Princess Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg
| Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg | |
|---|---|
| Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein | |
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| Tenure | 11 March 1869 – 14 January 1880 |
| Born | 20 July 1835 |
| Died | 25 January 1900 (aged 64) Dresden |
| Spouse | Frederick VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein |
| Issue | Friedrich, Prince of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg Augusta Victoria, German Empress and Queen of Prussia Karoline Mathilde, Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg Gerhard , Prince of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg Ernst Gunther, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein Louise, Princess Friedrich Leopold of Prussia Feodora Adelheid, Princess of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg |
| House | Hohenlohe-Langenburg |
| Father | Ernst I, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg |
| Mother | Princess Feodora of Leiningen |
Princess Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (July 20, 1835 – January 25, 1900) was Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein, a niece of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, and the mother-in-law of Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany. She is an ancestor of Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Felipe VI of Spain.
Adelheid was born the second daughter of Ernst I, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg by his wife Princess Feodora of Leiningen, who was the older, maternal half-sister of the British Queen Victoria.
In 1852, not long after Napoléon III became Emperor of France, he made a proposal of marriage to Adelheid's parents after he had been rebuffed by Princess Carola of Sweden. Although he had never met her, the political advantages of the marriage for the Emperor were obvious. It would provide dynastic respectability for the Bonaparte line, and could promote a closer alliance between France and Britain, because Adelheid was Queen Victoria's niece. At the same time, she was not officially a member of the British royal family, so the risk of refusal was small. Adelheid could be expected to be grateful enough for her good fortune to convert to Roman Catholicism.
As it turned out, the proposal horrified Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, who preferred not to confer such hasty legitimacy upon France's latest "revolutionary" regime — the durability of which was deemed dubious — nor to yield up a young kinswoman for the purpose. The British court maintained a strict silence toward the Hohenlohes during the marriage negotiations, lest the Queen seem either eager for or repulsed by the prospect of Napoléon as a nephew-in-law.
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