by Susan Flantzer © Unofficial Royalty 2019
Charlotte Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Hereditary Princess of Denmark; Credit – Wikipedia
The first wife of the future King Christian VIII of Denmark, Charlotte Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, was born December 4, 1784, in Ludwigslust Palace in Ludwigslust, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, now in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Germany. She was fifth of the six children and the youngest of the two daughters of Friedrich Franz I, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg.
Charlotte Frederica in 1791; Credit – Wikipedia
Charlotte Frederica had five siblings:
- Friedrich Ludwig (1778 – 1819), married (1) Elena Pavlovna of Russia, daughter of Paul I, Emperor of All Russia, had two children (2) Caroline Louise of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, had three children (3) Auguste of Hesse-Homburg, no children
- Louise Charlotte (1779 – 1801), married Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, had one child Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, the mother of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Queen Victoria’s husband
- Gustav Wilhelm (1781 – 1851), unmarried
- Karl (1782 – 1833), unmarried
- Adolf (1785 – 1821), unmarried
During a visit to the court of his maternal uncle Friedrich Franz I, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Prince Christian of Denmark (the future King Christian VIII), the eldest son of Hereditary Prince Frederik of Denmark and Sophia Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin fell in love with his first cousin Charlotte Frederica, who was two years younger. Christian and Charlotte Frederica were married at Ludwigslust Palace in Ludwigslust, Grand Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, now in the German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, on June 21, 1806.
Christian in 1813; Credit – Wikipedia
Christian and Charlotte Frederica had two sons:
- Christian Friedrich (born and died April 8, 1807)
- King Frederik VII of Denmark (1808 – 1863), married (1) Vilhelmine Marie of Denmark, daughter of King Frederik VI of Denmark, no children (2) Caroline Mariane of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, no children (3) Louise Rasmussen, Countess Danner, morganatic marriage, no children
Christian and Charlotte Frederica’s marriage soon became unhappy. Charlotte Frederica had an affair with her singing teacher Édouard Du Puy. In 1809, when Christian found out, Charlotte Frederica was sent into exile in Horsens, Denmark while Du Puy was banished from Denmark. The marriage officially ended with a divorce in 1810 and Charlotte Frederica never saw her son again.
While in Horsens and later in Aarhus, both in Denmark, Charlotte Frederica cultivated friendships with the local gentry and allegedly had affairs with army officers. In 1829, she was allowed to travel out of Denmark and moved to Carlsbad, a spa town, then in Bohemia, now in the Czech Republic. She made one last move in 1830 to Rome, Italy where she lived in the Palazzo Bernini on Rome’s main street and converted to Roman Catholicism.
Charlotte Frederica had been exiled when her son, now King Frederik VI of Denmark, was only one year old. She had hoped to once again see her son but she soon became ill. Charlotte Frederica died in Rome on July 13, 1840, at the age of 55. She was buried in a tomb paid for by her son and created by the Danish sculptor Jens Adolf Jerichau at the Teutonic Cemetery, a burial site adjacent to St. Peter’s Basilica in Vatican City that had been dedicated to the German-speaking residents of Rome.
On July 11, 2019, the tomb of Charlotte Frederica and the adjacent tomb of Princess Sophia of Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Bartenstein were opened to search for the remains of Emanuela Orlandi, a 15-year-old who disappeared in 1983. Not only was there no sign of Emanuela’s remains, but the remains of Princess Sophia and Duchess Charlotte Frederica were missing. Vatican officials said they would research the burial records to try to discover what happened to their remains. It is possible that their remains were moved due to renovations at the end of the 1800s and again in the 1960s and 1970s. For more information see Unofficial Royalty: The Strange Case of the Tombs of Two 19th Century Princesses and a 20th Century 15-Year-Old Missing Girl.
Tomb of Charlotte Frederica; Credit – By Altera levatur – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=59545772
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Works Cited
- Da.wikipedia.org. (2018). Charlotte Frederikke af Mecklenburg-Schwerin. [online] Available at: https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Frederikke_af_Mecklenburg-Schwerin [Accessed 17 Sep. 2018].
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- De.wikipedia.org. (2018). Charlotte Friederike zu Mecklenburg. [online] Available at: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Friederike_zu_Mecklenburg [Accessed 17 Sep. 2018].
- De.wikipedia.org. (2018). Christian VIII.. [online] Available at: https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_VIII. [Accessed 17 Sep. 2018].
- En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Duchess Charlotte Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duchess_Charlotte_Frederica_of_Mecklenburg-Schwerin [Accessed 17 Sep. 2018].
- En.wikipedia.org. (2018). Christian VIII of Denmark. [online] Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_VIII_of_Denmark [Accessed 17 Sep. 2018].