February 10, 1842: Marriage of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

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Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Emperor Alexander II of Russia, King Leopold I of Belgium, Lord Melbourne, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Privy Council, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, royal wedding, United Kingdom of Great Britain, William IV of the United Kingdom

On this date in history: February 10, 1840. Her Majesty Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland married her maternal first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Victoria once complained to her Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, that her mother’s close proximity promised “torment for many years”, Melbourne sympathized but said it could be avoided by marriage, which Victoria called a “schocking alternative”. Although a marriage between Victoria and her cousin Prince Albert had been encouraged by the Coburg family, specifically King Leopold I of the Belgians since 1936, Victoria was ambivalent at best toward the arrangement.

The idea of marriage between Albert and his cousin, Victoria, was first documented in an 1821 letter from his paternal grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, (Countess Augusta of Reuss-Ebersdorf) who said that he was “the pendant to the pretty cousin”.

Victoria did however, show interest in Albert’s education for the future role he would have to play as her husband, but she resisted attempts to rush her into any marriage. Her uncle, King William IV of the United Kingdom, preferred that Victoria marry her paternal first cousin, Prince George of Cambridge. William IV also favored the suit of Prince Alexander of the Netherlands, second son of the Prince of Orange, future King Willem II. Victoria was well aware of the various matrimonial plans and critically appraised a parade of eligible princes.

In 1839, Tsesarevich Alexander Nikolaevich, the eldest son of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia and Charlotte of Prussia (daughter of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia and of Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz), was sent on a tour of Europe by his parents where he met twenty-year-old Queen Victoria and both were enamored of each other. Simon Sebag Montefiore speculates that a small romance emerged. Such a marriage, however, would not work, as Alexander was not a minor prince of Europe and was in line to inherit a throne himself. In March 1855 Tsesarevich Alexander Nikolaevich became Emperor Alexander II of Russia.

Following Albert’s second visit to Queen Victoria in October of 1839, along with his brother Ernst, Victoria continued to praise Him and it was during this visit that genuine romantic feelings began to stir for her. Victoria wrote to her uncle Leopold I of the Belgians to thank him “for the prospect of great happiness you have contributed to give me, in the person of dear Albert … He possesses every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly happy.”

Albert and Victoria felt mutual affection and the Queen proposed to him on October 15, 1839, just five days after he had arrived at Windsor. Victoria’s intention to marry Albert was declared formally to the Privy Council on November 23.

The couple were married on February 10, 1840, in the Chapel Royal of St James’s Palace, London. Victoria was besotted. She spent the evening after their wedding lying down with a headache, but wrote ecstatically in her diary:

I NEVER, NEVER spent such an evening!!! MY DEAREST DEAREST DEAR Albert … his excessive love & affection gave me feelings of heavenly love & happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before! He clasped me in his arms, & we kissed each other again & again! His beauty, his sweetness & gentleness – really how can I ever be thankful enough to have such a Husband! … to be called by names of tenderness, I have never yet heard used to me before – was bliss beyond belief! Oh! This was the happiest day of my life!

Just before the marriage, Albert was naturalized by an Act of Parliament  and granted the style of Royal Highness by an Order in Council. This style was only legal in Britain and under the German system of styles and titles Prince Albert remained His Serene Highness. Lord Melbourne advised against the Queen’s strong desire to grant her husband the title of “King Consort”. Parliament even refused to make Prince Albert a peer of the realm—(granting him a title of nobility) partly because of anti-German sentiment and a desire to exclude Albert from any political role.

Initially Albert was not popular with the British public; he was perceived to be from an impoverished and undistinguished minor state, barely larger than a small English county.  In time Albert became an important political adviser as well as the Queen’s companion, replacing Lord Melbourne as the dominant, influential figure in the first half of her life.

