Princess Margaret of Connaught (Swedish: Margareta; Margaret Victoria Charlotte Augusta Norah; 15 January 1882 – 1 May 1920) was Crown Princess of Sweden as the first wife of the future King Gustaf VI Adolf. She died 30 years before her husband ascended the throne as King of Sweden, so she never became queen.
A granddaughter of Queen Victoria, she was the first of the three children born to Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, third son of the queen, and Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia. She and her future husband met while she and her family were travelling in Cairo; however, even though her younger sister, Patricia, was the one proposed for marriage to Gustaf Adolf, he and Margaret fell in love at first sight.
After they married in 1905, the couple spent their honeymoon in Ireland before arriving in Sweden. Their marriage was described as very happy and it produced five children. After Gustaf Adolf's grandfather, Oscar II, died little more than two years after Norway became independent from Sweden, Gustaf Adolf's father Gustaf V ascended the throne, and thus he and Margaret became Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden.
At some point in 1920, Margaret, pregnant with her sixth child, contracted measles, which developed into mastoiditis. After undergoing surgery to have it removed, she began suffering from pain under her eye, and was subjected to another surgery by doctors. Following the procedure, she contracted erysipelas, and by the next day, "blood poisoning" (sepsis), from which she died within hours. Her husband remarried, to Louise Mountbatten, three years after her death.
One of Margaret's children was Ingrid of Sweden, the mother of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and Queen Anne-Marie of Greece. Another of her children was Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten, father of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden.
Margaret was born on 15 January 1882 at Bagshot Park and baptised in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle on 11 March by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Her godparents were Queen Victoria (her paternal grandmother); the German Emperor (her maternal great-granduncle, who was represented by the German Ambassador, Count Münster); the German Crown Princess (her paternal aunt, who was represented by her sister, Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein); Prince and Princess Friedrich Karl of Prussia (her maternal grandparents, for whom her paternal uncle the Duke of Edinburgh and aunt Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom stood proxy); the Duchess of Cambridge (her paternal great-grandaunt, who was represented by her grandniece Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll); the Prince of Wales (her paternal uncle) and Prince Charles of Prussia (her great-grandfather, for whom her paternal uncle Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany stood proxy). She was known as "Daisy" to her family, a nickname later passed down to her granddaughter Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.
Margaret grew up as a member of the British royal family, taking part in family holidays and weddings. She was a bridesmaid along with her sister at the wedding of their paternal cousins the Duke and Duchess of York on 6 July 1893. Margaret was confirmed in March 1898, also in the Private Chapel of Windsor Castle.
When Margaret was 23 and her younger sister Princess Patricia of Connaught was 18, both girls were among the most beautiful and eligible princesses in Europe. Their uncle, Edward VII, wanted his nieces to marry a European king or crown prince. In January 1905, the Duke and Duchess of Connaught visited Portugal, where they were received by King Carlos and his wife, Amélie of Orléans, whose sons, Luís Filipe, Duke of Braganza, and Prince Manuel, entertained the young British princesses. The Portuguese expected one of the Connaught princesses would become the future Queen of Portugal.
The Connaughts continued their trip to Egypt and Sudan. In Cairo, they met Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden, the future Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden, grandson of the Swedish King Oscar II. Originally, Margaret's sister Patricia had been considered a suitable match for Gustaf Adolf; without his knowledge, a meeting was arranged with the two sisters. Gustaf Adolf and Margaret fell in love at first sight; he proposed at a dinner held by Lord Cromer at the British Consulate in Egypt and was accepted. Margaret's parents were very happy with the match.
Gustaf Adolf and Margaret married on 15 June 1905 in St. George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. Margaret's bridesmaids were her sister Princess Patricia of Connaught, cousins Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, and first cousin once removed Princess Mary of Wales. The couple spent their honeymoon at Adare Manor in County Limerick, Ireland, and arrived in Sweden on 8 July 1905.
One of Margaret's wedding presents was the Connaught tiara, which remains in the Swedish royal jewellery collection today. Newspaper articles reporting on the valuation of her mother's estate for Probate in 1917 note that Margaret received a £25,000 marriage settlement from her parents.
Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten, who predeceased his father
Sigvard Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg
Prince Bertil, Duke of Halland
Carl Johan Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg
Margaret was a dedicated mother to her children, and was determined to spend time with them. She was not keen on letting them be raised by nursery staff, as was the convention of the day.
When Gustaf Adolf's father, Crown Prince Gustaf, acceded to the throne as King Gustaf V in 1907, the couple became Crown Prince and Princess of Sweden.
The marriage between Margaret and Gustaf Adolf is described as a happy love match. Gustaf Adolf felt great pressure from the "Prussian" military discipline with which he had been raised by his mother, and he was greatly affected by and attracted to Margaret's differing English customs. The visiting Infanta Eulalia of Spain wrote that the Crown Princess gave the Swedish court "just a touch of the elegance of the Court of St James's" and of how much Margaret loved her life in Sweden.