The New Student's Reference Work/Battenberg, House of

Battenberg, House of, members of a grand-ducal family reigning in Hesse, Germany, many of whom have by marriage and otherwise been connected with royalty on the European Continent and in Great Britain. The mother of the present reigning Grand-Duke of Hesse was Princess Alice of Great Britain, third daughter of the late Queen Victoria; this Grand-Duke (Ernest Ludwig) in 1894 married Princess Victoria, daughter of Duke Alfred of Saxe-Coburgand Gotha, a marriage which was dissolved in 1901. The Battenberg title was first conferred in 1857 on Countess Hanke, morganatic wife of Prince Alexander of Hesse, three of whose four children attained high honor as Princes of Battenberg. One, Louis Alexander (b. in 1854) is a British naval officer; another, Alexander Joseph, was from 1879 to 1886 Prince of Bulgaria; while the third, Prince Henry Maurice, in 1885 married Princess Beatrice, youngest child of the late Queen Victoria of Great Britain. Prince Henry, who was created a royal highness by his august mother-in-law and made governor of the Isle of Wight, died on his way home from Kumasi in 1896, having seen service in the Ashanti campaign. His widow, the Princess of Battenberg, still survives, and one of their children, Victoria Eugenie (b. 1887), married in 1906 Alfonso XIII, King of Spain.