Louise, Princess Royal

Princess Louise was born at Marlborough House, the London residence of her parents, the Prince and Princess of Wales. She spent much of her childhood at Sandringham House in Norfolk. Like her sisters, Princess Victoria and Princess Maud, she received limited formal education. She was baptised at Marlborough House on 10 May 1867 by Charles Longley, Archbishop of Canterbury.[2]

Louise and her sisters, Maud and Victoria, were bridesmaids at the wedding of their paternal aunt Princess Beatrice to Prince Henry of Battenberg in 1885.[3]

Louise with her daughters, Maud and Alexandra, ca. 1911.

On Saturday 27 July 1889, Princess Louise married Alexander Duff, 6th Earl Fife, at the Private Chapel in Buckingham Palace.[4] Two days after the wedding, Queen Victoria created him Duke of Fife and Marquess of Macduff in the Peerage of the United Kingdom. The letters patent creating this dukedom contained the standard remainder to heirs male of the body lawfully begotten. After the birth of their two daughters, on 24 April 1900, Queen Victoria signed letters patent creating a second Dukedom of Fife, along with the Earldom of Macduff in the Peerage of the United Kingdom with a special remainder: in default of a male heir, these peerages would pass to the daughters of the 1st Duke, and then to their male descendants.

The Duke and Duchess of Fife had three children:

• Alastair Duff, Marquess of Macduff (stillborn 16 June 1890)
• Princess Alexandra, 2nd Duchess of Fife (17 May 1891 – 26 February 1959); married her first cousin once removed Prince Arthur of Connaught (13 January 1883 – 12 September 1938), and had issue.
• Princess Maud of Fife (3 April 1893 – 14 December 1945); married Charles Carnegie, 11th Earl of Southesk, and had issue.

On 9 November 1905, King Edward VII created Princess Louise the Princess Royal, the highest honour bestowed on a female member of the royal family. At the same time, the King declared that the two daughters of the Princess Royal would be styled as princesses, with precedence immediately after all members of the royal family bearing the style of "Royal Highness".

In December 1911, while sailing to Egypt, the Princess Royal and her family were shipwrecked off the coast of Morocco. Although they escaped unharmed, the Duke of Fife fell ill with pleurisy, probably contracted as a result of the shipwreck. He died at Assuan, Egypt, in January 1912, and Princess Alexandra succeeded to his dukedom, becoming Duchess of Fife in her own right. Princess Alexandra later married Prince Arthur of Connaught, a first cousin of Princess Louise.

Braemar, Mar Lodge Estate, St Ninian's Chapel - Grave of Princess Louise, Princess Royal (1867–1931).

Princess Louise of Wales received the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert in 1885 and the Imperial Order of the Crown of India in 1887. She became a Lady of the Venerable Order of St John of Jerusalem (LJStJ) in 1888 and a Dame Grand Cross (GCStJ) of that order in 1929. She became colonel-in-chief of the 7th Dragoon Guards (the Princess Royal's Own) in 1914. She later served as colonel-in-chief of the 4th and 7th Dragoon Guards when it was formed in 1921.

In the autumn of 1929 at Mar Lodge she was taken ill with gastric hemorrhage and was brought back to London. The Princess Royal died fifteen months later in January 1931, at her home in Portman Square, London, at the age of 63 and was buried in St. George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. Her remains were later removed to the Private Chapel, Mar Lodge, Braemar, Aberdeenshire.