Tags
Crown Princess Victoria, Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, Empress Frederick, Otto von Bismark, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria, Princess Royal (Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa; November 21, 1840 – August 5, 1901) was German Empress and Queen of Prussia by marriage to German Emperor Friedrich III. She was the eldest child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and was created Princess Royal in 1841.
Educated by her father in a politically liberal environment, Victoria was betrothed at the age of sixteen to Prince Friedrich of Prussia and supported him in his views that Prussia and the later German Empire should become a constitutional monarchy on the British model. Criticised for this attitude and for her English origins, Victoria suffered ostracism by the Hohenzollerns and the Berlin court. This isolation increased after the arrival of Otto von Bismarck (one of her most staunch political opponents) to power in 1862.
Victoria was empress for only a few months, during which she had opportunity to influence the policy of the German Empire. Friedrich III died in 1888 – just 99 days after his accession – from laryngeal cancer and was succeeded by their son Wilhelm II, who had much more conservative views than his parents. After her husband’s death, she became widely known as Empress Frederick (German: Kaiserin Friedrich).
The empress dowager then settled in Kronberg im Taunus, where she built Friedrichshof, a castle, named in honour of her late husband. Increasingly isolated after the weddings of her younger daughters, Victoria died of breast cancer on August 5, 1901, not long after her mother’s death on January 22, 1901.
.
European Royal History 