.[3]

Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine, far left, with her grandmother Queen Victoria of England and, from left to right, her sister Elizabeth, brother Ernst-Ludwig, sister Victoria, and, kneeling, her sister Alix in February 1879, two months after the death of her mother.
Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine, far left, with her grandmother Queen Victoria of England and, from left to right, her sister Elizabeth, brother Ernst-Ludwig, sister Victoria, and, kneeling, her sister Alix in February 1879, two months after the death of her mother.

The family was devastated in 1873 when Irene's haemophiliac younger brother Friedrich, nicknamed "Frittie," fell through an open window, struck his head on the balustrade, and died hours later of a brain hemorrhage.[4] In the months following the toddler's death, Alice frequently took her children to his grave to pray and was melancholy on anniversaries associated with him.[5] In the fall of 1878 Irene, her siblings, and her father became ill with diphtheria. Her younger sister Princess Marie, nicknamed "May," died of the disease. Her mother, exhausted from nursing the children, also became infected. Knowing she was in danger of dying, Princess Alice dictated her will, including instructions about how to bring up her daughters and how to run the household. She died of diphtheria in December 1878.[6]

Following Alice's death, Queen Victoria resolved to act as a mother to her Hessian grandchildren. Princess Irene and her surviving siblings spent annual holidays in England and their grandmother sent instructions to their governess regarding their education and approving the pattern of their dresses.[7]

[edit] Marriage

On 24 May 1888, Irene married Prince Albert Wilhelm Heinrich of Prussia, the third child and second son of German Emperor Friedrich III and German Empress Victoria. As their mothers were sisters, Irene and Heinrich were first cousins. [8] Their marriage displeased Queen Victoria because she had not been told about the courtship until they had already decided to marry.[9] Heinrich's mother, Victoria, Empress Friedrich, was fond of Irene. However, Empress Friedrich was shocked because Irene did not wear a shawl or scarf to disguise her pregnancy when she was pregnant with her first son, the haemophiliac Prince Waldemar, in 1889. Empress Friedrich, who was fascinated by politics and current events, also couldn't understand why Heinrich and Irene never read a newspaper.[10] However, the couple were happily married and they were known as "The Very Amiables" by their relatives because of their pleasant natures. The marriage produced three sons:

Princess Irene with her husband Prince Heinrich of Prussia and their two surviving sons, Prince Waldemar and Prince Sigismund.
Princess Irene with her husband Prince Heinrich of Prussia and their two surviving sons, Prince Waldemar and Prince Sigismund.

Their descendants also include two grandchildren, two great-grandchildren, and six great-great grandchildren.[11]

[edit] Family relationships

Irene transmitted the haemophilia gene to her elder and younger sons, Waldemar and Heinrich. Waldemar's health worried her from early childhood.[12] She was later devastated when the youngest child, four-year-old Heinrich, died after he fell and bumped his head in February 1904.[13] Six months after little Heinrich's death, Alix gave birth to a haemophiliac son, Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich of Russia. Her first cousin, Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain, also had two haemphiliac sons.

Irene, raised to believe in a proper Victorian code of behavior, was easily shocked by what she saw as immorality.[14] When her sister Elizabeth left the German Lutheran religion they had been raised in and converted to the Russian Orthodox Church in 1891, Irene was deeply upset. She wrote to her father that she "cried terribly" over Elizabeth's decision.[15] Later her sister Alix also converted to the Russian Orthodox Church when she married Nicholas II of Russia. Despite her disagreement with their choice of religion, she remained close to all of her siblings. In 1907, Irene helped arrange what later turned out to be a disastrous marriage between Elizabeth's ward, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia to Prince Wilhelm, Duke of Södermanland.[16] Wilhelm's mother, the Queen of Sweden was an old friend of both Irene and Elizabeth.[17] Grand Duchess Maria later wrote that Irene pressured her to go through with the marriage when she had doubts. She told Maria that ending the engagement would "kill" Elizabeth.[18] In 1912, Irene was a source of support to her sister Alix when Alexei nearly died of complications of haemophilia at the imperial family's hunting lodge in Poland.[19]

[edit] Later life

Irene's ties to her sisters were disrupted by the advent of World War I, which put them on opposing sides of the war. When the war ended, she received word that Alix, her husband and children and her sister Elizabeth had been killed by the Bolsheviks. Following the war and the abdication of the Kaiser, Germany was no longer ruled by the Prussian Royal Family, but Irene and her husband retained their estate, Hemmelmark, in northern Germany.

