Marriage and Divorce of Gustaf IV Adolf of Sweden & Frederica of Baden. Part I.

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Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz., Frederica of Baden, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, Gustaf III of Sweden, King Gustaf IV Adolf of Sweden, Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg

Gustaf IV Adolf (November 1, 1778 – February 7, 1837) was King of Sweden from March 29, 1792 until March 29, 1809 when he was deposed in a coup. He was also the last Swedish monarch to be the ruler of Finland.

Gustaf Adolf was born in Stockholm. He was the son of Gustaf III of Sweden by his wife queen Sophia Magdalena. His mother, Sophia Magdalena, was eldest daughter of Frederick V of Denmark and his first wife Louise of Great Britain, the youngest surviving daughter of King George II of Great Britain and Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach.

Gustaf IV Adolf, King of Sweden

Gustaf IV Adolf married Frederica of Baden the daughter of Karl Ludwig of Baden and Amalie of Hesse-Darmstadt. She was the younger sister of Empress Elisabeth Alexeievna (formerly Princess Louise of Baden), spouse of Tsar Alexander I of Russia.

The marriage had been arranged by Gustav IV Adolf himself, after he had refused to marry first Duchess Louise Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

Louise Charlotte was born Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, her father being Friedrich Franz I, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Her mother was Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg; her sister Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1784–1840) married King Christian VIII of Denmark.

He initially desired to marry Ebba Modée but she refused him.

Gustaf Adolf’s second choice for a Royal bride was the Russian Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna, eldest daughter of Tsar Paul I of Russia and his second wife Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg (renamed Maria Feodorovna after her wedding). The sex of the child disappointed her paternal grandmother, Empress Catherine II.

Gustaf Adolf rejected this choice because her proposed marriage contract would have allowed Alexandra to keep her Russian Orthodox faith.

Frederica of Baden was seen as a suitable choice: Russia could not officially disapprove a new bride after the Russian Grand Duchess had been refused if the bride was the sister-in-law of Grand Duke Alexander of Russia which indirectly preserved an alliance between Sweden and Russia.

Frederica of Baden

Additionally, Gustaf IV Adolf wanted a beautiful spouse and expected her to be so after having had a good impression of her sister during his visit to Russia the year prior. The king visited Erfurt to see her and her family himself in August 1797, the engagement was declared immediately after, and the first marriage ceremony conducted in October.

Frederica found it difficult to adapt to court etiquette and protocol and isolated herself with her courtiers. With the exception of her chief lady in waiting, countess Piper, the king had appointed girls in about the same age as herself to be her courtiers, such as Aurora Wilhelmina Koskull, Fredrika von Kaulbars and Emilie De Geer, with whom she reportedly played children’s games.

She was treated with kindness by her mother-in-law, Sophia Magdalena of Denmark, who remembered how ill she herself had been treated by her own mother-in-law.

The relationship between Frederica and Gustav IV Adolf was initially not good. Both being inexperienced, they reportedly had difficulty in connecting sexually, which frustrated the king and caused him to behave with impatient displeasure and suspicion toward her, which worsened the problems because of the shyness of the introvert Frederica.

This attracted attention when the king had the queen’s favorite maid of honor, Anna Charlotta von Friesendorff, exiled from court for impertinence, which also worsened the conflict. The problems was however solved through the mediation of duchess Charlotte, and for the rest of her marriage, she was almost constantly pregnant.

Gustaf IV Adolf and Frederica

This did not benefit the marriage from her point of view, as they were not sexually compatible: the king, who had a strong sexual nature but disliked extramarital sex, was sometime delayed for hours after “having entered the queen’s bed chamber” in the morning, so much that the members of the royal council saw themselves obliged to interrupt and ask the king to “spare the queen’s health”, while Frederica complained in letters to her mother how it tired and exhausted her without giving fulfillment.

Frederica was shocked and intrigued by the sexually liberal Swedish court, and wrote to her mother that she was likely the only woman there who did not have at least three or four lovers, and that the royal duchess Charlotte were said to have both male and female lovers.

The relationship between the king and the queen improved after the birth of their first child in 1799, after which they lived an intimate and harmonious family life, in which they grew close through their mutual interest in their children. The king was reportedly protective toward her and guarded her sexual innocence.

Wedding Announcement of Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia and Rebecca Bettarini and last Imperial Marriage in Russia.

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Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia., King Gustaf V of Sweden, Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Russian Emperor, Russian Empire

The wedding of Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia and Rebecca Bettarini will take place in St Petersburg on October 1, 2021.


