Princess Royal

Louise Victoria Alexandra Dagmar was born at Marlborough House, London, on 20 February 1867 and was the third child and the eldest daughter of Edward VII and Alexandra of Denmark.

Louise was named after her maternal grandmother, Queen Louise of Denmark, and her paternal grandmother, Queen Victoria, as well as her mother, Alexandra, and her mother’s sister, Dagmar. At the time of her birth, Louise’s father was still Prince of Wales and she spent most of her childhood at Sandringham, in Norfolk, along with her siblings. Like her sisters, Maud and Victoria, Louise received a limited education.

Louise married Alexander Duff, 6th Earl Fife, on 27 July 1889 at Buckingham Palace. Two days after the wedding, Alexander was created 1st Duke of Fife and Marquess of Macduff with the peerage set to be inherited down the male line, however when it became obvious there would be no surviving male heir, a second dukedom of Fife was created which could be passed through the female line.

On 9 November 1905, Louise was declared Princess Royal by her father, now Edward VII, the fifth princess to hold this title. The King also elevated Louise’s two daughters, Alexandra and Maud, to princesses with the honorific of Highness which gave them precedence immediately after all members of the royal family bearing the style of Royal Highness.

In December 1911, the family were shipwrecked off the coast of Morocco and while they all survived, the duke became ill with pleurisy and died in Egypt in January 1912. Alexandra, the eldest daughter, became the 2nd Duchess of Fife and later married, Arthur of Connaught, son of Queen Victoria’s third son, Arthur.

Louise became seriously ill in the autumn of 1929 with a gastric haemorrhage and she died fifteen months later on 4 January 1931. Louise was initially buried in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle, but she was later removed to the Private Chapel, Mar Lodge, Braemar, Aberdeenshire.