The Life of Princess Victoria of Baden, Queen of Sweden. Part II.

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German Emperor Wilhelm II, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, King Gustaf V of Sweden, King Oscar II of Sweden, Queen of Sweden, Victoria of Baden

Princess Victoria suffered depression after the birth of her first child, Prince Gustaf Adolph, in 1882, and after this, she often spent the winters at spas abroad. She would continue to spend the winters outside Sweden from that year until her death.

By 1888, her winter trips had made her unpopular, and she was described as very haughty. In 1889, she had pneumonia, and was formally ordered by the doctors to spend the cold Swedish winters in a southern climate. She had conflicts with her parents-in-law about her expensive stays abroad.

She greatly disapproved of the marriage between her brother-in-law Prince Oscar and her lady-in-waiting Ebba Munck af Fulkila in 1888. She is described as strong-willed and artistically talented. She was an accomplished amateur photographer and painter and she also sculpted. On her travels in Egypt and Italy she both photographed and painted extensively, and experimented with various photo-developing techniques, producing high-quality photographic work.

She was also an excellent pianist and, for example, could play through the complete Ring of the Nibelung by Wagner without notes. She had had a good music education and in her youth she had turned the notes on court concerts for Franz Liszt. Her favourite composers were Schubert and Beethoven. She was also described as a skillful rider.

Queen

Victoria became Queen-consort of Sweden with the death of her father-in-law King Oscar II of Sweden on December 8, 1907. Her husband ascended the throne as King Gustaf V of Sweden. As queen, she was only present in Sweden during the summers, but she still dominated the court. She arranged the marriage between her son Wilhelm and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia in 1908.

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia was a daughter of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia by his first wife Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark. The bride was a cousin of Emperor Nicholas II.

She was also devoted to various kinds of charity, in Sweden, Germany and Italy.

Queen Victoria had substantial political influence over her husband, who was often considered pro-German. In 1908, Victoria made an official visit to Berlin with Gustaf, where she was made an honorary Prussian Colonel of the 34th (Pomeranian) Fusiliers by her cousin Emperor Wilhelm II. She was described as strict and militant and it was said that she had the heart of a Prussian soldier.

She was very strict with discipline, and if any of the member of the palace guard forgot to salute her, he was generally put under arrest. Swedish court life was also dominated by a certain stiffness, upheld by her favoured lady in waiting, Helene Taube.

She was deeply conservative in her views and resented the dissolution of the Swedish-Norwegian union in 1905, the Great Strike of 1909, the 1911 election victory of the radicals and the Socialists as well as the liberals, and when her son was temporary regent in 1912, she warned him in letters from Italy that he should not be too “intimate” with the elected government.

Queen Victoria lost much popularity among Swedes for her often noted pro-German attitude, particularly politically during World War I when she is said to have influenced her husband to a large extent. During World War I, she gave a personal gift to every Swedish volunteer to the German forces.

She kept up a close contact with her first cousin, German Emperor Wilhelm II, whom she often visited during the war She founded “Drottningens centralkomittée” (“The Queen’s Central Committee”) for defence equipment.

May 21, 1801: Birth of Princess Sophie of Sweden. Conclusion.

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Franz Xaver Winterhalter, Grand Duke Friedrich of Baden, Grand Duke Leopold of Baden, Grand Duke Ludwig II of Baden, House of Bernadotte, House of Holstein-Gottorp, Karlsruhe, King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, King Oscar I of Sweden and Norway, King Oscar II of Sweden, Prince Sophie of Sweden, Princess Victoria of Baden, Stéphanie de Beauharnais

Marriage

In 1815, Princess Sophie of Sweden was engaged, and on 25 July 1819 in Karlsruhe, Sophie married her half-grand-uncle Prince Leopold of Baden, the son of a morganatic marriage. The marriage with Leopold had been specifically arranged by her uncle, Grand Duke Charles I of Baden, to improve the chances that Leopold would one day succeed him as grand duke because of Sophie’s royal lineage.

Princess Sophie of Sweden

Since Sophie was a granddaughter of Leopold’s oldest half-brother, Hereditary Prince Charles-Ludwig, this marriage united the descendants of his father’s (Grand Duke Charles-Friedrich) two wives. Sophie’s undoubted royal blood would help to offset the stigma of Leopold’s morganatic birth.

During the reign of Ludwig I, Grand Duke of Baden, they lived a modest life away from court, as Ludwig did not want the heir to the throne at court. In 1830, her husband ascended to the grand ducal throne as Leopold I, and Sophie became Grand Duchess of Baden.

