# Dictionary of National Biography, 1912 supplement/Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise

​VICTORIA ADELAIDE MARY LOUISE (1840–1901), Princess Royal of Great Britain and German Empress, born at Buckingham Palace at 1.50 p.m. on 21 Nov. 1840, was eldest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. The princess was baptised at Buckingham Palace on 10 Feb. 1841. Lord Mebourne, the prime minister, remarked ’how she looked about her, conscious that the stir was all about herself' (Martin, Life of Prince Consort, i. 100). Her English sponsors were Adelaide, the queen dowager, the duchess of Gloucester, the duchess of Kent, and the duke of Sussex. Leopold I, king of the Belgians, who was also a godfather, attended the ceremony in person, while the duke of Wellington represented the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert bestowed unremitting care on the education of the princess. From infancy she was placed in the charge of a French governess, Mme. Charlier, and she early showed signs of intellectual alertness. At the age of three she spoke both English and French with fluency (Letters of Queen Victoria, ii. 3), while she habitually talked German with her parents. By Baron Stockmar she was considered 'extraordinarily gifted, even to the point of genius' (Stockmar, Denkwürdigkeiten, p. 43), and both in music and painting she soon acquired a proficiency beyond her years. Yet she remained perfectly natural and justified her father's judgment : 'she has a man's head and a child's heart.' (Cf. Lady Lyttelton's Letters, 1912, passim.)
Childhood and girlhood were passed at Windsor and Buckingham Palace, with occasional sojourns at Osborne House, which was acquired in 1845, and at Balmoral, to which the royal family paid an annual visit from 1848. In August 1849 the princess accompanied her parents on their visit to Ireland, and on 30 Oct. following she was present with her father and eldest brother at the opening of the new Coal Exchange in London. Strong ties of affection bound her closely to her brothers and sisters, and to her eldest brother, the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII [q. v. Suppl. II], she was devotedly attached. She shared his taste for the drama, and in the theatricals which the royal children organised for their parents' entertainment (Jan. 1853) she played the title role in Racine's 'Athalie' to the Prince of Wales's Abner. She joined her brothers in many of their studies, and impressed their tutors with her superior quickness of wit.
At the age of eleven the princess royal first met her future husband. Prince Frederick William, who came to London with his father, Prince William of Prussia, for the Great Exhibition of 1851. On Prince Frederick William she made an impression which proved lasting. In 1853, when the prince's father again visited England, a matrimonial alliance with the princess was suggested. But the prince's uncle, Frederick William IV, king of Prussia, whose assent was needful and who was mainly influenced by Russophil advisers, was at first disinclined to entertain the proposal, and the outbreak of the Crimean war in 1854 quickened his Russian sympathies.
The Crimean war was responsible, too, for the princess's first trip abroad. In Aug. 1855 she accompanied her parents ​and the Prince of Wales on a visit at the Tuileries to Napoleon III, England's ally in the Russian war. She was delighted with her reception and completely enchanted by the Empress Eugenie. Paris had throughout life the same fascination for her as for her brother King Edward VII. In later life, however, national animosities debarred her from visiting the French capital save under the strictest incognito.
At length in 1855 King Frederick William IV yielded to sentimental rather than to political argument and sanctioned his nephew's offer of marriage. On 14 Sept. of the same year the young prince arrived at Balmoral. A few days later Queen Victoria and Prince Albert accepted his proposal for the hand of the princess. She was fifteen and he was twenty-four, although young for his age. The parents at first desired that the child princess should know nothing of the plan until after her confirmation (Letters of Queen Victoria, iii. 186). But an excursion with the princess on 29 Sept. to Craig-na-Ben gave the prince his opportunity. 'He picked a white piece of heather (the emblem of good luck), which he gave to the princess, and this enabled him to make an allusion to his hopes and wishes' (Journal of our Life in the Highlands, p. 154). On 1 Oct. the prince left Balmoral; it was understood that the marriage should take place after the girl's seventeenth birthday. Henceforth her education was pursued with a special eye to her future position. The prince consort himself devoted an hour a day to her instruction. He discussed with her current social and political questions and fostered liberal and enlightened sympathies. At his suggestion she translated into English Johann Gustav Droysen's 'Karl August und die Deutsche Politik' (Weimar, 1857), a plea for a liberal national policy in Germany. The princess now first took part in social fimctions. On 8 May 1856 she made her début at a court ball at Buckingham Palace. On 20 March the same year she was confirmed by John Bird Sumner [q. v.], archbishop of Canterbury, in the private chapel of Windsor Castle.
