Princess Beatrice

One of Queen Victoria's youngest granddaughters was Princess Beatrice Leopoldine Victoria of Edinburgh, later Saxe-Coburg-Gotha upon her father's inheritance of the title. She was born in 1884 and died in 1966. She was the youngest daughter of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and his wife, HIH Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna of Russia, the only surviving daughter of Tsar Alexander II and his consort, Princess Marie of Hesse. Unlike her sisters who married as teens, Beatrice was 25 when she married and she was also able to marry in a love match. After an aborted relationship with her cousin Grand Duke Michael of Russia which ended in heartbreak for Beatrice, and rumors linking her (often with no validity) to such personages as King Manuel of Portugal and King Alfonso of  Spain, she finally married Infante Alfonso of Orleans, the son of the infamous Infanta Eulalia of Spain. The road to true love was a rocky one, with the engagement speculated about for 2 years before the marriage actually came off. Then, because Beatrice wasn't Catholic, the Infante was temporarily expelled from Spain before being allowed to return in 1912. They would have 3 sons. For decades, even afer their respective deaths, rumors abounded that, upon her return to Spain, Beatrice carried on an affair with Alfonso XIII, by then married to her cousin Victoria Eugenie 'Ena' of Spain. Eventually, history would clear her of these charges and it is now accepted she was a staunch ally of her cousin, unhappily married herself. Following the collapse of the Spanish monarchy, Beatrice and her husband 'Ali' settled into exile once more though they would eventually be allowed to reclaim their estate, where Beatrice would die in 1966. Her middle son, Alfonso, had been killed in the Spanish Civil War.