January 27, 1859: Birth of Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia

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Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, Dr. August Wegner, Emperor Friedrich III, German Emperor and King of Prussia, House of Hohenzollern, Physician Sir James Clark, Princess Victoria of the United Kingdom., Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, The Princess Royal, Wilhelm II

Wilhelm II (Friedrich Wilhelm Viktor Albert; January 27, 1859 – June 4, 1941) was the last German Emperor (German: Kaiser) and King of Prussia, reigning from June 15, 1888 until his abdication on November 9, 1918.

Wilhelm was born in Berlin on January 27, 1859—at the Crown Prince’s Palace—to Victoria, Princess Royal “Vicky”, the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. His father was Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia (“Fritz” – the future Emperor Friedrich III).

At the time of his birth, his granduncle, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, was king of Prussia. Friedrich Wilhelm IV had been left permanently incapacitated by a series of strokes, and his younger brother Prince Wilhelm was acting as regent.

Upon the death of King Friedrich Wilhelm IV in January 1861, Wilhelm’s paternal grandfather (the elder Wilhelm) became King of Prussia, and the two-year-old Wilhelm became second in the line of succession to Prussia.

After 1871, Wilhelm also became second in the line to the newly created German Empire, which, according to the constitution of the German Empire, was ruled by the Prussian King. At the time of his birth, he was also sixth in the line of succession to the British throne, after his maternal uncles and his mother.

Traumatic birth

Shortly before midnight on January 26, 1859, Wilhelm’s mother experienced labour pains, followed by her water breaking, after which Dr. August Wegner, the family’s personal physician, was summoned. Upon examining Victoria, Wegner realised the infant was in the breech position; gynaecologist Eduard Arnold Martin was then sent for, arriving at the palace at 10 am on January 27.

After administering ipecac and prescribing a mild dose of chloroform, which was administered by Victoria’s personal physician Sir James Clark, Martin advised Fritz the unborn child’s life was endangered. As mild anaesthesia did not alleviate her extreme labour pains, resulting in her “horrible screams and wails”, Clark finally administered full anaesthesia.

Observing her contractions to be insufficiently strong, Martin administered a dose of ergot extract, and at 2:45 pm saw the infant’s buttocks emerging from the birth canal, but noticed the pulse in the umbilical cord was weak and intermittent.

Despite this dangerous sign, Martin ordered a further heavy dose of chloroform so he could better manipulate the infant. Observing the infant’s legs to be raised upwards and his left arm likewise raised upwards and behind his head, Martin “carefully eased out the Prince’s legs”.

Due to the “narrowness of the birth canal”, he then forcibly pulled the left arm downwards, tearing the brachial plexus, then continued to grasp the left arm to rotate the infant’s trunk and free the right arm, likely exacerbating the injury. After completing the delivery, and despite realising the newborn prince was hypoxic, Martin turned his attention to the unconscious Victoria.

Noticing after some minutes that the newborn remained silent, Martin and the midwife Fräulein Stahl worked frantically to revive the prince; finally, despite the disapproval of those present, Stahl spanked the newborn vigorously until “a weak cry escaped his pale lips”.

The Life of Princess Alexandra Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg

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Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, Duke Johann II the Younger of Schleswig-Holstein, German Emperor Wilhelm II, German Empire, House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, King Christian III of Denmark and Norway, Kingdom of Denmark, Princess Alexandra Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg

Princess Alexandra Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (April 21, 1887 – April 15, 1957).

House of Glücksburg

The family takes its ducal name from Glücksburg, a small coastal town in Schleswig, on the southern, German side of the fjord of Flensburg that divides Germany from Denmark. In 1460, Glücksburg came, as part of the conjoined Dano-German duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, to Count Christian of Oldenburg whom, in 1448, the Danes had elected their king as Christian I, the Norwegians likewise taking him as their hereditary king in 1450.

Princess Alexandra Victoria’s birthplace Grünholz Castle, photographed in 2010.

In 1564, King Christian I’s great-grandson, King Frederik II, in re-distributing Schleswig and Holstein’s fiefs, retained some lands for his own senior royal line while allocating Glücksburg to his brother Duke Johann the Younger (1545–1622), along with Sønderborg, in appanage. Johann’s heirs further sub-divided their share and created, among other branches, a line of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg Dukes at Beck (an estate near Minden bought by the family in 1605), who remained vassals of Denmark’s kings.

The House of Augustenburg

The House of Augustenburg was a branch of the dukes of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg of the House of Oldenburg. The line descended from Alexander, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg, who was the the third son of Johann II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg and Elisabeth of Brunswick-Grubenhagen.

Duke Johann II was the fourth child and third son of King Christian III of Denmark and Norway and his wife, Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg.

Like all of the secondary lines from the Sonderburg branch, the heads of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg were first known as Dukes of Schleswig-Holstein and Dukes of Sonderburg. The family took its name from its ancestral home, Augustenborg Palace in Augustenborg, Denmark.

Ernst Günther, a member of the ducal house of Schleswig-Holstein (its branch of Sønderborg) and a cadet of the royal house of Denmark, was the third son of Alexander, 2nd Duke of Sonderborg (1573–1627), and thus a grandson of Johann II the Younger (1545–1622), the first duke, who was a son of King Christian III of Denmark.

Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia

Ernest Günther had a castle built in the years after 1651, which received the name of Augustenborg in honor of his wife, Auguste. She was also from a branch of the Dukes of Schleswig-Holstein as a daughter of Philip (1584–1663), Duke of Glücksburg. As that castle became the chief seat of their line, the family eventually used the name of Augustenborg as its branch name. As they were agnates of the ducal house, the title of duke belonged to every one of them (as is the Germanic custom).

The Dukes of Augustenburg were not sovereign rulers—they held their lands in fief to their dynastically-senior kinsmen, the sovereign Dukes of Schleswig and Holstein—who were the Oldenburg Kings of Denmark.

