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.

Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp, Queen of Sweden.

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Battle of Warsaw, Duke Frederick III of Holstein-Gottorp, Great Northern War, Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp, King Carl X Gustaf of Sweden, King Carl XI of Sweden, Queen Christina of Sweden, Queen of Sweden, Regent

Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp (October 23, 1636 – November 14, 1715) Queen of Sweden.

Ancestry

Hedwig Eleonora was born on October 23, 1636, in the Palace of Gottorp at Schleswig, to Duke Friedrich III of Holstein-Gottorp and Marie Elisabeth of Saxony, daughter of Johann Georg I, Elector of Saxony, and his spouse Princess Magdalene Sibylle of Prussia.

Magdalene Sibylle of Prussia was the daughter of Albrecht Friedrich, Duke of Prussia and Marie Eleonore of Cleves.

Duke Friedrich III of Holstein-Gottorp

Magdalene Sibylle of Prussian also was a great-granddaughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor. She is also in three ways an ancestor of Augusta of Saxe-Gotha, mother of George III of the United Kingdom. In that way, she connected the ancestry of the British monarchs to the Catholic Monarchs.

Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp was the sixth of the couple’s sixteen children.

Duke Friedrich III of Holstein-Gottorp was the elder son of Duke Johann Adolph of Holstein-Gottorp and Princess Augusta of Denmark, the third daughter of King Frederik II of Denmark and Sophia of Mecklenburg-Güstrow. Augusta of Denmark was politically influential during the reign of her son, Duke Friedrich III of of Holstein-Gottorp.

Marriage

In 1654 Duke Friedrich III of Holstein-Gottorp hosted the recently abdicated Christina, Queen of Sweden. She wrote to her successor King Carl X Gustaf of Sweden to recommend two of his daughters as potential brides. King Carl X Gustaf chose to marry Friedrich III’s daughter Hedvig Eleonora.

Hedwig Eleonora was welcomed by King Carl X Gustaf of Sweden at Dalarö in Sweden October 5, 1654, and stayed at Karlberg Palace before her official arrival at Stockholm for the wedding October 24. She was greeted, dressed in silver brocade, by queen dowager Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg at the Stockholm Royal Palace, where the wedding was celebrated the same day.

She was crowned queen at Storkyrkan October 27. Shortly after, her husband left for Poland to participate in the Deluge (history). Hedwig Eleonora remained in Sweden for the birth of the future Carl XI the November 24, 1655 and the following Christmas.

Hedwig Eleonora of Holstein-Gottorp, Queen of Sweden.

The spring of 1656, she left Sweden and followed Carl X Gustaf during his campaign, during which she displayed both physical and mental strength. She was present during the Battle of Warsaw (1656), during which she received the official praise from the Swedish army alongside her spouse. She returned to Sweden in the autumn of 1656.

In Sweden, she took control over her dower lands, which she strictly controlled during her life. After the Dano-Swedish War (1657–1658), she was called to join her husband at Gothenburg, then she followed him to Gottorp and Wismar. During the Dano-Swedish War (1658-1660), she and her sister-in-law Maria Eufrosyne of Pfalz lived at Kronborg in Denmark after it had been taken by the Swedish general Carl Gustaf Wrangel.

At Kronborg, Hedwig Eleonora was visited by her husband and entertained the foreign ambassadors. She visited Frederiksborgs Palace and hunted in the woods with the English ambassador. During the Falster campaign, she entertained the ambassadors at Nyköbing Falster. Hedwig Eleonora left for Gothenburg in December 1659, where the Swedish parliament was to assemble in January 1660.

King Carl X Gustaf of Sweden

Soon after the estates opened on January 4, 1660, King Carl X Gustaf fell ill with symptoms of a cold. Ignoring his illness, he repeatedly went to inspect the Swedish forces near Gothenburg, and soon broke down with chills, headaches and dyspnoea.

