Queen Alexandra of Denmark’s “Fairy Tale” Life Was A Lie

How did Alexandra of Denmark go from sleeping in a dusty old attic to living it up in Buckingham Palace? Alexandra of Denmark was a rags-to-riches royal and possibly the unluckiest fashion icon of all time. By the end of her reign, her iconic beauty had morphed into monstrosity, but this is just the beginning of her gut-wrenching demise. As you will see, through bizarre circumstances, the Danish-born queen consort caused a limping pandemic in London, but as her fortunes and outfits changed, it seemed like she could not escape tragedy after tragedy after tragedy.

Alexandra of Denmark, or Alex as her family called her, was born in 1844 in Denmark, obviously. In her early years, Alexandra and her five siblings weren’t on anyone’s radar. Their family was comfortable, but they weren’t exactly living it up, though all of that would change before long. Although Alexandra’s childhood was short on luxuries, her bedtime stories were epic. The famous Danish author Hans Christian Andersen personally read his stories to Alexandra and her siblings at the palace. This is the same guy who wrote The Little Mermaid, The Ugly Duckling, and Thumbelina, but having a world-famous writer as your bedtime storyteller didn’t exactly change the bedroom, which was a drafty old attic that Alexandra shared with her sister Dagmar.

The penniless princess was so poor that she had to do the unthinkable, the unimaginable. She had to work for a living. Picture a waitress in a stained apron with frazzled hair and a tiara on her head. Even with a job, Alexandra couldn’t afford to buy the latest fashions, so she made her own clothes. But it wouldn’t be long before she was the one setting the trends. Alexandra’s fortunes finally took a turn for the better in 1852. A political crisis in Denmark made her father, of all people, next in line for the throne. Just like that, Alexandra and her family went from the bottom to the very top. Suddenly, she and her sisters were extremely important royals on the European scene.

While their status upgrade didn’t change their financial fortunes much, it attracted the eyes of some very wealthy suitors over in England. Queen Victoria was on the hunt for a wife for her son Albert Edward, the future king. She enlisted the help of her daughter, who just so happened to be friendly with one very poor but recently elevated Danish princess, Alexandra of Denmark. Alexandra met her prospective husband in a small town in Germany. It was the beginning of a rocky relationship. If Alexandra had dreamed of a prince charming, Edward, aka Dirty Birdie, wasn’t exactly it. Queen Victoria eventually settled on Alexandra as the right match for her son, but she wasn’t the Queen’s first choice, and Victoria would not let her forget it.

Apparently, after exhausting a long list of potential matches, the British royal family called Alexandra the only one to be chosen, that’s the British way of saying, I guess you’ll do. Poor Alexandra, if only she knew what she was getting herself into. With the match agreed upon, Edward VII proposed to Alexandra less than a year after meeting her. Finally, Alexandra would have the money to match her royal title, but she had no idea what troubles lay ahead. She would have a fairy-tale wedding and a nightmare marriage. Alexandra received the kind of royal welcome that could have been plucked right out of one of her bedtime stories. She arrived in England on a royal yacht to the sound of music composed specifically for her arrival.

Without even trying, Alexandra became an overnight sensation in her new home. The princess wasn’t accustomed to the huge fanfare that she encountered after all, just a few years earlier, she had been sleeping in an attic and waiting tables. Alexandra and her new fiancé, Edward VII, opted for a smaller wedding, but smaller didn’t mean less impressive. Alexandra’s days of darning her own shabby dresses were far behind her. She was about to have her first moment as a fashion icon. She posed for widely circulated photographs in her wedding dress, sporting a pearl necklace and three diamond bracelets. If only her marriage had been as glamorous as her wedding, in her dusty attic days, Alexandra had definitely developed some serious skills as a seamstress, but there was no way she could have sewn her own wedding dress.

The train of her silk satin dress was so long that it required eight ladies to carry it down the aisle. She was going to need all the support she could get because she was marrying one of the biggest scoundrels in all of Europe. Alexandra was a devout Christian throughout her life, and she took her wedding vows very seriously, particularly the vow about fidelity. Her husband, on the other hand, ignored that particular vow almost daily. Accounts of Alexandra’s and Edward VII’s marriage differ. According to some historians, the couple enjoyed a happy union; others say that their relationship was a little Victorian, you know, because Queen Victoria was practically the third person in their marriage. Things were not going to be easy for Alexandra in England.

Her new mother-in-law wasn’t her biggest fan. That’s bad enough for anyone, but it’s a whole lot worse when your mother-in-law is Queen Victoria, the most powerful person in the world. While the kingdom might have been singing Alexandra’s praises, Queen Victoria was less than pleased, especially with Alexandra’s Danish loyalties. Maybe if Queen Victoria wasn’t so busy worrying about Alexandra’s loyalties, she could have kept her son in line. It was an open secret at the time that Edward VII carried on multiple affairs throughout his marriage. He might have had as many as 55 different mistresses, and Alexandra kept tabs on every single one of them. It was no secret, however, that Queen Victoria didn’t much care for her daughter-in-law, and the feeling was mutual.

