Louise Mountbatten
Louise Mountbatten | |
---|---|
Kingdom of Sweden | |
Burial | 13 March 1965 , Sweden |
Spouse |
Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden (m. 1923) |
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven | |
Mother | Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine |
Signature |
Louise Alexandra Marie Irene Mountbatten (born Princess Louise of Battenberg; 13 July 1889 – 7 March 1965) was
Early life
Because of her father's work, the family moved around between different territories in the British Empire, such as Malta, but they returned often to the Heiligenberg outside Darmstadt which they considered their holiday home, always retaining a residence in England. Louise often visited her great-grandmother Queen Victoria on the Isle of Wight with her mother during her childhood.[1] The family is described as harmonious; the parents of Louise lived in a happy loving relationship, not in an arranged marriage, and Louise was particularly close to her brother, with whom she corresponded until her death.[1] Louise and her sister were educated by governesses, except for a brief period at Texter's girls school in Darmstadt.
In 1914, Louise and her mother visited the
During the First World War, Louise was first active within the
Courtships
In 1909, Louise received a proposal from
In 1923, Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden, having been for three years the widower of Louise's mother's cousin Princess Margaret of Connaught, paid a visit to London and, to Louise's surprise, began to court her.[2] Although as a young woman Louise had said that she would never marry a king or a widower, she accepted the proposal of a man destined to be both. However, under §5 of the 1810 Swedish Succession Law (Act 1810:0926), a prince of the Swedish royal house forfeited his right of succession to the throne if he "with or without the King's knowledge and consent, married a private Swedish or foreign man's daughter" (med eller utan Konungens vetskap och samtycke, tager till gemål enskild svensk eller utländsk mans dotter). Once the couple's engagement was announced, there were lively discussions in the media about whether the bride-to-be was constitutionally eligible to become Sweden's future queen.[3] In response, the Swedish Foreign Ministry, citing the law in question, clarified the term "a private Swedish or foreign man's daughter" to mean "he who did not belong to a sovereign family or to a family which, according to international practice, would be equal thereto" (som icke vore medlem av suverän familj eller familj som enligt internationell praxis vore därmed likställd), and announced that the Swedish government had "requested the British government's explanation of Lady Louise Mountbatten's position in this respect."[3] The ministry further announced that following the British government's reply to its inquiry and the subsequent investigation into the matter, it had been determined that the Crown Prince's choice of a future wife was in compliance with the succession law, thereby concluding debate on the imminent nuptials.[3]
On 27 October 1923, Sweden and Britain's respective
On 3 November 1923, at age 34, Louise married Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf,
Crown princess
The marriage between Louise and Gustav Adolf was by all accounts a love match and described as very happy.[1] She was also liked by her mother-in-law because of her friendly nature, although they seldom saw each other, as Queen Victoria spent most of her time in Italy. The fact that the queen spent most of her time abroad meant that Louise took on many royal duties from the beginning, which was initially hard for her as she was at this point described as quite shy.
After the queen's death in 1930, Louise was officially the first lady of the nation, expected to perform all the duties of a queen, twenty years before she actually became queen. This meant that Louise was to take over the protection of all the organisations and associations traditionally assigned to the queen. She was made the protector of the Swedish Red Cross, Children's Hospital of Crown Princess Louise, Eugenia Home, Drottningens centralkommitté ('Queen's Emergency Relief Committee'), Arbetsflitens Befrämjande ('The Promoting of Diligence'), Sophiahemmet and Svenska Hemslöjdsföreningarns Riksförbund ('Swedish Handicraft's Society').[1] Regarding this matter, Louise remarked: "It is hard for me to be the protector of different institutions, as I have been accustomed to practical work, as an ordinary person, before my marriage".[1] As a former nurse, a fact she was proud to point out, Louise was interested in improving the working conditions for nurses.
Louise's only child, a daughter, was stillborn on 30 May 1925.
