March 1, 1683: Birth of Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Queen Consort of Great Britain and Ireland

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Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Frederick-Louis, Friedrich I of Prussia, Georg Ludwig of Hanover, George II of Great Britain, Prince of Wales, Walpole

Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach (Wilhelmina Charlotte Caroline; March 1, 1683 – November 20, 1737) was Queen of Great Britain and Ireland as the wife of King George II.

Caroline was born on March 1, 1683 at Ansbach, the daughter of Johann Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, 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.

Caroline and her only full sibling, her younger brother Margrave Wilhelm Friedrich, left Ansbach with their mother, who returned to her native Eisenach. In 1692, Caroline’s widowed mother was pushed into an unhappy marriage with Johann Georg IV, Elector of Saxony, and she and her two children moved to the Saxon court at Dresden.

Eleonore Erdmuthe was widowed again two years later, after her unfaithful husband contracted smallpox from his mistress. Eleonore remained in Saxony for another two years, until her death in 1696. The orphaned Caroline and Wilhelm Friedrich returned to Ansbach to stay with their elder half-brother, Margrave Georg Friedrich II.

Georg Friedrich II was a youth with little interest in parenting a girl, and so Caroline soon moved to Lützenburg outside Berlin, where she entered into the care of her new guardians, Friedrich III, Elector of Brandenburg, (later Friedrich I, King in Prussia) and his wife, 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.

An intelligent and attractive woman, Caroline was much sought-after as a bride. Dowager Electress Sophia called her “the most agreeable Princess in Germany”. She was considered for the hand of Archduke Charles of Austria, who was a candidate for the throne of Spain and later became Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI. Archduke Charles made official overtures to her in 1703, and the match was encouraged by King Friedrich I of Prussia.

After some consideration, Caroline refused in 1704, as she would not convert from Lutheranism to Catholicism. Early in the following year, Queen Sophia Charlotte died on a visit to her native Hanover. Caroline was devastated, writing to Leibniz, “The calamity has overwhelmed me with grief and sickness, and it is only the hope that I may soon follow her that consoles me.”

In June 1705, Queen Sophia Charlotte’s nephew, Prince Georg August of Hanover, (George Agustus) who, as a result of the Act of Settlement 1701, had recently become third in line to the English throne (and subsequently the British throne) visited the Ansbach court, supposedly incognito, to inspect Caroline, as his father the Elector Georg Ludwig did not want his son to enter into a loveless arranged marriage as he himself had.

The nephew of three childless uncles, George Augustus was under pressure to marry and father an heir to prevent endangering the Hanoverian succession. He had heard reports of Caroline’s “incomparable beauty and mental attributes”. He immediately took a liking to her “good character” and the British envoy reported that George Augustus “would not think of anybody else after her”.

For her part, Caroline was not fooled by the prince’s disguise, and found her suitor attractive. He was the heir apparent of his father’s Electorate of Hanover and third-in-line to the English throne of his distant cousin Queen Anne, after his grandmother Dowager Electress Sophia and his father the Elector.

On August 22, 1705, Caroline arrived in Hanover for her wedding to George Augustus; they were married that evening in the palace chapel at Herrenhausen.

George Augustus and Caroline had a successful and loving marriage, though he continued to keep mistresses, as was customary for the time. Caroline was well aware of his infidelities, as they were well known and he told her about them.

Henrietta Howard, Countess of Suffolk was one of Caroline’s Women of the Bedchamber in addition to being one of Caroline’s husband’s mistresses.

His two best-known mistresses were Henrietta Howard, later Countess of Suffolk, and, from 1735, Amalie von Wallmoden, Countess of Yarmouth. Howard was one of Caroline’s Women of the Bedchamber and became Mistress of the Robes when her husband inherited a peerage in 1731; she retired in 1734. In contrast with her mother-in-law and husband, Caroline was known for her marital fidelity; she never made any embarrassing scenes nor did she take lovers.

She preferred her husband’s mistresses to be ladies-in-waiting, as that way she believed she could keep a closer eye on them.

By May of the following year, Caroline was pregnant, and her first child Prince Frederick Louis was born on 20 January 1707.

A few months after the birth, in July, Caroline fell seriously ill with smallpox followed by pneumonia. Her baby was kept away from her, but George Augustus remained at her side devotedly, and caught and survived the infection himself. Over the next seven years, Caroline had three more children, Anne, Amelia, and Caroline, all of whom were born in Hanover.