February 6: A busy day in Royal History

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King Charles II of England, King Constantine II of Greece, King George VI of the United Kingdom, King James II-VII of England and Scotland, Kings and Queens of England, Kings and Queens of Great Britain, kings and queens of Scotland, kings and queens of the United Kingdom, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Alfred of Edinburgh, Queen Anne of Great Britain, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Queen Frederica of Greece

February 6, 1665. Birth of the future Queen Anne. Anne was born at 11:39 p.m. on February 6, 1665 at St James’s Palace, London, the fourth child and second daughter of the Duke of York (afterwards James II and VII), and his first wife, Anne Hyde. Her father was the younger brother of King Charles II, and her mother was the daughter of Lord Chancellor Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon. was the Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland between March 8, 1702 and May 1, 1707. On May 1, 1707, under the Acts of Union, two of her realms, the kingdoms of England and Scotland, united as a single sovereign state known as Great Britain. She continued to reign as Queen of Great Britain and Ireland until her death. Anne remained Queen of Ireland in the form of a personal union with the British Crown and wouldn’t be politically united with Great Britain until 1801.

February 6, 1685. Death of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland. Charles suffered a sudden apoplectic fit on the morning of February 2, 1685, and died aged 54 at 11:45 am four days later at Whitehall Palace. The suddenness of his illness and death led to suspicion of poison in the minds of many, including one of the royal doctors; however, a more modern medical analysis has held that the symptoms of his final illness are similar to those of uraemia (a clinical syndrome due to kidney dysfunction). In the days between his collapse and his death, Charles endured a variety of torturous treatments including bloodletting, purging and cupping in hopes of effecting a recovery. Charles was succeeded by his brother, the Duke of York, who became James II of England and Ireland and James VII of Scotland.

February 6, 1840. Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was naturalised by Act of Parliament, and granted the style of Royal Highness by an Order in Council, four days before his marriage to Queen Victoria. The British Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, advised the Queen against granting her husband the title of “King Consort”; Parliament also objected to Albert being created a peer—partly because of anti-German sentiment and a desire to exclude Albert from any political role. Albert claimed that he had no need of a British peerage, writing: “It would almost be a step downwards, for as a Duke of Saxony, I feel myself much higher than a Duke of York or Kent.” For the next seventeen years, Albert was formally titled “HRH Prince Albert” until, on June 25, 1857, Victoria formally granted him the title Prince Consort.

February 6, 1899. Prince Alfred of Edinburgh, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (October 15, 1874 – February 6, 1899), was the son and heir apparent of Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He died aged 24 under circumstances still not entirely clear. The exact circumstances of Alfred’s death are not known, and varying accounts have been published. His sister Marie’s memoirs simply say his health “broke down”, and other writers have said that he had “consumption”. The Times published an account stating he had died of a tumor, while the Complete Peerage gives the generally accepted account that he “shot himself”. He was a first cousin of King George V of the United Kingdom, German Emperor Wilhelm II, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and brother of Queen Maria a Romania.

February 6, 1952. George VI of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland died and was succeeded by his elder daughter as Queen Elizabeth II. On the morning of February 6, at 07:30 GMT, George VI was found dead in bed at his Sandringham House in Norfolk. He had died from a coronary thrombosis in his sleep at the age of 56. Princess Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh had just returned to their Kenyan home, Sagana Lodge, after a night spent at Treetops Hotel, when word arrived of the death of the King and consequently Elizabeth’s immediate accession to the throne. This marks her 68th year on the throne.

February 6, 1981. Queen Frederica of Greece, was born Her Royal Highness Princess Frederica of Hanover, and of Great Britain and Ireland, and of Brunswick-Lüneburg on April 18, 1917 in Blankenburg am Harz, in the German Duchy of Brunswick, she was the only daughter and third child of Ernst August, then reigning Duke of Brunswick, and his wife Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia, herself the only daughter of the German Emperor Wilhelm II. Both her father and maternal grandfather would abdicate their crowns in November 1918 following Germany’s defeat in World War I, and her paternal grandfather would be stripped of his British royal dukedom the following year. As a descendant of Queen Victoria, she was, at birth, 34th in the line of succession to the British throne.

Prince Paul of Greece (future King of Greece) proposed to her during the summer of 1936, while he was in Berlin attending the 1936 Summer Olympics. Paul was a son of King Constantine I and Frederica’s grand-aunt Sophia. Accordingly, they were maternal first cousins once removed. They were also paternal second cousins as great-grandchildren of Christian IX of Denmark. Their engagement was announced officially on September 28, 1937, and Britain’s King George VI gave his consent pursuant to the Royal Marriages Act 1772 on December 26, 1937. They married in Athens on January 9, 1938. Frederica became Hereditary Princess of Greece, her husband being heir presumptive to his childless elder brother, King George II.