The betrothal was not publicly announced until 29 April 1856, on the conclusion of the Crimean war by the treaty of Paris. But the secret had leaked out already, and the news was received coolly in both countries. 'The Times' (3 Oct. 1855) poured contempt on Prussia and its king. On 19 May 1857 Parliament voted a dowry of 40,000l, with an annuity of 4000l. In June Prince Frederick, accompanied by Count Moltke, came to England, and made his first public appearance with the princess at the Manchester Art Exhibition (29 June). The marriage negotiations were not concluded with the Prussian court without a hitch. Queen Victoria refused the Prussian proposal that the marriage should take place at Berlin. 'Whatever may be the practice of Prussian princes,' she wrote to Lord Clarendon [q. v.], secretary for foreign affairs, ' it is not every day that one marries the daughter of the Queen of England' (Letters of Queen Victoria, iii. 321). Accordingly the marriage was fixed to take place in London early in 1858. The bridegroom arrived in London on 23 Jan. and the marriage was celebrated in the chapel royal, St. James's Palace, on the 25th. The honeymoon was spent at Windsor. The public was at length moved to enthusiasm. Richard Cobden hailed the bride as 'England's daughter' (ib. iii. 334). On 2 Feb. she and her husband embarked at Gravesend for Germany.
In Germany the princess was well received. Her childish beauty and charm of manner won the sympathy of all classes on her formal entry into Berlin (8 Feb. 1858). After her reception by King Frederick William IV her husband telegraphed to Prince Albert 'The whole royal family is enchanted with my wife.' Princess Hohenlohe gave Queen Victoria an equally glowing account of the favourable impression which the princess created at Berlin (Martin, Life of the Prince Consort, iv. 172). ' I feel very happy,' she told a guest at a court reception on 27 March, 'and am proud to belong to this country' (Bernhardi, Aus meinem Leben, iii. 17).
During the early years of her married life the princess made a tour of the smaller German courts, but she lived much in retirement in Berlin, at first in the gloomy old Schloss. Her first summer in Germany was spent at the castle of Babelsberg, where her father visited her in June 1858, and both he and her mother in August. On 20 Nov. following she and her husband moved into the Neue Palais on the Unter den Linden, which was henceforth her residence in Berlin. There on 27 Jan. 1859 she gave birth to her eldest son, William, afterwards German Emperor.
From the first, many of the conditions of the princess's new life proved irksome. The tone of the Prussian court in matters of religion and politics was narrower than that in England. The etiquette was more constrained and the standard of ​comfort was lower. The princess chafed somewhat under her mother-in-law's strict surveillance, and few sympathised with her unshakeable faith in the beneficence of constitutional government as it was practised in England. She could not conceal her liberal convictions or hold aloof from political discussion. She steadily continued the historical and literary studies to which her father had accustomed her, and she wrote to him a weekly letter, asking his advice on political questions, and enclosing essays on historical subjects. His influence over her was unimpaired till his death. In Oct. 1858 her father-in-law, Prince William, assumed the regency, and his summons of a moderate liberal ministry evoked an expression of her satisfaction which irritated the conservative party at court. In December 1860 she delighted her father with an exhaustive memorandum, whereby she thought to allay the apprehensions of the Prussian court, on the advantages of ministerial responsibility (Martin, Life of the Prince Consort, v. 259). She was outspoken in all her criticism of her environment, and her active interests in art and philanthropy as well as in politics ran counter to Prussian ideas and traditions. She was constantly comparing her life in Germany with the amenities of her English home (Bernhardi, Aus meinem Leben, vi. 116), and she wounded Prussian susceptibilities by pointing out England's social advantages. Over her husband she rapidly acquired a strong influence which increased distrust of her in court circles. Her energy and independence undoubtedly conquered any defect of resolution in him, but his liberal sentiments were deeply rooted. Meanwhile the English press was constantly denouncing the illiberality of Prussian rule, and the unpopularity of the princess, who was freely identified with such attacks, increased. 'This attitude of the EngUsh newspapers,' wrote Lord Clarendon in 1861, 'preys upon the princess royal's spirits, and materially affects her position in Prussia' (Memoirs and Letters of Sir Robert Morier, i. 295).
