August 18, 1819: Birth of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna of Russia

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Charlotte of Prussia, Count Grigori Stroganov, Duke of Leuchtenberg, Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna of Russia, Maximilian de Beauharnais, Morganatic Marriage

From the Emperor’s Desk: Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna of Russia is not to be confused with the Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna of Russia (1899 – 1918) who was the daughter of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia.

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna of Russia (August 18, 1819 – February 21, 1876) was a daughter of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia, and sister of Emperor Alexander II. In 1839 she married Maximilian, Duke of Leuchtenberg. She was an art collector and President of the Imperial Academy of Arts in Saint Petersburg

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna was born on August 18, 1819 in Krasnoye Selo in Saint Petersburg. She was the second of seven surviving children and the eldest daughter. Her parents, Emperor Nicholas I of Russia and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna, born Princess Charlotte of Prussia, were devoted to each other and to their children.

Her mother. Princess Charlotte of Prussia, was the eldest surviving daughter and fourth child of Friedrich Wilhelm III, King of Prussia, and Duchess Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and a sister of Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia and of Wilhelm I, German Emperor and King of Prussia.

They were warm and affectionate parents, but avoided overindulging them. In the evenings, Alexandra Feodorovna played games with her children, including riddles and charades. The Emperor liked to sing chorus music with them. The siblings grew up in a close knit family, remaining on good terms all their lives.

Maria Nikolaievna was raised in the company of her sisters Olga and Alexandra. Their rooms, located on the ground floor of the Winter Palace, were unpretentious and void of luxury. The girls were prescribed fresh air in all seasons, and doctors controlled their diet. Classes began at 8:00 AM.

Maria’s education was placed under the supervision of the liberal privy Counselor and poet Vasily Zhukovsky, who had previously been Alexandra Feodorovna’s Russian teacher. Zhukovsky remained in close terms with his royal wards until his death.

Grand Duchess Maria and her sisters received dancing, music and drawing lessons. Her childhood sketchbook (1826–1830) has survived and it is in the hands of her descendants living in the United States. Grand Duchess Maria, who painted fairly well, later made watercolors.

She never lost her love for the arts, becoming a benefactress and art collector. Artistically gifted, she showed an early interest in interior design, decorating her rooms with her personal style. She would later make her Palace in St Petersburg one of the most beautiful in the city.

All three sisters had musical abilities and were involved in charitable work. From 1835, Grand Duchess Maria was an active member of the patriots’ society, which had been founded by Empress Elizabeth Alexeievna. The society occasionally met in session in Maria’s room at the Winter Palace.

Grand Duchess of Russia

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna was noted for her formidable personality, her wit and her strong character. Her sister Grand Duchess Olga, wrote in her girlhood diary that Maria was “hot tempered, attentive and generous towards the poor, sympathetic to good deeds, but could not bear pretense of coercion. She is a hundred times more virtuous than me, more dynamic than all seven of us; she lacks only a sense of duty”.

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna was brave and inventive, appreciated novelty, and was almost indifferent to the opinion of high society. She was lively, energetic, talented and impulsive. In appearance and character she was like her father.

She was Emperor Nicholas I’s favorite child and the one who resembled him most closely both in appearance and character. Like him she looked serious and severe. Her stare also brought to mind her father’s formidable gaze. The physical similarities with her father were marked in portraits and photographs that preferred to portray her in profile, the same as her father.

Empress Alexandra Feodorovna worried about finding a suitable husband for her most gifted and emotional daughter. On her part, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna did not want to leave Russia upon her marriage or have to change her religion.

Marriage

In 1837 King Ludwig I of Bavaria sent his nephew Maximilian de Beauharnais, Duke of Leuchtenberg, to take part in cavalry maneuvers in Russia. .

He was handsome, well educated and interested in cultural pursuits. A year later, in October 1838, he made a second visit. With his good looks and manners he impressed Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna, as noted by the Grand Duchess Olga in her diary: “In four days it has become quite clear that Max and Maria were made for each other.”

It was not a desirable match for a daughter of a Russian Emperor. Maximilian was below the rank of royalty, only entitled to the style of Serene Highness as member of a secondary branch of the House of Bavaria.

Maximilian de Beauharnais was the only surviving son of Eugène de Beauharnais, Duke of Leuchtenberg, and Prince of Eichstätt and grandson of Empress Josephine. His mother was Princess Augusta Amalia of Bavaria. His maternal grandparents were Maximilian I, King of Bavaria and his first wife Marie Wilhelmine, Landgravine of Hesse-Darmstadt, a daughter of Georg Wilhelm of Hesse-Darmstadt, younger son of Ludwig VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt.

He was a brother of:

Auguste de Beauharnais, Prince consort of Maria II of Portugal;
Amélie de Beauharnais, Empress consort of Pedro I of Brazil;
Josephine of Leuchtenberg, Queen consort of Oscar I of Sweden.

Maximilian was also Roman Catholic, not Orthodox, and his own family, his mother Princess Augusta of Bavaria in particular, was against this marriage. Maximilian was the last of the Leuchtenberg – Beauharnais family line and his mother feared that his descendants, brought up in the Orthodox faith, would be completely Russified. She said history would blame her son.

Furthermore, the Bonaparte family had been bitter enemies of Russia. Nevertheless, the Emperor granted his permission for the marriage on condition that his daughter did not leave Russia to live abroad. Since the Duke of Leuchtenberg was not a member of a reigning family, it was easy for him to take up residence in Saint Petersburg.

The wedding took place on July 2, 1839 at the grand church of the Winter Palace. The ceremony was described in detail by the Marquis de Custine, who visited St Peterburg at that time. He praised the Grand Duchess for her grace, but disliked the Duke of Leuchtenberg. Emperor Nicholas I spared no expense for his daughter’s wedding and the festivities lasted for two weeks. The couple remained in Russia, where their seven children grew up in the circle of the imperial family.

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna and her husband had artistic inclinations and were active in charitable and artistic causes. Grand Duchess Maria’s husband became well known as a scientist throughout Russia. He took an interest in science and studied mining technology; he was a member of the academy of Science.

In 1843 the Duke of Leuchtenberg was appointed President of the Academy of Arts. In 1844 Emperor Nicholas I appointed him head of the Mining Engineering department. Grand Duchess Maria was proud of her husband’s accomplishments, calling him a scholar.

However, by the late 1840s the couple drifted apart. They had separate lives and both had love affairs of their own. Maximilian became a well known womanizer while Grand Duchess Maria started a long-term relationship with Count Gregory Alexandrovich Strogonov.

Court rumors attributed the paternity of her son George to her lover. The Duke of Leuchtenberg developed tuberculosis during mining expeditions in the Urals. Efforts to improve his health traveling to warmer climates abroad were unsuccessful and he died on November 1, 1852.

The Grand Duchess was an avid art collector, and after the death of her husband, she replaced him as President of the Academy of Arts. From then on, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievana devoted herself to her collection with even greater ardor. She spent lavishly, and as a consequence, her finances declined, particularly after the death of her father. Emperor Alexander II, although close to his sister, kept her on a strict budget.

Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna made a second marriage in 1854, to Count Grigori Stroganov (June 16, 1824 – March 13, 1879). It was a morganatic union and was kept secret while her father lived. Officially the marriage did not take place until November 16, 1856, after Emperor Nicholas I’s death.

Anna Tyutcheva commented, “The former Emperor would have sent Masha to a convent and exiled the count to the Caucasus”, but her more gentle brother Emperor Alexander II, as the new head of the family, preferred not to let on that he knew about the secret marriage.

Grand Duchess Maria begged her brother to recognize her second marriage and permit them to live in Russia, but he did not dare permit it; instead, he suggested she continue to live abroad while he maintained ignorance of their marriage. Because he could not recognize her marriage, he paid special attention to her children by her first marriage, who lived in St. Petersburg without their mother.

In 1862, Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaievna installed herself in Florence in the Villa Quarto, which had belonged to Jérôme Bonaparte, and appointed the painter and collector Karl Liphard as her advisor. They went almost daily to visit museums, private collection and antique dealers. In Italy, the Grand Duchess was zealous in her purchases of painting, sculptures and furniture for the complete refurbishing of her residence.

Grand Duchess Maria probably suffered either from varicose veins or from some sort of bone disease, and by the end of her life she had become an invalid. She died on February 21, 1876 in Saint Petersburg at age 56.

August 3, 1770: Birth of Friedrich Wilhelm III, King of Prussia and Elector of Brandenburg

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Congress of Vienna, Elector of Brandenburg, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Emperor Franz of Austria, Friedrich-Wilhelm II of Prussia, George III of Great Britain, King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, Kingdom of Prussia, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Napoleonic Wars

Friedrich Wilhelm III (August 3, 1770 – June 7, 1840) was King of Prussia from November 6, 1797 until his death in 1840. He was concurrently Elector of Brandenburg in the Holy Roman Empire until August 6, 1806, when the Empire was dissolved.

Friedrich Wilhelm III was born in Potsdam on August 3, I1770 as the son of Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia and Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt, the daughter of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, and Countess Palatine Caroline of Zweibrücken. She was born in Prenzlau. She was the sister of Grand Duchess Louise of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, (wife of Charles August, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach)
as well as Grand Duke Ludwig I of Hesse and by Rhine.

Friedrich Wilhelm III, King of Prussia

Parents Marriage

Frederica Louisa was selected to marry Friedrich Wilhelm II immediately after his divorce from Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Lüneburg, after Margravine Philippine of Brandenburg-Schwedt and Sophia Albertina of Sweden had been suggested. Her mother was highly admired by Friedrich II the Great of Prussia. The wedding was performed on July 14, 1769 at the Charlottenburg Palace.

The future Friedrich Wilhelm II was considered to be a shy and reserved boy, which became noticeable in his particularly reticent conversations, distinguished by the lack of personal pronouns. This manner of speech subsequently came to be considered entirely appropriate for military officers. He was neglected by his father during his childhood and suffered from an inferiority complex his entire life.

As a child, Friedrich Wiilhelm’s father (under the influence of his mistress, Wilhelmine Enke, Countess of Lichtenau) had him handed over to tutors, as was quite normal for the period. He spent part of the time living at Paretz, the estate of the old soldier Count Hans von Blumenthal who was the governor of his brother Prince Heinrich.

They thus grew up partly with the Count’s son, who accompanied them on their Grand Tour in the 1780s. Friedrich Wilhelm was happy at Paretz, and for this reason, in 1795, he bought it from his boyhood friend and turned it into an important royal country retreat. He was a melancholy boy, but he grew up pious and honest. His tutors included the dramatist Johann Engel.

As a soldier, he received the usual training of a Prussian prince, obtained his lieutenancy in 1784, became a lieutenant colonel in 1786, a colonel in 1790, and took part in the campaigns against France of 1792–1794.

Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Duchess Luise Auguste Wilhelmine Amalie of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (“Louise” in English) was born on March 10, 1776 in a one-storey villa, just outside the capital in Hanover. She was the fourth daughter and sixth child of Duke Charles of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and his wife Princess Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt, eldest daughter of Prince Georg Wilhelm of Hesse-Darmstadt, second son of Ludwig VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, and Countess Maria Louise Albertine of Leiningen-Falkenburg-Dagsburg.

Her father Charles was a brother of Queen Charlotte (wife of George III, King of Great Britain and Elector of Hanover).

Her maternal grandmother, Landgravine Marie Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, and her paternal first-cousin Princess Augusta Sophia of Great Britain served as sponsors at her baptism; her second given name came from Princess Augusta Sophia.

Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

At the time of her birth, Louise’s father was not yet the ruler of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (he would not succeed his brother as Duke until 1794), and consequently she was not born in a court, but rather in a less formal home. Charles was field marshal of the household brigade in Hanover, and soon after Louise’s birth he was made Governor-General of that territory by his brother-in-law George III, king of the United Kingdom and Hanover.

The family subsequently moved to Leineschloss, the residence of Hanoverian kings, though during the summer they usually lived at Herrenhausen.

In 1793, Marie Louise took the two youngest duchesses with her to Frankfurt, where she paid her respects to her nephew King Friedrich Wilhelm II. Louise had grown up into a beautiful young woman, possessing “an exquisite complexion” and “large blue eyes,” and was naturally graceful. Louise’s uncle, the Duke of Mecklenburg, hoped to strengthen ties between his house and Prussia.

Consequently, on one evening carefully planned by the Duke, seventeen-year-old Louise met the king’s son and heir, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm. The crown prince was twenty-three, serious-minded, and religious. Louise made such a charming impression on Friedrich Wilhelm that he immediately made his choice, desiring to marry her.

Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz

Frederica caught the eye of his younger brother Prince Ludwig Charles, and the two families began planning a double betrothal, celebrating a month later, on April 4, 1793 in Darmstadt. Friedrich Wilhelm and Louise were subsequently married on December 24 that same year, with Ludwig Charles and Frederica marrying two days later.

Louise who bore Friedrich Wilhelm ten children. In the Kronprinzenpalais (Crown Prince’s Palace) in Berlin, he lived a civil life with a problem-free marriage, which did not change even when he became King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia in 1797. Queen Louise was particularly loved by the Prussian people, which boosted the popularity of the whole House of Hohenzollern, including the King himself.

Friedrich Wilhelm and Louise

Reign

As King, Friedrich Wilhelm III ruled Prussia during the difficult times of the Napoleonic Wars. The king reluctantly joined the coalition against Napoleon in the Befreiungskriege.

Queen Louise was his most important political advisor. She led a mighty group that included Baron vom Stein, Prince von Hardenberg, Gerhard von Scharnhorst, and Count von Gneisenau. They set about reforming Prussia’s administration, churches, finance, and military.

On July 19, 1810, while visiting her father in Strelitz, the Queen died in her husband’s arms from an unidentified illness. Lieutenant-General Baron De Marbot, in his Memoirs, records that the Queen in later life always wore a thick wrapping around her neck. It was to conceal a botched operation for goitre, which left an open sore, which eventually killed her.

