In the Mountbattens:
Later in that same year [1891] chance brought...Ducky and Ernie close together. They laughed at the same jokes, rushed about together in a private, carefree world of their own. They both came to stay at Balmoral in October and the Queen was enchanted at the colour and liveliness they created wherever they went. Here, she thought, was a marriage made in heaven and she encouraged the couple to be together as much as possible. 'Ernie looks very well & is in high spirits' the Queen told Victoria [Battenberg] and added that the two of them 'are very funny together.' Victoria [Battenberg] was not the only one to worry about this affair. They were too much of a likeness, this pair, for her taste. Together they might be too feckless and eccentric for the responsibilities that still rested on the Grand Duke and Grand Duchess of Hesse. Other doubts were expressed in Darmstadt. Another doubly-related marriage?...A year later the Queen was suffering from doubts of her own, and as usual expressed them to Victoria and at the same time gave her instructions. In January 1893 the Queen arranged for Dukcy and her parents, and for Ernie, to come to Osborne. Victoria was to 'hint' to Ernie 'to be very kind and pose [sedate] & not teaze [sic] Ducky or make silly jokes, wh might destroy our _hopes_ and _wishes_ .'
Regarding the hemophilia questions, QV had her mind put at ease by Sir William Jenner but VMH had reservations. 'Her fear of the disease, which was to endure for all her life, had increased with the discovery of the deafness of her own first-born....She wrote anxiously to her brother from London: 'I still worry rather at the thought that Ducky & you are so nearly (doubly) related. Could you not in a general way ask Eigenbrodt [Ducal physician] why he is so much opposed to relations marrying. If he has other reasons besides the fear of an illness like Uncle Leopold's, against our family especially intermarrying, it would be as well to know them, for I think it is one of the duties of a man in your position especially, to try & have healthy descendants, & I know besides from experience that to see one's children not quite strong, or with some little ailment, like Alice's hearing, is a cause of worry & pain...I so fear the newspapers will soon be discussing engagements between you & Ducky & then Grandmama etc & Uncle Affie will again try to hurry you...' Warnings like these added to Ernie's own doubts about marriage in general adn to...Ducky in particular. He was uneasy about being an adequate husband and of not being able to have children--and now perhaps of their being deformed in some way...'
Later on: '...the marriage was at first as merry and colourful and exciting as everyone had expected it would be, and they were as wayward and iirresponsible as the Queen had feared. 'Already there are gt complaints' about their failure to answer letters and even telegrams...I _do_ wish you _cld_ get Ernie to be less neglectful...But Ernie was beside himself with joy. His doubts had been settled in the happiest way possible, for within less than elevn months Ducky had given birth to a lovely little girl....'
