Is England a country?

I alternate on this blog between finding out "British things," sharing my findings with fellow Americans, and feeding my British friends various tidbits about the U.S. which they think they already know but often don't, really. Mostly, I discover British facts and customs (much more than just language differences now) and write about what I think I've learned. I do that so you will correct my misunderstandings.

Is England a country, then? Of course it is. So are the other three. I'm still a little hazy about your dependencies or protectorates or whatever you call them. The islands. Anyway, I speak of this subject today because it is somewhat confusing to Americans. First of all, Americans know that your country is called The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland., or U.K. for short. Some of them do, anyway.

So.... if the name of your country is the United Kingdom, then how does England (and the others) get to be a country too? The answer, I think, lies in a history of distinct identities and cultures, the things that make up the definition of a country. Somewhere in my reading I have seen them called "home countries," but that doesn't really enlighten me. I am willing to accept that they all have their own unique identities which make them countries in their own right, not to mention they all were, at one time, in fact, separate countries. That makes the U.K. a Union of countries. E pluribus unum. Pluribus being four in this case.

I'm not trying to draw comparisons to the U.S. and the several states. I know better than to do that. Your countries have preserved their unique identities much more than the states have. So I would no more do that than I would compare cricket to... well, you know.

What I really wanted to talk about, though, and will do so in the next post on this blog, are the distinct regions of England. There are eight commonly-recognized regions in England, and I want to find out more about them and report back next time. These regions are not political entities, but rather areas which cling to their own customs and cultures (and sometimes languages.) They are mostly identified by the points of the compass, though different sources sometimes give the regions different names. More on this interesting subject next time.

Princess Helena of the United Kingdom

The Princess Helena (Helena Augusta Victoria) was the fifth child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, born in 1846 at Buckingham. She was known in the family as "Lenchen" (Helena in German is Helenchen.)

Queen Victoria lined up the much older Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein for Helena to marry. This caused bad feelings between the queen and the Princess of Wales, as well as the Prince of Wales and the queen's daughter Alice. Remember the Prussian wars to unify Germany and their war with Denmark and seizure of Schleswig-Holstein. Don't make me go through that again. Prince Christian didn't really have anything to be prince of, but he was willing to marry the ummmm dowdy Princess Helena and be kept by Queen Victoria, so the marriage was a go. In the end, they were devoted to one another.

"What shall I do with Christian now that I have him?" must have flitted briefly through the monarch's grieving consciousness from time to time. Queen Victoria's only goal was to have Helena stay close to her beck and call, and that necessitated a husband who had nothing to do and no land to rule.

The queen gave the newlyweds a gift of £100,000 plus she requested £6,000 a year from parliament for the couple, which she got, of course. Helena became the queen's sort of personal secretary. The queen made Christian the Ranger of Windsor Great Park, which came with a house to live in. Shades of Yogi Bear. The queen also made Christian High Steward of Windsor. Both positions were merely figurehead in nature, so Christian was left free to play with his dog Corrie and feed his numerous pigeons. That's about it. (Not to demean his manhood or anything.)

Helena and her younger sister Beatrice catered to the queen, with Beatrice being in charge and Helena doing what Beatrice didn't have time to do.

Helena was not in good health. Actually, she was in pretty good health (for her size) but was a hypochondriac. She was addicted to opium and laudanum. Queen Victoria didn't believe she was sick and said as much in letters to her other daughter Vicky in Prussia. To which Vicky replied... ah, well, who cares what Vicky thought, eh?

The devoted couple (the dope fiend and the pigeon guy) had six children, four of whom survived. None of the four, boys or girls, were what you would call beauties (the princess Helena Victoria, child number three of the devoted couple, was called "Thora" within the family, but everyone called her "Snipe" due to her sharp features. I'm not making this up.)

Besides needlepoint and serving meals to the poor (which made her very popular with the poor, but which I am going to gloss over in this account) she also liked to write, especially translations (German to English.) Perhaps her most famous translation was entitled, rather redundantly, "First Aid to the Injured."

In 1916, Helena and Christian celebrated their golden wedding anniversary. Despite the two countries being at war, German Kaiser Wilhelm II sent a congratulatory telegram to his aunt and uncle. George V was present when the telegram arrived and was not wholly amused. Christian died the next year. George V changed the family name to Windsor and disposed of all the British royal family's German titles. So Christian was just plain old Christian. They still called him prince up until his death, though.

