Countess Palatine Caroline of Zweibrücken

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Henriette Caroline Christiane Louise of Pfalz-Zweibrücken (Strassburg, March 9, 1721 - Darmstadt March 30, 1774) was wife of the Landgrave of Hessen-Darmstadt and one of the most learned women of her time.

[edit] Biography

Henriette Caroline was the daughter of Christian III, Duke of Zweibrücken and his wife Caroline of Nassau-Saarbrücken.

She married on August 12, 1741 in Zweibrücken with Louis IX, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt.
Caroline war better known as The Great Landgräfin, a name given to her by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. She was befriended to several writers and philosophers of her time, such as Johann Gottfried Herder, Christoph Martin Wieland and Goethe.
Wieland wished he had the power to make her Queen of Europa. She also had contact with Frederick II of Prussia, and she was one of the few women that the Alte Fritz respected. He called her once the Glory and Wonder of our century and after her death her sent to Darmstadt an urn with the text femina sexo, ingenio vir (A woman by sex, a man by spirit), which can still be seen today. Through her daughter she is an ancestor to the royal house of Prussia, Germany and the Netherlands.

They had five daughters and three sons , including:


[edit] Literature

  • Marita A. Panzer:„Die Große Landgräfin Caroline von Hessen-Darmstadt“, Verlag Friedrich Pustet Regensburg, 2005