200th Anniversary of the Birth of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom: May 24, 1819.

Tags

Birthday, Duchess of Kent, Empress of India, George III, George IV, King William IV of the United Kingdom, Kingdom of the Belgians, kings and queens of the United Kingdom, Leopld of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Leopold I, Prince Regent, Princess Charlotte of Wales, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld., Queen Victoria, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, The Duke of Kent

Following the death of Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales in November 1817, the only legitimate grandchild of George III at the time, the royal succession began to look uncertain. The Prince Regent and his younger brother Frederick, the Duke of York, though married, were estranged from their wives and had no surviving legitimate children. King George’s surviving daughters were all past likely childbearing age. The unmarried sons of King George III, the Duke of Clarence (later King William IV), the Duke of Kent, and the Duke of Cambridge, all rushed to contract lawful marriages and provide an heir to the throne. The fifth son of King George III, the Duke of Cumberland, was already married but had no living children at that time, whilst the marriage of the sixth son, the Duke of Sussex, was void because he had married in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act 1772.

However, it was not that simple. For the Duke of Kent providing for the succession was not his sole motivator in finding a wife. Even before he disposed of the amiable Madame de Saint Laurent, the Duke of Kent had been secretly looking for a legitimate wife for financial reasons rather than dynastic reasons. The Duke of Kent knew that once he contracted a legitimate marriage he would be granted a steady income by Parliament. Princess Charlotte was still alive at this time and he promised her, along with her consort, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, to furnish continuity for the throne of Hanover.

HRH The Duchess of Kent

The Duke of Kent also realized that in Hanover, where the Salic Law applied to the German kingdom, only male heirs could reign in Hanover, therefore, if Princess Charlotte became Queen of the United Kingdom this would separate the personal union of the two countries and a secession of her oldest surviving childless uncles would, one after another, become the King of Hanover. The Duke of Kent envisioned that he would one day be the King of Hanover. For that he would need a Queen and an heir.

The Duke of Kent’s idea of a suitable bride was a wealthy woman with proper Royal Ancestry for an approved royal marriage. Because the Duke of Kent had been helpful to his niece, Princess Charlotte of Wales, and her husband Prince Leopold, they were eager to match the Duke with Leopold’s younger sister the Dowager Princess of Leiningen. The Duke agreed to visit the widowed Princess Victoria in Darmstadt, one of the larger cities close to the borders of a Amorbach, after which he dispatched a lengthy letter expressing his affection and proposing marriage believing she would make an appropriate Queen of Hanover. With the death of Princess Charlotte of Wales, who died giving birth to a stillborn son in November 1817, the Duke of Kent realized that the succession to the British throne was now in jeopardy and this expediated his marriage to the Dowager Princess of Leiningen.

In Coburg Germany, on May 29, 1818 at 9:30 in the evening the Dowager Princess of Leiningen (aged 32) was married in the Lutheran rights to the Duke of Kent (aged 52) a man she had only met once before. The Duke was arrayed in his English field marshal’s uniform, while the Princess was resplendent in pale silk lace. Afterwards, the new Duchess of Kent wrote in her diary that she had hoped that in her second marriage she would find the happiness that she never found in the first.

Within four days after the wedding the Duke and Duchess of Kent left for England. And at Kew Palace on July 13, 1818 at four in the afternoon, they were married again this time in accordance to the Church of England. However, the ceremony was doubled for there was also two brides for the Prince Regent to give away. Not only was the Duke of Kent marrying Princess Victoria once again, Prince William, Duke of Clarence and the 25 year old Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen (August 13, 1792 – December 2, 1849) [the daughter of Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and Luise Eleonore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg] were united as well. The Archbishop Bishop of Canterbury officiated the ceremony assisted by the Bishop of London. Since King George III was blind and incapacitated, fragile old Queen Charlotte, mother of both of the Dukes, was the chief celebrant at the wedding banquet.

HRH The Duke of Kent

Because of the Duke of Kent’s financial situation the newlyweds moved back to Germany. By November 18, 1818 the Duke of Kent sent a letter to the Prince Regent’s private secretary, Sir Benjamin Bloomfield, indicating that the Duchess of Kent was pregnant and that the child was due in May the following year. The Duke of Kent believed it would be his duty to bring the Duchess back to England early in April so that the Royal birth could take place in England. The Duke also petitioned his brother the Prince Regent to allocate funds sufficient for the move and the care of his growing family.

The Duke and Duchess of Kent’s only child, Victoria, was born at 4.15 a.m. on May 24, 1819 at Kensington Palace in London. Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on June 24, 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace. She was baptised Alexandrina after one of her godparents, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina (or Georgiana), Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of Kent’s eldest brother, George, the Prince Regent.

At birth, Alexandria-Victoria was fifth in the line of succession after the four eldest sons of George III: George, the Prince Regent (later George IV); Frederick, the Duke of York; William, the Duke of Clarence (later William IV); and Victoria’s father, Edward, the Duke of Kent. The Prince Regent had no surviving children, and the Duke of York had no children; further, both were estranged from their wives, who were both past child-bearing age, so the two eldest brothers were unlikely to have any further legitimate children.

