Rather astoundingly, a second set of twins – Christoph and Richard – were born in May 1901, rounding out the family. Empress Frederick had planned on attending both births and missed them thanks to the early deliveries, but she was on hand for the third round when Margaret gave birth to twin boys – Philip and Wolfgang – on November 6, 1896. He was joined in the nursery just 11 months later by a brother, Maximilian, on October 20, 1894, also born prematurely.
Their son, Frederick William, was born a month premature on November 23. Margaret and Frederick Karl made their home at Schloss Rumpenheim near Frankfurt and quickly found themselves on the road to parenthood when Margaret became pregnant within three months of the wedding. The Kaiser, true to form, was none too amused. Nicholas of Russia had a grand old time at the affair, at one point spending an evening drinking too much with, let’s say, women well-versed in dance and missing Wilhelm’s birthday event the next day. Unable to join were the Prince and Princess of Wales, Margaret’s sister, Sophie, and the King and Queen of Denmark. From Britain came the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, Prince and Princess Christian of Schleswing-Holstein, Princess Victoria Helena of Schleswig-Holstein, the Duke of Cambridge, the Duke of Edinburgh and the same future Tsar Nicholas to whom Margaret almost married. Among the guests were Margaret’s sister, Victoria, and her brothers, Wilhelm and Henry, with the latter’s wife, Irene of Hesse (third daughter of Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse). The wedding went forward in January 1893 in Berlin. Wilhelm complained in a letter that he only signed off on it because Margaret was his youngest sister and therefore not very important. It was thus a solid if not splendid match, and one endorsed by Margaret’s family, though only wanly by her brother. His father, Landgrave Frederick William, had first been married to a Russian princess and was related to the Danish, Greek and British royal families through his mother. His mother, Anna, was herself a Prussian princess, granddaughter of Frederick William III (Margaret’s great-grandfather). Instead, that May Margaret received a proposal from Frederick Karl of Hesse, third son of the Landgrave of Hesse. The following spring, rumors sprung that she would marry instead the future Tsar Nicholas II, but Empress Frederick disliked the Romanovs and their treatment of Alexander of Hesse, a one-time suitor of her daughter, Victoria. Later in the year there was discussion of Margaret marrying her first cousin, Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence, but the matter was quietly put to bed despite the support of the Prince of Wales and Queen Victoria thanks to the Princess of Wales’s anti-German sentiment. An amateur artist herself, the Princess rejoiced in visits to Versailles and St Cloud, but given their recent politicization, she and her mother were sharply rebuked for their presence. It was falsely reported by French media that Sophie went out of her way to insult the French and Russians, had gone mostly to see Jewish exhibitions instead of French and that she declined to buy anything from the local shops. She accompanied her mother to Paris in February 1891, a trip arranged by her brother, Kaiser Wilhelm II, who was on poor terms with the French, but unfortunately mounting tension between the two nations forced a premature retreat. Margaret, in particular, was extremely close to her mother, a bond that only deepened after the death of her father, Emperor Frederick III, in 1888.
Following the death of her brother, Waldemar, in 1879 – and the death of a brother in 1866 who Margaret never knew – the siblings solidified into two sets of three, the elder of whom had poor relations with their parents, and the young of whom were deeply devoted to them. Her godparents included King Pedro II of Brazil and Crown Princess Margaret of Italy, for whom she was named. Margaret, known as “Mossy” to her family, was born in Potsdam on April 22, 1872, rounding out her parents’ eight children. Following up on earlier posts on Charlotte, Victoria and Sophie of Prussia, today we are going to look at the youngest of Empress Frederick’s daughters, Margaret.
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