Sophie is described as wise and dutiful but strict. She kept late hours and arose late in the mornings, after which she spent hours writing letters to various relatives around Europe in her négligée. She was interested in science, art and politics, and kept herself well informed on all political events of the day through her correspondence.

Her ties to the Viennese court were particularly tight, and it was to Vienna her sons were sent to complete their education. Sophie retained a certain bitterness over the deposition of her father, and took it very badly when her brother was deprived of his status as a Swedish prince.

Prince Gustaf, Crown Prince of Sweden

Princess Sophie’s brother, Prince Gustaf, Crown Prince of Sweden and later called Gustaf Gustafsson von Holstein-Gottorp (1799-1877); was not haughty as his younger sister Princess Sophie, but humble. Rather, he seemed too quiet and too careful for his age. When Princess Sophie asked him why their father was no longer King, he told her that it was best not to talk about it.

He asked no questions and did not appear to miss his father. After he was told that his father had been deposed, he acted embarrassed towards his mother. However, when she told him that he too had lost his position as heir, he cried and embraced her without a word. The announcement that he wouldn’t become King of Sweden gave him much relief and happiness.

In 1816, Prince Gustaf assumed the title of Count of Itterburg. Prince Gustaf served as an officer to the Habsburgs of Austria, and in 1829, Emperor Franz I created him Prince of Vasa. During the Greek War of Independence (1821-1829) there was some talk of Prince Gustaf becoming its first king, but this never materialized.

The Case of Kaspar Hauser

Kaspar Hauser (c.1812-1833) was a German youth who claimed to have grown up in the total isolation of a darkened cell.

Kaspar Hauser

According to contemporary rumours, probably current as early as 1829, Kaspar Hauser was the Hereditary Prince of Baden who was born circa September 1812, and who, according to known history, died October 16, 1833. It was alleged that this prince was switched with a dying baby and subsequently surfaced 16 years later as Kaspar Hauser in Nuremberg.

In this case, his parents would have been Grand Duke Charles of Baden and Stéphanie de Beauharnais, cousin by marriage and adopted daughter of Napoleon, Emperor of the French. Because Grand Duke Charles had no surviving male progeny, his successor was his uncle Ludwig, who was later succeeded by his half-brother, Leopold. Leopold’s mother, the Countess of Hochberg, was the alleged culprit of Kaspar Hauser’s captivity. The Countess was supposed to have disguised herself as a ghost, the “White Lady”, when kidnapping the prince. Her motive evidently would have been to secure the succession for her sons.

Stéphanie de Beauharnais, Grand Duchess of Baden

After Hauser’s death, it was claimed further that he was murdered, again because of his being the prince.

During the tumult caused by the appearance of Kaspar Hauser, Sophie was rumoured to have ordered Hauser’s assassination in 1833. This damaged her relationship to her husband, and Sophie was said to have had an affair. During the revolutions that swept across Europe the summer of 1848, she was forced to flee from Karlsruhe with her family to Strasbourg. They returned in 1849, after the revolt had been subdued by Prussian forces. She became a widow when her husband, Grand Duke Leopold, April 24, 1852 died in Karlsruhe.

Grand Duke Leopold was succeeded by his eldest son with Princess Sophie, as Grand Duke Ludwig II of Baden. His brother Friedrich acted as regent, because Ludwig suffered from mental illness. However, in 1856, Friedrich became Grand Duke as well after the death of Grand Duke Ludwig II.

Friedrich I, Grand Duke of Baden

While he served as regent for his brother, his mother, Grand Duchess Sophie convinced her son Friedrich to enter an arranged dynastic marriage rather than a marriage to his love, Baroness Stephanie von Gensau. Grand Duke Friedrich I eventually married Princess Louise of Prussia the second child and only daughter of German Emperor Wilhelm I and Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. She was the younger sister of Friedrich III of Germany (“Fritz”) and aunt of Wilhelm II of Germany.

In 1852, the Swedish royal house wished to make peace with the deposed Swedish royal house, and King Oscar I of Sweden and Josephine of Leuchtenberg tried to arrange a meeting, but without success, with resistance coming from Grand Duchess Sophie.

In 1863, however, Sophie met the Swedish heir presumptive Prince Oscar of Sweden, Duke of Östergötland, and future King Oscar II of Sweden and his consort Sophie of Nassau. Prince Oscar was from the House of Bernadotte the dynasty that replaced Princess Sophie’s family. The meeting was a success: Sophie asked him about how the Stockholm of her childhood had changed, and when they left, she presented the couple with a gift to their son prince Gustaf, a medallion with the inscription “G” and the crown of the Swedish Crown Prince, because he had the same name as her brother.

