Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen

Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen ("Feodora Victoria Auguste Marie Marianne") (19 May 1879 - 26 August 1945) was born at Potsdam, was the only child of Bernhard III, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen and his wife Charlotte of Prussia (the eldest daughter of Frederick III, German Emperor and Victoria, Princess Royal). She was also the first great-grandchild of Queen Victoria.

She was regularly neglected by her mother, Charlotte, and often looked after by her grandmother, Victoria, Princess Royal. When Charlotte was present, she often referred to her young daughter as "stupid"; something that greatly distressed Princess Victoria. She once wrote to her own mother, Queen Victoria, expressing her concern for Feodora's upbringing.

At Breslau on 26 September 1898 Feodora married Prince Heinrich XXX of Reuss-Köstritz (1864-1939) but had no children, a source of great distress for her. Feodora suffered from a lifetime of ill-health, believed to be porphyria inherited from her maternal ancestor George III of the United Kingdom after recent medical tests were carried out on her remains and those of her mother.

Feodora of Reuss spent her last years at the Sanatorium Buchwald-Hohenwiese, Hirschberg, Silesia. Tiring of years of illness and dubious treatment - and possibly also as a result of the Potsdam Conference ceding SW Silesia to Poland - she committed suicide aged 66 at on 26 August 1945).

Trivia

Being Queen Victoria's first great-grandchild, had Feodora borne a child after her marriage in 1898, it would have been Queen Victoria's first great-great-grandchild. Had such a child been born prior to Queen Victoria's death, there would have been five generations alive at once.

References

*cite book|last=Röhl|first=John C. G.|authorlink=John C. G. Röhl|coauthors=Warren, Martin; Hunt, David|title=Purple Secret: Genes, "Madness" and the Royal Houses of Europe|year=1998|publisher=Bantam Press|location=London|id=ISBN 0-593-04148-8