''Leopold Charles Joseph William Louis'' , image_size = , image = Luitpold Wittelsbach cropped.jpg , succession = Prince Regent of Bavaria , reign = 10 June 1886 – 12 December 1912 , reign-type = Tenure , regent = Ludwig II
Otto , reg-type = Monarch , successor =

Prince Ludwig A prince is a male ruler (ranked below a king, grand prince, and grand duke) or a male member of a monarch's or former monarch's family. ''Prince'' is also a title of nobility (often highest), often hereditary, in some European states. The ...

, spouse =

Archduchess Auguste Ferdinande of Austria Archduchess Auguste Ferdinande of Austria (1 April 1825 – 26 April 1864) was the only daughter of Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany and his first wife, Maria Anna of Saxony to survive to adulthood. She married Prince Luitpold of Bavaria, w ...

, issue = , house = Wittelsbach , father = Ludwig I of Bavaria , mother = Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen , birth_date = , birth_place = Würzburg , death_date = , death_place =

Munich Munich ( ; german: München ; bar, Minga ) is the capital and most populous city of the German state of Bavaria. With a population of 1,558,395 inhabitants as of 31 July 2020, it is the third-largest city in Germany, after Berlin and ...

Kingdom of Bavaria The Kingdom of Bavaria (german: Königreich Bayern; ; spelled ''Baiern'' until 1825) was a German state that succeeded the former Electorate of Bavaria in 1805 and continued to exist until 1918. With the unification of Germany into the German ...

, burial_place = Theatinerkirche, Munich, Bavaria Luitpold Karl Joseph Wilhelm Ludwig, Prince Regent of Bavaria (12 March 1821 – 12 December 1912), was the ''de facto'' ruler of

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

from 1886 to 1912, due to the incapacity of his nephews, King Ludwig II for three days and King Otto for 26 years. He was the oldest regent of any country until 2016, when at the age of 96, Prem Tinsulanonda became the

regent A regent (from Latin : ruling, governing) is a person appointed to govern a state '' pro tempore'' (Latin: 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy ...

for king

Rama X Vajiralongkorn ( th, วชิราลงกรณ; , ; born 28 July 1952) is the King of Thailand. He is the only son of King Bhumibol Adulyadej and Queen Sirikit. In 1972, at the age of 20, he was made crown prince by his father. After his ...

Thailand Thailand ( ), historically known as Siam () and officially the Kingdom of Thailand, is a country in Southeast Asia, located at the centre of the Indochinese Peninsula, spanning , with a population of almost 70 million. The country is b ...

Early life

Luitpold was born in Würzburg, the third son of King Ludwig I of Bavaria and his wife, Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. He was the younger brother of King Maximilian II of Bavaria and of King Otto of Greece. Luitpold was in line to succeed to the throne of the

, and was also

heir presumptive An heir presumptive is the person entitled to inherit a throne, peerage, or other hereditary honour, but whose position can be displaced by the birth of an heir apparent or a new heir presumptive with a better claim to the position in question. ...

to the throne of Greece, since his brother Otto had no children. However, the

Greek constitution The Constitution of Greece ( el, Σύνταγμα της Ελλάδας, Syntagma tis Elladas) was created by the Fifth Revisionary Parliament of the Hellenes in 1974, after the fall of the Greek military junta and the start of the Third Hellen ...

required that Otto's heir should belong to the

Greek Orthodox Church The term Greek Orthodox Church ( Greek: Ἑλληνορθόδοξη Ἐκκλησία, ''Ellinorthódoxi Ekklisía'', ) has two meanings. The broader meaning designates "the entire body of Orthodox (Chalcedonian) Christianity, sometimes also cal ...

. Otto was deposed in 1862 and replaced by Prince William of Denmark, who became George I, King of the Hellenes. Otto died in 1867, leaving Luitpold and his descendants as representatives of Otto's claim. However, Luitpold never pursued that claim.At the age of fourteen, Luitpold joined the Bavarian Army and was promoted to Captain of the

Artillery Artillery is a class of heavy military ranged weapons that launch munitions far beyond the range and power of infantry firearms. Early artillery development focused on the ability to breach defensive walls and fortifications during si ...

in 1835. During the

revolutions of 1848 The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europ ...

