Ferdinand Philipp Maria August Raphael of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (28 March 1844 – 3 July 1921) was the second

prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha This is a list of Princes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from the accession of Ernest I to the throne of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1826. Individuals holding the title of prince will usually also be styled "His Highness" (HH). The wife of a S ...

and lord of Csábrág and , both in modern-day

Slovakia Slovakia (; sk, Slovensko ), officially the Slovak Republic ( sk, Slovenská republika, links=no ), is a landlocked country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east, Hungary to the south, Austria to the ...

Life

Born in the

Tuileries Palace The Tuileries Palace (french: Palais des Tuileries, ) was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine, directly in front of the Louvre. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, f ...

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. Si ...

as ''Ferdinand Philipp Maria August Raphael of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha'', he was the eldest son of

August August is the eighth month of the year in the Julian and Gregorian calendars, and the fifth of seven months to have a length of 31 days. Its zodiac sign is Leo and was originally named '' Sextilis'' in Latin because it was the 6th month i ...

, prince 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 ...

. His mother,

Clémentine of Orléans ''Clémentine'' (pronounced ) was a 1985 French animated television series (in co-production with Japan). The series consisted of 39 episodes which featured the fantastic adventures of a 10-year-old girl (Clémentine Dumat) who uses a wheelchair ...

, was a daughter of King

Louis Philippe I Louis Philippe (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, and the penultimate monarch of France. As Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres, he distinguished himself commanding troops during the Revolutionary Wa ...

of France. He was a member of the Catholic Koháry line of the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry and an elder brother of

Ferdinand Ferdinand is a Germanic name composed of the elements "protection", "peace" (PIE "to love, to make peace") or alternatively "journey, travel", Proto-Germanic , abstract noun from root "to fare, travel" (PIE , "to lead, pass over"), and "co ...

tsar Tsar ( or ), also spelled ''czar'', ''tzar'', or ''csar'', is a title used by East and South Slavic monarchs. The term is derived from the Latin word ''caesar'', which was intended to mean "emperor" in the European medieval sense of the ter ...

Bulgaria Bulgaria (; bg, България, Bǎlgariya), officially the Republic of Bulgaria,, ) is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the eastern flank of the Balkans, and is bordered by Romania to the north, Serbia and North Macedo ...

. In 1870, he became a

Major Major ( commandant in certain jurisdictions) is a military rank of commissioned officer status, with corresponding ranks existing in many military forces throughout the world. When used unhyphenated and in conjunction with no other indicato ...

in the

Hungarian army The Hungarian Ground Forces ( hu, Magyar Szárazföldi Haderő) is the land branch of the Hungarian Defence Forces, and is responsible for ground activities and troops including artillery, tanks, APCs, IFVs and ground support. Hungary's ground ...

. He was a close confidant to his brother-in-law, Crown Prince Rudolf. On the morning of 30 January 1889, he and Count Josef Hoyos-Sprinzenstein and valet Johann Loschek discovered the bodies of Rudolf and his teenage mistress

Baroness Mary Vetsera Baroness Marie Alexandrine "Mary" von Vetsera (19 March 1871 – 30 January 1889) was an Austrian noblewoman and the mistress of Rudolf, Crown Prince of Austria. Vetsera and the crown prince were found dead at his hunting lodge in Mayerling on 3 ...

, who had also been shot dead. Philipp spent his last years at 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 ...

, where he died in 1921, aged 77. He was buried in the Koháry crypt in the St. Augustin church in Coburg.

Marriage and issue

Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...

on 4 February/4 May 1875, Philipp married Louise, princess of Belgium, both his second cousin and first cousin once removed, daughter of Leopold II,

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 ...

and granddaughter of Leopold I, king of the Belgians, brother of Philipp's grandfather

, and

Louise of Orléans Louise-Marie Thérèse Charlotte Isabelle of Orléans (3 April 1812 – 11 October 1850) was the first queen of the Belgians as the second wife of King Leopold I from their marriage on 9 August 1832 until her death in 1850. She was the sec ...

, sister of Phillip's mother Clémentine. The marriage of Philip and Louise proved disastrous and she left her husband in 1896. In 1898, she lost parental power over her children and on 15 January 1906, the divorce was pronounced 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 Gotha (district), district of Gotha and was also a residence of the Ernestine House of Wet ...

. The reason for the separation was her long-standing relationship with Count Géza of Mattachich-Keglevich (1867-1923), with whom Philipp had dueled on the orders of Emperor Franz Josef I.Christoph Ohlig: ''Wasserhistorische Forschungen: Schwerpunkt Montanbereich'', Books on Demand, 2003, p. 142 Louise had had other affairs before she met Géza, among others with Philipp's

adjutant Adjutant is a military appointment given to an officer who assists the commanding officer with unit administration, mostly the management of human resources in an army unit. The term is used in French-speaking armed forces as a non-commission ...

. They had two children: * Leopold Clement Philipp August Maria (19 July 1878, Szent-Antal,

Hungary Hungary ( hu, Magyarország ) is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning of the Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Cr ...

- 27 April 1916,

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

); he died when a former lover flung

acid In computer science, ACID ( atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability) is a set of properties of database transactions intended to guarantee data validity despite errors, power failures, and other mishaps. In the context of databases, a se ...

in his face. * Dorothea Maria Henriette Auguste Louise (30 April 1881, Vienna - 21 January 1967, Taxis,

Württemberg Württemberg ( ; ) is a historical German territory roughly corresponding to the cultural and linguistic region of Swabia. The main town of the region is Stuttgart. Together with Baden and Hohenzollern, two other historical territories, Württ ...

), married on 2 August 1898 to

Ernst Günther Ernst Harry Ingemar Günther (3 June 1933 – 8 December 1999) was a Swedish actor. He appeared in 66 films and television shows between 1962 and 1999. He starred in the 1974 film ''Gangsterfilmen'', which entered into the 25th Berlin Inter ...

, duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg.

Numismatics

Prince Philip had an important collection of coins from Saxony, the East and overseas. He published about Oriental numismatics. His coin collection was auctioned in 1928 by the auction house Leo Hamburger in Frankfurt. Several commemorative medals were issued during his lifetime, for example in 1875 on the occasion of his marriage to Louise and in the same year for his honorary membership of the Belgian Numismatic Society.

Honours

Ancestry

Footnotes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Philipp of Saxe-Coburg And Gotha, Prince 1844 births 1921 deaths Nobility from Paris House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Koháry Princes of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Knights of Malta Annulled Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order Annulled Honorary Knights Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath Knights of the Golden Fleece of Austria Grand Crosses of the Order of Saint-Charles