Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1800–1831)

Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (Louise Dorothea Pauline Charlotte Fredericka Auguste; 21 December 1800 – 30 August 1831) was the wife of Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and the mother of Duke Ernst II and Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria. She was the paternal grandmother of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom. She is also the paternal great-great-great grandmother of Elizabeth II.

For her grandmother, the Duchess consort of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, see Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1756–1808).
Princess Louise
Painting by William Corden, 1844 known as William Corden the Elder (1795-1867)
Duchess consort of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Tenure1817–1826
Born(1800-12-21)21 December 1800
Gotha, Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, Holy Roman Empire
Died30 August 1831(1831-08-30) (aged 30)
Paris, France
Burial
Ducal family mausoleum, Friedhof am Glockenberg, Coburg
Spouse
    Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
    ​
    (
    m. 1817; div. 1826)
      Issue
      Full name
      Louise Dorothea Pauline Charlotte Fredericka Auguste
      HouseSaxe-Gotha-Altenburg
      FatherAugustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg
      MotherLouise Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin

      Family

      Princess Louise was the only daughter of Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg and his first wife Louise Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, daughter of Frederick Francis I, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (her namesake).

      Marriage and issue
      Princess Louise with her two sons Ernest (right) and Albert, shortly before her exile from court

      On 31 July 1817 in Gotha, sixteen-year-old Louise married her thirty-three-year-old kinsman Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, (later Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha), after he failed to win the hand of a Russian grand duchess.[1] Louise was considered "young, clever, and beautiful".[2]

      They had two children: Ernst, who inherited his father's lands and titles, and Albert, who was later the husband of Queen Victoria.

      The marriage was unhappy because of Ernst's infidelities and the couple separated in 1824. St. Wendel, in the Principality of Lichtenberg, was assigned as her new residence (it was an exclave of Saxe-Coburg und Gotha; see Sotnick on this period), and Louise was forced to leave her two sons behind. Biographer Lytton Strachey noted in 1921: "The ducal court was not noted for the strictness of its morals; the Duke was a man of gallantry, and it was rumored that the Duchess followed her husband's example. There were scandals: one of the Court Chamberlains, a charming and cultivated man of Jewish extraction, was talked of; at last there was a separation, followed by a divorce."[3]

      Post-divorce

      On 31 March 1826 their marriage was officially dissolved. Seven months later, on 18 October 1826, Louise secretly married in St. Wendel her former lover, the Baron Alexander von Hanstein (later created Count of Pölzig and Beiersdorf). In her previous marriage, she had taken great interest in the social life of the principality and was revered as its Landesmutter (literally, "mother of the region"). Nevertheless, this happy life ended in February 1831, when her secret marriage to von Hanstein was discovered and she lost her children permanently.

      Louise died of cancer on 30 August 1831, when she was only 30 years old. Years after her death, Queen Victoria described Louise in an 1864 memorandum: "The princess is described as having been very handsome, though very small; fair, with blue eyes; and Prince Albert is said to have been extremely like her".[4] Louise was reinterred from her initial burial site at Morizkirche to the ducal mausoleum at Friedhof am Glockenberg after it had been completed in 1859.[5]:47

      Ancestry
      gollark: I should be trusted. I was a great admin when I was admin.
      gollark: And for nongame things I can stick a document I'm working on and reference material side by side.
      gollark: Well, I don't.
      gollark: Or other background material so wikis etc.
      gollark: You can put Discord on one screen and your game on another.

      References
      1. Grey, p. 29.
      2. Weintraub, p. 21.
      3. Strachey, Lytton (1921). Queen Victoria. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and Co. p. 135.
      4. Grey, p. 30.
      5. Klüglein, Norbert (1991). Coburg Stadt und Land (German). Verkehrsverein Coburg.

      Sources
      Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1800–1831)
      Cadet branch of the House of Wettin
      Born: 21 December 1800 Died: 16 November 1831
      German royalty
      Vacant
      Title last held by
      Augusta Reuss of Ebersdorf      		 Duchess consort of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
      31 July 1817 – 31 March 1826      		 Succeeded by
      Duchess Marie of Württemberg
      as Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
      This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.