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

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

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

House of Glücksburg

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

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

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

The House of Augustenburg

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

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

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

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

Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia

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

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

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

Paternal Ancestry

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

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

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

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

Maternal Ancestry

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

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

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

Princess Alexandra Victoria and her son Prince Alexander Ferdinand of Prussia

Marriages and issue

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

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

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

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

Alexandra Victoria and August Wilhelm had one son:

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

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

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

Arnold Rümann

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

Later life

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

September 28: Birth of Friedrich Christian II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg.

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Caroline Matilda of Great Britain, Christian VII of Denmark, Denmark, Frederik VI of Denmark, Friedrich Christian II of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, Johann Friedrich Struensee

Friedrich Christian II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (September 28, 1765 – June 14, 1814) was a Danish prince and feudal magnate. He held the island of Als and some other castles (such as Sonderborg) in Schleswig.

Life

Friedrich Christian II was born the eldest son of Friedrich Christian I, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (1721–1794), by his wife and cousin Princess Charlotte of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Plön (1744–1770). Until his father’s death, he was styled “Hereditary Prince of Augustenborg”.

He was a prince with an exceptionally high level of Danish blood in his ancestry: his maternal grandmother, paternal grandmother, and paternal great-grandmother having been born, respectively, Countess of Reventlow, Countess of Danneskiold-Samsøe, and Countess of Ahlefeldt-Langeland.

Friedrich Christian II was closely related to all important families of the Danish high nobility of the time. The negative side was that his ancestry was rather too much “comital” and too little royal. Instead of including royal princesses and duchesses of small and large German states, as was customary with the Oldenburg royal family, their marriage connections had been mostly with the nobility (chiefly of Denmark).

Thus, although they were undoubtedly the senior cadet line of the royal house of Denmark (Oldenburg), the family was regarded as a bit lower than the Ebenbürtige which the rulers of small Germany principalities thought to be the standard.

By marriage, however, Friedrich Christian II drew closer to his cousins, the Danish royal family. In 1786, the twenty-year-old hereditary prince married his distant cousin, the fourteen-year-old Louise Auguste of Denmark and Norway (1771–1843), purported daughter of Christian VII of Denmark by his wife, the late Queen Caroline Mathilde. Louise Auguste’s father, the king, was a man with mental disabilities and, throughout his reign, effective control was in the hands of other people (ranging from his step-mother to his wife to his half-brother to various courtiers).

The king’s mental condition, and his unharmonious relationship with his wife, gave rise to speculation that Louise had been sired by someone other than him, and rumour awarded fatherhood to Johann Friedrich Struensee, the king’s court physician and de facto regent of the country at the time of Louise’s birth. Indeed, she was at times referred to as la petite Struensee.

The truth of the matter cannot be definitely ascertained.
The story of antecedents of the prince’s marriage goes as follows: In February 1779, the nation’s foremost statesman, Chief Minister Count Andreas Peter Bernstorff, hatched an ingenious plan for the young princess, something that often has been customary with a royal child suspected of not being sired by its nominal father but in its mother’s illicit liaison: to marry such a child to another member of the royal house.

Since a male child of hers could inherit the throne some day, it would be advantageous to arrange a marriage early, and to marry the “half-royal” back into the extended royal house, to the Hereditary Prince of Augustenborg.

This plan had the positive effect of more closely connecting the Danish royal house’s two lines, the ruling House of Oldenborg and the cadet House of Augustenborg, thus not only discouraging any breakup of the kingdom but also forestalling the possibility of a foreigner gaining influence into Danish affairs through marriage with her. This would certainly happen, for instance, if Louise were to marry her closer relations, the Swedish royals.

The danger of Louise Auguste marrying into the Swedish royal house (the latter danger was rather low, however: at that time, there were Swedish princes only twenty years or more her senior, and her first cousin, the future King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden, had just been born when she already was seven).

Binding agreements were made as early as in 1780, when Friedrich Christian was 15 and Louise was only 9 years old. Five years later, in the spring of 1785, the young Friedrich Christian came to Copenhagen. The engagement was announced then, and a year later, on May 27, 1786, the wedding was celebrated at Christiansborg Palace.

