Princess Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg

Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg
Princess Feodora
Names Adelheid Victoria Amalie Louise Maria Konstanze
House	Hohenlohe-Langenburg
Father	Ernst I, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg
Mother	Princess Feodora of Leiningen

Princess Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (20 July 1835 – 25 January 1900) was the Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg by marriage to Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein.

Early life

Adelheid was born the second daughter of Ernst I, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg by his wife Princess Feodora of Leiningen, who was the older, maternal half-sister of the British Queen Victoria. Consequently, Adelheid was Queen Victoria's half-niece.

Napoleon III's proposal of marriage

In 1852, not long after

.

As it turned out, the proposal horrified Queen Victoria and

, who preferred not to confer such hasty legitimacy upon France's latest "revolutionary" regime — the durability of which was deemed dubious — nor to yield up a young kinswoman for the purpose. The British court maintained a strict silence toward the Hohenlohes during the marriage negotiations, lest the Queen seem either eager for or repulsed by the prospect of Napoléon as a nephew-in-law.

The parents, accurately interpreting the British silence as disapproval, declined the French offer—to their sixteen-year-old daughter's dismay. This may have been only a maneuver by the Hohenlohe family to obtain concessions from the French to secure their daughter's future interests. But before his ministers could press his case with further inducements, Napoléon gave up pursuit of a royal consort. Instead he offered marriage to Eugénie de Montijo, Countess of Teba, whom he had been simultaneously soliciting to become his mistress, and who had refused his advances.^[1]

Marriage and children

On September 11, 1856, Adelheid married Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein.^[2] They were parents to seven children:

• Prince Friedrich of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (3 August 1857 – 29 October 1858) he died at the age of fourteen months.
• Wilhelm II of Germany
  on 27 February 1881. They had seven children.
• Princess Karoline Mathilde of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (25 January 1860 – 20 February 1932) she married Friedrich Ferdinand, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein on 19 March 1885. They had six children.
• Prince Gerhard of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (20 January 1862 – 11 April 1862) he died at the age of two months.
• Ernst Günther II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein (11 August 1863 – 21 February 1921) he married Princess Dorothea of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on 2 August 1898.
• Princess Louise Sophie of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (8 April 1866 – 28 April 1952) she married Prince Friedrich Leopold of Prussia on 24 June 1889. They had four children.
• Princess Feodora Adelheid of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (3 July 1874 – 21 June 1910).

Via her daughters Karoline Mathilde and Augusta Victoria, Adelheid is the most recent common matrilineal ancestor of

, respectively.

Later life

With her husband, the Duchess first resided at

The Duchess died at Dresden on 25 January 1900.^[3]

A small island in

.

Ancestry

References

External links

Media related to Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg at Wikimedia Commons