Princess Helena of the United Kingdom her family to celebrate her 50th wedding anniversary, but her husband died a year later. Helena outlived him by six years, and died aged 77 at Schomberg House on 9 June 1923. Helena was born at Buckingham Palace, the official royal residence in London, on 25 May 1846, the day after her mother's 27th birthday. She was the third daughter and fifth child of the reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria, and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Albert reported to his brother, Ernest II, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, that Helena "came into this world quite blue,
Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom did I get ... Beatrice is so distressed; everyone quite stunned." After the death of the Prince Imperial, the Prince of Wales suggested that Beatrice marry their sister Alice's widower, Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse. Alice had died in 1878, and the Prince argued that Beatrice could act as replacement mother for Louis's young children and spend most of her time in England looking after her mother. He further suggested the Queen could oversee the upbringing of her Hessian grandchildren with greater ease. However, at the time, it was forbidden by law for Beatrice to marry her sister's widower.