The couple lived at the Castle for many years until the Christiansborg Palace fire of 1794 and the death of his father, the Duke of Augustenborg Friedrich Christian I, at which point the prince inherited the estate and the duchy. After 1794, the couple lived during the summer on the island of Als and at Gråsten.

The couple had three children:

• Caroline Amalie (born September 28, 1796, at Copenhagen; died March 9, 1881), married 1815 Prince Christian Friedrich of Denmark (died 1848), the future Christian VIII of Denmark and earlier, 1814, briefly proclaimed king of Norway before the Swedish conquest; became Queen of Denmark; she died childless in 1881, then the Queen Dowager of Denmark.
• Christian August II (born July 19, 1798, at Copenhagen; died March 11, 1869), the Duke of Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg who was to become a pivotal figure in the Question of Schleswig-Holstein in the 1850s and 1860s; so as not to offend Danish national feelings, he was married in 1820 to a Danish relative, Countess of Danneskjold-Samsoe (Lovisa-Sophie Danneskjold-Samsøe, 1797–1867), a kinswoman of the kings of Denmark, belonging to a bastard branch of House of Oldenburg; Duke Christian sold his rights to the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein to Denmark in aftermath of Treaty of London but later renounced his rights to the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein in favor of his son Friedrich August; he was the brother-in-law of King Christian VIII of Denmark, nephew of Frederik VI of Denmark, and father of, amongst others, Friedrich August (Friedrich Christian August), Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (born 1829 at Augustenborg, he was nephew of the Danish king himself, after whose death in 1863 he claimed to succeed as Duke of Schleswig-Holstein; died in 1880, living one surviving son and a number of daughters).
• Frederick Emil August (born August 23, 1800, at Kiel; died July 2, 1865, at Beirut), the “Prince” of Nør (Noer); he was married in 1829 to Countess Henriette Danneskjold-Samsøe (1806–1858), a Danish noblewoman belonging to a bastard branch of the House of Oldenburg; in 1864, he was created Prinz von Noer (“Prince of Noer”); he was father of:
  • Friedrich Christian Charles August (born at Gottorp in 1830; died at Noer in 1881), who married Carmelita Eisenblat; and
  • Luise Karoline Henriette Auguste, Graefin von Noer (born at Schleswig in 1836; died in 1866), who married Michael Vlangali-Handjeri.

Over the years, conflict arose between Duke Friedrich Christian II and Louise Auguste’s brother, King Frederik VI of Denmark, especially over the relationship of the double-duchies of Schleswig-Holstein and the Duke’s own small appanage around Sonderborg on the one hand and the Danish monarchy on the other. His wife remained loyal to the Danish royal house throughout these differences. The marriage eventually fell into acrimony and reproach, and Frederick Christian tried to legally limit Louise Auguste’s influence over their children’s futures.

In 1810, Frederik Christian’s younger brother Charles August was chosen by the estates of the Swedish realm as that nation’s crown prince, to succeed the elderly and childless King Carl XIII. Following Charles August’s death in May 1810, Frederik Christian himself was the leading candidate to become the new heir to the Swedish throne. On August 8, 1810 he was elected crown prince by the estates. His election however, was reconsidered and withdrawn two weeks later and Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France and Prince of Ponte Corvo, was elected instead.

Frederik Christian II died on June 14, 1814. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Christian August II, then but sixteen years old. Louise Auguste took control of the Augustenborg estates and the children’s upbringing. The estates were turned over to the son and heir on his return from an extended foreign tour in 1820.

A Brief history of the twin Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein: Part IV.

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Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, Ernst Günther II, House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, London Protocal 1852, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Sucession

House of Augustenburg

The House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg (Danish: Slesvig-Holsten-Sønderborg-Augustenborg) was a branch of the dukes of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg of the House of Oldenburg. The line descended from Alexander, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg. Like all of the secondary lines from the Sonderburg branch, the heads of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg were first known as Dukes of Schleswig-Holstein and Dukes of Sonderburg. The family took its name from its ancestral home, Augustenborg Palace in Augustenborg, Denmark.

The branch originated with Alexander, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg (20 January 20, 1573 – May 13, 1627), was a Danish nobleman the third son of Johann II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg and Elisabeth of Brunswick-Grubenhagen. In my last blog entry in this series I pointed out that the older Glücksburg line descends from Philip of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (1584–1663) a younger son of Johann II the Younger of Denmark (a son of King Christian III of Denmark), and therefore brother of Alexander, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg.

