Is King Charles III of the United Kingdom German? Conclusion

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Act of Settlement of 1701, Act of Union of 1707, Citizenship, Ethnicity, Glorious Revolution, King Charles III of the United Kingdom, King George I of Great Britain, King George II of Great Britain, King George III of Great Britain, Sophia Naturalization Act of 1705

From The Emperor’s Desk: This entry is a bit longer than usual but instead of dividing this entry and belaboring my point i decided to post it in its entirety.

The German ancestry of the British Royal Family begins with the accession of Duke Georg Ludwig of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Imperial Elector of Hanover. But how did this German Prince come to succeed to the throne of Great Britain?

Following the Glorious Revolution of 1688 in which King James II-VII of England, Scotland and Ireland, was deposed, the line of succession to the English throne was governed by the Bill of Rights 1689, which declared that the flight of James II-VII from England to France during the revolution amounted to an abdication of the throne and that James’s daughter Queen Mary II and her husband/cousin, King William III (Willem III of Orange, who was also James’s nephew), were James’s successors.

The Bill of Rights also provided that the line of succession would go through Mary’s Protestant descendants by William and any possible future husband should she outlive him, then through Mary’s sister Anne and her Protestant descendants, and then to the Protestant descendants of William III by a possible later marriage should he outlive Mary. During the debate, the House of Lords had attempted to append Electress Sophia of Hanover and her descendants to the line of succession, but the amendment failed in the Commons.

Queen Mary II died childless in 1694, after which William III did not remarry. In 1700, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, who was future Queen Anne’s only child to survive infancy, died of what may have been smallpox at the age of 11. Thus, Anne was left as the only person in line to the throne.

The Bill of Rights excluded Catholics from the throne, which ruled out James II and his children (as well as their descendants) sired after he converted to Catholicism in 1668. However, it did not provide for further succession after Anne. Parliament thus saw the need to settle the succession on Sophia and her descendants, and thereby guarantee the continuity of the Crown in the Protestant line.

With religion and lineage initially decided, the ascendancy of Willem of Orange in 1689 would also bring his partiality to his foreign favourites that followed. By 1701 English jealousy of foreigners was rampant, and action was considered necessary. It was considered necessary to create an Act of Parliament to settle the succession to the English throne.

The Act of Settlement

The Act of Settlement provided that the throne would pass to the Electress Sophia of Hanover – a granddaughter of James I-VI and a niece of King Charles I – and her descendants.

One the issues the Act of Settlement did not address was granting English citizenship to the Sovereign. The Act did address who can be a member of the Privy Council:

No foreigner (“no Person born out of the Kingdoms of England Scotland or Ireland or the Dominions thereunto belonging”), even if naturalised or made a denizen (unless born of English parents), can be a Privy Councillor or a member of either House of Parliament, or hold “any Office or Place of Trust, either Civill [sic] or Military, or to [sic] have any Grant of Lands, Tenements or Hereditaments from the Crown, to himself or to any other or others in Trust for him”.

Before I go further, let me define who or what is a British national. Over the many years there have been many Acts of Parliament that dealt with the subject and various related issues. I’m not going into all of them but I will mention a few of them.

Nationality is a legal identification of a person in international law, establishing the person as a subject, a national, of a sovereign state. It affords the state jurisdiction over the person and affords the person the protection of the state against other states.

The British Nationality Act 1948 was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom on British nationality law which defined British nationality by creating the status of “Citizen of the United Kingdom and Colonies” (CUKC) as the sole national citizenship of the United Kingdom and all of its colonies.

The British Nationality Act 1948 formed the basis of the United Kingdom’s nationality law until the British Nationality Act 1981, which came into force in 1983. Most of its provisions have been repealed or otherwise superseded by subsequent legislation, though parts remain in force.

British nationality law details the conditions by which a person is a national of the United Kingdom. The primary law governing these requirements is the British Nationality Act 1981, which came into force on January 1, 1983. Regulations apply to the British Islands (the UK itself and the Crown dependencies) as well as the 14 British Overseas Territories.

The Act of Parliament that did address the nationality of the English monarch and the English Royal Family was the Sophia Naturalization Act of 1705.

Prior to the Act of Union which United the Kingdoms of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain, each country had their own separate succession laws. Since the Sovereign of Ireland was always the Sovereign of England, Ireland followed England’s succession laws.

The Act for the Naturalization of the Most Excellent Princess Sophia, Electress and Duchess Dowager of Hanover, and the Issue of her Body was an Act of the Parliament of England (4 & 5 Ann. c. 16.) in 1705. It followed the Act of Settlement 1701, whereby Dowager Electress Sophia of Hanover and her Protestant descendants were declared to be in the line of succession to the throne (her son George I later became king).

Electress Sophia of Hanover, a granddaughter of James VI of Scotland and I of England, was not considered to be an Englishwoman as she had not been born in England. This Act naturalized her and “the issue of her body”, provided they were not Catholic, as English subjects. Any person born to a descendant of Sophia could also claim to be an English Subject (citizen) by being her descent of Sophia and to be the “issue of her body”.

In 1947, Prince Friedrich of Prussia succeeded in a claim to British citizenship under the Act, having renounced his German citizenship.

The Act was repealed by the British Nationality Act 1948. However, any non-Catholic descendant of the Electress born before the repealing statute was enacted had already automatically acquired the status of a British subject, so there are still people alive who can claim British nationality under the Sophia Naturalization Act.

Therefore, despite being born in Germany, technically the Holy Roman Empire at the time, King George I, King George II and Prince Frederick Louis, the Prince of Wales were all naturalized British Subjects.

However, for the sake of argument, let me say that these first three heads of the House of Hanover were ethnically German.

Now let me define ethnicity. An ethnicity or ethnic group is a grouping of people who identify with each other on the basis of shared attributes that distinguish them from other groups. Those attributes can include common sets of traditions, ancestry, language, history, society, nation, religion, or social treatment within their residing area. The term ethnicity is often used interchangeably with the term nation, particularly in cases of ethnic nationalism.

Ethnicity may be construed as an inherited or as a societally imposed construct. Ethnic membership tends to be defined by a shared cultural heritage, ancestry, origin myth, history, homeland, language, dialect, religion, mythology, folklore, ritual, cuisine, dressing style, art, or physical appearance. Ethnic groups may share a narrow or broad spectrum of genetic ancestry, depending on group identification, with many groups having mixed genetic ancestry. Ethnic groups often continue to speak related languages.

As previously mentioned the first three heads of the House of Hanover were ethnic Germans:

King George I of Great Britain: George was born on May 28, 1660 in the city of Hanover in the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire.

King George II of Great Britain: George was born November 9, 1683 in the city of Hanover in the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire.

Prince Frederick Louis, Prince of Wales and Duke of Edinburgh: Prince Frederick Louis was born on January 31, 1707 in the city of Hanover, in the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire as Duke Friedrich Ludwig of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

However, the next monarch of Great Britain was different. He was born in the Kingdom of Great Britain.

King George III of Great Britain: George was born on June 4, 1738 at Norfolk House in St James’s Square, London, England in the Kingdom of Great Britain.

George III was the first monarch of the House of Hanover who—unlike his two predecessors, and his father—was born in Great Britain, spoke English as his first language, and never visited Hanover.

In my eyes and the legal definition of citizenship and ethnicity he meets the criteria for being British.