On January 15, court physician Johann Köster arrived, and in medical error mistook King Carl X Gustaf’s pneumonia for scorbut and dyspepsia. Köster started a “cure” including the application of multiple enemata, laxatives, bloodletting and sneezing powder.

While after three weeks the fever eventually was down and the coughing was better, the pneumonia had persisted and evolved into a sepsis by February 8.

On February 12, King Carl X Gustaf signed his testament: His son, Crown Prince Carl of Sweden, was still a minor, and Carl X Gustaf appointed a minor regency consisting of six relatives and close friends. CarlnX Gustaf died the next day at the age of 37.

Queen Hedwig Eleonora served as regent during the minority of her son, King Carl XI, from 1660 until 1672, and during the minority of her grandson, King Carl XII, in 1697. She also represented King Carl XII in Sweden during his absence in the Great Northern War from 1700 until the regency of her granddaughter Ulrika Eleonora in 1713. Queen Hedwig Eleonora was described as a dominant personality, and was regarded as the de facto first lady of the royal court for 61 years, from 1654 until her death.

October 28, 1412: Death of Margrethe I, Queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Part I.

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Kalamar Union, King Haakon VI of Norway, King Magnus IV-VII of Sweden and Norway, King Valdemar IV of Denmark, Queen Margrethe I of Denmark, Queen of Norway, Queen of Sweden

Margrethe I (March 1353 – October 28, 1412) was ruler of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden (which included Finland) from the late 1380s until her death, and the founder of the Kalmar Union that joined the Scandinavian kingdoms together for over a century. She had been Norway’s queen consort 1363–1380 and Sweden’s 1363–1364, since then titled Queen. Margrethe was known as a wise, energetic and capable leader, who governed with “farsighted tact and caution,” earning the nickname “Semiramis of the North”.

Margrethe was born in March 1353 as the sixth and youngest child of King Valdemar IV and Helvig of Schleswig. She was born in the prison of Søborg Castle, where her father had already confined her mother. She was baptised in Roskilde and in 1359, at the age of six, engaged to the 18-year-old King Haakon VI of Norway, the youngest son of the Swedish-Norwegian king Magnus IV-VII.

As part of the marriage contract it is presumed that a treaty was signed ensuring Magnus the assistance of King Valdemar in a dispute with his second son, Eric XII of Sweden, who in 1356 held dominion over Southern Sweden. Margrethe’s marriage was thus a part of the Nordic power struggle.

There was dissatisfaction with this in some circles, and the political activist Bridget of Sweden described the agreement in a letter to the Pope as “children playing with dolls”. The goal of the marriage for King Valdemar was regaining Scania, which since 1332 had been mortgaged to Sweden.

Per contemporary sources, the marriage contract contained an agreement to give Helsingborg Castle back to Denmark, but that was not enough for Valdemar, who in June 1359 took a large army across Øresund and soon occupied Scania.

The attack was ostensibly to support Magnus against Erik, but in June 1359, Erik died. As a result, the balance of power changed, and all agreements between Magnus and Valdemar were terminated, including the marriage contract between Margrethe and Haakon.

This did not result in the withdrawal of Valdemar from Scania; he instead continued his conquests on the island of Gotland in the Baltic Sea. Visby, which was populated by Germans, was the main town on the island and was the key to domination of the Baltic Sea.

On July 27, 1361 a battle was fought between a well-equipped Danish army and an array of local Gotland peasants. The Danes won the battle and took Visby, while the Germans did not take part. King Magnus and the Hanseatic League could not disregard this provocation, and a trade embargo against Denmark was immediately enacted, with agreement about necessary military action.

At the same time, negotiations opened between King Magnus and Heinrich of Holstein about a marriage between Haakon and the latter’s sister Elizabeth. On 17 December 17, 1362, a ship left with Elizabeth bound for Sweden. A storm, however, diverted her to the Danish island Bornholm, where the archbishop of Lund declared the wedding a violation of church law because Haakon had already been engaged to Margaret.

