Extra Photos: Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany

Prince Leopold (age 6) and Prince Arthur (age 8) in a staged performance celebrating Leopold's birthday (1859)*.

Sometimes I am asked if it takes me a long time to write a blog entry. The answer: No ... not usually. I can write a post fairly fast. But. After it's written, I might refine it: Change a word, or words here and there for clarity. Add a word or sentence to make a paragraph punchy, or flow better, etc.

In editing a post, I frequently shorten the piece. I call the process, "killing your children." Sometimes I must delete phrases/sentences I really like. Initially, they sound brilliant, but after the piece is complete, there is no place for them. They slow down the fluidity, or just make the blog too long. So I go back and kill sentences ... delete ... gone!

When I wrote the last blog (on Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany) not only did I have to cut interesting facts, but pictures I love. I think it might be fun for readers to see a few.

Here is one I adore, but could find no information on when or why it was taken. Prince Leopold looks very Victorian, doesn't he? A Victorian man about town? Inquiring minds want to know! According to a student of British history, Leopold was dressed as his ancester, Charles I, for a costume ball. The Prince was known to have an liking for the Stuart kings, and he even named his son, Charles Edward, who was born posthumously.

I think the very top picture of Prince Leopold and Prince Arthur is adorable! Such cute little boys at such cute ages. Undoubtedly loved, but how could their mother, Queen Victoria, not find little Prince Leopold as darling as his older brother? I can't understand it!

Another photo I love, but didn't use in my post, is of Leopold's wife, Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont, in her gorgeous Parisian wedding gown (a gift from her older sister). It is made of white satin and decorated with orange blossom, myrtle and trimmed with fleur-de-lis.

Princess Helena wasn't considered a beauty; but I disagree. Certainly, she was a beautiful bride! I can imagine Leopold thinking so as she walked down the aisle of St. George's Chapel. Helena was intelligent and cultured, as well as, an ideal wife and mother, but in last week's blog, I cut much of her description after reminding myself that the blog was supposed to be about Prince Leopold. 

In vain, I spent lots of time trying to find a wedding photo of Leopold and Helena together as bride and groom. Unbelievably, none seems to exist! Can it be!?! So I was thrilled to find the bottom photos of the newly married couple driving in a carriage soon after their wedding (on April 27, 1882). In the 1st shot, Prince Leopold is standing giving a speech to well wishers.

So that's what blogging is. It's as much about what you delete and leave out as about what you write and leave in.

Leopold and Helen on their wedding day.

Periodically, my vexed mother would say, "There was a life before you, Mädchen!" and these images from Victorian England prove her right. We don't think about our great, great grandparents as being young once upon a time, do we? 

Generations depart ... and generations follow.

*Hand-coloured photograph of Prince Arthur and Prince Leopold in the costume of the sons of King Henry IV (1857), commissioned by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert (photograph by Leonida Caldesi). Royal Collection Trust. © HM Queen Elizabeth II 2020

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