In Jan. 1861, when King William I succeeded his brother Frederick William IV on the throne of Prussia, the princess and her husband became crown princess and crown prince. On 18 Oct. she attended the coronation of her father-in-law at Konigsberg. Before the close of the year she suffered the shock of her father's premature death (14 Dec. 1861). Her husband represented her at the funeral, which her delicate health prevented her from attending. In her father the princess lost a valued friend and counsellor, while the Prussian king was deprived of an adviser, whose circumspect advice had helped him to reconcile opposing forces in Prussian politics. In March 1862 a breach between the king of Prussia and both the moderate and advanced liberals led him to summon to his aid Bismarck and the conservative (Junker) party. To the new minister constitutional principles had no meaning, and the crown prince and princess made open declaration of hostility. The crown prince absented himself from cabinet meetings, which he had attended since the king's accession, and he and his wife withdrew from court (Bernardi, Aus meinem Leben, v. 8). In October 1862 they left Berlin, and subsequently joined the Prince of Wales, a frequent visitor at his sister's German home, on a cruise in the Mediterranean. Early in 1863 the crown princess with her son and consort was in England, where she filled the place of her widowed mother, Queen Victoria, at a drawing-room at Buckingham Palace (28 Feb.). On 10 March she was present at the Prince of Wales's wedding at Windsor.
The steady growth under Bismarck's ascendancy of absolutist principles of government in Prussia intensified the resentment of the crown princess and her husband. In June 1863 the crown prince made an open protest in a speech at Dantzig. The princess, with characteristic want of discretion, frankly told President Eichmann that her opinions were those of the liberal press (Whitman, Emperor Frederick, p. 162). Bismarck imputed to her a resolve ’to bring her consort more into prominence and to acquaint public opinion with the crown prince's way of thinking' (Busch's Bismarck, iii. 238). The king demanded of the crown prince a recantation of the Dantzig speech. The request was refused, but the prince offered to retire with his family to some place where he could not meddle with politics. In the result Bismarck imposed vexatious restrictions on the heir-apparent's freedom of action. Spies in the guise of aides-de-camp and chamberlains were set over him and his wife at Berlin, and by 1864 the whole of their retinue consisted of Bismarck's followers (Memoirs of Sir Robert Morier, i. 343, 410). The vituperative conservative press assigned the heir-apparent's obduracy to his wife's influence.
The princess met Queen Victoria at Rosenau near Coburg in August 1863, and ​ in her mother she had a firm sympathiser. The queen contemplated active intervention at Berlin on her daughter's behalf, and was only dissuaded by (Sir) Robert Morier [q. v.]. From September to December following the crown prince and his wife made a prolonged visit to the English court, and on their return to Berlin held aloof for a season from political discussion (Bismarck, Neue Tischgespräche und Interviews, ii. 33).
The reopening of the Schleswig-Holstein question by the death of King Frederick VIII of Denmark (15 Nov. 1863) widened the breach with Bismarck. The crown princess and her husband warmly espoused the claims to the duchies of Duke Frederick of Augustenburg. The controversy divided the English royal family. The rival claim of Denmark had strong adherents there. While staying at Osborne the princess engaged in warm discussion with her sister-in-law, the Princess of Wales, the king of Denmark's daughter (Bernnardi, Aus meinem Leben, v. 282). Bismarck's cynical resolve to annex the duchies to Germany thoroughly roused the anger of the crown princess. Bismarck complained that she was involving herself, with her husband, her uncle (the duke of Coburg), and her mother, in a conspiracy against Prussian interests. When she and the minister met, bitter words passed, and she ironically asked Bismarck whether his ambition was to become king or president of a republic (Hoest Kohl, Bismarck : Anhang, i. 150).
The Austro-Prussian conflict of 1866 was abhorrent to the princess, and it accentuated the strife between her and the minister. On the outbreak of war (18 June) the crown prince took command of the second division of the Silesian army operating in Bohemia. Dislike of the conflict and its causes did not affect the princess's anxiety to relieve its suffering, and she now showed conspicuously for the first time that philanthropic energy and organising capacity which chiefly rendered her career memorable. She organised hospitals and raised money for the care of the wounded. It was mainly due to her efforts that the national fund for disabled soldiers (Nationalinvalidenstiftung) was inaugurated at the close of the war. The Prussian victory involved, to the princess's sorrow, the deposition of Austria's allies among the princely famllies of Germany. With George V, the dispossessed king of Hanover, the princess avowed very lively sympathy.
