Hortensia
Queen Hortensia
Princess Hortensia Elizabeth Louise Anna von Lexington was the second child and only daughter of Augustus II and Elizabeth Monroe, and the sister of Crown Prince William and Prince John. She was born in 1805, in the Royal Palace in Columbia. Her birth and subsequent naming after Queen Hortense of Holland caused national outcry due to her name sake's connection to Napoleon.
In 1823, she was married to Prince Louis Bonaparte of the Kingdom of Holland in a political union. The marriage was estranged from the start, parallelling the relationship between Louis' parents. The relationship improved, but very slowly. Like her mother in America, Hortensia worked to improve the lives of her adopted subjects in Holland.
She shared her new family's intrigue into the ideas of Saint-Simon, and attempted to increase the stability of the working class. Her particular interest was in women's education, and founded a school for girls in 1836 that would develop into Queen's College for Girls in Amsterdam.
In 1847, she and her brother-in-law, Grand Duke Charles, were intrigued by the ideas of Karl Marx. They convinced the king to invite Marx to court to discuss ideas.
In 1880, she urged her son, Louis III, to side against Britain in support of the Orange Colonies in South Africa. This action directly led to the South African War.
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