The queen’s subjects attributed the French occupation as the cause of her early death. “Our saint is in heaven”, exclaimed Prussian general Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher. Louise’s untimely death left her husband alone during a period of great difficulty, as the Napoleonic Wars and need for reform continued. Louise was buried in the garden of Charlottenburg Palace, where a mausoleum, containing a fine recumbent statue by Christian Daniel Rauch, was built over her grave.

In 1813, following Napoleon’s defeat in Russia, Friedrich Wilhelm turned against France and signed an alliance with Russia at Kalisz. However, he had to flee Berlin, still under French occupation. Prussian troops played a crucial part in the victories of the allies in 1813 and 1814, and the King himself traveled with the main army of Charles Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, along with Emperor Alexander I of Russia and Emperor Franz of Austria.

At the Congress of Vienna, Friedrich Wilhelm III’s ministers succeeded in securing significant territorial increases for Prussia. However, they failed to obtain the annexation of all of Saxony, as they had wished.

Following the war, Friedrich Wilhelm III turned towards political reaction, abandoning the promises he had made in 1813 to provide Prussia with a constitution.
His primary interests were internal – the reform of Prussia’s Protestant churches.

He was determined to unify the Protestant churches to homogenize their liturgy, organization, and architecture. The long-term goal was to have fully centralized royal control of all the Protestant churches in the Prussian Union of Churches.

In 1824 Friedrich Wilhelm III remarried (morganatically) Countess Auguste von Harrach, Princess of Liegnitz. They had no children.

In 1838 the king distributed large parts of his farmland at Erdmannsdorf Estate to 422 Protestant refugees from the Austrian Zillertal, who built Tyrolean style farmhouses in the Silesian village.

Death

Friedrich Wilhelm III died on June 7, 1840 in Berlin, from a fever, survived by his second wife. His eldest son, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, succeeded him. Friedrich Wilhelm III is buried at the Mausoleum in Schlosspark Charlottenburg, Berlin.

Emperor’s Nicholas II of Russia and Wilhelm II of Germany, descendants of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia

Friedrich Wilhelm III was the closest common ancestor of Emperor Nicholas II of Russia and German Emperor Wilhelm II.

Emperor Nicholas II is a descendant of Friedrich Wilhelm III through his daughter, Princess Charlotte, who married Emperor Nicholas I of Russia who was Emperor Nicholas II’s great-grandfather.

Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia is a descendant of Friedrich Wilhelm III through his second son, Wilhelm I, German Emperor and King of Prussia, who was Wilhelm II’s grandfather.

This means that Nicholas II and Wilhelm II were second cousins once removed.

August 1, 1714: Accession of George Louis, Elector of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg as King of Great Britain and Ireland

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Act of Settlement of 1701, Act of Union of 1707, Elector of Hanover and Duke of Brunswick-Lüenburg, Ernst August of Hanover, King George I of Great Britain and Ireland, Prince William of Gloucester, Queen Anne of Great Britain, Sophia Dorothea of Celle

George I (May 28, 1660 – June 11, 1727) was King of Great Britain and Ireland from August 1, 1714 and ruler of the Duchy and Imperial Electorate of Brunswick-Lüneburg (Hanover) within the Holy Roman Empire from January 23, 1698 until his death in 1727. He was the first British monarch of the House of Hanover.

George Louis was born on May 28, 1660 in the city of Hanover in the Duchy of Brunswick-Lüneburg in the Holy Roman Empire. He was the eldest son of Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, and his wife, Sophia of the Palatinate.

Sophia was the granddaughter of King James I-VI of England, Scotland and Ireland through her mother, Elizabeth Stuart, Queen of Bohemia, the wife of Elector Friedrich V of the Palatinate, who was briefly King of Bohemia.

George in 1680, aged 20, when he was Prince of Hanover. After a painting by Sir Godfrey Kneller.

For the first year of his life, George was the only heir to the German territories of his father and three childless uncles. George’s brother, Frederick Augustus, was born in 1661, and were brought up together. Sophia bore Ernst August another four sons and a daughter. In her letters, Sophia describes George as a responsible, conscientious child who set an example to his younger brothers and sisters.

By 1675 George’s eldest uncle had died without issue, but his remaining two uncles had married, putting George’s inheritance in jeopardy as his uncles’ estates might pass to their own sons, should they have had any, instead of to George.

In 1679 another uncle died unexpectedly without sons, and Ernst August became reigning Duke of Calenberg-Göttingen, with his capital at Hanover.

George’s surviving uncle, Georg Wilhelm of Celle, had married, morganatically his mistress, Eléonore Desmier d’Olbreuse (1639–1722), Lady of Harburg, a French Huguenot noblewoman, in order to legitimise his only daughter, Sophia Dorothea, but looked unlikely to have any further children. Sophia Dorothea appears to have grown up in a carefree and loving environment.

Under Salic law, where inheritance of territory was restricted to the male line, the succession of George and his brothers to the territories of their father and uncle now seemed secure. However, in 1682, the family agreed to adopt the principle of primogeniture, meaning George would inherit all the territory and not have to share it with his brothers.

The same year, George married his first cousin, Sophia Dorothea of Celle, thereby securing additional incomes that would have been outside Salic laws. The marriage of state was arranged primarily as it ensured a healthy annual income and assisted the eventual unification of Hanover and Celle.

His mother at first opposed the marriage because she looked down on Sophia Dorothea’s mother, Eleonore (who came from lower nobility), and because she was concerned by Sophia Dorothea’s legitimated status. She was eventually won over by the advantages inherent in the marriage.

George, Elector of Hanover, Duke of Brunswick-Lüenburg in 1705.

In 1683 George and his brother Frederick Augustus served in the Great Turkish War at the Battle of Vienna, and Sophia Dorothea bore George a son, George Augustus. The following year, Frederick Augustus was informed of the adoption of primogeniture, meaning he would no longer receive part of his father’s territory as he had expected.

This led to a breach between Frederick Augustus and his father, and between the brothers, that lasted until his death in battle in 1690. With the imminent formation of a single Hanoverian state, and the Hanoverians’ continuing contributions to the Empire’s wars, Ernst August was made an Imperial Elector of the Holy Roman Empire in 1692. George’s prospects were now better than ever as the sole heir to his father’s electorate and his uncle’s duchy.

Sophia Dorothea had a second child, a daughter named after her, in 1687, but there were no other pregnancies. The couple became estranged—George preferred the company of his mistress, Melusine von der Schulenburg, and Sophia Dorothea had her own romance with the Swedish Count Philip Christoph von Königsmarck.

Threatened with the scandal of an elopement, the Hanoverian court, including George’s brothers and mother, urged the lovers to desist, but to no avail. According to diplomatic sources from Hanover’s enemies, in July 1694 the Swedish count was killed, possibly with George’s connivance, and his body thrown into the river Leine weighted with stones.

Sophia Dorothea of Celle, Electress of Hanover, Duchess of Brunswick-Lüenburg with her two children George Augustus and Sophia Dorothea

The murder was claimed to have been committed by four of Ernest Augustus’s courtiers, one of whom, Don Nicolò Montalbano, was paid the enormous sum of 150,000 thalers, about one hundred times the annual salary of the highest-paid minister.