Grand Duchess Sophie of Baden. Portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

In 1864, Sophie was interviewed by an unnamed Swedish writer, an interview which was published in her biography about famous Swedish women by Wilhelmina Stålberg (who was likely the unnamed writer in question):

She particularly remembered Haga Palace and Stockholm Royal Palace, the latter so well that, if she should ever see it again, she would have the ability to find her way in any part of the palace. I asked, if she should not make a visit to her childhood home. There had been rumours in Sweden that she had the wish to do so, and that she had written about it to King Oscar, who had assured her of a kind welcome. The Grand Duchess disregarded the rumour as “completely unfounded”. She had never had a serious plan to visit Sweden, despite the fact that she often longed for it. Especially during spring she always felt a strange melancholic longing for her childhood home. But to travel there was now too late for her. This she uttered with a tearful glimmer in her big blue eyes. In any case, a true smile seemed uncharacteristic for this not-really-beautiful but very interesting face. As for the latest Swedish literature, she did read it, but all in translation, “Because”, she said, “I can no longer remember the Swedish language well enough to speak or read it in person. I can however understand it spoken, and my prayers are in Swedish!”

Dowager Grand Duchess Sophie, former Princess Sophie died at Karlsruhe Palace on July 6, 1865, aged 64.

Crown Prince Gustaf of Sweden and Norway and Princess Victoria of Baden

Through Grand Duchess Sophie’s granddaughter, Princess Victoria of Baden, the blood of the Holstein-Gottorp Dynasty returned to the Swedish Royal Family. Princess Victoria’s father was Sophie’s son, Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden, and his wife Princess Louise of Prussia. On September 20, 1881 in Karlsruhe, Princess Victoria married Crown Prince Gustaf of Sweden and Norway, the son of King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway and Sofia of Nassau.

December 8, 1907 King Oscar II of Sweden died and the Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden became King Gustaf V and Queen Victoria of Sweden. This makes the former Princess Sophie of Sweden the great-great-great grandmother of Sweden’s current monarch, King Carl XVI Gustaf.

March 8, 1844: Oscar I becomes King of Sweden and Norway.

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Charles XIV John of Sweden, Charles XV of Sweden, House of Bernadotte, Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, Josephine of Leuchtenberg, King Oscar II of Sweden, Kingdom of Sweden, Oscar I of Sweden and Norway

Oscar I (July 8, 1799 – July 8, 1859) was King of Sweden and Norway from 8 March 1844 until his death. He was the second monarch of the House of Bernadotte.

Oscar was born at 291 Rue Cisalpine in Paris to Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte,, and Désirée Clary, Napoleon Bonaparte’s former fiancée. Oscar was named Joseph after his godfather Joseph Bonaparte, who was married to his mother’s elder sister Julie, but was also given the names François Oscar. The latter name was chosen by Napoleon after one of the heroes in the Ossian cycle of poems. Désirée is said to have chosen Napoleon to be Oscar’s godfather. Oscar’s father, Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, was the-then-French Minister of War and later Marshal of the Empire and Sovereign Prince of Pontecorvo.

Oscar I, King of Sweden and Norway

On August 21, 1810, Oscar’s father was elected heir-presumptive to the Swedish throne by the Riksdag of the Estates, as King Carl XIII was without legitimate heirs. Two months later, on November 5, he was formally adopted by the king under the name of “Carl Johan”; Oscar was then created a Prince of Sweden with the style of Royal Highness, and further accorded the title of Duke of Södermanland. Oscar and his mother moved from Paris to Stockholm in June 1811; while Oscar soon acclimatized to life at the royal court, quickly acquiring the Swedish language, Désirée had difficulty adjusting and despised the cold weather. Consequently, she left Sweden in the summer of 1811, and would not return until 1823.

Oscar became Crown Prince in 1818 upon the death of his adoptive grandfather, Carl XIII and the accession of Carl Johan to the Swedish and Norwegian thrones as King Carl XIV-III Johan.

