Princess Victoria Adelaide of Schleswig-Holstein with husband and son, 1906

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Princess Victoria Adelaide of Schleswig-Holstein with her husband and son by Eduard Uhlenhuth, 1906

Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and his wife Princess Victoria Adelaide of Schleswig-Holstein with their son Johann Leopold, Hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Princess Victoria Adelaide of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (German: Viktoria Adelheid Helene Luise Marie Friederike; 31 December 1885 – 3 October 1970) was the consort of Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and maternal grandmother of Carl XVI of Sweden.

Princess Victoria Adelaide was born on 31 December 1885 at Grünholz Manor, Schleswig-Holstein, Prussia as the eldest daughter of Frederick Ferdinand, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and his wife Princess Karoline Mathilde of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg.

On 11 October 1905, at Glücksburg Castle, Schleswig, she married Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Charles Edward was born HRH Prince Charles Edward, Duke of Albany and was the only son of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany by his wife Princess Helena of Waldeck and a grandson of Queen Victoria. Five years before the marriage, he had succeeded to the duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha upon the death of his uncle Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1900. Upon her marriage, Victoria Adelheid assumed the title of Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha. She and Charles Edward had five children.

In 1918, the Duke was forced to abdicate his ducal throne, following the end of World War I, forcing the family to become private citizens. After World War II, the couple fled to Austria (where Schloss Greinburg an der Donau had been a Saxe-Coburg property since 1822, and remains such) following the seizure of their properties in East Germany by the Soviet Union. However, the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography article on Prince Charles Edward states that he died in Coburg on 6 March 1954; no mention is made there of his wife. She died at Schloss Greinburg on 3 October 1970 and was buried beside her husband at Schloss Callenberg, Coburg, on 8 October of that year.

source: WikiCommons

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