Later rumours supposed that Königsmarck was hacked to pieces and buried beneath the Hanover palace floorboards. However, sources in Hanover itself, including Sophia, denied any knowledge of Königsmarck’s whereabouts.

George’s marriage to Sophia Dorothea was dissolved, not on the grounds that either of them had committed adultery, but on the grounds that Sophia Dorothea had abandoned her husband. With her father’s agreement, George had Sophia Dorothea imprisoned in Ahlden House in her native Celle, where she stayed until she died more than thirty years later.

She was denied access to her children and father, forbidden to remarry and only allowed to walk unaccompanied within the mansion courtyard. She was, however, endowed with an income, establishment, and servants, and allowed to ride in a carriage outside her castle under supervision.

Melusine von der Schulenburg acted as George’s hostess openly from 1698 until his death, and they had three daughters together, born in 1692, 1693 and 1701.

Electoral reign

Ernst August died on January 23, 1698, leaving all of his territories to George with the exception of the Prince-Bishopric of Osnabrück, an office he had held since 1661. George thus became Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg (also known as Hanover, after its capital) as well as Archbannerbearer and a Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire. His court in Hanover was graced by many cultural icons such as the mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Leibniz and the composers George Frideric Händel and Agostino Steffani.

Within a few years of George’s accession to his paternal duchy, Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, the only Surviving son of future Queen Anne of England, Scotland and Ireland and her husband, Prince George of Denmark, died on July 30, 1700.

Prince William, Duke of Gloucester

Prince William, Duke of Gloucester had been second-in-line to the English, Scottish and Irish thrones. By the terms of the English Act of Settlement 1701, George’s mother, Sophia, was designated as the heir to the English throne if the then reigning monarch, William III, and his sister-in-law, Anne, died without surviving issue.

The succession was so designed because Sophia was the closest Protestant relative of the British royal family. Fifty-six Catholics with superior hereditary claims were bypassed. The likelihood of any of them converting to Protestantism for the sake of the succession was remote; some had already refused.

In August 1701 George was invested with the Order of the Garter and, within six weeks, the nearest Catholic claimant to the thrones, the former King James II-VII, died. William III died the following March and was succeeded by Anne.

Sophia became heiress presumptive to the new Queen of England. Sophia was in her seventy-first year, thirty-five years older than Anne, but she was very fit and healthy and invested time and energy in securing the succession either for herself or for her son.

However, it was George who understood the complexities of English politics and constitutional law, which required further acts in 1705 to naturalise Sophia and her heirs as English subjects, and to detail arrangements for the transfer of power through a Regency Council.

In the same year, George’s surviving uncle and former father-in-law Georg Wilhelm, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg died on August 28, 1705, and he inherited further German dominions: the Principality of Lüneburg-Grubenhagen, centred at Celle.

George I, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Elector of Hanover and Duke of Brunswick-Lüenburg

Though both England and Scotland recognised Anne as their queen, only the Parliament of England had settled on Sophia, Electress of Hanover, as the heir presumptive. The Parliament of Scotland (the Estates) had not formally settled the succession question for the Scottish throne.

In 1703, the Estates passed a bill declaring that their selection for Queen Anne’s successor would not be the same individual as the successor to the English throne, unless England granted full freedom of trade to Scottish merchants in England and its colonies.

At first Royal Assent was withheld, but the following year Anne capitulated to the wishes of the Estates and assent was granted to the bill, which became the Act of Security 1704.

In response the English Parliament passed the Alien Act 1705, which threatened to restrict Anglo-Scottish trade and cripple the Scottish economy if the Estates did not agree to the Hanoverian succession.

Eventually, in 1707, both Parliaments agreed on a Treaty of Union, which united England and Scotland into a single political entity, the Kingdom of Great Britain, and established the rules of succession as laid down by the Act of Settlement 1701. The union created the largest free trade area in 18th-century Europe.

Whig politicians believed Parliament had the right to determine the succession, and to bestow it on the nearest Protestant relative of the Queen, while many Tories were more inclined to believe in the hereditary right of the Catholic Stuarts, who were nearer relations.

In 1710, George announced that he would succeed in Britain by hereditary right, as the right had been removed from the Stuarts, and he retained it. “This declaration was meant to scotch any Whig interpretation that parliament had given him the kingdom [and] … convince the Tories that he was no usurper.”

George’s mother, the Electress Sophia, died on May 28, 1714 at the age of 83. She had collapsed in the gardens at Herrenhausen after rushing to shelter from a rain shower. George was now Queen Anne’s heir presumptive.

He swiftly revised the membership of the Regency Council that would take power after Anne’s death, as it was known that Anne’s health was failing and politicians in Britain were jostling for power.

Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland suffered a stroke, which left her unable to speak, and she died on August 1, 1714. The list of regents was opened, the members sworn in, and George was proclaimed King of Great Britain and King of Ireland.

George I, King of Great Britain and Ireland, Elector of Hanover and Duke of Brunswick-Lüenburg

Partly due to contrary winds, which kept him in The Hague awaiting passage, the new King George of Great Britain and Ireland did not arrive in Britain until September 18.

King George was crowned at Westminster Abbey on October 20, 1714. His coronation was accompanied by rioting in over twenty towns in England.

George mainly lived in Great Britain after 1714, though he visited his home in Hanover in 1716, 1719, 1720, 1723 and 1725; in total George spent about one fifth of his reign as king in Germany.

A clause in the Act of Settlement that forbade the British monarch from leaving the country without Parliament’s permission was unanimously repealed in 1716.

During all but the first of the king’s absences power was vested in a Regency Council rather than in his son, George Augustus, Prince of Wales.

July 21, 1831: Accession Ceremony of Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha as King of the Belgians

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Auguste of Leuchtenberg, Belgium, Duke of Nemours, Eugène de Beauharnais, George IV of the United Kingdom, King Leopold I of the Belgians, King Louis Philippe of the French, Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Napoleon, National Congress, Prince Louis, The Prince Regent

Leopold I (December 16, 1790 – December 10, 1865) was the first King of the Belgians, reigning from July 21, 1831 until his death in 1865.

Leopold was born in Coburg in The Holy Roman Empire and the tiny German duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld in modern-day Bavaria. He was the youngest son of Franz, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and Countess Augusta of Reuss-Ebersdorf.

In 1826, Saxe-Coburg acquired the city of Gotha from the neighboring Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg and gave up Saalfeld to Saxe-Meiningen, becoming the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Leopold took a commission in the Imperial Russian Army and fought against Napoleon after French troops overran Saxe-Coburg during the Napoleonic Wars. After Napoleon’s defeat, Leopold moved to the United Kingdom where he married Princess Charlotte of Wales, who was second in line to the British throne and the only legitimate child of the Prince Regent (the future King George IV).

On November 5, 1817, after having suffered a miscarriage, Princess Charlotte gave birth to a stillborn son. She herself died the next day following complications. Leopold was said to have been heartbroken by her death.

Had Charlotte survived, she would have become Queen of the United Kingdom on the death of her father and Leopold presumably would have assumed the role of prince consort, later taken by his nephew Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

Despite Charlotte’s death, Leopold continued to enjoy considerable status in Britain and the Prince Regent granted Prince Leopold the British style of Royal Highness by Order in Council on April 6, 1818.