, Prince Luitpold mediated and facilitated an audience of discontented citizens with his father. During the rule of his brother Maximilian II (1848–64), Luitpold did not play a significant political role. With the reign of his nephew Ludwig II (1864–1886), Prince Luitpold had increasingly to represent the royal house due to the king's long absence from the capital. In the Austro-Prussian War in 1866 Luitpold was commander of the

3rd Royal Bavarian Division The 3rd Royal Bavarian Division was a unit of the Royal Bavarian Army which served alongside the Prussian Army as part of the Imperial German Army. The division was formed on November 27, 1815, as an Infantry Division of the Würzburg General Comm ...

. After the war, he participated in the reorganization of Bavarian Army. In 1869, he became Inspector General of the Bavarian Army, during the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and 1871, he represented Bavaria in the German General Staff. In that capacity, he handed over Ludwig's ''Kaiserbrief'' on 3 December 1870, in which Ludwig endorsed the creation of the

German Empire The German Empire (),Herbert Tuttle wrote in September 1881 that the term "Reich" does not literally connote an empire as has been commonly assumed by English-speaking people. The term literally denotes an empire – particularly a hereditary ...

with the King of Prussia, Wilhelm I, as German Emperor. Since Ludwig, who nonetheless regretted Bavaria's loss of independence, refused to attend Wilhelm's 18 January proclamation as Emperor in the Palace of Versailles,Nohbauer, 1998, p. 37. Ludwig's brother, Prince Otto, and his uncle Luitpold represented him in the Palace of Versailles.Dr. Theodor Toeche-Mittler: ''Die Kaiserproklamation in Versailles am 18. Januar 1871 mit einem Verzeichniß der Festtheilnehmer, Ernst Siegfried Mittler und Sohn'', Berlin, 1896H. Schnaebeli: ''Fotoaufnahmen der Kaiserproklamation in Versailles'', Berlin, 1871 Otto then criticized the celebration as ostentatious and heartless in a letter to his brother. In 1876, Luitpold was appointed Field Marshal.

Regency

On 10 June 1886, Luitpold's nephew King Ludwig II was declared mentally incompetent and Luitpold was named

Regent A regent (from Latin : ruling, governing) is a person appointed to govern a state '' pro tempore'' (Latin: 'for the time being') because the monarch is a minor, absent, incapacitated or unable to discharge the powers and duties of the monarchy ...

. Luitpold's part is still controversial. Following Ludwig II's mysterious death a few days later, his brother Otto assumed the throne. However, Otto was likewise (or more so) mentally incapable of reigning; he had been under medical supervision since 1883. Accordingly, Luitpold continued to serve as regent. Prince Luitpold was even accused by some people of the murder of his nephew, but soon the decent and affable prince became one of Bavaria's most popular rulers. One of his first actions (on 1 August 1886) was to open several of the palaces of Ludwig II to the public. Politically, Luitpold remained largely passive. His governments gradually moved away from the previous anti-Catholic '' Kulturkampf'' policies. This development culminated in 1912 when the appointment of the Centre Party politician Georg von Hertling as minister president; this also effectively brought about a parliamentarisation of the government, as Hertling's Centre Party was the largest group in the Landtag. During the regency of Prince-Regent Luitpold, relations between Bavarians and

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 e ...

ns remained cold as Bavarians resented Prussia's strategic dominance over the

empire An empire is a "political unit" made up of several territories and peoples, "usually created by conquest, and divided between a dominant center and subordinate peripheries". The center of the empire (sometimes referred to as the metropole) ex ...

