Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg - Early Life

Early Life

Victoria Eugenie was born on 24 October 1887 at Balmoral Castle, in Scotland in the United Kingdom. Her father was Prince Henry of Battenberg, the fourth child and third son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine by his morganatic wife Countess Julia von Hauke, and her mother was Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom, the fifth daughter and youngest child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

As Prince Henry was the product of a morganatic marriage, he took his style of Prince of Battenberg from his mother, who had been created Princess of Battenberg. As such Henry's daughter would normally have been born with the title Her Serene Highness Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg. However, on 4 December 1886, Queen Victoria had issued letters patent granting the higher style of "Highness" to all sons and daughters of Prince Henry and Princess Beatrice, thus she was born Her Highness Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg. She was named for her two grandmothers and for her godmother, Empress Eugénie, the Spanish-born widow of the former Emperor of the French Napoleon III, who lived in exile in the United Kingdom. To her family, and the British general public, she was known by the last of her names, as Ena.

Victoria Eugenie grew up in Queen Victoria's household, as the British monarch had reluctantly allowed Beatrice to marry on the condition that she remain her mother's full-time companion and personal secretary. She therefore spent her childhood at Windsor Castle, Balmoral, and Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. She was a bridesmaid at the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of York (future George V and Queen Mary) on 6 July 1893.

Her father died while on active military service after contracting fever in Africa in 1896. After the death of Queen Victoria in 1901, the Battenbergs moved to London and took up residence in Kensington Palace.