From 1828 to 1829, Leopold had an affair with the actress Caroline Bauer, who bore a striking resemblance to Charlotte.

Caroline was a cousin of his advisor Baron Christian Friedrich von Stockmar. She came to England with her mother and took up residence at Longwood House, a few miles from Claremont House. But, by mid-1829, the liaison was over, and the actress and her mother returned to Berlin.

Many years later, in memoirs published after her death, she declared that she and Leopold had engaged in a morganatic marriage and that he had bestowed upon her the title of Countess Montgomery. He would have broken this marriage when the possibility arose that he could become King of Greece. The son of Baron Stockmar denied that these events ever happened, and indeed no records have been found of a civil or religious marriage with the actress.

Following a Greek rebellion against the Ottoman Empire, Leopold was offered the throne of an independent Greece as part of the London Protocol of February 1830. Though initially showing interest in the position, Leopold eventually turned down the offer on May 17, 1830. The role would subsequently be accepted by Otto of Wittelsbach in May 1832 who ruled until he was finally deposed in October 1862.

At the end of August 1830, rebels in the Southern provinces (modern-day Belgium) of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands rose up against Dutch rule. The rising, which began in Brussels, pushed the Dutch army back, and the rebels defended themselves against a Dutch attack. International powers meeting in London agreed to support the independence of Belgium, even though the Dutch refused to recognize the new state.

In November 1830, a National Congress was established in Belgium to create a constitution for the new state. Fears of “mob rule” associated with republicanism after the French Revolution of 1789, as well as the example of the recent, liberal July Revolution in France, led the Congress to decide that Belgium would be a popular, constitutional monarchy.

Search for a Monarch

The choice of candidates for the position was one of the most controversial issues faced by the revolutionaries. The Congress refused to consider any candidate from the Dutch ruling house of Orange-Nassau.

Some Orangists had hoped to offer the position to King Willem I of the Netherlands or his son, Willem, Prince of Orange, which would bring Belgium into personal union with the Netherlands like Luxembourg. The Great Powers also worried that a candidate from another state could risk destabilizing the international balance of power and lobbied for a neutral candidate.

Eventually the Congress was able to draw up a shortlist. The three viable possibilities were felt to be Eugène de Beauharnais, a French nobleman and stepson of Napoleon; Auguste of Leuchtenberg, son of Eugène; and Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours, who was the son of the French King Louis-Philippe.

All the candidates were French and the choice between them was principally between choosing the Bonapartism of Beauharnais or Leuchtenberg and supporting the July Monarchy of Louis-Philippe.

Louis-Philippe realized that the choice of either of the Bonapartists could be first stage of a coup against him, but that his son would also be unacceptable to other European powers suspicious of French intentions.

Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours refused the offer. With no definitive choice in sight, Catholics and Liberals united to elect Erasme Louis Surlet de Chokier, a minor Belgian nobleman, as regent to buy more time for a definitive decision in February 1831.

Leopold of Saxe-Coburg had been proposed at an early stage, but had been dropped because of French opposition. The problems caused by the French candidates and the increased international pressure for a solution led to his reconsideration. On April 22, 1831, he was finally approached by a Belgian delegation at Marlborough House to officially offer him the throne. Leopold, however, was reluctant to accept.

Accession

On July 17, 1831, Leopold travelled from Calais to Belgium, entering the country at De Panne. Travelling to Brussels, he was greeted with patriotic enthusiasm along his route.

The accession ceremony took place on July 21, on the Place Royale in Brussels. A stand had been erected on the steps of the church of Saint Jacques-sur-Coudenberg, surrounded by the names of revolutionaries fallen during the fighting in 1830.

After a ceremony of resignation by the regent, Leopold, dressed in the uniform of a Belgian lieutenant-general, swore loyalty to the constitution and became king.

The enthronement is generally used to mark the end of the revolution and the start of the Kingdom of Belgium and is celebrated each year as the Belgian national holiday.

June 28, 1914: Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este at Sarajevo

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Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este, Assassination, Bosnia and Herzegovina, causes of World War I, Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria, Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria-Hungary, Gavrilo Princip, Imperial Germany, Mary Vetsera, Sarajevo, Serbia, Sophie Chotek, The Black Hand

Archduke Franz Ferdinand Charles Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria-Este (December 18, 1863 – June 28, 1914) was the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary. His assassination in Sarajevo was the most immediate cause of World War I.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand was the eldest son of Archduke Charles Ludwig of Austria, the younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s mother was Archduke Charles Ludwig’s second wife, Princess Maria Annunciata of Bourbon-Two Sicilies. In 1875, when he was eleven years old, his cousin Francis V, Duke of Modena, died, naming Franz Ferdinand his heir on condition that he add the name “Este” to his own.

Crown Prince Rudolph of Austria died in 1889 part of a murder-suicide with his mistress Mary Vetsera at his hunting lodge in Mayerling. With the death of his father Archduke Charles Ludwig in 1896 from Typhoid, Archduke Franz Ferdinand became the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne.

His courtship of Sophie Chotek, a lady-in-waiting, caused conflict within the imperial household. To be eligible to marry a member of the imperial House of Habsburg, one had to be a member of one of the reigning or formerly reigning dynasties of Europe. The Choteks were not one of these families. Deeply in love, Franz Ferdinand refused to consider marrying anyone else.

Finally, in 1899, Emperor Franz Joseph agreed to permit Franz Ferdinand to marry Sophie, on the condition that the marriage would be morganatic and that their descendants would not have succession rights to the throne. Sophie would not share her husband’s rank, title, precedence, or privileges; as such, she would not normally appear in public beside him. She would not be allowed to ride in the royal carriage or sit in the royal box in theaters.

Franz Ferdinand held significant influence over the military, and in 1913 he was appointed inspector general of the Austro-Hungarian armed forces.

On Sunday, June 28, 1914, at about 10:45 am, Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian province of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The perpetrator was 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip, a member of Young Bosnia and one of a group of assassins organized and armed by the Black Hand.

Earlier in the day, the couple had been attacked by Nedeljko Čabrinović, who had thrown a grenade at their car. However, the bomb detonated behind them, injuring the occupants in the following car. On arriving at the Governor’s residence, Franz angrily shouted, “So this is how you welcome your guests – with bombs!”

After a short rest at the Governor’s residence, the royal couple insisted on seeing all those who had been injured by the bomb at the local hospital. However, no one told the drivers that the itinerary had been changed.

When the error was discovered, the drivers had to turn around. As the cars backed down the street and onto a side street, the line of cars stalled. At this same time, Princip was sitting at a cafe across the street. He instantly seized his opportunity and walked across the street and shot the royal couple. He first shot Sophie in the abdomen and then shot Franz Ferdinand in the neck.

Franz Ferdinand leaned over his crying wife. He was still alive when witnesses arrived to render aid. His dying words to Sophie were, “Don’t die darling, live for our children.” Princip’s weapon was the pocket-sized FN Model 1910 pistol chambered for the .380 ACP cartridge provided him by Serbian Army Military Intelligence Lieutenant-Colonel and Black Hand leader Dragutin Dimitrijević.

