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- BIOGRAPHY
Daughter of Emich Carl, 2nd Fürst zu Leiningen, and Princess Viktoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Feodora was born 7 December 1807 in Amorbach. Her mother, when widowed, married as her second husband the Duke of Kent and their daughter, Victoria, was twelve years younger than Feodora, but there was always a close bond of affection between them, sometimes seeming to arouse Prince Albert's jealousy. She was devoted to her step-father the Duke of Kent and came to live at Kensington with him and her mother. Louise Lehzen was originally her governess, and, as with Princess Victoria, English was always spoken. Like her sister later, she found life at Kensington Palace very constrictive and was glad in 1828 to marry Ernst, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, a cousin of Queen Adelaide. The marriage proved very happy and there were six children, three sons and three daughters.
Princess Feodora was a most kind, affectionate and devout woman. Though she spent her married life in south Germany she always felt herself an Englishwoman and wrote to Queen Victoria of 'our beloved country, in which all my interests are centred'(27February 1853). She always enjoyed English company, transmitting this love of England to her children. Victor, her youngest son entered the Royal Navy and on marrying Admiral Seymour's daughter assumed the title Count Gleichen after a family estate in Coburg.
The Princess Royal wrote to her mother from Berlin, 'Aunt Feodora is my comfort, to her I can talk more unreservedly than to anyone' (1 March 1858). On the birth of the future Kaiser Wilhelm II, Princess Feodora congratulated the Queen writing, 'Oh, if only on all subjects the two nations would feel and act together' (5 February 1859). The Kaiser was later to marry Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, the daughter of Feodora's own daughter Adelaide, whom Napoleon III had originally sought in marriage.
Feodora died 23 September 1872 in Baden-Baden.
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