Marriage To Her Cousin
Louise was married at the Amalienborg Palace in Copenhagen on 26 May 1842 to her second cousin Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg. He was soon selected as hereditary prince of Denmark and later ascended the throne of Denmark as King Christian IX). The marriage greatly strengthed Christian's efforts to secure the Danish throne, since it joined two competing claimants whose children would have an enhanced connection to the ancient bloodlines of the Danish monarchy.
Through his father, Christian was member of a junior male branch of the House of Oldenburg (he was a direct male-line descendant of Christian III of Denmark). He was also an agnatic descendant of Hedwig of Schauenburg (countess of Oldenburg), mother of the first King Christian I of Denmark, whose sons were the "Semi-Salic" heirs of her childless brother Count Adolf VIII of Holstein, who died in 1459, the last Schauenburg Duke of Schleswig and Count of Holstein. As such, Christian was eligible to succeed in the twin duchies of Schleswig-Holstein, but was not first in the line.
Christian was also a great-grandson of King Frederick V of Denmark, through his mother Louise Caroline, Duchess of Lyksborg, whose mother Luise (Landgravine of Hesse) was King Frederik's third daughter. Christian, orphaned young, grew up in the Danish royal household under the tutelage of his maternal aunt Queen Marie Sophie Frederikke, wife of Frederick VI of Denmark.
Read more about this topic: Louise Of Hesse-Kassel
Famous quotes containing the words marriage and/or cousin:
“Men commonly couple with their idea of marriage a slight degree at least of sensuality; but every lover, the world over, believes in its inconceivable purity.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I against my brother
I and my brother against our cousin
I, my brother and our cousin against the neighbors
All of us against the foreigner.”
—Bedouin Proverb. Quoted by Bruce Chatwin in “From the Notebooks,” ch. 30, The Songlines (1987)