April 6, 1573: Birth of Margaret of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg

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Anna of Denmark, Anna of Saxony, Coburg Taler, Dorothea of Denmark, Duke August of Saxony, Duke Johann Casimir of Saxe-Coburg, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Emperor Ferdinand I, King Christian III of Denmark and Norway, Margaret of of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Wilhelm the Younger

Margaret of Brunswick-Lüneburg (April 6, 1573 – August 7, 1643), was a German noblewoman member of the House of Welf and by marriage Duchess of Saxe-Coburg.

Born in Celle, she was the ninth of fifteen children born from the marriage of Wilhelm the Younger, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Princess Dorothea of Denmark, the youngest child of King Christian III of Denmark-Norway and Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg.

Life

Margaret’s future husband, Johann Casimir of Saxe-Coburg was born at Grimmenstein Castle in Gotha on June 12, 1564 as the middle of three sons of Duke Johann Friedrich II, Duke of Saxony and his wife Countess Palatine Elisabeth of Simmern-Sponheim. Because of the Holy Roman Empire’s sanctions (Reichsexekution) against Gotha, his father, Duke Johann Friedrich II of Saxony, lost his dominions and freedom on April 15, 1567.

Later, Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor used the two surviving sons of Johann Friedrich II against their uncle Johann Wilhelm; in 1572 the Division of Erfurt was made. The duchy of Saxony was divided into three parts. The older son, Johann Casimir, received Coburg, and the younger, Johann Ernst, received Eisenach. Johann Wilhelm retained only the smaller part, the limited region of Weimar, but he added to his duchy the districts of Altenburg, Gotha and Meiningen.

Between 1578 and 1581 Johann Casimir studied at the University of Leipzig. On May 6, 1584 he became engaged, without the consent of his father, with his cousin Anna of Saxony, the daughter of Elector August of Saxony and Princess Anna of Denmark a daughter of King Christian III of Denmark and Norway and his wife Dorothea of Saxe-Lauenburg.

The marriage between Johann Casimir and Anna of Saxony finally took place in Dresden on January 16, 1586, and she received 30,000 Thalers as a dowry, as well as the city of Römhild as her Wittum (Dower land). The cheerful and high-spirited Duchess soon produced magnificent festivities in her new court.

However, the marriage soon failed: John Casimir preferred hunting to marital life. By the end of September 1593, the Duchess was caught in adultery by her husband. John Casimir immediately ordered the arrest of Anna and her lover, Ulrich of Lichtenstein.

Despite the letters which Anna wrote to her husband and her relatives asking for mercy, on December 12, the Schöppenstuhl (High Court Chamber) in Jena formally annulled her marriage and sentenced both lovers to beheading by sword. For Duchess Anna and her lover Ulrich of Lichtenstein the death sentence was commuted, suddenly, to life imprisonment.

Ulrich of Lichtenstein died in prison twenty years later, on December 8, 1633, just three days after being granted his freedom.

Only after the death of the Elector Augustus of Saxony on February 11, 1586 was Duke John Casimir at the age of 22 years able to undertake with his brother John Ernest the government of his principality.

In Coburg on September 16, 1599, Margaret married Johann Casimir, Duke of Saxe-Coburg as his second wife. Margaret and Johann Casimir’s first wife, Anna of Saxony, were first cousins.

For the wedding of Margaret of Brunswick-Lüneburg and Duke Johann Casimir of Saxe-Coburg most of the wedding guests stayed before and during the marriage festivities at Heldburg Castle. Gilded state coaches, which belonged to the dowry of her mother Dorothea, were used for the occasion; they are one of the oldest still functioning coaches in the world and currently displayed at the Veste Coburg.

Johann Casimir celebrated his marriage with the famous Coburg Taler: on the obverse showed a kissing couple with the inscription WIE KVSSEN SICH DIE ZWEY SO FEIN (A well kiss between two), while on the reverse, showed a nun with the inscription: WER KVST MICH – ARMES NVNNELIN (who kiss you now, poor nun?). This nun was Anna of Saxony, his first wife, whom he repudiated and imprisoned for adultery.

Johan Casimir and Margaret had a happy marriage, but they had no children. After Johann Casimir’s death in 1633 Saxe-Coburg was inherited by his brother Johann Ernst. Margaret returned to her homeland, Celle, where she died ten years later, aged 70. She was buried in the Stadtkirche, Celle.

January 20, 1523: King Christian II of Denmark and Norway is Deposed.

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Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, Emperor Charles V, Isabella of Austria, Kalmar Union, King Christian II of Denmark and Norway, King Christian III of Denmark and Norway, King Frederik I of Denmark and Norway, King Hans of Denmark and Norway, King of Sweden

Christian II (July 1, 1481 – January 25, 1559) was a Scandinavian monarch under the Kalmar Union who reigned as King of Denmark and Norway, from 1513 until 1523, and Sweden from 1520 until 1521. From 1513 to 1523, he was concurrently Duke of Schleswig and Holstein in joint rule with his uncle King Frederik I of Denmark.

Christian was born at Nyborg Castle in 1481 as the son of Hans, King of Denmark and his wife, Christina of Saxony, the daughter of Elector Ernst of Saxony the second son (but fourth in order of birth) of the eight children of Elector Friedrich II of Saxony and Margaret of Austria, sister of Friedrich III, Holy Roman Emperor.

