Victoria Eugenia and her brothers, Alexander, Leopold and Maurice, spent their childhood in the heavy atmosphere of Victorian court, always dominated by Queen Victoria. Victoria Eugenia would later remember abourt her grandmother: "She was very kind and strict, and she had antiquated ideas about how to educate children". Since she was a girl, one of Victoria Eugenia's favourite activities was horseback riding; she loved horses very much, a love that would caused her so much pain years later, during the brutal bullfights in Spain.
In 1896, Victoria Eugenia's father, Prince Henry, joined the Ashanti Expedition, and while traveling to Africa, he visited Spain from where he sent a letter to his daughter: "Be always good and love your mother; if you do this, when you grow up you would visit this beautiful country, and you would see how you like it and how happy you would be here". This prediction was not completely true; she indeed would be in Spain and she would like it, but she would not be happy. Prince Henry would never come back from this trip. When the expedition arrived in Ghana, he suffered a fever attack and was sent back home but he died on his way back to England. So Victoria Eugenia lost her father when she was only nine years old.
Queen Victoria died in 1901 when Victoria Eugenia was 13 years old and Princess Beatrice and her children established their residence in Kensington Palace. During a summer in Osborne, Victoria Eugenia met Grand Duke Boris of Russia, a cousin to Tsar Nicholas II. The Grand Duke felt attracted rto the beuatiful English princess and when they met again in Niza in 1905, he proposed her to marry him. She was about to accept but decline on the last moment.
That same year, King Alfonso XIII of Spain made an official visit to England. Victoria Eugenia's uncle, King Edward VII, offered a dinner in Buckinham Palace, in honour of the Spanish King. Alfonso sat down between Queen Alexandra and Princess Helena, King Edward's sister. Suddenly he noticed Victoria Eugenia and he asked Princess Helena who was that princess with almost white hair. When she noticed the King had his eyes on her, Victoria Eugenia felt ashamed. Everybody know that King Alfonso was looking for a suitable bride and one of the strongets candidates was Princess Patricia of Connaught, daughter of King Edward's brother, the Duke of Connaught. But now Victoria Eugenia had kept the King's attention and as Princess Patricia seems not to be impressed by the Spanish monarch, Alfonso's interest grew towards Victoria Eugenia. So the courtship began and when Alfonso returned to Spain he constantly sent postcards to Victoria Eugenia and seemed very enthusiastic about her. His mother, Queen Maria Cristina, didn't agree with her son's election, in part because she considered the Battenbergs a non-Royal family, because of the obscure origin of Prince Henry's mother, and in part because she wanted her son to marry within her own family, the Habsburgs from Austria. There was another great obstacle for Alfonso to marry Victoria Eugenia, and he was advised about it. Victoria Eugenia was a potential carrier of haemophilia, the blood disease the Queen Victoria had transmitted to some of her descendants. In fact, Victoria Eugenia's brother Leopold was haemophiliac (some authors say that the youngest brother Maurice was also haemophiliac), so there was a 50 % of probability that Victoria Eugenia could be a carrier and if Alfonso married her, their issue could be affected by the disease. But Alfonso didn't care about the danger; he was decided to marry Victoria Eugenia.
After a year of rumours about which princess the King of Spain would marry to, on January, 1906, Queen Maria Cristina finally aceed to her son's election and wrote a letter to Princess Beatrice, telling her about the love Alfonso felt for Victoria Eugenia and asking for a no-official contact with King Edward VII. Some days later in Windsor, King Edward congratulated his niece for her future engagement.
Princess Beatrice and her daughter arrived Biarritz on Jnauary 22 and stayed at Villa Mauriscot where some days later King Alfonso met them. At Villa Mauriscot, the King and his bride lived a tree-days-romance. Then, Alfonso took Victoria Eugenia and her mother to San Sebastian to met Queen Maria Cristina. On February 3, the King left San Sebastian to go to Madrid and Victoria Eugenia and her mother went Versailles where the Princess would be instructed in the Catholic faith; as the future Queen of Spain, she had to change her Lutheran religion for the Catholic one. The offical reception of Victoria Eugenia into the Catholic faith took place on March 5, 1906 at Miramar Palace in San Sebastian.
King Alfonso XIII of Spain and Princess Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg got married on May 31, 1906 at St. Jerome Church in Madrid. Some days before the wedding some strange anonimous messages had been received at the Royal Palace advising that King Alfonso would die on his wedding day; Alfonso didn't tell his bride about these anonimous. After the three hours religious ceremony, the nupcial procession, on his way back to the Royal Palace, passed through Major Street; in the balcony on the third floor of the house number 88 of this street, there was a man dressed in black; his named was Mateo Morral. Where the Rolyal carriage where the King and his new wife were riding pasesed infront of number 88, a suddenly explosion was heard besides the carriage; Morral had thrown a bomb with the intention of killing the King and his wife, but fortunately, they were not hurt. Victoria Eugenia had saved her life because, in the exact moment the bomb exploded, she had turn her head in order to see St. Mary's Church, that Alfonso was showing her; she only had her dress spotted with the blood of a guard that was riding besides the carriage.
Since this day, Victoria Eugenia's attitude towards multitudes was cold and frightened, which made her quite unpopular within her subjects. One of her overwhelmig tasks as Queen, was to attend bullfights, a traditional festivity in Spain. During this festivities she suffered because of the cruel tratment the horses were submitted too. Thanks to her, in subsequent years, new rules were introduce into the bullfights to mitigate the suffering of horses.
There are only two kings in History that were kings before their birth. One was Jean I of France, who died a few days after his birth, and the other was Alfonso XIII of Spain. Alfonso's grandmother, Queen Isabel II of Spain, was deposed in 1868 and it was until 1874 that Isabel's son was restored on the Spanish throne as Alfonso XII. On 1878, Alfonso XII married Maria de las Mercedes of Orleans, who died that same year; the King married again, this time with an Habsburg princess, Maria Cristina of Austria, who had been abbess in a convent. Maria Cristina beared him two daughters, Maria de las Mercedes and Maria Teresa. When Alfonso XII died in 1885, Maria Cristina was expecting her third child, who would be king if he was a male. On May 17 1886 the long awaited King was born, Alfonso XIII, the man who was now married to Victoria Eugenia of Battenberg, the youngest granddaughter of Queen Victoria.
VICTORIA EUGENIA OF BATTENBERG