In 1926–1927, the crown princely couple made an international trip around the world to benefit Swedish interests, which was described as a great success, especially the trip to the United States, during which they travelled across the nation from New York City to San Francisco. Public interest was high, and the couple acquired a reputation for being "democratic", after having refused such formalities as greeting the guests at a reception sitting on thrones, which they had been invited to do at the reception of an American millionaire.[1] During an interview in Salt Lake City, Louise stated that she believed in gender equality and that women are fully capable of being active within all professions and in the business world, as well as within politics: "Women are completely intellectually equal to men and, provided they are given sufficient education, are just as capable to deserve respect and admiration as men in this field".[1] In 1934–35, she made a similar trip with Gustav Adolf to Greece and around the Middle East and Africa, called the Orient Tour. In 1936, Louise attended the funeral of George V of the United Kingdom.
During World War II, Louise was active in aid work within the
Queen consort
In 1950, Louise became queen after her husband's accession to the throne. Louise is described as a true democrat at heart, and was therefore somewhat disturbed at being celebrated merely in her capacity of queen.[1] In reference to the attention, she remarked: "People look at me as if I were something special. Surely I do not look differently today from how I looked yesterday!"[1]
Louise disliked the strict pre-World War I protocol at court, retained during her mother-in-law's era, and reformed it when she became queen, instituting new guidelines in 1954 which democraticised many old customs. In 1962, she abolished the court presentations, replaced them with "democratic ladies' lunches", to which she invited professional career women, a custom which was to continue under Princess Sibylla after her death.[7] Louise also renovated and redecorated the interior of the Royal Palace in Stockholm.
Louise was described as eccentric for royalty and temperamental; she could get very angry, but was said to possess a good heart, a great sense of humour, a sense of self-irony and was able to distinguish between herself and her royal role. She could show her sympathies openly, and this was taken as a sign of her honesty. One courtier commented, "I would describe the queen as a 'gentleman'. She would never avoid acknowledging her own mistakes".[1] Louise is described as a great lover and patriot of her new home country, and was often shocked by Swedish non-patriotic customs.[1] She was a supporter of the political system and democracy in the form it had developed in Sweden[1] and stated her opinion to her relatives that no other political system than the Swedish one had created such a happy development for any nation.[1] Queen Louise also admired Swedish nature and in particular Swedish women, because of what she considered their natural dignity regardless of class,[1] and remarked that she had never seen a country with less vulgarity than Sweden.[1]
Queen Louise had several
In 1963, Louise accompanied her spouse on a state visit to France, where she made a great impression on President Charles de Gaulle. At dinner, she said to him: "I must ask you to excuse my ugly French. My French is the one spoken in the trenches of 1914."[1] De Gaulle later attended her memorial service in Paris, which was the first occasion for a French president to visit the Swedish church there, as well as one of only two occasions de Gaulle visited a memorial service of the kind. Queen Louise's last official engagement was the Nobel Prize dinner of 1964, during which no one noticed that she was in fact already ill.
According to Queen
Death and funeral
Queen Louise died on 7 March 1965 at Saint Göran Hospital, in Stockholm, Sweden, following emergency surgery after a period of severe illness. She had made her last public appearance at the Nobel Prize Ceremony in December 1964. Queen Louise is buried beside her husband and his first wife, Crown Princess Margaret, in the Royal Cemetery in Solna north of Stockholm.
