Louise, Princess Royal and Duchess of Feif, was born at the heart of British royalty. She was the daughter of King Edward IIIth and Alexandra of Denmark, as well as the granddaughter of Queen Victoria and the sister of the future George V. However, unlike other members of her family, her life was not marked by great scandals or by visible political ambition, but by discretion, duty, and a series of tragedies and painful losses that gradually dimmed her family world.
Who was this princess really? So close to the throne, and yet so little remembered, and how did she end up living through some of the most important changes faced by the British royal family during the 20th century? Before we continue with this fascinating biography, we invite you to subscribe to the channel and activate the notification bell so you do not miss any of our videos.
Without further ado, let us begin. Princess Louise was born on the 20th of February 1867 at Malbor House, London, the residence of her parents, the then Prince and Princess of Wales. She was the third child of Albert Edward, the future Edward IIIth, and Alexandra of Denmark. Although she was the couple’s first daughter, her arrival came at a delicate moment.
Alexandra had fallen ill with rheumatic fever during the final stage of her pregnancy, and the birth was surrounded by concern for the mother’s health. The princess survived, but the illness left Alexandra with permanent after effects, including a limp that would remain with her for the rest of her life. In her diary, Queen Victoria recorded the alarm of that morning and the relief she felt on learning that the birth had ended without tragedy.
She also noted that the child had been born between 3 and 4 weeks earlier than expected. At birth, she was given the name Louise Victoria Alexandra Dagmar in honor of several women in her family. her maternal grandmother, Queen Louise of Denmark, her paternal grandmother, Queen Victoria, her mother, Alexandra of Denmark, and her maternal aunt, Dagmar, the future Empress of Russia.
On her father’s side, Louise was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. On her mother’s side, she was descended from King Christian the 9th of Denmark and Queen Louise of Hessa Castle. From birth, therefore, she was placed within a network of royal family connections that linked the United Kingdom with Denmark and with other European monarchies of the 19th century.
During her childhood, Louise grew up between Malbor House in London and Sandringham House, her family’s country residence in Norfolk, in an atmosphere that was much warmer and more relaxed than the strict court of Queen Victoria. Within the family, she was known by nicknames such as Lulu and Tootss. And from an early age, she was considered a delicate child with fragile health, something many connected to the serious illness her mother had suffered during pregnancy.
Louise grew up alongside her siblings, Albert, Victor, George, Victoria, and Maud. That family circle suffered an early blow in April 1871 when her younger brother Alexander John was born prematurely at Sandringham House and died the following day. Louise was only 4 years old. In her diary, Queen Victoria first recorded that the baby was extremely weak and shortly afterwards that our poor little child had been taken from us.
The surviving sources mainly reflect the grief of his parents and of the queen herself rather than Louise’s direct reaction, but the episode formed part of the first losses that marked the family. Although her day-to-day education was especially linked to that of her younger sisters, Victoria and Maud, the three girls received a private education centered on music, art, and the activities considered appropriate for princesses of their time.
Louise developed a particular interest in music. She studied the guitar with the renowned teacher Katherina Prattton and years later even played the organ at St. Mary Magdalene Church near Sandringham. She also enjoyed photography and the small theatrical performances organized by the family at Balmoral. Unlike other more extroverted members of royalty, Louise grew up as a reserved and shy young woman, little inclined to draw attention to herself.
Much of her youth was spent very close to her parents and siblings, especially under the strong influence of her mother, Alexandra, who tried to keep her daughters close to the family circle. During those years, Louise accompanied the family on frequent journeys to Denmark, where she spent time with her maternal relatives and strengthened the ties that linked the British royal family with other European royal houses.
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In 1885, while still a young princess, Louise appeared publicly as a bridesmaid at the wedding of her aunt, Princess Beatatrice, Queen Victoria’s youngest daughter, to Prince Henry of Battenburg, one of the most important family events of the Victorian court during that decade. Louise was considered an important marriage candidate because she was the daughter of the Prince of Wales and the granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
It would have been expected that she would marry a European prince, but several sources agree that she preferred not to make a grand marriage with a foreign reigning house, nor to move too far away from England. Her future husband was Alexander Duff, sixth Earl Fe, a Scottish aristocrat. He was not a prince of a reigning house, but he was wealthy, well-connected, and close to the circle of the Prince of Wales.
He had been liberal member of Parliament for Elgensure and Narn. And in 1879, he inherited the title of Earl Fe, taking a seat in the House of Lords. Louise had known Alexander for years. They had been introduced at Princess Beatatric’s wedding in 1885, and he was a regular companion of the Prince of Wales, with whom he went hunting.