Again, I have to ask a question at what point does an individual, or a family, need to live in a certain country to be considered a national of that country and ethnically from that country?

Legally those born in a certain country are a citizen of that country. Forgetting for a moment that King George I, King George II and Prince Frederick Louis, the Prince of Wales were all naturalized British Subjects (citizens); but beginning with King George III he and all subsequent British Monarchs have been born and bread in the United Kingdom.

That’s seven generations of British monarchs born and raised in the United Kingdom. Certainly right now they can be considered British and not German both by the definition of legal citizenship and by the definition of ethnicity.

This is why I consider King Charles III as being 100% British. At least seven generations of his ancestors were born in the United Kingdom.

The closest ancestor that King Charles had that was born a German citizen was his paternal Great-great grandfather, Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and by Rhine. Ludwig was born on September 12th, 1837 at the Prinz-Karl-Palais in Darmstadt, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine in the German Confederation.

Charles’ great grandmother, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine, (Victoria Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven) was born in Windsor Castle. Her husband, and cousin once removed, Prince Louis of Battenberg (Louis Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven) was born in Austria.

Also remember the King’s maternal grandmother was Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon the daughter Claude Bowes-Lyon, the 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne in the Peerage of Scotland, and his wife, Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck. Her mother was descended from British prime minister William Cavendish-Bentinck, 3rd Duke of Portland, and Governor-General of India Richard Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, who was the elder brother of another prime minister, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington.

This also gives Charles a considerable amount of Scottish and English ancestry.

In the future the German ancestry of the British Royal Family becomes even more distant and diluted. The Prince of Wales is the son of Lady Diana Spencer the daughter of John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer. The Spencer family is an aristocratic family in the United Kingdom. From the 16th century, its members have held numerous titles including the dukedom of Marlborough, the earldoms of Sunderland and Spencer, and the Churchill barony. Prime Minister Winston Churchill was a member of the Spencer family.

The mother of the future King George VII, Catherine Middleton, brings a great deal of English blood into the Royal Family. The Princess of Wales is the eldest of three children born to Michael Middleton (b. 1949) and his wife, Carole (née Goldsmith; b. 1955). Tracing their origins back to the Tudor era, the Middleton family of Yorkshire of the late 18th century were recorded as owning property of the Rectory Manor of Wakefield. The land passed down to solicitor William Middleton who established the family law firm in Leeds which spanned five generations.

So you can see in the future of the British Monarchy, both short term and long term, the German ancestry of the British Royal Family will fade into the background.

To conclude though King Charles does have German ancestry (as well as Danish and Russian and Greek ancestry) but he is both legally and ethnically a quintessential British person.

May 12, 1670: Birth of Augustus II the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland

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Augustus II the Strong, Elector Friedrich August I of Saxony, John George IV of Saxony, Order of the Golden Fleece, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, War of the Polish Succession

Augustus II (May 12, 1670 – February 1, 1733), most commonly known as Augustus the Strong, was Elector of Saxony from 1694 as well as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania in the years 1697–1706 and from 1709 until his death in 1733. He belonged to the Albertine line of the House of Wettin.

Early life

Augustus was born in Dresden on May 12, 1670, the younger son of Johann Georg III, Elector of Saxony and Princess Anna Sophie of Denmark, the eldest daughter of King Frederik III of Denmark and Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

As the second son, Augustus had no expectation of inheriting the electorate, since his older brother, Johann Georg IV, assumed the post after the death of their father on September 12, 1691. Augustus was well educated, and spent some years in travel and in fighting against France.

Augustus married Cristiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth in Bayreuth on January 20, 1693, the firstborn child of Christian Ernst, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, and his second wife, Princess Sophie Luise of Württemberg, daughter of Eberhard III, Duke of Württemberg. She was named for her father, Christian, and her mother’s father, Eberhard. As the daughter of the Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth, she was margravine by birth. She had five younger siblings, only two of whom survived infancy. She remained close to her relatives in Bayreuth and continued to visit them after her marriage.

While in Venice during the carnival season, his older brother, the Elector Johann Georg IV, contracted smallpox from his mistress Magdalena Sibylla of Neidschutz. On 27 April 1694, Johann Georg died without legitimate issue and Augustus became Elector of Saxony, as Friedrich August I.

Augustus’ great physical strength earned him the nicknames “the Strong”, “the Saxon Hercules” and “Iron-Hand”. He liked to show that he lived up to his name by breaking horseshoes with his bare hands and engaging in fox tossing by holding the end of his sling with just one finger while two of the strongest men in his court held the other end. He is also notable for fathering a very large number of children.

To be eligible for election to the throne of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1697, Augustus had to convert to Roman Catholicism. The Saxon dukes had traditionally been called “champions of the Reformation”. Saxony had been a stronghold of German Protestantism and Augustus’ conversion was therefore considered shocking in Protestant Europe. Although the Prince-Elector guaranteed Saxony’s religious status quo, Augustus’ conversion alienated many of his Protestant subjects.

As a Catholic, he received the Order of the Golden Fleece from the Holy Roman Emperor and established the Order of the White Eagle, Poland’s highest distinction. As Elector of Saxony, he is perhaps best remembered as a patron of the arts and architecture. He transformed the Saxon capital of Dresden into a major cultural centre, attracting artists from across Europe to his court. Augustus also amassed an impressive art collection and built lavish baroque palaces in Dresden and Warsaw. In 1711 he served as the Imperial vicar of the Holy Roman Empire.

His reigns brought Poland some troubled times. He led the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in the Great Northern War, which allowed the Russian Empire to strengthen its influence in Europe, especially within Poland. His main pursuit was bolstering royal power in the Commonwealth, characterized by broad decentralization in comparison with other European monarchies.

He tried to accomplish this goal using foreign powers and thus destabilized the state. Augustus ruled Poland with an interval; in 1704 the Swedes installed nobleman Stanisław Leszczyński as king, who officially reigned from 1706 to 1709 and after Augustus’ death in 1733 which sparked the War of the Polish Succession.

Augustus’ body was buried in Poland’s royal Wawel Cathedral in Kraków, but his heart rests in the Dresden Cathedral. His only legitimate son, Augustus II and his wife, Cristiane Eberhardine of Brandenburg-Bayreuth had a son, Friedrich August II (1696–1763), who succeeded his father as Elector of Saxony and King of Poland as Augustus III.

April 15, 1646: Birth of Christian V, King of Denmark and Norway

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Elected King, Elector Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg, Hereditary Succession, King Christian V of Denmark-Norway, King Frederick III of Denmark-Norway, Landgrave Wilhelm VI of Hesse-Cassel, Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Calenberg

Christian V (April 15, 1646 – August 25, 1699) was king of Denmark and Norway from 1670 until his death in 1699.

Early years

Prince Christian was born on April 15, 1646 at Duborg Castle in the city of Flensburg, then located in the Duchy of Schleswig. He was the first legitimate child born to the then Prince Frederik of Denmark by his consort, Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Calenberg. Sophie Amalie’s parents were Georg, Duke of Brunswick-Calenberg, and Anne Eleonore of Hesse-Darmstadt. Nothing is known of her childhood.

Prince Frederik was a younger son of King Christian IV, but the death of his elder brother Christian, Prince-Elect of Denmark in June 1647 opened the possibility for Frederik to be elected heir apparent to the Danish throne.

