Ernest I (german: Ernst Anton Karl Ludwig; 2 January 178429 January 1844) was the last
sovereign
''Sovereign'' is a title which can be applied to the highest leader in various categories. The word is borrowed from Old French , which is ultimately derived from the Latin , meaning 'above'.
The roles of a sovereign vary from monarch, ruler or ...
duke
Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ran ...
of
Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld () was one of the Saxon Duchies held by the Ernestine line of the Wettin Dynasty. Established in 1699, the Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield line lasted until the reshuffle of the Ernestine territories that occurred following the extinct ...
(as Ernest III) and, from 1826, the first sovereign duke of
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (german: Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha), or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (german: Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, links=no ), was an Ernestine, Thuringian duchy ruled by a branch of the House of Wettin, consisting of territories in the present-d ...
(as Ernest I). He was the father of
Albert, Prince Consort
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Franz August Karl Albert Emanuel; 26 August 1819 – 14 December 1861) was the consort of Queen Victoria from their marriage on 10 February 1840 until his death in 1861.
Albert was born in the Saxon duch ...
, who was the husband of
Queen Victoria
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until Death and state funeral of Queen Victoria, her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 21 ...
. Ernest fought against
Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
, and through construction projects and the establishment of a court theatre, he left a strong imprint on his residence town,
Coburg
Coburg () is a town located on the Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only in 1920. Until the revolution of 1918, it was ...
.
Early life
Ernest was born on 2 January 1784. He is the eldest son of
Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld en, Francis Frederick Anthony
, house =
, father = Ernest Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
, mother = Princess Sophie Antoinette of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Coburg, S ...
, and
Countess Augusta of Reuss-Ebersdorf
Countess Augusta Caroline Sophie Reuss-Ebersdorf () (19 January 1757 – 16 November 1831), was by marriage the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She was the maternal grandmother of Queen Victoria and the paternal grandmother of Albert, Princ ...
. His youngest brother,
Leopold Georg Christian Frederick, was later elected the
first
First or 1st is the ordinal form of the number one (#1).
First or 1st may also refer to:
*World record, specifically the first instance of a particular achievement
Arts and media Music
* 1$T, American rapper, singer-songwriter, DJ, and rec ...
King of the Belgians
Belgium is a constitutional, hereditary, and popular monarchy. The monarch is titled king or queen of the Belgians ( nl, Koning(in) der Belgen, french: Roi / Reine des Belges}, german: König(in) der Belgier) and serves as the country's h ...
.
On 10 May 1803, aged 19, Ernest was proclaimed an adult because his father had become gravely ill, and he was required to take part in the government of the duchy. When his father died in 1806, he succeeded in the duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld as Ernest III. However, he could not immediately take over the formal government of his lands, because the duchy was occupied by Napoleonic troops and was under French administration. The following year, after the
Peace of Tilsit
The Treaties of Tilsit were two agreements signed by French Emperor Napoleon in the town of Tilsit in July 1807 in the aftermath of his victory at Friedland. The first was signed on 7 July, between Napoleon and Russian Emperor Alexander, when t ...
(1807), the duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld was reunited (having previously been dissolved) and restored to Ernest.
This occurred through Russian pressure, since his sister
Juliane was married to the brother of the Russian Tsar.
Marriages and children
Ernest married
Princess Louise of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg
Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin ''princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince.
Princess as a subst ...
in
Gotha
Gotha () is the fifth-largest city in Thuringia, Germany, west of Erfurt and east of Eisenach with a population of 44,000. The city is the capital of the district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine Wettins from 1640 until the ...
on 31 July 1817. They had two children:
*
Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Ernest II (german: Ernst August Karl Johann Leopold Alexander Eduard, link=no; 21 June 181822 August 1893) was Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 29 January 1844 to his death in 1893. He was born in Coburg to Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld ...