HM Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Empress of India.

With Alexandrina-Victoria being fifth in line to the succession to the throne, her ascending the British throne was not assured. She could have been supplanted by a brother born to the Duke and Duchess of Kent, or any children from the union of the Duke and Duchess of Clarence. However, the Duke of Clarence’s legitimate daughters died as infants. The first of these was Princess Charlotte, who was born and died on March 27, 1819, two months before Victoria was born. Victoria’s father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old. A week later her grandfather, George III died and was succeeded by his eldest son as George IV. Victoria was then third in line to the throne after York and Clarence. The Duke Clarence’s second daughter was Princess Elizabeth of Clarence who lived for twelve weeks from December 10, 1820 to 4 March 1821 and, while Elizabeth lived, Victoria was fourth in line. The Childless Duke of York died in 1827 which paved the way for Victoria’s own succession after her uncles, George IV and William IV.

200th Anniversary of the Birth of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom: Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

Tags

Duchess of Kent, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, House of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Kingdom of the Belgians, Leopold I, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.

On Friday, May 24, is the 200th Anniversary of the birth of Queen Victoria. To honor this occasion I’ll feature some biographical info on her father Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn. Today I feature Queen Victoria’s mother, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and tomorrow I’ll feature Queen Victoria’s Birth itself.

Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

Her Serene Highness Princess Marie Louise Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld was born in Coburg on August 17, 1786 in the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation. She was the fourth daughter and seventh child of Franz-Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and Countess Augusta of Reuss-Ebersdorf. Her eldest brother was Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and her younger brother, Leopold, future king of the Belgians, married, in 1816, Princess Charlotte of Wales, the only legitimate daughter of the future King George IV of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and heiress presumptive to the British throne.

First marriage

On December 21, 1803 at Coburg, a 17 year old Princess Victoria married (as his second wife) the 40 year old, Emich-Charles, Prince of Leiningen (1763–1814), whose first wife, Henrietta of Reuss-Ebersdorf, had been her aunt. Emich Carl was born at Dürckheim, the fourth child and only son of Carl-Friedrich, Count of Leiningen-Dagsburg-Hartenburg by his wife Countess Christiane of Solms-Rödelheim and Assenheim (1736–1803). On July 3, 1779, his father was made a Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, and Emich Carl became Hereditary Prince of Leiningen. On January 9, 1807, Emich-Charles succeeded his father as second Prince of Leiningen.

Emich-Charles, Prince of Leiningen

The couple had two children, Prince Carl-Friedrich born on September 12, 1804, and Princess Feodora of Leiningen, born on December 7, 1807. Through her first marriage, she is a direct matrilineal ancestor to various members of royalty in Europe, including Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, Felipe VI of Spain, and Constantine II of Greece.

Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

Regency

Emich-Carl died at Amorbach on July 4, 1814, and was succeeded by his only surviving son, Carl-Friedrich. After the death of her spouse, Victoria, served as regent of the Principality of Leiningen during the minority of their son, Carl-Friedrich.

Carl-Friedrich, Prince of Leiningen

Princess Feodora of Leiningen

Creation of The United Kingdom of the Netherlands

Tags

Congress of Vienna, French Revolution, House of Orange-Nassau, Kingdom of Belgium, Kingdom of the Belgians, Prince of Orange, Willem I of the Netherlands, Willem-Frederik

On this date in History, March 16, 1815, the creation of The United Kingdom of the Netherlands. The name of the state was the unofficial name given to the Kingdom of the Netherlands as it existed between 1815 and 1839. The United Netherlands was created in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars through the fusion of territories that had historically belonged to the former Dutch Republic, Austrian Netherlands, and Prince-Bishopric of Liège. The polity became a constitutional monarchy, ruled by Willem I of the House of Orange-Nassau. Until 1806, Willem was formally known as Willem VI, Prince of Orange-Nassau, and between 1806 and 1813 he was also known as Willem-Fredrik Prince of Orange.

Kingdom of the United Netherlands.

Prior to the French Revolution (1792-1802), the Low Countries were a patchwork of different polities created by the Eighty Years’ War (1568-1648). The Dutch Republic in the north was independent, while the Southern Netherlands was split between the House of Habsburg as the Austrian Netherlands and Prince-Bishopric of Liège. The former was part of Habsburg Austria and both were member states of the Holy Roman Empire. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, the War of the First Coalition broke out in 1792 and France was invaded by Prussia and the Holy Roman Empire. After two years of fighting, the Austrian Netherlands and Liège were captured by the French in 1794 and annexed into France. The Dutch Republic collapsed in 1795 and became a French client state.

