Dimensions
168 x 242 x 32mm
Beatrice was the last child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Her father died when she was four and while Victoria came to depend on her absolutely, she also demanded her complete submission. By her late teens, Beatrice was running the Queen’s office and when Victoria died, her daughter became literary executor, a role she conducted with teutonic thoroughness, editing her mother’s 70-year journal and correspondence. Although Victoria tried to prevent Beatrice even so much as thinking of love, when Beatrice was 29 she met Prince Henry of Battenberg and fell in love. As Dennison puts it, hers was a ‘hard-won victory of love over family prejudice, political reluctance and most significantly, Queen Victoria’s opposition.’ Beatrice, however, did not end up simply as a wife and mother and this new examination will restore her to her proper prominence—as Queen Victoria’s second consort.
