Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen (1890–1972)

For the daughter of Georg III, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, see Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen.
Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen
Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Tenure 21 January 1910 – 9 November 1918
Spouse Wilhelm Ernst, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Issue
Sophie Louise, Princess of Schwarzburg
Charles Augustus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Prince Bernhard Friedrich Viktor of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Prince Georg of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
Full name
Feodora Karola Charlotte Marie Adelheid Auguste Mathilde
House House of Saxe-Meiningen
Father Prince Friedrich Johann of Saxe-Meiningen
Mother Countess Adelaide of Lippe-Biesterfeld
Born 29 May 1890(1890-05-29)
Hanover[1]
Died 12 March 1972(1972-03-12) (aged 81)
Freiburg im Breisgau

Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen (Feodora Karola Charlotte Marie Adelheid Auguste Mathilde; 29 May 1890 – 12 March 1972) was the eldest child of Prince Friedrich Johann of Saxe-Meiningen, a younger son of Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and Countess Adelaide of Lippe-Biesterfeld, a daughter of Ernst, Count of Lippe-Biesterfeld.[1] By marriage, she was known as Grand Duchess of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.

Contents

Biography

Marriage

During a summer visit to the palace Wilhelmshöhe, Feodora was urged by her kinsman Emperor Wilhelm II to make a match with the widowed Wilhelm Ernst, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach.[2] He had been serving with the Prussian artillery during that time.[2] Despite his role in their engagement however, Emperor Wilhelm refused to attend the wedding. This caused much speculation, as he and his wife were very close to the Grand Duke.[3] This was seen by many to be due to the mutual ill will felt between Wilhelm and Feodora's grandfather Georg II, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, whose morganatic wedding to Ellen Franz had greatly displeased many royal personages like Wilhelm.[3] Georg was the only ruling member of a German royal house who had never visited the Emperor upon his accession in 1888, and who had never received any imperial German visitors in kind at his own court.[3] Wilhelm's disapproval was even more surprising in that he had recently allowed the marriage between a Hohenzollern prince (Prince Frederick William of Prussia, son of Prince Albert of Prussia) with a much lower-ranked member of the nobility; it was considered odd that he refused to recognize one equal marriage and acknowledge another lesser match, especially when the latter was within his own family and subject to the rigid rules of Hohenzollern behavior.[4]

The Emperor's boycott of the wedding was so strongly resented in Saxe-Meiningen that when newspapers announced that Wilhelm would not be attending the wedding, the official communication from the royal palace declared that he had never been invited.[4]

On 14 January 1910 in Meiningen, Feodora was married to Wilhelm Ernst.[1] She was his second wife (his first wife Princess Caroline Reuss of Greiz died childless after eighteenth months of marriage in 1905).[5] This first marriage had been unhappy, as Karoline disliked the Weimar court, eventually fleeing to Switzerland. After being persuaded to return to court, her death soon after was considered by some to be suicide.[5]

Court life

Feodora's marriage was unhappy; the Weimar court was generally considered to be one of the most stifling and etiquette-driven in Germany.[5] One source recounted:

"It envelops royalty there in a species of captivity, and while the grand duke lends thereto and is too conservative to admit of any change, it crushes with its trammels the more spirited members of the family".[5]

Feodora was unhappy in such an environment; at the age of 23, reports leaked out that she was staying at a sanatorium for her health.[5] She was stricken with a severe attack of measles and scarlet fever, which she had acquired while visiting an asylum she had founded. Her increased attentions to this particular asylum were attributed to her unhappiness at court, and seen as an escape.[5] The extreme etiquette also caused there to be a distance between herself and the Grand Duke, as well as with their young children. While reports did not call her husband particularly cruel, he was, according to one source:

"One of the wealthiest sovereigns in Europe; stolid, well-behaved, imbued with great pride of race, and a strict sense of what is due to the anointed of the Lord. He is also one of the most severely respected and proper of German rulers...the Grand Duke is very dull, and his court and environment reflect his character in this respect to such a respect that Weimar has become the dreariest capital in Europe".[5]

Feodora was very popular among the middle and lower classes of Weimar; this was largely attributed to her charm and kindness to the poor and suffering.[5]

Later life

On 9 November 1918 Wilhelm Ernst—along with the rest of the German monarchs following the defeat of Germany in World War I—was forced to abdicate. His throne and all his lands were relinquished and he fled with his family to the family estate in Silesia, where he died four years later. Feodora died on 12 March 1972 in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany.

Issue

Feodora and her husband had four children:

Name Birth Death Notes
Princess Sophie Luise Adelheid Marie Olga Carola 20 March 1911 21 November 1988 married Friedrich Günther, Prince of Schwarzburg; the marriage ended in divorce less than a year later. There were no children.
Karl August Wilhelm Ernst Friedrich Georg Johann Albrecht, Hereditary Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach 28 July 1912[6] 14 October 1988 married Baroness Elisabeth of Wangenheim-Winterstein; had issue
Prince Bernhard Friedrich Viktor 3 March 1917 23 March 1986
Prince Georg Wilhelm Albert Bernhard 24 November 1921

Titles, styles, honours and arms

Titles and styles

Ancestry

References

  1. ^ a b c Lundy, Darryl. "The Peerage: Feodore Carola Charlotte Prinzessin von Sachsen-Meiningen". http://thepeerage.com/p11081.htm#i110810. Retrieved 28 July 2010. 
  2. ^ a b "Kaiser Made Royal Match", The Washington Post (Berlin), 12 October 1909 
  3. ^ a b c "Why the Kaiser Wasn't At Wedding", The Washington Post, 11 January 1910 
  4. ^ a b "The Kaiser On Marriage", The New York Times (Berlin), 30 January 1910 
  5. ^ a b c d e f g h "Sad Fate of Two Grand Duchesses", The Washington Post, 29 September 1913 
  6. ^ "Son Born to Grand Duchess", The Washington Post (Eisenach, Germany), 29 July 1912 
Princess Feodora of Saxe-Meiningen (1890–1972)
Born: 29 May 1890 Died: 12 March 1972
German royalty
Preceded by
Princess Caroline Reuss of Greiz		 Grand Duchess consort of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach
21 January 1910 – 9 November 1918		 Monarchy abolished