Louise Mountbatten

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Louise Mountbatten
Kingdom of Sweden
Burial13 March 1965
, Sweden
Spouse
Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden
(m. 1923)
Louis Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven
MotherPrincess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine
SignatureLouise Mountbatten's signature

Louise Alexandra Marie Irene Mountbatten (born Princess Louise of Battenberg; 13 July 1889 – 7 March 1965) was

Red Cross
. She married the widowed Gustaf Adolf in 1923 and assumed the role of Sweden's first lady but did not become queen until his accession in 1950. Queen Louise was noted for her eccentricity and progressive views.

Early life

Louise with her parents and sister Alice in 1889
First World War and anglicised his family name to "Mountbatten" at the behest of George V. He was then created the first Marquess of Milford Haven in the peerage of the United Kingdom. From 1917, therefore, his daughter was known as "Lady Louise Mountbatten". Her mother was Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. Louise was a sister of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, and of Princess Alice of Battenberg who was the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. She was also a niece of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia
.

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

Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf and Crown Princess Margaret, her first cousin once removed, at Drottningholm Palace
, just one night before they returned to Great Britain.

During the First World War, Louise was first active within the

Médaille de la Reconnaissance française.[1] After the war, she was active in social work for the children in the slums of Battersea
in London.

Courtships

In 1909, Louise received a proposal from

Prince Christopher of Greece, but they were forced to give up their relationship for financial reasons.[1] Shortly before World War I broke out, Louise fell in love with a man of whom her parents approved but he was killed in the early days of the war.[2] Later during the war, while she volunteered as a nurse in Nevers, she began a relationship with Alexander Stuart-Hill, a Scottish artist living in Paris. Anticipating that her parents would be disappointed in her choice, Louise kept their engagement a secret. Eventually, she confided in her parents, who were understanding, and invited Stuart-Hill for visits at Kent House twice.[2] In fact, her family, referring to him as "Shakespeare" because of his odd appearance, found him "eccentric" and "affected". Lacking resources, the engaged couple agreed to postpone marriage until after the war. In 1918, however, Louise's father explained to her that Stuart-Hill was most likely homosexual, and that a marriage with him was impossible.[2]

Wedding portrait from 1923 of Lady Louise and Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf

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

plenipotentiaries signed the "Treaty between Great Britain and Sweden for the Marriage of Lady Louise Mountbatten with His Royal Highness Prince Gustaf Adolf, Crown Prince of Sweden".[4] The treaty stated, in part, that the kings of the United Kingdom and Sweden "having judged it proper that an alliance should again be contracted between their respective Royal Houses by a marriage...have agreed upon and concluded the following Articles", which articles declared that the marriage would be celebrated in London and duly authenticated, that the couple's financial settlements would be expressed in a separate marriage contract which was declared to be "an integral part of the present Treaty", and that the two nations' ratifications
of the treaty would be exchanged in Stockholm, which formally occurred 12 November 1923.

On 3 November 1923, at age 34, Louise married Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf,

St. James's Palace in the presence of George V
and members of both royal families.

Crown princess

Louise as crown princess in 1925

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.

The Crown Prince and Crown Princess in 1945

During World War II, Louise was active in aid work within the

war orphans at Ulriksdal Palace.[1]

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.

Queen Louise in 1963

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

jay-walk), took to carrying a small card with the words, "I am the Queen of Sweden" printed on it, so that people would know who she was in case she was hit by a vehicle.[8] In London, she often stayed at the Hyde Park Hotel, often crossing a heavily trafficked street there to shop, which prompted her note.[1]

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

Margrethe II of Denmark it was very difficult for Louise to fill the shoes of her husband's first wife. Margrethe and Louise's other step-grandchildren all used the nickname Ist for Louise because when little they could not say Aunt Louise properly. Louise responded good-naturedly by signing all her letters to them that way.[9]

Death and funeral

The grave of Louise, Gustaf Adolf and Margaret on Karlsborg Island in Solna, Sweden

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

Arms and monogram

  • Louise's coat of arms as Crown Princess of Sweden
    Louise's coat of arms as
    Crown Princess of Sweden
  • Royal monogram of Queen Louise of Sweden
    Royal monogram of
    Queen Louise of Sweden
  • Louise's coat of arms as Queen 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.

References

  1. ^ .
  2. ^ a b c d Hugo Vickers. Alice, Princess Andrew of Greece. Macmillan, 2003, pp. 127–130.
  3. ^
  4. ^ "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]
  5. ^ Aronson, Theo (1973). Grandmama of Europe: the crowned descendants of Queen Victoria, Part 352. Cassell.
  6. ^ Judd, Denis (1976). Eclipse of kings: European monarchies in the twentieth century. Macdonald and Jane's.
  7. ^ Astrid Tydén-Jordan: Kungligt klädd, kungligt mode (English: Royally dressed, Royal fashion) (1987) Stockholm
  8. .
  9. # 20719361 p 357
  10. ^ "Anfragebeantwortung" (PDF). 24 April 2012. Retrieved 6 September 2015.
  11. ^ Royal Thai Government Gazette (28 December 1960). "แจ้งความสำนักนายกรัฐมนตรี เรื่อง พระราชทานเครื่องราชอิสริยาภรณ์" (thajsky) Dostupné online
  12. ^ "Het geheugen van Nederland". geheugenvannederland.nl. Retrieved 6 September 2015.
  13. ^ a b Battenberg family at the Encyclopædia Britannica
  14. ^ .
  15. ^ a b Metnitz, Gustav Adolf (1953), "Alexander", Neue Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 1, Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, p. 192; (full text online)
  16. ^
    OCLC 76873355
    .
  17. ^ 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

Further reading

External links

Louise Mountbatten
Cadet branch of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt
Born: 13 July 1889 Died: 7 March 1965
Swedish royalty
Vacant
Title last held by
Victoria of Baden
Queen consort of Sweden

1950–1965
Vacant
Title next held by
Silvia Sommerlath