Prince Wilhelm, Duke of Södermanland
Encyclopedia
Prince Wilhelm of Sweden and Norway, Carl Wilhelm Ludvig (Tullgarn Palace
Tullgarn Palace
Tullgarn Palace is a royal summer palace by Häggnäsviken bay in the Trosa archipelago, south of Stockholm, Sweden. Built in the 1720s, the palace offers a mixture of rococo, Gustavian and Victorian styles...
, 17 June 1884 - Stockholm
Stockholm
Stockholm is the capital and the largest city of Sweden and constitutes the most populated urban area in Scandinavia. Stockholm is the most populous city in Sweden, with a population of 851,155 in the municipality , 1.37 million in the urban area , and around 2.1 million in the metropolitan area...
, 5 June 1965), Duke of Södermanland
Södermanland
', sometimes referred to under its Latin form Sudermannia or Sudermania, is a historical province or landskap on the south eastern coast of Sweden. It borders Östergötland, Närke, Västmanland and Uppland. It is also bounded by lake Mälaren and the Baltic sea.In Swedish, the province name is...
, was the second son of King Gustav V of Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
and his Queen consort
Queen consort
A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king. A queen consort usually shares her husband's rank and holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles. Historically, queens consort do not share the king regnant's political and military powers. Most queens in history were queens consort...
Victoria of Baden
Victoria of Baden
Victoria of Baden was a Queen consort of Sweden by her marriage to King Gustaf V of Sweden. She was politically active in a conservative fashion during the development of democracy and known as a pro-German during the First World War.-Birth:Princess Viktoria was born on 7 August 1862 at the castle...
.
Biography
On 3 May 1908, in Tsarskoye SeloTsarskoye Selo
Tsarskoye Selo is the town containing a former Russian residence of the imperial family and visiting nobility, located south from the center of St. Petersburg. It is now part of the town of Pushkin and of the World Heritage Site Saint Petersburg and Related Groups of Monuments.-History:In...
Wilhelm married Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia
Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia (1890-1958)
Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, known as "Maria Pavlovna the Younger" was the daughter of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich and Alexandra Georgievna of Greece by marriage Princess of Sweden...
. She was a daughter of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia
Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia
Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia was the eighth child of Tsar Alexander II of Russia by his first wife Empress Maria Alexandrovna. His birth was commemorated by the naming of the city of Pavlodar in Kazakhstan...
and Princess Alexandra of Greece.
Wilhelm and Maria had only one son Prince Lennart, Duke of Småland
Småland
' is a historical province in southern Sweden.Småland borders Blekinge, Scania or Skåne, Halland, Västergötland, Östergötland and the island Öland in the Baltic Sea. The name Småland literally means Small Lands. . The latinized form Smolandia has been used in other languages...
and later Count Bernadotte af Wisborg
Bernadotte af Wisborg
The title Count of Wisborg is, since 1892, borne by the male-line descendants of four princes of Sweden who married morganatically without the consent of the King of Sweden and thereby lost the right of succession to the throne of Sweden for themselves, their children and their descendants...
(1909–2004). In his autobiography, Lennart tells of how his grandfather, the King, insisted that the servants call Maria by her correct style Your Imperial Highness, to some dismay of her husband, who was merely a Royal Highness. The marriage was unhappy. Maria later told people that her husband was a homosexual, though that is not known to be true. The couple divorced in 1914. Wilhelm had a relationship, which was not publicly known, with Jeanne de Tramcourt
Jeanne de Tramcourt
Jeanne Leocadie de Tramcourt was the French long term girlfriend of Prince Wilhelm of Sweden...
from that year until 1952.
In 1904 Prince Wilhelm was appointed a Knight of the Norwegian lion
Order of the Norwegian Lion
The Order of the Norwegian Lion was a Norwegian order of knighthood established by King Oscar II of Norway on 21 January 1904, "in memory of the glorious events associated with Norway’s venerable Coat of Arms"....
by King Oscar II. As Prins Wilhelm he was a noted photographer and the authour of several books.