Frederica died on February 6, 1981 in exile in Madrid of heart failure, reportedly following eyelid surgery (blepharoplasty), although a biographer has claimed the surgery was cataract removal. She was interred at Tatoi (the Royal family’s palace and burial ground in Greece). Her son, King Constantine II, and his family were allowed to attend the service but had to leave immediately afterwards.

January 25, 1858: The wedding of Princess Victoria, Princess Royal and Prince Friedrich of Prussia at the Chapel Royal of St. James’s Palace in London.

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Frederick III of Germany, Kingdom of Prussia, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, royal wedding, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland., Victoria Princess Royal

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. She was the mother of German Emperor Wilhelm II.

In the German Confederation, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia and his wife Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach were among the personalities with whom Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were allies. The British sovereign also had regular epistolary contact with her cousin Augusta since 1846. The revolution that broke out in Berlin in 1848 further strengthened the links between the two royal couples by requiring the heir presumptive to the Prussian throne to find shelter for three months in the British court.

In 1851, William returned to London with his wife and two children (Friedrich and Louise), on the occasion of The Great Exhibition. For the first time, Victoria met her future husband, and despite the age difference (she was 11 years old and he was 19), they got along very well. To promote the contact between the two, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert asked their daughter to guide Frederick through the exhibition, and during the visit the princess was able to converse in perfect German while the prince was able to say only a few words in English. The meeting was therefore a success, and years later, Prince Friedrich recalled the positive impression that Victoria made on him during this visit, with her mixture of innocence, intellectual curiosity and simplicity.

It was not only his encounter with little Victoria, however, that positively impressed Frederick during the four weeks of his English stay. The young Prussian prince shared his liberal ideas with the Prince Consort. Frederick was fascinated by the relationships among the members of the British royal family. In London, court life was not as rigid and conservative as in Berlin, and Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s relationship with their children was very different to Wilhelm and Augusta’s relationship with theirs.

After Friedrich returned to Germany, he began a close correspondence with Victoria. Behind this nascent friendship was the desire of Queen Victoria and her husband to forge closer ties with Prussia. In a letter to her uncle, the king of the Belgians, the British sovereign conveyed the desire that the meeting between her daughter and the Prussian prince lead to a closer relationship between the two young people.

In 1855, Prince Friedrich made another trip to Great Britain and visited Victoria and her family in Scotland at Balmoral Castle. The purpose of his trip was to see the Princess Royal again, to ensure that she would be a suitable consort for him. In Berlin, the response to this journey to Britain was far from positive. In fact, many members of the Prussian court wanted to see the heir presumptive’s son marry a Russian grand duchess. King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who had allowed his nephew to marry a British princess, even had to keep his approval a secret because his own wife showed strong Anglophobia.

At the time of Friedrich second visit, Victoria was 15 years old. A little shorter than her mother, the princess was 1.50 m tall (4 feet 11 inches) and Queen Victoria considered her far from the ideal of beauty of the time. Queen Victoria was concerned that the Prussian prince would not find her daughter sufficiently attractive. However, when I look at pictures of the Princess Royal at this time, personally I think she’s very pretty.

Nevertheless, from the first dinner with the prince, it was clear to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert that the mutual sympathy of the two young people that began in 1851 was still vivid. In fact, after only three days with the royal family, Friedrich asked Victoria’s parents permission to marry their daughter. They were thrilled by the news, but gave their approval on condition that the marriage should not take place before Vicky’s seventeenth birthday.

Once this condition was accepted, the engagement of Victoria and Frederick was publicly announced on May 17, 1856. The immediate reaction in Great Britain was disapproval. The English public complained about the Kingdom of Prussia’s neutrality during the Crimean War of 1853-1856. The Times characterized the Hohenzollern as a “miserable dynasty” that pursued an inconsistent and unreliable foreign policy, with the maintenance of the throne depending solely on Russia. The newspaper also criticised the failure of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV to respect the political guarantees given to the population during the revolution of 1848. In the German Confederation, the reactions to the announcement of the engagement were mixed: several members of the Hohenzollern family and conservatives opposed it, and liberal circles welcomed the proposed union with the British crown.

Convinced that the marriage of a British princess to the second-in-line to the Prussian throne would be regarded as an honour by the Hohenzollerns, Prince Albert insisted that his daughter retain her title of Princess Royal after the wedding. However, owing to the very anti-British and pro-Russian views of the Berlin court, the prince’s decision only aggravated the situation.

