All About Royal Families

Princess Viktoria Elisabeth Auguste Charlotte was born on 24 July 1860 at the Neues Palais in Potsdam.  She was the eldest daughter and second child of Prince Frederick William of Prussia and his wife Victoria, Princess Royal. Family Her grandmother, Queen Victoria, wanted her eldest granddaughter to be named after her. However, the Prussians wanted the new princess to be named Charlotte after Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, who had been born Princess Charlotte of Prussia.  As a compromise, her first name was Victoria, but she was always referred as Charlotte. She was also named after her paternal grandmother, Queen Augusta of Prussia. Princess Charlotte of Prussia was by birth a member of the  Royal House of Hohenzollern.  Childhood While Vicky was close with her eldest daughter, this changed as the girl grew older; by the time she was two years old, Charlotte had become known as "sweet naughty little Ditta"and would prove to be the most difficult of the fam...

On 21 May 1913, King George V arrived at Vlissingen on board of the Royal Yacht, Victoria & Albert. Together with his wife, Queen Mary, Lord Stamfordham (his secretary) and sir Frederick Ponsonby he walked to a car, which brought them to the imperial train. The company was on their way to Berlin, for attending the royal wedding of  Victoria Louisa of Prussia and Ernstest August, Duke of Brunswick. This important royal wedding took place on 24 May 1913. The marriage ended a rift between the Houses of Hohenzollern and Hanover. However it took a long time that this event took place: anydiscussions of marriage were prolonged for months due to political concerns. Ernest Augustus was also the heir to the Kingdom of Hanover, which the Kingdom of Prussia annexed following the 1866 Austro- Prussian War.  The Prussian crown prince was displeased with the match and wished that Ernest Augustus would abdicate his rights to Hanover; in a compromise, it was decided that, in e...

With this short biography blog post, we are going to Germany, in particular to the royal court of Prussia, and their capital Berlin.  Princess Louise Marie Elisabeth of Prussia was born on 3 December 1838 to Prince Wilhelm of Prussia and his wife Princess Augusta of Saxe- Weimar-Eisenach.  Louise was named after her grandmothers, Louise, Queen of Prussia and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia and was known as "Vivi" in her family.  Her parents were a happy but tense couple, and Louise had only one other sibling, Prince Frederick William, who was seven years older. Upon her birth, Augusta declared that her duty in perpetuating the Hohenzollern dynasty was complete. While Wilhelm showed some outward affection to his only son, he lavished attention on Louise, and often his unexpected visits to her schoolroom resulted in them playing together on the floor. Mother and daughter however were not close. A lovely portrait of Winterhalter Source picture: Wikipedia Love and Marr...

20 September 1886 marks the birth of Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Family Cecilie was a daughter of Frederick Francis III, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia. Childhood  She spent most of her childhood in Schwerin, at the royal residences of Ludwigslust Palace and the Gelbensande hunting lodge, only a few kilometres from the Baltic Sea coast.  Her father suffered badly from asthma and the wet damp cold climate of Mecklenburg was not good for his health. As a result, Cecilie spent a large amount of time with her family in Cannes in the south of France, favoured at the time by European royalty, including some whom Cecilie met such as Empress Eugénie and her future husband's great-uncle, Edward VII. During the winter visit of 1897, Cecilie's sister, Alexandrine, met her future husband, Crown Prince Christian, later Christian X of Denmark, shortly before the death of their father at the age of 46. After returning to Schw...

Charles-Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, later known as Louis Napoleon and then Napoleon III, was born in Paris on the night of 19–20 April 1808.  Family His father was Louis Bonaparte, the younger brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, who made Louis the king of Holland from 1806 until 1810. His mother was Hortense de Beauharnais, the only daughter of Napoleon's wife Joséphine by her first marriage to Alexandre de Beauharnais. Charles-Louis was baptized at the Palace of Fontainebleau on 5 November 1810, with Emperor Napoleon serving as his godfather and Empress Marie-Louise as his godmother. His father stayed away, once again separated from Hortense. At the age of seven, Louis Napoleon visited his uncle at the Tuileries Palace in Paris.  Napoleon held him up to the window to see the soldiers parading in the courtyard of the Carousel below. He last saw his uncle with the family at the Château de Malmaison, shortly before Napoleon departed for the Battle of Waterloo. Education When Louis Napo...