Louise of Sweden (Swedish: Lovisa Josefina Eugenia; 31 October 1851 – 20 March 1926) was Queen of Denmark from 1906 until 1912 as the wife of King Frederick VIII.

Although her father made several attempts to have her recognized as his heir, she was barred from the succession as at the time only males could ascend the throne of Sweden.

She did not care for ceremonial duties and public events, and lived a discreet life dedicated to her children and her interests in art, literature and charity.

[2] She was the first child born to the then Crown Prince Charles of Sweden and Norway and his wife, Princess Louise of the Netherlands.

Its founder, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, one of Napoleon Bonaparte's generals, was elected crown prince of Sweden in 1810 and later succeeded the throne as King Charles XIV John in 1818.

[3] The following year Princess Louise's younger brother, the long-awaited heir to the throne, Prince Carl Oscar, Duke of Södermanland, was born.

The tragedy became even greater when it became clear that her mother, due to an injury she had sustained during Prince Carl Oscar's birth, was unable to have any more children.

[6] These attempts were in vain, however, because after 1858, there was no longer any crisis of succession; Louise's uncle Prince Oscar became the father of several sons, beginning with the birth of the eldest in 1858, and the existence of males in the Bernadotte dynasty rendered action unnecessary.

[6] The king could not secure support for a constitutional change which would disinherit his brother and nephews merely to satisfy his desire for his own progeny to ascend the throne; in any case, a daughter could make an advantageous marriage and become the queen of another realm, which is exactly what happened with Louise.

He was perhaps the only one to try to impose any discipline on her, and Louise is invariably described as a loved and spoiled only child, doted upon by her parents: she is said to have been like her mother in appearance, but like her father in behavior, and she is described as energetic, gregarious, masculine and rather unprepossessing.

Despite the period's widespread Scandinavism, an ideology that supported a close degree of cooperation among the Scandinavian countries, the relation between the royal houses of Sweden-Norway and Denmark was very tense at this time.

Upon the death of the childless King Frederick VII of Denmark in 1863, there had been support for having Charles XV or his brother Prince Oscar of Sweden placed on the Danish throne instead of Christian IX.

After 1864, Sweden-Norway and Denmark started to discuss plans to create a form of symbolic reconciliation between the two nations by arranging a marriage between Princess Louise and Crown Prince Frederick.

Charles XV was critical toward Christian IX, whose personal qualities he doubted, but he nevertheless wanted to see his daughter make an advantageous marriage and become the queen of Denmark.

However, Charles XV did not wish to force his beloved daughter into an arranged marriage, and therefore left the final decision entirely to her own taste.

[13] The young couple were married on 28 July 1869 in the chapel of the Royal Palace in Stockholm by the Archbishop of Uppsala Henrik Reuterdahl.

[13] Louise was the first Swedish princess to be married into the Danish royal house since Ingeborg Magnusdotter of Sweden in the Middle Ages.

As their country residence they received Charlottenlund Palace, located on the shores of Øresund Strait 10 kilometers north of Copenhagen.

Her personality and frank nature did not fit in with the Danish royal court, where her cheeky straightforwardness could provoke consternation.

On one occasion, when her mother-in-law saw her dressed in a Parisian evening gown and disapprovingly ordered her to change her hair style, Louise answered in the same informal way as she was used to in Sweden: “Take it easy, Pedersen!”.

[6] Crown Princess Louise told Swedish visitor Fritz von Dardel that her mother-in-law tried to place her in the shadows even in ceremonial situations when her presence was required: on one occasion, the Queen had turned down a request from Uppsala University students to sing for the Crown Princess.

She did not care for ceremonial duties and public events, and lived a discreet life dedicated to her children and her interests in art, literature and charity.