After the death of King Christian IV in 1648, Frederik thus became King of Denmark and Norway as Frederik III. Prince Christian was elected successor to his father in June 1650. This was not a free choice, but de facto automatic hereditary succession. Escorted by his chamberlain Christoffer Parsberg, Christian went on a long trip abroad, to Holland, England, France, and home through the Holy Roman Empire.

On this trip, he saw absolutism in its most splendid achievement at the young Louis XIV’s court, and heard about the theory of the divine right of kings. He returned to Denmark in August 1663. From 1664 he was allowed to attend proceedings of the State College. Hereditary succession was made official by Royal Law in 1665. Christian was hailed as heir in Copenhagen in August 1665, in Odense and Viborg in September, and in Christiania, Norway in July 1666. Only a short time before he became king, he was taken into the Council of the Realm and the Supreme Court.

Accession

On February 9, 1670, King Frederik III died at the age of 60 at the Copenhagen Castle after a reign of 22 years. At the death of his father, Christian immediately ascended the thrones of Denmark and Norway as the second absolute monarch at the age of just 24. He was formally crowned on June 7 the following year in the chapel of Frederiksborg Palace, which thereafter became the traditional place of coronation of Denmark’s monarchs during the days of the absolute monarchy. He was the first hereditary king of Denmark-Norway, and in honor of this, Denmark-Norway acquired costly new crown jewels and a magnificent new ceremonial sword.

Well-regarded by the common people, he was the first king anointed at Frederiksborg Castle chapel as absolute monarch since the decree that institutionalized the supremacy of the king in Denmark-Norway. Christian fortified the absolutist system against the aristocracy by accelerating his father’s practice of allowing both Holstein nobles and Danish and Norwegian commoners into state service.

As king, he wanted to show his power as absolute monarch through architecture, and dreamed of a Danish Versailles. He was the first to use the 1671 Throne Chair of Denmark, partly made for this purpose. His motto was: Pietate et Justitia (With piety and justice).

Marriage

Charlotte Amalie of Hesse-Cassel (April 27, 1650 – March 27, 1714) was born on April 27, 1650, in Cassel, Hesse, in the Holy Roman Empire. Her parents were Wilhelm VI, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel and Hedwig Sophia of Brandenburg, the daughter of Georg Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg and Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate.

Charlotte Amalie’s mother was a religiously strict adherent of the Reformed Church and politically oriented toward Brandenburg, both views which were to be shared by her daughter. She was well educated in finances, geography, the languages German, French and Italian, and philosophy. French was to be her preferred written language, though she spoke German with her more intimate friends.

Crown Prince Christian of Denmark and Norway was sent to meet Charlotte Amalie in Hesse in 1665 as a marriage prospect arranged by Danish Queen Sophie Amalie, who desired a daughter-in-law that she could control and expected this to be the case for a member of the reformed church who would be religiously isolated in Lutheran Denmark. However, the negotiations were drawn out because of religious concerns.

In the marriage contract, Charlotte Amelie was not required to convert and managed to secure the right to keep her faith after her wedding to Christian, who as ruler of Denmark would become the head of the state Lutheran Church, a term which was contested and met some resistance before it was accepted.

As Queen of Denmark and Norway by marriage to King Christian V, she did not have much political influence, she was a successful businesswoman in her many estates and protected foreign Protestant non-Lutherans from oppression. She gained popularity for defending Copenhagen from Swedish forces in 1700.

Christian V had eight children by his wife and six by his Maîtresse-en-titre, Sophie Amalie Moth (1654–1719), whom he took up with when she was sixteen. Sophie was the daughter of his former tutor Poul Moth. Christian publicly introduced Sophie into court in 1672, a move which insulted his wife, and made her countess of Samsø on December 31, 1677.

At the death of Christian V on August 25, 1699, the Crown Prince of Denmark succeeded as King Frederik IV of Denmark-Norway. Frederik IV married Louise of Mecklenburg-Güstrow, herself a great-great-granddaughter of Frederik II of Denmark. They were crowned on April 15, 1700 in the chapel of Frederiksborg Palace.

March 28, 1727: Birth of Maximilian III Joseph, Elector of Bavaria

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Elector Charles Theodore of the Palatine, Elector Friedrich August II of Saxony, Elector Maximilian III Joseph of Bavaria, Emperor Charles VII, King Augustus III of Polan, Maria Anna of Saxony, War of the Bavarian Succession, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Maximilian III Joseph, “the much beloved” (March 28, 1727 – December 30, 1777), was a Prince-elector of the Holy Roman Empire and Duke of Bavaria from 1745 to 1777.

Born in Munich, Maximilian was the eldest son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles VII (Elector Charles Albrecht of Bavaria) and his wife, Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria, daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I and his wife Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

Upon his father’s death in January 1745, he inherited a country in the process of being invaded by Austrian armies as part of the War of the Austrian Succession. The 18-year-old Maximilian Joseph wavered between the Peace-party, led by his mother Empress Maria Amalia and Army Commander Friedrich Heinrich von Seckendorff and the War-party, led by Foreign Minister General Ignaz Count of Törring and the French envoy Chavigny.

After the decisive defeat in the Battle of Pfaffenhofen on April 15, Maximilian Joseph quickly abandoned his father’s imperial pretenses as a future Emperor and made peace with Archduchess Maria Theresa (his mother’s first cousin and future Empress-Consort) in the Treaty of Füssen, in which he agreed to support her husband, Grand Duke Franz Stefan of Tuscany, in the upcoming imperial election.

In 1747, Maximilian Joseph married his first cousin, Maria Anna of Saxony, daughter of King Augustus III of Poland (Elector Friedrich August II of Saxony) and his wife Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria, the eldest child of Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor and Princess Wilhelmina Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg. The marriage remained childless.

During the Seven Years’ War Bavarian forces then fought on the Habsburg side. Maximilian Joseph’s sister Maria Josepha of Bavaria was married in 1765 to Empress Maria Theresa’s son, future Emperor Joseph II. But long-term weakening of Prussia was not in the Bavarian interest, as that country offered the only counterweight to the Habsburg monarchy.

Maximilian Joseph tried, as far as possible, to keep Bavaria out of the wars. Apart from militia troops, he sent only a small force of 4,000 men to join the Austrian army. In 1758/1759 (only a year and half into the war), he withdrew Bavarian auxiliary troops from Austrian service. Together with the Wittelsbach Elector Charles Theodore of the Palatinate he enforced the neutrality of the Empire during the conflict.

Maximilian Joseph was a progressive and enlightened ruler who did much to improve the development of his country. He encouraged agriculture, industry, and exploitation of the mineral wealth of the country, and abolished the Jesuit censorship of the press. In 1747 the Nymphenburg Porcelain Factory was established, while the Codex Maximilianeus bavaricus civilis was written in 1756.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was received by Maximilian III Joseph, who was like his sister Maria Antonia of Bavaria skilled in music and composed, but due to a need for strict frugality no post could be offered. In 1775 La finta giardiniera, an Italian opera by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, received its first performance at the Salvatortheater in Munich.

In 1770 Maximilian III Joseph established the precursor of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich.

In 1771 the elector regulated general school attendance. In December 1777 Maximilian Joseph rode in his carriage through Munich; on the ride, as he passed one of the tower clocks, the mechanism broke, and the clock struck 77 times. Commenting to the passengers, Maximilian Joseph decided this was an omen, and that his years had run out. Within days, he was stricken with a strange disease. None of his 15 doctors could diagnose it, but by Christmas, it had become clear that it was a particularly virulent strain of smallpox, called “purple small pox” at the time.

