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Empress Frederick Biography

Empress Frederick: Victoria, Princess Royal, the eldest child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, was a German Empress and queen of Prussia after marriage. She was born on 21 November 1840 and was created Princess Royal in 1841.

Empress Frederick Biography

While her education was taken care of by her father in a highly political liberal attitude, she was engaged to Prince Fredrick of Prussia at the age of sixteen. Their eldest son became Wilhelm II of Germany who was later known as Kaiser Bill of World War I. Princess Royal had eight children.

Her daughter Sophie married a Greek Prince and became the Queen of Greece. Princess Victoria died on 5 August 1901, just eight months from the death of her mother, Queen Victoria.

Childhood and Early Life

Princess Victoria was born on 21 November 1840 at Buckingham Palace in London. As a daughter of the royal family, she was automatically a British Princess and she was honored by the title of Princess Royal on 19 January 1841. She was known as Vicky for her family.

Child Victoria was a quick learner and she learned French in eighteen months and by the age of four, she began to study German. By the age of six, her curriculum included arithmetic, geography, and history while her father taught her politics and philosophy.

Marriage and Married Life

Princess Royal and Prince Empress Frederick of Prussia got married on 25 January 1858. The Queen and Prince Albert hoped that their daughter’s marriage with the Prussian Prince would cement the ties between London and Berlin which would possibly lead to unifying Germany.

Prince Fredrick ascended the throne in 1888 after the death of his father and Victoria became the German Empress. However, Fredrick died later that year and she became Empress Fredrick.

Last Years

Once widowed Vicky had to leave the Neues Palais in Potsdam and after some time she builds a castle and named it Friedrichshof in the honor of her husband. After the completion of the castle in 1894, she spent most of her time in there with her daughters and left the castle only when she had to travel.

Princess Dowager harshly criticized her son’s policies and behavior especially when he declared that “the will of the king is the supreme law”. Vicky devoted her last years to painting and visited the artists’ colony of Kornberg. She used to walk in the morning and spent hours in the library of her castle writing letters and reading books.

In 1898, she was diagnosed with inoperable breast cancer which forced her to stay in bed for long hours. Her cancer spread to the spine by the autumn of 1900. The Empress Dowager Victoria died in Friedrichshof on 5 August 1901, seven months after the death of her mother, Queen Victoria.

Empress Frederick Death

She was buried next to her husband on 13 August 1901 in the Royal Mausoleum. Her tomb has a marble effigy of herself on the top. Her two sons who died in childhood were also buried in the same mausoleum.

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