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 Ernest I (german: Ernst Anton Karl Ludwig; 2 January 178429 January 1844) was the last sovereign duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (as Ernest III) and, from 1826, the first sovereign duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (as Ernest I). He was the father of Al ...

and the mother of Duke

Ernst II Ernest II may refer to: * Ernest II, Duke of Swabia (died in 1030) * Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1745–1804) * Ernest II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (1818–1893) * Ernest II, Count of Lippe-Biesterfeld (1842–1904) * Ernst II, P ...

and Prince Albert, 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 ...

. She was the paternal grandmother of

King Edward VII of the United Kingdom Edward VII (Albert Edward; 9 November 1841 – 6 May 1910) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and Emperor of India, from 22 January 1901 until his death in 1910. The second child and eldest son of Queen Victoria an ...

Family

Princess Louise was the only daughter of

Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (full name: ''Emil Leopold August'') (23 November 1772 — 17 May 1822), was a Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, and the author of one of the first modern novels to treat of homoerotic love. He was the maternal ...

and his first wife

Louise Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin Duchess Louise Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (19 November 1779 – 4 January 1801) was the maternal grandmother of Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Louise Charlotte was born Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, ...

, daughter of

Frederick Francis I, Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin Frederick Francis I (10 December 1756 – 1 February 1837) ruled over the German state of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, first as duke (1785–1815), and then as grand duke (1815–1837). Biography He was born in Schwerin, Duchy of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, t ...

and

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 ...

(her namesake).

Marriage and issue

On 31 July 1817 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 ...

, 16-year-old Louise married her 33-year-old kinsman Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, (later

), after he failed to win the hand of a Russian grand duchess. Louise was considered "young, clever, and beautiful". They had two children:

Ernst Ernst is both a surname and a given name, the German, Dutch, and Scandinavian form of Ernest. Notable people with the name include: Surname * Adolf Ernst (1832–1899) German botanist known by the author abbreviation "Ernst" * Anton Ernst (1975-) ...

, who inherited his father's lands and titles, and

Albert Albert may refer to: Companies * Albert (supermarket), a supermarket chain in the Czech Republic * Albert Heijn, a supermarket chain in the Netherlands * Albert Market, a street market in The Gambia * Albert Productions, a record label * Alber ...

, who was later the husband of

. The marriage was unhappy because of Ernst's infidelities and the couple separated in 1824.

Sankt Wendel Sankt Wendel is a town in northeastern Saarland. It is situated on the river Blies 36 km northeast of Saarbrücken, the capital of Saarland, and is named after Saint Wendelin of Trier. According to a survey by the German Association for Ho ...

, in the

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 ...

, 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 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 ...

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."

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 Alexander is a male given name. The most prominent bearer of the name is Alexander the Great, the king of the Ancient Greek kingdom of Macedonia who created one of the largest empires in ancient history. Variants listed here are Aleksandar, Al ...

(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 A memorandum ( : memoranda; abbr: memo; from the Latin ''memorandum'', "(that) which is to be remembered") is a written message that is typically used in a professional setting. Commonly abbreviated "memo," these messages are usually brief and ...

: "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".Grey, p. 30. Louise was reinterred from her initial burial site at Morizkirche to the ducal mausoleum at ' after it had been completed in 1859.

Ancestry

References

Sources

* *

External links

* , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Louise Of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, Princess Princesses of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg 1800 births 1831 deaths Burials at the Ducal Family Mausoleum, Glockenburg Cemetery, Coburg Duchesses of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld People from Gotha (town) Deaths from cancer in France