The Swedish and Hanseatic armies also ultimately withdrew from their siege of Helsingborg. Following this, a truce was concluded with the Hanseatic States and King Magnus abandoning the war, meaning the marriage of the now 10-year-old Margrethe and King Haakon was again relevant. The wedding was held in Copenhagen on April 9, 1363.

The marriage of Haakon and Margrethe was an alliance, and Margrethe likely remained in Denmark for some time after the wedding, but ultimately was taken to Akershus in Oslo Fjord where she was raised by Merete Ulvsdatter. Merete Ulvsdatter was a distinguished noblewoman and daughter of Bridget of Sweden, as well as the wife of Knut Algotsson, who was one of King Magnus’s faithful followers.

Margrethe was brought up with Merete Ulvsdatter’s daughter Ingegerd, who likely instructed her in matters of religion and monarchy. Merete’s daughters, Ingegerd and Catherine, became her closest female friends, with Margrethe later showing favoritism to Ingegerd, who became an abbess, as well as her monastery.

It is also likely, though, that her promotion of the Bridgettines was also out of piety and political interest to help the process of integration. Her academic studies were probably limited, but it is assumed that in addition to reading and writing she also was instructed in statecraft. She displayed an early talent for ruling and appears to have held real power.

In the years after Margrethe’s wedding Scandinavia saw a series of major political upheavals. A few months after her wedding, her only brother, Christopher, Duke of Lolland, died, leaving her father without an obvious male heir. In 1364 the Swedish nobles deposed Magnus and Margrethe’s husband King Haakon from the Swedish throne and elected Albert of Mecklenburg as king of Sweden.

The Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Part III

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Christina, Eighty Years War, Felipe IV-III, Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, King of Spain and Portugal, Louis XIV of France and Navarre, Peace of Westphalia, Prince of Orange, Queen of Sweden, Stadtholder of the United Provinces, Thirty Years War, Treaty of Münster, Treaty of Osnabrück, Willem II

The Peace of Westphalia is the collective name for two peace treaties signed in October 1648 in the Westphalian cities of Osnabrück and Münster. They ended the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) and Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648), and brought peace to the Holy Roman Empire, closing a calamitous period of European history that killed approximately eight million people.

Despite resulting cessation of the Thirty Years War, the Peace of Westphalia was a significant step in the decline of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, Felipe IV-III, King of Spain and Portugal, Louis XIV of France and Navarre, Christina, Queen of Sweden, Willem II, Prince of Orange, United Provinces (Netherlands), and their respective allies were among the princes of the Holy Roman Empire participated in these treaties.

The negotiation process was lengthy and complex. Talks took place in two cities, because each side wanted to meet on territory under its own control.

Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungry, Bohemia and Croatia, Archduke of Austria

The negotiations in Westphalia turned out to be difficult, beginning with a dispute over the rules of procedure. The emperor had to give in to pressure from France and Sweden and admit all imperial estates to the congress and receive the ius belli ac pacis. In addition to peace between the parties involved, the internal constitution of the empire was also newly regulated.

The Imperial Court received weekly reports on the negotiations. Even though the reports had been produced by officials, the process also proved to be an extremely busy time for the emperor, as despite all the advisers, he had to make the decisions. The study of the documents suggests, that Emperor Ferdinand III was a monarch with expertise with a sense of responsibility and the willingness to make difficult decisions.

In the course of the negotiations, Ferdinand had to reconsider his original goals according to the deteriorating military situation. His advisor Maximilian von und zu Trauttmansdorff suggested a great battle to end the war favourably.

The emperor personally took part in the campaign against the Swedes, that ended with a defeat at the Battle of Jankau on March 6, 1645. The Swedish army under Lennart Torstensson then advanced to Vienna. To raise morale in the city, the emperor circled the city in a large procession with an image of the Virgin Mary.

