page_title: Marie of Prussia
section_title: Marriage
hierarchical_section_title: Marie of Prussia / Life / Marriage
caption_attribution_description: later Queen of Bavaria
context_page_description: Marie of Prussia was Queen of Bavaria and the mother of Kings Ludwig II and Otto of Bavaria.
context_section_description: On 12 October 1842, she married the Crown Prince, and later King of Bavaria, Maximilian II.
  Marie was loved equally by both the Protestants and Roman Catholic populations. (At that time, Prussia was mostly Evangelical, whilst Bavaria was mostly Roman Catholic.) A specific emphasis of her "great social engagement" was a reactivation of the Bavarian Women's Association, which took place on 18 December 1869 with the aid of her son, Ludwig II. Its aim was "Pflege und Unterstützung der im Felde verwundeten und erkrankten Krieger" (Care and support of soldiers wounded and injured in the field). The Bavarian Red Cross was officially founded as a result of the Bavarian Women's Association. The Red Cross eventually took over for the Queen.
  With the sudden death of Maximilian II on 10 March 1864, Marie became a widow. On 12 October 1874, she converted to Roman Catholicism.
  As a widow she lived at Nymphenburg Palace. She spent her summer holidays at Schloss Hohenschwangau near Füssen, a castle her husband had redecorated in Gothic revival style, and at her country estate in Elbigenalp in the Lechtal Alps. She enjoyed hiking the mountains, which she had often done with her sons when they were young. Marie looked after her second son Otto who was declared insane. She outlived her elder son, Ludwig II, by several years. He died on 13 June 1886. He had not liked her very much (just as he disliked most of his other relatives) and had tried to avoid contact as far as possible. Marie died in 1889 in Hohenschwangau.
  She is interred in the Theatine Church in Munich in a side chapel opposite her husband.
caption: Marie of Prussia as Crown Princess of Bavaria, by Joseph Karl Stieler, 1843, Gallery of Beauties, Nymphenburg Palace
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