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.

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.

November 16, 1797: Accession of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia

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Alexander I of Russia, Congress of Vienna, Franz of Austria, Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, Friedrich-Wilhelm II of Prussia, House of Hohenzollern, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Morganatic Marriage, Napoleonic Wars

Friedrich Wilhelm III. (August 3, 1770 – June 7, 1840) was King of Prussia from November 16, 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 was born in Potsdam in 1770 as the son of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia and Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt was the daughter of Ludwig IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt, and Countess Palatine Caroline of Zweibrücken. She was born in Prenzlau. Her sister Louise who married Duke (later Grand-Duke) Charles Augustus of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. Her brother was Ludwig X, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. In 1806 Ludwig X was elevated to the title of a Grand Duke Ludwig I of Hesse and joined the Confederation of the Rhine, leading to the dissolution of the Empire. At the Congress of Vienna in 1814/15, Ludwig had to give up his Westphalian territories, but was compensated with the district of Rheinhessen, with his capital Mainz on the left bank of the Rhine. Because of this addition, he amended his title to Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine.

Friedrich Wilhelm 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 Wilhelm’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.

On December 24, 1793, Friedrich Wilhelm married his cousin Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the fourth daughter and sixth child of Duke Charles of Mecklenburg and his wife Princess Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Louise’s father, Charles, was a brother of Queen Charlotte of Great Britain, wife of King George III, and her mother Frederike was a granddaughter of Ludwig VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. Her maternal grandmother, Landgravine Marie Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, and her paternal first-cousin Princess Augusta Sophia of the United Kingdom served as sponsors at her baptism; her second given name came from Princess Augusta Sophia. Louise bore Friedrich Wilhelm ten children.

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

Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Queen of Prussia

Reign

Friedrich Wilhelm succeeded to the throne on November 16, 1797. He also became, in personal union, the sovereign prince of the Principality of Neuchâtel (1797–1806 and again 1813–1840). At once, the new King showed that he was earnest of his good intentions by cutting down the royal establishment’s expenses, dismissing his father’s ministers, and reforming the most oppressive abuses of the late reign.

He had the Hohenzollern determination to retain personal power but not the Hohenzollern genius for using it. Too distrustful to delegate responsibility to his ministers, he greatly reduced the effectiveness of his reign since he was forced to assume the roles he did not delegate. This is the main factor of his inconsistent rule.

Disgusted with his father’s court (in both political intrigues and sexual affairs), Friedrich Wilhelm’s first and most successful early endeavor was to restore his dynasty’s moral legitimacy. The eagerness to restore dignity to his family went so far that it nearly caused sculptor Johann Gottfried Schadow to cancel the expensive and lavish Prinzessinnengruppe project, which was commissioned by the previous monarch Friedrich Wilhelm II.

At first, Friedrich Wilhelm and his advisors attempted to pursue a neutrality policy in the Napoleonic Wars. Although they succeeded in keeping out of the Third Coalition in 1805, eventually, Friedrich Wilhelm was swayed by the queen’s attitude, who led Prussia’s pro-war party and entered into the war in October 1806.

On October 14, 1806, at the Battle of Jena-Auerstädt, the French effectively decimated the Prussian army’s effectiveness and functionality; led by Friedrich Wilhelm II, the Prussian army collapsed entirely soon after. Napoleon occupied Berlin in late October. The royal family fled to Memel, East Prussia, where they fell on the mercy of Emperor Alexander I of Russia.

Alexander, too, suffered defeat at the hands of the French, and at Tilsit on the Niemen France made peace with Russia and Prussia. Napoleon dealt with Prussia very harshly, despite the pregnant Queen’s interview with the French emperor, which was believed to soften the defeat. Instead, Napoleon took much less mercy on the Prussians than what was expected. Prussia lost many of its Polish territories and all territory west of the Elbe and had to finance a large indemnity and pay French troops to occupy key strong points within the Kingdom.

Although the ineffectual King himself seemed resigned to Prussia’s fate, various reforming ministers, such as Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein, Prince Karl August von Hardenberg, Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst, and Count August von Gneisenau, set about reforming Prussia’s administration and military, with the encouragement of Queen Louise.

On July 19, 1810, while visiting her father in Strelitz Queen Louisevdied in her husband’s arms from an unidentified illness. 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 Karl Philipp Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, along with Emperor Alexander of Russia and Emperor Franz of Austria.

At the Congress of Vienna, Friedrich Wilhelm’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 turned towards political reaction, abandoning the promises he had made in 1813 to provide Prussia with a constitution.

Prussian Union of churches

Frederick William 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. The merging of the Lutheran and Calvinist (Reformed) confessions to form the United Church of Prussia was highly controversial.

