The Prussian Marriage 1858

Joanna Richardson describes how Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter, Vicky, married an amiable future German Emperor.

On January 25th, 1858, Queen Victoria in her Journal:

‘The 2nd most eventful day in my life... I felt almost as if it were that I was being married again, only more nervous.’

This most eventful day was the day on which her eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, was married to Prince Frederick William confided of Prussia.

From more than one point of view, the marriage was eminently suitable. Vicky and Fritz - as they were called in the family circle had first met in 1851, when the Prince had come to England with his parents for the opening of the Great Exhibition.

He was an uncommonly handsome young man of twenty-two, and the Princess was a remarkably intelligent child of ten. Prince Fritz had spent several days with the Royal Family at Osborne, and even then it was understood that they would eventually marry.

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