Version français
Deutsche Version
Princess Helena was more attached to her father than to her mother. After her father's death, on January 14, 1861, she wrote to her friend Emily Beauclerck: "What we have lost nothing can ever replace and our grief is most, most bitter...Oh! If you knew how miserable I am.... I adored Papa, I loved him more than anything on Earth. His word was a most sacred law and he was my help and adviser" (Packard). Unlike her sister Alice, Lenchen was unable to support her mother to carry on her grief because she used to break down in tears at any moment.
Lenchen's fatness was compensated by a wavy brown hair, a little straight nose and lovely amber coloured eyes. She played the piano, had a distinct gift for drawing and painting in water colours and had a very clear though not very strong soprano voice. She was outsandingly loyal to her friends.
According to Helena's biographer, Seweryn Chomet, when she was 17, she mantained a wealthy correspondence with her father's German-born librarian, Carl Ruland. Her letters revealed, according to Chomet, a serious flirtation between the Princess and Ruland, and this was the cause of his dismissal from England. Helena's lettters to Ruland are now in the Royal Archives of Windsor Castle, probably sent there by Ruland's son after World War II.
In 1866 Lenchen paid a visit to Germany with her mother . There she met for the first time the man who would be her husband, Prince Christian of Schleswig Holstein Sonderburg Augustenburg. Prince Christian's genealogy is quite interesting: he descended from both the British and the Danish Royal Families. By his paternal grandfather he was a direct descendant of King Christian III of Denmark and his paternal grandmother was both a daughter of King Christian VII of Denmark and a great granddaugthter of King George II of Great Britain. His father was Duke Christian Karl of Schleswig Holstein Sonderburg Augustenburg, who leaded the Schleswig and Holstein's revolt against Denmark in 1848, being supported by Prussia and which was the origin of the Danish-Prussian and Austro-Prussian wars, and which result in the lost of the duchies for Christian's family.There was an inconvenient for Lenchen's engagement to Christian, he was an impoverish prince, with any future and lacked of ambition; besides he had no job since he had just left the Prussian army. But for her, Christian was just fine and she decided she was going to marry him. It was not easy that Queen Victioria resigned herself to loose a daughter just as that. She advised Christian that he would only be accepted as a son-in-law if he agreed to live permanently in England by her side. Since he had no future anywhere else with nothing to loose and hew truely liked Lenchen, he accepted the Queen's conditions.
The complicated affair of the Schleswig and Holstein duchies, in which Christian's family was involved, would cause a controversial division in Lenchen's family. Her sister Vicky, the Crown Princess of Prussia, agreed with Lenchen's marriage becuase she and her husband supported Christain's brother's claims to the duchies agaisnt Bismarck, to whom they were political enemies. In the other hand, Lenchen's brother, the Prince of Wales, dissaproved the match since he was married to Alexandra, daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark. In Alexandra's opinion the duchies belonged to her father of whom the Augustemburgs were enemies. Helena's younger sister Louise was on Vicky's side and her other sisiter Alice, Duchess of Hesse, was on the one of the Pirnce of Wales, beucause she tought that her mother was pushing Lenchen to accept the amrriage in order to maintain Lenchen by her side, and besides the match woukld annoy the Hohenzollerns; when Alice learned of Helena's true love for Christian, she changed her attitude and supported her sister. Despite all inconvenients Helena and Christian succeded and they got married on July 5, 1866. Altough settled in England, they tried to make their life away from court. First Queen Victoria gave them Frogmore House in Windsor. Later on they would move to Cumberland Lodge. Christian's life in England was full of leisure, with no occupation at all. Queen Victoria named him Ranger of the Park in Windsor but anyway it was not a very hard job.
Prince and Princess Christian had two sons, Christian Victor, born in 1867 and Albert, born in 1869, and two daughters, Helena Victoria, born in 1870 and Marie Louise, born in 1872. In1876 Princess Helena gave birth to a third son, Frederick Harald, who died 8 days later and the next year, she delivered a stillborn child. Both events produced a great shock upon her of which she slowly recovered. On the other hand Helena and Christian were happily married; they had a pleasant family life whith their fourth children while they were small.
Helena was a writer of some ability. In 1887 she translated from the French "The Memoirs of Whilelmine, Margravine of Baireuth", which were describe by The Times as an admirable transaltion of a most interesting book. She also transalted the correspondence between the Margravine and Voltaire. Besides these two books, Helena wrote a Memoir devoted to her sister Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse, an introduction to a collection of Alice's letters. It was first published by John Murray in 1884. Another transaltion by Princess Helena was the booklet etitled "First Aid to the Injured", which revealed her interest in nursing.
In Christmas 1891, Prince Christian went out shooting with his brother in law, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught. Accidentally, loosing control of his arm, Arthur shot out on one of Christian's eyes, damaging the other. Christian lost his worst damage eye, and had to use an artifical glass eyeball.
By this same time, Princess Helena became with "imaginary ailments" as the physician, Dr.Reid, diagnosed her. He prescribed her laudanum and opium but Lenchen became an addict, until Dr. Reid cut her the supply of the drugs. As a result Lenchen said she was becoming blind but the physician told her her eyes were all right, and what she had was a nervous breakdown, because of the misused of the drugs. He gave her a lotion that was only a placebo to calm her until the craving for laudanum dissaapeared. From then on, Lenchen became fond of the lotion.
On October 25, 1900, Prince and Princess Christian had to face the death of his eldest son, Christian Victor, who died of malaria while been in active service in South Africa.