Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Sibylle Calma Marie Alice Bathildis Feodora; 18 January 1908 – 28 November 1972) was a member of the Swedish royal family and the mother of the current king of Sweden, Carl XVI Gustaf. Born into the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Sibylla was the daughter of Charles Edward, the last duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She became a Swedish princess when she married Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten in 1932. She thus had the prospect of one day becoming queen, but the prince was killed in an airplane crash in 1947 and did not live to ascend the Swedish throne. Her son became king the year after her death. Early life Sibylla was born on 18 January 1908 at Schloss Friedenstein in the city of Gotha, one of the two capitals in the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in central Germany. She was the elder daughter and second child of Charles Edward, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Princess Victoria Adelaide of Schleswig-Holstein. Her father was a posthumous son of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, the youngest son of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Prince Charles Edward had, at the urging of his grandmother, inherited the position of duke after his uncle in 1900. The same year he had married Princess Victoria Adelaide, who was a daughter of Friedrich Ferdinand, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein and Princess Karoline Mathilde of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, and descended from an older Scandinavian royal house.