The crown’s aggressive efforts to restructure religion were unprecedented in Prussian history. In a series of proclamations over several years, the Church of the Prussian Union was formed, bringing together the majority group of Lutherans and the minority group of Reformed Protestants. The main effect was that the government of Prussia had full control over church affairs, with the king himself recognized as the leading bishop.

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

At the time of their marriage, the Harrach family was still not recognized as equal for dynastic purposes. Later, in 1841, they were officially recognized as a mediatized family (a former ruling family within the Holy Roman Empire), with the style of Illustrious Highness, which allowed them to have equal status for marriage purposes to those reigning royal families. Thus, in 1824 when the marriage occurred, it was treated as morganatic, so she was not named Queen, but was given the title Princess von Liegnitz (modern-day Legnica) and Countess von Hohenzollern. Friedrich Wilhelm III reportedly stated that he did not wish to have another queen after Queen Louise.

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

October 14, 1872: Death of Prince Albrecht of Prussia

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Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, German Emperor Wilhelm I, House of Orange-Nassau, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Morganatic Marriage, Prince Albert of Prussia, Prinz-Albrecht-Palais, Wilhelmstraße, Willem I of the Netherlands

Prince Friedrich Heinrich Albrecht of Prussia (October 4, 1809 – October 14, 1872) was the fifth son and youngest child of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and she was the fourth daughter and sixth child of Duke Charles of Mecklenburg and his wife Princess Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz’s father, Charles, was a brother of Queen Charlotte, wife of King George III of the United Kingdom, and her mother Frederike was a granddaughter of Ludwig VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. Louise’s maternal grandmother, Landgravine Marie Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, and her paternal first-cousin Princess Augusta Sophia of the United Kingdom served as sponsors at her baptism; her second given name came from Princess Augusta Sophia.

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.

Prince Albrecht’s parents fled to East Prussia after the occupation of Berlin by Napoleon, and Albrecht was born in Königsberg. Two of Albrecht’s elder brothers were Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia from 1840 till 1861, and Wilhelm I, King of Prussia from 1861 to 1888 and German Emperor from 1871 until 1888.

In 1819 Albrecht joined the Prussian Army as a lieutenant and held the rank of a general of cavalry in 1852. He took part in the 1866 Austro-Prussian War as a cavalry corps commander at the battles of Gitschin and Königgrätz. In the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71 he led a cavalry division at the battles of Wissembourg, Wörth and Sedan.

Prince Albrecht later joined the forces of his nephew Prince Friedrich Charles of Prussia and Friedrich Franz II, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in the campaign against the Armée de la Loire.

After the war Albrecht was awarded the title of a Generaloberst. He died in Berlin, where he is buried at the Charlottenburg Palace Park Mausoleum. He was the 74th Grand Cross of the Order of the Tower and Sword.

Family

In The Hague, on 14 September 1830 Albert married his cousin Princess Marianne of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau the daughter of King Willem I of the Netherlands and Princess Wilhelmine of Prussia the fourth child of eight born to King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia and Frederica Louisa of Hesse-Darmstadt.

The marriage was dissolved on March 28, 1849. They had five children:

Charlotte (1831 – 1855), married the future Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen.

A son (1832). He was either stillborn or lived only a few hours.

Albrecht (1837 – 1906), married Princess Marie of Saxe-Altenburg, had 3 sons.

Elisabeth (August 27, 1840 – October 9, 1840).

Alexandrine (1842 – 1906), married Duke Wilhelm of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

Princess Marianne was a woman who thought and lived very unconventionally for her time. Because she left her unfaithful husband Prince Albrecht of Prussia and had an illegitimate son (she openly recognized him) with her partner Johannes van Rossum (with whom she also lived in a common-law marriage), she was banished from the Kingdom of Prussia.

Princess Marianne of the Netherlands, Princess of Orange-Nassau

In Berlin on June 13, 1853, Albert married secondly, Rosalie Wilhelmine Johanna von Rauch, daughter of Gustav von Rauch, chief of the Prussian General Staff 1812-1813 and Prussian Minister of War 1837–1841. She was created Countess of Hohenau on May 28, 1853. They had two sons:

Georg Albrecht Wilhelm, Count of Hohenau (1854 – 1930). married to Princess Margarethe of Hohenlohe-Öhringen (1865-1940), daughter of Hugo zu Hohenlohe-Öhringen.

Bernhard Wilhelm Albrecht Frederick, Count of Hohenau (1857 – 1914).

As this second union was considered a morganatic marriage, the couple temporarily had to avoid the Prussian court. Albrecht acquired a vineyard in Loschwitz near Dresden, Saxony, where he had a residence, Albrechtsberg Castle, erected in 1854.

