Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia
Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia was a German princess, a member of the British Royal Family, the wife of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn. She served as the Viceregal Consort of Canada, when her husband served as the Governor General of Canada from 1911 to 1916. King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Queens Margrethe II of Denmark and Anne-Marie of Greece are among her great-grandchildren. Princess Luise Margarete was born at Marmorpalais near Kingdom of Prussia, her father was Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia, the son of Karl of Prussia and his wife Princess Marie of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Her mother was Princess Maria Anna of daughter of Leopold IV of Anhalt-Dessau, her father, a nephew of the German Emperor Wilhelm I, distinguished himself as a field commander during the Battle of Metz and the campaigns west of Paris in the 1870–71 Franco-Prussian War. Her father was a double cousin of the German Emperor Friedrich III, the husband of her sister-in-law, Princess Royal. On 13 March 1879, Princess Luise Margarete married Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn at St. George's Chapel Windsor.
Prince Arthur was the seventh child and third son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The couple received a great number of expensive gifts. Many members of England and Germany's royal families attended. After her marriage, Princess Louise was styled Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Connaught and Strathearn and her name was Anglicised as Louise Margaret; the Duchess of Connaught spent the first twenty years of her marriage accompanying her husband on his various deployments throughout the British Empire. The Duke and Duchess of Connaught acquired Bagshot Park in Surrey as their country home and after 1900 used Clarence House as their London residence, she accompanied her husband to Canada in 1911. In 1916, she became colonel-in-chief of the 199th Canadian Infantry Battalion, CEF. In 1885, she became chief of the 64th Regiment of Infantry "Field Marshal General Prince Friedrich Karl of Prussia", Prussian Army; the Duchess of Connaught died of influenza and bronchitis at Clarence House.
She became the first member of the British Royal Family to be cremated. This was done at Golders Green Crematorium; the procedure of burying ashes in an urn was still unfamiliar at the time, her urn was transported in an ordinary coffin during the funeral ceremonies. Her ashes were buried at the Royal Burial Ground, Frogmore; the Duke of Connaught survived her by twenty-five years. The maternity hospital adjacent to the Cambridge Military Hospital at Aldershot was named in her honour as the Louise Margaret Maternity Hospital. 25 July 1860 – 13 March 1879: Her Royal Highness Princess Luise Margarete of Prussia 13 March 1879 – 14 March 1917: Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Connaught and Strathearn CI: Companion of the Crown of India, March 1879 VA: Royal Order of Victoria and Albert, 1893 DStJ: Dame of Justice of St. John, 1888 RRC: Member of the Royal Red Cross, 1883 Treaty between Great Britain and Germany, for the Marriage of HRH the Duke of Connaught with HRH the Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia - 26 February 1879
Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife
Alexander William George Duff, 1st Duke of Fife, styled Viscount Macduff between 1857 and 1879 and known as The Earl Fife between 1879 and 1889, was a British peer who married Princess Louise, the third child and eldest daughter of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra. Fife was born the son of James Duff and his wife, Lady Agnes Hay, his father was a grandson of the 3rd Earl heir presumptive to the 4th Earl Fife. His mother was the second daughter of the 18th Earl of Erroll and his wife, Elizabeth FitzClarence, an illegitimate daughter of King William IV; when his father succeeded as 5th Earl Fife in 1857, Duff acquired the courtesy title of Viscount Macduff. He attended Eton from 1863 to 1866. Fife served as Member of Parliament for the Elginshire and Nairnshire constituency, in Scotland, from 1874 to 1879. On 7 August 1879, he succeeded his father as 6th Earl Fife in the Peerage of Ireland, he served under William Ewart Gladstone as Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms from 1880 to 1881, served on a special diplomatic mission to the King of Saxony in 1882.