(21 June 181822 August 1893), who married
Princess Alexandrine of Baden
Princess Alexandrine Luise Amalie Friederike Elisabeth Sophie of Baden (6 December 1820 – 20 December 1904) was Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 29 January 1844 to 22 August 1893 as the wife of Duke Ernest II. She was the eldest child of Le ...
on 3 May 1842.
*
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Franz August Karl Albert Emanuel; 26 August 1819 – 14 December 1861) was the consort of Queen Victoria from their marriage on 10 February 1840 until his death in 1861.
Albert was born in the Saxon duch ...
(26 August 181914 December 1861), who married
Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previ ...
on 10 February 1840. They had nine children.
The marriage was unhappy because both husband and wife were promiscuous. As the biographer
Lytton Strachey
Giles Lytton Strachey (; 1 March 1880 – 21 January 1932) was an English writer and critic. A founding member of the Bloomsbury Group and author of ''Eminent Victorians'', he established a new form of biography in which psychological insight ...
put it: "The ducal court was not noted for the strictness of its morals; the Duke was a man of gallantry, and 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."
[Strachey, Lytton (1921). ''Queen Victoria''. London: Chatto and Windus. pp. 97–98] Ernest and Louise were separated in 1824 and were officially divorced on 31 March 1826. As heirs to Coburg, the children remained with their father. Louise died in 1831.
In
Coburg
Coburg () is a town located on the Itz river in the Upper Franconia region of Bavaria, Germany. Long part of one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined Bavaria by popular vote only in 1920. Until the revolution of 1918, it was ...
on 23 December 1832, Ernest married his niece
Duchess Marie of Württemberg, the daughter of his sister
Antoinette
Antoinette is a given name, that is a diminutive feminine form of Antoine and Antonia (from Latin ''Antonius'').
People with the name include:
Nobles
* Antoinette de Maignelais, Baroness of Villequier by marriage (1434–1474), mistress of Ch ...
. They had no children. This marriage made Marie both Prince Albert's first cousin and his stepmother.
Ernest had three illegitimate children:
* Berta Ernestine von Schauenstein (26 January 1817Coburg, 15 August 1896), born to Sophie Fermepin de Marteaux. She married her first cousin Eduard Edgar Schmidt-Löwe von Löwenfels, the illegitimate son of her father's sister,
Juliane.
* Ernst Albert and Robert Ferdinand, twins born in 1838 to Margaretha Braun. They were created ''Freiherren von Bruneck'' in 1856.
Estates
After 1813, Ernest was a Prussian general and participated in military actions against
Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader who ...
. He fought in the battles of
Lützen
is a town in the Burgenlandkreis district of Saxony-Anhalt, Germany.
Geography
Lützen is situated in the Leipzig Bay, approximately southwest of the Leipzig city limits and northeast of Weißenfels. The town has access to the Bundesstraße 8 ...
and
Leipzig
Leipzig ( , ; Upper Saxon: ) is the most populous city in the German state of Saxony. Leipzig's population of 605,407 inhabitants (1.1 million in the larger urban zone) as of 2021 places the city as Germany's eighth most populous, as wel ...
(1813), and drew in 1814 into the French fortress of Mainz.
After the battle of Leipzig, he commanded the ''5. Armeekorps''.
After the defeat of Napoleon in the
Battle of Waterloo
The Battle of Waterloo was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo, Belgium, Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armie ...
, the
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon B ...
on 9 June 1815 gave Ernest an area of 450 square kilometres with 25,000 inhabitants around the town of
St. Wendel. Its area was somewhat augmented by the
second Treaty of Paris.
In 1816, this estate received the name of
Principality of Lichtenberg
The Principality of Lichtenberg (german: Fürstentum Lichtenberg) on the Nahe River was an exclave of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld from 1816 to 1826 and the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 1826 to 1834, when it was sold to the Kingdom o ...
. Ernest sold it to
Prussia
Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...
in 1834.