Princess Alexandra Victoria was born on April 21, 1887 at Grünholz Castle in Schleswig-Holstein, Prussia as the second-eldest child and daughter of Friedrich Ferdinand, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and his wife Princess Caroline Mathilde of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, a great-niece of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

Paternal Ancestry

Alexandra Victoria’s father, Friedrich Ferdinand, was the second-eldest son of Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and Princess Louise Caroline of Hesse-Cassel and an elder brother of Christian IX of Denmark.

Princess Augusta Victoria’s father, Friedrich Ferdinand had succeeded to the headship of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and the title of duke upon the death of his father on November 27, 1885.

Augusta Victoria’s paternal grandmother, Princess Louise Caroline of Hesse-Cassel, was the daughter of Prince Charles of Hesse-Kassel (1744 – 1836) and his wife Princess Louise of Denmark (1750 – 1831). Her elder sister Marie Sophie of Hesse-Cassel (28 October 1767 – 21 March 1852) became Queen consort of Frederik VI of Denmark.

Therefore Augusta Victoria’s paternal great-grandmother, Princess Louise of Denmark, was the daughter of was King Frederik V of Denmark and Norway and Princess Louise of Great Britain.

Maternal Ancestry

Augusta Victoria’s mother was Princess Caroline Mathilde of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (1860 – 1932) and she was the second-eldest daughter of Friedrich VIII, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein and his wife Princess Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.

Princess Caroline Mathilde had a sister, Princess Augusta Victoria, who married Emperor Wilhelm II; who are Prince August Wilhelm’s parents.

Princess Adelheid of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (20 July 1835 – 25 January 1900) was Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein, a niece of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, first cousin of King Edward VII, and the mother-in-law of Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany. She is the most recent common matrilineal ancestress (directly through women only) of Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden and Felipe VI of Spain.

Princess Alexandra Victoria and her son Prince Alexander Ferdinand of Prussia

Marriages and issue

Alexandra Victoria’s first husband was her first cousin Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia, the son of Wilhelm II, German Emperor and his wife Augusta Victoria Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, a sister of Alexandra Victoria’s mother.

They married on October 22, 1908 at the Royal Palace of Berlin. The marriage was arranged by the Emperor and Empress, but it was relatively happy. Alexandra was a great favorite of her mother-in-law, especially since the Empress was also her own aunt.

A contemporary of the court, Princess Catherine Radziwill, commented that Alexandra “had always shown herself willing to listen to her mother-in-law. She is a nice girl – fair, fat, and a perfect type of the ‘Deutsche Hausfrau’ dear to the souls of German novel-writers”. Another contemporary wrote that the marriage had been a love match, and that Alexandra was a “charmingly pretty, bright girl”.

The couple had planned to take up residence in Schönhausen Palace in Berlin, but changed their mind when August Wilhelm’s father decided to leave his son the Villa Liegnitz in the Sanssouci Park in Potsdam. Their residence developed into a meeting place for artists and scholars.

Alexandra Victoria and August Wilhelm had one son:

Prince Alexander Ferdinand of Prussia (December 26, 1912 – June 12, 1985).

During the First World War, August Wilhelm was made district administrator (Landrat) of the district of Ruppin; his office and residence was now Schloss Rheinsberg. His personal adjutant Hans Georg von Mackensen, with whom he had been close friends since his youth, played an important role in his life. These “pronounced homophilic tendencies” contributed to the failure of his marriage to Princess Alexandra Victoria. They never undertook a formal divorce due to the opposition of August Wilhelm’s father, Kaiser Wilhelm II.

After the fall of the German monarchy in 1918, the couple divorced on March 16, 1920.

Arnold Rümann

Her second husband was Arnold Rümann, whom she married on January 7, 1922 at Grünholz Castle. In 1926, Alexandra moved for a time to New York City, where she worked as a painter. She and Arnold were divorced in 1933.

Later life

After World War II, Alexandra lived in a trailer near Wiesbaden, where she earned a living as a portrait and landscape painter. She died on April 14, 1957 in a hotel in Lyons, France.

The Life of Duchess Sophia Charlotte of Oldenburg. Part II

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Baron von Plettenberg, Bellevue Castle, Berlin, Eitel Friedrich of Prussia, Empress Augusta Victoria, German Emperor Wilhelm II, Grand Duke Friedrich August II in Oldenburg, Harald von Hedemann, Sophia Charlotte of Oldenburg, World War I

On February 27, 1906, Sophia Charlotte married Prince Eitel in Berlin. The wedding fell on the anniversary of Emperor Wilhelm II and Empress Victoria Augusta’s silver wedding anniversary, which amplified the event considerably. The wedding had 1,500 guests, which included many members of Germany’s royal families. Sophia Charlotte wore a four-yard long dress that was made of pearl white silk and embroidered with silver roses.

The wedding had three ceremonies – the signing of the marriage contract under the statutes of the House of Hohenzollern on the first day, the administering of the civil law oaths on the second, and lastly the religious rites in the chapel of the castle later that day. She was warmly welcomed in Berlin.

Prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia in military uniform

They had an unhappy marriage. Despite her warm Berlin welcome, Sophia Charlotte failed to make friends there. Eitel Friedrich was also continually unfaithful. One source states that upon realizing what type of person she had married, Sophia Charlotte “withdrew into a kind of haughty reserve, from which she never emerged”.

They rarely saw each other during his time fighting in World War I. It was a lonely time for Sophia Charlotte, and she resided mostly in Bellevue Castle in Berlin, where she spent her time mainly reading, painting, and socializing with a small number of friends.

