A Crown Prince or a King: The Courtship of Princesses Margaret and Patricia of Connaught (Part 1)

In January 1905, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught embarked on a Mediterranean tour, with the quiet purpose of brokering marriages for their daughters

This January marks 120 years since the Duke and Duchess of Connaught embarked on a famous Mediterranean voyage with their eligible daughters, Margaret and Patricia. As the family stopped in countries along the way to their Egyptian destination, there were chances for royal romance to blossom—with varying results.

King Edward VII of the United Kingdom and his only surviving brother, the Duke of Connaught, ca. 1903 (Royal Collection Trust)

On Sunday, January 1, 1905, King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra welcomed in the new year in Norfolk at their beloved Sandringham estate. The King and Queen, along with the Prince and Princess of Wales and Princess Maud, attended a regular Sunday church service at St. Mary Magdalene near the estate. When the King sat down in his pew and said his prayers, he might have asked the almighty for help in his ongoing project: establishing and cementing alliances across Europe by brokering marriages for his royal nieces.

By 1905, King Edward was already known as the “Uncle of Europe.” His family connections across the continent were legendary. Monarchs across Europe called him son, brother, uncle, and cousin. His father-in-law was the King of Denmark; his nephews were the Emperor of Germany, the Grand Duke of Hesse, and the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha; and his brothers-in-law included the King of the Hellenes and the Crown Prince of Denmark.

After a century of splendid isolation, King Edward and his government changed course, reaching out to broker alliances across the continent. It was a way to shore up diplomatic ties, like the establishment of the Entente Cordiale in 1904. But it was also a way to establish a firewall against the growing influence of the German and Austrian empires. In the last decades of his mother’s reign, Edward had witnessed the marriages of three of his nieces, all of whom made glittering matches that provided a significant foundation for his own diplomatic project. Princess Sophie of Prussia had married the Crown Prince of the Hellenes in 1889; Princess Marie of Edinburgh wed the Crown Prince of Romania in 1893; and Princess Alix of Hesse had made the grandest match of all, marrying the Emperor of Russia in 1894. Edward’s daughter, Maud, made a family alliance when she married her cousin, Prince Carl of Denmark, in 1896—but that too turned out to be a sparkling diplomatic union, as Carl was eventually elected King of Norway.