The crown prince's exclusion from business of state continued, to his wife's unconcealed irritation. Bismarck declared that her devotion to English as opposed to Prussian interests rendered the situation inevitable. On occasion, however, the crown prince was suffered to represent his father on visits to foreign sovereigns. Delicate health and the cares of a growing family did not always allow the crown princess to accompany him. But in May 1867 she went with him to Paris for the opening of the International Exhibition, and there she made the acquaintance of Renan. Subsequently in April 1873 she was the guest of the Emperor Francis Joseph at Schonbrunn on the occasion of the International Exhibition at Vienna. In Jan. 1874 she attended at St. Petersburg the wedding of her brother Alfred, duke of Edinburgh, with the grand duchess Maria Alexandrovna. But foreign travel in less formal conditions was more congenial to her, and she lost no opportunity of journeying incognito through the chief coimtries of Europe.
The Franco-German war of 1870-1 plunged the crown princess in fresh controversy. The impression generally prevailed in Germany that England was on the side of France. She sought to convince Bismarck of the genuineness of England's professions of neutrality, but only provoked an incredulous smile. 'The English,' she wrote to Queen Victoria on 9 Aug. 1870, 'are more hated at this moment than the French. Of course cela a rejailli on my poor innocent head. I have fought many a battle about Lord Granville, indignant at hearing my old friend so attacked, but all parties make him out French' (Fitzmauiuce, Life of Lord Granville, ii. 38). At the same time the crown princess bestirred herself in the interest of the German armies in the field. She appealed for funds on behalf of the soldiers' families (19 July 1870). In September she joined her sister. Princess Alice of Hesse-Darmstadt, at Homburg, and was indefatigable in organising hospitals for the wounded, in recruiting volunteer corps of lady nurses, and in distributing comforts to the troops on the way to the front. Yet compassionate kindness to French prisoners exposed her to suspicion. The threatened bombardment of Paris after the investment horrified her, and she appealed to her father-in-law to forbid it. The step was ineffectual, and excited the bitter sarcasm of Bismarck. Undeterred by failure, she started a scheme to collect supplies in ​ Belgium for the rapid provisioning of Paris after the capitulation. The British government and other neutral powers were approached, but Bismarck stepped in to foil the plan (Memoirs and Letters of Sir Robert Merrier, ii. 211).
The crown princess welcomed the proclamation of the German Emperor at Versailles on 18 Jan. 1871, and took part in the festivities at Berlin on the return of the victorious German army. In Sept. 1871 she and her husband visited London, and were received with cordiality by Queen Victoria and the Prince of Wales. Their reception did much to dissipate the atmosphere of tension which had prejudiced the relations of England and Germany during the war.
The princess's public interests extended far beyond politics, and embraced philanthropy, education, art, and literature. Indeed enlightened progress in all branches of effort powerfully appealed to her. She cultivated the society of leaders of thought, art, and science. As a hostess she ignored the conventions of etiquette which restricted her guests to members of the aristocracy. Her receptions were invariably attended by the historians Mommsen and Dove, by Zeller the philosopher, by the scientist Virchow, and by Gustav Freytag the writer, who dedicated to her 'Die Ahnen' (six parts, 1872-80). With especial eagerness the princess encouraged intercourse with German painters and sculptors. Art was one of her main recreations. Elected a member of the Berlin Academy in 1860, she studied in her leisure hours sculpture under Begas and painting under Prof. Hagen. She drew correctly, but showed little power of imagination (for examples of her work cf. Magazine of Art, May and Sept. 1886). Her favourite artists were Werner and von Angeli, and with the latter she was long on intimate terms.
Prussia was almost the last state in Germany to assimilate the artistic development of the nineteenth century, and it was the crown princess who gave a first impulse towards the improvement of applied art. She carefully followed the progress of industrial art in England, and in 1865 she commissioned Dr. Schwabe to draw up a report, entitled 'Die Forderung der Kmst-Industrie in England and der Stand dieser Frage in Deutschland.' Her efforts to stimulate the interest of the Prussian government bore fruit. Schools of applied art were established in Prussia, and on 15 Sept. 1872 she had the satisfaction of witnessing the opening of an industrial art exhibition at Berlin. Subsequently she and her husband set to work to form a permanent public collection of 'objets d'art,' and the Berlin Industrial Art Museum (Kunst-Gewerbe Museum); which was opened on 20 Nov. 1881, was mainly due to her personal initiative. In the structural evolution of the modern city of Berlin the princess's interest was always keen and her active influence consistently supported the civic effort to give the new city artistic dignity.
