Post
by Susan » Wed December 14th, 2011, 2:46 am
December 14 in royal history:
December 14, 1542 - Death of James V of Scotland at Falkland Palace, Fife; buried at Holyrood Abbey, Edinburgh; his six day old daughter Mary becomes Queen of Scots
December 14, 1784 Birth of Maria Antonia of Naples and Sicily, first wife of Ferdinand VII of Spain, at the Caserta Palace, Caserta, Italy
December 14, 1787 Birth of Maria Ludovika of Austria-Este, third wife of Francis I of Austria
December 14, 1788 - Death of Carlos III of Spain at the Royal Alcazar of Madrid; buried at the Royal Seat of San Lorenzo de El Escorial
December 14, 1861 - Death of Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, at Windsor Castle; buried at the Royal Mausoleum, Frogmore, Windsor
December 14, 1873 Death of Elisabeth Ludovika of Bavaria, wife of Frederick William IV of Prussia, in Dresden; buried at Friedenskirche in Potsdam
December 14, 1878 - Death of Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, wife of Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse and by Rhine, daughter of Queen Victoria, at Neues Palais, Darmstadt, Germany; buried at the Mausoleum of Rosenhöhe, Hessen-Darmstadt
Alice died of diphtheria on the same date her father had died 17 years earlier. Alice's youngest daughter May had died of diphtheria a few weeks earlier. Alice's death left her children Victoria (aged 15, Prince Philip's grandmother), Ella (aged 14, married Grand Duke Serge of Russia and died in a mine shaft in Siberia at the hands of the Bolsheviks), Irene (aged 12, married a son of her aunt Victoria, Princess Royal, Empress of Germany and brought hemophilia into the German royal family), Ernest (aged 10, succeeded his father) and Alix (aged 6, married Tsar Nicholas II, brought hemophilia into the Russian royal family and was killed with her family by the Bolsheviks) motherless. Queen Victoria played a major role in the upbringing of these grandchildren.
December 14, 1895 - Birth of George VI at York Cottage, Sandringham, Norfolk
Prince Albert Frederick Arthur George was born on the anniversary of the death in 1861 of his great grandfather Prince Albert and of his great aunt Princess Alice in 1878. Queen Victoria received the news with mixed feelings. Her son, the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) wrote to his son, the new baby's father: "Grandmama was rather distressed that this happy event should have taken place on a darkly sad anniversary for us, but I think - as well as most of us in the family here - that it will break the spell of this unlucky date."
December 14, 1901 Birth of Paul I of Greece in Athens