For that reason, he was not a stranger to the family. He belonged to her father’s close circle and also knew her brothers. The age difference was considerable. Alexander was 18 years older than Louise. Even so, the relationship progressed, and she asked her grandmother, Queen Victoria, for permission to marry him. Louise reportedly said through tears that if she were not allowed to marry Alexander, she would remain unmarried for the rest of her life.
Queen Victoria finally accepted the match. In a letter addressed to Alexander, dated the 27th of June 1889, Victoria wrote that she loved her granddaughters dearly and that their happiness mattered deeply to her. She also added that she was sure Louise would be happy with him as she had known him since childhood and that she was pleased her granddaughter would have her home in Scotland.
The engagement was announced in June 1889. However, not everyone viewed the match with enthusiasm. Princess Victoria Mary of Tech, the future Queen Mary, wrote that for a future Princess royal to marry a subject seemed rather strange. The criticism was not so much personal against Louise, but against the idea of a princess so close to the throne marrying someone who did not belong to a reigning royal house.
Louise and Alexander Duff were married on the 27th of July 1889 in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace. The ceremony was officiated by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Edward White Benson, together with other clergymen. It was an important wedding within the Victorian royal family and the first to be held in that private chapel of the palace.
The bride was escorted by her father, the prince of Wales. All her bridesmaids belonged to the family. Among them were her sisters Victoria and Maud of Wales, Victoria Mary of Tech, princesses Helena Victoria and Marie Louise of Schleswig Holstein, and the countesses Fodor Victoria and Helena Glen.
Louise wore a white satin dress with a long train adorned with orange blossom. She accompanied it with a crown of the same motif, a lace veil and diamond and pearl jewelry. Alexander, for his part, wore the green uniform of the Baner artillery volunteers, and displayed the Order of the Thistle, one of Scotland’s most important distinctions.
Queen Victoria left a description of the day in her diary. She wrote that the day had been very dark and dull and that Louise was very pale and looked very nervous. She also noted that after the ceremony and the luncheon, she saw Louise and Alexander Duff, whom she informally called McDuff, leave in their carriage amid great crowds and cheers.
2 days after the wedding, Victoria raised Alexander Duff to the rank of Duke of Fif and Marquis of McDuff in the periage of the United Kingdom. For that reason, Louise, who had married the Earl of Fe, became known as the Duchess of Fe. Louise and Alexander Duff had three children. Although motherhood was marked from the beginning by a painful loss, their first child, Alistister Duff, Marquis of McDuff, was still born on the 16th of June 1890.
Then came Alexandre Duff, born on the 17th of May, 1891. In January 1892, the family received another deep blow with the death of Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Aendale, Louise’s elder brother at the age of 28, a victim of influenza. The loss especially affected his mother, Alexandra of Denmark, who never ceased to mourn the death of her eldest son.
The following year, Maud Duff was born on the 3rd of April, 1893. Alexandra and Maud would be the only surviving daughters of the marriage and in time the central figures in the future of the F family. This detail had enormous importance for the future of the family. The first dukedom of F granted to Alexander after his wedding to Louise was intended to be inherited through the male line.
But as he had no living son, the continuity of the title was in doubt. For that reason, in 1900, Queen Victoria created a second duke of F with a special provision. If Alexander left no male heir, the title could pass to his daughters. Shortly afterwards, the royal family faced a decisive change. In January 191, Queen Victoria died, and Louis’s father ascended the throne as Edward IIIth.
With the new reign, Louisa’s position changed. In 195, Edward IIIth granted her the title of Princess Royal, a distinction traditionally reserved for the eldest daughter of the British monarch. At first, her daughters Alexandra and Maud were not born as princesses and were known simply as Lady Alexandre Duff and Lady Morde Duff.
But that same year, the king also granted his granddaughters Alexandra and Maud the title of princesses with the style of highness. Alexandra, the elder daughter, would later inherit the dukedom of F in her own right, and in 1913 would marry Prince Arthur of Connor, a grandson of Queen Victoria. Morde, the younger daughter, would take a different path by marrying Charles Carnegie, the future Earl of Sesque.
After her marriage, Louise led a life increasingly connected to Scotland and to the F family estates. One of her most important places was Mah Lodge in Abedine Shire, a residence built for her and Alexander Duff as a country retreat. Its location near Balmoral allowed Louise to remain close to the royal family’s circle during their stays in the Scottish Highlands.
Although she had a reserved character, Louise did not disappear completely from public life. She took part in official events and in various charitable works. In November 195, shortly after receiving the title of Princess Royal, Louise opened the King’s Labor camps in Kingsway, London. This was an initiative of the Church Army, an Anglican social welfare organization intended to help people living in poverty.
These camps offered food, temporary accommodation, and simple work to unemployed or destitute men. Over the years, she was also linked to several charitable and public organizations. Among them, the Alexandra Girls Club, the British Red Cross, the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and the Ladies Theatrical Guild.
