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'Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte' () (born March 22, 1759, dead June 20, 1818), was the Queen-Consort of Charles XIII of Sweden and also a famed diarist, memoir-writer and wit.
Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte was daughter of duke Frederick August of Holstein-Gottorp, bishop of Lübeck and duke of Oldenburg and Ulrica Frederika of Hesse-Kassel, grew up in Eutin and married her cousin, the future king, Charles, duke of Södermanland, in 1774 when she was fifteen years old. The marriage was arranged by King Gustav III.
The wedding was celebrated very luxuriously (she arrived in Stockholm by gondola). She was noted for her beauty - her waist measured a mere 48 cm (19") and her shoe size 31 (girls' size 13) - and, as the marriage of the king had not been consummated after nine years, there were hopes that she would provide an heir for the throne. However, although her husband did like the way she looked, he never showed much interest in her.

Contents

Royal Duchess and socialite

Queen

Children

Styles

External link

Reference

Royal Duchess and socialite

She became an important member of the vivacious court of Gustav III, where she was called "little duchess" and was noticed for her beauty and vividness and a centre of social life with her wittiness and ease with words. With these qualities she fulfilled the ideal of the aristocratic society of the time, and she is actually much more noted in history for her role in the court of Gustav III, than she is for her period as a Queen. In contrast to the shy queen, Sophia Magdalena of Denmark, "Duchess Lotta" was lively, witty and flirtatious and was as such an example on the personality that was fashionable of an ideal woman of her time, and was in many ways the female center of the court. With her cheerful and charming personality, she was described as someone who could ease things up when people got depressed, and she was also the confidante of many. She was, however, no more then her sister-in-law the queen accepted by the dowager queen Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, who considered the queen cold an shy and Duchess Lotta wrong in the opposite direction. She was good friends with Princess Sofia Albertina.
Her marriage was an aristocratic marriage of the time, and both she and her husband had numerous extramarital affairs; among her lovers were Count Axel von Fersen, future lover of queen Marie Antoinette of France; according to the gossip, she was also bisexual, but there are no reliable records of her eventual female lovers. She did have a son, but he died very early. In 1792, her husband was appointed regent, but the actual power was in the hands of his favorite, Count Gustaf Adolf Reuterholm, whom she mentions in her memoirs with great dislike and irony; although more interested in politics in these years, she had no influence on her husband.
Neither she not her husband was at very good terms with king Gustav IV Adolf, especially after an intrigue in 1803, when they were both humiliated by him.

Queen

In 1809, she became queen; her husband's declining mental state (he was showing signs of early senility) did not mean political power for her because of the new constitution of 1809, and the election of Jean Bernadotte to Crown Prince did not have her approval; she belonged to the "Gustavian party", which wished for the return of Gustav IV Adolf or his son to power, and she received the newly elected heir and her formal adoptive-son, the only four years younger Charles XIV John with coldness in 1810, but soon became won over by his personal charm. She did, however, receive his wife Desiree Clary with such coldness that she is often blamed for the fact that Desiree left the country again soon after her arrival. Her fondness for Desiree's husband, on the other hand, grew, especially after the conquest of Norway in 1814, when she became queen of Norway. She was active in politics in smaller ways, though she could not attain it in greater scales; in 1809, she gave her protection to the first university for the blind and deaf in Sweden after hearing the performance of the blind musician Charlotta Seuerling, and she restored the theatre security after the theatre-hostile politics during her husbands predecessor. She was quite popular as a queen, more so than her predecessor and her successor.
She died soon after her husband in 1818; during a dinner with her adoptive-son the king, she had a severe fit of pain in her stomach and fainted, and died very quickly.
Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte is most known for her famous diary, which is an historical source that describes the Swedish court between 1775 and 1817; they were published in nine parts from 1902. They are written in French and initially, (until 1800) directed as letters to her close friend, Countess Sophie Piper, sister of Axel von Fersen.

Children

★ Louisa Hedvig, 1797.

★ Carl Adolf, Duke of Värmland, 1798.

Styles

★ 1774-1809: Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Södermanland (commonly "Little Duchess" and later "Duchess Lotta")

★ 1809-1818: HM Queen Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte of Sweden (commonly "Queen Charlotta")

★ 1814-1818: HM Queen Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte of Norway, (the first queen of Sweden and Norway since the middle ages.)

External link

★ Historiska personer - An image of how she looked during her grand days as a duchess

★ Historiska personer - Short biography in Swedish

Reference

★ Herman Lindqvist, ''History of the Queens of Sweden'', ().