She was much more lively and forceful than her husband, yet her         
          marriage was a happy one with her husband and children devoted to her.     
          She had a slim, exquisite figure, a taste for music and a simple,          
          religious faith. Unfortunately, however, she also had a physical           
          handicap, a hereditary form of deafness known as otosclerosis.             
             Queen Victoria once remarked, while referring to the disunion so        
          common in royal families: "one remarkable exception is the Danish          
          Royal Family; they are wonderfully united---and never breathe one word     
          against each other". However, this kindness was not extended to            
          Louise's and Christian's parents: "the mother's family are bad, the        
          father's foolish", and "not a word can, I believe, be breathed against     
          the mother; but against her mother and sisters, plenty!!"                  
             Louise's husband had left to her all the arrangements to find a         
          husband for their daughter, Alexandra, refusing a tentative proposal       
          for the Russian Czarevich. When the approaches were made for the           
          Prince of Wales, objections to both Louise and her husband were            
          suddenly aired by a varied range of people who feared an Anglo-Danish      
          alliance. "Christian a drunkard and Louise had a very bad reputation,"     
          is accorded to Princess Louise of Prussia. Duke Ernest, Prince             
          Albert's brother, repeated both verbally and by letter the story that      
          Louise had borne illegitimate children. These rumours were soon            
          dispelled but other relatives' lives were put in the spotlight.            
          Louise's mother was described as "wicked and very intriguing, besides      
          not respectable". It was a good thing, according to Sir Charles            
          Phipps, that the Prince was not marrying Princess Alexandra's family       
          but the Princess herself.                                                  
             Louise, while making very clear the advantages of this marriage,        
          left the choice nominally to her daughter. Taking into account the         
          small number of eligible spouses, the Prince of Wales was fortunate        
          that the lovely Alexandra accepted him. In the same year of                
          Alexandra's marriage, Louise and Christian's second son, the               
          18-year-old Wilhelm, became Georgios I, King of Greece, to be followed     
          by they themselves becoming King and Queen of Denmark. Three years         
          later, their daughter Dagmar became engaged to the Czarevich and,          
          after his untimely death, married his brother, the future Alexander        
          III, Emperor of Russia.   
 

Source: Leo van de Pas