When Anna Anderson surfaced in Berlin in 1921, claiming to be the surviving Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, Irene visited the woman, but decided that Anderson could not be the niece she had last seen in 1913.[20] Princess Irene was not impressed.

“ I saw immediately that she could not be one of my nieces. Even though I had not seen them for nine years, the fundamental facial characteristics could not have altered to that degree, in particular the position of the eyes, the ear, etc. .. At first sight one could perhaps detect a resemblance to Grand Duchess Tatiana.”[21] ”

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna commented on the visit of Princess Irene,

“ It was an unsatisfactory meeting, but the woman's supporters said that Princess Irene had not known her niece very well and all the rest of it."[22] ”

Irene's husband, Heinrich, said that the mention of Anderson upset Irene too much and ordered that no one was to discuss Anderson in his presence. Heinrich died in 1929. Several years later, Irene's son (Prince Sigismund) posed questions to Anderson through an intermediary about their shared childhood and declared that her answers were all accurate.[23] Irene later adopted Sigismund's daughter, Barbara, born in 1920, as her heir after Sigismund left Germany to live in Costa Rica during the 1930s. Sigismund declined to return to Germany to live after World War II. [24] Irene grieved terribly when her haemophiliac eldest son, Waldemar, became ill in 1945 and died due to the lack of blood for a transfusion. Irene herself died in 1953, leaving her estate to her granddaughter.

[edit] Ancestry

[edit] References

  1. ^ Mager (1998), p. 27
  2. ^ Pakula (1995), p. 322
  3. ^ Mager (1998), pp. 28-29
  4. ^ Mager (1998), p. 45
  5. ^ Mager (1998), pp. 45-46
  6. ^ Mager (1998), p. 56
  7. ^ Mager (1998), p. 57
  8. ^ Mager (1998), p. 111
  9. ^ Queen Victoria (1975)
  10. ^ Pakula (1995), p. 513
  11. ^ Paul Theroff (2007). "Mecklenburg". An Online Gotha. Retrieved on March 27, 2007.
  12. ^ Pakula (1995), p. 537
  13. ^ Maylunas and Mironenko (1997), pp. 239-240
  14. ^ Massie (1995), p. 165
  15. ^ Mager (1998), p. 135.
  16. ^ Mager (1998), p. 228
  17. ^ Mager (1998), p. 228
  18. ^ Grand Duchess Marie (1930)
  19. ^ Maylunas and Mironenko (1997), p. 355
  20. ^ Kurth (1983), p. 51
  21. ^ http://soc.world-journal.net/PrinceFriedrich.html
  22. ^ Vorres, I., The Last Grand Duchess p.175
  23. ^ Kurth (1983), p. 272
  24. ^ Kurth (1983), p. 428

[edit] Books and Articles

  • Kurth, Peter (1983). Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson. Little, Brown, and Company. ISBN 0-316-50717-2.
  • Grand Duchess Marie (1930). Education of a Princess: A Memoir. Viking Press.
  • Mager, Hugo (1998). Elizabeth: Grand Duchess of Russia. Carroll and Graf Publishers, Inc. ISBN 0-7867-0678-3
  • Massie, Robert K. (1995). The Romanovs: The Final Chapter. Random House. ISBN 394-58048-6
  • Mironenko, Sergei, and Maylunas, Andrei (1997). A Lifelong Passion: Nicholas and Alexandra: Their Own Story. Doubleday. ISBN 0-385-48673-1.
  • Pakula, Hannah (1995). An Uncommon Woman: The Empress Frederick: Daughter of Queen Victoria, Wife of the Crown Prince of Prussia, Mother of Kaiser Wilhelm. Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-684-84216-5.
  • Queen Victoria (1975). Advice to my granddaughter: Letters from Queen Victoria to Princess Victoria of Hesse. Simon and Schuster. ISBN-10 0671222422
  • Vorres, I, The Last Grand Duchess: Her Imperial Highness Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, Charles Scribners and Sons, New York, 1964.


Persondata
NAME Hesse and by Rhine, Princess Irene of
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Princess Heinrich of Prussia
SHORT DESCRIPTION Daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, wife of Prince Albert Wilhelm Heinrich of Prussia.
DATE OF BIRTH July 11, 1866
PLACE OF BIRTH Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany
DATE OF DEATH November 11, 1953
PLACE OF DEATH Germany