Inspire Me!

This week's Inspire Me! post focuses on Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll.

The fourth daughter of Queen Victoria, there's little need to read much about this royal princess for the reader to understand Louise was a different kind of Victorian princess. Louise was a staunch feminist with a keen and active interest in women's suffrage as well as an accomplished sculptor and artist. In fact, the statue of a young Queen Victoria which stands in pride of place in front of Kensington Palace, is Princess Louise's work.

After the death of her father, Prince Albert, Louise spent a long time as Victoria's unofficial secretary before Louise's marriage to the heir to the Duke of Argyll, John Marquess of Lorne. Despite being a love match, the two eventually drifted apart and long periods of their marriage were spent living separate lives when away from the glare of the public eye. They did, however, later reconcile and Louise was devastated by the Duke's death from pneumonia in 1914.

Art was a passion that lasted Princess Louise's lifetime and she was the first royal to attend a public education institute when she enrolled the National Arts Training School. It is also recorded that she spent a lot of time learning about women's suffrage and other women's issue of the late Victorian/early Edwardian periods.

Clearly, an unusual woman and royal for the time, Princess Louise is definitely a woman I'd love to write about in the future.

Happy Inspiration Day!