He was Lord-Lieutenant Elginshire from 1872 to 1902, Lord Lieutenant of the County of London from February 1900 until his death in 1912. He was appointed Honorary Colonel of the 1st Banffshire Artillery Volunteers on 15 March 1884. In 1885, Queen Victoria created him Earl of Fife in the Peerage of the United Kingdom, he took part in the founding of the Chartered Company of South Africa and served as one of its vice presidents until the Jameson Raid of 1896. On Saturday 27 July 1889, Lord Fife married Princess Louise, the eldest daughter of the then-Prince and Princess of Wales, at the Private Chapel at Buckingham Palace; the couple were third cousins in descent from George III. The wedding marked the second time. On the day of the wedding, the Queen elevated Lord Fife to the further dignity of Duke of Fife and Marquess of Macduff, in the County of Banff, in the Peerage of the United Kingdom; the marriage of the Duke of Fife and Princess Louise produced three children: Alastair Duff. Lady Alexandra Duff married her first cousin once removed Prince Arthur of Connaught, had issue.
Lady Maud Duff married the 11th Earl of Southesk, had issue. In December 1911, while sailing to Egypt on the SS Delhi, the Duke and his family were shipwrecked off the coast of Morocco, they spent some time in the water before being rescued and had to walk four miles to find accommodation. Although they all survived, the Duke fell ill with pleurisy contracted as a result of the shipwreck, he died at Aswan in Egypt on 29 January 1912, his elder daughter, Princess Alexandra, succeeded to the dukedom of 1900, becoming Duchess of Fife and Countess of Macduff in her own right. His other titles, including the Dukedom created in 1889, all became extinct; the Duke's body was brought home to Great Britain in a lead coffin. It rested in the Royal Vault below St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle, from 28 February 1912 until 6 August 1912, when it was transferred to Scotland for burial in St Ninian's Chapel at Mar Lodge, Aberdeenshire; the Glasgow Herald reported: FUNERAL AT BRAEMAR. IMPRESSIVE SCENES IN DEESIDE FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT ABERDEEN.
Thursday. The casket containing the remains of the Duke of Fife was yesterday deposited in the vault specially constructed for its reception within the private chapel at New Mar Lodge, his Grace's Highland residence; the date of the removal of the remains from Windsor to their last resting place was kept private until two or three days ago, it being the express wish of the Princess Royal that the interment should be carried out without any public display whatever. The casket arrived at Aberdeen from Euston at 7.15 yesterday morning, being conveyed in a special saloon which at Aberdeen was attached to the 8.5 a.m. train for Ballater. Heavy rain showers had fallen on Deeside in the early morning, when the train reached Ballater shortly after ten o'clock the atmosphere was depressingly gloomy, while the distant hills to the West were thickly enveloped in mist, adding a further melancholy note to the circumstances attending the sad home-bringing of the departed Chief of the Duffs. Travelling in the special saloon from London to Ballater were Sir Maurice Abbot Anderson and Lady Anderson and Dr Essery, while awaiting the arrival of the train at Ballater were Mr Wm Mackintosh and commissioner on the Mar estates.
Many hundreds of residents and visitors to the district had assembled in the Station Square and reverently observed the Highlanders transfer the massive polished oak coffin from the saloon to the hearse. Over the casket was laid a Union Jack, the only touch of colour associated with the sombre vehicle. THE ROUTE TO BRAEMAR; the cortege covered the route to Braemar at the slow speed of about 12 miles an hour, along the way there were obvious manifestations of respect shown, for the passing of one, a notable personality on Upper Deeside for so many years. Groups of re
Alastair Windsor, 2nd Duke of Connaught and Strathearn
Alastair Arthur Windsor, 2nd Duke of Connaught and Strathearn was a member of the British Royal Family. He was the only child of Prince Arthur of 2nd Duchess of Fife, he was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria through his father and her great-great-grandson through his mother. In 1942, he became the second Duke of Connaught and Strathearn and Earl of Sussex when he inherited his grandfather's title. In 1943, at the age of 28, he died in Canada of exposure, after falling out of a window in a state of inebriation. Alastair was born on 9 August 1914 at his parents' home at 54 Mount Street, London, his father was Prince Arthur of Connaught, the only son of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia. His mother was Princess Alexandra, 2nd Duchess of Fife, the eldest daughter of Alexander Duff, 1st Duke of Fife, Louise, Princess Royal. Alastair was thus a great-grandchild of Queen Victoria through his father and great-great grandchild of her through his mother.