. Luitpold continued to serve as regent until 1912, when he contracted bronchitis and died in Munich. He is buried in the crypt of the Theatinerkirche in Munich. He was succeeded by his eldest son, Prince Ludwig, who remained as regent for another year. In 1913, the constitution was amended to add a clause stating that if a regency for reasons of incapacity had lasted for at least 10 years with no prospect of the king being able to actively reign, the regent could assume the throne in his own right. Soon after this amendment was promulgated, Ludwig deposed Otto and assumed the throne as Ludwig III. The ''Prinzregentenzeit'' ("prince's regent's time"), as the regency of Luitpold is often called, was due to the political passiveness of Luitpold during an era of the gradual transfer of Bavarian interests behind those of the German empire. In connection with the unhappy end of the preceding rule of King Ludwig II, this break in the Bavarian monarchy looked even stronger. Finally, the constitutional amendment of 1913 brought the determining break in the continuity of the king's rule in the opinion of historians, particularly as this change had been granted by the Landtag as a House of Representatives and meant therefore indirectly the first step toward parliamentary rule in Bavaria. Today the connection of these two developments is regarded as a main cause for the unspectacular end of the Bavarian kingdom without opposition in the course of the November revolution of 1918. However the course of his 26-year regency Luitpold grew to overcome, by modesty, ability and popularity, the initial uneasiness of his subjects. These prince's regent's years were transfigured, finally – above all in the retrospect – to a golden age of Bavaria, even if one mourned the "fairy tale king" Ludwig II furthermore what happens in a folkloric-nostalgic manner till this day.

Legacy

Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria, Augsburg Prinzregentenplatz

Tutored as a child by Domenico Quaglio the Younger, Luitpold had a great feeling for the arts. Luitpold's years as regent were marked by tremendous artistic and cultural activity in Bavaria where they are known as the ''Prinzregentenjahre'' ("The Prince Regent Years") or the ''Prinzregentenzeit''. Bavaria prospered under a liberal government and Munich became a cultural centre of Europe.

Thomas Mann Paul Thomas Mann ( , ; ; 6 June 1875 – 12 August 1955) was a German novelist, short story writer, social critic, philanthropist, essayist, and the 1929 Nobel Prize in Literature laureate. His highly symbolic and ironic epic novels and novell ...

wrote about this period "Munich shone" (1902 ''Gladius Dei''). Schwabing became an important artists' quarter in Munich. There are numerous streets in Bavarian cities and towns called ''Prinzregentenstrasse'' or ''Luitpoldstrasse''. Many institutions are named in Luitpold's honour including the '' Prinzregententheater'' in

and the Luitpoldarena and the Luitpoldhalle in Nürnberg. In 1891 Luitpold established the Luitpold Gymnasium in Munich. '' Prinzregententorte'' is a multi-layered cake with chocolate butter cream named in his honour. The vessel SMS Prinzregent Luitpold of the

Imperial German Navy The Imperial German Navy or the Imperial Navy () was the navy of the German Empire, which existed between 1871 and 1919. It grew out of the small Prussian Navy (from 1867 the North German Federal Navy), which was mainly for coast defence. Wilhel ...

and the Luitpold Coast were named for Luitpold. Luitpold's great passion next to the arts was hunting, and his legendary hunts took place throughout Bavaria.

Family

On 1 April 1844, in

Florence Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilancio demografico ...

, Luitpold married

, Princess of Tuscany, second daughter of Leopold II, Grand Duke of Tuscany. Luitpold and Auguste had four children: * Ludwig III, King of Bavaria (1845–1921). Married Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria-Este; had issue. * Prince ''Leopold'' Maximilian Joseph Maria Arnulf of Bavaria (1846–1930). Married Archduchess Gisela of Austria; had issue. * Princess ''Therese'' Charlotte Marianne Auguste of Bavaria (1850–1925) * Prince Franz Joseph ''Arnulf'' Adalbert Maria of Bavaria (1852–1907). Married Princess Theresa of Liechtenstein and had a son, Heinrich Luitpold (1884–1916), killed in action during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

Honours

Coat of Arms of the Kingdom of Bavaria 1835-1918

He received the following orders and decorations:
Hof- und - Staatshandbuch des Königreichs Bayern
' (1879), "Landtag des Königreiches: Mitglieder der Kammer der Reichsräte"

/ref>

Ancestry

References

Notes

External links

The regent's photo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Luitpold Of Bavaria 1821 births 1912 deaths Regents of Bavaria House of Wittelsbach Princes of Bavaria People from Würzburg People from the Kingdom of Bavaria Deaths from bronchitis Burials at the Theatine Church, Munich Field marshals of Bavaria Grand Crosses of the Military Merit Order (Bavaria) Knights of the Golden Fleece of Austria Grand Crosses of the Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary Grand Croix of the Légion d'honneur Extra Knights Companion of the Garter Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Recipients of the Order of St. George of the Fourth Degree Sons of kings