Marie of Prussia (1825-1889)
Princess Marie of Prussia (born October 15, 1825 in Berlin ; † May 17, 1889 in Hohenschwangau Castle , full name Friederike Franziska Auguste Marie Hedwig ) became Queen of Bavaria through marriage to the later King Maximilian II Joseph .
Life
youth
Marie was born on October 15, 1825, the youngest of seven siblings in the Berlin City Palace . Her parents were Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (1783–1851) and his wife Marianne von Hessen-Homburg (1785–1846). She spent a few years with her parents in Cologne and Mainz. Her parents' summer residence was Fischbach Castle in the Hirschberger Valley in Lower Silesia .
Crown princess and queen
In December 1841, the thirty-year-old Crown Prince Maximilian (who became King of Bavaria as Maximilian II Joseph in 1848) decided to marry the sixteen-year-old Hohenzollern Princess Marie, “with sore free feet”. The engagement in Berlin, scheduled for January 1842, had to be postponed because the bride had measles. And before a wedding celebration could be thought of, there was another celebration, the confirmation of the bride. To her delight, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. , Her cousin, and Queen Elisabeth Ludovika also attended the ceremony in the village church in Fischbach, as well as her nephew, Marie's Catholic bridegroom Max. The solemn evangelical procurative wedding of the princess with the crown prince Maximilian of Bavaria took place on October 5th, 1842 in Berlin. At the bride's side was not her future husband, but Wilhelm Prince of Prussia as the representative of the Bavarian Crown Prince. While the marriage of Maximilian's aunt Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria with the later Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. In 1823 required four years of diplomatic negotiations because of the denomination, Marie was now allowed to keep her Protestant denomination without any problems. (Both queens only converted to the denomination of their respective husbands in later years.) The two previous queens of Bavaria had also been Protestant, so that was nothing special in Bavaria.
The Crown Princess's trip from Berlin to Munich was like a jubilee trip, the arrival in Munich in front of the Residenz was downright touching. The bride jumped out of the carriage, ran towards her bridegroom, and, contrary to court etiquette, hugged him. The Catholic wedding took place on October 12th, Maximilian's Day , in the Allerheiligen-Hofkirche . The fact that the Bavarian Crown Prince Maximilian gave his wife flowers and a brooch in the shape of a little angel for the birthday of their first child speaks for a warm relationship between the spouses.
In February 1843, Marie announced that she would have her first child, but three months later she miscarried. On August 25, 1845 - after more than twelve hours of birth - their first child Ludwig (later King Ludwig II of Bavaria) was born. Three years later, on April 27, 1848, two months early, she gave birth to her second son Otto .
The Crown Princess, who had been Queen of Bavaria since 1848, was an enthusiastic lover of the Bavarian mountains. The Hohenzollern Princess, who learned to love hiking in the Giant Mountains as a child , became Bavaria's first female mountaineer. The sons enjoyed being part of their mother's mountain tours. For example, they climbed the Säuling together . It took them three and a half hours to get from Hohenschwangau to the top of the mountain.
Marie was equally popular with the Protestant and Catholic population - partly due to the fact that she traveled or wandered through the whole country.
As queen, Marie provided many charitable tasks and patronage, as was expected of the monarch's wife, either at the side of her husband or on her own. Maximilian's ideas of an educated woman without a spirit of contradiction, however, could not be won by Marie.
Queen mother
On the night of March 9th to 10th, 1864, her husband Maximilian II Joseph suddenly died . Since her son Ludwig was unmarried, she remained the highest ranking lady in Bavaria as the queen mother. However, after the death of her husband, the Queen Mother appeared less often in public.
An expression of her great social commitment was the reactivation of the Bavarian women's association on December 18, 1869 by the Queen Mother - together with her son King Ludwig II - whose purpose was the "care and support of the warriors wounded and sick in the field". The Bavarian Red Cross was founded as a women's association. The Queen Mother took over the protectorate.
The relationship with Ludwig was difficult at times. As a native of Prussia, Marie had welcomed the establishment of the Empire in 1871, in contrast to Ludwig. She had already divided her aversion to Richard Wagner with her son. She also found his friendship with actress Lilla von Bulyovsky unsuitable.
On October 12, 1874, she converted to the Catholic denomination in the parish church of St. Maria and Florian in Schwangau . One reason was that spiritual advisors had persuaded her that her son Otto's poor health was a punishment from heaven for her “wrong” denomination. This step was disapproved of by their Prussian relatives, King Ludwig was also not very enthusiastic, while her younger son Otto was pleased about it in a letter. This letter also shows that in 1874 Otto was still sane, at least at times. Marie lived at Nymphenburg Palace and used the Hohenschwangau Palace and a country house in Elbigenalp in the Lech Valley as summer residences . She took more care of her son Otto, whose state of mind was deteriorating more and more. Marie only found out in full about the increasingly precarious financial situation of the king in the spring of 1886, whereupon she offered to sell valuable jewelry. Ludwig was touched, but refused.
A short time later, Marie had to see the death of her son King Ludwig II, who she disliked and largely avoided. However, Marie was deeply affected by the fate of her two sons and received a lot of sympathy from the public, which she also depressed. Nevertheless, her son Otto was the new King of Bavaria under the reign of her brother-in-law Luitpold .
Marie died in Hohenschwangau in 1889 and was buried in a side chapel of the Theatinerkirche opposite her husband, King Maximilian II. Her heart was buried separately and is located in the Chapel of Grace in Altötting .
Marie as a mountaineer
Crown Princess Marie had her own clothing made for mountaineering and became the first female mountaineer, but like her husband, she also promoted the local costume. She herself not only often climbed the Säuling near Hohenschwangau, but also climbed the 2713 meter high Watzmann in 1854 . Queen Marie's ambition to be the first woman to climb the Zugspitze and thus come close to the 3000 m limit was slowed down to her chagrin by a ban on her husband Max II, who found it “unseemly for a queen”. She initially stuck to it even after his death, but later climbed it as the eighth mountaineer.
progeny
From the marriage with King Maximilian II Joseph two sons emerged:
- Otto Friedrich Wilhelm Ludwig (1845–1886), as Ludwig II. King of Bavaria , 1867 engagement to Duchess Sophie in Bavaria (1847–1897)
- Otto Luitpold Wilhelm Adalbert Waldemar (1848–1916), as Otto I King of Bavaria
literature
- Martha Schad : Bavaria's queens (= Piper 4598). Reviewed paperback edition, new edition. Piper, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-492-24598-6 .
- Manfred Berger : Marie Friederike Franziska Hedwig. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 24, Bautz, Nordhausen 2005, ISBN 3-88309-247-9 , Sp. 1048-1054.
Web links
| predecessor | Office | Successor |
|---|---|---|
| Therese von Sachsen-Hildburghausen | Queen of Bavaria 1848–1864 |
Marie Therese of Austria-Este |
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Marie of Prussia |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Friederike Franziska Auguste Marie Hedwig of Prussia; Marie of Bavaria |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Queen of Bavaria |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 15, 1825 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Berlin |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 17, 1889 |
| Place of death | Castle Hohenschwangau |