Alexandra might have tolerated her husband’s endless line of mistresses, but his mother was too much to bear. Obviously, she couldn’t get rid of the Queen of England; however, she came up with a devious plan to get even with her meddling mother-in-law. Alexandra and Edward VII somehow managed to have six children together despite Edward’s many, many affairs. However, in a strange coincidence, every single one of the children was born premature. Or was it a coincidence? Some historians suggest that Alexandra deliberately lied about how far along she was in her pregnancies so that Queen Victoria would miss the birth of her grandchildren. You’d think the queen would have clued in after, I don’t know, five pregnancies.

Of course, the tug-of-war between Alexandra and Queen Victoria for control over her marriage didn’t end there. Queen Victoria even attempted to tell Alexandra what to name her children. Despite the high royal birth rate, Alexandra had a hard time with childbirth. Her third pregnancy nearly ended her life. During her third pregnancy, Alexandra suffered from a terrible bout of rheumatic fever. To make matters worse, her husband seemed particularly uninterested in her rapidly deteriorating situation. But Alexandra had survived poverty, she was going to survive a fever. She recovered and delivered a healthy child, though she didn’t come through unscathed. She suffered a permanent disfiguration. The rheumatic fever left the once-glamorous princess with a terrible limp.

Alexandra was a princess of Britain, but a queen of fashion, and nothing could stop her trendsetting. Her new walk became known as the Alexandra limp. High society ladies all over London walked around with a pretend limp for years. The Alexandra limp was so popular and fashionable that even shoemakers got in on the fad. Throughout London, shoemakers began making mismatched shoes to better allow women to copy Alexandra’s signature limp. Alexandra also made it fashionable to wear chokers and dresses with high necklines, but once again, Alexandra had started the trend as an accident. She wore chokers and high necklines because she wanted to conceal an embarrassing scar on her neck.

Despite their differences, there might have been some respect between Alexandra and Queen Victoria. The queen said of Alexandra’s tireless efforts: she opens bazaars, attends concerts, she not only never complains, she endeavors to prove that she has enjoyed what to another would be a tiresome duty. That must have felt like high praise to the tireless Alexandra. Sadly, Alexandra’s health got progressively worse after each of her pregnancies, and her good fortunes were just beginning to sour, too. She began to lose her hearing due to a hereditary illness. She stopped socializing as much and spent more time isolating with her children and pets. Alexandra’s sixth child, a baby boy, only survived for one single day.

In her grief, a weakened Alexandra pleaded with Queen Victoria for privacy, but once again, the two royals bickered bitterly. Queen Victoria insisted on a very public display of court mourning for the infant’s passing. Alexandra took all of the blame in the press for the showy display. It was the lowest moment in her life so far, but her trials weren’t over yet. Just as it seemed like Alexandra was about to move on from her infant son’s passing, she suffered another blow. Tragic as the loss of her baby was, it was nothing compared to what she had to endure next. She was about to lose her favorite child in the prime of his life.

Alexandra had arranged for her eldest son, Prince Albert Victor, to become engaged to Princess Mary of Teck. The young couple were just about to tie the knot when Albert Victor suddenly fell ill with influenza just days before his 28th birthday. The strapping young prince succumbed to his illness. Alexandra would never recover from the loss. She said of her son’s passing: I have buried my angel and with him my happiness. In 1901, she lost her longtime frenemy, Queen Victoria. While Alexandra must have felt some relief at having peace from her mother-in-law, it also put her right back where she did not want to be: in the spotlight. With her mother-in-law gone, her husband ascended to the throne, and Alexandra became queen consort.

The one-time nobody from Denmark was now married to the king of England. Even after becoming queen consort, Alexandra kept her thrifty ways. She wasn’t sewing her own dresses anymore, but she still pinched her pennies. She reused old stockings and had her old dresses turned into furniture covers. Alexandra was visiting her brother in Greece when her husband, Edward VII, fell ill. She rushed to her husband’s side. The very day she returned, he passed away. She wrote: I feel as if I have been turned into a stone, unable to cry, unable to grasp the meaning of it all. Over the years, Alexandra had a remarkably civil relationship with many of her husband’s mistresses, but when Edward VII was on his deathbed, one of them took it too far.

Alice Keppel, Edward’s longtime mistress, heard that he was ill and rushed to his bedside. Completely unable to control herself, Keppel made such a scene that even the infinitely patient Alexandra had had enough. The queen consort muttered: get that woman away. Edward might have been an incorrigible womanizer and a scoundrel, but Alexandra still cared deeply for her husband and wanted to say goodbye in peace. Alexandra was related to just about every single royal in all of Europe, either by blood or by marriage. One family member she despised was her nephew, the German Emperor Wilhelm II. Soon he would become her enemy during World War I. No one was safe from the fighting, not even a royal like Alexandra.

If she thought that being the aunt of the German emperor would make him look upon her with mercy, she was sorely mistaken. The German forces launched a Zeppelin air raid on Sandringham House when she was still inside. Luckily, Alexandra survived the attack. In her last years, Alexandra’s health and mental state deteriorated significantly. She had endured poverty, prominence, and providence, but sadly, her time had come. Alexandra passed from a heart attack less than a month shy of her 81st birthday. She was laid to rest next to her husband, presumably in an iconic dress and wearing mismatched shoes. Thank you for watching this video; please like and subscribe for more fascinating content.