The Marriage of Emperor Frederick III of Germany
Dynastic Union of Frederick of Prussia and Victoria of Great Britain
Sep 9, 2009
The marriage of Prince Frederick of Prussia (1831–1888) and Princess Victoria of Great Britain (1840–1901) was successful. Although slightly arranged, these two royals wanted to marry, and their love lasted their entire marriage and through the problems they faced from his parents and their children.
A Planned Marriage
The marriage between Prince Frederick and Princess Victoria was planned long before they even met each other. Victoria’s parents, Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert, had long ago decided that marrying their eldest daughter to the heir to the Prussian throne would help to further their liberal political views in Europe. They were friendly with Prince Frederick’s parents, the future Emperor Wilhelm I of Germany and his wife Augusta, and Prince Albert in particular liked to pontificate to Wilhelm about his views on a unified Germany under a liberal government.
Frederick and Victoria’s Courtship and Wedding
Prince Frederick, “Fritz,” and Princess Victoria, usually called “Vicky,” first met in England when he was twenty and she was ten. They liked each other, and he was charmed by the vivacious and intelligent princess. But it wasn’t until they met again four years later that they fell in love and got engaged.
They married a few years later on January 25, 1858, in the Chapel Royal of St. James’s Palace, followed by a honeymoon at Windsor. This caused controversy because they didn’t marry in Prussia. And although the marriage was accepted within the families, it was unpopular in Britain because they disliked foreigners and unpopular in Prussia because a union with England was feared to antagonize Russia.
Frederick and Victoria’s Marriage
Although Frederick and Victoria loved each other, a love that only deepened and strengthened as the years passed, life was never easy for them in the hostile Prussian court. Victoria never relinquished her Englishness, making it impossible for her ever to settle into life in the cold, formal Prussian court that was so different from the relatively warm, familial English court she had grown up in.
They soon moved into the Crown Prince’s Palace on Unter den Linden, and later moved into the Neues Palais in Sans Souci Park, a beautiful palace where they were able to live contentedly at least partly removed from Frederick’s parents’ court. There they raised their eight children, with whom they were able to spend a lot of time as Frederick patiently waited for the throne. Unfortunately, even their children were not completely sources of comfort, as Frederick and Victoria never really got along with and ended up alienating their three oldest children, including the future Emperor Wilhelm II who tended to ally politically with his reactionary and conservative grandparents. But the Crown Prince and Princess delighted in their younger children and were able to have a relatively happy home life, as long as they could ignore the hostility from Frederick’s parents, who ended up hating both their English daughter-in-law and their liberal son.
The Path to Becoming Emperor Frederick III of Germany
Prince Frederick had to wait many years to become emperor, an uncomfortable wait because he and his wife disagreed with his parents’ strongly conservative politics. Emperor Wilhelm I had asked his son to take the crown in 1862, but Frederick had refused, a decision not entirely supported by Victoria, because he didn’t want the pressure and political problems of ruling Prussia at that time. Emperor Wilhelm I then appointed Otto von Bismarck head of the government, a man who hated Frederick and Victoria because of their liberal political views.
When Frederick eventually became emperor in 1888, his reign was tragically short. He had been diagnosed with throat cancer the year before, and his ninety-nine day reign as Emperor Frederick III was too short and weak to make any of the liberal changes he and his wife had waited so long to implement. And after his death his son ascended the throne as Emperor Wilhelm II with the same conservative, aggressively pro-German agenda his grandfather had had, making the reign of Frederick III a mere footnote in German political history.
The Widowhood of Empress Victoria of Germany
After Emperor Frederick III died, his widow Victoria remained uncomfortably in Germany, relatively poor and snubbed by her hated son Emperor Wilhelm II. Frederick and Victoria’s married life had only been happy because they loved each other so much and got along so well, and without him she was lost in the still-foreign German court. She spent the rest of her life on her small estate outside of Frankfurt, named Friedrichshof, “Frederick’s Court,” after her beloved husband.
Source:
Packard, Jerrold M. Victoria’s Daughters. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998.
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