Aftermath

In 1830 Albrecht had acquired a city palace in Berlin on Wilhelmstraße, then called Prinz-Albrecht-Palais. An adjacent street off Wilhelmstraße laid out in 1891 was named Prinz-Albrecht-Straße. After the Nazi Machtergreifung it became notorious as the seat of the Gestapo and the Reichsführer-SS.

The Prinz-Albrecht-Palais itself from 1934 served as the headquarters of the SS Sicherheitsdienst under Reinhard Heydrich, from 1939 the Reichssicherheitshauptamt. In 1944 the building was heavily damaged by air raids and finally razed to the ground in 1955, leaving the foundations and cellars exposed to the open air. They remain so today, and are used as part of the Topography of Terror project.

Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Grand Duchess of Russia. Conclusion

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Annulment, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia, Grand Dutchess Anna Fyodorovna of Russia, Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Leopold of Saxe-Cobu-Gotha, Morganatic Marriage, Patron of the Arts

Despite her misery in her marriage to Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich, the young Grand Duchess began to grow up and became more and more attractive to the Russian court, who nicknamed her the “Rising Star”. This made Constantine extremely jealous, even of his own brother Alexander.

Constantine forbade Anna to leave her room, and when she had the opportunity to come out, Constantine took her away. Countess Golovina recalled: The married life of Anna Fyodorovna was hard and impossible to maintain, in her modesty, she needed the friendship of Elizabeth Alexeievna (Louise of Baden, wife of her brother-in-law Alexander), who was able to smooth things out between the frequent quarrelling spouses…”. During the difficult years in the Russian court, Anna became close to Grand Duchess Elizabeth, of similar age.

In 1799 Anna left Russia for medical treatment and didn’t want to return. She went to her family in Coburg; however, they didn’t support her, as they feared for the reputation of the Ducal family and their finances. Anna left Coburg to have a water cure; but at the same time, the St Petersburg’s court made their own plans. Under the pressure of the Imperial family and her own relatives, the Grand Duchess was forced to return to Russia. In October 1799 the weddings of Grand Duchesses Alexandra and Elena were celebrated. Anna was forced to attend.

The assassination of Emperor Paul I on March 23, 1801 gave Anna an opportunity to carry out her plan to escape. By August of that year, her mother was informed that the Grand Duchess was seriously ill. Once informed about her daughter’s health, Duchess Augusta came to visit her. In order to have a better treatment she took Anna to Coburg, with the consent of both the new Emperor Alexander I and Grand Duke Constantine. Once she arrived to her homeland, Anna refused to come back. She never returned to Russia.

Life after separation

Almost immediately after her return to Coburg, Anna began negotiations for a divorce from her husband. Grand Duke Constantine wrote in response to her letter:

You write to me that I allowed you to go into foreign lands because we are incompatible and because I can’t give you the love which you need. But humbly I ask you to calm yourself in consideration to our lives together, besides all these facts confirm in writing, and that in addition to this other reason you don’t have.

By 1803 the divorce was still refused, because Dowager Empress Maria Fyodorovna feared that her son Constantine could contract a second morganatic marriage, and the official separation would damage the reputation of the Grand Duchess.

At first, the grand duchess feared an unfavorable opinion about her conduct among the European courts; however, they showed their sympathy. Still legally married, Anna, eager to have a family, found solace in clandestine affairs.

On 28 October 1808, Anna gave birth to an illegitimate son, named Eduard Edgar Schmidt-Löwe. The father of this child may have been Jules Gabriel Émile de Seigneux, a minor French nobleman and officer in the Prussian army. Eduard was ennobled by his mother’s younger brother, Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and assumed the surname von Löwenfels by decree on 18 February 1818.

Later, Anna moved to Bern, Switzerland, and gave birth to a second illegitimate child in 1812, a daughter, named Louise Hilda Aglaë d’Aubert. The father was Rodolphe Abraham de Schiferli, a Swiss surgeon, professor and chamberlain of Anna’s household from 1812 to 1837. In order to cover another scandal in Anna’s life, the baby was adopted by Jean François Joseph d’Aubert, a French refugee. After the affair ended, Schiferli maintained a tender and close friendship with the Grand Duchess until his death.

Two years later, in 1814, during the invasion of France by Russian troops, Emperor Alexander I expressed his desire of a reconciliation between his brother and Anna. Grand Duke Constantine, accompanied by Anna’s brother Leopold, tried to convince her to return with him, but the Grand Duchess categorically refused. That year, Anna acquired an estate on the banks of Aare River and gave it the name of Elfenau. She spent the rest of her life there, and, as a lover of music, made her home not only a center for domestic and foreign musical society of the era but also the point of reunion of diplomats from different countries who were in Bern.