As the Swedish army drew closer, Ferdinand left the city. Archduke Leopold Wilhelm managed to drive off the opponents. At times Ferdinand managed to get Prince George I Rákóczi of Transylvania, an ally of France and Sweden, on his side.

In the 1645 Peace of Linz the Emperor had to guarantee the Hungarian estates the right of imperial representation and freedom of religion for the Protestants, which prevented the Counter-reformation and future Absolutist rule in Hungary.

The Habsburgs could no longer win the war without the support of the Spanish allies. Due to domestic difficulties, financial and military Spanish support for Ferdinand was completely stopped in 1645. Without foreign military funds, the imperial troops were incapable of offensive operations, which weakened Ferdinand’s position in negotiations.

“Celebration of the Peace of Münster” Bartholomeus Van Der Helst – 1648

The emperor reissued the instructions for the peace talks for Trautmannsdorf, who left for Westphalia as chief negotiator. These documents were kept strictly secret and were only published in 1962. Reviews revealed, that Ferdinand surrendered numerous previous claims and was ready for greater concessions than were ultimately necessary.

A total of 109 delegations arrived to represent the belligerent states, but not all delegations were present at the same time. Two treaties were signed to end the war in the Empire: the Treaty of Münster and the Treaty of Osnabrück.

These treaties ended the Thirty Years’ War in the Holy Roman Empire, with the Habsburgs (rulers of Austria and Spain) and their Catholic allies on one side, battling the Protestant powers (Sweden and certain Holy Roman principalities) allied with France, which was Catholic but strongly anti-Habsburg under King Louis XIV. The separate Peace of Münster ended the Eighty Years’ War between Spain and the United Provinces.

The negotiators agreed to the Peace of Münster in 1648, but Willem II, Stadtholder of the United Provinces and Prince of Orange opposed acceptance of the treaty, even though it recognized the independence of the (northern) Netherlands, because it left the southern Netherlands in the hands of the Spanish monarchy. A separate peace furthermore violated the alliance with France formed in 1635. However, the States of six provinces voted to accept it.

Willem II, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of the United Provinces

Secretly, Willem II opened his own negotiations with France with the goal of extending his own territory under a more centralized government. In addition, he worked for the restoration of his exiled brother-in-law, Charles II, to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland.

Resulting from the treaty the power asserted by Emperor Ferdinand III was stripped from him and returned to the rulers of the Imperial States. The rulers of the Imperial States could henceforth choose their own official religions. Catholics and Protestants were redefined as equal before the law, and Calvinism was given legal recognition as an official religion. The independence of the Dutch Republic, which practiced religious toleration, also provided a safe haven for European Jews.

The dual rule of pope and emperor was effectively ended at the Peace of Westphalia at the conclusion of the Thirty Years’ War in 1648, wherein the empire was severed from the papacy for good. The papacy played no role in the negotiations and in the eyes of Pope Innocent X, the peace destroyed the connection between pope and emperor which had held Europe together since the time of Charlemagne eight centuries prior.

The Holy See was very displeased at the settlement, with Pope Innocent X calling it “null, void, invalid, iniquitous, unjust, damnable, reprobate, inane, empty of meaning and effect for all time” in the bull Zelo Domus Dei.

Where international disputes between the rulers of Europe had previously been solved and mediated by the pope and/or emperor, the 17th century saw the true emergence of the modern system of international relations and diplomacy.

The main tenet of the Peace of Westphalia:

All parties would recognize the Peace of Augsburg of 1555, in which each prince had the right to determine the religion of his own state (the principle of cuius regio, eius religio). However, the ius reformandi was removed: Subjects were no longer forced to follow the conversion of their ruler. Rulers were allowed to choose Catholicism, Lutheranism, or Calvinism.

Another repercussion of the Peace of Westphalia was it gave the rulers of the many states within the Empire greater autonomy not only over religious issues but secular issues as well.

