The portrait of a beautiful queen loomed large over King Felipe
\ntoday. The royal in question was his great grandmother, Victoria
\nEugenia, who had to leave Spain when her husband, King Alfonso
\nXIII, was forced into exile. She only returned when Felipe was born
\nto act as his godmother. Now, her story is being told in a huge new
\nexhibition in Madrid and it\u2019s quite a tale. In fact, it\u2019s hard to
\nbelieve it\u2019s not more widely known for Victoria Eugenie was almost
\nkilled on her wedding day.<\/p>\n
Ena perhaps realized the turbulence ahead of her just minutes Ena\u2019s life before her marriage could hardly have been more But the troubles that can come with a crown already coloured Young Ena may well have encountered her godmother as she grew up Ena grew up in the cloistered world of Victoria\u2019s later years, Henry\u2019s desperation to get to west Africa perhaps indicates the Queen Victoria was, of course, dead by then. Following her Alfonso XIII had been Spain\u2019s king since the day of his birth, But others weren\u2019t so keen on the match. Alfonso\u2019s mother, Maria There had been one other issue much discussed before their They went on to have another six children but of their three He and his family went into exile. He and Ena fell apart and But despite her exile, in later life her royal connections only He\u2019s not the only head of state in Europe today to count this But Ena never saw the troublesome crown which had been such a Victoria Eugenie, a quiet princess from Scotland and last of the Lydia Starbuck is a pen name of June Woolerton who has <\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source royalcentral.co.uk \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The portrait of a beautiful queen loomed large over King Felipe today. The royal in question was his great grandmother, Victoria Eugenia, who had to leave Spain when her husband, King Alfonso XIII, was forced into exile. She only returned when Felipe was born to act as his godmother. Now, her story is being told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2439434,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2439433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-royalty"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/The-royal-wedding-day-that-was-hit-by-tragedy.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2439433"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439433\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2439435,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2439433\/revisions\/2439435"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2439434"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2439433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2439433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2439433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nafter her wedding. She walked into the Royal Monastery of San
\nJeronimo in Madrid on May 21st<\/sup> 1906 as a princess and
\nleft as a queen having said \u2018I do\u2019 to King Alfonso XIII of Spain.
\nBut as the newlyweds travelled back to the reception their
\nprocession was attacked by an anarchist, Mateu Morral, who threw a
\nbomb at the coaches. Alfonso and Ena escaped injury but many others
\nwere killed and hurt. \u00a0It was hardly an auspicious start and
\nmarried life proved just as traumatic.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/royalcentral.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Alfonso_XIII_of_Spain_and_Victoria_Eugenie_of_Battenberg_c._1906-662x1024.jpg\")
\nCommons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\ndifferent. It was quiet and restrained to the point of suffocation
\nand her childhood was spent at the beck and call of \u2018grandmamma\u2019 as
\nshe and her parents lived with Queen Victoria. She was born at
\nBalmoral on October 24th<\/sup> 1887, the only daughter of
\nVictoria\u2019s youngest girl, Princess Beatrice and her husband, Prince
\nHenry of Battenberg and christened Victoria Eugenie Julia
\nEna<\/em>. Her last name was a mistake \u2013 it was meant to be Eua but
\nwas written down incorrectly. No matter, she came to be\u00a0known
\nby that name for most of her life.<\/p>\n
\nEna\u2019s life at this early stage.\u00a0 The name Eugenie had been
\ngiven in honour of one of her godparents, the exiled Empress of
\nFrance who now lived in England. It is striking that this little
\ngirl who would grow up into a queen forced to flee her husband\u2019s
\nkingdom began life in the arms of a woman who had already endured
\nthat same fate.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/royalcentral.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/12\/Osborne-iow-3Ja10-10876-1024x578.jpg\")
\nOsborne in her youth, a world away from the Madrid court she would
\none day rule<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\nfor Eugenie spent a lot of time with the British royals. And Ena
\nspent a lot of time with Queen Victoria for her mother had promised
\nto be granny\u2019s lifetime companion. The queen had wanted her
\nyoungest child to remain unmarried but Beatrice had other ideas.
\nThe compromise reached was that once wed she and her husband would
\nremain at Victoria\u2019s side. And that meant their children were
\nraised with granny.<\/p>\n
\nspending her days at Windsor or at Osborne or wherever her
\ngrandmamma chose to go. She had three brothers \u2013 one older and two
\nyounger \u2013 but her reliance on female relatives only increased when,
\nin 1896, her father died. Henry had persuaded Victoria to let him
\nleave the family briefly to go to modern day Ghana to serve in the
\nAshanti wars. He died there after catching malaria.<\/p>\n
\nstifling surroundings in which he and his family lived. And that
\ncraving for something new can be seen in his only daughter\u2019s
\nactions almost a decade after his death when, against a healthy
\ndose of opposition, she decided to accept the proposal of the King
\nof Spain.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/royalcentral.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/09\/King_Alfonso_XIII_of_Spain_and_his_wife_Victoria_Eugenia_of_Battenberg_in_1906.jpg\")
\nhopelessly in love with one another \u2013 and with the idea of love
(Public Domain, Wiki Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\npassing and funeral Princess Beatrice had begun to dedicate her
\nlife to editing her mother\u2019s journals while Ena\u2019s older brother
\njoined the Navy and her younger brothers persued their educations.
