Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom
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Beatrice continued to appear in public after her mother's death. The public engagements she carried out were often related to her mother, Victoria, as the public had always associated Beatrice with the deceased monarch. The beauty of Beatrice's daughter, Ena, was known throughout Europe, and, despite her low rank, she was a desirable bride. Her chosen suitor was King Alphonso XIII of Spain. However, the marriage caused controversy in Britain, since it required Ena to convert to Catholicism. This step was opposed by Beatrice's brother, King Edward VII, and Spanish ultra-conservatives were against the King's marriage to a Protestant of low birth. Nevertheless, Alphonso and Ena were married on 31 May 1906. The marriage began inauspiciously when an anarchist attempted to bomb them on their wedding day. Apparently close at first, the couple grew apart. Ena became unpopular in Spain and grew more so when it was discovered that her son, the heir to the throne, suffered from haemophilia. Alphonso blamed Beatrice for bringing the royal disease to the Spanish royal house and turned bitterly against Ena. During her time as Queen of Spain, Ena returned many times to visit her mother in Britain, but always without Alphonso and usually without her children. Meanwhile, Beatrice lived at Osborne Cottage and Carisbrooke Castle, home of the Governor of the Isle of Wight. (Victoria had made Beatrice governor after Prince Henry died.) In time, Beatrice chose to
Retirement from public life
abandon Osborne Cottage and, against the wishes of her nephew, George V, sold it in 1912. She moved into Carisbrooke Castle whilst keeping an apartment at Kensington Palace in London. She had been much involved in collecting material for the Carisbrooke Castle museum, which she opened in 1898. Her presence at court further decreased as she aged. Devastated by the death of her favourite son, Maurice, during the First World War in 1914, she began to retire from public life. In response to war with Germany, George V changed the family surname from Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to Windsor to downplay their German origins. Subsequently, Beatrice and her family renounced their German names; Beatrice's style reverted from HRH Princess Henry of Battenberg to her birth style, HRH The Princess Beatrice. Her surname was also anglicised to Mountbatten. Her sons gave up their courtesy style, Prince of Battenberg. Alexander, the eldest, became Sir Alexander Mountbatten and was later given the title Marquess of Carisbrooke in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. Her younger son, Leopold, became Lord Leopold Mountbatten and was given the rank of a younger son of a marquess. He was a haemophiliac, having inherited the "royal disease" from his mother, and died during a knee operation in 1922 one month short of his 33rd birthday. Following the war, Beatrice was one of several members of the royal family who became patrons of The Ypres League, a society founded for veterans of the Ypres Salient and bereaved relatives of those killed in fighting in the Salient. She was herself a bereaved mother, as her son, Prince Maurice of Battenberg,