As mentioned yesterday, many states in Europe had become string nations due to the formation of a powerful centralized government. The Empire was in an opposite state. The lack of a standing army, a central treasury, weak central control of the government (that did not have a capitol) and exercised by a monarch who was elective and not hereditary all contributed to the idea that there was no unified German state. In the view of its contemporaries, the empire had regressed from a “regular” monarchy into a highly irregular one.

One of the saving graces of the Habsburg monarchy at this time was that they remained powerful within thier Crown Lands which laid both within and without the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire.

June 23, 1456 : Birth of Margaret of Denmark, Queen of Scots.

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Dorothea of Brandenburg Queen of Denmark, House of Stewart, James III of Scotland, King of Scots, Margaret of Denmark, Queen of Norway, Queen of Scots, Queen of Sweden

Margaret of Denmark (June 23, 1456 – July 14, 1486) was Queen of Scotland from 1469 to 1486 by marriage to King James III. She was the daughter of Christian I, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and Dorothea of Brandenburg, daughter of John, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, and Barbara of Saxe-Wittenberg (1405–1465).

Margaret of Denmark’s mother, Dorothea of Brandenburg was Queen of Denmark, Queen of Norway and Queen of Sweden by her marriages to King Christopher III and King Christian I. She served as interim regent during the interregnum in 1448, and as regent in the absence of her second spouse during his reign. She was the mother of two future kings of Denmark: Hans, King of Denmark who reigned from 1481 until 1513; Frederik I of Denmark who reigned from 1523 until 1533.

Margaret was born in Denmark to King Christian I and Queen Dorothea of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Not much is known about Margaret’s upbringing. By the time she was four years old there were talks about her marriage to the Scottish Prince James. In 1468 Margaret was betrothed to James of Scotland as a means to stop a feud regarding the debt Scotland owed Denmark over the taxation of the Hebrides and Isle of Man.

The marriage was arranged on the recommendation of king Charles VII of France. In July 1469, at the age of 13 she married James III at Holyrood Abbey. Upon their marriage all of the Scottish debt was cancelled. Queen Margaret was given the largest jointure allowed by Scottish law in her marriage settlement. She was interested in clothes and jewellery, and known for always being dressed in the latest fashions of the time.

Following the birth of her son James, in 1473 she went on a pilgrimage to Whithorn. She may have taught her son James to speak Danish. She became a popular queen in Scotland and was described as beautiful, gentle, and sensible. Many years later historians called her far better qualified to rule than her spouse.

The relationship between Margaret and James III was not described as a happy one. Reportedly, she was not very fond of her husband and had intercourse with him only for procreation, though she did respect his position as a monarch. One reason for their estrangement was the fact that James favoured their second son over their eldest. In 1476, James had decided that he wanted the Earldom of Ross for his second son and accused John MacDonald of treason. Macdonald was then put on trial before the Parliament, but upon Margaret’s request he was allowed to remain as Lord of Parliament.

During the crisis of 1482, when James III was deprived of power by his brother for several months, Margaret was said to have shown more interest in the welfare of her children than her spouse, which led to a permanent estrangement. Politically, she worked for the reinstatement of her spouse in his powers as monarch during this incident. After the crisis of 1482, the couple lived apart: James III lived in Edinburgh, while queen Margaret preferred to live in Stirling with her children.

Death

Margaret died at Stirling Castle on 14 July 1486 after falling ill, and was buried in Cambuskenneth Abbey. Her husband, James III, was interred with her after his death in 1488. The abbey has mostly been reduced to ruins, apart from its bell-tower, which is still standing today. The grave was enclosed and restored in 1865 at the expense of Margaret’s descendant, Queen Victoria.

A story given by her son claims that Margaret was killed by poison given to her by John Ramsay, 1st Lord Bothwell, leader of one of the political factions. However, as Ramsay was favoured by the royal family also after the death of the queen, this is considered doubtful and may have been slander, although he did have some knowledge of poisons.

Reportedly, James III mourned her death, and sent a supplication to the Pope where he applied for her to be declared a saint.