The question of where to hold the marriage ceremony raised the most criticism. To the Hohenzollerns, it seemed natural that the nuptials of the future Prussian king would be held in Berlin. However, Queen Victoria insisted that her eldest daughter must marry in her own country, and in the end, she prevailed. The wedding of Victoria and Friedrich took place at the Chapel Royal of St. James’s Palace in London on January 25, 1858.

January 22, 1901: Death of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Empress of India.

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Empress of India, Frogmore, German Emperor and King of Prussia, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, kings and queens of the United Kingdom, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Edward, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, The Duke of Kent, Victorian Era

Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; May 24, 1819 – January 22, 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from June 20, 1837 until her death. On May 1, 1876, she adopted the additional title of Empress of India. Known as the Victorian era, her reign of 63 years and seven months was longer than that of any of her predecessors. It was a period of industrial, cultural, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire.

Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III and Duchess Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, the fourth daughter and seventh child of Franz Friedrich, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and Countess Augusta of Reuss-Ebersdorf. After both her father the Duke of Kent and his father, King George III, died within a week of one another in January 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father’s three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue (King George IV died 1830, Frederick, Duke of York died 1827, King William IV died 1837).

The United Kingdom was an established constitutional monarchy in which the sovereign held relatively little direct political power. Privately, she attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.

In February of 1840 Queen Victoria married her cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the second son of Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and his first wife, Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg. Their nine children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria the sobriquet “the grandmother of Europe” and spreading haemophilia in European royalty. After Albert’s death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism in the United Kingdom temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.

In July 1900, Victoria’s second son Alfred (“Affie”) died. “Oh, God! My poor darling Affie gone too”, she wrote in her journal. “It is a horrible year, nothing but sadness & horrors of one kind & another.”

Following a custom she maintained throughout her widowhood, Victoria spent the Christmas of 1900 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. Rheumatism in her legs had rendered her lame, and her eyesight was clouded by cataracts. Through early January, she felt “weak and unwell”, and by mid-January she was “drowsy … dazed, [and] confused.” She died on Tuesday January 22, 1901, at half past six in the evening, at the age of 81. Her son and successor, King Edward VII, and her eldest grandson, German Emperor Wilhelm II, were at her deathbed. Her favourite pet Pomeranian, Turi, was laid upon her deathbed as a last request.

On January 25, King Edward VII, Wilhelm II and her third son, Prince Arthur, the Duke of Connaught, helped lift her body into the coffin. Her funeral was held on Saturday 2 February 2, in St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, and after two days of lying-in-state, she was interred beside Prince Albert in Frogmore Mausoleum at Windsor Great Park.

With a reign of 63 years, seven months and two days, Victoria was the longest-reigning British monarch and the longest-reigning queen regnant in world history until her great-great-granddaughter Elizabeth II surpassed her on September 9, 2015. She was the last monarch of Britain from the House of Hanover. Her son and successor Edward VII belonged to her husband’s House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

When Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901, her eldest son, Prince Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales became King of the United Kingdom, Emperor of India and, in an innovation, King of the British Dominio. He chose to reign under the name of Edward VII, instead of Albert Edward—the name his mother had intended for him to use —declaring that he did not wish to “undervalue the name of Albert” and diminish the status of his father with whom the “name should stand alone.” The numeral VII was occasionally omitted in Scotland, even by the national church, in deference to protests that the previous Edwards were English kings who had “been excluded from Scotland by battle”.

January 19, 1757: Birth of Countess Augusta Caroline Sophie Reuss-Ebersdorf

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Countess Augusta Caroline Sophie Reuss-Ebersdorf, Fürst, Franz of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Hochadel, Imperial Counts, Johann Heinrich Tischbein, King George III of the United Kingdom, mediatised, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Thuringia

Countess Augusta Caroline Sophie Reuss-Ebersdorf (January 19, 1757 –November 16, 1831), was by marriage the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She was born in Saalburg-Ebersdorf. She was the maternal grandmother of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and the paternal grandmother of her husband Prince Albert, of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, The Prince Consort.