By the last day of the month he was dead without leaving an heir. Maximilian III Joseph is buried in the crypt of the Theatinerkirche in Munich.

Succession

As the last of the junior branch of the Wittelsbach dynasty which derived from Ludwig IV, Holy Roman Emperor and had ruled Bavaria since early 14th century, Maximilian III Joseph’s death led to a succession dispute and the brief War of the Bavarian Succession. He was succeeded by his (in the male line) 12th cousin, once removed, the Elector Charles Theodore of the Palatine from the senior branch of the Wittelsbach dynasty.

Charles Theodore did not immediately take up his new title. He had severall, mistresses and many illegitimate children. However, these children could inherit neither the Electorate of Bavaria nor that of the Elector Palatine; Charles Theodore needed territory that he could bequeath to his illegitimate children. Charles Theodore also dreamed of resurrecting the Burgundian Empire of the Middle Ages.

On January 3, 1778, shortly after the death of Maximilian III Joseph, Charles Theodore signed an agreement with Emperor Joseph II to exchange southern Bavaria for part of the Austrian Netherlands.

The plan was strongly opposed by Maria Anna of Saxony, the widow of Maximilian III Joseph, and Charles Theodore’s cousin Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken, the head of the House of Palatinate-Birkenfeld and next heir of Bavaria and the Palatinate. They were supported by Friedrich II of Prussia, and most of the German minor states.

The ensuing diplomatic crisis led to the War of the Bavarian Succession, which was ended by the Peace of Teschen (1779). Charles Theodore accepted the Bavarian succession, but agreed that his illegitimate descendants could not inherit Bavaria. Austria acquired the Innviertel, a part of Bavaria in the basin of the Inn River.

Maximilian’s widow Maria Anna of Saxony and Maximilian’s sister Duchess Maria Antonia of Bavaria as well as Maria Anna of Palatinate-Sulzbach, the widow of the former Bavarian Crown Prince Duke Clement Franz of Bavaria negotiated with Max’s reluctant heir and intervened together with King Friedrich II of Prussia and the new elector’s supposed successor, Charles II August, Duke of Zweibrücken, to secure Bavaria’s independence from Austria.

The Life of Langrave Friedrich II of Hesse-Cassel

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Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, Clemens August of Bavaria, Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle, Frederick I of Sweden, Friedrich II of Hesse-Cassel, King George II of Great Britain, Margravine Philippine Brandenburg-Schwedt, Princess Mary of Great Britain

Friedrich II of Hesse-Cassel (August 14, 1720 – October 31, 1785) was Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel from 1760 to 1785. He ruled as an enlightened despot, and raised money by renting soldiers (called “Hessians”) to Great Britain to help fight the American Revolutionary War. He combined Enlightenment ideas with Christian values, cameralist plans for central control of the economy, and a militaristic approach toward international diplomacy.

Early life

Friedrich was born at Cassel in Hesse, the son of Wilhelm VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel and his wife Dorothea Wilhelmine of Saxe-Zeitz. His paternal grandfather was Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and his paternal uncle was King Frederick I of Sweden (Friedrich I, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel). His education was initially entrusted to Colonel August Moritz von Donop and then from 1726 to 1733 to the Swiss theologian and philosopher, Jean-Pierre de Crousaz.

Marriages and Children

On May 8, 1740, by proxy in London, and on June 28, 1740 in person in Cassel, Friedrich married Princess Mary, fourth daughter of King George II of Great Britain, Elector of Hanover and Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, daughter of Johann Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, and his second wife, Princess Eleonore Erdmuthe of Saxe-Eisenach.

They had four sons:

1. Wilhelm (December 25, 1741 – July 1, 1742)
2. William I, Elector of Hesse (June 3, 1743 – February 27, 1821)
3. Charles (December 19, 1744 – August 1836), father of Princess Louise Caroline of Hesse-Cassel and grandfather of King Christian IX of Denmark.
4. Friedrich (September 11, 1747 – May 20, 1837), father of Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Cassel and grandfather of Louise of Hesse-Cassel, Queen of Denmark as the wife of King Christian IX of Denmark.

In December 1745, Friedrich landed in Scotland with 6000 Hessian troops to support his father-in-law, George II of Great Britain, in dealing with the Jacobite rising. Although he supported the “Protestant succession” in Great Britain on this occasion, Friedrich later converted from Calvinism to Catholicism.

In February 1749, Friedrich and his father visited the Archbishop-Elector of Cologne, Prince Clemens August of Bavaria, who received Friedrich into the Catholic Church.

Despite his exertions in support of her father, Friedrich’s marriage with the British princess was not a happy one. The couple were living apart from each other by 1747, and were formally separated in 1755. Mary moved to Denmark the following year to care for the children of her late sister Louise of Great Britain, who had died in 1751.

All three of the couple’s surviving sons moved with Mary to Denmark. Two of them, including Friedrich’s heir Wilhelm, later married Danish princesses, their first cousins. The younger sons lived permanently in Denmark, rising to high office in the court of their cousin; only Wilhelm returned to the Holy Roman Empire upon inheriting the principality of Hanau. He also later succeeded Friedrich II as Landgrave Wilhelm VIII of Hesse-Cassel.

Mary died in 1772, and Friedrich lost little time in marrying again. On January 10, 1773, at Berlin, he married Margravine Philippine Brandenburg-Schwedt daughter of Friedrich Wilhelm, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt and Sophia Dorothea of Prussia. No children were born of this marriage.

Ruler

After being formally separated from his wife in 1755, Friedrich entered active service in the Prussian military. In 1760, he succeeded his father as Landgrave Friedrich II of Hesse-Cassel. Despite Friedrich’s Catholicism, the principality remained Calvinist, and Friedrich’s children were raised as Protestants in Denmark.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, it was a fairly widespread practice for smaller principalities to rent out troops to other princes. However, the practise was carried to excess in Hesse-Cassel, which maintained 7% of its entire population under arms throughout the eighteenth century.

Landgrave Friedrich II hired out so many troops to his nephew, King George III of Great Britain, for use in the American War of Independence, that “Hessian” has become an American term for all German soldiers deployed by the British in the War. Friedrich used the revenue to finance his patronage of the arts and his opulent lifestyle. The architect Simon Louis du Ry transformed for Friedrich II the town of Cassel into a modern capital.

Landgrave Friedrich II died in 1785 at Castle Weißenstein, Cassel. He was succeeded by his eldest surviving son, Wilhelm who became Wilhelm IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel. He was said to have inherited one of the largest fortunes in Europe at the time.

In 1803, Landgrave Wilhelm IX was created The Prince-Elector of Hesse. After the Napoleonic Wars Several other prince-electors of the Holy Roman Empire had been recognized as kings at the Congress of Vienna (1815), such as Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony, Wilhelm attempted to join them by declaring himself King of the Chatti.

However, the European powers refused to recognize this title at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818) and instead granted him the title Grand Duke of Hesse and the style of “Royal Highness.” Deeming the title of Prince-Elector to be superior in dignity to that of Grand Duke, Wilhelm chose to remain an Elector, even though there was no longer a Holy Roman Emperor to elect. Hesse-Cassel would remain an Electorate until it was annexed by Prussia in 1866.

