Stockholmsrännstensungen, the one who united five realms in Bernadotte Blood

[0325.Mikael.0929]

"Stockholmsrännstensungen" is what Princess Louise of Sweden called herself in her early years. She is the first Princess of the Bernadotte Dynasty to marry into an other Scandinavian Kingdom, in her case, that is Denmark. At a very early age (by 21st century standards) of 16, she met the 24-year-old Crown Prince Frederik (later Frederik VIII of Denmark) to see if a Danish-Swedish peace marriage will work as Carl XV wished.
On 28 July 1869, Louise married Frederik in Stockholm.
-
Louise gave birth to King Christian X, King Haakon VII and Princess Ingeborg.
Christian X became the King of Denmark and Haakon VII is elected by the Storting to succeed his great-uncle (mother's father's brother) as the King of Norway.
-
In May 1897, the 18-year-old Ingeborg formed another Danish-Swedish couple with her mother's father's brother's son, Prince Carl, Duke of Västergötland, then 36, under the arrangement of their fathers, Frederik VIII and his uncle-in-law (spouse's father's brother), Oscar II.
They had four children, namely Princess Margaretha, Princess Märtha, Princess Astrid and Prince Carl.
-
Margaretha rolled another Swedish-Danish royal wedding on 22 May 1919 when she was 19. She married her mother's father's brother's son (again?) Prince Axel, who was then 30.
Her first son had no children while her second son renounced rights to the Danish Throne.
-
In 1926, at the age of 20, Astrid married the 24-year-old Crown Prince Leopold (later Leopold III) and had 3 children afterwards. Unfortunately, she died in a road accident only 1 year and 6 months after she became the Queen Consort of Belgium.
Her legacy lives on in Kings Baudouin and Albert II of the Belgians, and their sister, Josephine-Charlotte, who married Jean, then Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg.
-
In 1929, at the age of 28, Märtha married the 25-year-old Crown Prince Olav (later Olav V), her father's father's brother's daughter's son's son, who is also at the same time her mother's brother's son.
She was reintroduced into the Norwegian Royal Family after she ceased to be a Norwegian Princess in 1905 due to the Union Dissolution.
-
Today, Queen Margrethe II, King Harald V, King Philippe, Grand Duke Henri are all descendants of "Stockholmsrännstensungen" Princess Louise of Sweden,
who carried the Bernadotte Blood to four realms.
-
I'd wonder when will Britain, Spain and the Netherlands have a Swedish consort.
Though it's highly unlikely for Princess Catharina-Amalia to have a Swedish Prince as her spouse (the oldest Swedish prince is still 12 years her junior),
the same could also be said for Spain (10 years her junior),
but I'll not rule out the possibility for Prince George to have a Swedish Princess as his spouse.
(Though probably not Princess Estelle, as she will have heavy duties in Sweden as Queen Regnant)

 

[Prinsara]

Oh, good grief, Tante Louise. I forget who it was that was first horrified by her referring to herself as a "ragamuffin" or "street urchin" and suggested it was not proper demeanor for a princess. Didn't stick.

She is indeed the ancestress of them all, but it took a very unhappy marriage and relationship with the Danish royals, and she was then physically and unnecessarily cruel to her children, even by the standards of the day.

She's certainly an interesting figure, but not an easy one.

 

[JR76]

Oh, good grief, Tante Louise. I forget who it was that was first horrified by her referring to herself as a "ragamuffin" or "street urchin" and suggested it was not proper demeanor for a princess. Didn't stick.

The person in question was her uncle King Oscar II who was both pompous and very sensitive to his family's humble origins.

 

[0325.Mikael.0929]

Oh, good grief, Tante Louise. I forget who it was that was first horrified by her referring to herself as a "ragamuffin" or "street urchin" and suggested it was not proper demeanor for a princess. Didn't stick.

She is indeed the ancestress of them all, but it took a very unhappy marriage and relationship with the Danish royals, and she was then physically and unnecessarily cruel to her children, even by the standards of the day.

She's certainly an interesting figure, but not an easy one.

It surely isn't an easy job. But how is she physically cruel to Christian X, Haakon VII and Ingeborg? I only know that Louise gave her children a childhood dominated by religion and duty, according to Anne-Marie Riiber's 1959 Swedish book "Drottning Sophia".
-
That means they have to be trained to be royals who are representatives of the country at a very young age, especially Christian X who is first in line to the Danish throne. Scandiavian people's minds are still very conservative back in the 1890s, before the World Wars.
-
And indeed the inter-Scandinavian relationships have not been as fairytale-like as it seems on the surface. "Drottning Sophia" has also pointed out that Louise of Hesse-Kassel disliked the Swedish Royal Family and forced Louise to inform her of her visits to Sweden. Definitely unfair compared to Prince Daniel who gets to visit Ockelbo with Crown Princess Victoria and their children.

 

[Prinsara]

I am biased by being a fan of Haakon VII, I admit.

It surely isn't an easy job. But how is she physically cruel to Christian X, Haakon VII and Ingeborg? I only know that Louise gave her children a childhood dominated by religion and duty, according to Anne-Marie Riiber's 1959 Swedish book "Drottning Sophia".
-
That means they have to be trained to be royals who are representatives of the country at a very young age, especially Christian X who is first in line to the Danish throne. Scandiavian people's minds are still very conservative back in the 1890s, before the World Wars.
-
And indeed the inter-Scandinavian relationships have not been as fairytale-like as it seems on the surface. "Drottning Sophia" has also pointed out that Louise of Hesse-Kassel disliked the Swedish Royal Family and forced Louise to inform her of her visits to Sweden. Definitely unfair compared to Prince Daniel who gets to visit Ockelbo with Crown Princess Victoria and their children.

