Prince Henry was a captain in the Brunswick Infantry Regiment No. 92, though not particularly wealthy or high-ranked. Feodora's grandmother Empress Victoria was surprised at the choice of groom, particularly his lack of position, but observed that the bride at least seemed happy. Of the fifteen-year age gap, Victoria commented, "I am very glad he is older than she is, and if he is wise and steady and firm, he may do her a vast deal of good, and it may turn out very well, but she has had a strange example in her mother, and is a strange little creature." The historian John Van der Kiste writes that Feodora was "evidently besotted" with her new husband, and she likely also sought marriage as an escape from her "irksome home life".