Marie of Prussia
This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (February 2014) |
Marie of Prussia | |
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![]() Queen Marie in middle age, 1860s | |
Queen consort of Bavaria | |
Tenure | 28 March 1848 – 10 March 1864 |
Born | Berlin City Palace, Prussia | 15 October 1825
Died | 17 May 1889 Hohenschwangau Castle, Bavaria | (aged 63)
Burial | |
Spouse | Maximilian II of Bavaria |
Issue | Ludwig II Otto I |
House | Hohenzollern (by birth) Wittelsbach (by marriage) |
Father | Prince Wilhelm of Prussia |
Mother | Princess Marie Anna of Hesse-Homburg |
Religion | Evangelical Christian Church, later Roman Catholicism |
Marie of Prussia (German: Marie Friederike Franziska Hedwig von Preußen; October 15, 1825 – May 17, 1889) was Queen of Bavaria and the mother of Kings Ludwig II and Otto of Bavaria.
Life
Born and raised in Berlin, she was the daughter of Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, a younger brother of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, and his wife Landgravine Marie Anna of Hesse-Homburg. The family spent half of the year at Fischbach (today Karpniki) Castle in Silesia, where they loved to hike in the Giant Mountains.
As a young woman, Marie was seriously considered as a wife for Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, until her engagement to Maximilian was announced.
Marriage
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b3/Stieler_-_Marie%2C_Kronprinzessin_von_Bayern_%28Sch%C3%B6nheitengalerie%29.jpg/220px-Stieler_-_Marie%2C_Kronprinzessin_von_Bayern_%28Sch%C3%B6nheitengalerie%29.jpg)
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/Marie_of_Prussia%2C_Queen_of_Bavaria.jpg/260px-Marie_of_Prussia%2C_Queen_of_Bavaria.jpg)
On 12 October 1842, she married the Crown Prince, and later King of Bavaria, Maximilian II.
Marie was loved equally by both the Protestants and Roman Catholic populations. (At that time, Prussia was mostly Evangelical, whilst Bavaria was mostly Roman Catholic.) A specific emphasis of her "great social engagement" was a reactivation of the Bavarian Women's Association, which took place on 18 December 1869 with the aid of her son, Ludwig II. Its aim was "Pflege und Unterstützung der im Felde verwundeten und erkrankten Krieger" (Care and support of soldiers wounded and injured in the field). The Bavarian Red Cross was officially founded as a result of the Bavarian Women's Association. The Red Cross eventually took over for the Queen.
With the sudden death of Maximilian II on 10 March 1864, Marie became a widow. On 12 October 1874, she converted to Roman Catholicism.
As a widow she lived at Nymphenburg Palace. She spent her summer holidays at Schloss Hohenschwangau near Füssen, a castle her husband had redecorated in Gothic revival style, and at her country estate in Elbigenalp in the Lechtal Alps. She enjoyed hiking the mountains, which she had often done with her sons when they were young. Marie looked after her second son Otto who was declared insane. She outlived her elder son, Ludwig II, by several years. He died on 13 June 1886. He had not liked her very much (just as he disliked most of his other relatives) and had tried to avoid contact as far as possible. Marie died in 1889 in Hohenschwangau.
She is interred in the Theatine Church in Munich in a side chapel opposite her husband.
Issue
- Ludwig II of Bavaria (25 August 1845 - 13 June 1886); succeeded as King of Bavaria as Ludwig II. Declared mentally incompetent without examination and deposed in a coup in favour of his uncle, Prince Luitpold, on 10 June 1886;died under disputed circumstances.
- Otto I of Bavaria (27 April 1848 - 11 October 1916); succeeded as King of Bavaria as Otto I, but reigned only in name due to the regency of his uncle, Prince Luitpold. Declared mentally incompetent and deposed on 5 November 1913 by his cousin Prince Ludwig, later King Ludwig III of Bavaria.
Honours
Kingdom of Bavaria : Sovereign of the Order of Saint Elizabeth
Kingdom of Prussia : Dame of the Order of Louise
Spain : Dame of the Order of Queen Maria Luisa[1]
Ancestry
References
This article was translated from the article on the German Wikipedia on December 21, 2005.
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- 1825 births
- 1889 deaths
- People from Berlin
- House of Hohenzollern
- House of Wittelsbach
- Bavarian queens consort
- Converts to Roman Catholicism from Calvinism
- German Roman Catholics
- Dames of the Order of Theresa
- Dames of the Order of Louise
- Burials at the Theatine Church, Munich
- Dames of the Order of Queen Maria Luisa