Plettenberg case testimony

In 1922, Prince Eitel Friedrich sued four German newspapers over what he considered libelous allegations that his wife had committed adultery. These events began when Sophia Charlotte was summoned as a witness in a divorce case, and apparently admitted to having an affair with the male defendant.

In the case, she stated that she had known the defendant for a number of years before her marriage when he served her father Grand Duke Friedrich August II in Oldenburg. When asked by the judge, she said “our intimate relations continued even after my marriage with the Emperor’s son”.

She also added that her husband was aware of the affair the entire time, and that her and Plettenberg’s intimate relationship only ceased once he married. Sophia Charlotte later announced however, “I emphatically deny that either before or after have I had any unpermitted relations whatever with the plaintiff. I not only never committed adultery with the plaintiff nor did we ever kiss each other, nor did I maintain any relations whatsoever with him which overstepped the limits permitted by good society”.

The case was heavily suppressed in German newspapers, so that most reports were published in foreign newspapers.

Divorce

Sophia Charlotte and Eitel Friedrich were divorced October 20, 1926. The couple had no children. It is believed that the couple had wanted to divorce before the war, but were prevented by Eitel Friedrich’s father. Eitel Friedrich reportedly began divorce proceedings against Sophia Charlotte on March 15, 1919, citing infidelities before the war. In the end, a verdict given out by the court merely stated that Eitel Friedrich was the guilty party.

Later life

After many rumors of potential husbands circulated after her divorce (including the aforementioned Baron von Plettenberg), Sophia Charlotte married in 1927 Harald von Hedemann, a former Potsdam police officer. He was forty and she was forty-eight.

Despite his low status, the wedding was held at the Grand Ducal palace at Rastede Castle, and was attended by her father the former Grand Duke as well as a small number of both their relations. Sophia Charlotte was considered one of the richest women in the country, and the couple took up residence at the same castle where they were married.

Sophia Charlotte died on March 29, 1964 in Westerstede.

Personal traits and looks

Sophia Charlotte was well-educated and was brought up with a quiet and unworldly upbringing. She was a good linguist and musician. She was also a talented water-colour painter.

There were concerns of her well-being in Sophia Charlotte’s youth, as her mother had suffered from ill health. By traveling to spa resorts and residing in warm weather however, she was able to overcome any signs of sickness. Once source stated right before her marriage that Sophia Charlotte had “developed into a thoroughly healthy and happy woman, whose fair hair and blue eyes, so entirely German, are somewhat piquantly associated with a delicacy of feature that suggests the Latin rather than the Teutonic origin”.

According to another account, Sophia Charlotte was considered slim and graceful with pale, regular features. Contemporaries state she inherited some of the good looks and charm of her mother. As she was the only child of the Grand Duke by his first wife, she was a great heiress. Her wealth was often stressed when mentioned in articles and newspapers. One book called her “pretty, rich, and supposed to be very clever”. Another contemporary source however calls her plain and uninteresting.

The Life of Princess Marie-Auguste of Anhalt

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Bellevue Palace, Duke Eduard of Anhalt, German Emperor Wilhelm II, Johannes-Michael Freiherr von Loën, King of Prussia, Prince Charles Franz of Prussia, Prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia, Prince Joachim of Prussia, Princess Marie-Auguste of Anhalt

Princess Marie-Auguste of Anhalt (June 10, 1898 – May 22, 1983)

Her Highness Princess Marie-Auguste was born in Ballenstedt, Anhalt, Germany, to the then Prince Eduard of Anhalt and his wife Princess Louise Charlotte of Saxe-Altenburg, the daughter of Prince Moritz of Saxe-Altenburg and his wife, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Meiningen. Her father was a son of Georg, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg, and a younger brother of Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg.

Her father, Eduard succeeded his brother Duke Friedrich II of Anhalt on April 21, 1918, but his brief reign came to an end five months later with his own death on September 13, 1918. He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son Prince Joachim Ernst under the regency of Eduard’s younger brother, Prince Aribert.

Prince Joachim Ernst’s brief reign came to an end on November 12, 1918 with his uncle abdicating in his name following the German revolution. The duchy became the Free State of Anhalt and is today part of the state of Saxony-Anhalt. Duke Joachim Ernst joined the ruling Nazi Party in 1939. He died at the Buchenwald concentration camp after World War II as a prisoner of the Soviet Union.

Princess Marie-Auguste was raised in Dessau, the capital of the duchy of Anhalt. She had five siblings, but her elder sister Friederike and brother Leopold died while infants. Marie-Auguste was an elder sister of Joachim Ernst, Duke of Anhalt.

First marriage and Divorce

On March 11, 1916 in Berlin, Marie-Auguste married Prince Joachim of Prussia, the youngest son of German Emperor Wilhelm II and his wife Princess Victoria Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg.

Prince Joachim of Prussia

Marie-Auguste and Joachim, who was Wilhelm’s last unmarried child, had been officially engaged since October 14 of the previous year. The wedding was celebrated at Bellevue Palace, and was attended by Joachim’s father and mother Empress Augusta Victoria, the Duke and Duchess of Anhalt, as well as other relatives. They had a simple Lutheran ceremony.

The couple shared common ancestry in King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia who was Princess Marie-Auguste’s great-great-great grandfather through Prince Ludwig Charles of Prussia the second son and third child of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia and Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Princess Marie-Auguste and her son Prince Prince Charles Franz of Prussia

Prince Joachim of Prussia was a great-great-great grandson of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia and Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt through the couples eldest son King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia.

The couple had one son, Prince Charles Franz Josef Wilhelm Friedrich Eduard Paul (December 15, 1916 – January 23, 1975). Their grandson, Prince Franz Wilhelm of Prussia, married Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia, a pretender to the Imperial Russian throne.

Following the German Revolution in November 1918, German Emperor Wilhelm II was forced to abdicate, thus depriving Joachim of his titles and position. Unable to accept his new status as a commoner, he fell into a deep depression.

