Louise of Great Britain and Ireland, daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, became the first British princess since Mary Tudor in 1515, to marry a subject when she married John Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll (then Marquess of Lorne) in 1871. This marriage ruffled several European royal feathers (as the marriages in Victoria's family were wont to do (Battenbergs anyone?) and not a few European royals (even the liberal Queen Sophie of the Netherlands and Empress Augusta of Germany) weren't quite sure what to make of it.
So, here's my question: William Alexander Louis Stephen Hamilton, was the son and heir to the 11th duke of Hamilton, who included amongst his litany of titles duke of Chatellerault and duke of Brandon, and three years older than Louise, from one of the most ancient families in Scotland (the Hamiltons and the Douglases), at his father's death, the Hamilton fortune was estimated at £140,000 (probably not the same as the Campbells (I can't seem to find a valuation of their estate), but hardly chump change in those days, and best of all, his mother was the Princess Marie Amelie of Baden - aunt to the King of Romania and the queen of Saxony, cousin to the French emperor and the Swedish royal family (amongst others). He was still unmarried when Louise married her Scots' marquess, so why didn't Victoria go for someone at least quasi-(Bonapartist-)royal? I mean, her excuse that the royal houses of Europe were inbred doesn't really hold water when one looks that the closest relative that Louise might've shared with William, would've been (and I could be wrong) way back in James II of Scots' daughter, Mary.
Anyone explain this idiosyncrasy?
So, here's my question: William Alexander Louis Stephen Hamilton, was the son and heir to the 11th duke of Hamilton, who included amongst his litany of titles duke of Chatellerault and duke of Brandon, and three years older than Louise, from one of the most ancient families in Scotland (the Hamiltons and the Douglases), at his father's death, the Hamilton fortune was estimated at £140,000 (probably not the same as the Campbells (I can't seem to find a valuation of their estate), but hardly chump change in those days, and best of all, his mother was the Princess Marie Amelie of Baden - aunt to the King of Romania and the queen of Saxony, cousin to the French emperor and the Swedish royal family (amongst others). He was still unmarried when Louise married her Scots' marquess, so why didn't Victoria go for someone at least quasi-(Bonapartist-)royal? I mean, her excuse that the royal houses of Europe were inbred doesn't really hold water when one looks that the closest relative that Louise might've shared with William, would've been (and I could be wrong) way back in James II of Scots' daughter, Mary.
Anyone explain this idiosyncrasy?