The archduke’s aides attempted to undo his coat but realized they needed scissors to cut it open: the outer lapel had been sewn to the inner front of the jacket for a smoother fit to improve the Archduke’s appearance to the public. Whether or not as a result of this obstacle, the Archduke’s wound could not be attended to in time to save him, and he died within minutes. Sophie also died en route to the hospital.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand’s assassination led to the July Crisis that gripped all of Europe. The assassinations, along with the arms race, nationalism, imperialism, militarism of Imperial Germany and the alliance system all contributed to the origins of World War I, which began a month after Franz Ferdinand’s death, with Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war against Serbia. The assassination of Franz Ferdinand is considered the most immediate cause of World War I.

Marriage and Divorce of King Gustaf IV Adolf and Frederica of Baden. Conclusion

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Abdication, coup d'état, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Exile, Frederica of Baden, Gustaf IV Adolf of Sweden, King Carl XIII of Sweden, Royal Divorce

Coup

On March 12, 1809, King Gustaf IV Adolf left her and the children at Haga Palace to deal with the rebellion of Georg Adlersparre. The day after he was captured at the royal palace in Stockholm in the Coup of 1809, imprisoned at Gripsholm Castle and deposed May 10 in favor of his uncle, who succeeded him as Carl XIII of Sweden on June 6. According to the terms deposition made on May 10, 1809, she was allowed to keep the title of queen even after the deposition of her spouse.

Frederica and her children were kept under guard at Haga Palace. The royal couple was initially kept separated because the coup leaders suspected her of planning a coup. During her house arrest, her dignified behavior reportedly earned her more sympathy than she had been given her entire tenure as queen.

Her successor, Queen Charlotte, who felt sympathy for her and often visited her, belonged to the Gustavians and wished to preserve the right to the throne for Frederica’s son, Gustaf.

Queen Charlotte was born as Hedwig Elisabeth Charlotte of Holstein-Gottorp (1759 – 1818) was also a famed diarist, memoirist and wit. She is known by her full pen name (above), though her official name as queen was Charlotte (Charlotta).

Queen Charlotte was the daughter of Duke Friedrich August I of Holstein-Gottorp and Princess Ulrike of Hesse-Cassel. She married her cousin Prince Carl, Duke of Södermanland, in Stockholm on July 7, 1774 when she was fifteen years old.

The marriage was arranged by King Gustaf III to provide the throne of Sweden with an heir. The King had not consummated his marriage at that time and had decided to give the task of providing an heir to the throne to his brother.

Frederica told Queen Charlotte that she was willing to separate from her son for the sake of succession, and requested to be reunited with her spouse. Her second request was granted her after intervention from Queen Charlotte, and Frederica and her children joined Gustaf Adolf at Gripsholm Castle after the coronation of the new monarch on June 6. The relationship between the former king and queen was reportedly well during their house arrest at Gripsholm.

During her house arrest at Gripsholm Castle, the question of her son crown prince Gustaf’s right to the throne was not yet settled and a matter of debate.

There was a plan by a Gustavian military fraction led by General Eberhard von Vegesack to free Frederica and her children from the arrest, have her son declared monarch and Frederica as regent of Sweden during his minority.

These plans were in fact presented to her, but she declined: “The Queen displayed a nobility in her feelings, which makes her worthy of a crown of honor and placed her above the pitiful earthly royalty. She did not listen to the secret proposals, made to her by a party, who wished to preserve the succession of the crown prince and wished, that she would remain in Sweden to become the regent during the minority of her son… she explained with firmness, that her duty as a wife and mother told her to share the exile with her husband and children.” The removal of her son from the succession order, however, she nevertheless regarded as a legally wrongful.

The family left Sweden on December 6, 1809, via three separate carriages. Gustaf Adolf and Frederica traveled in one carriage, escorted by general Skjöldebrand; their son Gustaf traveled in the second with colonel baron Posse; and their daughters and their governess von Panhuys traveled in the last carriage escorted by colonel von Otter.

Frederica was offered to be escorted with all honors due to being a member of the house of Baden if she traveled alone, but declined and brought no courtier with her, only her German chamber maid Elisabeth Freidlein. The family left for Germany by ship from Karlskrona on December 6.

Exile

After having been denied to travel to Great Britain, the former king and queen settled in the duchy of Baden, where they arrived February 10, 1810. After having become private persons, the incompatibility between Frederica and Gustaf Adolf immediately became known in their different view in how to live their lives.

Gustaf Adolf wished to live a simple family life in a congregation of the Moravian church in Christiansfeld in Slesvig or Switzerland, while Frederica wished to settle in the palace Meersburg at Bodensee, which was granted her by her family.

Their sexual differences was also brought to the surface, as Frederica refused sexual intercourse because she did not wish to give birth to exiled royalty. These differences caused Gustaf Adolf to leave alone for Basel in Switzerland in April 1810, from which he expressed complaints about their sexual incompatibility and demanded a divorce.

The couple made two attempts to reconcile in person: once in Switzerland in July, and a second time in Altenburg in Thüringen in September. The attempts of reconciliation was unsuccessful and in 1811, Gustaf Adolf issued divorce negotiations with her mother, stating that he wished to be able to marry again.

Frederica was not willing to divorce, and her mother suggested that Gustaf Adolf entered some kind of secret morganatic marriage on the side to avoid the scandal of divorce. Gustaf Adolf did agree to this suggestion, but as they could not figure out how such a thing should be arranged, a proper divorce was finally issued in February 1812.

In the divorce settlement, Gustaf Adolf renounced all his assets in both Sweden and abroad, as well as his future assets in the form of his inheritance rights after his mother, to his children; he also renounced the custody and guardianship of his children.

Two years later, Fredrica placed her children under the guardianship of her brother-in-law, the Russian Tsar Alexander. Frederica kept in contact through correspondence with Queen Charlotte of Sweden, whom she entrusted her economic interests in Sweden, as well as with her former mother-in-law, and while she did not contact Gustaf Adolf directly, she kept informed about his life and often contributed financially to his economy without his knowledge.

Frederica settled in the castle Bruchsal in Baden, but also acquired several other residences in Baden as well as a country villa, Villamont, outside Lausanne in Switzerland. In practice, she spent most of her time in the court of Karlsruhe from 1814 onward, and also traveled a lot around Germany, Switzerland and Italy, using the name Countess Itterburg after a ruin in Hesse, which she had acquired.

In accordance with the abdication terms, she kept her title of queen and had her own court, headed by the Swedish baron O. M. Munck af Fulkila, and kept in close contact with her many relatives and family in Germany. According to her ladies-in-waiting, she turned down proposals from her former brother-in-law Friedrich Wilhelm of Braunschweig-Oels, and King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia.

She was rumoured to have secretly married her son’s tutor, the French-Swiss J.N.G. de Polier-Vernland, possibly in 1823.

In 1819, her daughter Sophia married the heir to the throne of Baden, Frederica’s paternal half-uncle, the future Grand Duke Leopold I of Baden.

Her last years were plagued by weakened health. She died in Lausanne of a heart disease. She was buried in Schloss and Stiftskirche in Pforzheim, Germany.

