Queen Louise (1889-1965)


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Prinsara

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There are so many great stories about her (it must run in the Mountbattens) that I had to share this newest one:

Her niece Lady Pamela has been doing a podcast with her daughter India. This episode was about "Aunt Alice" (Princess Andrew of Greece) but included this gem—
Lady P: "Aunt Louise was much bossier."
India: "Well, Aunt Louise was queen of Sweden. Queens are like that."
Lady P: "No, Aunt Louise was even bossier when she was Crown Princess."

?

Lady Pamela goes on to say she and her sister were visiting Sweden with their father while their mother was away working, and says "Louise took one look at us and said "Goodness, children. Does your mother take no interest in how you dress? You must come shopping with me at once — you haven't even got stockings.'" :D
(Edwina didn't. Her children were very boring to her, according to Lady Pamela.)

The impression I've always gotten of Louise is shy and quiet and intelligent and determined — which does not preclude bossy! :lol: (She also had that habit of swearing, so...)
https://indiahicks.libsyn.com/15-princess-alice-the-queens-extraordinary-mother-in-law (about 39:30).
 
Queen Louise was known in the Royal palace as being both bossy and temperamental. She coupled this with being kind, serious and very humble. She was a mess of emotions like the rest of us. The only one who was bossier than Louise was old Lady Milford Haven and the staff at Sofiero palace used to watch in surprise at how their Crown Princess turned into a 10 year old as soon as her mother arrived for her annual summer visit.
 
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Queen Louise was known in the Royal palace as being both bossy and temperamental. She coupled this with being kind, serious and very humble. She was a mess of emotions like the rest of us. The only one who was more bossier than Louise was old Lady Milford Haven and the staff at Sofiero palace used to watch in surprise at how their Crown Princess turned into a 10 year old as soon as her mother arrived for her annual summer visit.

Ah, Victoria, the great democrat — who used to remind her granddaughter she should curtsy to her. ? Louise got the faceted nature from somewhere. (I'm happy to hear her mom got to make an impression in Sweden, too. They probably both would have been wonderful to have coffee with. Perhaps separately. ;))

Pamela also says in this that their household used to revolve around her grandmother, so the siblings were less interested in each other (and I don't know if that's 100% true; the Battenberg/Mountbatten children all seemed very close — but I can definitely see Victoria taking up all the oxygen). It's probably not too much of a shock Louise got bossier when she wasn't living with her mother anymore — and turned back into a kid when she happened by!

Was Louise bossy with Gustaf Adolf, as well?
 
Thank you for that Prinsara about Queen Louise. I only know a little about her. She seems a very interesting character and I would like to get to know her better.

JR, I remenber as a child in the 1960's the lengths my dear Mother would go to - to please when her mother came for a short visit. House spotless, full makeup, wearing her best dress, I had to be clean, tidy and quiet. I was allowed to say hello then told to leave the adults alone to talk. When I really wanted to listen to them.
For the life of me now I don't remember lots of grandmotherly kisses and hugs. Not at all.
It was like the Queen was coming to visit and everyone was on their best behaviour.

Maybe these behaviours are a sign of those times. Complete deference towards your elders.
 
There are a surprising bunch of "Louise stories" for someone who is very much under the radar and in the background in English. There is certainly much more in Swedish that I know nothing about, and sadly the interest to professionally or even amateurly translate isn't really there. But she's not a complete mystery; you just have to look a bit more closely.

Favorite Louise story — Actually, before her father died he'd apparently said "The only one who would suit Louise is Gustaf" (and vice-versa). Which was sweet. And correct. But this was at least a couple of years later; she was chaperoning her nieces (Alice's girls) in the London season, and in the meantime Gustaf Adolf was in town and hanging around with her and her mother...
Approx. quoth Louise: "It occurred to me that he was probably looking for a suitable person to marry. Suddenly it occurred to me that I was a suitable person...!"

