In the Eugenia Church in Stockholm, on October 6, 1962, a scene played out, loaded with echoes from a stormy past.
During the wedding between the radiant Madeleine Ingeborg Ella Astrid Elsa Bernadotte – born in 1938, daughter of the controversial Prince Carl Bernadotte – and the Belgian Count Charles Albert Ullens de Schooten Whettnall (1927–2006), glances met that carried secrets deeper than the church vaults.
There, in the middle of the glittering noble assembly, stood Florence Stephens (1881–1979), the once powerful heiress to Huseby mill in Småland, talking softly but intensely with Prince Carl Bernadotte junior (1911–2003).
Florence, the childless and unmarried "Husebyjungfrun", whose rumors whispered of a hidden bloodline to the Bernadotte royal house – perhaps as the illegitimate daughter of Oscar II – had once seen her empire of forests, mills and industry grow during the 1940s, partly in intimate collaboration with the young, extravagant prince. Together they expanded Huseby's business, an alliance that seemed like a romantic partnership in a fairy tale of nobility and ambition. But the shadows soon fell.
In the 1950s, as Florence approached the 70s and her finances were faltering under the weight of deforestation, she named Carl as the universal heir to her fortune – a trust that would be her downfall.
What followed was the Huseby Scandal, a raging storm of betrayal and justice that shook Sweden. Carl and his circle exploited the aging woman’s trust in a tangled web of financial transactions, which emptied her of her assets and led to her being declared a minor in 1957, with a good man in her place. The press roared with headlines about royal corruption, and the trial in 1958 became a national drama: Carl pleaded guilty, but was acquitted – the court found him not responsible.
Florence, devastated and isolated, was placed under guardianship until 1976, when she regained her capacity for action. Yet, in a final gesture of generosity, upon her death in 1979, she bequeathed her Huseby back to the Swedish nation, as a bitter-sweet revenge against fate.
Now, two decades later, they met again – Florence and Carl, the victims and the perpetrator in a story of power, seduction and loss. Their conversation, amidst the echoes of hymns and the scent of bouquets, bore traces of unhealed wounds: a silent confrontation, perhaps an apology that was never spoken, or a last glimpse of the trust that once bound them.