Although she was not a political figure, nor an especially visible princess. These acts show that she maintained a constant presence in social welfare and charitable activities. In 1910, Louisa’s family life changed once again with the death of her father, Edward IIIth. The king had suffered from health problems for several months and died on the 6th of May that year at Buckingham Palace at the age of 68 after serious respiratory and cardiac complications.
His death shocked the United Kingdom and marked the end of the Eduwardian period. With her brother’s accession to the throne as George V, Louise became the sister of the new king and continued to occupy a close place within the British royal family, although she always maintained a discreet profile. But that reserved life was also marked by an unexpected and dramatic episode.
In December 1911, Louise Alexander and their daughters were traveling to Egypt aboard the SS Delhi when the ship ran ground off the coast of Morocco during a storm. According to accounts gathered by different sources, Louise and her husband refused to leave the ship until the women and children had been rescued and were among the last to get off.
During the rescue, Louise lost her jewel case and her daughters Alexandra and Moraud were struck by a large wave and thrown into the sea, although they survived. The family escaped with their lives, but the disaster had serious consequences for Alexander Duff. After being exposed to the cold and to the conditions of the shipwreck, the Duke fell ill with puricy and died in Azwan, Egypt on the 29th of January 1912 at the age of 62.
The loss was a profound blow for Louise. Her sister Moraud wrote that she could not imagine the princess’s pain because Alexander was everything to her and Louise lived for him and for her two daughters. Years later, Louise herself would remember that her husband had said he would fight the illness as he had fought the waves.
With his death, Alexandra, Louise’s elder daughter, inherited the dukedom of fif and became duchess in her own right. During the following years, Europe was plunged into the first world war. Although Louise did not play a prominent political role, she witnessed one of the most important transformations affecting her own family.
In 1917, amid growing hostility towards everything German, her brother George V decided that the royal family would abandon the dynastic name of Sax Cobberg and Goa and adopt the name Windsor. For Louise, who had been born as Queen Victoria’s granddaughter within a family closely connected to numerous European royal houses, that change symbolized the end of an era.
The war also profoundly altered the world in which she had grown up. Several European royal houses connected to her family by blood lost power or disappeared. Among them, the Ramanov dynasty in Russia where her cousin Tar Nicholas II had ruled. The execution of the emperor and his family in 1918 shocked the royal houses of Europe and symbolized the collapse of a monarchical order that had dominated the continent for generations.
In 1925, Louise suffered another important loss with the death of her mother, Queen Alexandra. In her final years, Alexandra had lived in increasing retirement. Her progressive deafness had isolated her socially, and in 1920, the rupture of a blood vessel in one eye had caused temporary partial blindness. Towards the end of her life, her memory and speech also deteriorated.
She died on the 20th of November 1925 at Sandringham House at the age of 80 after suffering a heart attack. Her death marked the end of a generation deeply connected to the Edwardian period and left Louise as one of the last surviving daughters of Edward IIIth and Alexandra of Denmark. Over the years, Louisa’s health began to decline.
She suffered recurrent gastric hemorrhages with serious episodes in April 1925 and October 1929. After this last attack which occurred at Mar Lodge, she was taken back to London to receive care at Portman Square where she spent much of her final months in bed. Despite her fragile state of health, Louise still made some public appearances.
In December 1930, only a few weeks before her death, she attended the Hey Market Theater to present badges to members of the Lady’s Theatrical Guild, an organization of which she was patron. On the 4th of January, 1931, Louise died in her sleep at 2:30 in the afternoon at her residence in Portman Square, London.
She was 63 years old, and her two daughters, Alexandra and Maud, were by her side. The cause of death was valvular heart disease which ultimately led to heart failure. After her death, her sister, Princess Victoria, wrote to Queen Morud of Norway words that reflected the family’s grief. Louise suffered so much during these last months that one can only thank God.
She is at peace with her loved ones. But it is sad for us, and the loss of a sister touches the heart very closely. Her funeral was held on the 10th of January, 1931 in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle. It was a simple ceremony, but it was attended by important members of the royal family, including George V, Queen Mary, the Prince of Wales, and the Duke and Duchess of York.
She was first buried in the royal vault of St. George’s Chapel at Windsor. Later on the 22nd of May 1931, her remains were transferred to the private chapel at Mar Lodge in Bramer Abedinia, Scotland, where she rested beside her husband. Unlike other women in her family, Louise was not remembered for scandals, political ambition, or a strong public personality.
Her historical image is that of a reserved princess who lived a discrete life positioned between the final Victorian era and the years in which the British monarchy had to adapt to the changes of the 20th century, especially after the First World War. Thank you for joining us until the end of the video. We hope you enjoyed it. If you have anything to add, please share it with us in the comments section.
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