Her early endeavours in philanthropy were mainly confined to hospitals. The experiences of the wars of 1866 and 1870 had shown the inadequacy of existing hospital organisations in Germany. A more scientific training for nurses was a first necessity. The crown princess was well acquainted with the reforms effected in England by Florence Nightingale [q. v. Suppl. II], and in 1872 she drafted an exhaustive report on hospital organisation. At her instigation the Victoria House and Nursing School (Viktoria-Haus für Krankenpflege), which was named after her, was established at Berlin in 1881, and soon the Victoria sisters, mainly women of education, undertook the nursing in the municipal hospital at Friedrichshain. Out of the public gift to her and her husband on their silver wedding in 1883 she applied 118,000 marks to the 'endowment of the Victoria House. The success of the school led to the establishment of similar institutions throughout Germany. The value of her work for hospitals was recognised beyond Germany. In 1876 she received a gold medal at the Brussels exhibition for her designs for a barrack hospital, and on 26 May 1883 she was awarded the Royal Red Cross by Queen Victoria on the institution of that order.
From hospitals the crown princess soon passed to schemes for ameliorating the social conditions of the working classes. On her initiative the society for the promotion of health in the home (Gesellschaft für hausliche Gesundheit) was started in 1875 ; it undertook regular house to house visits for the purposes of sanitary inspection. Both at Bornstedt, her husband's country seat, and later at Cronberg, whither she retired after his death, she founded hospitals, workhouses, schools, and libraries.
The cause of popular education, especially for women, was meanwhile one of her chief concerns. In the development in Germany of women's higher education, the crown princess was a pioneer whose labour ​ had far-reaching results. Her untiring work for her own sex brought about a general improvement in the social position of German women. In 1868 at her instance Miss Georgina Archer [see Archer, James, Suppl. II] was invited to Berlin and started the Victoria Lyceum, the first institution in Germany for the higher education of women. Two educational institutions, the Lette Verein (1871), a school for the technical training of soldiers' orphans; and the Heimathaus für Tochter hoherer Stande; or home for girls of the higher middle classes; were mainly set on foot by her exertions, while her interest in modern educational methods was apparent in her patronage of the Pestalozzi-Frobel Haus (1881). No less than forty-two educational and philanthropic institutions flourished under her auspices, and the impulse she gave to women's education throughout Germany swept away most of the old reactionary prejudices against opening to women the intellectual opportunities which men enjoyed.
Despite the public services of the princess, the value of which the German people acknowledged, the humiliating political position of her husband and herself underwent no change. Knowledge of political business was still denied them (Gontaut-Biron, Demieres Années de V ambassade, p. 298). In June 1878 the Emperor William was wounded by an assassin (Nobiling), and the crown prince was appointed regent. But Bismarck contrived that his office should not carry with it any genuine authority. The prompt recovery of his father fully restored the old situation. At the end of 1879 the crown princess withdrew from Berlin on the ground of ill-health, and she spent several months with her husband and family at Pegli near Genoa. During the following years her appearances in public were few. In May 1883 she visited Paris incognito, and on 24 May 1884 she laid the foundation stone of St. George's (English) church at Berlin.
The health of the old emperor was now declining, and the crown prince's accession to the throne was clearly approaching. Bismarck showed some signs of readiness to cultivate better relations with the heir apparent and his family. On 21 Nov. 1884 he attended a soiree given by the crown princess in honour of her birthday (Bismarck, Neue Tischgesprdche und Interviews, ii. 127).
But the crown princess's long-deferred hopes of a happy change of estate were doomed to a cruel disappointment. In the autumn of 1886 the crown prince contracted on the Italian Riviera an affection of the throat, which gradually sapped his strength. For nearly two years her husband's illness was the princess's main preoccupation, and she undertook with great efficiency the chief responsibilities of nursing. In May 1887, when the Berlin physicians diagnosed cancerous symptoms an English physician, (Sir) Morell Mackenzie [q. v.], was called into consultation with the princess's assent, and his optimism initiated an unedifying controversy with his German colleagues, which involved the princess's name. She treated the English specialist with a confidence which the German specialists thought that she withheld from them. Both prince and princess took part in the celebration of Queen Victoria's jubilee (21 June 1887). After a visit to Toblach in Tyrol they moved in November to the Villa Zirio, San Remo, where the fatal progress of the malady no longer admitted of doubt. On 9 March 1888 the old emperor William died at Berlin, and the crown prince, a dying man, succeeded to the throne as Frederick III.