So, basically, best reaction EVER to "prince might want to marry you", is (in words WWI vet Louise undoubtedly kept around): "Oh, sh—!"
? :twohearts: :swedenflag:
 
About queen Louise at the website of the Royal Palaces
Queen Louise - Kungliga slotten
I wonder if one (or both) paintings above the book shelves in the living room is by prince Eugen, he was one of the Swedish artists whose art was chosen to decorate the room at Ulriksdal. The paintings are in the style of prince Eugen.
 
Another Louise story (possibly the one I heard first): like many royals she loved to come shopping in London. Seemingly after dodging heavy traffic one day, she was actually quite worried that she might get run over and no one would know who she was.

Her solution was to put a note in her handbag. "I am the Queen of Sweden".
Practical, yes? (One hopes she had proper stationery on which to write that, or she might have had some trouble being believed.)

I then had a prompt discussion with somebody where we both agreed that had her brother Dickie been Queen of Sweden, he would have hung the sign around his neck.
 
:previous: I remember hearing that years ago.

Her and her husband would go to Italy every summer on vacation. She would leave him in Italy and return home to the UK for a visit before joining him home in Sweden. She would stay at the Hyde Park hotel in London and would stay under a false name while she was there. She had two fake names she would travel under.


The issue was that she had a tendancy to jay walk, including across the busy street the hotel was on, to shop. And she had almost got hit by a bus on one occasion. That is why she is said to have started to have the note with her.
 
Here is Lady Pamela talking more about Louise, aunt and godmother, in an interview for a Swedish magazine.
(It's nice to know she got a hug from Edmund but she does not go into Ingrid, understandably. ;) Also I wish she'd pointed out how GA was different from her... I guess from process of deduction, it sounds like he was a bit more of the absent-minded professor type?)
 
Louise Alexandra Marie Irene Mountbatten (13 July 1889 – 7 March 1965) was Queen of Sweden as the wife of King Gustaf VI Adolf. Born a princess of the German House of Battenberg, Louise was closely related to the ruling families of Britain and Russia. During the First World War, Louise served as a nurse in the 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.
Source: Wikipedia

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/50/Queenlouise.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e8/Gustav_VI_Adolf_och_Louise_1923.jpg

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Drottlouise.jpg
 
Apparently the Swedish inquiry into whether Louise was royal enough to be able to marry Gustav Adolf did not help her brother Dickie's inferiority superiority complex at all.
 
I wonder if one (or both) paintings above the book shelves in the living room is by prince Eugen, he was one of the Swedish artists whose art was chosen to decorate the room at Ulriksdal. The paintings are in the style of prince Eugen.

The website does say at the bottom that Prince Eugen was one of the artists who contributed to the room.
 
Is that true that the Prime Minister Olof Palme cancelled the old Court Dresses.
Great Interview of Lady Pamela Mountbatten.
 
Is that true that the Prime Minister Olof Palme cancelled the old Court Dresses.
Great Interview of Lady Pamela Mountbatten.
No, it's not true. Olof Palme was prime minister in 1973 when the Swedish parliament voted to approve the proposed instrument of government that became effective from 1975. A consequence of this was the abolition the Ceremonial Opening of Parliament which was the only time when the State Robes were used. The ladies of the court and the wives of the male members of government used the court dress at the same ceremony and on other formal occasions, but between the last COoP in January 1974 and Silvia becoming queen in June 1976 there were no ladies of the court and the dress fell out of use. There was no ban on them instead it was a question of there being no need for them. Olof Palme was busy saving the world and battling the Swedish conservatives and probably couldn't care less about what was worn at the palace.
Queen Silvia and Princess Christina proposed to reintroduce the court dress for the ladies of the Court as early as the late 70s, but it was voted down by the King and Prince Bertil. It wasn't until the late 80s when the ladies of the court themselves raised the issue with the King and Queen that a revised court dress was reintroduced in 1988. The reason for the ladies wanting a court dress was because the high cost they had to be dressed appropriately for the job and because they felt they disappeared into the crowds at large functions which made their job more difficult.
 