Carl XIV-III Johan of Sweden feared the legitimist policy of the Congress of Vienna, and that they may restore the deposed King Gustav IV Adolph of Sweden, therefore he wished to give the House of Bernadotte connections through blood with old royal dynasties of Europe. The marriage of his son and heir to the throne, Crown Prince Oscar, was the solution to this problem, and in 1822, he finally forced his son to agree to marry and to make a trip to Europe to inspect a list of potential candidates for the position of Crown Princess and Queen. This is the list of the four princesses as candidates for marriage, in order of his priority:

* Wilhelmina of Denmark (born January 18, 1808), daughter of Frederik VI of Denmark and Marie Sophie of Hesse-Kassel (ultimately she married first Frederik VII of Denmark and second Karl, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, eldest brother of the future King Christian IX of Denmark)
* Joséphine of Leuchtenberg (born March 14, 1807), daughter of Eugene, 1st Duke of Leuchtenberg and Augusta of Bavaria, and granddaughter of the Empress Josephine.
* Marie of Hesse-Cassel (born September 6, 1804), daughter of Wilhelm II, Elector of Hesse and Augusta of Prussia (ultimately she married Bernard II of Saxe-Meiningen)
* Marie of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (born 3 February 1808), daughter of Charles Friedrich I of Saxe-Weimar and Maria Pavlovna of Russia (ultimately she married Prince Charles of Prussia)

Joséphine of Leuchtenberg

Crown Prince Oscar declined marriage to a Danish Princess, but expressed his interest in the Princess of Leuchtenberg after his first meeting with Joséphine on 23 August 23, 1822 in Eichstätt. The couple reportedly developed a mutual attraction and fell in love when they saw each other, and therefore, the marriage was accepted by both families and duly arranged. Through her mother, Joséphine was a descendant of Gustav I of Sweden and Charles IX of Sweden, making her children descendants of Gustav Vasa. Through her maternal grandfather, Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria, she was also one of the descendants of Renata of Lorraine, granddaughter of Christian II of Denmark.

Oscar married of Joséphine of Leuchtenberg first by proxy at the Leuchtenberg Palace in Munich on May 22, 1823 and in person at a wedding ceremony conducted in Stockholm on June 19, 1823.

The couple had five children:
1. King Carl XV-IV (1826–1872)
2. Prince Gustaf, Duke of Uppland (1827–1852)
3. King Oscar II (1829–1907)
4. Princess Eugenie (1830–1889)
5. Prince August, Duke of Dalarna (1831–1873)

In 1838 Carl XIV-III Johan began to suspect that his son was plotting with the Liberal politicians to bring about a change of ministry, or even his own abdication. If Oscar did not actively assist the Opposition on this occasion, his disapprobation of his father’s despotic behaviour was notorious, though he avoided an actual rupture. Yet his liberalism was of the most cautious and moderate character, as the Opposition—shortly after his accession to the thrones in 1844—discovered to their great chagrin.

Daguerreotype of Oscar I in 1844; this is the first known photograph of a Swedish monarch.

The new king would not hear of any radical reform of the cumbersome and obsolete 1809 Instrument of Government, which made the king a near-autocrat. However, one of his earliest measures was to establish freedom of the press. He also passed the first law supporting gender equality in Sweden when he in 1845 declared that brothers and sisters should have equal inheritance, unless there was a will.

Oscar I also formally established equality between his two kingdoms by introducing new flags with the common Union badge of Norway and Sweden, as well as a new coat of arms for the union.

In foreign affairs, Oscar I was a friend of the principle of nationality; in 1848 he supported Denmark against the Kingdom of Prussia in the First War of Schleswig by placing Swedish and Norwegian troops in cantonments in Funen and North Schleswig (1849–1850), and was the mediator of the Truce of Malmö (26 August 1848). He was also one of the guarantors of the integrity of Denmark (the London Protocol, May 8, 1852).

As early as 1850, Oscar I had conceived the plan of a dynastic union of the three Scandinavian kingdoms, but such difficulties presented themselves that the scheme had to be abandoned. He succeeded, however, in reversing his father’s obsequious policy towards Imperial Russia. His fear lest Russia should demand a stretch of coast along the Varanger Fjord induced him to remain neutral during the Crimean War, and, subsequently, to conclude an alliance with Great Britain and the Second French Empire (November 25, 1855) for preserving the territorial integrity of Sweden-Norway.

Death

In an address to him in 1857, the Riksdag declared that he had promoted the material prosperity of the kingdom more than any of his predecessors. Also, in the 1850s, Oscar’s health began to rapidly deteriorate, becoming paralyzed in 1857; he died two years later at the Royal Palace in Stockholm on July 8, 1859. His eldest son, who served as Regent during his absence, succeeded him as Carl XV.