Family

She was the second of seven children of Heinrich XXIV, Count Reuss of Ebersdorf and his wife Countess Karoline Ernestine of Erbach-Schönberg. Her birthplace, Ebersdorf, was a center of Pietism in Thuringia and Augusta’s grandparents were ardent admirers of this religious movement. Augusta’s great-aunt Countess Erdmuthe Dorothea of Reuss-Ebersdorf was married to Count Nicholas Louis von Zinzendorf und Pottendorf, leader of the revivalist Moravian Church. This background explains the deep religious feelings of Duchess Augusta in later years.

Marriage

Her father commissioned a portrait of Augusta as Artemisia by the painter Johann Heinrich Tischbein. Count Heinrich XXIV showed this painting during the Perpetual Diet so potential marriage candidates were aware of his beautiful daughter. One of those potential marriage candidates was Franz, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Duke Franz, previously acquired the Artemisia painting for four times the original price because he was deeply in love with Augusta, but he had to marry a relative, Princess Sophie of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

Franz, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (July 15, 1750 – December 9, 1806), was the eldest son of Ernest Friedrich, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Sophia Antonia of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Duke Franz was one of the ruling Thuringian dukes of the House of Wettin. Despite being in love with Countess Augusta Caroline Sophie Reuss-Ebersdorf, on March 6, 1776, in Hildburghausen Franz married Princess Sophie of Saxe-Hildburghausen, a daughter of his Ernestine kinsman, Duke Ernst Friedrich II. She died on October 28, 1776, only seven months after her wedding. There were no children born from this marriage. With death of Princess Sophie the duke was free to pursue the hand of his beloved.

Franz, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

In Ebersdorf on June 13, 1777 Countess Augusta Caroline Sophie Reuss-Ebersdorf married Franz, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. During her marriage, Augusta bore her husband ten children; some of them played important roles in European history: Victoria, who married Edward, Duke of Kent (son of King George III of the United Kingdom & Hanover) and King Leopold I of Belgium.

Countess Augusta is the grandmother of many notable monarchs of Europe, including both Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom (through her mother Victoria) and her husband, Prince Albert (through his father Ernst), King Consort of Portugal Ferdinand II (through his father Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha), and also Empress Carlota of Mexico and her brother Leopold II of Belgium (through their father Leopold I who was elected King of the Belgians on June 26, 1831).

Countess Augusta Caroline Sophie Reuss-Ebersdorf was from a family of Imperial Counts of the junior line of the House of Reuss which had split into many lines, with Reuss-Ebersdorf being one of them.

Although most German counts belonged officially to the lower nobility, those who were mediatised belonged to the Hochadel, the heads of their families being entitled to be addressed as Erlaucht (“Illustrious Highness”), rather than simply as Hochgeboren (“High-born”). Reuss-Ebersdorf is such an example.

Countess Augusta Caroline Sophie Reuss-Ebersdorf

Countess Augusta Caroline Sophie Reuss-Ebersdorf was born with the style Her Illustrious Highness. In examining her titles I want to know if her title included Princess of The Holy Roman Empire?

Sources are confusing. One source said that the head of each branch of the Imperial County of Reuss Family bore the German title Fürst (Prince) as did their male children……I assume that the female children held the title of Princess? Yet another source mentions it wasn’t until 1806 that the title of the ruler of Reuss-Ebersdorf was upgraded to that of Prince of the Holy Roman Empire.

As soon as I have this figured out I will post more.

This date in history, December 14, 1878: death of Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, Grand Duchess of Hesse and By Rhine.

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December 14 1878, Diptheria, Grand Duchess of Hesse and By Rhine, Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and By Rhine, Marie of Hesse and By Rhine, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain

Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (Alice Maud Mary; April 25, 1843 – December 14, 1878), Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine, was the third child and second daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Alice was the first of Queen Victoria’s nine children to die, and one of three to be outlived by their mother, who died in 1901.

On July 1, 1862, while the court was still at the height of mourning, Alice married the minor German Prince Ludwig of Hesse and By Rhine, heir to the Grand Duchy of Hesse and By Rhine. Prince Ludwig was the first son and child of Prince Charles of Hesse and by Rhine (1809 – 1877) and Princess Elisabeth of Prussia (1815 – 1885), the second daughter of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia and Landgravine Marie Anna of Hesse-Homburg and a granddaughter of Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh is her great-great-grandson.