Finally, on March 20,1820, after 19 years of separation, her marriage was officially annulled by a manifesto of Emperor Alexander I of Russia. Grand Duke Constantine remarried two months later morganatically with his mistress Countess Joanna Grudzińska and died on June 27, 1831. Anna survived her former husband by 29 years.

In 1835, her son Eduard married his cousin Bertha von Schauenstein, an illegitimate daughter of the Duke Ernest I; this was one of the few happy events in Anna’s last years – she soon lost almost all the people she loved: her parents, her sisters Sophie and Antoinette, her own daughter Louise (who, married Jean Samuel Edouard Dapples in 1834 died three years later in 1837 at the age of twenty-five), her former lover and now good friend Rodolphe de Schiferli (just a few weeks after their daughter’s demise), her protector Emperor Alexander I, her childhood friend Empress Elizabeth…at that point the Grand Duchess wrote that Elfenau became the House of Mourning.

Anna Fyodorovna died in her Elfenau estate in 1860, aged 79. In her grave was placed a simple marble slab with the inscription, “Julia-Anna” and the dates of her birth and death (1781-1860); nothing more would indicate the origin of the once Princess of Saxe-Coburg and Grand Duchess of Russia. Through the five children of her son Eduard she has many descendants.

Alexandrine of Baden, wife of her nephew Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha wrote:

Condolences must be universal, because Aunt Juliane was extremely loved and respected, because much involved in charity work and in favor of the poor and underprivileged.

September 12, 1837: Birth of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine.

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Alexander II of Russia, Alice of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, Alix of Hesse and by Rhine, Austro-Prussian War, German Confederation, Ludwig IV of Hesse and by Rhine, Morganatic Marriage, Nicholas II of Russia, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

Ludwig IV (September 12, 1837 – March 13, 1892) was the Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, reigning from June 13, 1877 until his death. Through his own and his children’s marriages he was connected to the British Royal Family, to the Imperial House of Russia and to other reigning dynasties of Europe.

Early life

Ludwig was born at the Prinz-Karl-Palais in Darmstadt, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine in the German Confederation, the first son and child of Prince Charles of Hesse and by Rhine (April 23, 1809 – March 20, 1877) and Princess Elisabeth of Prussia (June 18, 1815 – March 21, 1885), granddaughter of King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia.

Prince Charles’ older brother was Ludwig III (1806-1877), the reigning Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, who had been married to his first wife since 1833. Ludwig III’s first wife was Princess Mathilde Caroline of Bavaria, eldest daughter of King Ludwig I of Bavaria and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen (1792–1854), the daughter of Friedrich, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen. Their wedding was the occasion of the first-ever Oktoberfest.

The marriage of Ludwig III of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Mathilde Caroline of Bavaria, produced no children. Princess Mathilde Caroline died in 1862, and in 1868 the Grand Duke remarried, morganatically, to Magdalene Appel who was created Baroness of Hochstädten. This union also did not produce children either. Also, since the union was morganatic any children would not have had succession rights. Without legitimate children Prince Ludwig was from birth second-in-line to the grand ducal throne, after his father.

First marriage

On July 1, 1862, Ludwig married Princess Alice, a daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. On the day of the wedding, the Queen issued a royal warrant granting her new son-in-law the style of Royal Highness in the United Kingdom. The Queen also subsequently made Prince Ludwig a knight of the Order of the Garter.

Although an arranged marriage orchestrated by the bride’s father Albert, Prince Consort, the couple did have a brief period of courtship before betrothal and they wed willingly, even after the death of the Prince Consort left Queen Victoria in a protracted state of grief that cast a pall over the nuptials.

Becoming parents in less than a year following their marriage, the young royal couple found themselves strapped financially to maintain the lifestyle expected of their rank. Princess Alice’s interest in social services, scientific development, hands-on child-rearing, charity and intellectual stimulation were not shared by Ludwig, although dutiful and benevolent, was bluff in manner and conventional in his pursuits. The death of the younger of their two sons, Friedrich (Frittie), who was afflicted with hemophilia and suffered a fatal fall from a palace window before his third birthday in 1873, combined with the wearying war relief duties Alice had undertaken in 1870, evoked a crisis of spiritual faith for the princess in which her husband does not appear to have shared.