The Prince was baptised on 1 September 1914 at his parents' home and his godparents were King George V, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, Queen Alexandra, the Duke of Connaught, Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, Princess Mary. Prince Alastair was born shortly after the First World War broke out, prompting strong anti-German feelings in the United Kingdom. George V responded to this by changing the name of the Royal House from the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to the House of Windsor and relinquishing all German titles belonging to members of the family who were British subjects. In letters patent dated 20 November 1917, George V undertook further restructuring of the royal styles and titles by restricting the titles of Prince or Princess and the style of Royal Highness to the children of the sovereign, the children of the sovereign's sons, the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales; this excluded Alastair, a great-grandson of a former sovereign but was not the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales.
It further stated that all titles of "the grandchildren of the sons of any such Sovereign in the direct male line shall have the style and title enjoyed by the children of Dukes." Lord Macduff received his education at the Royal Military College, Sandhurst. On 31 January 1935, he received a commission as a second lieutenant in the Royal Scots Greys, his father's regiment, based in Egypt from 1936. In 1939, Lord Macduff was promoted to lieutenant on 14 July, was assigned to Ottawa as aide-de-camp to his kinsman The Earl of Athlone Governor General of Canada, he succeeded his grandfather as Duke of Connaught and Strathearn, Earl of Sussex, in 1942. However, he died in 1943 at the age of 28 "on active service" in Ottawa, Canada, in unusual circumstances; the diaries of Sir Alan Lascelles, King George VI's private secretary, published in 2006, recorded that both the regiment and Athlone had rejected him as incompetent, he fell out of a window when drunk and perished of hypothermia overnight. Theo Aronson, in his biography of Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone stated that the Duke "was found dead on the floor of his room at Rideau Hall on the morning of 26 April 1943.
He had died from hypothermia." Marlene Eilers Koenig, who wrote about the Duke's mother in an article for Majesty magazine, noted that he was found lying "near an open window." Newspapers at the time cited the cause of death as "natural causes."His ashes were interred at St Ninian's Chapel, Scotland. 9 August 1914 – 20 November 1917: His Highness Prince Alastair of Connaught 20 November 1917 – 16 January 1942: Earl of Macduff 16 January 1942 – 26 April 1943: His Grace The Duke of Connaught and StrathearnUntil the age of three, he was styled as Prince Alastair of Connaught. However, in 1917, he lost the style of Highness. After that, he was known as the Earl of Macduff, this being the courtesy title he had as heir to his mother's Dukedom of Fife. In 1942, on the inheritance of his paternal grandfather's dukedom, he was granted arms, quarterly and fourth his paternal grandfather's arms and third his maternal grandfather's arms. Upon his death, the Dukedom of Connaught and Strathearn and the Earldom of Sussex became extinct.
His first cousin, James Carnegie, succeeded as 3rd Duke of Fife and Earl of Macduff upon Princess Alexandra's death on 26 February 1959. Alastair was born ninth in the line of succession, behind the six children of George V, his grandmother and his mother; when he died, he was 12th in the line of succession. His mother and he were the first two people in line behind the descendants of George V
England
England is a country, part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to Scotland to the north-northwest; the Irish Sea lies west of England and the Celtic Sea lies to the southwest. England is separated from continental Europe by the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south; the country covers five-eighths of the island of Great Britain, which lies in the North Atlantic, includes over 100 smaller islands, such as the Isles of Scilly and the Isle of Wight. The area now called England was first inhabited by modern humans during the Upper Palaeolithic period, but takes its name from the Angles, a Germanic tribe deriving its name from the Anglia peninsula, who settled during the 5th and 6th centuries. England became a unified state in the 10th century, since the Age of Discovery, which began during the 15th century, has had a significant cultural and legal impact on the wider world; the English language, the Anglican Church, English law – the basis for the common law legal systems of many other countries around the world – developed in England, the country's parliamentary system of government has been adopted by other nations.
