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Princess Madeleine of Sweden has named her daughter after her Welsh born great aunt
While Ulrike Eleonora, queen
regnant and queen consort of the country in the 18th century, is
quite possibly the inspiration for the first name chosen by
Princess Madeleine and Chris O’Neill for their daughter, there is
no doubt about the origins of her second name. Europe’s littlest
princess, born on February 20th 2014 in New York, is paying tribute
to a Swansea girl who became a cornerstone of Sweden’s
monarchy.
And there is an added poignancy… The Welsh princess who introduced
the name Lilian to the Swedish royals missed the chance to have
children of her own because of her devotion to the family.
The woman who became Princess Lilian of Sweden, Duchess of
Halland in 1976 spent over thirty years waiting for her prince to
marry her and both she and her husband, Prince Bertil, put their
own happiness second to the security of the Swedish crown.
Lillian May Davies was born in Swansea in August 1915, the daughter
of a miner and a shop assistant. Aged just 16, in the
difficult economic climate of the early 1930s, Lillian headed to
London to make her fortune and worked as a model. To make
herself sound more glamourous she changed the spelling of her name
to the slightly more unusual Lilian.
In 1940, she married actor Ivan Craig, who left to serve in the
Army soon afterwards. By the time he returned to England at
the end of World War Two in 1945, both he and Lilian were in love
with other people. They divorced amicably, but while Ivan
soon married again, Lilian would have to wait over thirty years for
her second wedding.
Lilian Davies and Prince Bertil of Sweden in the early days of their relationship
Her future husband, Prince
Bertil, was the third son of the then Crown Prince of Sweden –
Gustaf Adolf. Bertil’s older brother, another Gustaf Adolf,
was expected to succeed to the throne in time but in 1945, he only
had daughters who weren’t allowed to take the crown. As well
as banning women from the succession, the royal rules at the time
also obliged princes to give up their dynastic rights if they
married a commoner. If Bertil and Lilian had married at the end of
the war, he would have been barred from the succession, and Sweden
would have had just one heir to the throne.
Bertil’s brother had a son in 1946, but was killed in a plane crash
in 1947. When Bertil’s father became king in 1950, his heir
was his three-year-old grandson, Carl Gustaf, and the only person
who could act as regent for that little boy – if anything were to
happen to the new monarch – was Bertil. Lilian’s wedding
plans were put permanently on hold.
For the next three decades, Lilian spent much of her time in the
south of France where she and Prince Bertil had a home. She
was a discreet figure, very much in the royal background. But
in 1973, the little boy for whom the couple had put their own lives
on hold – and now grown up – became King of Sweden. Bertil
and Lilian finally married in 1976 at the Drottingholm Palace with
the bride in blue. After thirty years in the background, the
girl from Swansea became a princess and full member of the royal
family.
In fact, Princess Lilian became a very popular member of the royals
and made regular appearances at major state events. Bertil
died in 1997, and in 2000, she wrote a book about her royal life.
She retired from public appearances in 2009, and was too ill
to attend the huge royal wedding of her great niece, Crown Princess
Victoria, in 2010. It was reported that she had Alzheimer’s
in the years before her death and her funeral was attended by Queen
Margrethe of Denmark as well as the whole Swedish royal family.
In the front row at that funeral, in March 2013, were Princess
Madeleine and Chris O’Neill. Less than a year later, they
have ensured that Lilian’s legacy lives on by naming Europe’s
newest royal in her honour. It just shows that years of
devotion really did turn Lilian Davies from Swansea into a truly
royal legend.
Photos swedennewyork via
photopin cc and Dagens Nyheter archive photo]]>
Wonderful to learn the history! Thank you! xo lulu