It will be the first imperial wedding in Russia since the wedding of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna in 1917.

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna was the first child and only daughter of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia and his first wife, Grand Duchess Alexandra Georgievna of Russia, born Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark. She was therefore a granddaughter of Emperor Alexander II.

She was a paternal first cousin of Nicholas II (Russia’s last Emperor) and maternal first cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh (consort of Queen Elizabeth II).


In September 1917, during the period of the Russian Provisional Government,  Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna married Prince Sergei Putyatin. They had one son, Prince Roman Sergeievich Putyatin, who died in infancy. The couple escaped revolutionary Russia through Ukraine in July 1918.

Previously, in 1908, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna married Prince Wilhelm, Duke of Södermanland, the second son of King Gustaf V of Sweden and his wife Victoria of Baden.

The couple had only one son, Prince Lennart, Duke of Småland later Count Bernadotte af Wisborg. The marriage was unhappy and ended in divorce in 1914.

July 11, 1866: Birth of Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine. Part II.

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Anna Anderson, Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany, Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna, Franziska Schanzkowska, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, Hemophilia, Prince Henry of Prussia, Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Wilhelm of Sweden, Princess Alix of Hesse by Rhine, Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and By Rhine, Princess Irene of Hesse and By Rhine

Princess Irene, raised to believe in a proper Victorian code of behavior, was easily shocked by what she saw as immorality. In 1884, the same year that her elder sister Victoria married Prince Louis of Battenberg, another sister, Elisabeth, married Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich of Russia, and when Elisabeth converted from Lutheranism to Russian Orthodoxy, in 1891, Irene was deeply upset.

Princess Irene ca. 1902

She wrote to her father that she “cried terribly” over Elisabeth’s decision. In 1892, Irene’s father, Grand Duke Ludwig IV, died, and her brother, Ernst-Ludwig, succeeded him as Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine. Two years later, in May 1894, Ernst-Ludwig was married off by Queen Victoria to a first cousin, Victoria-Melita of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. It was amidst the wedding festivities that Irene’s youngest surviving sister, Alix, accepted the marriage proposal of Tsarevich Nicholas, a second cousin, and when Nicholas’ father, Emperor Alexander III, died prematurely in November 1894, Irene and her husband traveled to St. Petersburg to be present at both his funeral and the wedding of Alix, who had taken the name Alexandra Feodorovna upon her conversion to Orthodoxy, to the new Emperor Nicholas II.

Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine (1864–1918)

Despite the disagreement that she had over the conversion of her two sisters to Russian Orthodoxy, she remained close with all of her siblings. In 1907, Irene helped arrange what later turned out to be a disastrous marriage between Elizabeth’s ward, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, to Prince Wilhelm of Sweden, Duke of Södermanland. Wilhelm’s mother, the Queen Victoria of Sweden, was an old friend of both Irene and Elisabeth. Grand Duchess Maria later wrote that Irene pressured her to go through with the marriage when she had doubts. She told Maria that ending the engagement would “kill” Elizabeth.

Prince Wilhelm was the second son of King Gustaf V of Sweden and his wife Victoria of Baden.

On May 3, 1908, in Tsarskoye Selo, the wedding between was Wilhelm of Sweden married Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia took place. The bride was a daughter of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia by his first wife Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark. Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna was a cousin of the reigning Russian Emperor Nicholas II and first cousin of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. The couple had only one son: Prince Lennart, Duke of Småland and later Count of Wisborg (1909–2004).

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia

The marriage was unhappy. Their son, Lennart, later wrote an autobiography in which he revealed several details of the Swedish royal family. The autobiography tells of how Maria, like her aunt and namesake Maria, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, felt that she had married beneath herself in marrying a younger son of the King of Sweden, and this caused problems of ego between the couple.

Maria insisted that the servants address her by her correct style Your Imperial and Royal Highness, to the chagrin of her husband, who was merely a Royal Highness. When apprised of the matter, Wilhelm’s father King Gustaf V had no choice but to acquiesce with his daughter-in-law’s wish, which was perfectly valid in law, and ordered that the imperial style be used invariably for Maria.

Maria sought a divorce because of what she described as the horror she then felt toward the Swedish royal family, due to their unlimited support of Doctor Axel Munthe who had accosted her sexually. The divorce was granted in 1914, and Maria returned to Russia.

Prince Heinrich and Princess Irene

In 1912, Irene was a source of support to her sister Alix and her relationship with Grigori Rasputin when Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich nearly died of complications of haemophilia at the Imperial Family’s hunting lodge in Poland.

