Princess Maud of Wales (Maud Charlotte Mary Victoria; 26 November 1869 – 20 November 1938) was
Queen of Norway as spouse of
King Haakon VII. She was a member of the
British Royal Family as the youngest daughter of
King Edward VII and
Alexandra of Denmark and granddaughter of
Queen Victoria and also of
Christian IX of Denmark. She was the younger sister of
George V. Queen Maud was the first queen consort of
Norway since 1380 who was not also queen consort of
Denmark or
Sweden.
Early life
(left) and
Victoria (right).]]
Princess Maud of Wales was born at
Marlborough House,
London as the daughter of
Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, the eldest son of
Queen Victoria and at that time heir apparent to the British throne. Her mother was
Princess Alexandra of Denmark.
Princess Maud was christened at Marlborough House by John Jackson, Bishop of London, on 24 December 1869. Her godparents were her paternal uncle The Prince Leopold (for whom The Duke of Cambridge stood proxy); Prince Frederick William of Hesse-Kassel (represented by Prince Francis of Teck); Count Gleichen; the Duchess of Nassau (for whom Princess Francis of Teck); the King of Sweden and Norway (who was represented by Baron Hochschild, the Swedish minister); the Princess of Leiningen (represented by Claudine Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde); her maternal aunt the Tsarevna of Russia (represented by the Baroness de Brunnow, the Russian ambassador's wife); the Crown Princess of Denmark (represented by Madame de Bülow, the Danish Minister's wife); and the Duchess of Inverness (widow of Queen Victoria's uncle the Duke of Sussex).
She was a high-spirited child, a quality that earned her the nickname Harry. Maud took part in almost all the annual visits to the Princess of Wales's family in Denmark and later accompanied her mother and her sisters on cruises to Norway and the Mediterranean. She, along with her sisters Princess Victoria and Princess Louise, received the Imperial Order of the Crown of India from Queen Victoria on 6 August 1887. Like her sisters, Princess Maud also held the First Class of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert and was a Dame Grand Cross of the Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem.
Marriage
On 22 July 1896, Princess Maud married her first cousin,
Prince Carl of Denmark, in the private chapel at
Buckingham Palace. Prince Carl was the second son of
Crown Prince Frederick of Denmark, Queen Alexandra's elder brother, and Princess
Louise of Sweden. The bride's father, the Prince of Wales, gave her
Appleton House on the
Sandringham Estate, as a country residence for her frequent visits to England. It was there that the couple's only child,
Prince Alexander, was born on 2 July 1903.
Prince Carl was an officer in the Danish navy and he and his family lived mainly in Denmark until 1905. In June of that year, the Norwegian parliament, Storting, dissolved Norway's ninety-one year-old union with Sweden and voted to offer the throne to Prince Carl. Following a plebiscite in November, Prince Carl accepted the Norwegian throne, taking the name of Haakon VII, while his young son took the name of Olav. King Haakon and Queen Maud were crowned at the Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim on 22 June 1906, the last coronation of a Scandinavian monarch.
Royal life
, and their son
Crown Prince Olav.]]
Queen Maud never lost her love of Britain, but she quickly adapted to her new country and duties as a
queen consort. She supported charitable causes, particularly those associated with children and animals, and gave encouragement to musicians and artists. She learned to
ski and arranged for an English garden at Kongsseteren, the Royal lodge overlooking the nation's capital
Oslo. Queen Maud's last public appearance in Britain was the coronation of her nephew,
King George VI, in May 1937. She sat in the royal box at
Westminster Abbey next to her sister-in-law
Queen Mary and her niece
Mary, Princess Royal.
Maud also acquired a reputation for dressing with fashionable chic. An exhibition of numerous items from her elegant wardrobe was held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2005.
Later life
Maud died of
heart failure in London on 20 November 1938, six days before her 69th birthday (and the thirteenth anniversary of her mother's death), three days after an operation. Her body was returned to Norway on board the
HMS Royal Oak, the flagship of Second Battle Squadron of the
Royal Navy's Home Fleet. Queen Maud was buried in the royal mausoleum at the
Akershus Castle in Oslo. At her death, Queen Maud was the last surviving child of King
Edward VII and
Queen Alexandra.
Titles, styles, honours and arms
Titles and styles
26 November 1869 – 22 July 1896: Her Royal Highness Princess Maud of Wales
22 July 1896 – 18 November 1905: Her Royal Highness Princess Carl of Denmark
18 November 1905 – 20 November 1938: Her Majesty The Queen of Norway
Honours
Grand Cross of the
Royal Norwegian Order of St. Olav
Royal Family Order of King Haakon VII
Companion of the
Imperial Order of the Crown of India
First Class of the
Royal Order of Victoria and Albert
Dame Grand Cross of the
Order of the Hospital of St. John of Jerusalem
Royal Family Order of King Edward VII
Royal Family Order of King George V
Arms
Upon her marriage, Maud was granted the use of a personal
coat of arms, being those of the kingdom, with an
inescutcheon of the shield of
Saxony, differenced with a label argent of five points, the outer pair and centre bearing hearts gules, the inner pair crosses gules. The inescutcheon was dropped by royal warrant in 1917.
Ancestors
Legacy
Queen Maud Land and
Queen Maud Mountains in
Antarctica, and
Queen Maud Secondary School in
Hong Kong are named after her.
Queen Maud Gulf in
Nunavut,
Canada, is also named after her.
Maud's great-granddaughter, Princess Märtha Louise, named her eldest daughter after the queen.
References
External links
Website of the Royal House of Norway: Queen Maud
Category:Companions of the Order of the Crown of India
Category:Dames Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order
Category:Dames Grand Cross of the Order of St John
Category:Deaths from myocardial infarction
Category:British princesses
Category:Women of the Victorian era
Category:People of the Edwardian era
Category:House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Category:Ladies of the Royal Order of Victoria and Albert
Category:Members of the Royal Red Cross
Category:Norwegian royal consorts
Category:Norwegian royalty
Category:People from Westminster
Category:1869 births
Category:1938 deaths
Category:Burials at Akershus Fortress