The relationship between Joachim and Marie-Auguste had already started to deteriorate. The couple were divorced soon after the end of the First World War. The direct causes of the divorce are not known to the public.

According to one report, Marie-Auguste had previously abandoned her husband and child to run away with another man, had been forcibly brought back home on the orders of the Emperor, and had filed for divorce as soon as the war ended, when she saw that her husband’s family were at their lowest ebb.

Only weeks after the divorce was finalized, Joachim shot himself in Potsdam on July 18, 1920. One source reports that he had been in financial straits and suffered from “great mental depression”. His own brother Prince Eitel Friedrich of Prussia commented that he suffered from “a fit of excessive dementia”.

After Joachim’s suicide, Marie-Auguste’s son Charles Franz was taken into the custody of his paternal uncle Prince Eitel Friedrich. As the acting head of the House of Hohenzollern, he claimed this right, due to the fact that Emperor Wilhelm had issued an edict placing Hohenzollern powers in Eitel’s hands.

This action was later declared to have been unlawful, and in 1921, Marie-Auguste was given full custody of her son, despite that fact that she had previously run away from her husband and despite numerous servants having testified against her, with Eitel’s counsel arguing that Marie-Auguste was unfit to have custody of Charles Franz.

However, she appeared in court and pleaded that she was heartbroken, which may have helped to win the case for her. In 1922, Marie-Auguste sued her former father-in-law for the financial support that had been promised in the marriage contract between her and Prince Joachim. Wilhelm’s advocate argued that the laws of the House of Hohenzollern were no longer in force, so there was no longer a financial obligation to support her.

Second marriage and divorce

On September 27, 1926, she married Johannes-Michael Freiherr von Loën (b. 1902), a childhood friend. They were divorced in 1935, and Marie-Auguste reverted to her maiden name.

In 1980, Princess Marie-Auguste legally adopted the businessman Hans Lichtenberg, who subsequently took the name Frédéric Prinz von Anhalt. According to Prinz von Anhalt, who thereafter proceeded to sell knighthoods and marriages related to his new station, he gave her $4,000 a month (German sources say 2000 Deutsche Mark a month) in financial support.

Death

Princess Marie-Auguste died on May 22, 1983 at Essen, North Rhine-Westphalia, West Germany.

King, Constantine II of the Hellenes, Has Died.

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Anne-Marie of Denmark, Athens, Duke of Edinburgh, King Charles III of the United Kingdom, King Constantine II of the Hellenes, Kingdom of Greece, Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.

King Constantine II of the Hellenes, whose reigned for nine years from March 6, 1964 until the abolition of the Greek monarchy on June 1, 1973, has died at a private hospital in Athens, late on Tuesday. He was 82.

Constantine II (June 2, 1940 – January 10, 2023) was the last King of the Hellenes (Greece).

King Constantine II was a second cousin of British monarch King Charles III. For most of his years in exile, Constantine lived in Hampstead Garden Suburb in north London.

His older sister, Queen Sophia of Spain, is the wife of former King Juan Carlos I of Spain. The current King Felipe VI of Spain is his nephew. Constantine II was also the cousin of Greek-Danish Prince Philip, the late Duke of Edinburgh and the husband of the late Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

Christian IX of Denmark’s second son, Vilhelm of Denmark, was elected King George I of the Hellenes in 1863, a few months before his father ascended the Danish throne.

Christian IX was of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and this family ruled in Greece from 1863 – until the monarchy was abolished in 1974. There was also a period of time when Greece was a Republic, 1922 and 1935, until the monarchy was restored under King George II of the Hellenes.

Constantine was the only son of King Pavlos of Greece and Friederike, Princess of Hanover, Princess of Great Britain and Ireland, and Princess of Brunswick-Lüneburg, the only daughter and third child of Ernst August of Hanover, then reigning Duke of Brunswick, and his wife Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia, herself the only daughter of the German Emperor Wilhelm II.

The Greek Royal Family was forced into exile after the First World War and then again during the Second World War. Constantine returned to Greece with his family in 1946 during the Greek Civil War. King George II died in 1947, and Constantine’s father became King Pavlos I, making Constantine the Crown Prince.

Constantine became king in 1964 following the death of his father, King Pavlos I. During the same year the new Greek King married his cousin Princess of Denmark with whom he eventually had five children.

Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, is the youngest daughter of King Frederick IX of Denmark and his wife Ingrid of Sweden. Ingrid of Sweden was the daughter of King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden and his first wife, Princess Margaret of Connaught (a granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom).

Anne-Marie’s sister is Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.

King Constantine II, continued to style himself King of Greece and his children as princes and princesses even though Greece no longer recognised titles of nobility. This is not unusual for former Royal Families. The Greek Royal Family are still Prince and Princesses of Denmark. Constantine travelled with a Danish passport, as a Danish prince.

It took Constantine 14 years to return to his country, briefly, to bury his mother, Queen Frederica in 1981, but he eventually moved back permanently.

His five children are Princess Alexia, Crown Prince Pavlos, Prince Nikolaos, Princess Theodora and Prince Philippos; and nine grandchildren.

If the Greek monarchy remained extant King Constantine II would have reigned for 59 years and his son, Crown Prince Pavlos, would now be King Pavlos II of the Hellenes.

Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz: 2nd Wife of German Emperor Wilhelm II

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German Emperor Friedrich III, German Emperor Wilhelm II, Huis Doorn, King of Prussia, Prince Charles Franz of Prussia, Prince Joachim of Prussia, Prince Johann of Schönaich-Carolath, Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, Princess Henriette of Schönaich-Carolath, Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom, Princess Victoria, Princess Victoria of Prussia, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz (December 17, 1887 – August 7, 1947) was the second wife of German Emperor Wilhelm II. They were married in 1922, four years after he abdicated as German Emperor and King of Prussia. He was her second husband; her first husband, Prince Johann of Schönaich-Carolath, had died in 1920.

Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz

They were the parents of five children.

Princess Hermine was born in Greiz as the fifth child and fourth daughter of Heinrich XXII, Prince Reuss of Greiz (March 28, 1846 – April 19, 1902), and Princess Ida of Schaumburg-Lippe (July 28, 1852 – September 28, 1891), daughter of Adolf I, Prince of Schaumburg-Lippe and Princess Hermine of Waldeck and Pyrmont (1827–1910).

Princess Hermine’s mother, Princess Ida of Schaumburg-Lippe, had a brother, Prince Adolf of Schaumburg-Lippe (1859–1917), who was married Princess Victoria of Prussia, daughter of German Emperor Friedrich III, and Victoria, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom eldest daughter of Queen Victoria.

This means that Princess Victoria of Prussia was Princess Hermine’s aunt by marriage and Princess Victoria was the sister of German Emperor Wilhelm II, Princess Hermine’s second husband.

Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz

Princess Hermine’s father was the ruler of the Principality of Reuss-Greiz, a state of the German Empire, in what is present-day Thuringia. Princess Hermine’s disabled elder brother became Heinrich XXIV, Prince Reuss of Greiz in 1902.

First marriage

Princess Hermine was married on January 7, 1907 in Greiz to Prince Johann of Schönaich-Carolath (September 11, 1873 – April 7, 1920).

Second Marriage

German Emperor Wilhelm II in Exile

In January 1922, a son of Princess Hermine sent birthday wishes to the exiled German Emperor Wilhelm II, who then invited the boy and his mother to Huis Doorn. Wilhelm found Hermine very attractive, and greatly enjoyed her company. The two had much in common, both being recently widowed: Hermine just over a year and a half before and Wilhelm only nine months prior.

By early 1922, Wilhelm was determined to marry Hermine. Despite grumblings from Wilhelm’s monarchist supporters and the objections of his children, 63-year-old Wilhelm and 34-year-old Hermine married on November 5, 1922 in Doorn.

Wilhelm’s physician, Alfred Haehner, suspected that Hermine had married the former kaiser only in the belief that she would become an Empress and that she had become increasingly bitter as it became apparent that would not be the case.

Hermine with Wilhelm II and her daughter Henriette in Doorn, 1931

Shortly before the couple’s first wedding anniversary, Haehner recorded how Hermine had told him how “inconsiderately [Wilhelm] behaved towards her” and how Wilhelm’s face showed “a strong dislike” for his wife.

Hermine’s first husband had also been older than she was, by fourteen years. Wilhelm and Hermine were fourth cousins once removed through mutual descent from Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt and fifth cousins through common descent from King George II of Great Britain.

In 1927, Hermine wrote An Empress in Exile: My Days in Doorn, an account of her life until then. She cared for the property management of Huis Doorn and by establishing her own relief organization, she stayed in contact with monarchist and nationalist circles in the Weimar Republic.

Hermine and Wilhelm II

Hermine also shared her husband’s anti-Semitism. She remained a constant companion to the aging emperor until his death in 1941. They had no children.

Later life

Following the death of Wilhelm, Hermine returned to Germany to live on her first husband’s estate in Saabor, Lower Silesia. During the Vistula–Oder Offensive of early 1945, she fled from the advancing Red Army to her sister’s estate in Rossla, Thuringia.

After the end of the Second World War, she was held under house arrest at Frankfurt on the Oder, in the Soviet occupation zone, and later imprisoned in the Paulinenhof Internment Camp.

On August 7, 1947, aged 59, she died suddenly of a heart attack in a small flat in Frankfurt, while under guard by the Red Army occupation forces. She was buried in the Antique Temple of Sanssouci Park, Potsdam, in what would become East Germany. Some years earlier, it was the resting place of several other members of the Imperial family, including Wilhelm’s first wife, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein.

Hermine and Wilhelm II

Prince Charles Franz of Prussia married a daughter of Hermine from her first marriage.

Prince Charles Franz of Prussia was the son of Prince Joachim of Prussia and Princess Marie Auguste of Anhalt.

Prince Joachim of Prussia was the youngest son and sixth child of Wilhelm II, German Emperor, by his first wife, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. He committed suicide at age 29.

On October 5, 1940, Charles Franz of Prussia married Princess Henriette of Schönaich-Carolath. She was a daughter of Princess Hermine Reuss of Greiz, who had been the second wife of Charles Franz’s grandfather Emperor Wilhelm II since 1922 (Henriette was thus Emperor Wilhelm’s stepdaughter).

The wedding was at Wilhelm II’s private residence in Huis Doorn without much ceremony, he and Hermine attended the ceremony, as did a few other guests. The Mayor of Doorn performed the ceremony.

The eldest son of Charles Franz of Prussia and Princess Henriette of Schönaich-Carolath is Prince Franz Wilhelm of Prussia (born September 3, 1943), he married the claimant to the Russian throne, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna, of Russia. Their child is Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia, Prince of Prussia, born March 13, 1981 in Spain.

December 23, 1910: Birth of Princess María de las Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Countess of Barcelona

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Countess of Barcelona, Francisco Franco, House of Bourbon, House of Bourbon-Two-Sicilies, Infante Juan of Spain, King Juan Carlos I of Spain, King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, Princess María de las Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies

Princess María de las Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Countess of Barcelona (December 23, 1910 – January 2, 2000) was a Spanish noblewoman who married Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona, the claimant to the Spanish throne.

María was born in Madrid, daughter of Prince Carlos of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Infante of Spain, a grandson of King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, and his second wife, Princess Louise of Orléans, daughter of Prince Philippe, Count of Paris, a pretender to the French throne.

