Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll her privacy, and enjoyed not being recognised. Louise and her sisters had another disagreement after the death of the queen's close friend, Jane Spencer, Baroness Churchill. Determined not to put her mother through more misery, Louise wanted the news to be broken to the queen gradually. When this was not done, Louise voiced her sharp criticism of Helena and Beatrice. One month later, on 22 January 1901, Queen Victoria died at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. In her will, the queen bequeathed Kent House, on the Osborne Estate, to Louise as a country residence, and gave Osborne Cottage
Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom had been performed in succession by her sisters, Alice, Helena and Louise. However, to these the Queen soon added more personal tasks. During a serious illness in 1871, the Queen dictated her journal entries to Beatrice, and in 1876 she allowed Beatrice to sort the music she and the Prince Consort had played, unused since his death fifteen years earlier. The devotion that Beatrice showed to her mother was acknowledged in the Queen's letters and journals, but her constant need for Beatrice grew stronger. The Queen suffered another bereavement in 1883, when her highland servant, John Brown, died at Balmoral.