Caroline moved permanently to Britain in 1714 when her husband became Prince of Wales. As Princess of Wales she joined her husband in rallying political opposition to his father King George I. In 1717 her husband was expelled from court after a family row. Caroline came to be associated with Robert Walpole, an opposition politician who was a former government minister. Walpole rejoined the government in 1720 and Caroline’s husband and King George I reconciled publicly on Walpole’s advice. Over the next few years Walpole rose to become the leading minister.

Caroline became Queen and Electress consort upon her husband’s accession in 1727. Her eldest son, Frederick Ludwig, was created Prince of Wales. He was a focus for the opposition, like his father before him, and Caroline’s relationship with him was strained.

As princess and as queen, Caroline was known for her political influence, which she exercised through and for Walpole. Her tenure included four regencies during her husband’s stays in Hanover and she is credited with strengthening the House of Hanover’s place in Britain during a period of political instability. Caroline was widely mourned by her political allies following her death in 1737 as well as by the King, who refused to remarry.

Birth of Friedrich-Wilhelm The Great Elctor of Brandenburg-Prussia.

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Brandenburg, Frederick William the Great Elector, Friedrich I of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm, Germany, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Empire, Imperial Elector, Prussia

On this date in History: February 16, 1620. Birth of Friedrich-Wilhelm the Great Elector, Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia.

Friedrich-Wilhelm (February 16, 1620 – April 1688) was Elector of Brandenburg and Duke of Prussia, thus ruler of Brandenburg-Prussia, from 1640 until his death in 1688. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he is popularly known as “the Great Elector” because of his military and political achievements. Friedrich-Wilhelm was a staunch pillar of the Calvinist faith, associated with the rising commercial class. He saw the importance of trade and promoted it vigorously. His shrewd domestic reforms gave Prussia a strong position in the post-Treaty of Westphalia 1648 German Holy Roman Empire along with political order of north-central Europe, setting Prussia up for elevation from duchy to kingdom, achieved under his son and successor, Elector Friedrich III of Brandenburg who became Friedrich I, King in Prussia in 1701.

Biography

Elector Friedrich-Wilhelm was born in Berlin to Georg-Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg, and Elisabeth Charlotte of the Palatinate of the Rhine. His inheritance consisted of the Margraviate of Brandenburg, the Duchy of Cleves, the County of Mark, and the Duchy of Prussia.

During the Thirty Years’ War, Georg-Wilhelm strove to maintain, with a minimal army, a delicate balance between the Protestant and Catholic forces fighting throughout the Holy Roman Empire. Out of these unpromising beginnings Frederick William managed to rebuild his war-ravaged territories. In contrast to the religious disputes that disrupted the internal affairs of other European states, Brandenburg-Prussia benefited from the policy of religious tolerance adopted by Frederick William. With the help of French subsidies, he built up an army to defend the country. In the Second Northern War, he was forced to accept Swedish vassalage for the Duchy of Prussia according to the terms of the Treaty of Königsberg.

Friedrich-Wilhelm was a military commander of wide renown, and his standing army would later become the model for the Prussian Army. He is notable for his joint victory with Swedish forces at the Battle of Warsaw, which, according to Hajo Holborn, marked “the beginning of Prussian military history.” However, the Swedes turned on him at the behest of King Louis XIV and invaded Brandenburg. After marching 250 kilometers in 15 days back to Brandenburg, he caught the Swedes by surprise and managed to defeat them on the field at the Battle of Fehrbellin, destroying the myth of Swedish military invincibility. He later destroyed another Swedish army that invaded the Duchy of Prussia during the Great Sleigh Drive in 1678. He is noted for his use of broad directives and delegation of decision-making to his commanders, which would later become the basis for the German doctrine of Auftragstaktik, and he is noted for using rapid mobility to defeat his foes.

Domestic policies

Friedrich-Wilhelm is notable for raising an army of 40,000 soldiers by 1678, through the General War Commissariat presided over by Joachim Friedrich von Blumenthal. He was an advocate of mercantilism, monopolies, subsidies, tariffs, and internal improvements. Following Louis XIV’s revocation of the Edict of Nantes, Friedrich-Wilhelm encouraged skilled French and Walloon Huguenots to emigrate to Brandenburg-Prussia with the Edict of Potsdam, bolstering the country’s technical and industrial base. On Blumenthal’s advice he agreed to exempt the nobility from taxes and in return they agreed to dissolve the Estates-General. He also simplified travel in Brandenburg and the Duchy of Prussia by connecting riverways with canals, a system that was expanded by later Prussian architects, such as Georg Steenke; the system is still in use today.

