Beatrice was the youngest of Queen Victoria and Prince Consort Albert’s nine children, and only four years old when her father died and her mother embarked upon a long life-time of mourning. As her older children married and formed ties with royalty from throughout Europe, the Queen was determined to keep at least one of her daughters at home to serve as her constant companion and secretary. Too young at the beginning, the role passed through older sisters, until Beatrice, or “Baby,” the moniker by which she would be known into adulthood, was old enough to fill in.
Growing up in a house of mourning, Beatrice didn’t enjoy many childhood activities, and neither did she have playmates or the company of young people her own age. Her only rebellion against her mother was to fall in love and insist on marrying Prince Henry “Liko” of Battenberg, but even then, Victoria only gave her permission if the pair agreed to make their home with her. While this arrangement was suitable for Beatrice, who had known nothing else, and Prince Henry agreed to it in order to marry Beatrice, he was soon restless, setting off on hunting and sailing jaunts for weeks or even months at a time. Ultimately this was his downfall, as he decided it was his duty to go to Africa to fight the Ashanti, where he caught malaria, and died on his way home.
More interesting in many ways than Beatrice, the ever-devoted and self-subsuming daughter, was the portrait of the Queen who came across as dependent on husband and then children, spoiled, sometimes helpless, and not the imperious monarch who one thought ruled her country with an iron hand, other than within her own family. More reading is needed to understand Victoria within the context of her family and the era.
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