Military career

During the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Ludwig the Hessian cavalry in support of the Austrian side. The Austrians were defeated in the War, and the Hessian grand duchy was in jeopardy of being awarded as the spoils of war to victorious Prussia, which annexed some of Austria’s other allies (Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau). Hesse-Darmstadt appears to have been spared this fate only by a cession of territory and the close dynastic kinship between its ruler and the Emperor of Russia (Alexander II’s consort, Empress Maria Alexandrovna, was the sister of Hesse’s Grand Duke Ludwig III and of Prince Charles).

In the Franco-Prussian War provoked by Bismarck’s manipulation of the Ems telegram in 1870, Hesse and by Rhine this time found itself a winning ally of Prussia’s, and Prince Ludwig was credited with courageous military service, especially at the Battle of Gravelotte, which also afforded him the opportunity of mending the previous war’s grievances with the House of Hohenzollern by fighting on the same side as his brother-in-law and future emperor, Prince Friedrich of Prussia. He had good relationship with Prince Friedrich of Prussia and his wife Victoria, the Princess Royal, all of his lifetime. He also visited him on his deathbed in 1888.

Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine

In March 1877, Ludwig became heir presumptive to the Hessian throne when his father died and, less than three months later, found himself as the reigning grand duke upon the demise of his uncle, Ludwig III.

A year and a half later, however, Grand Duke Ludwig IV was stricken with diphtheria along with most of his immediate family. He recovered; but his four-year-old daughter Marie succumbed, along with his wife of 16 years. From then on, he reigned and raised his five surviving children alone. His daughter Alix married Emperor Nicholas II of Russia two years after his death in 1894.

Second marriage

The marriage of Princess Beatrice, youngest daughter of Queen Victoria was problematic. The Queen was so set against her youngest daughter marrying that she refused to discuss the possibility. Nevertheless, many suitors were put forward, including Louis Napoléon, Prince Imperial, the son of the exiled Emperor Napoleon III of France, and Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, the widower of Beatrice’s older sister Alice.

Grand Duchess Alice having died in 1878, Ludwig IV contracted a morganatic marriage on April 30, 1884 in Darmstadt (on the eve of the wedding of his eldest daughter, for which Queen Victoria and other relatives of his first wife were gathered in the Hessian capital) with Countess Alexandrine Hutten-Czapska (September 13, 1854 – May 8, 1941), daughter of Count Adam Hutten-Czapski and Countess Marianna Rzewuska.

Countess Alexandrine was the former wife of Aleksander von Kolemin, the Russian chargé d’affaires in Darmstadt. But the couple, facing objections from the Grand Duke’s in-laws, separated within a week and the marriage was annulled within three months. As a compensation, she received the title Countess von Romrod on May 13, 1884 and a financial compensation. Alexandrine later married for the third time to Basil von Bacheracht.

Death

Grand Duke Ludwig IV died on March 13, 1892, of a heart attack in the New Palace in Darmstadt and was succeeded by his son, Ernst Ludwig. After his second marriage, he was largely excluded from his first wife’s British royal family, but his funeral was attended by Victoria, the Empress Dowager of Germany, by the Dowager Duchess of Albany, and by the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, by the Duke and Duchess of Connaught, by the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augusterburg and by the Duke and Duchess of Argyll. It was not attended by his other two surviving in-laws, the Prince and Princess of Wales or by Queen Victoria due to her poor health. His remains are buried at Rosenhöhe, the mausoleum for the Grand Ducal House outside of Darmstadt

Engagement of HIH Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia and Rebecca Virginia Bettarini.

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Franz Wilhelm of Prussia, Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia, Grand Duke George Mikhailovich of Russia., Imperial Russia, Morganatic Marriage, Rebecca Virginia Bettarini

Today, 20 January 2021, the Chancellery of the Imperial House of Russia announced the engagement of HIH Grand Duke George Mikhailovich and Rebecca Virginia Bettarini.

The Grand Duke’s mother, HIH Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia issued a statement saying Rebecca will be known as HSH The Princess Romanoff. This makes the marriage Morganatic.

George Mikhailovich Romanov (born 13 March 1981) is the heir apparent to Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia, a claimant to the disputed Headship of the Imperial Family of Russia. She attributes to him the title of Tsesarevich and he bears, as a title of pretence, the prefix of “Grand Duke” with the style of Imperial Highness. His father is Prince Franz Wilhelm of Prussia and as a cadet member of the branch of the House of Hohenzollern which formerly ruled the German Empire and Kingdom of Prussia, he is also traditionally entitled “Prince of Prussia” with the style of Royal Highness.

Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia born 23 December 1953 has been a claimant to the headship of the Imperial Family of Russia (who reigned as Emperors and Autocrats of All the Russias from 1613 to 1917) since 1992. Although she has used Grand Duchess of Russia as her title of pretence with the style Imperial Highness throughout her life, her right to do so is disputed. She is a great-great-granddaughter in the male line of Emperor Alexander II of Russia.

