Emma to Waldeck and Pyrmont
Adelheid Emma Wilhelmina Theresia zu Waldeck and Pyrmont (born August 2, 1858 in the residential palace of Arolsen ; † March 20, 1934 in The Hague ) was Wilhelm III's second wife . Queen of the Netherlands and Grand Duchess of Luxembourg .
Emma, who came from a small German state, became the widow of King Wilhelm III in 1890. At the same time, their daughter Wilhelmia became queen. Since the daughter was only 10 years old, Emma took over the reign until she came of age in 1898. Emma is also known as the Queen's Widow and the Regent Emma in the Netherlands. Emma was not a queen for the purposes of the constitution, she was only the wife of a king.
Life
Emma was a daughter of Prince Georg Viktor zu Waldeck and Pyrmont and his first wife, Helene von Nassau . It thus came from the Waldeck family . In 1869 her older sister Sophie died of pulmonary tuberculosis; this death hit the young princess hard, and she later donated the Emma Fund to fight this disease.
On January 7, 1879 in Arolsen, when she was twenty, she became the second wife of Wilhelm III, 41 years her senior . , King of the Netherlands. To do this, she moved from the Lutheran Church to the Nederlandse Hervormde Kerk .
From this marriage Wilhelmina was born on August 31, 1880 . A major concern for Emma was the religious education of her daughter.
During the last days of the king's life (from November 14 to 23, 1890) Emma officiated as regent, on November 20 she was sworn in as regent. After Wilhelm's death, she took over the reign of her daughter Wilhelmina until she was eighteen in 1898 and could constitutionally ascend the throne. To this end, she was provided with a guardianship council (Raad van Voogdij) , against whose proposals Emma sometimes had to assert herself. Through her role model, she ensured that from then on Dutch was spoken at court and in the “better circles” . Previously, at court and in the upper class, the use of languages other than the national language was considered more elegant. The fact that this step was taken by someone for whom Dutch was itself a foreign language aroused a sensation and admiration among the population. Emma had started learning Dutch immediately after their engagement; the Dutch government had sent the philologist Laurens Reinhard Beynen (1811-1897), rector of the grammar school in The Hague, as their teacher to Arolsen.
On May 31, 1895, the regent of the Netherlands was appointed chief and thus the successor of Prince Friedrich of the Netherlands of the infantry regiment "Prince Friedrich of the Netherlands" (2nd Westphalian) No. 15 in Minden .
During her reign, Emma helped strengthen the constitutional monarchy . In 1918 she had herself portrayed by the painter Jan Veth . The many visits to the country and the well-staged presentation of her daughter Wilhelmina strengthened trust in the House of Orange . She took her widow's seat in the summer months in the Palais Soestdijk and in the winter months in the Paleis Lange Voorhout in The Hague. There, in the Paleis Lange Voorhout, she died on March 20, 1934.
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Family table
| Family tree Emma zu Waldeck and Pyrmont (1858–1934) | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Grandparents |
Georg II von Waldeck (1789–1845) |
Wilhelm I of Nassau (1792–1839) |
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| parents |
Georg Viktor von Waldeck-Pyrmont (1831–1893) |
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|
Emma zu Waldeck and Pyrmont (1858–1934) |
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| children |
Queen Wilhelmina (1880–1962) |
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| Grandchildren |
Queen Juliana (1909-2004) |
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literature
in order of appearance
- Coenraad Arnold Tamse: Emma (Adelheid Emma Wilhelmine Therese) (1858-1934) In: Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland , Volume 3, The Hague 1989 (Dutch)
- Uwe Schögl (Ed.): Oranien. 500 years of portraits of a dynasty from the portrait collection of the Austrian National Library, Vienna and the Dutch Royal Collection The Hague. (Exhibition from February 1 to March 19, 2002, Camineum of the Austrian National Library, Vienna). Austrian National Library et al., Vienna 2002, ISBN 3-01-000028-6 , pp. 115–116.
- Irène Diependaal: Emma. Hoedster van Wilhelmina's information . Hereditas Historiae. Amstelveen 2013, ISBN 978-94-9168305-3 .
Web links
- Newspaper article about Emma zu Waldeck and Pyrmont in the 20th century press kit of the ZBW - Leibniz Information Center for Economics .
Footnotes
- ↑ Wilhelmina : Lonely and yet not alone . Evangelisches Verlagswerk, Stuttgart 1961, p. 35.
- ↑ Wilhelmina: Lonely and yet not alone . Evangelisches Verlagswerk, Stuttgart 1961, pp. 34–35 and 47–48.
- ↑ Coenraad Arnold Tamse: Emma (Emma Adelheid Wilhelmine Therese) (1858-1934) . In: Biografisch Woordenboek van Nederland , Volume 3, The Hague 1989.
- ↑ Irène Diependaal: Emma. Hoedster van Wilhelmina's information . Hereditas Historiae. Amstelveen 2013, including a. a. the paragraphs on the debates on Emma's access to the archive and library and on Grootmeester Sebastiaan Mattheus Sigismund de Ranitz. This study is the most detailed account of the years of the reign from 1890 to 1898 so far, based on the sources u. a. in the Koninklijk Huisarchief and in the Thuringian Main State Archives .
- ↑ Wilhelmina: Lonely and yet not alone . Evangelisches Verlagswerk, Stuttgart 1961, p. 33.
- ^ Leidsch Dagblad , December 28, 1878, p. 1.
- ↑ Wilhelmina: Lonely and yet not alone . Evangelisches Verlagswerk, Stuttgart 1961, p. 39.
- ↑ Wilhelmina: Lonely and yet not alone . Evangelisches Verlagswerk, Stuttgart 1961, p. 223.
| predecessor | Office | successor |
|---|---|---|
| Sophie of Württemberg | Queen of the Netherlands 1879–1890 |
Heinrich of Mecklenburg (Prince Consort) |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Waldeck and Pyrmont, Emma too |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Waldeck and Pyrmont, Adelheid Emma Wilhelmina Theresia too |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | German-Dutch regent of the Netherlands and Luxembourg |
| DATE OF BIRTH | August 2, 1858 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Bad Arolsen |
| DATE OF DEATH | March 20, 1934 |
| Place of death | The hague |