As his father’s elder brother Ludwig III (1806-1877), the reigning Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, had been married to his first wife since 1833 without legitimate children and from 1868 was married morganatically, Prince Ludwig was from birth second-in-line to the grand ducal throne, after his father.

Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and By Rhine

The wedding ceremony—conducted privately and with unrelieved gloom at Osborne House—was described by the Queen as “more of a funeral than a wedding”. The Princess’s life in Darmstadt was unhappy as a result of impoverishment, family tragedy and worsening relations with her husband and mother.

In November 1878, the Grand Ducal household fell ill with diphtheria. Alice’s eldest daughter Victoria was the first to fall ill, complaining of a stiff neck in the evening of 5 November 5th. Diphtheria was diagnosed the following morning, and soon the disease spread to Alice’s children Alix, Marie, Irene, and Ernest. Her husband Louis became infected shortly thereafter. Elisabeth was the only child to not fall ill, having been sent away by Alice to the palace of the Princess Charles, her mother-in-law.

The youngest, Marie, became seriously ill on November 15, and Alice was called to her bedside, but by the time she arrived, Marie had choked to death. A distraught Alice wrote to Queen Victoria that the “pain is beyond words.” Alice kept the news of Marie’s death secret from her children for several weeks, but she finally told Ernst-Ludwig in early December. His reaction was even worse than she had anticipated; at first he refused to believe it. As he sat up crying, Alice broke her rule about physical contact with the ill and gave him a kiss. This was the kiss of death.

At first, however, Alice did not fall ill. She met her sister Victoria (Crown Princess of Germany and Prussia) as the latter was passing through Darmstadt on the way to England, and wrote to her mother with “a hint of resumed cheerfulness” on the same day. However, on December 7, Alice recognized the symptoms of diphtheria in herself and by Saturday, December 14th the 17th anniversary of her father’s death, she became seriously ill with the diphtheria caught from her son. Her last words were “dear Papa”, and she fell unconscious at 2:30 am. Just after 8:30 am, she died.

Alice was buried on 18 December 1878 at the Grand Ducal mausoleum at Rosenhöhe outside Darmstadt, with the Union Flag draped over her coffin. A special monument of Alice and her daughter Marie was erected there by Joseph Boehm.

She was the first child of Queen Victoria to die, with her mother outliving her by more than 20 years. Victoria noted the coincidence of the dates of Albert and Alice’s deaths as “almost incredible and most mysterious.” Writing in her journal on the day of Alice’s death, Queen Victoria referred to the recent sufferings of the family: “This terrible day come round again.” Shocked by grief, she wrote to her daughter Princess Victoria: “My precious child, who stood by me and upheld me seventeen years ago on the same day taken, and by such an awful and fearful disease…She had darling Papa’s nature, and much of his self-sacrificing character and fearless and entire devotion to duty!” The animosity that Victoria had towards Alice seemed no longer present.

This date in history, December 14, 1861: death of Prince Albert the Prince Consort.

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1861, December 14, kings and queens of the United Kingdom, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Consort, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, the prince of Wales, Trent Affair, Typhoid

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Francis Albert Augustus Charles Emmanuel; August 26, 1819 – December 14, 1861) was the husband of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.

Albert was born at Schloss Rosenau, near Coburg, Germany, the second son of Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and his first wife, Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, the only daughter of August, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg and his first wife Louise Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, daughter of Friedrich Franz I, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (her namesake).

Albert’s future wife, Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom was born earlier in the same year with the assistance of the same midwife, Charlotte von Siebold. Albert was baptised into the Lutheran Evangelical Church on September 19, 1819 in the Marble Hall at Schloss Rosenau with water taken from the local river, the Itz.

In October of 1839 Albert and his brother Ernest returned to the United Kingdom to visit the Queen, with the objective of settling the marriage issue between Albert and Victoria. Albert and Victoria felt mutual affection and the Queen proposed to him on October 15, 1839. Victoria’s intention to marry was declared formally to the Privy Council on November 23, and the couple married on February 10, 1840 at the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace. Just before the marriage, Albert was naturalised by an Act of Parliament.

In the United Kingdom, Albert was styled “His Serene Highness Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha” He was granted the style of Royal Highness on February 6, 1840, and throughout his marriage his territorial designation was dropped and he was styled HRH Prince Albert and was given the title of Prince Consort on June 25, 1857. However, making Albert a peer (granting him a dukedom) was considered unpopular and Victoria never was able to make him a Prince of the United Kingdom in his own right.