March 26, 1687: Birth of Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, Queen in Prussia and Electress of Brandenburg. Part I.

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Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Elector of Hanover, House of Hanover, House of Hohenzollern, King Frederick I of Prussia, King Frederick William I of Prussia, King George I of Great Britain, Sophia Dorothea of Hanover

Sophia Dorothea of Hanover (March 26, 1687 – June 28, 1757) was Queen in Prussia and Electress of Brandenburg during the reign of her husband, King Friedrich Wilhelm I, from February 25, 1713 to May 31, 1740.

Sophia Dorothea was born on March 26, 1687 in Hanover. She was the only daughter of Georg Ludwig, Elector of Hanover, later King George I of Great Britain, and his wife and cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Celle the only surviving daughter of Georg Wilhelm, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, by his morganatic wife Eléonore Desmier d’Olbreuse (1639–1722), Lady of Harburg, a French Huguenot noblewoman.

Sophia Dorothea of Great Britain was detested by her elder brother, King George II of Great Britain.

After the divorce and imprisonment of her mother, she was raised in Hanover under the supervision of her paternal grandmother, Sophia of Hanover, and was educated by her Huguenot teacher Madame de Sacetot.

Marriage

Sophia Dorothea married her cousin, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia, heir apparent to the Prussian throne, on November 28, 1706. He was born in Berlin to King Friedrich I in Prussia and Princess Sophia Charlotte of Hanover, the only daughter of Elector Ernst August of Hanover and his wife Sophia of the Palatinate. Her eldest brother, Georg Ludwig, succeeded to the British throne in 1714 as King George I.

They had met as children when Friedrich Wilhelm had spent some time in Hanover under the care of their grandmother, Sophia of Hanover, and though Sophia Dorothea disliked him, Friedrich Wilhelm had reportedly felt an attraction to her early on.

When a marriage was to be arranged for Friedrich Wilhelm, he was given three alternatives: Princess Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden, (later Queen of Sweden youngest child of King Carl XI and Ulrika Eleonora of Denmark); Princess Amalia of Nassau-Dietz, (the only daughter of Johan Willem Friso of Nassau-Dietz (after 1702 Prince of Orange) and his wife, Landgravine Marie Louise of Hesse-Cassel); or Sophia Dorothea of Hanover.

The Swedish match was preferred by his father, who wished to form a matrimonial alliance with Sweden, and thus the official Finck was sent to Stockholm under the pretext of an adjustment of the disputes regarding Pomerania, but in reality to observe the princess before issuing formal negotiations.

Friedrich Wilhelm, however, preferred Sophia Dorothea and successfully tasked Finck with making such a deterring report of Ulrika Eleonora to his father that he would encounter less opposition when he informed his father of his choice.

Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, Crown Princess of Prussia

A marriage alliance between Prussia and Hanover was regarded as a noncontroversial choice by both courts and the negotiations were swiftly conducted. In order for Sophia Dorothea to make as good an impression as possible in Berlin, her grandmother, Electress Sophia, commissioned her niece Elizabeth Charlotte, Princess of the Palatinate to procure her trousseau in Paris. Her bridal paraphernalia attracted great attention and was referred to as the greatest of any German Princess yet.

The wedding by proxy took place in Hanover on November 28, 1706, and she arrived in Berlin on November 27 where she was welcomed by her groom and his family outside of the city gates and before making her entrance into the capital. Thereafter followed a second wedding, the stately torch-dance, and six weeks of banquets and balls.

King Friedrich Wilhelm I in Prussia

Crown Princess in Prussia

Sophia Dorothea was described as tall, with a beautiful slender figure, graceful and dignified with big blue eyes. Though not regarded as strictly beautiful, she was seen as quite attractive at the time of her marriage and described as charming in her manners, making a good impression in Berlin. Friedrich Wilhelm often called her “Fiekchen”.

Sophia Dorothea and Friedrich Wilhelm differed from each other in every aspect and the marriage suffered as a result. Sophia Dorothea was interested in art, science, literature and fashion, while Friedrich Wilhelm was described as an unpolished, uneducated and spartan military man with rough manners.

Though he was never unfaithful to her, he was unable to win her affection. One of the most important differences between them was that Sophia Dorothea, unlike her husband, loved entertainment, something he regarded to be frivolous.

Friedrich Wilhelm contemplated divorcing her the same year they married and, judging by her letters, accused her of not wanting to be married to him. According to Morgenstern, “He had none of that astonishing complaisance by which lovers, whether husbands or friends, seek to win the favor of the beloved object.

As far as can be gathered from the words he occasionally let drop, the crossing of his first love might have been the innocent cause of this; and as the object of this passion, by the directions of her mother and grandmother, treated him with harshness, where, then, could he learn to make love?”

Queen Sophia Dorothea in Prussia

The birth of her firstborn son, Friedrich Ludwig, in 1707 was celebrated greatly in Prussia, and Sophia Dorothea successfully asked the king to liberate the imprisoned minister Eberhard von Danckelmann. In 1708, after the death of her firstborn son, the physicians declared that Sophia Dorothea was not likely to conceive again, which prompted the remarriage of her father-in-law.

Her father-in-law, Friedrich I, King in Prussia married Sophia Louise of Mecklenburg-Schwerin the fourth child of Friedrich, Duke of Mecklenburg-Grabow, and Princess Christine Wilhelmine of Hesse-Homburg. She was an aunt of Grand Duchess Anna Leopoldovna of Russia, who was herself regent and mother of Emperor Ivan VI of Russia.

However, Crown Princess Sophia Dorothea gave birth to several children in the following years, and finally to a son who survived in 1712.

Queen in Prussia

In 1713, her father-in-law King Friedrich I died and was succeeded by her spouse as Friedrich Wilhelm I, making her Queen in Prussia.

At the time of the accession, Prussia was at war with Sweden, and Sophia Dorothea accompanied Friedrich Wilhelm during the campaign of 1715, though she soon returned to Berlin to give birth to her daughter. During the war, the king left directions to his ministers to consult her and take no action without her approval in the case of an emergency.

In 1717, she hosted Emperor Peter I the Great of Russia on his visit to Berlin at her own palace Monbijou, as per the king’s request, which was vandalized as a result. Sophia Dorothea’s first favorite was her maid of honor, von Wagnitz, who was dismissed after an intrigue in which Kreutz and her mother tried to make her the king’s mistress, as well as being a spy of the French ambassador Rothenburg.

Queen Sophia Dorothea was admired for her gracious manners and nicknamed “Olympia” for her regal bearing, but scarred by smallpox and overweight with time, she was not called a beauty. She was known as extremely haughty, proud, and ambitious, but Friedrich Wilhelm greatly disliked her interference in politics, as it was his belief that women should be kept only for breeding, and kept submissive as they would otherwise dominate their husbands.

The king was known for his parsimony and dislike of idleness to such a degree that he would beat people in the street as well as in the palace if he viewed them as lazy. The queen complained about the “horrible avarice” he pressed upon the household and as a result, according to Pollnitz, the queen’s table was often so sparingly supplied that he had often given her money so that she could be able to have an omelette for supper.

Friedrich Wilhelm viewed her interests in theater, dancing, jewelry and music as frivolous and resented any sign of her living a life independently from his authority: he particularly disliked her interest in gambling, and it is reported that she and her partners would have coffee beans ready on the table during gambling, so that if the king appeared, they could pretend to be playing with them rather than money.

