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It is readable and flows through the story of Louise’s life well. This is a considered, thoughtful account of a full life lived largely in the public eye. This is not a sensationalist book about a royal. It does seem that this whole episode is still hushed up, and that equally her relationship with her sculpting tutor Joseph Boehm has been played down.

It is suggested that she had several affairs, and that she gave birth to a son who was rapidly adopted and never publicly acknowledged. While no one would want to deny anyone their privacy, especially when they were born into public life and did not seek celebrity, this attitude to a woman who died in the first half of the last century seems a bit harsh. Access to records of her life was severely limited, and some sources completely denied. The talk that we heard detailed what is mentioned in the book, the problems that Hawksley found in researching the life of a very public figure. The Introduction to this book begins to hint at the problems and the way that the focus of this book changed during its writing. By all accounts she worked tirelessly for charities and opportunities for women in the face of opposition from within her own family. She was born in in 1848, and died in the first few months of the Second World War, after a life time of great change and upheaval as she experienced family members being overthrown and fighting in the First World War. She seemed to have entered into an unhappy marriage to a Scottish Duke who went on to be a Governor of Canada, and was officially childless. She was an artist, producing sculptures that still remain on public display. Princess Louise, the sixth child, is on record as being rebellious and much loved by the people of both Britain and Canada. As far as I know, no yurts feature in the book)Īnyway, it was interesting to hear about the writing of a royal biography, especially as this one seemed to present more problems than most. This book is connected in my mind with hearing the author, Lucinda Hawksley, speaking about the writing of this biography of one of Queen Victoria’s daughters, in a yurt in Hexham, Northumberland. One of the great things about good books is the memories that they hold of where you began reading it, or even where you got it.