The Last Princess: The Devoted Life of Queen Victoria's Youngest Daughter

By Matthew Dennison

Beatrice Mary Victoria Feodore, later Princess Henry of Battenberg, was the last-born – in 1866 – of Victoria and Albert's children, and she would outlive all of her siblings to die as recently as 1944. Her childhood coincided with her mother's extended period of mourning for her prematurely deceased husband, a circumstance which may have contributed to Victoria's determination to keep her youngest daughter as close to her as possible.

She would eventually marry Prince Henry of Battenberg in 1885, but only after overcoming her mother's opposition to their union. Beatrice remained Queen Victoria's favourite among her five daughters, and became her mother's constant companion and later her literary executor, spending the years that followed Victoria's death in 1901 editing her mother's journals and voluminous correspondence.

Matthew Dennison's elegantly written biography restores Beatrice to her rightful place as a key figure in the history of the Victorian age, and paints a touching and revealing portrait of the life and family of Britain's second-longest-reigning monarch.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
• Release date: Dec 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781789543919

Matthew Dennison

Matthew Dennison is the author of seven critically acclaimed works of non-fiction, including Behind the Mask: The Life of Vita Sackville-West, a Book of the Year in The Times, Spectator, Independent and Observer. His most recent book is Over the Hills and Far Away: The Life of Beatrix Potter. He is a contributor to Country Life and Telegraph.

Reviews for The Last Princess

[ponsonby_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This biography of Princess Beatrice fills a gap, in terms of bringing together in one place most of the salient facts about her life. However, it is spoilt by a number of things. First, there is the author's determination to comment repeatedly and excessively on Queen Victoria's motives for treating Beatrice in the way that she did - something which is certainly relevant but does not need to be emphasised over and over again. Ironically, this mean that the best part of the book comes in the chapters dealing with the long years after Queen Victoria's death.There are other, less intrusive, faults - for example, speculation on Beatrice's relations with her siblings based on very little evidence, and some contradictory evidence - for example, it is emphasised that after her husband's death the princess was not hysterical (and by extension better than her mother) and then on the next page there is a quotation from an in-law which shows quite the opposite. There are also factual errors - for example, at one point it is said that the Queen's grand-daughter Princess Alix of Hesse was born in 1871; she was actually born in 1872. That doesn't affect the main story here, but how much of the book has been fact-checked?One good feature of the book is a brief chapter which attempts to rehabilitate John Brown and look at the psychological factors underlying his relationship with the Queen. That is welcome, given the tendency of some writers to simply take their lead from the Queen's eldest son, who hated Brown.So, worth reading but could have been better.

[auntie0nanuuq · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I've read better...so dull, boring and stuffily written....

Spoiled, allowed freedoms her siblings were not, considered the "prettiest" and co-dependent to her mother....She turned out to be a capable, strong & independent thinker......

[mariabiblioteca · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book provides insight into why Queen Victoria will never be nominated Mother of the Year. Princess Beatrice, the youngest of the Queen's children, was made to be the Queen's personal assistant from an early age. The Queen believed that she had the right to retain her youngest unmarried daughter for this purpose, and that her own happiness was far more important than Beatrice's. The Queen was determined to keep Beatrice innocent, docile, and, most of all, unmarried, going so far as to prevent conversations about marriage from taking place within Beatrice's earshot. When Beatrice, in her late twenties, fell in love and insisted on her right to marry, the Queen was furious, and mother and daughter did not speak for months. Of course, Beatrice still carried out her duties to the Queen during this conflict. Finally, the Queen relented, stipulating the Beatrice could marry, if and only if her future husband, Prince Henry of Battenberg (known as Liko), agreed that the married couple would live under the Queen's roof. Beatrice agreed, of course, and continued to place her mother's needs and desires ahead of her husbands, and later, her own children. This book helps the reader become a bit more sympathetic about Beatrice's censoring of her mother's journals--she re-wrote them out by hand, editing them, and burning the originals--after the Queen's death. This is a terrible loss to historical scholarship, but in this book we understand that Beatrice, as usual, was simply carrying out the Queen's wishes--the story of her life.

[shalulah · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

This was a fascinating (& quick!) read. I had really been looking forward to this book & it didn't disappoint. An absorbing & sympathetic biography of Queen Victoria's youngest daughter. It gave you a sense of history without plodding through tedious, unnecessary ancestry, as so many biographies do.