In August 1859, Albert fell seriously ill with stomach cramps He had an accidental brush with death during a trip to Coburg in the autumn of 1860, when he was driving alone in a carriage drawn by four horses that suddenly bolted. As the horses continued to gallop toward a stationary wagon waiting at a railway crossing, Albert jumped for his life from the carriage. One of the horses was killed in the collision, and Albert was badly shaken, though his only physical injuries were cuts and bruises. He confided in his brother and eldest daughter that he had sensed his time had come.

In March 1861, Victoria’s mother and Albert’s aunt, the Duchess of Kent, died and Victoria was grief-stricken; Albert took on most of the Queen’s duties, despite continuing to suffer with chronic stomach trouble. The last public event he presided over was the opening of the Royal Horticultural Gardens on 5 June 1861. In August, Victoria and Albert visited the Curragh Camp, Ireland, where the Prince of Wales was doing army service. At the Curragh, the Prince of Wales was introduced, by his fellow officers, to Nellie Clifden, an Irish actress.

By November, Victoria and Albert had returned to Windsor, and the Prince of Wales had returned to Cambridge, where he was a student. Two of Albert’s young cousins, brothers King Pedro V of Portugal and Prince Ferdinand, died of typhoid fever within five days of each other in early November. On top of this news, Albert was informed that gossip was spreading in gentlemen’s clubs and the foreign press that the Prince of Wales was still involved with Nellie Clifden.

Albert and Victoria were horrified by their son’s indiscretion, and feared blackmail, scandal or pregnancy. Although Albert was ill and at a low ebb, he travelled to Cambridge to see the Prince of Wales on November 25 to discuss his son’s indiscreet affair. In his final weeks Albert suffered from pains in his back and legs.

When the Trent Affair—the forcible removal of Confederate envoys from a British ship by Union forces during the American Civil War—threatened war between the United States and Britain, Albert was gravely ill but intervened to soften the British diplomatic response.

On December 9, 1861 one of Albert’s doctors, William Jenner, diagnosed him with typhoid fever. Albert died at 10:50 p.m. on December 14, the Blue Room at Windsor Castle, in the presence of the Queen and five of their nine children.The contemporary diagnosis for his death was typhoid fever, but modern writers have pointed out that Albert’s ongoing stomach pain, leaving him ill for at least two years before his death, may indicate that a chronic disease, such as Crohn’s disease, renal failure, or abdominal cancer, was the cause of death.

December 3, 1939: Death of Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll. Part I.

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Albert Edward, Duchess of Argyll, Duchess of Cambridge, Duke of Argyll, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, King George III, Lord Lorne, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Princess Louise of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, (Louisa Caroline Alberta; March 18, 1848 – December 3, 1939) Louise was born on 18 March 1848 at Buckingham Palace, London She was the fourth daughter and sixth child of the reigning British monarch, Queen Victoria, and her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Her birth coincided with revolutions which swept across Europe, prompting the queen to remark that Louise would turn out to be “something peculiar”.The queen’s labour with Louise was the first to be aided with chloroform.

Albert and Victoria chose the names Louisa Caroline Alberta. She was baptized on 13 May 1848 in Buckingham Palace’s private chapel by John Bird Sumner, the Archbishop of Canterbury. Though she was christened Louisa at the service, she was invariably known as Louise throughout her life. Her godparents were Duke Gustav of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (her paternal great-great-uncle, for whom Prince Albert stood proxy); Princess Marie Frederica of Hesse-Cassel, Duchess of Saxe-Meiningen (for whom her great-aunt Queen Adelaide stood proxy); and Princess Augusta of Cambridge, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (her first cousin once-removed, for whom the Duchess of Cambridge stood proxy). During the ceremony, Princess Mary, the Duchess of Gloucester, one of the few children of King George III who was still alive, forgot where she was, and suddenly got up in the middle of the service and knelt at the queen’s feet, much to the queen’s horror.

Like her siblings, Louise was brought up with the strict programme of education devised by her father, Prince Albert, and his friend and confidant, Baron Stockmar. The young children were taught practical tasks, such as cooking, farming, household tasks and carpentry. From her early years, Louise was a talented and intelligent child, and her artistic talents were quickly recognized.