Alexander, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg married Dorothea of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, daughter of Johan Günther I, Count of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, on 26 November 1604 in Oldenburg. They had eleven children, among them Ernest Günther.

Alexander, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg and his wife Dorothea of Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, had as their fifth son August Philipp, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck (November 11, 1612 – May 6, 1675) who, after acquiring the estate of Beck in Westfalen in 1646, took the title of Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck. August Philipp is the ancestor of the younger Glücksburg Line.

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

Ernest Günther I, Duke of Augustenburg.

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

Later, a Danish king made the head of that line specifically Duke of Augustenborg. In the late 18th century, since 1764, the branch of Schleswig-Holsten-Sønderborg-Augustenborg was genealogically the next senior branch immediately after the main line of Danish kings. King Frederik VI of Denmark (or, rather, his chief adviser Andreas Peter Bernstorff), made his only sister Louise Auguste of Denmark marry the then Hereditary Prince Christian of Augustenborg.

In 1764, Sønderborg castle, the seat of that elder Schleswig-Holstein branch, passed upon its owners’ extinction into the hands of the Duke of Augustenborg, but against expectations it did not became a residence (they remained at Augustenborg). Instead it was rented out as a warehouse. The penultimate Duke of Augustenborg, also named Ernst Günther, allowed Sønderborg County Museum to move into a part of the castle in 1920. The next year the Danish state bought the castle from the Duke.

August Philipp, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck

In 1810, a younger scion of the family, Prince Christian August, was chosen as the Crown Prince of Sweden, and adopted by king Carl XIII of Sweden. An Augustenborg dynasty on a royal throne was however not to be, as Prince Christian August died a couple of months after his arrival in Sweden.

In the early 19th century, the Danish royal line started to go extinct. The Duke of Augustenburg was the next male-line heir to the royal house, though not descended in male line from Frederik III of Denmark and Norway. This made the duke a player in the convoluted Schleswig-Holstein Question, as well as a candidate in the Danish succession. Friedrich August of Augustenburg attempted to proclaim himself reigning Duke Friedrich VIII of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864, upon the final extinction of the senior branch of the Danish kings. His daughter, Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein, became German Empress as consort of Wilhelm II.

Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg

Friedrich August of Augustenburg was the eldest son of Christian August II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg and Countess Louise Sophie of Danneskiold-Samsøe. He was ethnically perhaps the most Danish Prince of the Danish Royal dynasty in his generation (at the time of Denmark’s most recent succession crisis). Friedrich August died January 14, 1880

His son, Ernst Günther II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein (August 11, 1863 – February 22, 1921) inherited his father’s title as titular duke of Schleswig-Holstein. On August 2, 1898 in Coburg, he married Princess Dorothea of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, daughter of Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Princess Louise of Belgium. The couple had no children. However, on 11 November 1920, Ernst Günther II adopted Prince Johann Georg of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (July 21, 1911 – June 23, 1941) and his sister Princess Marie Luise, children of Prince Albrecht of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, nephew of Christian IX of Denmark. Prince Johann Georg was killed in action at the age of twenty-nine.

In 1921, the Prince Albert of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg succeeded as the head of the of the House of Schleswig-Holstein, following his childless cousin Duke Ernst Günther II of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg. Prince Albert (February 26, 1869 – April 27, 1931), was a grandson of Queen Victoria, through her second daughter, Princess Helena, by her husband Prince Christian of Schleswig Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg Albert was the head of the House of Oldenburg and also head of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg and the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein between 1921 and 1931.

Prince Albert of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein

Succession

The ducal line died out in 1931 with Albert’s death.

Duke Albert never married and was succeeded by his distant cousin Friedrich Ferdinand, Duke of Glücksburg (who happened to also be the husband of a Princess Karoline Mathilde of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg [sister of the previously mentioned Empress Augusta Victoria and brother of his immediate predecessor, Ernst Günther II, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein] and daughter of Albert’s uncle Frederick August of Augustenburg). Is your head spinning yet?

The After Augustenburg’s line became extinct in 1931 seniority fell to the line of the Dukes of Glücksburg, heads of the second line of Holstein, known in German as Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and in Danish as Slesvig-Holsten-Sønderborg-Lyksborg.