She also abhorred his cruelty towards their son and heir Friedrich, the future King Friedrich II the Great of Prussia (with whom she was close), although rather than trying to mend the relationship between father and son she frequently spurred Friedrich on in his defiance.

The Golden Bull of 1356

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Count Palatine of the Rhine, Duke Friedrich the Fair of Austria, Duke of Bavaria, Emperor Charles IV, Emperor Ludwig IV, Holy Roman Empire, House of Habsburg, House of Wittelsbach, Prince-Elector, The Golden Bull of 1356

The Golden Bull of 1356 was a decree issued by the Imperial Diet of the Holy Roman Empire at Nuremberg and Metz (Diet of Metz, 1356/57) headed by Emperor Charles IV which fixed, for a period of more than four hundred years, important aspects of the constitutional structure of the Holy Roman Empire. It was named the Golden Bull for the golden seal it carried.

Though the election of the King of the Romans by the chief ecclesiastical and secular princes of the Holy Roman Empire was well established, disagreements about the process and papal involvement had repeatedly resulted in controversies, most recently in 1314 when Ludwig IV of Bavaria and Friedrich of Austria had been elected by opposing sets of electors.

Ludwig, who had eventually subdued his rival’s claim on the battlefield, made a first attempt to clarify the process in the Declaration of Rhense of 1338, which renounced any papal involvement and had restricted the right to choose a new king to the Prince-Electors. The Golden Bull, promulgated by Ludwig’s s successor and rival, Charles IV, was more precise in several ways.

Prince-Electors

Firstly, the Bull explicitly named the seven Prince-Electors who were to choose the King and also defined the Reichserzämter, their (largely ceremonial) offices at court:

Secondly, the principle of majority voting was explicitly stated for the first time in the Empire. The Bull prescribed that four (out of seven) votes would always suffice to elect a new King; as a result, three Electors could no longer block the election. Thirdly, the Electoral principalities were declared indivisible, and succession to them was regulated to ensure that the votes would never be divided.

Finally, the Bull cemented a number of privileges for the Electors, confirming their elevated role in the Empire. It is therefore also a milestone in the establishment of largely independent states in the Empire, a process to be concluded only centuries later, notably with the Peace of Westphalia of 1648.

Codification of Prince-Electors, though largely based on precedence, was not uncontroversial, especially in regard to the two chief rivals of the ruling House of Luxembourg:

The House of Wittelsbach ruled the Duchy of Bavaria as well as the County Palatinate. Dynastic divisions had caused the two territories to devolve upon distinct branches of the house. The Treaty of Pavia, which in 1329 restored the Palatinate branch, stipulated that Bavaria and the Palatinate would alternate in future elections, but the Golden Bull fixed the electoral vote upon the Palatinate and not upon Bavaria, partly because Charles’s predecessor and rival Ludwig IV was of that branch.

Ludwig IV’s sons, Ludwig V and Stephan II of Bavaria, protested this omission, feeling that Bavaria, one of the original duchies of the realm and their family’s chief territory for over 170 years, deserved primacy over the Palatinate. The omission of Bavaria from the list of Prince-Electors also allowed Bavaria, which had only recently been reunited, to fall into dynastic fragmentation again.

Brandenburg was in the hands of the Bavarian Wittelsbachs (though held by a junior member of the house) in 1356; they eventually lost the territory to the Luxemburgs in 1373, leaving the Bavarian branch without representation in the electoral college until 1623.

The House of Habsburg, long-time rivals of the Luxembourgs, were completely omitted from the list of Prince-Electors, leading to decreased political influence and dynastic fragmentation. In retaliation, Duke Rudolph IV, one of the dukes of fragmented Austria, had the Privilegium Maius forged, a document supposedly issued by Emperor Friedrich I Barbarossa.

The document gave Austria – elevated to the position of an Archduchy – special privileges, including primogeniture. While ignored by the Emperor and other princes at the time, the document was eventually ratified when Friedrich of Austria himself became Emperor in the 15th century. Still, the Habsburgs remained without an electoral vote until they succeeded to the Kingdom of Bohemia in 1526.

Procedures

The bull regulated the whole election process in great detail, listing explicitly where, when, and under which circumstances what should be done by whom, not only for the prince-electors but also (for example) for the population of Frankfurt, where the elections were to be held, and also for the counts of the regions the prince-electors had to travel through to get there.

The decision to hold the elections in Frankfurt reflected a traditional feeling dating from days of the Kingdom of East Francia that both election and coronation ought to take place on Frankish soil. However, the election location was not the only specified location; the bull specified that the coronation would take place in Aachen, and Nuremberg would be the place where the first diet of a reign should be held. The elections were to be concluded within thirty days; failing that, the bull prescribed that the Prince-Electors were to receive only bread and water until they had decided.

Besides regulating the election process, the chapters of the Golden Bull contained many minor decrees. For instance, it also defined the order of marching when the Emperor was present, both with and without his insignia.

A relatively major decision was made in chapter 15, where Charles IV outlawed any conjurationes, confederationes, and conspirationes, meaning in particular the city alliances (Städtebünde), but also other communal leagues that had sprung up through the communal movement in mediaeval Europe. Most Städtebünde were subsequently dissolved, sometimes forcibly, and were re-founded, their political influence was much reduced. Thus the Golden Bull also strengthened the nobility in general to the detriment of the cities.

The pope’s involvement with the Golden Bull of 1356 was basically nonexistent, which was significant in the history of relations between the popes and the emperors. When Charles IV laid down procedure for electing a King of the Romans, he mentioned nothing about receiving papal confirmation of the election. However, Pope Innocent VI did not protest this because he needed Charles’s support against the Visconti. Pope Innocent continued to have good relations with Charles IV after the Golden Bull of 1356 until the former’s death in 1362.

March 5, 1723: Birth of Princess Mary of Great Britain, Landgravine of Hesse-Cassel

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Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, King Christian IX of Denmark, King George II of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover, Landgrave Charles of Hesse-Cassel, Landgrave Friedrich II of Hesse-Cassel, Landgrave Friedrich of Hesse-Cassel, Landgravine of Hesse-Cassel, Louise of Hesse-Cassel, Princess Mary of Great Britain

Mary of Great Britain (March 5, 1723 – January 14, 1772) was the second-youngest daughter of King George II of Great Britain, Elector of Hanover and his wife, Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, and Landgravine of Hesse-Cassel as the wife of Friedrich II, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel.

King George II of Great Britain, Elector of Hanover

Early life

Princess Mary was born at Leicester House, Westminster, London during the reign of her grandfather King George I of Great Britain, Elector of Hanover. When she was born her father was the Prince of Wales, later King George II.

Her mother was Princess Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, daughter of Johann Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach (of the House of Hohenzollern) and his second wife, Princess Eleonore Erdmuthe of Saxe-Eisenach. Her father was the ruler of one of the smallest German states; he died of smallpox at the age of 32, when Caroline was three years old.

Prince Mary’s father succeeded, as King George II of Great Britain, Elector of Hanover on June 11, 1727, and she became “HRH The Princess Mary”. Upon her death in 1737, her mother, Queen Caroline, entrusted Mary to her elder sister Caroline, urging her to “do what she could to support the meek and mild disposition of Princess Mary”.