In 1825,
Frederick IV, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg
Frederick IV, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (Gotha, 28 November 1774 – Gotha, 11 February 1825), was the last duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg.
He was the third but second surviving son of Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg and Charlotte ...
, who was the uncle of Ernest's first wife Louise, died without an heir. This resulted in a rearrangement of the
Ernestine Ernestine is a feminine given name. Ernest is the male counterpart of this name. Notable people with the name include:
* Ernestine Anderson (1928–2016), American jazz and blues singer
* Ernestine Bayer (1909–2006), American athlete
* Ernestine ...
duchies. It was only as a member of the Ernestine dynasty (and not as Louise's husband) that Ernest had a claim on the late duke's estates. However, he was at that time in the process of divorcing Louise, and the other branches used this as a leverage to drive a better bargain for themselves by insisting that he should not inherit Gotha. They reached a compromise on 12 November 1826: Ernest received Gotha, but had to cede
Saalfeld
Saalfeld (german: Saalfeld/Saale) is a town in Germany, capital of the Saalfeld-Rudolstadt district of Thuringia. It is best known internationally as the ancestral seat of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha branch of the S ...
to
Saxe-Meiningen
Saxe-Meiningen (; german: Sachsen-Meiningen ) was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine line of the Wettin dynasty, located in the southwest of the present-day German state of Thuringia.
Established in 1681, by partition of the Ernestin ...
. He subsequently became "Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha". Although he had given a
constitution
A constitution is the aggregate of fundamental principles or established precedents that constitute the legal basis of a polity, organisation or other type of Legal entity, entity and commonly determine how that entity is to be governed.
When ...
to Coburg in 1821, he did not interfere in the system of government in Gotha.
At Coburg, Ernest was responsible for various construction projects, including the establishment of the ''
Hoftheater'' in its new building. The ''Schlossplatz'' as it appears today is largely due to work under his rule.
He is chiefly remembered for the economic, educational and constitutional development of his territories, and for the significant international position attained by the house of Coburg.
Death and burial
Ernest died on 29 January 1844 and was initially buried in the
Morizkirche but later reinterred in the newly built mausoleum in '.
Honours
He received the following awards:
[''Staatshandbücher für das Herzogtum Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha'' (1843), "Genealogie des Herzoglichen Hauses]
pp. xxiii-xxiv
/ref>
Ancestry
References
* August Beck: '' Ernst I.: Herzog Ernst Anton Karl Ludwig von Sachsen-Koburg-Gotha. In: ''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie
''Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie'' (ADB, german: Universal German Biography) is one of the most important and comprehensive biographical reference works in the German language.
It was published by the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Aca ...
'' (ADB). Band 6, Duncker & Humblot, Leipzig 1877, p. 313–317.
* Carl-Christian Dressel: ''Die Entwicklung von Verfassung und Verwaltung in Sachsen-Coburg 1800–1826 im Vergleich.'' Duncker & Humblot Berlin 2007, .
* Friedrich Knorr
Ernst I., Herzog von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld
In: ''Neue Deutsche Biographie'' (NDB). Band 4, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 1959, , pp. 620.
* Heide Schulz: ''Freue Dich, Coburg. Die Ode H. C. A. Eichstädts zum Royal Wedding 1840'', in: ''Coburger Geschichtsblätter'' 20, 2012, p. 25–54, ISSN 0947-0336.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ernest 01 Of Saxe-Coburg And Gotha, Duke
1784 births
1844 deaths
People from Coburg
Dukes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Princes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
Protestant monarchs
Dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
Burials at the Ducal Family Mausoleum, Glockenburg Cemetery, Coburg
Prussian commanders of the Napoleonic Wars
Recipients of the Order of St. Anna, 1st class
Recipients of the Order of St. George of the Fourth Degree
Grand Crosses of the Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary
Grand Crosses of the Order of Christ (Portugal)
Extra Knights Companion of the Garter
Grand Croix of the Légion d'honneur