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Louise Mountbatten Queen consort of Sweden Tenure 29 October 1950 – 7 March 1965 Spouse Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden Full name Louise Alexandra Marie Irene House House of Battenberg Father Prince Louis of Battenberg Mother Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine Born 13 July 1889(1889-07-13) Schloss Heiligenberg, Seeheim-Jugenheim, Hesse, Germany Died 7 March 1965 (aged 75) Saint Göran Hospital, Stockholm, Sweden

Louise Mountbatten (Louise Alexandra Marie Irene; 13 July 1889 – 7 March 1965) was Queen of Sweden as the second wife of King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden.

Biography

Louise was born Her Serene Highness Princess Louise of Battenberg at Heiligenberg Palace, Jugenheim, in the Grand Duchy of Hesse. Her father, Prince Louis of Battenberg, who was Admiral of the Fleet in the UK, renounced all his German titles in 1917, during World War I, and furthermore anglicized his family name ("Battenberg") to "Mountbatten". He was then created the first Marquess of Milford Haven in the peerage of the United Kingdom. His daughter then came to be known as "Lady Louise Mountbatten". Louise was a sister of Louis Mountbatten, 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma, an aunt of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and was also a niece of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia.

As a young woman, Louise claimed that she will never marry a king or a widower. Yet, on 3 November 1923, at age 34, Louise married Crown Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden at St. James's Palace (later King Gustaf VI Adolf), who was the widower of Princess Margaret of Connaught.^[1][2]

Queen Louise was quite an eccentric and had several pomeranian dogs which she would hide about her person when visiting abroad which caused problems when travelling through customs (which she usually did under the pseudonym "Countess of Gripsholm" or "Mrs Olsson"). There is a (probably apocryphal) story which says that Louise, after almost being hit by a bus, took to carrying a small card with the words, "I am the Queen of Sweden" printed on it, so that people would know who she was in case she was hit by a vehicle.^[3]

Queen Louise died on 7 March 1965 at St. Göran Hospital, in Stockholm, following an emergency surgery after a period of severe illness. She had made her last public appearance at the Nobel Prize Ceremony in December 1964. She is buried alongside her husband in the Royal Burial Ground at Haga, just outside central Stockholm.

Ancestry

Queen Louise was the second of the four children of Prince Louis of Battenberg, by his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, a granddaughter of Britain's Queen Victoria and an elder sister of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia. Both Queen Louise and her stepchildren were great-grandchildren of Queen Victoria.

Titles and styles

• Her Serene Highness Princess Louise of Battenberg (1889–1917)
• Miss Louise Mountbatten (1917)
• The Lady Louise Mountbatten (1917–1923)
• Her Royal Highness The Crown Princess of Sweden (1923–1950)
• Her Majesty The Queen of Sweden (1950–1965)

See also

• Lady Louise Windsor, born 2003, granddaughter of Queen Louise's nephew, The Duke of Edinburgh

References

1. ^ Aronson, Theo (1973). Grandmama of Europe: the crowned descendants of Queen Victoria, Part 352. Cassell.  
2. ^ Judd, Denis (1976). Eclipse of kings: European monarchies in the twentieth century. Macdonald and Jane's.  
3. ^ Pigott, Peter (2005). Royal Transport: An Inside Look at the History of Royal Travel. Dundurn Press Ltd. ISBN 1550025724.  

Louises's, Gustaf Adolf's and Margareta's grave on Karlsborg Island in Solna, Sweden

Books

• Fjellman, Margit: Drottning Louise - En biografi (Queen Louise - A Biography), Bonniers, 1965; 232 pages (Sweden)
• Fridh, Kjell: Gamle kungen Gustaf VI Adolf. En biografi (Old King Gustaf VI Adolf. A Biography). Wahlström & Widstrand (W&W), Stockholm, 1995; 368 pages (Sweden)
• Severin, Kid: Vår Drottning (Our Queen), Åhlén & Åkerlunds Förlags AB Stockholm, 1963; 64 pages (Sweden)
• Ulfsäter-Troell, Agnetha: Drottningar är också människor: Sex kvinnoöden på Stockholms slott, Förlaget Ulfsäter, 1996, 479 pages (kap. Drottning Louise / Chapt. Queen Louise). Also TV-programme: Drottning av Sverige (Queen of Sweden), history programme about the six Bernadotte queens consort, from Queen Desirée to Queen Louise (adapted from the book), produced by Agneta Ulfsäter-Troell and Marianne Söderberg for Swedish Television SVT, 1996–97 (Sweden)

Photographs

• Small private portrait, 1920s
• As Crownprincess, official Swedish portrait, 1920s
• Portrait 1930s
• Battenberg family portrait, ~1900s-1910s; Young Princess Louise standing
• Louise as Red Cross nurse in France during WW2, ca 1917
• As Queen, official portrait, 1950s
• With husband, then Crownprince Gustaf Adolf, arriving in New York, USA, 1926
• Pamela Mountbatten, Patricia Mountbatten, Lord Louis Mountbatten & Queen Louise
• Wedding photograph, 1923
• The Bernadotte Royal Family, ca 1937; Louise at right
• Queen Louise in late 1950s/early 1960s
• Queen Louise with her brother Louis Mountbatten; November 1960
• Chatting away with Lady Churchill at the Nobel Prize Banquet in Stockholm, 1953
• Queen Louise shopping in Sweden in 1958; and here buying and giving a wooden toy policeman to a newborn baby girl
• Queen Louise with King Haakon VII of Norway celebrating King Gustav V's 80th birthday in Sweden; ca 1938
• The King and Queen of Sweden at the Nobel Prize Ceremony in Stockholm, 1961
• Queen Louise's funeral; the horse drawn casket with the Swedish and UK flag

External links

• Princely House of Battenberg
• Royal House of Sweden and Royal House of Norway
• The Swedish Royal Court (official site)
• The Mountbatten Family