Princess Helena of the United Kingdom early 1860s, Helena began a flirtation with Prince Albert's German librarian, Carl Ruland. Although the nature of the relationship is largely unknown, Helena's romantic letters to Ruland survive. After the Queen found out in 1863, she dismissed Ruland, who returned to his native Germany. Three years later, on 5 July 1866, Helena married the impoverished Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein. The couple remained in Britain, in calling distance of the Queen, who liked to have her daughters nearby. Helena, along with her youngest sister, Princess Beatrice, became the Queen's unofficial secretaries. However, after Queen Victoria's death on 22 January 1901, Helena
Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont Cannes, France, in March 1884. At the time of Leopold's death, Helena was pregnant with their second child. The couple had two children: According to the memoirs of Helena's daughter, Princess Alice of Albany, Helena was very intelligent, had a strong sense of duty, and a genuine love of welfare work. The Queen, initially worried that Helena might turn out to be a stereotypically-remote German Princess, remarked in a letter to her eldest daughter The Princess Royal and German Crown Princess that she was pleased Helena liked 'to go among the people.' The Queen soon came to regard her young