Princess María de las Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, Countess of Barcelona

She was granted, at birth, the rank and precedence of an infanta of Spain, although not the actual use of the title itself, her own being Princess of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. Her family moved to Seville, when her father was made Captain General of that province. When the Second Spanish Republic forced them into exile, they lived in Cannes and later in Paris, where she studied art at the Louvre.

On January 14, 1935, at a party, in Rome, hosted by King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy for the wedding next day of Infanta Beatriz of Spain, daughter of King Alfonso XIII, to Alessandro Torlonia, 5th Prince of Civitella-Cesi, she met the brother of the bride, her second cousin and future husband, the Infante Juan of Spain, fourth son and designated heir of Alfonso XIII and his wife Princess Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg a granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom.

Infante Juan became heir apparent to the defunct Spanish throne after the renunciations of his two older brothers, Infante Alfonso and infante Jaime, in 1933. To assert his claim to the throne, following his father’s death he used the title of Count of Barcelona, a sovereign title associated with the Spanish crown.

Marriage of Princess María de las Mercedes of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, and Infante Juan of Spain, Count of Barcelona

They married in Rome on October 12, 1935. When her husband took up the title Count of Barcelona as a title of pretence on March 8, 1941, María became the Countess of Barcelona. They had four children.

Issue

1. Infanta Pilar, Duchess of Badajoz (July 30, 1936 – January 8, 2020)

2. King Juan Carlos I of Spain (born January 5, 1938)

3. Infanta Margarita, Duchess of Soria (born March 6, 1939)

4. Infante Alfonso of Spain (October 3, 1941 – March 29, 1956)

They lived in Cannes and Rome, and, with the outbreak of World War II, they moved to Lausanne to live with Infante Juan’s mother Queen Victoria Eugenie. Afterwards, they resided at Estoril, on the Portuguese Riviera.

Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona

When General Francisco Franco declared Spain a monarchy in 1947, he characterized it as a “restoration”. However, Franco was afraid that Juan would roll back the Spanish State because he favoured a constitutional monarchy, which would restore parliamentary democracy. As a result, in 1969, Franco passed over Juan in favour of Juan’s son, Juan Carlos, who Franco believed would be more likely to continue his dictatorship after his death.

In 1953, the Countess represented the Spanish Royal Family at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom.

In 1976, one year after the monarchy was restored in Spain in the person of her son, Juan Carlos, they returned to Spain. She mediated between her son and her husband, estranged since Juan Carlos had been designated heir by Franco.

In 1977 Infante Juan, Count of Barcelona, formally renounced his rights to the Spanish throne eight years after being displaced as recognised heir to the throne by Franco. In return, his son officially granted him the title of Count of Barcelona, which he had claimed for so long.

After his death in 1993, he was buried with honours due a king, under the name Juan III (his title if he had become king) in the Royal Crypt of the monastery of San Lorenzo del Escorial, near Madrid.

The Countess of Barcelona broke her hip in 1982 and the left femur in 1985, which forced her to use a wheelchair for the rest of her life. She became a widow in 1993 with the death of her husband the Count of Barcelona.

The Countess of Barcelona was a fervid fan of bull fighting and of the Andalusian culture. In 1995, her granddaughter Infanta Elena married in Seville in part because the Countess’ love for the city.

The Countess of Barcelona died of a heart attack in the Royal Residence of La Mareta, in Lanzarote, where the royal family had gathered to celebrate the New Year. She was buried with the honors of a queen at the Royal Crypt of the monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, near Madrid.

Were They A Usurper? Henry IV of England. Conclusion

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5th Earl of March, Adam of Usk, Edmund Crouchback, John of Gaunt, King Edward III, King Henry IV of England and Lord of Ireland, King Richard II of England and Lord of Ireland, Parliament, Philippa of Clarence, Roger Mortimer, Usurper

One of the initial problems King Henry IV had to face after his usurpation of the throne from King Richard II was to manufacture the illusion that his coming to the throne was lawful and legitimate.

Adam of Usk was a medieval canonist, clergyman and historian of Welsh origin who used pro-Lancastrian propaganda with bias against Richard II to justify why the throne was empty in order to promote Henry as a legitimate ruler. Usk also used the elements of Biblical prophecy and rumour to further that legitimation.

Parliament was still in its early stages of development and this body was not seen as a means to legitimize Henry’s reign. After 1399 there is no clear sign that Henry IV thought that he owed his position to a Parliament that had cooperated in the downfall of King Richard II.

King Henry IV of England and Lord of Ireland

In 1406 Parliament simply recorded the fact that the descent of the crown was now in the hands of the Lancasterian family. This recording of the was fact was not establishing the legitimacy of Henry IV’s reign it was merely establishing where the hereditary succession to the crown now resided.

Despite Henry IV not viewing his crown as coming from Parliament he did try to use that institution to his advantage. The first Parliament called during his reign found it necessary, in the best interests of the Lancastrian party, to tweak the narrative to emphasize that Richard II had renounced the crown of his own free-will. They did so quite effectively through both the Record and Process and the rolls of Parliament, which were to be taken as the official word on the matter.

King Richard II of England surrendering the Crown to Henry Bolingbroke 2nd Duke of Lancaster

However, the nature of kingship in fourteenth and fifteenth century England was viewed as sacred and in the spirit of the divine right of kings it was believed by the vast majority that who sat on the trine was ordained by God himself. This meant that Richard II most probably never ceased to believe that he was the true king and would have fought for his title, shattering the Lancastrian illusion of a voluntary abdication.

However, the question of the succession never went away. The problem lay in the fact that Henry was only the most prominent male heir, but not the most senior in terms of agnatic descent from Edward III.