Louise's life was not easy, certainly not compared to her indulged and free girlhood. After the age of 17 she suddenly found herself with an unfaithful husband, and in-laws who disliked her and did not treat her well, and made comments about only having her for her money, and she also had Princess Louise, Prince Harald, Princess Thyra, Prince Gustav, and Princess Dagmar, in addition to Christian, Haakon (Carl, at the time) and Ingeborg! It's possible she may have suffered from post-partum depression or some other hormonal imbalance from being pregnant and giving birth so often, but she certainly did not treat her children with the same generosity she received as an only child from her parents. (Basically, the urchin found herself in the gutter once she left Stockholm.)

Ingeborg made a comment after her marriage about how she was never going to walk anywhere again; she'd been made to do it enough, and it was no lighthearted remark - Louise made them all walk something close to many, many km (at least 10 miles, I believe) every day. Enough to qualify for 'forced march' status, basically.

See here for me knowing this, and still being shocked when someone casually mentions that Carl used to be beaten, and moreso when I found out it was Louise who did it. For things like spilling on the carpet. Regularly. That is not being raised to religion and duty; that is taking it way too far (even by the standards of the day).

If you care to watch in Danish or read subtitles in Norwegian, she has several scenes of a very fine drama as her older, rigid self, and comments on the situation in 1905 between Sweden and Norway. Her disapproving Uncle Oscar also makes a long cameo.

 

[0325.Mikael.0929]

Louise's life was not easy, certainly not compared to her indulged and free girlhood. After the age of 17 she suddenly found herself with an unfaithful husband, and in-laws who disliked her and did not treat her well, and made comments about only having her for her money, and she also had Princess Louise, Prince Harald, Princess Thyra, Prince Gustav, and Princess Dagmar, in addition to Christian, Haakon (Carl, at the time) and Ingeborg! It's possible she may have suffered from post-partum depression or some other hormonal imbalance from being pregnant and giving birth so often, but she certainly did not treat her children with the same generosity she received as an only child from her parents. (Basically, the urchin found herself in the gutter once she left Stockholm.).

-
Yes. I thought her life would have been easier had Christian X and Haakon VII been her only children. She should not have given birth to the other six if she had the right to choose... It's completely pointless to have seven spares for the heir apparent - as Sweden nowadays has shown us, three (Victoria, Carl Philip and Madeleine) or two (Estelle and Oscar) is enough. Even traditionally larger Kingdoms such as Denmark and Belgium sticks to the rule of four (DK: Christian XI, Isabella, Vincent and Josephine; BE: Elisabeth, Gabriel, Emmanuel, Eleonore). 8 is just too much and I think that's why her life was ruined in addition to her mother-in-law who dislikes Sweden.
-
While I disagree with her parenting methods, in a way, like the plum blossoms which blossom in the coldest, harshest and deepest wintertime, Christian X and Haakon VII have been the most popular monarchs of their respective lands.

 

[Prinsara]

-
Yes. I thought her life would have been easier had Christian X and Haakon VII been her only children. She should not have given birth to the other six if she had the right to choose... It's completely pointless to have seven spares for the heir apparent - as Sweden nowadays has shown us, three (Victoria, Carl Philip and Madeleine) or two (Estelle and Oscar) is enough. Even traditionally larger Kingdoms such as Denmark and Belgium sticks to the rule of four (DK: Christian XI, Isabella, Vincent and Josephine; BE: Elisabeth, Gabriel, Emmanuel, Eleonore). 8 is just too much and I think that's why her life was ruined in addition to her mother-in-law who dislikes Sweden.
-
While I disagree with her parenting methods, in a way, like the plum blossoms which blossom in the coldest, harshest and deepest wintertime, Christian X and Haakon VII have been the most popular monarchs of their respective lands.

Six fewer children would undoubtedly have been less stressful, but it would not have kept her husband faithful or made her in-laws any nicer, so since she had neither the choice nor even the capacity to choose, it's a fairly moot point, unfortunately. Her life was not entirely ruined and she did rebound to an extent, but she became very hard along the way, and others paid the price.

I recommend taking a look at Harry & Charles; I think the Swedish connection will interest you. It certainly introduced me to Tante Louise!

 

[0325.Mikael.0929]

Back in the past royal marriage does not succeed a long dating period as we saw in Victoria and Daniel Collert (1998-2001) and then Daniel Westling (2002-2010), Madeleine and Jonas Bergström (2009-2010) and then Christopher O'Neill (2011-2013), Carl Philip and Emma Pernald (1999-2009) and then Sofia Hellqvist (2010-2015) now.
-
At first sight Louise may have agreed with her marriage upon meeting Frederik VIII, but she never knew Louise of Hesse-Kassel would dislike Sweden that much. Conversely Daniel Westling was given 8 years to transition from a commoner to a prince before getting married to Victoria. Louise would still have had a much worse life as a consort than Daniel even if she had only two children. Poor her. Yet she was the first Bernadotte Princess to marry abroad and bring Bernadotte blood to other realms after her aunt Eugenie chose to remain unmarried, and subsequently we saw many intermarriages between related royals (Ingeborg-Carl, Margaretha-Axel, Märtha-Olav V, Ingrid-Frederick IX).
Frederick IX is Ingrid's father's father's father's brother's daughter's son's son. I believe that the four subsequent marriages (bar Margaretha-Axel) went better than Louise's.
-
But I don't think I will see more Scandinavian intermarriages as their generations are different now (Danish and Norwegian children are born during 2004-2011, Swedish are born during 2012-2018) and it's now mostly commoners that marry royals (Maxima Zorreguieta, an investment banker; Daniel Westling, a gym owner and a personal trainer; Sofia Hellqvist, a model; Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby, a waitress; Mary Donaldson, an account manager, etc.)