September 12, 1837: Birth of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine. Part II.

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Countess Alexandrine Hutten-Czapska, Diptheria, Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and By Rhine, Louis III of Hesse and by Rhine, Louis IV of Hesse and By Rhine, Morganatic Marriage, Prince Charles of Hesse and by Rhine, Princess Alice of the United Kingdom

In March 1877, Ludwig IV became heir presumptive to the Hessian throne when his father, Prince Charles of Hesse and by Rhine, died, and less than three months later, found himself as the reigning grand duke upon the demise of his uncle, Ludwig III, on June 13, 1877.

A year and a half later, November 1878, the Grand Ducal household fell ill with diphtheria. Ludwig’s eldest daughter Victoria was the first to fall ill, complaining of a stiff neck in the evening of November 5. Diphtheria was diagnosed the following morning, and soon the disease spread to Ludwig’s children Alix, Marie, Irene, and Ernst.

Ludwig himself became infected shortly thereafter. Elisabeth was the only child to not fall ill, having been sent away by Alice to the palace of the Princess Charles, Ludwig’s mother.

Marie became seriously ill on November 15, and Alice was called to her bedside, but by the time she arrived, Marie had choked to death. A distraught Alice wrote to Queen Victoria that the “pain is beyond words”. Alice kept the news of Marie’s death secret from her children for several weeks, but she finally told Ernst in early December.

Ernst’s reaction was even worse than she had anticipated; at first he refused to believe it. As he sat up crying, Alice broke her rule about physical contact with the ill and gave him a kiss. At first, however, Alice did not fall ill. She met her sister Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia as the latter was passing through Darmstadt on the way to England, and wrote to her mother with “a hint of resumed cheerfulness” on the same day.

However, by Saturday, December 14, the anniversary of her father, Prince Albert’s death, she became seriously ill with the diphtheria caught from her son.

Grand Duchess Alice’s last words were “dear Papa”, and she fell unconscious at 2:30 am. Just after 8:30 am, she died. Alice was buried on 18 December 1878 at the Grand Ducal mausoleum at Rosenhöhe outside Darmstadt, with the Union Flag draped over her coffin. A special monument of Alice and her daughter Marie was erected there by Joseph Boehm.

From then on, Grand Duke Ludwid IV reigned and raised his five surviving children alone.

When looking for a husband for Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom, the Prince of Wales suggested that Beatrice marry their sister Alice’s widower, Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse of Hesse and by Rhine.

The Prince of Wales argued that Beatrice could act as replacement mother for Louis’s young children and spend most of her time in England looking after her mother. He further suggested the Queen could oversee the upbringing of her Hessian grandchildren with greater ease.

However, at the time, it was forbidden by law for Beatrice to marry her sister’s widower. This was countered by the Prince of Wales, who vehemently supported passage by the Houses of Parliament of the Deceased Wife’s Sister Bill, which would have removed the obstacle.

Despite popular support for this measure and although it passed in the House of Commons, it was rejected by the House of Lords because of opposition from the Lords Spiritual. Although the Queen was disappointed that the bill had failed, she was happy to keep her daughter at her side.

Grand Duke Ludwig IV contracted a morganatic marriage on April 30, 1884 in Darmstadt (on the eve of the wedding of his eldest daughter, for which Queen Victoria and other relatives of his first wife were gathered in the Hessian capital) with Countess Alexandrine Hutten-Czapska (September 3, 1854 –May 8, 1941), daughter of Count Adam Hutten-Czapski and Countess Marianna Rzewuska.

She was the former wife of Aleksander von Kolemin, the Russian chargé d’affaires in Darmstadt. But the couple, facing objections from the Grand Duke’s in-laws, separated within a week and the marriage was annulled within three months. As a compensation, she received the title Countess von Romrod on 31 May 1884. Alexandrine later married for the third time to Basil von Bacheracht.

Death

Grand Duke Ludwig IV died on March 13, 1892 of a heart attack in the New Palace in Darmstadt and was succeeded by his son, Ernst-Ludwig. His remains are buried at Rosenhöhe, the mausoleum for the Grand Ducal House outside of Darmstadt.

Princess Catherine Dolgorukova and Alexander II of Russia

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Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Emperor Alexander III of Russia, Lady-in-Waiting, Marie of Hesse and By Rhine, Mistress, Morganatic Marriage, Prince Michael Dolgorukov, Princess Catherine Dolgorukova, St. Petersburg

Princess Catherine Dolgorukova (November 14, 1847 – February 15, 1922), also known as Catherine Dolgorukova, Dolgoruki, or Dolgorukaya, was the daughter of Prince Michael Dolgorukov and Vera Vishnevskaya. She was a long-time mistress of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and later, as his morganatic wife, was given the title of Princess Yurievskaya.