Princess Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach

Marriage

A marriage was negotiated with Landgrave Friedrich of Hesse-Cassel, the only son and heir of Wilhelm VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and his wife Dorothea Wilhelmine of Saxe-Zeitz.

For the marriage, Parliament voted Mary £40,000.

They were married by proxy at the Chapel Royal of St. James’s Palace in London on May 8, then in person on June 28, 1740 at Cassel. They had four sons, three of whom survived to adulthood.

Princess Mary was 17 and Landgrave Friedrich was 20 at the time of their marriage.

The marriage was unhappy, and Friedrich was said to be “brutal” and “a boor”. Friedrich reportedly subjected Mary to spousal abuse. In late 1746, Mary made an extended trip to Britain to escape his maltreatment. The couple separated in 1754 on Friedrich’s conversion to Roman Catholicism. She was supported by her father-in-law, who provided her with a residence in Hanau, as she did not wish to return to Great Britain, but to stay on the continent to raise her children.

Princess Mary of Great Britain, Langravine of Hesse-Cassel

In 1756, Mary moved to Denmark, to take care of the children of her sister Louise of Great Britain, the first wife of King Frederik V of Denmark and Norway, who had died in 1751.

Princess Mary took her children with her, and they were raised at the royal court and her sons were married to Danish princesses. Her husband succeeded his father as Landgrave Friedrich II of Hesse-Cassel in 1760.

Landgrave Friedrich II of Hesse-Cassel ruled as an enlightened despot, and raised money by renting soldiers (called “Hessians”) to Great Britain to help fight the American Revolutionary War. He combined Enlightenment ideas with Christian values, cameralist plans for central control of the economy, and a militaristic approach toward international diplomacy.

Landgrave Friedrich II of Hesse-Cassel

Princess Mary was technically a Landgravine for the last twelve years of her life, despite her estrangement from her husband.

Princess Mary died on January 14 or 16, 1772, aged 48 at Hanau, in the Holy Roman Empire.

After Mary’s death her widowed husband Friedrich lost little time in marrying again. On 10 January 10, 1773, at Berlin, he married Margravine Philippine of Brandenburg-Schwed, daughter of Friedrich Wilhelm, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt and Sophia Dorothea of Prussia, the ninth child and fifth daughter of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, sister of King George I of Great Britain, grandfather of Landgrave Friedrich II’s first wife Mary.

Philippine thus became stepmother to Friedrich’s three surviving sons: Wilhelm, Charles, and Friedrich. Philippine would not produce any legitimate children herself however.

During her marriage, Philippine led a widely independent life, even setting up her own court. On March 1, 1777, she gave birth to an illegitimate son, Georg Philippson, fathered by the later Württemberg statesman Georg Ernst Levin von Wintzingerode. She also helped reconcile her husband with his children from his first marriage, from whom he had been estranged since 1754.

Children and Descendants

1. Wilhelm (December 1741 – July 1, 1742)

2. Wilhelm I, Elector of Hesse (June 3, 1743 – February 27, 1821)
Originally Landgrave Wilhelm IX of Hesse-Casseland following the reorganization of the imperial states of the Holy Roman Empire during the mediatisation, called the the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Cassel was raised to the Electorate of Hesse with Landgrave Wilhelm IX, now an Imperial Elector, taking the title Wilhelm I, Elector of Hesse.

3. Charles (December 19, 1744 – August 17, 1836). Brought up with relatives at the Danish court, he spent most of his life in Denmark, serving as royal governor of the twin duchies of Schleswig-Holstein from 1769 to 1836 and commander-in-chief of the Norwegian army from 1772 to 1814.

Landgrave Charles of Hesse-Cassel

On August 30, 1766 at the Christiansborg Palace Chapel, Landgrave Charles of Hesse-Cassel married his maternal first cousin, Princess Louise of Denmark and Norway who was a daughter to King Frederik V of Denmark and Norway, and his first wife Princess Louise of Great Britain (his aunt and the sister of his mother Princess Mary of Great Britain).

The marriage took place with her brother King Christian VII’s consent, despite advice given against it, due to many accusations of debauchery by Landgrave Charles and the poor influence he had on the King. This, however, did not last, as Christian VII’s warm feelings for him soon evaporated, and in the spring 1767, the couple left Copenhagen to live in Hanau.

Charles and Louise’s eldest daughter, Princess Marie of Hesse-Cassel, married her cousin King Frederik VI of Denmark.

Charles and Louise’s other daughter, Princess Louise Caroline of Hesse-Cassel, was the consort of Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. Amongst their children was Prince Christian who later became King Christian IX of Denmark. This made Princess Louise Caroline of Hesse-Casseland the matriarch of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, which became the ruling house of the kingdoms of Denmark, Greece, and Norway…and technically the United Kingdom.

4. Friedrich (September 11, 1747 – May 20, 1837). He was the last surviving legitimate grandchild of King George II of Great Britain, dying one month before Queen Victoria (granddaughter of his first cousin King George III) ascended to the throne.

Landgrave Friedrich of Hesse-Cassel

On December 2, 1786 in Biebrich, Friedrich of Hesse-Cassel married Princess Caroline of Nassau-Usingen (1762 – 1823), a remarkable heiress of a family which became extinct in the male line. 1781 he bought Rumpenheim Castle, Offenbach, from his brother Charles, and it became the family’s seat. He became known as Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel-Rumpenheim, and his descendants are known as the Hesse-Kassel-Rumpenheim branch of the House of Hesse, one of only two branches that survived to the present day.

Princess Augusta of Hesse-Cassel, Duchess of Cambridge

Friedrich and Caroline’s daughter was Princess Augusta of Hesse-Cassel (1797 – 1889) who was the wife of Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, the tenth-born child, and seventh son, of George III of the United Kingdom and Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The longest-lived daughter-in-law of George III, she was the maternal grandmother of Mary of Teck, wife of George V of the United Kingdom.

Friedrich and Caroline’s son, Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Cassel
married his cousin Charlotte of Denmark (1789–1864) who was a daughter to Frederik, Hereditary Prince of Denmark and Norway, and Sophia Frederica of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

Princess Charlotte of Denmark

They were the parents of Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel who was the wife of Christian IX of Denmark.

King Christian IX of Denmark and Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel were the parents of Princess Alexandra of Denmark the wife of the future King Edward VII of the United Kingdom.

Therefore, through Alexandra’s descent from Princess Mary of Great Britain and her sister Princess Louise, brings another line from King George II of Great Britain into the current British Royal Family.

The Life of Augusta of Prussia, Electress of Hesse

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Augusta of Prussia, Elector Wilhelm I of Hesse, Elector Wilhelm II of Hesse, Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt, Grand Duchy of Hesse and By Rhine, King Frederik V of Denmark and Norway, King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, Louise of Great Britain, Mary of Great Britain, Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, Wilhelmina Caroline of Denmark and Norway

Augusta of Prussia (May 1, 1780 – February 19, 1841) was a German salonist, painter, and Electress consort of Hesse by marriage to Wilhelm II, Elector of Hesse.

She was the third daughter and fifth child of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia and Princess Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt.

The History of Hesse

In 1568 with the death of Landgrave Philipp I, the Landgraviate of Hesse a German Principality of the Holy Roman Empire, was divided among his sons. With the extinction of the Hesse-Marburg and Hesse-Rheinfels lines by 1604, Hesse-Darmstadt, along with Hesse-Cassel, became the two remaining Hessian states.