March 30, 1830: Death of Grand Duke Ludwig I of Baden and the History of Baden and the Succession

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Baden, Charles of Baden, Charles-Friedrich of Baden, Emperor Napoleon, Grand Duchy of Baden, Hereditary Prince Charles Ludwig of Baden, House of Zähringen, Ludwig of Baden, Stéphanie de Beauharnais

Ludwig I (February 9, 1763 – March 30, 1830) succeeded as Grand Duke of Baden on December 8, 1818. Ludwig was the third surviving son of Grand Duke Charles Friedrich of Baden and Langravine Caroline Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Baden came into existence in the 12th century as the Margraviate of Baden and subsequently split into various smaller territories that were unified in 1771.

In 1803 Baden was raised to Electoral dignity within the Holy Roman Empire. Upon the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, Baden became the much-enlarged Grand Duchy of Baden.

Charles Friedrich, Grand Duke of Baden

In 1815 it joined the German Confederation. During the Revolutions of 1848 in the German states, Baden was a centre of revolutionist activities. In 1849, in the course of the Baden Revolution, it was the only German state that became a republic for a short while, under the leadership of Lorenzo Brentano. The revolution in Baden was suppressed mainly by Prussian troops.

The Grand Duchy of Baden remained a sovereign country until it joined the German Empire in 1871. After the revolution of 1918, Baden became part of the Weimar Republic as the Republic of Baden.

Ludwig’s father, Charles Friedrich of Baden, succeeded his grandfather Charles III Wilhelm as Margrave of Baden-Durlach in 1738 and ruled personally from 1746 until 1771, when he inherited Baden-Baden from the Catholic line of his family. This made him the Protestant ruler of a state that was overwhelmingly Catholic. In 1803, Charles Friedrich became Elector of Baden, and in 1806 the first Grand Duke of Baden with the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire.

Grand Duke Charles Friedrich died in 1811 and his eldest son, Charles Ludwig, Hereditary Prince of Baden died in 1801 and therefore it was his son, Charles, who succeeded his grandfather as Grand Duke upon the latter’s death in 1811.

Incidentally, Charles Ludwig, Hereditary Prince of Baden was an ancestor of Franz Joseph I of Austria, Elisabeth of Austria-Hungary, Nicholas II of Russia and his wife, Alexandra Feodorovna (Alix of Hesse), Lord Mountbatten and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, among others.

Charles, Grand Duke of Baden

Charles, Grand Duke of Baden, due to the strong influence of France on the court of Baden, was forced to marry Emperor Napoléon I’s adopted daughter, Stéphanie de Beauharnais, in Paris on April 8, 1806, this despite his own protests and those of his mother and sisters. Charles apparently preferred the hand of his cousin Princess Augusta of Bavaria. It would be five years before the couple would produce an heir.

Charles’s son and heir, Hereditary Grand Duke Alexander of Baden (May 1, 1816 – May 8, 1816) died shortly after birth. As Grand Duke Charles did not have any surviving male children, upon his death in Rastatt, he was succeeded by his uncle Ludwig.

Since Ludwig was the uncle of his predecessor Grand Duke Karl, his death marked the end of the Zähringen line of the House of Baden.

Ludwig secured the continued existence of the University of Freiburg in 1820, after which the university was called the Albert-Ludwig University. He also founded the Polytechnic Hochschule Karlsruhe in 1825. The Hochschule is the oldest technical school in Germany.

Ludwig I, Grand Duke of Baden

Ludwig’s death in 1830 led to many rumors. His death also meant the extinction of his line of the Baden family. The succession then went to the children of the morganatic second marriage of Grand Duke Charles and Louise Karoline Geyer von Geyersberg, who was created Countess of Hochberg in the Austrian nobility at the personal request of Grand Duke Charles.

After Ludwig’s death, there was much discussion about a mysterious seventeen-year-old man named Kaspar Hauser, who had appeared seemingly out of nowhere in 1828.

Seventeen years previously, the first son of the future Grand Duke Charles and his French wife Stéphanie de Beauharnais died under what were later portrayed as mysterious circumstances. There was at the time and still is today (in 2007) speculation that Hauser, who died (perhaps murdered) in 1833, was that child.

Working together with architect Friedrich Weinbrenner, Ludwig is responsible for most of the classical revival buildings in the city center and for building the pyramid.

Ludwig had one surviving illegitimate daughter by his mistress Katharina Werner (created Countess of Langenstein and Gondelsheim in 1818), Countess Louise von Langenstein und Gondelsheim (1825-1900) who married in 1848 Swedish aristocrat Carl Israel, Count Douglas (1824-1898).

March 24, 1953: Death of Mary of Teck, Queen Consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India

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Duke of Clarence and Avondale, Duke of Kent, King George V of the United Kingdom, King George VI of the United Kingdom, Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, Prince Albert Victor, Prince Francis, Princess Mary of Teck, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Mary of Teck (Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes; May 26, 1867 – March 24, 1953) was Queen Consort of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Empress of India, from May 6, 1910 until January 29, 1936 as the wife of King-Emperor George V.

HSH Princess Victoria Mary of Teck with her parents HRH Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge and HSH Prince Francis, Duke of Teck

Born and raised in the United Kingdom, Her father was Prince Francis, Duke of Teck, the son of Duke Alexander of Württemberg by his morganatic wife, Countess Claudine Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde (created Countess von Hohenstein in the Austrian Empire).

Her mother was Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, a granddaughter of King George III and the third child and younger daughter of Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, and Princess Augusta of Hesse-Cassel.

Considered a minor member of the British royal family, she was informally known as “May”, after the month of her birth.At the age of 24, she was betrothed to her second cousin once removed Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the eldest son of the Prince of Wales and Princess Alexandra of Denmark (future King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra), but six weeks after the announcement of the engagement, he died unexpectedly during an influenza pandemic.

HRH The Duke of Clarence and Avondale and HSH Princess Victoria Mary of Teck

The following year, she became engaged to Albert Victor’s only surviving brother, George, who subsequently became king. Before her husband’s accession, she was successively Duchess of York, Duchess of Cornwall, and Princess of Wales.

As Queen Consort from 1910, Mary supported her husband through the First World War, his ill health, and major political changes arising from the aftermath of the war. After George’s death in 1936, she became queen mother when her eldest son, Edward VIII, ascended the throne.

To her dismay, he abdicated later the same year in order to marry twice-divorced American socialite Wallis Simpson.She supported her second son, Prince Albert, Duke of York, who assumed the throne as King George VI, in the wake of his brothers Abdication. He was King until his death in 1952.He was succeeded by his eldest daughter and Queen Mary’s granddaughter, Elizabeth II.The death of a third child profoundly affected her.

Mary remarked to Princess Marie Louise: “I have lost three sons through death, but I have never been privileged to be there to say a last farewell to them.”

Portrait of Queen Mary by William Llewellyn, c. 1911

Other than losing her second son George VI in 1952, she lost Prince John (1905 – 1919) her fifth son and youngest of her six children, when he of died at Sandringham in 1919, following a severe seizure, and was buried at nearby St Mary Magdalene Church.

She was also preceded by Prince George, Duke of Kent (1902 – 1942) her fourth son who was killed in a military air-crash on August 25, 1942.

