Victoria Eugénie von Battenberg

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Philip Alexius de László : Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain, around 1920

Princess Victoria Eugénie Julia Ena von Battenberg , called Ena (born October 24, 1887 at Balmoral Castle , Scotland , †  April 15,  1969 in Lausanne , Switzerland ) was a British-German princess who married King Alfonso XIII. Queen of Spain (1906–1931) became. She is a great-grandmother of the current Spanish King Felipe VI. and was his godmother .

Life

Victoria Eugénie was the only daughter of Prince Heinrich Moritz von Battenberg (1858-1896), Governor and Captain of the Isle of Wight , and his wife Princess Beatrice of Great Britain and Ireland (1857-1944), the youngest daughter of Queen Victoria and the British Prince Consort Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha . Her paternal grandparents were the German Prince Alexander von Hessen-Darmstadt and Countess Julia Hauke .

The upbringing of the princess and her brothers was closely monitored by their parents. Victoria Eugénie was considered precocious and extremely intelligent. Her governess taught her to read and write before she was five, and she spoke only French to her French nanny . In addition to English, the princess also learned German from various governesses and nannies, as well as natural sciences , literature , Latin and history . Her father, Prince Heinrich, taught her politics and philosophy . Princess Victoria Eugénie was considered one of the most beautiful princesses in Europe.

The 1906 assassination attempt

On May 17, 1906, Princess Victoria Eugénie married the Spanish King Alfonso XIII in Madrid . (1886–1941), the only son of King Alfonso XII. and his second wife, Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria . The wedding took place in the midst of a state crisis. In the Basque Country and Catalonia , the movements striving for autonomy grew stronger. The day before the wedding, Catalan nationalists demonstrated in Barcelona. On the wedding day, the Catalan anarchist Mateo Morral (1880–1906) carried out an assassination attempt on the bride and groom on Calle Mayor in Madrid; 23 people were killed.

It was neither the first nor the last attack on her husband; three of his ministers, namely Antonio Cánovas del Castillo (1897), José Canalejas Méndez (1912) and Eduardo Dato (1921), were victims of anarchist assassinations.

Portrait of Joaquín Sorolla : King Alfonso XIII. in hussar uniform , 1907

The marriage was considered unhappy. Her husband was a typical Belle Époque bon vivant who led a dissolute life. He had many affairs with other women and five children out of wedlock. He was also said to have a liaison with her cousin Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha .

Like her mother and other family members, Victoria Eugénie was also a carrier of the insidious hereditary disease hemophilia (blood disease), which she passed on to her children. In addition, the second son Jaime was deaf after an operation . The unhappy marriage had seven children:

⚭ 1933–1937 Edelmira Sampedro-Ocejo y Robarto
⚭ 1937–1938 Marta Rocafort y Altazurra
  • Jaime (1908–1975), Duke of Segovia and French pretender to the throne as Jacques II
⚭ 1935–1947 Princess Victoire Jeanne Joséphine Emmanuelle de Dampierre
⚭ 1949 Carlota Tiedemann
⚭ 1935 Alessandro Torlonia, Prince of Civitella-Cessi
  • Fernando stillborn son (* / † May 21, 1910)
  • Maria Christina (1911–1996), Infanta of Spain
⚭ 1940 Enrico Eugenio Marone-Cinzano, 1st Conte di Marone
  • Juan (1913–1993), Count of Barcelona
⚭ 1935 Princess Maria de las Mercedes of Bourbon-Sicily
  • Gonzalo (1914–1934), Infante of Spain
Portrait of Joaquín Sorolla : Queen Victoria Eugenie (1910)

In the international context, the reign of Alfonso XIII fell. to a Europe that was shaken by labor movements and devastated by World War I. The inner situation experienced in the era of Alfonso XIII. the decline of the political system that had been the work of Cánova . This decline was reflected in a rapid fragmentation of the major parties, which took turns in power, as the country experienced remarkable demographic and social changes. Spain became a de facto military dictatorship under General Miguel Primo de Rivera , in which the king was overshadowed by the military dictator. The Republicans emerged victorious in the 1931 elections , and the Republic was proclaimed in Madrid on April 14th. Alfons went into exile on the same day without a formal abdication .

Then the Spanish royal family moved through Europe for ten years - the stations were France, Switzerland and Italy. During this time, ex-Queen Victoria Eugénie lost her youngest child Gonzalo in an accident, and her firstborn Alfonso died in Miami in 1938 . Her husband died in 1941 in the Grand Hotel in Rome. Ex-Queen Victoria Eugénie later lived in seclusion in Lausanne. In February 1968 she was the godmother of her great-grandson Infante Felipe .

Her remains were transferred to the El Escorial palace and monastery in 1985 , where they were initially kept in the pudridero of the Pantheon of Kings. This is a publicly inaccessible room in which the corpses can initially rot. In 2011, Victoria Eugenie received her final resting place in a marble sarcophagus in the Pantheon of Kings .

title

coat of arms
  • 1887–1906 Your Highness Princess Victoria Eugénie von Battenberg
  • 1906: Her Royal Highness Princess Victoria Eugenie von Battenberg
  • 1906–1941: Her Majesty The Queen of Spain
  • 1941–1969: Her Majesty Queen Victoria Eugenie of Spain

photos

  • Philip Alexius de László: Queen Victoria Eugenie (1906)

  • Portrait of Joaquín Sorolla : Queen Victoria Eugenie (1906)

  • Princess Victoria Eugénie von Battenberg (1904)

  • Princess Victoria Eugénie von Battenberg, later Queen of Spain

literature

  • Arnold McNaughton: The Book of Kings. A Royal Genealogy. 3 volumes. Garnstone Press, London 1973, ISBN 0-900391-19-7 .
  • Alison Weir: Britain's Royal Family. A Complete Genealogy . Bodley Head, London 1989, ISBN 0-370-31310-0 .

Web links

Commons : Victoria Eugénie von Battenberg  - Collection of images

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1]
predecessor Office Successor
Maria Christina of Austria Queen of Spain
1906–1931 		Sophia of Greece
personal data
SURNAME Battenberg, Victoria Eugénie of
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Battenberg, Victoria Eugénie Julia Ena von; Battenberg, Ena of
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Queen of Spain
DATE OF BIRTH October 24, 1887
PLACE OF BIRTH Balmoral Castle
DATE OF DEATH April 15, 1969
Place of death Lausanne