The Industrial Revolution began in 18th-century England, transforming its society into the world's first industrialised nation. England's terrain is chiefly low hills and plains in central and southern England. However, there is upland and mountainous terrain in the west; the capital is London, which has the largest metropolitan area in both the United Kingdom and the European Union. England's population of over 55 million comprises 84% of the population of the United Kingdom concentrated around London, the South East, conurbations in the Midlands, the North West, the North East, Yorkshire, which each developed as major industrial regions during the 19th century; the Kingdom of England – which after 1535 included Wales – ceased being a separate sovereign state on 1 May 1707, when the Acts of Union put into effect the terms agreed in the Treaty of Union the previous year, resulting in a political union with the Kingdom of Scotland to create the Kingdom of Great Britain. In 1801, Great Britain was united with the Kingdom of Ireland to become the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland.
In 1922 the Irish Free State seceded from the United Kingdom, leading to the latter being renamed the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. The name "England" is derived from the Old English name Englaland, which means "land of the Angles"; the Angles were one of the Germanic tribes that settled in Great Britain during the Early Middle Ages. The Angles came from the Anglia peninsula in the Bay of Kiel area of the Baltic Sea; the earliest recorded use of the term, as "Engla londe", is in the late-ninth-century translation into Old English of Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People. The term was used in a different sense to the modern one, meaning "the land inhabited by the English", it included English people in what is now south-east Scotland but was part of the English kingdom of Northumbria; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle recorded that the Domesday Book of 1086 covered the whole of England, meaning the English kingdom, but a few years the Chronicle stated that King Malcolm III went "out of Scotlande into Lothian in Englaland", thus using it in the more ancient sense.
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, its modern spelling was first used in 1538. The earliest attested reference to the Angles occurs in the 1st-century work by Tacitus, Germania, in which the Latin word Anglii is used; the etymology of the tribal name itself is disputed by scholars. How and why a term derived from the name of a tribe, less significant than others, such as the Saxons, came to be used for the entire country and its people is not known, but it seems this is related to the custom of calling the Germanic people in Britain Angli Saxones or English Saxons to distinguish them from continental Saxons of Old Saxony between the Weser and Eider rivers in Northern Germany. In Scottish Gaelic, another language which developed on the island of Great Britain, the Saxon tribe gave their name to the word for England. An alternative name for England is Albion; the name Albion referred to the entire island of Great Britain. The nominally earliest record of the name appears in the Aristotelian Corpus the 4th-century BC De Mundo: "Beyond the Pillars of Hercules is the ocean that flows round the earth.
In it are two large islands called Britannia. But modern scholarly consensus ascribes De Mundo not to Aristotle but to Pseudo-Aristotle, i.e. it was written in the Graeco-Roman period or afterwards. The word Albion or insula Albionum has two possible origins, it either derives from a cognate of the Latin albus meaning white, a reference to the white cliffs of Dover or from the phrase the "island of the Albiones" in the now lost Massaliote Periplus, attested through Avienus' Ora Maritima to which the former served as a source. Albion is now applied to England in a more poetic capacity. Another romantic name for England is Loegria, related to the Welsh word for England and made popular by its use in Arthurian legend; the earliest known evidence of human presence in the area now known as England was that of Homo antecessor, dating to approximate
Connacht
Connacht spelled Connaught, is one of the provinces of Ireland, in the west of the country. Up to the 9th century it consisted of several independent major kingdoms. Between the reigns of Conchobar mac Taidg Mór and his descendant, Aedh mac Ruaidri Ó Conchobair, it became a kingdom under the rule of the Uí Briúin Aí dynasty, whose ruling sept adopted the surname Ua Conchobair. At its greatest extent, it incorporated the independent Kingdom of Breifne, as well as vassalage from the lordships of western Mide and west Leinster. Two of its greatest kings, Tairrdelbach Ua Conchobair and his son Ruaidri Ua Conchobair expanded the kingdom's dominance, so much so that both became Kings of Ireland; the Kingdom of Connacht collapsed in the 1230s because of civil war within the royal dynasty, which enabled widespread Anglo-Irish settlement under Richard Mór de Burgh, 1st Baron of Connaught, his successors. The English colony in Connacht shrank from c. 1300-c. 1360, with events such as the 1307 battle of Ahascragh, the 1316 Second Battle of Athenry and the murder in June 1333 of William Donn de Burgh, 3rd Earl of Ulster, all leading to Gaelic resurgence and colonial withdrawal to towns such as Ballinrobe, Loughrea and Galway.