The Emperor Frederick and his consort immediately left San Remo for Charlottenburg, and in a rescript addressed to the chancellor. Prince Bismarck, the new sovereign announced his intention of devoting the remainder of his life to the moral and economic elevation of the nation. He was no longer able to speak, and all communications had to be made to him in writing. The empress undertook to prepare her husband for necessary business (H. Blum, Lebenserinnerungen, ii. 220), and Bismarck's jealousy of her influence was aroused. A family quarrel embittered the difficult situation. Already in 1885 the princess had encouraged a plan for the marriage of her second daughter, Princess Victoria, to Alexander of Battenberg, Prince of Bulgaria. But the scheme had then been rejected. It was now revived, and the old quarrel between the empress and Bismarck found in the proposed match new fuel. The chancellor threatened to resign. He declared the marriage to be not only a breach of caste etiquette owing to Prince Alexander's inferior social rank, but to be an insult to Russia, which had declared its hostility to the Bulgarian ruler. The empress, who regarded her daughter's happiness as the highest consideration ignored Bismarck's arguments. The chancellor prompted an unscrupulous press campaign which brought public opinion to his side. The dying emperor ​ yielded to the combined pressure of Bismarck and public opinion, and on 4 April 1888 he agreed to a postponement of the announcement of the marriage. The empress remained obdurate. But Queen Victoria visited Berlin (24 April) and was convinced by Bismarck of the fatal consequences of further resistance. The empress out of deference to her mother's wishes acquiesced in the situation. Crown Prince William sided with Bismarck throughout the dispute, but Queen Victoria reconciled him to his mother.
On 1 June 1888 the court moved from Charlottenburg to the new palace (Friedrichskron) at Potsdam, and there on 15 June the emperor died in the presence of his wife and family.
One of the last acts of the dying monarch was to place Bismarck's hand in that of the empress as a symbol of reconciliation. But the chancellor did not spare her humiliation in the first days of her widowhood. After her husband's death a cordon of soldiers was drawn round the palace at Potsdam to prevent the removal of any compromising documents ; when the empress requested Bismarck to visit her, he replied that he had no time and must go to her son the emperor, his master (Hohenlohe, ii. 419). Bismarck had taken timely precautions against the adoption by the new emperor of the liberal views of his parents; he had instilled into the young man his own political principles. Mother and son were as a consequence for a time estranged. Even the memory of the Emperor Frederick became involved in acute controversy. Extracts from the late emperor's diary were published by Dr. Friedrich Heinrich Geffcken in the 'Deutsche Rundschau' (Sept. 1888). They were intended as a reply to his traducers and as proof of the part that he had played while crown prince in the achievement of German unity. The suppression of the offending review by Bismarck's orders and the imprisonment of Dr. Geficken (who was not convicted) on the charge of high treason excited the empress's deepest indignation. Bismarck's triumph, however, was short-lived. The new emperor dismissed him from office in March 1890. With curious inconsistency the fallen minister invited the empress's sympathy (Hohenlohe, ii. 419), and in the presence of a witness she reminded him that his own past treatment of her had deprived her of any power of helping him now.
In 1891 a political role was assigned to her by the emperor. He was anxious to test the attitude of the French people towards his family. Under strict incognito she accordingly made a week's stay (19-27 Feb.) at the German embassy in Paris. Queen Victoria was anxious that the English ambassador should arrange a meeting between her and the French president. The empress met in Paris French artists and visited the studios of Bonnat, Détaille, and Carolus Duran. But an indiscreet excursion to Versailles and St. Cloud, where memories of the German occupation of 1870 were still well alive, brought the experiment to an unhappy end. The French nationalist party protested against her presence, threatened a hostile demonstration, and cut short her sojourn (Gaston Routier, Voyage de l’impiratrice Frédéric à Paris en 1891).
