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- BIOGRAPHY
Friedrich Wilhelm, Landgraf von Hessen-Kassel, was born on 26 November 1820 in Kassel, the son of Wilhelm, Landgraf von Hessen-Kassel, and Charlotte, princess of Denmark.
In the 1840s Friedrich Wilhelm, a Danish military officer, had been one (and perhaps the foremost) of the candidates of Christian VIII of Denmark to succeed to the Danish throne if the latter's male line died out, but in 1851 he renounced his rights to the throne in favour of his sister Luise.
Fritz, as he was called, went to St. Petersburg as a prospective husband of Grand Duchess Olga, daughter of Nicholas I, Emperor of Russia, and Charlotte, Prinzessin von Preussen. However on the first evening he spent with the Russian imperial family he fell in love with Olga's younger sister Alexandra. Olga graciously stepped aside in favour of her sister, and even chaperoned the couple when they wanted to spend time together away from the prying eyes of the court. The emperor and empress then gave their permission for Alexandra and Fritz to be married.
On 16 January 1844 in St.Petersburg, Friedrich Wilhelm and Alexandra married. However shortly before the wedding Alexandra became ill with tuberculosis, and this complicated the pregnancy which soon followed. She went into labour prematurely, three months before the child was due, and gave birth to a son, Wilhelm. The infant died shortly after he was born, and Alexandra died later the same day. Her parents were devastated and their grief would last until the end of their lives.
Nine years later, on 26 May 1853 in Charlottenburg, Friedrich Wilhelm married Alexandra's first cousin, Anna, Prinzessin von Preussen, daughter of Karl, Prinz von Preussen, and Marie, Prinzessin von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach, Herzogin von Sachsen. They became the parents of six children.
Friedrich Wilhelm had a largely Danish upbringing, having lived all his life in Denmark, but in 1875, when the senior branch of the House of Hessen-Kassel became extinct, he settled in northern Germany, where the House had substantial landholdings.
Friedrich Wilhelm died on 14 October 1884 in Frankfurt am Main; his widow died there on 12 June 1918.
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