Honours
- Decoration for Services to the Republic of Austria[10]
- Denmark: Knight of the Order of the Elephant[citation needed]
- Order of the White Rose
- Thailand: Dame Grand Cordon with Chain of the Order of the Royal House of Chakri[11]
- France:
- Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour[citation needed]
- Recipient of the Medal of French Gratitude[1]
- Germany: Grand-Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany[citation needed]
- Netherlands:
- Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Netherlands Lion[12]
- Recipient of the Queen Juliana Investiture Medal[citation needed]
- Sweden:
- Member of the Royal Order of the Seraphim
- Royal Family Order of King Gustaf V[citation needed]
- Royal Family Order of King Gustaf VI Adolf[citation needed]
- Recipient of the 90th Birthday Badge Medal of King Gustaf V[citation needed]
- Recipient of the 70th Birthday Badge Medal of King Gustaf V[citation needed]
- Member of the
- United Kingdom:
- Recipient of the Royal Red Cross (RRC)[1]
- Recipient of the British War Medal[1]
- Recipient of the Victory Medal[1]
- Recipient of the Voluntary Medical Service Medal[1]
Arms and monogram
-
Louise's coat of arms as
Crown Princess of Sweden -
Royal monogram of
Queen Louise of Sweden -
Louise's coat of arms as
Queen of Sweden
Ancestry
Queen Louise was the second of the four children of Prince Louis of Battenberg, by his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine and a great-granddaughter of Britain's Queen Victoria. Both Queen Louise and her stepchildren were great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria.
Ancestors of Louise Mountbatten | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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References
- ^ ISBN 978-0-04-923044-6.
- ^ a b c d Hugo Vickers. Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece. Macmillan, 2003, pp. 127–130.
- ^ ISBN 91-46-13377-1
- ^ "Treaty between the United Kingdom and Sweden for the Marriage of Lady Louise Mountbatten with His Royal Highness Prince Gustaf Adolf Crown Prince of Sweden". UK Treaty Series. 002/1924 (Cmd. 2027). 1924.[permanent dead link]
- ^ Aronson, Theo (1973). Grandmama of Europe: the crowned descendants of Queen Victoria, Part 352. Cassell.
- ^ Judd, Denis (1976). Eclipse of kings: European monarchies in the twentieth century. Macdonald and Jane's.
- ^ Astrid Tydén-Jordan: Kungligt klädd, kungligt mode (English: Royally dressed, Royal fashion) (1987) Stockholm
- ISBN 1-55002-572-4.
- ISBN 9789113073583 LIBRIS# 20719361 p 357
- ^ "Anfragebeantwortung" (PDF). 24 April 2012. Retrieved 6 September 2015.
- ^ Royal Thai Government Gazette (28 December 1960). "แจ้งความสำนักนายกรัฐมนตรี เรื่อง พระราชทานเครื่องราชอิสริยาภรณ์" (thajsky) Dostupné online
- ^ "Het geheugen van Nederland". geheugenvannederland.nl. Retrieved 6 September 2015.
- ^ a b Battenberg family at the Encyclopædia Britannica
- ^ ISBN 0-7126-7448-9.
- ^ a b Metnitz, Gustav Adolf (1953), "Alexander", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 1, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, p. 192; (full text online)
- ^ OCLC 76873355.
- ^ a b Franz, Eckhart G. (1987), "Ludwig IV.", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 15, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 398–400; (full text online)
Sources
- Fjellman, Margit: Drottning Louise – En biografi (Queen Louise – A Biography), Bonniers, 1965; 232 pages (Sweden)
- Fjellman, Margit: Louise Mountbatten, Queen of Sweden, London, Allen Unwin, 1968; ISBN 978-0-04-923044-6
- Fridh, Kjell: Gamle kungen Gustaf VI Adolf. En biografi (Old King Gustaf VI Adolf. A Biography). Wahlström & Widstrand (W&W), Stockholm, 1995; 368 pages (Sweden)
- Severin, Kid: Vår Drottning (Our Queen), Åhlén & Åkerlunds Förlags AB Stockholm, 1963; 64 pages (Sweden)
- Ulfsäter-Troell, Agnetha: Drottningar är också människor: Sex kvinnoöden på Stockholms slott, Förlaget Ulfsäter, 1996, 479 pages (kap. Drottning Louise / Chapt. Queen Louise). Also TV-programme: Drottning av Sverige (Queen of Sweden), history programme about the six Bernadotte queens consort, from Queen Desirée to Queen Louise (adapted from the book), produced by Agneta Ulfsäter-Troell and Marianne Söderberg for Swedish Television SVT, 1996–97 (Sweden)