After the death of her husband the Empress Frederick settled at Cronberg, where she purchased an estate on the slopes of the Taimus hills. With a legacy left her by the duchess of Galliera she built there a palatial country seat, which she named Friedrichshof . There she still followed the Current course of politics, literature, and art, and entertained her relatives. During the last few months of her life she initiated the Empress Frederick Institute for the higher scientific education of members of the medical profession ; this was opened at Berlin on 1 March 1906 after her death. Her relations with her son improved on the removal of Bismarck, and she was touched by the many tributes he paid to his father's memory. During her last years she repeatedly visited England, and on 22 June 1897 she took part in Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee procession. In the autumn of 1898 a fall from her horse, while out riding at Cronberg, brought on the first symptoms of cancer. She bore her sufferings with the same heroic patience as her husband had borne his. She outlived her mother six months, and died at Friedrickshof on 5 Aug. 1901. She was buried beside her husband in the Friedenskirche at Potsdam. The empress's interests and acccmplishments were of exceptional versatility and variety, and if there was a touch of dilettanteism about her discursive intellectual aptitudes, her devotion to intellectual and artistic pursuits was genuine. She was a clever artist, and an experienced connoisseur in music, though her skill as a performer was inferior to that of Queen Victoria. To philosophy and science she cherished a lifelong devotion, and followed their notable developments in her own time with eagerness. Although she retained her attachment to the Church of England, ​ her religion was undogmatic, and she sympathised with the broad views of Strauss, Renan, Schopenhauer, and Huxley. An ardent champion of religious toleration, she severely condemned anti-semitism. In politics she was steadfast to the creed of civil liberty in which her father had trained her, and she declined to reconcile herself to the despotic traditions of the Prussian court. She made little effort to adapt herself to her German environment, which was uncongenial to her. She often acted unwisely on the impulse of the moment ; she was no good judge of character and was outspoken in her dislikes of persons, which she frequently conceived at first sight. Her unflinching resistance to Bismarck proves her courage, and her persistent support of social, artistic, and philanthropic reform in Prussia bears permanent testimony to the practical quality of her enlightenment. Her wise benevolence earned the gratitude of the German people, but she failed to win their affection.
Of her eight children she was served by her two eldest sons (the Emperor William II and Prince Henry) and four daughters. Her third son, Sigismund, died as an infant on 19 June 1866, and she lost her youngest son, Waldemar, on 27 March 1879, at the age of eleven. She lived to see the marriages of all her remaining children. The Emperor William married, on 27 Feb. 1881, Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, and Prince Henry married on 24 May 1888 Princess Irene of Hesse-Alt. Her four daughters, Princesses Charlotte, Victoria, Sophie, and Margarete, wedded respectively Prince Bernard of Saxe-Meiningen (on 18 Feb. 1878), Prince Adolph of Schaumburg-Lippe (on 19 Nov. 1890), Constantine, Dvike of Sparta (on 27 Oct. 1889), and Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse (on 25 Jan. 1893). All her children, except Princess Victoria of Schaumburg-Lippe, had issue, and her grandchildren numbered seventeen at the time of her death. Her grandchild Feodora (b. 1879), daughter of Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Meiningen, married on 24 Sept. 1898 Prince Henry XXX of Reuss.
As princess royal of England from her infancy and then as crown princess of Germany the Empress Frederick was frequently drawn, painted, and sculptured. The earliest portrait, perhaps, is that in 'The Christening of the Princess Royal,' painted by Charles Robert Leslie, R.A., now at Buckingham Palace. As a child the princess was painted more than once by Sir William Ross, R.A., in miniature, and by Sir Edwin Landseer, R.A., with a pony, and again with Eos, her father's favourite greyhound. In the series of small statuettes in marble, by Mary Thomycroft [q. v.], now at Osborne House, the princess royal appears as 'Summer.' Another bust was made by Emil Wolff in 1851. The princess appears in the large family group of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, by Winterhalter in 1846 and she was painted by the same 'artist at different stages of her life — as a girl, on her first debut in society, at her marriage, and as princess of Prussia.' The Marriage of the Princess Royal and Prince Frederick William of Prussia' (1858), painted by John Phillip, R.A., is now at Buckingham Palace. Among other English artists who drew portraits of the princess were Thomas Musgrave Joy and Edward Matthew Ward, R.A. After her marriage portraits were painted by A. Graefle, F. Hartmann, Ernst Hildebrand, and other leading German artists. Most of these remain in the private possession of her family in England and Germany. Many of them became well known in England in engravings. The picture by Hildebrand is in the HohenzoUem Museum at Berlin. In 1874 an important drawing was made by von Lenbach, as well as a portrait in oils in the costume of the Italian Renaissance by Heinrich von Angeli of Vienna, who then succeeded Winterhalter as favourite painter of Queen Victoria and her family. A half-length by the same artist (1882) is in the Wallace Collection in London, and another (1885) is in the Museum at Breslau. In 1894 Angeli painted a noble and pathetic portrait of the widowed empress, seated, at full-length, one version of which is at Buckingham Palace ; it has been mezzo-tinted by Borber. The crown princess is conspicuous in the large painting by Anton von Werner of 'The Emperor William I receiving the Congratulations of his Family on his Birthday,' which was presented to Queen Victoria at the Jubilee of 1887 by the British colony at Berlin (information kindly supplied by Mr. Lionel Cust). Among other German artists who portrayed her, Begas executed a very life-like bust (1883) and also the sarcophagus over her tomb in the Friedenskirche, Potsdam. A cartoon by 'Nemo' appeared in 'Vanity Fair' in 1884. Memorial tablets were placed in the English church at Homburg (1903) and in the St. Johanniskirche, Cronberg (1906). A bust by Uphues was erected in 1902 on the Kaiser Fredrich promenade at Homburg. A striking statue of the empress in coronation robes, executed by Fritz Gerth, was ​unveiled by the Emperor William II on 18 Oct. 1903, opposite the statue of her husband in the open space outside the Brandenburg gate at Berlin.
