And yet there is no explanation why Willem III refused to sanction this match. I wonder if he just hoped for a 'higher prize' with a foreign princess.
It's a great pity since perhaps the Crown Prince's life would have been much different.
It is clearly thanks to her mother's influence that Queen Wilhelmina grew up so stable compared to her unhappy half-brothers.
Crown prince William (who should have become King William lV) was in his late thirties when he fell in love with Mathilde, countess of Limburg Stirum. I have seen a photograph of her and she was a pretty lady indeed. It was rumoured (so I read) that William lll had had an affair with the mother of Mathilde so that could be the reason why William lll harshly remained to disapprove the marriage. According to this rumour Willem would have married his own (half) sister. I will look afte the picture of Mathilde and post it when I can. Queen Victoria and Queen Sophie (mother of William) had an agreement for many years about the marriage of Willem to Alice. They were promised to each other and in his younger years Willem was quite handsome to see. When he was on his way to England to visit Queen Victoria and prince Albert, he travelled through Paris. Napoleon lll (a dearly beloved friend of Queen Sophie of the Netherlands) did not liked the idea of him (prince Willem) becoming engaged to an English princess (he did not want a too great British influence in Europe, that is the continent). He knew the high moral standards of prince Albert and Napoleon lll made advantage of this. He trapped the poor boy, not even a grown man. He had arrangements for woman company in Paris for Willem. Afterwards Willem travelled to London but by the time he arrived in London, Napoleon had taken care of that the news about the misstep of the young prince was spread to the English court. Albert and Victoria were even willing to get over this misstep, but things did not work out well since then. Afterwards there was a correspondence between QV and Queen Sophie about one of the other daughters of QV (Louise or Beatrice) being a bride for Willem. Queen Sophie however was highly impressed by Alice and was not very keen for her son to marry Louise nor Beatrice. Sad, because in the end of her life she was only just despearately hoping that her sons got married, even low ranked marriages she would have approved by then.
Later on there were negotiations with the Danish court for Thyra as a bride for Willem. The Danish kept the negotiations on for years until the Duch broke them of. Keeping negotiations on for years I think was a "polite" way to say no to the Dutch.
When Willem died only a few years later on, his surviving brother Alexander was still not married. By then the risk that the House of Orange would get extincted was great. So prince Henry (brother of King Willem lll) married again in his later years after being a widower for years. He married the very nice princess Marie of Prussia (sister to the duchess of Connaught and the grandduchess of Oldenburg). Only months afterwards prince Henry suddenly died. So prince Alexander, the last prince to "produce an heir" asked his uncle prince Frederick (the senior living male prince of the Netherlands (he was already nearly 80) to inform at the Hannovrian court if princess Friederike of Hannover was willing to marry him. She was not as it appeared and that was the final bridal issue for Alexander.
Only one marriage followed in the end of the nineteenth century and that was the marriage of William lll himself to Emma of Waldeck Pyrmont, and that was only after a he had a no of Dutch parliamant for his plans to marry a French actress.
He could have terrible bad temper. He used to say that it was his Russian blood that caused his furys. Anyway, Emma had a good influence on him and his daughter Queen Wilhelmina was very fond of him