Alexander and Catherine already had three children when they formed a morganatic marriage on July 18, 1880, after the death of the Emperor’s wife, Marie of Hesse and by Rhine, on June 3, 1880. A fourth child had died in infancy. Catherine became a widow with the assassination of Alexander II on March 13, 1881 by members of Narodnaya Volya.

Catherine first met Alexander when she was twelve and he paid a visit to her father’s estate. At the time, he saw her only as a little girl and probably forgot their visit. After the death of her father, who had left his family without resources, Catherine and her sister were sent to the Smolny Institute for Noble Maidens in St. Petersburg, a school for well-born girls.

The Emperor paid for their education and that of their four brothers. Alexander met the sixteen-year-old Catherine there on an official visit to the school in the fall of 1864 and was immediately attracted. The Emperor was 45 and with Catherine being 16 there was an age difference of 29 years, 6 months, 16 days.

One contemporary described the young Catherine as “of medium height, with an elegant figure, silky ivory skin, the eyes of a frightened gazelle, a sensuous mouth, and light chestnut tresses.” Alexander visited her at the school and took her for walks and on carriage rides. Catherine had liberal opinions, formed in part by her time at the school, and she discussed them with the Emperor . He later arranged for her to become a lady-in-waiting to his wife, who was suffering from tuberculosis.

Catherine liked the Emperor and enjoyed being in his company, but she didn’t want to become one of a series of mistresses. Though her mother and the headmistress of the Smolny Institute both urged her to seize the opportunity to better her circumstances and those of her family, Catherine and Alexander did not actually become intimate until July 1866, when she was moved by her pity for the Emperor after the death of his eldest son, Nicholas Alexandrovich, Tsarevich of Russia, and after an attempt to assassinate him. Her own mother had died two months before. That night, she later recalled in her memoirs, the Emperor told her: “Now you are my secret wife. I swear that if I am ever free, I will marry you.”

They had four children, 2 boys and 2 girls, born between 1872-1878. The Emperor insisted that Catherine and their children remain nearby. He saw her three or four times a week when she was escorted by the police to a private apartment in the Winter Palace and they wrote to one another every day and sometimes several times each day, often discussing the pleasure they found in making love. In one 28-page letter, written when Catherine was pregnant, she asked the Emperor to remain faithful to her “for I know you are capable in one moment when you want to make it, to forget that you desire only me, and to go and make it with another woman.”

Alexander sketched Catherine in the nude, rented her a mansion in St. Petersburg, and thought of her constantly. Still, great secrecy was required. They never signed their letters to one another with their real names and used the code word “bingerle” to refer to the sex act. When she went into labor with her third child, Boris, in February 1876, Catherine insisted on being taken to the Winter Palace, where she gave birth in the Emperor’s rooms, but the baby was taken back to Catherine’s private residence while Catherine recovered from childbirth in the Emperor’s rooms for nine days. Boris caught cold and died a few weeks later.

The children of Emperor Alexander II and Princess Catherine’s children were given the title Prince/Princess knyaginya:

* Prince George Alexandrovich Yurievsky (May 12, 1872 – September 13, 1913); married Countess Alexandra von Zarnekau, a morganatic daughter of Duke Constantine Petrovich of Oldenburg and Agrafena Djaparidze, Countess von Zarnekau.
* Princess Olga Alexandrovna Yurievskaya (November 7, 1873 – August 10, 1925); married Georg Nikolaus, Count of Merenberg, a morganatic son of Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau by his wife, Natalia Alexandrovna Pushkina, daughter of Alexander Pushkin.
* Boris Alexandrovich Yurievsky (February 23, 1876 – April 11, 1876).
* Princess Catherine Alexandrovna Yurievskaya (September 9, 1878 – December 22, 1959); married, firstly, Prince Alexander Vladimirovich Baryatinsky; married, secondly, Prince Sergei Platonovich Obolensky.

The relationship met with tremendous disapproval from the Emperor’s family and from those at Court. Catherine was accused of scheming to become Empress and of influencing the Tsar towards liberalism. She was said to associate with unscrupulous businessmen. Some members of the family feared that Catherine’s children might supplant the Tsar’s legitimate heirs. The Tsar tired of hearing veiled criticisms from relatives and wrote to his sister Queen Olga of Württemberg, (wife of King Charles I of Württemberg) shortly after their marriage that Catherine never interfered in affairs at court, despite the ugly rumors about her. “She preferred to renounce all social amusements and pleasures so desired by young ladies of her age…and has devoted her entire life to loving and caring for me,” the Tsar wrote. “Without interfering in any affairs, despite the many attempts by those who would dishonestly use her name, she lives only for me, dedicated to bringing up our children.”