[No complete biography has been published. A summary of her life appeared in The Times, and Daily Telegraph, 6 Aug. 1901, and in a memoir by Karl Schrader in the Biographisches Jahrbuch und Deutscher Nekrolog (Berlin, 1905, vii. 451). Her early years may be followed in Sir Theodore Martin's Life of the Prince Consort (1874-80); Letters of Sarah Lady Lyttelton, 1912; in Sir Sidney Lee's Queen Victoria (1904), and Edward VII, Suppl. II; Queen Victoria's Letters, 1837-61 (1907). For her career in Germany see especially Martin Philippson's Friedrich III als Kronprinz und Kaiser (Wiesbaden, 2nd edit. 1908) and Margarete von Poschinger's Life of the Emperor Frederick (trans, by Sidney Whitman, 1901). Other biographies of her husband by H. Hengst (Berlin, 1883), V. Bohmert (Leipzig, 1888), E. Simon (Paris, 1888), Sir Rennell Rod (London, 1888), and H. Muller-Bohn (Berlin, 2nd edit. 1904) are also useful. Hints as to the princess's relations with German politicians may be gleaned from the Memoirs of Duke Ernest of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (trans. 4 vols. 1888-70); T. von Bernhardi's Aus meinem Leben, vols, ii., v., and vi. (Berlin, 1893-1901); R. Haym's Das Leben Max Dunckers (Berlin, 1891); Memoirs of Prince Chlodwig of Hohenlohe-Schillings-fürst (trans. 2 vols. 1906); Moritz Busch's Bismarck, some secret Pages of his History (trans. 3 vols. 1898); Bismarck, His Reflections and Reminiscences (trans. 2 vols. 1898); untranslated supplement ('Anhang') to latter work^ edited by H. Kohl in 2 vols, entitled respectively Kaiser Wilhelm und Bismarck and Aus Bismarck's Briefwechsel (Stuttgart, 1901); Gustav zu Putlitz, Ein Lebensbild (Berlin, 1894); H. Abeken's Ein Schhchtes Leben in bewegter Zeit, 1898, and H. Oncken's Rudolf von Bennigsen (2 vols. Stuttgart, 1910). The empress's artistic and philanthropic work are mainly described in L. Morgenstern's Viktoria, Kronprinzessin des Deutschen Reichs (Berlin, 1883); D. Roberts's The Crown Prince and Princess of Germany (1887); B. von der Lage's Kaiserin Friedrich (Berlin, 1888); and J. Jessen's Die Kaiserin Friedrich (1907). References of varying interest may be found in Lady Bloomfield's Reminiscences of Court and Diplomatic Life (2 vols. 1883); Princess Alice's Letters to Queen Victoria, 1885; Sir C. Kinloch-Cooke's Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck (1900); le Vicomte de Gontaut-Biron's Mon Ambassade en Allemagne, 1872-3 (Paris, 1906), and Dernières Annees de l'ambassade en Allemagne (Paris, 1907); Memoirs and Letters of Sir Robert Morier, 1826-76 (2 vols. 1911); G. W. Smalley's Anglo-American Memoirs, 1911; W. Boyd Carpenter's Some Pages of my Life, 1911; T. Teignmouth Shore's Some Recollections, 1911; and Walburga Lady Paget's Scenes and Memories, 1912. Lady Blennerhassett has kindly supplied some unpublished notes. A character sketch by Max Harden in Kopfe (pt. ii. Berlin, 1910) represents the extreme German point of view. Some account of her latter years may be gathered from H. Delbrück's Kaiser Friedrich und sein Haus (Berlin, 1888); E. Lavisse's Trois Empereurs d'Allemagne (Paris, 1888; Sir More Mackenzie's Frederick the Noble, 1888; and G. A. Leinhaas, Erinnerungen an Kaiserin Friedrich (Mainz, 1902); see also Fortnightly Review and Deutsche Revue, September 1901; Quarterly Review and Deutsche Rundschau, October 1901 for general appreciations.
G. S. W.