Victoria – future queen of Sweden

Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria is unique. Not only because she just married a commoner. On June 19th 2010, the wedding took place between the future Queen Victoria I and Daniel Westling from Ockelbo. This year, the Bernadotte family have been on the throne for 200 years. There is no other dynasty in the world where a branch of the same family has occupied the throne for such a long time without interruption, and where the monarch has never had to see his country at war.

But Victoria was already unique when she was born, as the first princess in 411 years born to a queen who was herself a commoner. Nothing like this had happened since Erik XIV’s queen, Karin Månsdotter, gave birth to Princess Sigrid. She also differs from all our previous heirs to the throne in that she was not born a Crown Princess, but was awarded that title when she was two and a half years old, after the Swedish Parliament made its decision on equal primogeniture in the Act of Succession. This means that the oldest child succeeds to the throne, regardless of whether it is male or female.

No Swedish Crown Prince has had such a consciously tailor-made upbringing with his future role in mind as Crown Princess Victoria, and nor has any of them approached this role with such interest, energy and enthusiasm.

In Victoria, Queen in Waiting, Victoria’s history teacher Herman Lindqvist talks personally and expertly about our heir to the throne, and places her in an historical context. The book is based on a series of conversations Herman Lindqvist had with the princess during June 2009, and is therefore her own story to a great extent. It is richly illustrated with over a hundred colour photographs from the princess’s life, the majority taken by Charles Hammarsten, who has followed the princess ever since she was born.