In Devonport In March 1887, the Duke relinquished his command of the Mediterranean Fleet, and the family moved to
Coburg. Their main residence was Edinburgh Palais, where the Duchess held court. Her husband, occupied with his naval affairs, was away most of the time. Responsibility for the education of the couple's five children fell upon the Duchess. She was a strict, but devoted mother who made sure to be the most important person in her children's lives. Between August 1890 and June 1893, the Duke was stationed at the Royal Navy's base in
Devonport. Maria did not care for the
Admiralty House, her husband's official residence, and only made rare visits to Devonport with her children. With the passing of the years, Alfred and Maria grew apart. They had little in common other than a shared interest in music and their children. He was reserved, taciturn, moody, ill-tempered, and a heavy drinker. The Duke was described as "rude, touchy, willful, unscrupulous, improvident, and unfaithful." The Duchess resented her husband's attitude, but kept her marriage going, hiding her troubled married life from her children, providing a happy environment for them. She later confessed to one of her daughters that she felt she was never anything more than her husband's "legitimate mistress". Arguments over their children added to the couple's marital problems. The Duke hoped that their eldest daughter, Marie, would marry his nephew, the future King
George V. The Duchess, however, was determined that her daughter should avoid her mistake, and married her instead to Crown Prince
Ferdinand of Romania on 10 January 1893. With her husband's ascension to the ducal throne, Maria became Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in addition to being Duchess of Edinburgh. Unlike her husband, who was disgruntled to leave his career in the navy, Maria thoroughly enjoyed her new role. She found the country "charming" and the prospect of "a new fine position, with plenty to do" a "real God-send". Known for its hunting forest and picturesque castles, the ducal property was relatively small, comprising separate estates in
Coburg,
Gotha,
Upper Austria, and
Tyrol, but there she could live according to her desires in a domain of her own. The family moved to
Ehrenburg Palace, the duke's official residence, but they all preferred their summer house,
Rosenau Palace, a gingerbread-yellow villa on a hill with views of the surrounding countryside. There were also two residences in Gotha where they had to live part of the year:
Friedenstein Palace and
Reinhardsbrunn, which the Duke enjoyed for its hunting grounds. The Duchess took on updating the badly furnished castles, and also charitable works, opening an establishment for those with intellectual disabilities that bore her name. Her passions were the opera and the theater, which she supported both in Coburg and in Gotha. The Duchess was also an avid reader and enjoyed mushroom hunting. The main family residence in Coburg was a building that had been acquired for Prince Alfred's use in 1865. Known as Edinburgh Palais, it was across the central square from the
Ehrenburg Palace, the official residence of the reigning duke, and next to the town's opera hall. It was extensively remodelled in 1881 to accommodate the couple's growing family. The royal couple's rooms were on the second floor, while the bedrooms of the four young princesses were on the third floor. Both the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh were avid collectors. In Edinburgh Palais, there were many objects that reminded Maria of her homeland. She also organised entertainment in the Russian fashion. The Duchess was initially against this match as Ernest was close to his British grandmother, Queen Victoria, who arrived at Coburg with many other royals for the wedding. In November 1894, Marie's eldest brother, Alexander III, died of
nephritis, aged forty-nine, leaving his twenty-six-year-old son,
Nicholas II, as the new emperor. Alfred and Maria went to Russia, arriving just before Alexander III's death. They stayed on in Saint Petersburg for the wedding of Nicholas to his fiancée,
Princess Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, the youngest surviving daughter of Alfred's deceased sister,
Princess Alice. Over her husband's objections, the Duchess arranged the marriage of her third daughter, Alexandra, in September 1895, to
Ernst II, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, a grandson of Queen Victoria's half-sister,
Feodora. He was an
attaché at the German embassy in London and his family was
mediatized but not a
reigning royal family. The Duchess's main concern was her wayward only son, "Young Alfred", who had a checkered career in the
Imperial German Army. On 15 October 1895, he reached his majority, but he was already in bad health. Alexandra's wedding took place in Coburg in April 1896, and the following month, Maria travelled to Russia with her husband and their other four children for Emperor
Nicholas II's coronation in Moscow. In June 1897, the Duchess and her husband went back to London to take part in
Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee. By then, the couple's relationship had deteriorated further. Maria despaired in finding a topic of conversation with her difficult husband as he hated her interest in literature and the theater, while she found his fondness for politics and hunting "dull". The Duchess was relieved when her husband was away. She wrote to her eldest daughter "if only you knew how easy and comfortable life is without him." Absent from the festivities was their only son, who was gravely ill. He had contracted
syphilis in 1892, and by 1898, his health deteriorated rapidly. He died at the age of twenty-four on 6 February 1899 in
Meran, after reportedly shooting himself at Gotha during his parents' wedding anniversary celebrations. The Duke was heartbroken at Young Alfred's death. This tragedy drove the parents farther apart as Alfred blamed his wife, who had been responsible for Young Alfred's education. In her grief, the Duchess sank to her knees sobbing uncontrollably during her son's funeral. With the death of Young Alfred, the heir to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was Alfred's nephew
Charles Edward, Duke of Albany, who came to Germany to be educated there. The succession to the duchy was complicated by the news that Alfred himself had throat cancer, too advanced for any treatment. By May 1900, he was unable to swallow and could only be fed by a tube. Maria became Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, while the duchy went to Alfred's nephew Charles Edward, then sixteen years old. During his minority, the
regency fell on Maria's son-in-law, Prince Ernest of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, for nearly five years. ==Last years==