\nWhen she met the dashing and rather keen Spanish monarch, Ena was
\nswept off her feet.<\/p>\n
\nhis father having died six months before the arrival of his only
\nson. In 1905, now aged 19, Alfonso\u00a0decided he needed a
\nwife\u00a0and on a visit to Britain he met several of King Edward
\nVII\u2019s nieces. He was particularly struck by Patricia of Connaught
\nbut she was even more struck by the instability besetting Spain at
\nthe time and made it clear this princess did not want to be
\npursued. Alfonso then began to woo Ena and after a dull lifetime in
\ngrandmamma\u2019s house, she was smitten with his attentions and the
\nprospect of a new life far away.<\/p>\n
\nCristina, wanted her son to marry into the Hapsburg family. One of
\nher main reasons for that was religion \u2013 Alfonso needed a Catholic
\nwife and Ena was very definitely a Protestant. Those issues had
\nbeen raised in England as well with Princess Beatrice writing to
\nthe Archbishop of Canterbury about a possible wedding only to be
\ntold that he was against any link with this Catholic monarchy. But
\nuncle Edward did give his backing, raising Ena to the status of Her
\nRoyal Highness, and in early 1906 she went to Spain where she
\nconverted to Catholicism and wed her king.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/royalcentral.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/02\/Queen_Victoria_Eugenie_with_King_Alfonso_XIII_of_Spain_and_their_newly-born_child.jpg\")
\nillness that several of their children inherited
(Public Domain, Wiki Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\nmarriage but prior to saying \u2018I do\u2019 Alfonso seemed to have
\nreconciled himself to it. Ena, as a descendant of Queen Victoria,
\nhad a chance of carrying the gene for haemophilia, the condition
\nwhich causes uncontrollable bleeding in male bearers. The couple
\nhad concluded it was only a possibility that Ena might pass this
\nhereditary condition on to any male children and they put it to one
\nside. But not long after the birth of their first son, Alfonso,
\njust a year after their marriage it became clear that Ena did carry
\nthe gene. The new Prince of Asturias had haemophilia and his father
\nblamed his mother completely. The affection between the king and
\nqueen disintergrated.<\/p>\n
\nother sons who survived to adulthood another, Gonzalo, also had
\nhaemophilia while the second born of their boys, Jaime, suffered
\nongoing health problems. And\u00a0Ena raised her children in an
\nincreasingly fragile and fractious political situation as her
\nhusband gave his support to unpopular wars to retain Spanish
\npossessions in Africa. In 1923 an army general, Miguel Primo de
\nRivera, seized power and established a\u00a0dictatorship with the
\nsupport of King Alfonso.\u00a0After the\u00a0fall of de Rivera, in
\n1930, the king became even more unpopular and when republican
\nparties won elections in April 1931 he left Spain.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/royalcentral.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Ena-in-La-Buena.png\")
\nSpain
(Public Domain, Wiki Commons)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n
\nthey lived largely separate lives in exile with the queen spending
\nher time in the UK and Switzerland. In 1934 their youngest son,
\nGonzalo, died of a haemorrhage following what had appeared to be a
\nminor car crash. Four years later, Ena lost her eldest son in
\nsimilar circumstances. The relationship between her and her husband
\nwas largely non existent by the time he died in 1941 and Ena spent
\nthe following decades on her own.<\/p>\n
\ncontinued to grow. When Grace Kelly married Prince Rainier III of
\nMonaco in 1956 it was Queen Ena who offered support and advice to
\nthe new royal and helped her as she made a new life as a princess.
\nSeveral photos from Ena\u2019s later life show her holding hands with
\nGrace and the Princess of Monaco thought so highly of her friend
\nthat she asked her to be godmother to her son, Albert, in 1958.<\/p>\n
\nyoungest granddaughter of Queen Victoria among his sponsors.
\nVictoria Eugenie, then the last queen of Spain, returned to her
\nadopted country just once after exile. She touched down in Madrid
\nin February 1968 and soon afterwards acted as godmother to her new
\ngreat grandson, a boy called Felipe. At the time there wasn\u2019t even
\na monarchy in Spain for him to inherit but in a famous photo of his
\nbaptism\u00a0he lies in Queen Ena\u2019s arms. Seven years later the
\nmonarchy was restored on the death of Franco and Felipe became
\nSpain\u2019s king on June 19th<\/sup> 2014 on the abdication of King
\nJuan Carlos.<\/p>\n
\nlarge part of her life restored. She passed away on April
\n15th<\/sup> 1969, the 38th<\/sup> anniversary of her flight
\nfrom Spain. Her funeral was held in Lausanne and she was buried
\nthere. But Ena\u2019s story wasn\u2019t done yet. Six years after her death,
\nthe monarchy in Spain was restored and in 1985 her grandson, Juan
\nCarlos I, had her remains moved to the royal burial vault at El
\nEscorial just outside Madrid. She was interred next to her husband
\nand the three sons who died before her. Eight years later her other
\nson, Juan, was buried there too with all the rights due to a King
\nof Spain.<\/p>\n
\ngranddaughters of the great queen empress, had worn a crown of her
\nown but her life was very far from the stability her grandmother
\ncherished so dearly. Ena was Spain\u2019s queen for twenty five years
\nbut spent far longer in exile and the personal sadnesses of her
\nlife were at times almost unbearable. For the baby of the family
\nlife was very far from a royal fairytale.<\/p>\n
\nwritten extensively on royal history. Her book, A History of Royal Jubilees<\/a>, is
\navailable now. She is also the author of a popular cosy mystery,
\nAll Manner of
\nMurder<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n