Mary died on March 24, 1953 in her sleep at the age of 85, ten weeks before her granddaughter’s coronation. She had let it be known that should she die, the coronation should not be postponed. Her remains lay in state at Westminster Hall, where large numbers of mourners filed past her coffin.

She is buried beside her husband in the nave of St George’s Chapel, Windsor Castle.Sir Henry “Chips” Channon, (1897 – 1958), was an American-born British Conservative politician, author and diarist. He wrote about Queen Mary, that she was “above politics … magnificent, humorous, worldly, in fact nearly sublime, though cold and hard. But what a grand Queen.”

February 25, 1885: Birth of Princess Alice of Battenberg

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Jerusalem, Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, Princess Alice of Battenberg, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Victoria of Hesse and By Rhine

Princess Alice of Battenberg (February 25, 1885 – December 5, 1969) was the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and mother-in-law of Queen Elizabeth II.

Alice was born in the Tapestry Room at Windsor Castle in Berkshire in the presence of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. She was the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg and his wife, Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine.

Her mother was the eldest daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, Queen Victoria’s second daughter. Her father was the eldest son of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine through his morganatic marriage to Countess Julia Hauke, who was created Princess of Battenberg in 1858 by Ludwig III, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine.

Alice’s three younger siblings, Louise, George, and Louis, later became Queen of Sweden, Marquess of Milford Haven, and Earl Mountbatten of Burma, respectively.

Alice was christened Victoria Alice Elizabeth Julia Marie in Darmstadt on April 25, 1885.

She was congenitally deaf.

Princess Alice met Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (known as Andrea within the family), the fourth son of King George I of Greece and Olga Constantinovna of Russia, while in London for King Edward VII’s coronation in 1902.

They married in a civil ceremony on October 6, 1903 at Darmstadt. The following day, there were two religious marriage ceremonies; one Lutheran in the Evangelical Castle Church, and one Greek Orthodox in the Russian Chapel on the Mathildenhöhe. She adopted the style of her husband, becoming “Princess Andrew”.

The bride and groom were closely related to the ruling houses of the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, Denmark, and Greece, and their wedding was one of the great gatherings of the descendants of Queen Victoria and Christian IX of Denmark held before World War I.

Prince and Princess Andrew had five children, all of whom later had children of their own.

Princess Margarita 1905 – 1981.
Married Gottfried, Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg.

Princess Theodora 1906 – 1969.
Married Berthold, Margrave of Baden.

Princess Cecilie 1911 – 1937.
Married Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine.

Princess Sophie 1914 – 2001.
Married 1. Prince Christoph of Hesse-Cassel
Married 2. Prince Georg Wilhelm of Hanover

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh 1921 – 2021.
Married Elizabeth II, Queen of the United Kingdom

After their wedding, Prince Andrew continued his career in the military and Princess Andrew became involved in charity work. In 1908, she visited Russia for the wedding of Grand Duchess Marie of Russia and Prince William of Sweden.

While there, she talked with her aunt Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, (born Elizabeth of Hesse and by Rhine) who was formulating plans for the foundation of a religious order of nurses. Princess Andrew attended the laying of the foundation stone for her aunt’s new church. Later in the year, the Grand Duchess began giving away all her possessions in preparation for a more spiritual life.

She lived in Greece until the exile of most of the Greek royal family in 1917. On returning to Greece a few years later, her husband was blamed in part for the country’s defeat in the Greco-Turkish War (1919–1922), and the family was once again forced into exile until the restoration of the Greek monarchy in 1935.

In 1930, Princess Andrew was diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed to a sanatorium in Switzerland; thereafter, she lived separately from her husband.

After her recovery, she devoted most of her remaining years to charity work in Greece. She stayed in Athens during the Second World War, sheltering Jewish refugees, for which she is recognised as “Righteous Among the Nations” by Israel’s Holocaust memorial institution, Yad Vashem. After the war, she stayed in Greece and founded a Greek Orthodox nursing order of nuns known as the Christian Sisterhood of Martha and Mary.

Princess Andrew returned to the United Kingdom in April 1947 to attend the November wedding of her only son, Philip, to Princess Elizabeth, the elder daughter and heir presumptive of King George VI. She had some of her remaining jewels used in Princess Elizabeth’s engagement ring. On the day of the wedding, her son was created Duke of Edinburgh by George VI.

For the wedding ceremony, Princess Andrew sat at the head of her family on the north side of Westminster Abbey, opposite the King, Queen Elizabeth and Queen Mary. It was decided not to invite Princess Andrew’s daughters (the groom’s sisters) to the wedding because of anti-German sentiment in Britain following World War II.

After the fall of King Constantine II of Greece and the imposition of military rule in Greece in 1967, Princess Andrew was invited by her son and daughter-in-law to live at Buckingham Palace in London, where she died two years later.

In 1988, her remains were transferred from a vault in her birthplace, Windsor Castle, to the Church of Mary Magdalene at the Russian Orthodox convent of the same name on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

February 19, 1841: Death of Augusta of Prussia, Electress of Hesse

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Augusta of Prussia, Elector of Hesse, Emilie Ortlöpp, Frederick William II of Prussia, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, Morganatic Marriage, Wilhelm II of Hesse

Princess Augusta of Prussia (Christine Friederike Auguste; May 1, 1780 – February 19, 1841) was a German salonist, painter, and Electress Consort of Electoral Hesse by marriage to Wilhelm II, Elector of Hesse.

Augusta was the third daughter and fifth child of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia and Frederika Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt, the daughter of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, and Countess Palatine Caroline of Zweibrücken

On February 13, 1797 in Berlin, Augusta married Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Cassel, eldest surviving son of Wilhelm IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel.

Following the reorganization of the German states during the German mediatisation of 1803, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Cassel was raised to the Electorate of Hesse and Landgrave Wilhelm IX was elevated to Imperial Elector, taking the title Wilhelm I, Elector of Hesse.

Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Cassel succeeded on his father’s death in 1821 and became Wilhelm II, Elector of Hesse.

Elector Wilhelm II of Hesse was also the grandson of
Landgrave Friedrich II of Hesse-Cassel, and his wife Princess Mary of Great Britain, daughter of King George II of Great Britain.

The marriage of Augusta 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 the Electorate 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.

Augusta 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 1812, Emilie Ortlöpp met Elector Wilhelm II during a stay in Berlin and soon became his mistress. Wilhelm II brought Emilie to Cassel in 1813, leading to a de facto termination of his marriage with Princess Augusta of Prussia, but for political reasons, he was not allowed to divorce his wife.

In 1815, Wilhelm and Augusta 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 Elector 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.

Augusta died on February 19, 1841 and several months after her death, Wilhelm II morganatically married his longtime mistress Emilie Ortlöpp, ennobled as Countess von Reichenbach-Lessonitz, by whom he had an additional eight children.

The relationship between Wilhelm II and Emilie caused a scandal; they even received death threats. The Countess was probably unpopular and was alleged to have had a negative impact on Wilhelm’s politics, or at least some of his political failures were attributed to her.

The relationship was one of the reasons why the Wilhelm did not return to his capital Kassel after the 1830 revolution.