Well into the 16th-century kingdoms such as Uí Maine and Tír Fhíacrach Múaidhe remained beyond English rule, while many Anglo-Irish families such as de Burgh, de Bermingham, de Exeter, de Staunton, became Gaelicised. Only in the late 1500s, during the Tudor conquest of Ireland, was Connacht shired into its present counties; the province of Connacht has the highest number of Irish language speakers among the four Irish provinces. The total percentage of people who consider themselves as Irish speakers in Connacht is 39.8%. There are Gaeltacht areas in Counties Mayo; the province of Connacht has no official function for local government purposes, but it is an recognised subdivision of the Irish state. It is listed on ISO-3166-2 as one of the four provinces of Ireland and "IE-C" is attributed to Connacht as its country sub-division code. Along with counties from other provinces, Connacht lies in the Midlands–North-West constituency for elections to the European Parliament; the name comes from the medieval ruling dynasty, the Connacht Connachta, whose name means "descendants of Conn", from the mythical king Conn of the Hundred Battles.
Connacht was a singular collective noun, but it came to be used only in the plural Connachta by analogy with plural names of other dynastic territories like Ulaid and Laigin, because the Connachta split into different branches. Before the Connachta dynasty, the province was known as Cóiced Ol nEchmacht. In Modern Irish, the province is called Cúige Chonnacht, "the Province of Connacht", where Chonnacht is plural genitive case with lenition of the C to Ch; the usual English spelling in Ireland since the Gaelic revival is Connacht, the spelling of the disused Irish singular. The official English spelling during English and British rule was the anglicisation Connaught, pronounced or; this was used for the Connaught Rangers in the British Army. Usage of the Connaught spelling is now in decline. State bodies use Connacht, for example in Central Statistics Office census reports since 1926, the name of the Connacht–Ulster European Parliament constituency of 1979–2004, although Connaught occurs in some statutes.
Among newspapers, the Connaught Telegraph retains the anglicised spelling in its name, whereas the Connacht Tribune uses the Gaelic. Connacht Rugby who represent the region and are based in Galway, use the Gaelic spelling also; the Irish language is spoken in the Gaeltacht areas of Counties Mayo and Galway, the largest being in the west of County Galway. The Galway Gaeltacht is the largest Irish-speaking region in Ireland covering Cois Fharraige, parts of Connemara, Conamara Theas, Aran Islands, Dúithche Sheoigeach and Galway City Gaeltacht. Irish-speaking areas in County Mayo can be found in Iorras and Tourmakeady. According to the 2016 census Irish is spoken outside of the education system on a daily basis by 9,455 people in the Galway County Gaeltacht areas. There are 202,667 Irish speakers in the province, over 84,000 in Galway and more than 55,000 in Mayo. There is the 4,265 attending the 18 Gaelscoileanna and three Gaelcholáiste outside the Gaeltacht across the province. Between 7% and 10% of the province are either native Irish speakers from the Gaeltacht, in Irish medium education or native Irish speakers who no longer live in Gaeltacht areas but still live in the province.
