Queen Victoria horrible year, nothing but sadness & horrors of one kind & another." Following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood, Victoria spent the Christmas of 1900 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Rheumatism in her legs had rendered her lame, and her eyesight was clouded by cataracts. Through early January, she felt "weak and unwell", and by mid-January she was "drowsy ... dazed, [and] confused". She died on Tuesday 22 January 1901, at half past six in the evening, at the age of 81. Her son and successor King Edward VII, and her eldest grandson, Emperor Wilhelm II
Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia one of the last great social events of European royalty before World War I began fourteen months later. Attendees included Wilhelm's cousins King George V and Tsar Nicholas II, accompanied by their respective wives Queen Mary and Tsarina Alexandra. The wedding feast included 1,200 guests. Empress Augusta Victoria took the separation from her only daughter badly and wept. The new duke and duchess of Brunswick moved to the capital of Brunswick and began their family with the birth of their eldest son, Prince Ernest Augustus, less than a year after their wedding. They would have four further children: Prince George