From the end of World War II in 1945 until 2022, Marie Louise and her husband were the most recent common ancestors of all reigning hereditary monarchs in Europe.

Marie Louise was one of seventeen children born to Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel, by his wife and cousin, Princess Maria Amalia of Courland.

[4] William Charles Henry Friso's birth was met with great relief by the Frisians, and he automatically inherited the title Prince of Orange.

Although she did not have any experience, Marie Louise successfully withstood a series of natural disasters, which included a sequence of bad harvests and severe winters from 1712 to 1716.

[7][8] She also dealt with a major problem concerning shipworms – parasites that upon arriving on ships from the Far East, proceeded to devour wooden sections of the vital, protective dykes.

These damages threatened to collapse the entire dyke system, which would have destroyed vast amounts of land used for farming in the Dutch province of Friesland.

[6] The money needed to prevent such an occurrence from happening was hard to raise however; tax obligations to the Hague from this province were seldom realistically reviewed.

[6] After a 1736 visit, Marie Louise maintained a correspondence, in "abominable French," with religious and social reformer Count Nikolaus Ludwig of Zinzendorf and Pottendorf.

[6] Marie Louise's son William married Anne, Princess Royal, eldest daughter of George II of Great Britain, on 25 March 1734 at St James's Palace in London.

Upon return of the wedding party to the Netherlands, William had written his mother, warning her that Anne was allowed precedence over Marie Louise because she was his wife and a king's daughter.

This warning was hardly needed, as Marie Louise had eagerly exited Prinsenhof as soon as her son came of age, opting to live in an elegant but unpretentious house in Harlingen.