Princess Feodora of Leiningen

Full name: Anna Feodora Auguste Charlotte Wilhelmine

Born: 7th December 1807, Amorbach, Bavaria

Daughter of Emich Carl, Prince of Leiningen and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

Married: Ernst I, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, 1828

Died: 23rd September 1872, Baden-Baden

Many accounts of Queen Victoria imply she was an only child owing to her lonely childhood at Kensington Palace. Yet she had two half siblings from her Mother’s first marriage. Princess Feodora was twelve years old when Queen Victoria was born and her elder brother Prince Carl was fifteen. Due to this age gap, Feodora and Victoria were not close until their adulthood, but were very close in their later years.

Feodora was 6-years-old when her father, Prince Emich Carl of Leiningen died and as her mother, Victoria was still young, she was encouraged to remarry. In 1818 Victoria married Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn who was the fourth son of King George III of England. There was little expectation that Edward and Victoria would have the next heir to the throne so the couple, along with her children, lived in Germany to save on money. However, Victoria was soon pregnant so the family relocated to England for the birth. Feodora loved her little sister, but like young Victoria hated the confines of Kensington Palace.

As soon as she was able to, she married Prince Ernst of Hohenlohe-Langenburg at the Palace in 1828. Despite having only met twice before their wedding, the pair had a happy marriage and had seven children. Ernst was politically active and was a member of the Wurttemberg Assembly which meant the family spent time in Stuttgart. Their main residence was in Langenburg Castle, but she visited her mother and sister in England and was present at her sister’s coronation in 1837.

In 1861 Feodora and Victoria’s mother died. They were both devastated and after her funeral in Windsor, Feodora returned to Langenburg Castle but regularly wrote to her sister. In 1872, Feodora’s daughter, also called Feodora, contracted Scarlett Fever and died suddenly. Feodora died soon after. Queen Victoria was grief stricken by the death of her sister, writing in her journal ‘I stand so alone now, no near & dear one nearer my own age, or older, to whom I could look up to, left! All, all gone! How good & wise, beloved Feodore was, so devoted to me, so truly pious & religious. She is gone to that world she was so fit for & entered it, just sleeping away. What a blessed end! but what a loss to those who are left! She was my last near relative on an equality with me, the last link with my childhood & youth.”

Feodora is buried in the main cemetery in Baden-Baden.