Although he was heir to the throne according to Edward III’s entail to the crown of 1376, Dr. Ian Mortimer has pointed out in his 2008 biography of Henry IV that this entail had probably been supplanted by an entail made by Richard II in 1399 (see Ian Mortimer, The Fears of Henry IV, appendix two, pp. 366–9). Henry thus had to overcome the superior claim of the Mortimers in order to maintain his inheritance.

The heir presumptive to King Richard II was Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March, great-grandson of Edward III’s second surviving son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence.

Henry IV’s father, John of Gaunt, was Edward’s third son to survive to adulthood. One way to solve the problem of Henry’s place in the succession was solved by emphasising Henry’s descent in a direct male line, whereas Edmund Mortimer, 5th Earl of March’s descent was through his grandmother, Philippa of Clarence.

Philippa of Clarence the only child of Lionel of Antwerp, 1st Duke of Clarence, and Elizabeth de Burgh, 4th Countess of Ulster. As mentioned her father was the third son, but second son to survive infancy, of King Edward III of England and Philippa of Hainault. She was the eldest grandchild of King Edward and Queen Philippa, her namesake.

Henry IV furthered his right to the throne in the direct male line further back in history by not just claiming his descent from John of Gaunt the third surviving son of King Edward III, Henry rather ridiculously claimed the throne as the right heir to King Henry III by direct male descent.

Henry IV claimed that Edmund Crouchback was the elder son of King Henry III and not the younger son of King Henry. He asserted that every monarch from King Edward I was a usurper, and he, as his mother Blanche of Lancaster was a great-granddaughter in the male line from Edmund Crouchback, was the rightful king.

Despite attempts to legitimize his reign through Parliament, propaganda or hereditary descent, Henry IV of England was clearly a usurper.

December 18, 1626: Birth of Christina, Queen of Sweden. Part IV.

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Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria, Bishop of Rome, Christina Alexandra, Duke Friedrich III of Holstein-Gottorp, King Carl X Gustaf of Sweden, Pope Alexander VII, Queen Christina of Sweden

In the summer of 1654, Christina left Sweden in men’s clothing with the help of Bernardino de Rebolledo, and rode as Count Dohna, through Denmark. Relations between the two countries were still so tense that a former Swedish queen could not have traveled safely in Denmark. Christina had already packed and shipped abroad valuable books, paintings, statues, and tapestries from her Stockholm castle, leaving its treasures severely depleted.

Christina visited Friedrich III, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, and while there thought that her successor should have a bride. She sent letters recommending two of the Duke’s daughters to King Carl X Gustaf. Based on this recommendation, he married Hedwig Eleonora. On July 10 Christina arrived in Hamburg and stayed with Jacob Curiel at Krameramtsstuben. Christina visited Johann Friedrich Gronovius, and Anna Maria van Schurman in the Dutch Republic.

Christina Alexandra, former Queen of Sweden

In August, she arrived in the Southern Netherlands and settled down in Antwerp. For four months Christina was lodged in the mansion of a Jewish merchant. She was visited by Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria; Prince Louis de Bourbon the Prince de Condé, the ambassador Pierre Chanut, as well as the former governor of Norway, Hannibal Sehested. In the afternoons she went for a ride, and each evening parties were held; there was a play to watch or music to listen to.

Christina ran quickly out of money and had to sell some of her tapestries, silverware, and jewelry. When her financial situation did not improve, the archduke invited her to his Brussels palace on Coudenberg. On December 24, 1654, she converted to the Catholic faith in the archduke’s chapel in the presence of the Dominican Juan Guêmes, Raimondo Montecuccoli and Pimentel.

Archduke Leopold Wilhelm of Austria

Baptized as Kristina Augusta, she adopted the name Christina Alexandra. She did not declare her conversion in public, in case the Swedish council might refuse to pay her alimony. In addition, Sweden was preparing for war against Pomerania, which meant that her income from there was considerably reduced. Pope Alexander VII and Felipe IV of Spain could not support her openly either, as she was not publicly a Catholic yet. Christina succeeded in arranging a major loan, leaving books and statues to settle her debts.

In September, she left for Italy with her entourage of 255 persons and 247 horses. The pope’s messenger, the librarian Lucas Holstenius, himself a convert, waited for her in Innsbruck. On November 3, 1655, Christina announced her conversion to Catholicism in the Hofkirche and wrote to Pope Alexander VII and her cousin Carl X Gustaf about it.

Pope Alexander VII, Bishop of Rome

To celebrate her official conversion, L’Argia, an opera by Antonio Cesti, was performed. Ferdinand Charles, Archduke of Austria, already in financial trouble, is said to have been almost ruined by her visit. Her departure was on November 8.

December 18, 1626: Birth of Christina, Queen of Sweden. Part III.

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Abdication, Axel Oxenstierna, Carl Gustaf of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg, King Carl X Gustaf of Sweden, King Felipe IV of Spain, King Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden, Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg, Queen Christina of Sweden

Coronation

Queen Christina’s delayed coronation finally took place on October 22, 1650. Christina went to the castle of Jacobsdal where she entered in a coronation carriage draped in black velvet embroidered in gold and pulled by three white horses. The procession to Storkyrkan was so long that when the first carriages arrived, the last ones had not yet left Jacobsdal (a distance of roughly 10.5 km or 6.5 miles).

All four estates were invited to dine at the castle. Fountains at the marketplace splashed out wine for three days, a whole roast ox was served, and illuminations sparkled, followed by a themed parade (The Illustrious Splendors of Felicity) on October 24.

The Crown used by Queen Christina for her coronation was originally made for her mother Maria Eleonora of Brandenburg as the queen consort of Gustaf II Adolph. It was made in Stockholm in 1620 by German goldsmith Rupprecht Miller and originally had two arches in a very fine foliage design in gold with black enameling and set with rubies and diamonds (a reference to the colors of the arms of her father Johann Sigmund of Brandenburg), with a small blue enameled monde and a cross, both set with diamonds.

