Marriage
Princess Margaret was first attracted to Prince Maximilian of Baden. When he did not reciprocate her affection, she moved on to her second choice, Max's close friend, Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse, future head of the Hesse-Kassel dynasty and future elected King of Finland. They were married on 25 January 1893 at the Hohenzollern Stadtschloss in Berlin on the anniversary of her parents' wedding.
At the time of the wedding, Prince Frederick Charles was not the Head of the House of Hesse-Kassel. The position was held by his older and virtually blind brother Landgrave Alexander Friederich, who relinquished it in the mid-1920s in order to enter an unequal marriage. Prince Frederick Charles, as was his title when he married, was addressed as His Highness, while Princess Margaret warranted Royal Highness. This disparity came to an end in 1925 when Frederick Charles became Landgrave of Hesse and Head of the house of Hesse-Kassel.
They were third cousins, both great-great-grandchildren of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, he through his mother Anna, she through her father Friedrich. The marriage was very happy. Princess Margaret had a strong personality; she would always seem more secure and grounded than her husband. The couple's main residence during the early years of marriage was Schloss Rumpenheim. In 1901, Princess Margaret inherited Schloss Friedrichshof at the death of her mother. It was highly unconventional for a husband to reside in his wife's home. However, Margaret was committed to maintain the house of her mother which entailed a great expense and the family moved to Friedrichshof.
In 1918, Margaret's husband accepted the offer of the throne of newly-independent Finland, but due to German misfortunes in World War I, soon renounced it. She would have become the Queen of Finland. Her predecessor as Grand Princess-consort of Finland was her first cousin, Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia.
Read more about this topic: Princess Margaret Of Prussia
Famous quotes containing the word marriage:
“And what if my descendants lose the flower
Through natural declension of the soul,
Through too much business with the passing hour,
Through too much play, or marriage with a fool?”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“With my desire to write he seemed in full sympathy, and in urging our early marriage he argued that my first necessity was leisure in which to develop and to master my craft. It appeared to me that with such a man as teacher and guide I could not fail, and it was in a queer mixture of young love and vaulting ambition that I became a wife.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)