Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, later Victoria Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven (Victoria Alberta Elisabeth Mathilde Marie; 5 April 1863 – 24 September 1950) was the eldest daughter of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine (1837–1892) and his first wife Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (1843–1878).
Her mother died while her brother and sisters were still young, which placed her in an early position of responsibility over her siblings. She married her father's first cousin, Prince Louis of Battenberg, an officer in the United Kingdom's Royal Navy, in a love match and lived most of her married life in various parts of Europe at her husband's naval posts and visiting her many royal relations. She was perceived by her family as liberal in outlook, straightforward, practical and bright.
During World War I, two of her sisters who had married into the Russian royal family were murdered by communist revolutionaries, and she and her husband abandoned their German titles and adopted the British-sounding surname of Mountbatten, which was simply a translation into English of the German "Battenberg".
She was the maternal grandmother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, who is the consort of Queen Elizabeth II.
Read more about Princess Victoria Of Hesse And By Rhine: Early Life, Marriage and Family, Later Life, Legacy, Titles and Styles, Ancestry
Famous quotes containing the words princess, victoria, hesse and/or rhine:
“We are eager to tunnel under the Atlantic and bring the Old World some weeks nearer to the New; but perchance the first news that will leak through into the broad, flapping American ear will be that the Princess Adelaide has the whooping cough.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Sometimes my wife complains that she’s overwhelmed with work and just can’t take one of the kids, for example, to a piano lesson. I’ll offer to do it for her, and then she’ll say, “No, I’ll do it.” We have to negotiate how much I trespass into that mother role—it’s not given up easily.”
—Anonymous Father. As quoted in Women and Their Fathers, by Victoria Secunda, ch. 3 (1992)
“What I always hated and detested and cursed above all things was this contentment, this healthiness and comfort, this carefully preserved optimism of the middle classes, this fat and prosperous brood of mediocrity.”
—Hermann Hesse (1877–1962)
“Ah, there should be a young man, ein schone Junge carrying Blumen, a bouquet of roses. There should be cold Rhine wine and Strauss waltzes, and on the long way home kisses in the shadow of an archway, like a Cinderella.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)