Prince Wilhelm, Duke of Södermanland

Prince Wilhelm of Sweden and Norway, Carl Wilhelm Ludvig (Tullgarn Palace, 17 June 1884 - Stockholm, 5 June 1965), Duke of Södermanland, was the second son of King Gustav V of Sweden and his Queen consort Victoria of Baden.

Biography

On 3 May 1908, in Tsarskoye Selo Wilhelm married Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia. She was a daughter of Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia and Princess Alexandra of Greece.

Wilhelm and Maria had only one son Prince Lennart, Duke of Småland and later Count Bernadotte af Wisborg (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 from that year until 1952.

In 1904 Prince Wilhelm was appointed a Knight of the Norwegian lion by King Oscar II. As Prins Wilhelm he was a noted photographer and the authour of several books.^[1][2]

Ancestry

References

External links

From Paul Theroff's An Online Gotha:

• Royal House of Sweden and Royal House of Norway
• Imperial House of Russia

Literature