Victoria plans match for grandson

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 November 22, 1889


Prince Ernst Ludwig, the Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, will "attain his majority" on November 25.  He will be traveling to England during the Winter to visit his grandmother, Queen Victoria,  at Osborne and Windsor and the Prince and Princess of Wales at Sandringham, reports the New York Times.

One British paper, Truth, states that "The Queen is anxious that Prince Ernst should marry one of his English cousins, and if he does so her Majesty will do everything in her power to facilitate the match, as far as pecuniary arrangements are concerned."

The marriage of the Hereditary Grand Duke is a "great object" to the Queen and her family as he is the only son of the Grand Duke of Hesse and By Rhine, who is said to be not in good health.  Ernst Ludwig's mother, Princess Alice, was Queen Victoria's third child.  She succumbed to diphtheria on December 14, 1878, a month after the death of her youngest daughter, four-year-old Princess Marie, who died from the same disease.

HRH Prince Ernst Ludwig Karl Albert Wilhelm of Hesse and by Rhine was born on November 25, 1868 at the New Palace in Darmstadt.