Princess Irene’s support stemmed from the fact that two of her children with Prince Heinrich of Prussia, princes Waldemar and Heinrich, were hemophiliacs, a disease which they inherited through Irene from the maternal grandmother of both of their parents, Queen Victoria, who was a carrier. Prince Sigismund was the only one of the three brothers who did not have the hemophilia.

On February 25, 1904, Princess Irene left 4 year old Prince Heinrich unsupervised for a few minutes while she went to fetch something. The playful Prince climbed a chair, and then he climbed onto the table. As he heard his mother approaching, he attempted to quickly come down but stumbled while attempting to climb down the chair and fell on the floor headfirst.

Prince Heinrich started to scream, which immediately attracted Princess Irene’s attention. By the time she reached him, the child was almost unconscious. The doctor said the fall had not been that bad and the child would have survived had he not been a haemophiliac. However, suffering from this condition, it was certain the young Prince would die. He was suffering from a brain haemorrhage. He lingered for a couple of hours, but died the following day, on February 26. Prince Heinrich’s premature death would later very much affect the Princess, who would withdraw into herself.

Princess Irene with her husband Prince Heinrich of Prussia and their two surviving sons, Prince Sigismund, left, and Prince Waldemar.

Later life

Irene’s ties to her sisters were disrupted by the advent of World War I, which put them on opposing sides of the war. When the war ended, she received word that her sister Alix, and her husband and children along with her sister Elisabeth had been murdered by the Bolsheviks. Following the war and the abdication of her brother-in-law, Emperor Wilhelm II, Germany was no longer ruled by the Prussian Royal Family, but Irene and her husband retained their estate, Hemmelmark, in northern Germany.

Irene and Anna Anderson

When Anna Anderson surfaced in Berlin in the early 1920s, claiming to be the surviving Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, Irene visited the woman, but decided that Anderson could not be her niece that she had last seen in 1913. Princess Irene was not impressed.

Anna Anderson

I saw immediately that she could not be one of my nieces. Even though I had not seen them for nine years, the fundamental facial characteristics could not have altered to that degree, in particular the position of the eyes, the ear, etc. .. At first sight one could perhaps detect a resemblance to Grand Duchess Tatiana.”

Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, sister of the murdered Emperor, commented on the visit of Princess Irene, saying it was an unsatisfactory meeting, but the woman’s supporters said that Princess Irene had not known her niece very well and all the rest of it.”

Irene’s husband, Heinrich of Prussia, said that the mention of Anderson upset Irene too much and ordered that no one was to discuss Anderson in her presence.

Prince Heinrich, Irene’s husband, died of throat cancer, as his father Emperor Friedrich III had, in Hemmelmark on April 20, 1929.

Anna Anderson biographer Peter Kurth wrote that several years later, Irene’s son (Prince Sigismund) posed questions to Anderson through an intermediary about their shared childhood and declared that her answers were all accurate. Irene later adopted Sigismund’s daughter, Barbara, born in 1920, as her heir after Sigismund left Germany to live in Costa Rica during the 1930s. Sigismund declined to return to Germany to live after World War II.

Princess Irene died November 11, 1953 (aged 87) at Schloss Hemmelmark, Barkelsby, Schleswig-Holstein, West Germany.

End note:

In 1991, the bodies of Emperor Nicholas II, Irene’s sister, Empress Alexandra (Alix) and three of their daughters were exhumed from a mass grave near Yekaterinburg. They were identified on the basis of both skeletal analysis and DNA testing. The female bones matched that of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, whose maternal grandmother Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine was a sister of Alexandra and Irene. The bodies of Tsarevich Alexei and the remaining daughter were discovered in 2007. Repeated and independent DNA tests confirmed that the remains were the seven members of the Romanov family, and proved that none of the Emperor’s four daughters survived the shooting of the Romanov family.

A sample of Anderson’s tissue, part of her intestine removed during her operation in 1979, had been stored at Martha Jefferson Hospital, Charlottesville, Virginia. Anderson’s mitochondrial DNA was extracted from the sample and compared with that of the Romanovs and their relatives. It did not match that of the Duke of Edinburgh or that of the bones, confirming that Anderson was not related to the Romanovs. However, the sample matched DNA provided by Karl Maucher, a grandson of Franziska Schanzkowska’s sister, Gertrude (Schanzkowska) Ellerik, indicating that Karl Maucher and Anna Anderson were maternally related and that Anderson was Franziska Schanzkowska.