End of the landgraviate

Following the reorganization of the German states during the mediatisation, called the the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Cassel was raised to the Electorate of Hesse with Landgrave Wilhelm IX, now an Imperial Elector, taking the title Wilhelm I, Elector of Hesse.

King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia

Hesse-Darmstadt gained a great deal of territory from the secularization and modifications authorized by the Reichsdeputationshauptschluss of 1803. The acquisition of the Duchy of Westphalia, formerly owned by the Archbishop of Cologne, was significant, as were the acquisition of territories from the Archbishop of Mainz and the Bishop of Worms.

Princess Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt

In 1806, upon the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, Elector Wilhelm I was dispossessed by Napoleon Bonaparte for his support of the Kingdom of Prussia.

At the Congress of Vienna in 1814, a number of Napoleonic electorates were elevated to kingdoms, and Elector Wilhelm tried to secure recognition as King of the Chatti. However, he was rebuffed by the Great Powers, who listed him as a “Royal Highness” along with the other Grand Dukes.

To secure his pre-eminence over his cousin, Grand Duke Ludwig of Hesse in the former Hesse-Darmstadt, Wilhelm chose to keep his title of Prince-Elector. The rulers of the Electorate of Hesse became the only Prince-Electors in the German Confederation, even though there was no longer a Holy Roman Emperor for them to elect.

Also at the Congress of Vienna, the Grand Duke Ludwig of Hesse was forced to cede Westphalia to Prussia. In exchange for this he received a piece of territory from the left bank of the Rhine, including the important federal fortress at Mainz. The Grand Duchy of Hesse changed its name to the Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine in 1816.

On February 13, 1797 in Berlin, Augusta married Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Cassel, eldest surviving son of Wilhelm IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel (future Elector of Hesse). Prince Wilhelm succeeded to the Electorate as Wilhelm II on his father’s death in 1821.

Louise of Great Britain, Queen of Denmark and Norway

Elector Wilhelm II was the eldest surviving son of Wilhelm I, Elector of Hesse and Wilhelmina Caroline of Denmark and Norway the third child and second daughter of King Frederik V of Denmark and Norway (1723–1766), and his first spouse Queen Louise (1724–1751), daughter of King George II of Great Britain and his wife Princess Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach.

Elector Wilhelm II’s father, Wilhelm I, Elector of Hesse (1743 – 1821) was the eldest surviving son of Friedrich II, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel and Princess Mary of Great Britain, the daughter of George II of Great Britain and his wife Princess Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach.

Mary of Great Britain, Langravine of Hesse-Cassel

Elector Wilhelm I of Hesse and his wife, Wilhelmina Caroline of Denmark and Norway were first cousins. Both were grandchildren of King George II of Great Britain.

Augusta of Prussia and her husband Elector Wilhelm II of Hesse were fourth cousins from their descent from Ernst August, Elector of Hanover the grandfather of King George II of Great Britain.

The marriage of Augusta and Wilhelm II was politically arranged and unhappy. Augusta and Wilhelm often came into conflict with one another, which led to aggressive confrontations.

In 1806, Hesse was occupied by France. Augusta was in Berlin with her children at the time, having remained in the Prussian capital due to her pregnancy when Napoleon’s army took it for France. Napoleon put guards around her house and gave orders that she should not be disturbed.

With Hesse and Prussia occupied and her family in exile, Augusta lacked money, and after her child’s birth she asked for a meeting with Napoleon. She appeared before him with her newborn baby on her arm and one of her children by the hand and asked him for an allowance, which he granted her.

After the birth of her last child in 1806, the relationship between Augusta and Wilhelm was unofficially terminated. In 1815, they agreed to keep separate households.

Augusta lived in Schoenfeld Palace, where she became a celebrated salonist and the centre of the romantic Schoenfelder-circle, which included Ludwig Hassenpflug, Joseph von Radowitz and the Grimm brothers, while Wilhelm lived in a different residence with his mistress, Emilie Ortlöpp.

Augusta closed her salon in 1823, and between 1826 and 1831 she lived in The Hague, Koblenz, Bonn and Fulda. She returned to Cassel in 1831. Augusta was regarded as a skillful painter, whose works included self-portraits.

Several months after Augusta’s death, Wilhelm morganatically remarried his longtime mistress Emilie Ortlöpp, ennobled as Countess von Reichenbach-Lessonitz, by whom he had an additional eight children.

December 28, 1757: Death of Princess Caroline of Great Britain

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Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Elector of Hanover, King George I of Great Britain, King George II of Great Britain, Lord H, Lord Hervey, Princess Caroline of Great Britain and Hanover

Princess Caroline Elizabeth of Great Britain (June 10, 1713 – December 28, 1757) was the fourth child and third daughter of King George II of Great Britain and his wife Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach.

Early life

Princess Caroline was born at Herrenhausen Palace in Hanover, Germany, on June 10, 1713. Her father was George Augustus, Hereditary Prince of Hanover, the eldest son of George Louis, Elector of Hanover. Her mother was Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, daughter of Johann Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach.

As a granddaughter of the Elector of Hanover, she was styled Princess Caroline of Hanover at birth. Under the Act of Settlement 1701, she was seventh in the line of succession to the British throne. She was baptised the day after her birth at Herrenhausen Palace.

Princess Caroline of Great Britain and Hanover

Great Britain

In 1714, Queen Anne died, and Caroline’s grandfather became George I of Great Britain and Ireland and her father Prince of Wales. At the age of one year, Caroline accompanied her mother and elder sisters, the Princesses Anne and Amelia, to Great Britain, and the family resided at St James’s Palace, London.

She was then styled as a Princess of Great Britain. A newly attributed list from January–February 1728 documents her personal expenses, including charitable contributions to several Protestant groups in London.

In 1722, at the direction of her mother, she was inoculated against smallpox by variolation, an early type of immunisation popularised by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu and Charles Maitland.

Princess Caroline was her mother’s favourite, and became known as “the truth-telling Caroline Elizabeth” (or “the truth-loving”). When any disagreement took place among the royal children, her parents would say, “Send for Caroline, and then we shall know the truth!”

According to Dr. John Doran, “The truth-loving Caroline Elizabeth was unreservedly beloved by her parents, was worthy of the affection, and repaid it by an ardent attachment. She was fair, good, accomplished, and unhappy.”

Later life

Lord Hervey

According to popular belief, Caroline’s unhappiness was due to her love for the married courtier Lord Hervey. Hervey, who was bisexual, may have had an affair with Caroline’s elder brother, Prince Frederick Louis, Duke of Edinburgh and later Prince of Wales and was romantically linked with several ladies of the court as well.

When Hervey died in 1743, Caroline retired to St. James’s Palace for many years prior to her own death, accessible to only her family and closest friends. She gave generously to charity.

Princess Caroline died, unmarried and childless, on December 28, 1757, aged 44, at St James’s Palace. She was buried at Westminster Abbey.

Horace Walpole, of the death of Princess Caroline, wrote: “Though her state of health had been so dangerous for years, and her absolute confinement for many of them, her disorder was, in a manner, new and sudden, and her death unexpected by herself, though earnestly her wish. Her goodness was constant and uniform, her generosity immense, her charities most extensive; in short, I, no royalist, could be lavish in her praise.”