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So queen Louise was the last Swedish queen to wear the State Robes and whjat a shame we never got to see queen Silvia wearing them.
 
So queen Louise was the last Swedish queen to wear the State Robes and whjat a shame we never got to see queen Silvia wearing them.
It is a shame, yes. Both Silvia and her daughters would have looked spectacular wearing them.

This picture (hopefully the link works) was taken on January 11, 1964 which was the last time Queen Louise took part in the COoP. She was to ill to attend the following year and died only two months later in March 1965.

http://historiskbildbyra.imagedesk.se/viewpic.htm?ID=1429959

It was also the last time that Princesses Margaretha and Desiree attended since they both married the following summer and seased to be members of the Royal House.

http://historiskbildbyra.imagedesk.se/viewpic.htm?ID=1429961

http://historiskbildbyra.imagedesk.se/viewpic.htm?ID=1429960
 
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They're very grand (and of course Silvia and Christina would want them or something like it back, and of course CG would say no) but the veil makes Louise look like a version of her great-grandmother Queen Victoria. Not quite in step with the times.
 
They're very grand (and of course Silvia and Christina would want them or something like it back, and of course CG would say no) but the veil makes Louise look like a version of her great-grandmother Queen Victoria. Not quite in step with the times.
Princess Christina wrote in the anthology "Hovets dräkter" from 1994 that -"from a historic and also a spectacular point of view you might regret the fact that one of the most beautiful ceremonies in Sweden with such a strong and traditional connection to the old way of governing couldn't find its place in today's society", but added that looking back the images from the ceremony seemed very distant in both form and content.

The veil is, to me, beautiful and its use with the State robes was one of the last remnants of the once almost mandatory European use of veils and tiaras for grand court and religious ceremonies.
 
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It's not that it isn't beautiful, but when you look like Queen Victoria in the late 20th century, it's not going to be taken as anything other than an anachronism, especially in the middle of a major government reform.

Wasn't Christina the last lady of the court between January '75 and June '76? It would have been interesting to see what happened if Silvia had already been established then. They might have had greater momentum for preserving some of this.
 
It is a shame, yes. Both Silvia and her daughters would have looked spectacular wearing them.

This picture (hopefully the link works) was taken on January 11, 1964 which was the last time Queen Louise took part in the COoP. She was to ill to attend the following year and died only two months later in March 1965.

Svenskt Fotoreportage Collection | Historisk Bildbyrå - Historisk Bildbyrå/Mustang media

It was also the last time that Princesses Margaretha and Desiree attended since they both married the following summer and seased to be members of the Royal House.

Svenskt Fotoreportage Collection | Historisk Bildbyrå - Historisk Bildbyrå/Mustang media

Svenskt Fotoreportage Collection | Historisk Bildbyrå - Historisk Bildbyrå/Mustang media

Yes a great shame that the State robes are consigned to history ,Queen Louise looked so regal :previous:
 
It's not that it isn't beautiful, but when you look like Queen Victoria in the late 20th century, it's not going to be taken as anything other than an anachronism, especially in the middle of a major government reform.



Wasn't Christina the last lady of the court between January '75 and June '76? It would have been interesting to see what happened if Silvia had already been established then. They might have had greater momentum for preserving some of this.
Princess Christina married in June 1974 and wasn't a member of the Royal House after that. Technically Princess Birgitta was the Premier Lady of the Realm after the death of their mother, but she didn't live in Sweden and had no official role. She did however get to wear the Leuchtenberg sapphires.
 
Princess Christina married in June 1974 and wasn't a member of the Royal House after that. Technically Princess Birgitta was the Premier Lady of the Realm after the death of their mother, but she didn't live in Sweden and had no official role. She did however get to wear the Leuchtenberg sapphires.

Wouldn't the order of Precedent for Swedish Royalladies have been Queen Louise,Princess Sybilla and Princesses Brigitta and Christina.


Sadly the queen and Princess Sybilla passed away leaving the 2 only eligible to attend of the kings sisters.
 
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