Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (Luise Auguste Wilhelmine Amalie; 10 March 1776 – 19 July 1810) was Queen of Prussia as the wife of King Frederick William III. The couple's happy, though short-lived, marriage produced nine children, including the future monarchs Frederick William IV of Prussia and William I, German Emperor.
Her father, Prince Charles of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, was field-marshal of the household brigade in Hanover. Her mother was a princess of Hesse-Darmstadt. In 1793 Louise met at Frankfort the crown prince of Prussia, afterwards King Frederick William III., who was so fascinated by her beauty, and by the nobleness of her character, that he asked her to become his wife. They were married on the 24 December. After the battle of Jena she went with her husband to Königsberg, and when the battles of Eylau and Friedland had placed Prussia absolutely at the mercy of France, she made a personal appeal to Napoleon at his headquarters in Tilsit, but without success. Early in 1808 she accompanied the king from Memel to Königsberg, whence, towards the end of the year, she visited St Petersburg, returning to Berlin on 23 December 1809. During the war Napoleon attempted to destroy the queen’s reputation, but the only effect of his charges in Prussia was to make her more deeply beloved. On 19 July 1810 she died in her husband’s arms, while visiting her father in Strelitz.
Her early death at the age of thirty-four "preserved her youth in the memory of posterity", and caused Napoleon to reportedly remark that the king "has lost his best minister". The Order of Louise was founded by her grieving husband four years later as a female counterpart to the Iron Cross. In 1880 a statue of Queen Louise was erected in the Tiergarten at Berlin. In the 1920s, conservative and nationalist German women founded the Queen Louise League.
Duchess Luise Auguste Wilhelmine Amalie of Mecklenburg-Strelitz ("Louise" in English) was born on 10 March 1776 in a one-storey villa, just outside the capital in Hanover. She was the fourth daughter and sixth child of Duke Charles of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and his wife Princess Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt. Her father Charles was a brother of Queen Charlotte and her mother Friederike was a granddaughter of Louis VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. Her maternal grandmother, Princess Maria Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, and her paternal first-cousin Princess Augusta Sophia of the United Kingdom served as sponsors at her baptism; her second given name came from Princess Augusta Sophia.
At the time of her birth, Louise's father was not yet the ruler of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (he would not succeed his brother as duke until 1794), and consequently she was not born in a court, but rather in a less formal home. Charles was field marshal of the household brigade in Hanover, and soon after Louise's birth he was made Governor-General of that territory by his brother-in-law George III, Elector of Hanover (husband of his sister, Queen Charlotte). The family subsequently moved to Leineschloss, the residence of Hanoverian kings, though during the summer they usually lived at Herrenhausen.
Louise was particularly close to her sister Frederica, who was two years younger, as well as with their only brother George. Louise and her siblings were under the care of their governess Fräulein von Wolzogen. The poet Johann Wolfgang von Goethe described Luise and Friederike of Mecklenburg-Strelitz as “heavenly visions, whose impression upon me will never be effaced”. When Louise was only six years old, her mother died in childbirth, leaving a permanent mark on the young duchess. She would often give away pocket change to other children who experienced similar losses, stating "she is like me, she has no mother". After Duchess Friederike's death, the family left Leineschloss for Herrenhausen, sometimes called a "miniature Versailles". Duke Charles remarried two years later to his first wife's younger sister Charlotte, producing a son, Charles. Louise and her aunt and new stepmother became close until Charlotte's early death the year after their marriage, also from childbirth complications. The twice widowed and grieving duke went to Darmstadt, where he gave the children into the care of his mother-in-law and Louise's grandmother, the widowed Princess Maria Louise.
Marie Louise preferred to raise her grandchildren simply, and they made their own clothes. A new governess from Switzerland, Madame Gelieux, was appointed, giving the children lessons in French; as was common for royal and aristocratic children of the time, Louise became fluent and literate in the language, while neglecting her own native German. She received religious instruction from a clergyman of the Lutheran Church. Complementary to her lessons was an emphasis on charitable acts, and Louise would often accompany her governess when visiting the houses of the poor and needy. Louise was encouraged to give out as much as was in her means, although she often got into trouble with her grandmother for donating too much for charity. From the age of ten until her marriage at 17, Louise spent most of her time in the presence of her grandmother and governess, both well-educated and refined. When only nine years old, Louise was present when the poet Friedrich Schiller read from the first act of "Don Carlos" for the entertainment of the assembled court, thus sparking her love for German as a literary language, especially works of Schiller. Louise loved history and poetry, and not only enjoyed reading Schiller, but also came to like the works of Goethe, Paul, Herder and Shakespeare, as well as ancient Greek tragedies.
Contemporary men and women described Louise as beautiful in face and noble in figure. She had large blue eyes that "glowed with feeling" and gave her "a peculiar charm." She had light hair with blonde locks and fair complexion with rosy cheeks. Her strong neck supported a face with high cheekbones, a narrow nose, a slight overbite and a barely noticeable double chin. She stood at 174 cm tall and had a shoe size of 41. A lady of her era commented that she always appeared "splendid" and "gentle" despite her large form and that no women matched her beauty even when compared "in single features."
A German magazine, based on a 2010 research of Louise's clothes, lists her proportions as follows: height 172–174 cm, shoulder height 140–143 cm, shoulder width 38 cm, underbust circumference 68–70 cm, bust circumference 76–80 cm, hand length 19.5 cm (glove size 8.5), shoe size 41.
Crown Princess of Prussia (1793–1797)
In 1793, Marie Louise took the two youngest duchesses with her to Frankfurt, where she paid her respects to her nephew King Frederick William II of Prussia. Louise's uncle, the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, hoped to strengthen ties between his house and Prussia. Consequently, on one evening carefully planned by the duke, seventeen-year-old Louise met the king's son and heir, Crown Prince Frederick William. The crown prince was twenty-three, serious-minded, and religious. She made such a charming impression on Frederick William that he immediately made his choice, desiring to marry her. Frederica caught the eye of his younger brother Prince Louis Charles, and the two families began planning a double betrothal, celebrating a month later, on 24 April 1793 in Darmstadt. Frederick and Louise were subsequently married on 24 December that same year, with Louis and Frederica marrying two days later.
In the events leading up to her marriage, Louise's arrival in Berlin, the Prussian capital, caused quite a sensation, and she was greeted with a grand reception by the city's joyful citizens. When she broke protocol and stopped to pick up and kiss a child, Prussian writer Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué remarked that "The arrival of the angelic Princess spreads over these days a noble splendor. All hearts go out to meet her, and her grace and goodness leaves no one unblessed." Another wrote "The more perfectly one becomes acquainted with the Princess the more one is captivated by the inner nobility, and the angelic goodness of her heart."