Drottning Sophia

Sophia of Nassau (Sophia Wilhelmine Marianne Henriette; 9 July 1836 – 30 December 1913), also Sofia, was Queen of Sweden and Norway as the wife of King Oscar II.

In 1848, she witnessed a rebellion in the Duchy of Nassau, which was suppressed by her mother and brothers.

Following the death of his elder brother Gustaf in 1852, he had become the future heir to the Swedish throne because his brother, the reigning Crown Prince, was unable to have more children with his spouse.

It was therefore politically necessary for Oscar to marry.

She spent the winter of 1853-54 with her mother at the court of her maternal aunt in Saint Petersburg in Russia.

Her maternal aunt, Princess Charlotte of Württemberg, was married to Grand Duke Michael Pavlovich of Russia.

The trip was not made to arrange a marriage with a Russian prince because her mother did not wish her to convert, which would have been necessary, but rather, to have her study the life in a grand court.

During her stay in Russia, she was a student of the pianist Anton Rubinstein.

Sophia and her mother were forced to leave Russia at the outbreak of the Crimean war.

In 1855-56, Oscar was sent to visit various royal courts in Europe in order to find a suitable marriage partner in both rank and to his own taste.

He visited the British court but did not wish to marry Princess Mary of Cambridge, and the Belgian and Prussian princesses who had been suggested did not wish to marry him.

The marriage of Sophia and Oscar should not be regarded as an arranged marriage: Oscar had been given the freedom to choose a princess he liked from the many courts he visited, and Sophia, who had previously been proposed to, did not wish to be pressured into marriage.

Sophia and Oscar, however, fell in love with each other.

After the visit, Oscar returned to Sweden to ask for his parents' consent to marry, which was granted.

He then returned to Nassau, where the engagement was made in September and announced in October.

During the engagement, Sophia was educated in the Swedish language and history, and corresponded with her future spouse: soon, the correspondence was conducted in Swedish.

She also mastered Norwegian quickly.

After the death of her mother in 1856, Sophia lived with her half-sister, Princess Marie Wilhemine of Wied.

In July 1856, at her sister Marie's summer residence Monrepos castle outside Nassau, she received a visit from Prince Oscar of Sweden, Duke of Östergötland.

Oscar was the second living son of the reigning king.

Sophia and Oscar were married on 6 June 1857 at the Castle in Wiesbaden-Biebrich.

Sophia arrived in the city of Stockholm with Oscar on 19 June 1857, and was met by her Swedish Mistress of the Robes, countess Wilhelmina Bonde, and her maid of honor Augusta Jegerhjelm at the ship Travemünde.

There they were greeted with salutes, singing and crowds.

Sophia was received with great enthusiasm upon her arrival in Sweden.

Since the current Crown Princess Louise had become sterile after delivering her last child, and the elder brother of Oscar, Crown Prince Charles, had no son and his daughter was not accepted as heir to the throne under the present constitution, Sophia was seen as the solution of the succession problem and future Queen.

She was dressed in blue at her arrival, and was therefore nicknamed The Blue Duchess.

At the palace, she was first presented for the royal court, and then introduced to the royal family in the salon of the queen.

Upon meeting the king, who was by then described as almost deranged and placed under the regency of the crown prince, she rushed to him, curtsied and embraced him.

She was Queen of Sweden for 35 years, longer than anyone before her, and the longest-serving queen until 2011, when she was surpassed by Queen Silvia.

She is also the most recent woman to have been officially Dowager Queen of Sweden.

Sophia was the youngest daughter of Wilhelm, Duke of Nassau, by his second wife Princess Pauline Friederike Marie of Württemberg.

Her father died when she was three and was succeeded by her half-brother Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxembourg.

Sophia was given what was considered a suitable education for princesses at the time by private tutors.

She was trained in fencing, a sport normally reserved for males, to strengthen her back and correct her posture.

Sophia socialized with academics and artists, and the court of Nassau was considered more democratic than what was usual at most German courts.

She learned the English language early on and felt sympathy for the British parliamentarian system.

The language spoken in her childhood home was not German but English.

Sophia was given what has been referred to as an upbringing more similar to the middle-class Victorian life style, which she preferred rather than a royal one.

Her brothers used to refer to her as Unsere demokratische Schwester (our democratic sister).

She was described as serious, intelligent and dutiful, and interested in language and history: she was also genuinely religious.