Creation of the United Netherlands

In 1813, the Netherlands was liberated from French rule by Prussian and Russian troops during the Napoleonic Wars. It was taken for granted that any new regime would have to be headed by Prince Willem-Frederick of Orange-Nassau, the son of the last Dutch stadhouder. A provisional government was formed, most of whose members had helped drive out the House of Orange 18 years earlier. However, they realised that it would be better in the long term to offer leadership of the new government to Willem-Frederik themselves rather than have him imposed by the allies. Accordingly, Willem-Frederik was installed as the “sovereign prince” of a new Principality of the United Netherlands. The future of the Southern Netherlands, however, was less clear. In June 1814, the Great Powers secretly agreed to the Eight Articles of London which allocated the region to the Dutch as Willem had advocated.

That August, Willem-Frederik was made Governor-General of the Southern Netherlands and the Prince-Bishopric of Liège–comprising almost all of what is now modern Belgium. For all intents and purposes, Willem-Frederik had completed his family’s three-century dream of uniting the Low Countries under a single rule.

Discussions on the future of the region were still ongoing at the Congress of Vienna when Napoleon attempted to return to power in the “Hundred Days.” Willem-Frederik used the occasion to declare himself king on March 16, 1815 as Willem I.

King Willem I of the United Netherlands

In exchange for the Southern Netherlands, Willem agreed to cede the Principality of Orange-Nassau and parts of the Liège to Prussia on May 13, 1815. In exchange, Willem also gained control over the Duchy of Luxembourg, which was elevated to a grand duchy and placed in personal and political union with the Netherlands, though it remained part of the German Confederation. This ceding of the Principality of Orange-Nassau to Prussia is why the Prussian claimant to the thrones of Prussia and Imperial Germany claim the title “Prince of Orange.”

Constitution and government

Though the United Netherlands was a constitutional monarchy, the king retained significant control as head of state and head of government. Beneath the king was a bicameral legislature known as the States General with a Senate and House of Representatives. From the start, the administrative system proved controversial. Representation in the 110-seat House of Representatives, for example, was divided equally between south and north, although the former had a larger population. This was resented in the south, which believed that the government was dominated by northerners.

Differences between Southern and Northern Netherlands were never totally effaced. The two were divided by the issue of religion because the south was strongly Roman Catholic and the north largely Dutch Reformed. The Catholic Church in Belgium resented the state’s encroachment on its traditional privileges, especially in education. In French-speaking parts of the south, attempts to enforce the use of Dutch language were particularly resented among the elite. Many Belgians believed that the United Netherlands’ constitution discriminated against them. Though they represented 62 percent of the population, they were only allocated 50 percent of the seats in the House and less in the Senate while the state extracted money from the richer south to subsidise the north. By the mid-1820s, a union of opposition had formed in Belgium, uniting liberals and Catholic conservatives against Dutch rule.

The Belgian Revolution broke out on August 25, 1830, inspired by the recent July Revolution in France. A military intervention in September failed to defeat the rebels in Brussels, radicalising the movement. Belgium was declared an independent state on 4 October 1830. A constitutional monarchy was established under Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Elected King of The Belgians, Leopold was initially married to Princess Charlotte of Wales (daughter of George IV) until her death in childbirth in 1817. Leopold I of the Belgians was the Maternal Uncle to Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Paternal Uncle her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Leopold I, King of the Belgians.

Willem I refused to accept the secession of Belgium. In August 1831, he launched the Ten Days’ Campaign, a major military offensive into Belgium. Though initially successful, the French intervened to support the Belgians and the invasion had to be abandoned. After a period of tension, a settlement was agreed at the Treaty of London in 1839. The Dutch recognised Belgian independence, in exchange for territorial concessions. The frontier between the two countries was finally fixed by the Treaty of Maastricht in 1843. Luxembourg became an autonomous state in personal union with the Dutch, though ceding some territory to Belgium.

On this date in History: February 23,1934. Leopold III of the Belgians takes Oath.

Tags

Abdication, Constitution, King Albert I of the Belgians, King Leopold III of Belgium, Kingdom of Belgium, Kingdom of the Belgians, Oath

On this date in History: February 23, 1934. Death of King Albert I of the Belgians and succession of his son as King Leopold III of the Belgians.

Also on this date King Leopold III of the Belgians takes the constitutional oath before a joint session of parliament.

Seated on his left: Queen Astrid, Prince Baudouin (the future King) and Princess Joséphine-Charlotte (the future Grand Duchess of Luxembourg).

Leopold III was born in Brussels and succeeded to the throne of Belgium on February 23, 1934, following the death of his father King Albert I.

Albert I, King of the Belgians

Leopold III reigned as the King of the Belgians from 1934 until 1951, when he abdicated in favour of the heir apparent, his son Baudouin. From 1944 until 1950, Leopold’s brother, Charles, served as prince regent while Leopold was declared unable to reign. Leopold’s controversial actions during the Second World War resulted in a political crisis known as the Royal Question.

Leopold III, King of the Belgians.

In 1950, the debate about whether Leopold could resume his royal functions escalated. Following a referendum, Leopold was allowed to return from exile to Belgium, but the continuing political instability pressured him to abdicate in 1951. Leopold III died September 25, 1983, aged 81.