The province is divided into five counties: Galway, Mayo and Sligo. Connacht is the smallest of the four Irish provinces, with a population of 550,742. Galway is the only official city in the province; the highest point of Connacht is Mweelrea, in County Mayo. The largest island in Connacht is Achill; the biggest lake is Lough Corrib. Much of the west coast is not conducive for agriculture, it contains the main mountainous areas in Connacht, including the Twelve Bens, Mweelrea, Croagh Patrick, Nephin Beg, Ox Mountains, Dartry Mountains. Killary Harbour, Ireland's only true fjord, is located at the foot of Mweelrea. Connemara National Park is in County Galway; the Aran Islands, featuring pre
George V
George V was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936. Born during the reign of his grandmother Queen Victoria, George was third in the line of succession behind his father, Prince Albert Edward, his own elder brother, Prince Albert Victor. From 1877 to 1891, George served in the Royal Navy, until the unexpected death of his elder brother in early 1892 put him directly in line for the throne. On the death of his grandmother in 1901, George's father ascended the throne as Edward VII, George was created Prince of Wales, he became king-emperor on his father's death in 1910. George V's reign saw the rise of socialism, fascism, Irish republicanism, the Indian independence movement, all of which radically changed the political landscape; the Parliament Act 1911 established the supremacy of the elected British House of Commons over the unelected House of Lords. As a result of the First World War, the empires of his first cousins Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany fell, while the British Empire expanded to its greatest effective extent.
In 1917, George became the first monarch of the House of Windsor, which he renamed from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha as a result of anti-German public sentiment. In 1924 he appointed the first Labour ministry and in 1931 the Statute of Westminster recognised the dominions of the Empire as separate, independent states within the Commonwealth of Nations, he had smoking-related health problems throughout much of his reign and at his death was succeeded by his eldest son, Edward VIII. George was born on 3 June 1865, in London, he was the second son of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, Alexandra, Princess of Wales. His father was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, his mother was the eldest daughter of King Christian IX and Queen Louise of Denmark, he was baptised at Windsor Castle on 7 July 1865 by the Archbishop of Charles Longley. As a younger son of the Prince of Wales, there was little expectation, he was third in line after his father and elder brother, Prince Albert Victor.
George was only 17 months younger than Albert Victor, the two princes were educated together. John Neale Dalton was appointed as their tutor in 1871. Neither Albert Victor nor George excelled intellectually; as their father thought that the navy was "the best possible training for any boy", in September 1877, when George was 12 years old, both brothers joined the cadet training ship HMS Britannia at Dartmouth, Devon. For three years from 1879, the royal brothers served on HMS Bacchante, accompanied by Dalton, they toured the colonies of the British Empire in the Caribbean, South Africa and Australia, visited Norfolk, Virginia, as well as South America, the Mediterranean and East Asia. In 1881 on a visit to Japan, George had a local artist tattoo a blue and red dragon on his arm, was received in an audience by the Emperor Meiji. Dalton wrote an account of their journey entitled The Cruise of HMS Bacchante. Between Melbourne and Sydney, Dalton recorded a sighting of the Flying Dutchman, a mythical ghost ship.
When they returned to Britain, Queen Victoria complained that her grandsons could not speak French or German, so they spent six months in Lausanne in an unsuccessful attempt to learn another language. After Lausanne, the brothers were separated, he travelled the world. During his naval career he commanded Torpedo Boat 79 in home waters HMS Thrush on the North America station, before his last active service in command of HMS Melampus in 1891–92. From on, his naval rank was honorary; as a young man destined to serve in the navy, Prince George served for many years under the command of his uncle, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, stationed in Malta. There, he fell in love with his cousin, Princess Marie, his grandmother and uncle all approved the match, but the mothers—the Princess of Wales and the Duchess of Edinburgh—opposed it. The Princess of Wales thought the family was too pro-German, the Duchess of Edinburgh disliked England. Marie's mother was the only daughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia.
She resented the fact that, as the wife of a younger son of the British sovereign, she had to yield precedence to George's mother, the Princess of Wales, whose father had been a minor German prince before being called unexpectedly to the throne of Denmark. Guided by her mother, Marie refused George, she married Ferdinand, the future King of Romania, in 1893. In November 1891, George's elder brother, Albert Victor, became engaged to his second cousin once removed, Princess Victoria Mary of Teck, known as "May" within the family. May's father, Prince Francis, Duke of Teck, belonged to a morganatic, cadet branch of the house of Württemberg, her mother, Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, was a male-line granddaughter of King George III and a first cousin of Queen Victoria. On 14 January 1892, six weeks after the formal engagement, Albert Victor died of pneumonia, leaving George second in line to the throne, to succeed after his father. George had only just recovered from a serious illness himself, after being confined to bed for six weeks with typhoid fever, the disease, thought to have killed his grandfather Prince Albert.