Helena has been described as "...plump and dowdy... placid..." But also businesslike and authoritarian. Go figure.

Her daughter, Princess Marie Louise, described her as, "... very lovely, with wavy brown hair, a beautiful little straight nose, and lovely amber-coloured eyes... She was very talented: played the piano exquisitely, had a distinct gift for drawing and painting in water-colours... Her outstanding gift was loyalty to her friends... She was brilliantly clever, had a wonderful head for business..."

Helena was also fearfully devoted to The Queen - to the point where she did not have a mind of her own. But, in the end, her name was the last one written in the queen's 70-year-old diary before she died.

Helena herself died in 1923.

Victoria, Empress Frederick

Well it is a few days past "tomorrow" but I would like to continue with highlighting queen Victoria's children, beginning with her eldest daughter Victoria, called "Vicky" within the extended royal family. But first a little set-up if I may.

When I say the "extended" royal family, I refer to the royal houses in Europe at the time, all pretty much related, and thus all "family".

There were many countries in Europe in the 19th century that still had monarchs, or constitutional monarchs, but (Since this series of posts is about Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom) I will be referencing mainly the royal households of the UK, Austria, Germany, Denmark, and Russia. These were the big players in the 19th century, and up until World War I.

Born in late 1840 at Buckingham, Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa was soon created Princess Royal by her mother, since there were real prospects the little girl might become queen. As it turned out, she would become an Empress, but not of the British Empire.

Unlike her younger brother, who would become king of the United Kingdom, Vicky was intelligent and vivacious. When she was only 14, her mother and father arranged for her to be married to prince Frederick William of Prussia (Fritz) who was then second in line to the Prussian throne (and later the German Empire) behind his father. They were married 2 years later when Vicky was 17 years old.

Their marriage was, of course, a dynastic alliance, but (happily) it was a love match as well. Off to Germany the young girl went with her young husband. Soon thereafter, his father became king (Kaiser William I) and she suddenly found herself Crown Princess of Prussia.

These were war years as Prussia fought to consolidate all the German states into one Germany. Some of the fighting was with Denmark, and this caused strife within the British royal family because of their close ties to Denmark, but life went on. The monarchs of Europe never seemed to let wars stand in the way of family reunions.

Germany became a very militaristic state, run by aristocrats with saber scars above their eyes from fencing at university - quite the rage, even though sometimes self-inflicted. Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor, was the real power, overseeing the unification of Germany, and the old king went along, keeping his nose clean, sleeping in his metal soldiers' cot, pretending he was in charge, honestly believing his crown came from God, listening to Bismarck whisper visions of grandeur in his ear. He would be another Frederick the Great, would the old soldier. But Bismark called the shots.

When William I died, much of the country envisioned the dawn of a new era. Fritz and Vicky were modern-minded and forward-thinking, a much-needed breath of fresh air. Finally, change would come to Germany.

But by then it was too late. By the time he took the throne, Frederick III had advanced throat cancer and was already breathing through a tube. His reign lasted only 99 days.

When Vicky's son took the throne as Kaiser Wilhelm II, there was no doubt about there being any peace and quiet in Germany. Forget that dream.

William was an odd child. His grandmother, queen Victoria, never seemed to really like him. Vicky tried to exert a proper British influence on him through his early childhood teachings, but his heroes and final influences were the German aristocracy and the military. He would wear a uniform as long as he was in power. When the other royal children would visit - from England, from Russia, they would recall Cousin Willy as always bossing them around, deciding what they would play, making them sit while he read the Bible to them. A psychopath? You be the judge. He was the last king of Germany.

The Dowager Empress lived out her life in relative seclusion, known officially as the Empress Frederick. Vicky had 8 children and lived to 60 years old, dying just 7 months after her mother. She died of inoperable breast cancer. Her servants and maids asked to be moved farther away from Vicky's room so that her screams would not disturb them in the night.

Vicky always kept in close touch with other members of the British royal family, especially her younger brother, the future king Edward VII. There are some 3777 letters cataloged to her from her mother, queen Victoria, and over 4000 letters from Vicky to the British queen.

Queen Victoria's precocious firstborn was buried at Potsdam, next to her beloved husband and her two children who had died in childhood.