Marriages

On December 7, 1646 in The Hague, Friedrich-Wilhelm entered into a marriage, proposed by Blumenthal as a partial solution to the Jülich-Berg question, with Luise Henriette of Nassau (1627–1667), daughter of Frederick Henry of Orange-Nassau and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels and his 1st cousin once removed through Willem the Silent. Their children were as follows:

1. Wilhelm-Heinrich, Electoral Prince of Brandenburg (1648–1649)

2. Carl, Electoral Prince of Brandenburg (1655–1674)

3. Friedrich III-I of Prussia (1657–1713), his successor

4. Amalie (1656–1664)

5. Heinrich (1664–1664)

6. Ludwig (1666–1687), who married Ludwika Karolina Radziwiłł

On June 13, 1668 in Gröningen, Friedrich-Wilhelm married Sophie Dorothea of Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, daughter of Philipp, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and Sophie Hedwig of Saxe-Lauenburg. Their children were the following:

1. Philipp-Wilhelm (1669–1711)

2. Marie Amelie (1670–1739)

3. Albrecht-Friedrich (1672–1731)

4. Carl-Philipp (1673–1695)

5. Elisabeth Sofie (1674–1748)

6. Dorothea (1675–1676)

7. Christian Ludwig (1677–1734)

The Earl of Athlone: German Ancestry, Conclusion.

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Alexander of Wurrtemberg, Duke of Tek, Francis, Francis of Teck, Friedrich I of Prussia, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, Marie-Adelaide of Cambridge, Morganatic Marriage, Prince of Orange, The Earl of Athlone, Willem I The Silent

Duke Alexander of Württemberg (1804–1885) was the father of Prince Francis, Duke of Teck. In 1835, he married, morganatically, Claudine Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde (1812-1841), by whom he fathered three children: Claudine, Francis and Amalie. His wife was created Countess of Hohenstein in her own right and, following the rules of morganatic marriages, the children inherited their mother’s title as Count or Countess of Hohenstein from birth. They had no rights through their father to any royal status or inheritance. In 1841, his wife was killed, run over by horse, and this was such a devastating blow to Alexander that he became mentally unstable, a condition which lasted for the rest of his life. He died in 1885 at the age of 80.

Duke Alexander’s father was Duke Ludwig-Friedrich of Württemberg, brother of King Friedrich I of Württemberg and Empress Maria Feodorovna of Russia. Duke Alexander’s mother was Henrietta of Nassau-Weilburg, a great-granddaughter of King George II of Great Britain through his eldest daughter Anne, Princess Royal and Princess of Orange who married Willem IV, Prince of Orange-Nassau and the first hereditary Stadtholder of the United Provinces of the Netherlands.

Duke Ludwig-Friedrich was a general in the cavalry. He was briefly a high ranking commander in the Army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Duke Ludwig-Friedrich was also appointed the commander of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania’s army. He betrayed the Commonwealth by refusing to fight against Russian troops throughout the Polish–Russian War of 1792, while feinting illness. For his betrayal he was dismissed from his post, but never persecuted. His Polish wife, Maria Wirtemberska, divorced him shortly afterward after his treason became public knowledge.

On 28 January 1797 in Hermitage, near Bayreuth, Louis Frederick was married to Princess Henriette of Nassau-Weilburg (then of Nassau), daughter of Charles Christian, Duke of Nassau-Weilburg and Princess Carolina of Orange-Nassau. The couple had five children:

1. Duchess Maria Dorothea Luise Wilhelmine Karoline of Württemberg (1 November 1797 – 30 March 1855); granted the style Royal Highness on 26 December 1805; married in 1819 Archduke Joseph of Austira, Palatine of Hungary (9 March 1776 – 13 January 1847).

2. Duchess Amalie of Württemberg (28 June 1799 – 28 November 1848); granted the style Royal Highness on 26 December 1805; married in 1817 Joseph, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg (27 August 1789 – 25 November 1868).