Queen Christina had two more arches added to her mother’s crown matching the first two and had more diamonds and rubies added to it to enhance the crown’s appearance as the crown of a Queen Regnant. She also added a cap of purple satin, embroidered in gold and set with more diamonds, to the inside of the crown.

The circlet of the crown has eight large cabochon rubies set beneath each of the eight arches of the crown and diamonds in large rosette patterns in the intervening spaces of the circlet. Queen Christina’s crown was the crown chosen to be displayed with other items of the Swedish regalia and artifacts from the Swedish royal collections in a 1988-1989 exhibition at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. and the Minneapolis Institute of Art commemorating the founding of Delaware as a Swedish colony in 1638.

Religion and health

Her tutor, Johannes Matthiae, influenced by John Dury and Comenius, who since 1638 had been working on a new Swedish school system, represented a gentler attitude than most Lutherans. In 1644, he suggested a new church order, but it was voted down as this was interpreted as Crypto-Calvinism.

Queen Christina defended him against the advice of Chancellor Oxenstierna, but three years later, the proposal had to be withdrawn. In 1647, the clergy wanted to introduce the Book of Concord – a book defining correct Lutheranism versus heresy, making some aspects of free theological thinking impossible. Matthiae was strongly opposed to this and was again backed by Christina. The Book of Concord was not introduced.

In 1651, after reigning almost twenty years, working at least ten hours a day, Christina had what some have interpreted as a nervous breakdown. For an hour she seemed to be dead. She suffered from high blood pressure, complained about bad eyesight and a crooked back.

She had seen already many court physicians. In February 1652, the French doctor Pierre Bourdelot arrived in Stockholm. Unlike most doctors of that time, he held no faith in blood-letting; instead, he ordered sufficient sleep, warm baths, and healthy meals, as opposed to Christina’s hitherto ascetic way of life.

She was only twenty-five and advising that she should take more pleasure in life, Bourdelot asked her to stop studying and working so hard and to remove the books from her apartments. For years, Christina knew by heart all the sonnets from the Ars Amatoria and was keen on the works by Martial and Petronius.

The physician showed her the 16 erotic sonnets of Pietro Aretino, which he kept secretly in his luggage. By subtle means Bourdelot undermined her principles. Having been stoic, she now became an Epicurean. Her mother and de la Gardie were very much against the activities of Bourdelot and tried to convince her to change her attitude towards him; Bourdelot returned to France in 1653 “laden in riches and curses”.

The Queen had long conversations about Copernicus, Tycho Brahe, Francis Bacon, and Kepler with Antonio Macedo, secretary, and interpreter for Portugal’s ambassador. Macedo was a Jesuit, and in August 1651, smuggled on his person a letter from Christina to his general in Rome.

In reply, Paolo Casati and Francesco Malines came to Sweden in the spring of 1652, trained in both natural sciences and theology. She had more conversations with them, being interested in Catholic views on sin, the immortality of the soul, rationality, and free will.

The two scholars revealed her plans to Cardinal Fabio Chigi. Around May 1652 Christina, raised in the Lutheran Church of Sweden, decided to become Catholic. She sent Matthias Palbitzki to Madrid and King Felipe IV of Spain sent the diplomat Antonio Pimentel de Prado to Stockholm in August.

Abdication

On February 26, 1649, was when Christina announced that she had decided not to marry and instead wanted her first cousin Carl Gustaf of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg to be heir to the throne. While the nobility objected to this, the three other estates – clergy, burghers, and peasants – accepted it. She agreed to stay on the throne on the condition the councils never again asked her to marry.

In 1651, Christina lost much of her popularity after the beheading of Arnold Johan Messenius, together with his 17-year-old son, who had accused her of serious misbehavior and of being a “Jezebel”. According to them “Christina was bringing everything to ruin, and that she cared for nothing but sport and pleasure.”

In 1653, she founded the Amaranten order. Antonio Pimentel was appointed as its first knight; all members had to promise not to marry (again). In the same year, she ordered Vossius (and Heinsius) to make a list of about 6,000 books and manuscripts to be packed and shipped to Antwerp.

In February 1654, she plainly told the Council of her plans to abdicate. Axel Oxenstierna told her she would regret her decision within a few months. In May, the Riksdag discussed her proposals. She had asked for 200,000 rikstalers a year, but received dominions instead.

Financially she was secured through a pension and revenue from the town of Norrköping, the isles of Gotland, Öland, Ösel, and Poel, Wolgast and Neukloster in Mecklenburg, and estates in Pomerania.

Her plan to convert to Catholicism was not the only reason for her abdication, as there was increasing discontent with her arbitrary and wasteful ways. Within ten years, she and Oxenstierna had created 17 counts, 46 barons, and 428 lesser nobles. To provide these new peers with adequate appanages, they had sold or mortgaged crown property representing an annual income of 1,200,000 rikstalers.

During the ten years of her reign, the number of noble families increased from 300 to about 600, rewarding people such as Lennart Torstenson, Louis De Geer and Johan Palmstruch for their efforts. These donations took place with such haste that they were not always registered, and on some occasions, the same piece of land was given away twice.

Queen Christina abdicated her throne on June 6, 1654 in favor of Carl Gustaf. During the abdication ceremony at Uppsala Castle, Christina wore her regalia, which were ceremonially removed from her, one by one. Per Brahe, who was supposed to remove the crown, did not move, so she had to take the crown off herself.

Dressed in a simple white taffeta dress, she gave her farewell speech with a faltering voice, thanked everyone, and left the throne to King Carl X Gustaf, who was dressed in black. Per Brahe felt that she “stood there as pretty as an angel.” King Carl X Gustaf was crowned later on that day. Christina left the country within a few days.