On his visit to Osborne House in 1863, Hallam Tennyson, the son of the poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, remarked that Louise could “draw beautifully”. Because of her royal rank, an artistic career was not considered. However, the queen first allowed her to attend art school under the tutelage of the sculptor Mary Thornycroft, and later (1863) allowed her to study at the National Art Training School, now The Royal College of Art. South Kensington.

Her father Prince Albert, died at Windsor on December 14, 1861. The queen was devastated, and ordered her household to move from Windsor to Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. The atmosphere of the royal court became gloomy and morbid in the wake of the prince’s death, and entertainments became dry and dull. Louise quickly became dissatisfied with her mother’s prolonged mourning. For her seventeenth birthday in 1865, Louise requested the ballroom to be opened for a debutante dance, the like of which had not been performed since Prince Albert’s death. Her request was refused, and her boredom with the mundane routine of travelling between the different royal residences at set times irritated her mother, who considered Louise to be indiscreet and argumentative.

The queen comforted herself by rigidly continuing with Prince Albert’s plans for their children. Princess Alice was married to Prince Ludwig, the future Grand Duke of Hesse and By Rhine. at Osborne on June 1, 1862. In 1863, Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, married Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The queen made it a tradition that the eldest unmarried daughter would become her unofficial secretary, a position which Louise filled in 1866, despite the queen’s concern that she was indiscreet.

Louise, however, proved to be good at the job: Victoria wrote shortly afterwards: “She is (and who would some years ago have thought it?) a clever dear girl with a fine strong character, unselfish and affectionate.” However, when Louise fell in love with her brother Leopold’s tutor, the Reverend Robinson Duckworth (14 years her senior), between 1866 and 1870, the queen reacted by dismissing Duckworth in 1870. He later became Canon of Westminster Abbey.

Louise was bored at court, and by fulfilling her duties, which were little more than minor secretarial tasks, such as writing letters on the queen’s behalf; dealing with political correspondence; and providing the queen with company, she had more responsibilities.

Part II tomorrow.

This Date in History: November 21, 1840. Birth of Victoria Princess Royal and German Empress.

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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.

November 19, 1779: Birth of Duchess Louise Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

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August, Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Duchess Louise Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Empress Catherine the Great, Grand Duke Friedrich Franz I of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, King Christian VIII of Denmark, King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

Duchess Louise Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (November 19, 1779 – January 4, 1801) was the maternal grandmother of Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

Duchess Louise Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Hereditary Princess of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg

Louise Charlotte was born Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, daughter of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz I 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.

Life

On November 1, 1795, Louise Charlotte was engaged to King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden. The engagement was arranged by Gustaf Adolf Reuterholm, the de facto regent of Sweden, who wished to keep his influence after the monarch was declared of legal majority by having a queen indebted to him for her position. The king himself was initially positive; the engagement was celebrated in the courts of Sweden and Mecklenburg and Louise Charlotte was mentioned in the official church prayer in Sweden. Empress Catherine the Great, however, wished her grand daughter Grand Duchess Alexandra Pavlovna of Russia to be Queen of Sweden, and displayed dislike of the engagement.

Heredity Prince and Princess of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg

Upon this many people told the king that Louise Charlotte, whom he had not seen, was not beautiful. About the same period, the monarch also fell in love with Ebba Modée. When the king was declared of legal majority in 1796, he broke off the engagement. Her father demanded compensation. In 1803, the matter was settled when the Swedish city of Wismar in Germany was turned over to Mecklenburg-Schwerin by a treaty in Malmö.

August, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg

In Ludwigslust on October 21, 1797 she married August, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, a second cousin on her mother’s side. Their common ancestor was Duke Friedrich II of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1676–1732). The marriage was arranged against her will and was an unhappy one: her spouse abused her and she wished to leave him, but was forced by her family to stay. She was described as very blond, not attractive, somewhat hunchbacked but also as witty, talented, cultivated and with a pleasant manner, though more open than what was regarded as an ideal for the period.

Three years later, on December 21, 1800 in Friedenstein Castle around 12.45 pm the Hereditary Princess of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg gave birth her only child, a daughter, named Louise after her; this daughter later became the wife of Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and mother to Prince Albert, Prince consort of Queen Victoria. However, she never recovered from childbirth effects and died eleven days later, on January 1, 1801 at the age of 21, before August assumed the throne of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg.