The Princess Royal was also the grandmother of the last of Victoria and Albert's great-granddaughters to die, Princess Katherine of Greece and Denmark ( – 2 October 2007), daughter of Vicky's fourth daughter, Queen Sophia of Greece. Victoria, the Princess Royal and first child of Victoria and Albert (21 November 1840 – 5 August 1901), known as "Vicky", was not only the mother to their first grandchild, Wilhelm II she was also the first of Victoria and Albert's children to become a grandparent, with the birth in 1879 of Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen, who was the daughter of Princess Charlotte (Queen Victoria's first granddaughter). (Three of Victoria's 56 great-grandsons were stillborn, another died shortly after birth, and one of her 31 great-granddaughters was born out of wedlock.) Prince Albert, the Prince Consort (26 August 1819 – 14 December 1861), lived long enough to see only one of his children married (Victoria, the Princess Royal) and two of his grandchildren born ( Wilhelm II, 1859–1941, and his sister Princess Charlotte of Prussia, 1860–1919), while Queen Victoria ( – 22 January 1901) lived long enough to see not only all her grandchildren, but many of her 87 great-grandchildren as well. Another of Alice's children, Grand Duke Ernest Louis of Hesse, married Princess Victoria Melita, daughter of Alice's brother Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1894, but divorced in 1901.įrom left to right: Alice, Arthur, Albert the Prince Consort, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII), Leopold (in front of the Prince of Wales), Louise, the Queen with Beatrice, Alfred, Victoria the Princess Royal and Helena (1857).In 1888, Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine, whose mother was Queen Victoria's daughter Alice, married Prince Henry of Prussia, son of Victoria's daughter Victoria.Just as Victoria and Albert shared one grandfather ( Duke Francis of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld) and one grandmother ( Countess Augusta Reuss), two pairs of their grandchildren married each other: The last of Victoria and Albert's grandchildren to die (almost exactly 80 years after Queen Victoria herself) was Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone (25 February 1883 – 3 January 1981). Their first grandchild was the future German Emperor Wilhelm II, who was born to their eldest child, Princess Victoria, on 27 January 1859 the youngest was Prince Maurice of Battenberg, born on 3 October 1891 to Princess Beatrice (1857–1944), who was herself the last child born to Victoria and Albert and the last child to die.
Victoria and Albert had 22 granddaughters and 20 grandsons, of whom two (the youngest sons of Prince Alfred and Princess Helena) were stillborn, and two more ( Prince Alexander John of Wales and Prince Harald of Schleswig-Holstein) died shortly after birth.