Fearing that she might become the target of assassins, the Tsar had moved Catherine and their children to the third floor of the Winter Palace by the winter of 1880. Courtiers spread stories that the dying Tsarina was forced to hear the noise of Catherine’s children moving about overhead, but her rooms were actually far away from those occupied by the Empress. Though the Tsar had been unfaithful on many occasions in the past, his relationship with Catherine began after the Empress, who had had eight children, stopped having intercourse with her husband on the advice of her doctors.

After the Empress asked to meet his children with Catherine, the Emperor brought their two older children, George and Olga, to the Empress’s bedside and she kissed and blessed both children. Both the Emperor and his wife were in tears during the meeting. The Emperor told his family that he chose to marry Catherine soon after the death of the Empress because he feared that he would be assassinated and she would be left with nothing. The marriage was unpopular both with the family and with the people, but the Tsar forced them to accept it. He granted Catherine the title of Princess Yurievskaya and legitimized their children, though they had no right to the throne as children of a morganatic marriage.

Some courtiers described Catherine as “vulgar and ugly” and resented that she was there in the place of their dead Empress. One of them, Konstantin Pobedonostsev, wrote that “the eyes, by themselves, would be attractive, I suppose, only her gaze has no depth – the kind in which transparency and naïveté meet with lifelessness and stupidity … How it irks me to see her in the place of the dear, wise, and graceful Empress!”

The Emperor however, was delighted to finally be married to his long-time mistress and to be able to be open about their relationship. In his memoirs, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich of Russia wrote that the Emperor behaved like a teenage boy when in Catherine’s presence and she also appeared to adore him. At one point in family company, the Emperor asked George, his oldest child by Catherine, if he would like to become a Grand Duke. “Sasha, for God’s sake, drop it!” Catherine rebuked him, but the exchange fueled the family’s fears that the Tsar planned to make Catherine his Empress and supplant his legitimate heirs with his second family.

The family also resented it when they heard Catherine call her husband by the diminutive “Sasha.” Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich wrote that his father, Grand Duke Mikhail Nikolaevich of Russia, was sorry for Catherine because the family treated her so coldly.

Though they were happy together, the troubled political situation and constant threats of assassination cast a shadow over their lives together. On March 1, 1880, an explosion shook the dining room of the Winter Palace. Alexander ran upstairs to Catherine’s rooms, shouting “Katya, my dearest Katya!” She was unhurt, as was the dying Empress, who was so ill she was unaware an explosion had occurred.

Alexander’s brother-in-law, Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine, who was there during the assassination attempt, bitterly resented that the Emperor had forgotten his dying wife, Prince Alexander’s sister, who was also in the Palace and might have been injured in the assassination attempt. A year later, on the day that Alexander was assassinated, Catherine pleaded with him not to go out because she had a premonition that something would happen to him. He quieted her objections by making love to her on a table in her rooms and leaving her behind. Within hours he was mortally wounded and was brought back to the palace, broken and bleeding.

When she heard the news, Catherine ran half-dressed into the room where he lay dying and fell across his body, crying “Sasha! Sasha!”[18] In his memoirs, Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich recalled that the pink and white négligée she was wearing was soaked in Alexander’s blood. At his funeral, Catherine and her three children were forced to stand in an entryway of the church and received no place in the procession of the Imperial Family. They were also forced to attend a separate Funeral Mass than the rest of the family.

Later life

After the Tsar’s death, Catherine received a pension of approximately 3.4 million rubles and agreed to give up the right to live in the Winter Palace or any of the Imperial residences in Russia in return for a separate residence for herself and the three children. She settled in Paris and on the Riviera, where she became known as a fashionable hostess and was used to having twenty servants and a private railway car, though the Romanov Family continued to look upon her and her children with disdain. Emperor Alexander III had his secret police spy on her and received reports on her activities in France. Grand Duke George Alexandrovich of Russia used illness as an excuse to avoid socializing with her in 1895.

Emperor Nicholas II recalled that Catherine was offended when he refused to be the sponsor when her daughter Olga married the Count of Merenberg in the spring of 1895. Nicholas II’s mother, the Dowager Empress Maria, had been appalled by the idea, so Nicholas declined. Catherine’s son George was an abysmal failure in the Russian Navy, as Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich of Russia informed her by letter, but he was granted a place in the Cavalry School. Catherine survived her husband by forty-one years and died on February 15, 1922 aged 74, just as her money was running out.

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.