King Christian II of Denmark, Norway and Sweden

Christian descended, through King Waldemar I of Sweden, from the House of Eric, and from Catherine, daughter of Inge I of Sweden, as well as from Ingrid Ylva, granddaughter of Sverker I of Sweden. His rival King Gustaf I Vasa of Sweden descended only from Sverker II of Sweden and the House of Sverker.

Christian married Isabella of Austria, third child of Philipp (Felipe) the Handsome, ruler of the Burgundian Netherlands and briefly ruled as King Felipe I of Castile along with his wife Infanta Joanna the Mad, heiress to the Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. Her father was the son of the reigning Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and his deceased consort Mary, Duchess of Burgundy, while her mother was the daughter of the Catholic Monarchs King Fernando II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile.

As king, Christian II tried to maintain the Kalmar Union between the Scandinavian countries which brought him to war with Sweden, lasting between 1518 and 1523. Though he captured the country in 1520, the subsequent slaughter of leading Swedish nobility, churchmen, and others, known as the Stockholm Bloodbath, caused the Swedes to rise against his rule.

Isabella of Austria, Queen of Denmark and Norway

He was deposed in a rebellion led by the nobleman and later king of Sweden Gustaf Vasa. He attempted to bring in a radical reform of the Danish state in 1521–22, which would have strengthened the rights of commoners at the expense of the nobles and clergy.

Legal reforms and downfall

In June 1521, the Danish king paid a visit to Emperor Charles V in the Netherlands, where he remained for some months. He visited most of the large cities, made the personal acquaintance of Quentin Matsys and Albrecht Dürer, and met Erasmus, with whom he discussed the Protestant Reformation. Directly upon his return to Denmark in September 1521 Christian issued two bodies of laws – the Town Law and the Land Law – which governed respectively trade and the behaviour of the clergy.

The Town Law strengthened the rights of tradesmen and peasants at the expense of the nobility. Trade was reorganised and was to be conducted solely through market towns, which were to be governed by officials appointed by the king.

Trading in peasants was forbidden, and peasants were given the right to negotiate the terms of their tenure with the nobility. The Land Law permitted clergy to marry, and gave some control of the church over to the state. The new laws were radical, progressive, and perceived by the nobility and bishops as an existential threat.

King Christian II and Queen Isabella on an altar in Elsinore.

By 1522, King Christian II was running out of allies. In an attempt to set up a Danish-centered trading company in direct competition with the Hanseatic League, Christian had raised the sound tolls, which affected trade between Sweden and the Hanseatic towns. As a consequence, Lübeck and Danzig joined the newly independent Sweden in war against Denmark. Domestic rebellion against Christian started in Jutland.

On January 20, 1523, the herredag at Viborg offered the Danish crown to Christian’s uncle, Duke Frederik of Holstein. Frederik’s army gained control over most of Denmark during the spring, and in April 1523 Christian left Denmark to seek help abroad. On May 1, he landed at Veere in Zeeland.

Exile and imprisonment

In exile Christian led a humble life in the city of Lier in the Netherlands (now in Belgium), waiting for military help from his brother-in-law Emperor Charles V. Christian corresponded with Martin Luther and he became a Lutheran for some time; he even commissioned a translation of the New Testament into Danish.

Queen Isabella died in January 1526, and Christian’s children were taken by her family so as not to be raised as heretics. His relationship with his mistress, Dyveke Sigbritsdatter, pre-dated his marriage and continued until her death in 1517.

King Christian II imprisoned at Sønderburg Castle

Popular agitation against Frederick I in Denmark centered on Søren Norby, who gathered an army of peasants in Scania, but was defeated in 1525.

By 1531, Christian had reverted to Catholicism and reconciled with the Emperor. He took a fleet to Norway, and landed in Oslo to popular acclaim in November 1531. Christian failed to subdue the fortresses of northern Norway, however, and accepted a promise of safe conduct from Frederick I.

Frederik did not keep his promise, and Christian was kept prisoner for the next 27 years, first in Sønderborg Castle until 1549, and afterwards at the castle of Kalundborg.

Stories of solitary confinement in small dark chambers are inaccurate; King Christian II was treated like a nobleman, particularly in his old age, and he was allowed to host parties, go hunting, and wander freely as long as he did not go beyond the Kalundborg town boundaries.

King Frederik I died in April 1533, and the Danish Council of State was at first unable to choose a successor. The mayor of Lübeck, Jürgen Wullenwever, took advantage of the resulting interregnum to conspire for the restoration of Christian II to the throne of Denmark.

He formed an alliance with two prominent nobles, Ambrosius Bogbinder and Jørgen Kock, mayor of Malmö. With Christopher, Count of Oldenburg as his military commander he succeeded in seizing Scania and Zeeland in the name of Christian II in a conflict known as the Count’s Feud.

However, Frederik’s eldest son, also named Christian, raised an army in Holstein which, led by Johann Rantzau, took in turn Holstein, Jutland and Zeeland in a series of brilliant military manoeuvers. He formed an alliance with Gustaf Vasa, who subdued Scania, and took the throne as King Christian III of Denmark and Norway. Christian II remained in prison in Kalundborg.

Christian II died in January 1559, a few days after Christian III. The new king, Frederik II, ordered that a royal funeral be held in his memory. He is buried in Odense next to his wife, parents, and son John, who died in the summer of 1532.

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.