Walburga, Lady Paget

Walburga, Lady Paget.
Born	Walburga Ehrengarde Helena, Countess von Hohenthal 1839 Berlin
Died	1929 Newnham on Severn
Known for	Lady-in-waiting to Queen Victoria
Spouse(s)	Augustus Berkeley Paget

Walburga Ehrengarde Helena, Lady Paget (née Countess von Hohenthal; 1839 - 1929) was a diarist, writer and an intimate friend of Queen Victoria.

Walburga Ehrengarde Helena, Countess von Hohenthal, was born in 1839 in Berlin, Germany. She was the daughter of Charles Frederic Anthony, Count von Hohenthal. Before her marriage she was a lady-in-waiting to Victoria, Princess Royal, who had married Prince Frederick William of Prussia in 1858.

In 1860, she married Sir Augustus Berkeley Paget (1823–1896), British ambassador in Copenhagen, and later British Ambassador in Vienna, Portugal, Florence and Rome. After her husband's posting to Copenhagen, Lady Paget helped Queen Victoria to arrange the marriage of the Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward VII, to Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The Pagets had three children:

In 1867, her husband was posted to Florence, then the capital of the newly formed Italy. In 1870, when Rome became the capital, she arranged for the British embassy to be established at the Villa Torlonia. In 1884 she and her husband had to move to Vienna. In 1887, Lady Paget rented the Villa Caprini in Fiesole, Florence; and in 1893, when her husband retired to Britain, she bought the Torre di Bellosguardo south of the city. When her husband died in 1897 she kept Bellosguardo as her main residence, devoting her time to campaigning – with Vernon Lee, Augustus Hare and others – against the destruction of parts of old Florence by the Municipality, and developing her house and gardens. Queen Victoria visited her in 1893.

In 1913, amid rumors of war, Lady Paget returned to Britain. Bellosguardo was bought by an Austrian, baroness Marion von Hornstein. In 1929, at the age of ninety, she died of burns after falling asleep by the fire at Unlawater House, Newnham on Severn and was buried next to her husband at Tardebigge, Worcestershire.

Lady Paget in her book Colloquies with an unseen friend (1907) was an early writer to mention the hollow earth theory, she claimed that cities exist beneath a desert, which is where the descendants of Atlantis moved to, she further claimed that an entrance will be discovered to this subterranean kingdom in the 21st century.