Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen (29 April 1763 in Hildburghausen – 29 September 1834 in

Altenburg Altenburg () is a city in Thuringia, Germany, located south of Leipzig, west of Dresden and east of Erfurt. It is the capital of the Altenburger Land district and part of a polycentric old-industrial textile and metal production region betw ...

), was duke of

Saxe-Hildburghausen Saxe-Hildburghausen () was an Ernestine duchy in the southern side of the present State of Thuringia in Germany. It existed from 1680 to 1826 but its name and borders are currently used by the District of Hildburghausen. History After the Duk ...

(1780–1826) and duke of

Saxe-Altenburg Saxe-Altenburg (german: Sachsen-Altenburg, links=no) was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine branch of the House of Wettin in present-day Thuringia. It was one of the smallest of the German states with an area of 1323 square kilomete ...

(1826–1834).

Biography

He was the youngest child, but only son, of Ernst Frederick III, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen, by his third wife, Princess Ernestine of Saxe-Weimar.

Succession

Frederick succeeded his father Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen in 1780, when only seventeen years old; because of this, his great grand uncle, the prince Joseph of Saxe-Hildburghausen, assumed the regency on his behalf, this regency only ended in 1787 at the death of Prince Joseph. Until 1806 he was subject to the restrictions of the imperial

debit commission A debit commission (from the Latin ''debere'' "to owe") was in the Holy Roman Empire a means to resolve the problems of over-indebted states. These states were usually, but not always, sovereign Imperial States. Imperial commissions The Aulic Co ...

, which had placed the duchy of Saxe-Hildburghausen under official administration, because of his predecessors' dissolute financial policy. In 1806 Frederick joined the

Confederation of the Rhine The Confederated States of the Rhine, simply known as the Confederation of the Rhine, also known as Napoleonic Germany, was a confederation of German client states established at the behest of Napoleon some months after he defeated Austria a ...

, and in 1815 the

German Confederation The German Confederation (german: Deutscher Bund, ) was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe. It was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire, w ...

, under whose guarantee he gave 1818 the duchy a new basic condition.

Marriage and issue

In Hildburghausen on 3 September 1785, Frederick married Duchess Charlotte Georgine of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. She was a niece of

Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (Sophia Charlotte; 19 May 1744 – 17 November 1818) was Queen of Great Britain and of Ireland as the wife of King George III from their marriage on 8 September 1761 until the union of the two kingdoms ...

, who was the wife of

King George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great B ...

. Two of her sisters later became the queens of Prussia and Hanover, respectively. They had twelve children: # Joseph Georg Karl Frederick (b. Hildburghausen, 12 June 1786 – d. Hildburghausen, 30 July 1786). # Katharina Charlotte Georgine Fredericka Sofie Therese (b. Hildburghausen, 17 June 1787 – d. Bamberg, 12 December 1847), married on 28 September 1805 to

Prince Paul of Württemberg Prince Paul of Württemberg (Paul Heinrich Karl Friedrich August; 19 January 1785 – 16 April 1852) was the fourth child and second son of King Frederick I and his wife, Duchess Augusta of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Early life Paul was born in St ...

. # Caroline Auguste (b. and d. Hildburghausen, 29 July 1788). # Joseph Georg Friedrich Ernst Karl, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg (b. Hildburghausen, 27 August 1789 – d. Altenburg, 25 November 1868). # Fredericke Luise Marie Caroline Auguste Christiane (b. Hildburghausen, 18 January 1791 – d. Hildburghausen, 25 March 1791). # Therese Charlotte Luise Friederike Amalie (b. Hildburghausen, 8 July 1792 – d. Munich, 26 October 1854), married on 12 October 1810 to King

Ludwig I of Bavaria en, Louis Charles Augustus , image = Joseph Karl Stieler - King Ludwig I in his Coronation Robes - WGA21796.jpg , caption = Portrait by Joseph Stieler, 1825 , succession=King of Bavaria , reign = , coronation ...

. # Charlotte Luise Fredericka Amalie Alexandrine (b. Hildburghausen, 28 January 1794 – d. Biebrich, 6 April 1825), married on 24 June 1813 to

Wilhelm, Duke of Nassau Wilhelm (Given names: ''Georg Wilhelm August Heinrich Belgicus''; 14 June 1792, Kirchheimbolanden – 20/30 August 1839, Bad Kissingen) was joint sovereign Duke of Nassau, along with his father's cousin Frederick Augustus, reigning from 1816 unt ...

. # Franz Frederick Karl Ludwig Georg Heinrich (b. Hildburghausen, 13 April 1795 – d. Hildburghausen, 28 May 1800). #

Georg, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg Georg Karl Frederick (24 July 1796 in Hildburghausen – 3 August 1853 in Hummelshain) was a duke of Saxe-Altenburg. Family He was the fourth but second surviving son of Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen (of Saxe-Altenburg from 1826) and ...

(b. Hildburghausen, 24 July 1796 – d. Hummelshain, 3 August 1853). # Frederick Wilhelm Karl Joseph Ludwig Georg (b. Hildburghausen, 4 October 1801 – d. Altenburg, 1 July 1870). # Maximilian Karl Adolf Heinrich (b. Hildburghausen, 19 February 1803 – d. Hildburghausen, 29 March 1803). # Eduard Karl Wilhelm Christian (b. Hildburghausen, 3 July 1804 – d. Munich, 16 May 1852). Frederick was considered popular and intelligent. During his reign, along with his beautiful wife, Charlotte, cultural life in the small town reached its zenith. So many poets and artists spent their time there that Hildburghausen was nicknamed "Klein-Weimar" (Little Weimar). When the last duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg died without issue in 1825, the other branches of the house decided on a rearrangement of the

Ernestine duchies The Ernestine duchies (), also known as the Saxon duchies (, although the Albertine appanage duchies of Weissenfels, Merseburg and Zeitz were also "Saxon duchies" and adjacent to several Ernestine ones), were a group of small states whose num ...

. On 12 November 1826, Frederick became Duke of Saxe-Altenburg, to which he gave a first Basic Law in the year 1831; in exchange, he ceded

to the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen.

Ancestry

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Frederick, Duke Of Saxe-Altenburg 1763 births 1834 deaths People from Saxe-Altenburg People from Hildburghausen House of Saxe-Hildburghausen Dukes of Saxe-Hildburghausen Dukes of Saxe-Altenburg Generals of the Holy Roman Empire