While royal houses are often insular and even incestuous (at least at the cousin-marrying level), new blood does manage to enter those gene pools from time to time. Meet the Mountbattens! The family’s story begins in Russia, circa 1850, where the orphaned daughter of a Polish general named Julia von Hauke was serving in the…
Tag: House Hesse-Darmstadt
32. Ernie and Ducky, Part Two (Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha)
Once their grandmother, Queen Victoria, died in 1901, Ernie and Ducky were finally free to do what everyone sorta kinda understood they should: divorce. But sovereigns don’t divorce, so the situation became a scandal in the Royal Houses of Europe, and in Russia, Ernie’s sister, Empress Alexandra, blamed Ducky for it all. This became a…
31. Ernie and Ducky, Part One (Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha)
Queen Victoria’s efforts to make suitable matches for her dozens of grandchildren was in no way a flawless endeavor. Take today’s subjects, for instance. First cousins Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine (nickname: Ernie) and Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (nickname: Ducky), became the subject of intense Royal meddling as…