FROM BATTENBERG TO MOUNTBATTEN: THREE GENERATIONS OF A REMARKABLE FAMILY
Commissioned by the Bookshop at Romsey Abbey, Hampshire, the burial place of Earl Mountbatten of Burma
In 1841 Prince Alexander of Hesse accompanied his sister Marie to Russia for her marriage to the future Tsar Alexander II and decided to stay on. In 1851 he surprised the world and got himself exiled from the court of his sister’s father-in-law Tsar Nicholas I, for eloping with the commoner Julie Hauke, a lady-in-waiting to his sister. Protocol of the day demanded he forego his place in the Hessian succession and his wife and children were not permitted to take his name and titles.
Julie Hauke was granted the courtesy title Countess, then later Princess, of Battenberg: their five children took the Battenberg name. The second child, Prince Louis, married his second cousin Princess Victoria of Hesse, daughter of Queen Victoria’s third child Princess Alice, who had married Ernest Ludwig, the future Grand Duke of Hesse, Prince Alexander’s nephew.
Prince Louis and Victoria of Hesse were the parents of Earl Mountbatten of Burma; their elder daughter, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. King Filipe VI of Spain is descended from Queen Victoria’s youngest child, Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry of Battenberg, the third of Prince Alexander and Julie Hauke’s four sons.
Details: 70 pages, 50 photographs, 2 family trees, time line showing major events in the life of Earl Mountbatten 1900-1979
From Battenberg to Mountbatten: Three Generations of a Remarkable Family
Cover Story
Thumbnails clockwise from top left:
Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine with his wife Julie Hauke, Princess of Battenberg, formerly a lady-in-waiting to his sister the future Empress-Consort of Russia.
Lady Louise Mountbatten (originally titled a Princess of Battenberg) a daughter of their son Prince Louis of Battenberg and Queen Victoria’s granddaughter Princess Victoria of Hesse. Louise was a sister of Earl Mountbatten of Burma and married the widowed King of Sweden.
Louise’s sister, Princess Alice of Battenberg, mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
The Duke of Edinburgh with his wife Queen Elizabeth II.
Earl Mountbatten of Burma, grandson of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine and Julie Hauke. He was the brother of Louise and Alice of Battenberg.
His father Prince Louis of Battenberg, a son of Julie Hauke and Prince Alexander, seen here with his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse. After 1917, when George V decided there would be no foreign titles in Britain, he became Marquess of Milford Haven.
Julie Hauke as a young woman.