3. Duchess Pauline of Württemberg (4 September 1800 – 10 March 1873); granted the style Royal Highness on 26 December 1805; married in 1820 her first cousin, Wilhelm I of Wurttemberg.

4. Duchess Elisabeth of Württemberg (27 February 1802 – 5 December 1864); granted the style Royal Highness on 26 December 1805; married in 1830 Prince Wilhelm, Grand-Ducal Prince and Margrave von Baden (8 April 1792 – 11 October 1859).

Duke Alexander of Württemberg (9 September 1804 – 4 July 1885); granted the style Royal Highness on 26 December 1805; married, morganitically, on 2 May 1835, Countess Claudine Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde, and had issue (21 September 1812 – 1 October 1841); founded the second branch of the House of Württemberg, known as the Dukes of Teck. The Dukes of Teck settled in the United Kingdom and with the change in titles in 1917, when king George V relinquished all German titles, the Teck family became the Cambridge family.

I mention the siblings of Duke Alexander of Württemberg to show case that the Cambridge family has distant cousins throughout German royal and noble houses. If you follow the family tree through Duke Alexander’s maternal grandmother, Princess Carolina of Orange-Nassau, you will find your way into various royal houses such as the Dutch royal house leading to Willem I The Silent, Prince of Orange, considered founder of the modern state of the Netherlands. Other ancestors of Duke Alexander was King George II of Great Britain (a German prince of the House of Hanover and Brunswick) and his wife Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach, who was the granddaughter of Albert II, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach. If you follow the Brandenburg-Ansbach line you will eventually arrive at King Christian I of Denmark. Another prominent ancestor to the Earl of Athlone is King Friedrich I of Prussia.

Even though the Earl of Athlone’s mother, Princess Mary-Adelaide of Cambridge, was also ethnically German as a member of the House of Hanover, her son was very German through his father’s Württemberg heritage. This does raise the question about nationality verse ethnicity which are both human constructs. The Earl of Athlone was born and raised in the UK and culturally was every inch British despite the fact that his ancestors came from Germany.

Royal Genealogy ~ Queen Victoria & Prince Albert

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Buckingham Palace, Charles II of England and Scotland, Denmark, Duke of York, Ernst August of Hanover, France, Friedrich I of Prussia, Friedrich III, Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia, German Emperor and King of Prussia, Italy, James VI-I of Scotland and England, Kings and Queens of England, Portugal, Prince Frederick, Princess Victoria, Queen Victoria, Sophia Dorothea of Great Britain, Sophia of the Rhine (Electress Sophia), Spain, The Princess Royal, United Kingdom of Great Britain, Victoria and Albert, Wilhelm II of Germany

When I began my interest in royalty, genealogy was the doorway by which I entered. After sorting out the genealogy of the British Royal Family the era that piqued my interest the most was the Victorian Era. To be more accurate I also am equally interested in the Edwardian Age and the time until the end of the First World War. One of the things I have read frequently is the statement that the descendants of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert married into all the great Royal Houses of Europe. While this is true, in some ways I find it misleading because royals marrying royals is a practice that had been going on for centuries. Today all the reigning royal families are related and this is nothing new.

Let us take the marriage of Victoria and Albert’s eldest daughter, Princess Victoria, the Princess Royal, and her marriage to the future Friedrich III, German Emperor and King of Prussia as an example. The two royals were already related. Both were descendants of Sophia of the Rhine (Electress Sophia) and Elector Ernst August of Hanover, the line from which the royal family earned its claim to the throne. Electress Sophia’s daughter, also named Sophia, married King Friedrich I of Prussia and their son, King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia married his first cousin, Princess Sophia Dorothea of Great Britain. The next time the Prussians and the British royal family mingled was when Friedrich III’s great aunt, Princess Frederica, married Princess Victoria, the Princess Royal’s great uncle, Prince Frederick, Duke of York. Their mutual descent from the Electress Sophia made Fritz and Vicky 5th cousins.

Even if you go further back into the British Royal Family’s genealogy, their members frequently married into or chose members from the reigning houses that ruled France, Spain, Portugal, Denmark, Italy and many others. Charles II of England and Scotland was the first cousin of King Louis XIV of France. The marriage of Charles’ grandfather, James VI-I of Scotland and England married, Anne, the daughter of King Frederik II of Denmark and from this union also descends many of the great royal houses of Europe.

As I discuss this topic on Monday we will come to see all the myriad ways in which the various royal families are related.