Frederica of Sweden (1781-1826) - Find a Grave Memorial

Former Queen of Sweden (divorced). She belonged to the Zähringen Dynasty and was the daughter of Hereditary Prince Carl Lewis of Baden and Princess Amelia Frederica, originally of Hesse-Darmstadt. She married King Gustav IV Adolph of Sweden in 1797, whom she bore five children. At first the young queen was full of teenage mischief and was known to use large silver trays as slide boards to zip down the big palace staircases. Above all, she was known as a remarkable beauty, though her health was frail and she suffered from increasingly severe rheumatism all her life. She was very happy to have a family visit in Sweden in 1801, but it took a markedly tragic turn when her father was killed in a coach crash in Arboga. Though the forceful Gustav Adolph was hard to get along with, for his much more sedate consort, the couple's marriage became much happier during their long trip to Baden and the continent in 1803-1805. In the fateful year of 1809 when her husband was ousted by his uncle Duke Carl of Sudermania, Frederica at first had a plan to be Regent of Sweden in her young son's name, but instead she shared the detention her dethroned husband was subjected to, and she and their children went into exile with him later that year. The following year her brother began to rule Baden, and in 1812 Gustav Adolph divorced her, unable to cope with family life as an ex-royal. In Switzerland, Frederica married her son's former tutor an Frenchman named de Polier-Vernland morganatically and settled in that country for good. Her surviving son was named Prince of Wasa by Emperor Francis I of Austria, and three of her children (one of the girls was deformed) married into German royalty. Several grandchildren had been born by the time Queen Frederica of Sweden (which she had continued to be called), passed away while traveling in Italy. She was remembered in Sweden for great charity.

Bio by: Count Demitz