Victoria, Princess Royal : biography
Victoria, Princess Royal (Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa; 21 November 1840 – 5 August 1901) was the eldest child of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert. She was created Princess Royal of the United Kingdom in 1841. She became German Empress and Queen of Prussia by marriage to German Emperor Frederick III. After her husband’s death, she became widely known as Empress Frederick (German: Kaiserin Friedrich).
Crown Princess of Prussia
Victoria in 1867, portrait by [[Franz Xaver Winterhalter]]
Crown Prince of Prussia Crown Princess
During the three Wars of German Unification – the 1864 Prussian-Danish War, the 1866 Austro-Prussian War, and the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War – Victoria and Frederick strongly identified with the cause of Prussia and the North German Confederation. Their sympathies created a rift among Queen Victoria’s extended family, since Victoria’s younger brother, the Prince of Wales, was married to Princess Alexandra of Denmark, the elder daughter of Christian IX of Denmark, who was also reigning duke of the disputed territories of Schleswig and Holstein. At Versailles on 18 January 1871, the victorious princes of the North German Confederation proclaimed a German Empire with King William I of Prussia as the hereditary German Emperor (Deutscher Kaiser) with the style Imperial and Royal Majesty (Kaiserliche und Königliche Majestät); Frederick and Victoria became German Crown Prince and German Crown Princess with the style Imperial and Royal Highness (Kaiserliche und Königliche Hoheit).
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Titles and styles
- 21 November 1840 – 19 January 1841: Her Royal Highness The Princess Victoria
- 19 January 1841 – 25 January 1858: Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal
- 25 January 1858 – 2 January 1861: Her Royal Highness Princess Frederick of Prussia
- 2 January 1861 – 18 January 1871: Her Royal Highness The Crown Princess of Prussia
- 18 January 1871 – 9 March 1888: Her Imperial and Royal Highness The German Crown Princess, Crown Princess of Prussia
- 9 March 1888 – 15 June 1888: Her Imperial and Royal Majesty The German Empress, Queen of Prussia
- 15 June 1888 – 5 August 1901: Her Imperial Majesty The Empress Frederick
Honours
- Dame of the Order of Louise
- Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, First Class
Arms
With her style of Princess Royal, Victoria was granted use of the royal arms, as then used: with an escutcheon of the shield of Saxony, the whole differenced by a label argent of three points, the outer points bearing crosses gules, the central a rose gules.. In 1917, the escutcheon was dropped by royal warrant from George V. Of course Victoria had died in 1901 and the arms had not been used by her since her marriage to Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, later German Emperor Friedrich III.
Ancestry
Death
Victoria was diagnosed with inoperable breast cancer in 1899 during a visit to her mother at Balmoral. By the autumn of 1900, the cancer spread to her spine and after much suffering, she died at Castle Friedrichshof on 5 August 1901, less than seven months after the death of her mother, Queen Victoria. She was buried in the royal mausoleum of the Friedenskirche at Potsdam on 13 August 1901. Her tomb has a recumbent marble effigy of herself on top. Next to her lies her beloved husband. Two of her eight children, Sigismund (died age 2) and Waldemar (died age 11), are buried in the same mausoleum.
Issue
Victoria and Frederick had eight children:
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