Queen Sophie.  The youngest son, Prince Eugene, is devoted to art, and spends much time out of the country.  Never did King Oscar do more to win the approval of his subjects, and thinking men and women everywhere, than when he permitted the marriage of his second son, Prince Oscar, to a young Swedish noblewoman, Froeken Ebba Munck, of Fulkila, who was also Queen Sophie’s maid-of-honor.  While the prince had to renounce his right of succession and his position as a royal prince of Sweden, his relations to his father and the other members of the royal family remained the same.

Of this incident in the history of the royal family of Sweden, the following story is told: 

The Queen interceded long and persistently with her husband for permission for her second son to be married to the woman he loved.  Although the Munck family had played a very important part in the history of the nation, the king was opposed to the mesalliance.  “It is Oscar’s duty to be true to himself and to his love,” she used to say.  But the king, who was not wont to refuse any of the wishes of his consort, steadily refused to sanction the union.  There were many things against such a marriage, for Prince Oscar was the second son of the king, and the very fact that the reigning House of Norway and Sweden was one of the most youthful of the royal houses of Europe made it all the more necessary that its scions should intermarry with the members of the ancient reigning houses.

About this time the queen was seized with one of her serious attacks of illness, and her state was such that at one time her life was despaired of.  Her physicians declared that her only hope of recovery lay in an instant operation, which was both dangerous and extremely painful.

The queen called the king to her bedside, and said, “If I undergo this operation and recover, will you allow Oscar and Ebba to have their way?” The king was unable to resist such an appeal, made at such a time, and gave his promise.  A short time afterwards the operation was successfully performed, and when the queen was convalescent, the king redeemed his promise and gave his consent to the marriage of his second son.  It was on Christmas Eve, and the king had come to his wife’s apartments to see her.  He found Ebba Munck and his son Oscar with her.  The maid-of-honor was, at the time of his entrance, singing one of his poems to Her Majesty, which, oddly enough, was on the subject of the right to love.  After waiting until the song was ended, the king went up to his son, and, leading him to the girl, laid his hand in hers, in this manner signifying that he had withdrawn his opposition to their plans.