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Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg

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Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg (Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena) , (24 October 1887-15 April 1969), later Queen Victoria Eugenia was the Queen consort of King Alfonso XIII of Spain. She was born into the British Royal Family and was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. The current King of Spain, King Juan Carlos is her grandson.

Contents

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 Julia von Hauke. Her mother was Princess Beatrice, the fifth daughter and the youngest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

As her father was the product of a morganatic marriage, Prince Henry of Battenberg took his style of Prince of Battenberg from his mother, Julia von Hauke who was created Princess of Battenberg in her own right. As such Victoria Eugenie was styled as Her Serene Highness Princess Victoria Eugenie Battenberg from birth. In the United Kingdom she was styled Her Highness Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg under a Royal Warrant passed by Queen Victoria in 1886. 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. Like her younger brother, Prince Maurice of Battenberg, who was also born at Balmoral, the last of their given names was chosen because of their birth in Scotland. Victoria Eugenie Julia Ena were the names given, but this was not the intention. Princess Beatrice had written 'Eua' on the documents (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 court as the Queen had only allowed her daughter Beatrice to marry if she still continued to stay by her side and be her companion and personal secretary. She therefore spent her childhood at Windsor Castle, Balmoral, and Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Her father died in 1896 after contracting fever in Africa. After the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, the Battenbergs moved to London and took up residence in Kensington Palace.

Engagement

In 1905, Victoria Eugenie attended a dinner party hosted by her uncle, King Edward VII in honour of King Alfonso XIII of Spain. The Spanish king took a fancy to Victoria Eugenie, and began a courtship, however there was some opposition to a potential marriage.

Queen Maria Christina of Spain, Alfonso's mother, did not approve due to the obscure origins of the Battenberg line and Victoria Eugenie's lowly HSH title. Also it was pointed out that Victoria Eugenie was a potential carrier of haemophilia, the affliction carried out through Queen Victoria's female descendants. Her brothers, Prince Leopold of Battenberg, and Prince Maurice of Battenberg were known to be sufferers.

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, the Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria, later Queen Regent of Spain.

The news raised concern among many Spaniards because the prospective bride was a Protestant and not sufficiently royal. Victoria Eugénie had been baptised into the Presbyterian Church of Scotland, having been born at Balmoral, but was also in communion with the Church of England. And while she was a female-line granddaughter of Queen Victoria, on her father's side she was a morganatic scion of the Grand Ducal House of Hesse. Her background hardly seemed worthy in the eyes of many Spaniards 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 be received into the Roman Catholic Church. She was rebaptised by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Nottingham at San Sebastián in Madrid two days before her wedding, taking the additional names María Cristina. Her uncle, King Edward VII, removed the second obstacle to the marriage when he issued Letters Patent on 3 April 1906, granting her the style and attribute of Her Royal Highness.

Queen of Spain

Styles of
Queen Victoria Eugenia as consort
60px
Reference style Her Majesty
Spoken style Your Majesty
Alternative style Ma'am

Victoria Eugénie married King Alfonso at the Royal Monastery of San Geronimo in Madrid on 31 May1906. 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 the new Queen (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 with her dress spotted with the blood of a guard who was riding beside the carriage.

After the inauspicious start to her reign 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, Alfonso, and heir to the Kingdom of Spain. However, while the baby prince was being circumcised, the doctors noted that he did not stop bleeding — meaning he was haemophiliac. Ena passed haemophilia onto her eldest and youngest sons. Her husband never forgave Ena and never came to terms with what had happened. In all, King Alfonso XIII and Queen Victoria Eugenia had seven children, five sons and two daughters:

After the birth of her children, Ena's relationship with Alfonso deteriorated. Alfonso was suspected of having numerous affairs, including an alleged affair with Ena's own cousin, Princess Beatrice of Edinburgh.

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.

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 Britain 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. She purchased a chateau, the Vielle Fontaine, outside of Lausanne, Switzerland.

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 Borbón y Battenberg, 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).

Death

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 is also the godmother of Prince Albert II of Monaco, the current Sovereign Prince.

Titles from birth to death

References

"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.

Marlene A. Eilers, Queen Victoria's Descendants (New York: Atlantic International, 1987).

 

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