Queen Victoria still regarded Princess May as a suitable match for her grandson, George and May grew close during their shared perio
Princess Margaret of Connaught
Princess Margaret of Connaught was Crown Princess of Sweden and Duchess of Scania as the first wife of the future King Gustaf VI Adolf. She was the elder daughter of Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, third son of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, his wife Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia. Known in Sweden as Margareta, she died 30 years before her husband's accession to the throne of Sweden. Princess Margaret was born at Bagshot Park and baptised in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle on 11 March 1882 by the Archbishop of Canterbury, her godparents were Queen Victoria. She was known as "Daisy" to her family, she was confirmed in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle in March 1898. Princess Margaret grew up as a member of the British royal family, taking part in family holidays and weddings, she was a bridesmaid along with her sister at the wedding of their paternal cousins the Duke and Duchess of York on 6 July 1893. When Princess Margaret of Connaught was 23 and her younger sister Princess Patricia of Connaught was 18, both girls were among the most beautiful and eligible princesses in Europe.
Their uncle, King Edward VII, wanted his nieces to marry a European crown prince. In January 1905, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught visited Portugal, where they were received by King Carlos and his wife, Amélie of Orléans, whose sons Luís Filipe, Duke of Braganza, Prince Manuel entertained the young British princesses; the Portuguese expected. The Connaughts continued their trip to Sudan. In Cairo, they met Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden, the future Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden, grandson of the Swedish King Oscar II. Margaret's sister Patricia had been considered a suitable match for Gustaf Adolf. Gustaf Adolf and Margaret fell in love at first sight, he proposed at a dinner held by Lord Cromer at the British Consulate in Egypt, was accepted. Margaret's parents were happy with the match. Gustaf Adolf and Margaret married on 15 June 1905 in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle; the couple spent their honeymoon at Adare Manor in County Limerick and arrived in Sweden on 8 July 1905. One of Margaret's wedding presents was the Connaught tiara, which remains in the Swedish royal jewellery collection today.
The couple had five children. Margaret was a dedicated mother to her children, was determined to spend time with them, she was not keen on letting them be raised by nursery staff. When Gustaf Adolf's father, Crown Prince Gustaf, acceded to the throne as King Gustaf V in 1907, the couple became Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden; the marriage between Margaret and Gustaf Adolf is described as a happy love match. Gustaf Adolf felt great pressure from the "Prussian" military discipline with which he had been raised by his mother, he was affected by and attracted to Margaret's differing English customs; the visiting Infanta Eulalia of Spain wrote that the Crown Princess gave the Swedish court "just a touch of the elegance of the Court of St James's" and of how much Margaret loved her life in Sweden. After her arrival in Sweden, who in Sweden was called "Margareta", received lessons in the Swedish language, asked to be educated in Swedish history and social welfare. After two years, she spoke good Swedish.
She was eager to find out more about Sweden, on many occasions went on incognito trips. During her first years in Sweden, Margaret behaved with great seriousness and was therefore regarded as stiff, but the view of her changed because of her great interest in sports, where she showed a more relaxed and natural manner. Margaret took a great interest in many forms of sports, she corresponded with various relatives. Margaret was interested in art, was an admirer of the works of Claude Monet, she photographed and took a great interest in gardening. She and her spouse received Sofiero Palace as a wedding gift, they spent their summers there and made a great effort creating gardens in an English style on the estate. In 1915, Margaret as Kronprinsessan Margareta published the book Vår trädgård på Sofiero and two years also Från blomstergården illustrated with her own drawings and photographs, which were sold for the benefit of household schools with childcare. During World War I, Margaret created a sewing society in Sweden to support the Red Cross.
The society was called Kronprinsessans Centralförråd för landstormsmäns beklädnad och utrustning, to equip the Swedish armed forces with suitable underwear. When paraffin supplies ran low she organize
