Princess Sibylla of Sweden, 1963
Happy Birthday to Princess Sibylla of Sweden, the mother of King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, who was born on this day in 1908. Daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Princess Sibylla was a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria and the niece of Princess Alice Countess of Athlone as well as related to Queen Juliana of the Netherlands. In 1932, she married Prince Gustaf Adolf of Sweden (second-in-line to the Swedish Throne), and they had four daughters and a son. Unfortunately, Prince Gustaf Adolf died in a plane crash in 1947, leaving Princess Sibylla a young widow. She remained a working member of the Swedish Royal family, taking over as the ‘First Lady’ after the death of her mother-in-law, Queen Louise. She died in 1972, just two years before her son succeeded to the throne. In the picture above, she is pictured with Greek Poet Giorgos Seferis at the Nobel Prize Banquet in 1963.
