"On 3 June 1865 the Princess gave birth to her second son, Prince George. The baby arrived a month early, although his uncle, Prince Alfred, had doubts on this point. ‘Pray tell me, it was just at the right time, was it not?’ he demanded of his brother. ‘Mamma and everybody fancied it should only be in July but you told me to expect it just when it did happen. I am sure you said it was later on purpose.
Whatever may be the truth about this baby’s timing it is a fact that the Queen, who conceived it her duty to attend the confinements of her daughters and daughters-in-law, never succeeded in being present at the birth of any of the Princess of Wales’s children, because they had an inconvenient habit of arriving long before she had been led to expect them. ‘It seems that it is not to be that I am to be present at the birth of your children, which I am very sorry for,’ she wrote rather plaintively to her son Bertie"
Excerpt from Queen Alexandra by Georgina Battiscombe
