Leopold, Grand Duke of Baden

Leopold I
Reign	30 March 1830 - 24 April 1852 (&1000000000000002200000022 years, &1000000000000002500000025 days)
Predecessor	Louis I
Spouse	Princess Sophie of Sweden
Issue
Alexandrine, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Prince Ludwig Ludwig II, Grand Duke of Baden Frederich I, Grand Duke of Baden Prince William Prince Karl Marie, Princess of Leiningen Cecile Auguste, Grand Duchess Olga Feodorovna of Russia
Father	Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Baden
Mother	Louise Karoline, Baroness Geyer of Geyersberg
Born	29 August 1790(1790-08-29)
Died	24 April 1852(1852-04-24) (aged 61)

Leopold I, Grand Duke of Baden (Karlsruhe, 29 August 1790 – Karlsruhe, 24 April 1852) succeeded in 1830 as the fourth Grand Duke of Baden.

Although a younger child, Leopold was the first son of Margrave Karl Friederich of Baden by his second, morganatic wife Louise Karoline, Baroness Geyer of Geyersberg. Since Luise Karoline was not of equal birth with the Margrave, the marriage was deemed morganatic and the resulting children were incapable of inheriting their father's princely status or the sovereign rights of the Zähringen House of Baden. Luise Karoline and her children were given the titles of baron and baroness and later count or countess of Hochberg.

Baden gained territory during the Napoleonic Wars. As a result, Margrave Karl Friederich was elevated to the title of Prince-Elector of the Holy Roman Empire (Kurfurst). With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, he took the title Grand Duke of Baden.

The Hochberg heir

Since there were plenty of descendants from Charles Frederick's first marriage to Karoline Louise of Hesse-Darmstadt, no one expected the Hochberg children of his second wife to be anything except a family of counts with blood ties to the grand ducal family but no dynastic rights. With no prospects of advancement in Baden, Leopold of Hochberg followed a career as an officer in the French army.

Starting in 1817, events resulted in a dramatic change in the situation of the Hochberg children when it became apparent that the Baden male line descended from Karl Friederich's first wife would die out. One by one, the males of the House of Baden died without leaving male descendants. By 1817, there were only two males left, the reigning Grand Duke Charles I and his childless uncle Louis I. Both of Charles's sons died in infancy. The dynasty faced a serious succession problem.

A series of agreements provided that Baden would be inherited by the Wittelsbach kings of Bavaria at the extinction of the Zähringen male line in Baden. King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria was married to Grand Duke Charles's eldest sister, Katharina Karoline. The female most closely related to the last male often inherited in such circumstances (sometimes called Semi-Salic succession). As a result, Maximilian had a strong claim to Baden under the normal rules of inheritance and various agreements added weight to his claims. Following the Congress of Vienna, a treaty of April 16, 1816 between Bavaria and Austria secured the Wittelsbach rights to Baden.

To save his dynasty from extinction, Grand Duke Charles needed to find a way to preserve the Zähringen line. Granting succession rights to his half-uncles seemed the ideal solution. Accordingly, in 1817 Karl issued a new succession law under which the children of the Hochberg marriage became princes and princesses of Baden with full dynastic rights. Leopold of Hochberg became His Grand Ducal Highness, Prince Leopold of Baden and second-in-line to the throne after his remaining half-brother, Louis.

In 1818, Charles granted a liberal constitution to the people of Baden. This constitution ensured the succession rights of the offspring of Louise Karoline Geyer von Geyersberg. Finally, on July 10, 1819, a few months after Charles's death, the great powers (Great Britain, France, Austria, Russia, and Prussia) joined with Bavaria and Baden in the Treaty of Frankfurt which recognized the succession rights of the former Hochberg morganatic line.

After Grand Duke Charles died on December 8, 1818, his full-uncle (the son of Charles Frederick's first marriage) succeeded as Louis I. To further improve the status of his half-brother and heir, Ludwig arranged for the new Prince Leopold to marry his great-niece, Sophie, daughter of former King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden by Grand Duke Charles's sister, Frederica. Since Sophie was a granddaughter of Leopold's oldest half-brother, Charles Louis, this marriage united the descendants of his father's (Grand Duke Charles Frederick's) two wives. Sophie's undoubted royal blood would help to offset the stigma of Leopold's morganatic birth.

When Grand Duke Louis died on March 30, 1830, he was the last male of the House of Baden not descended from the morganatic marriage of Charles Frederick and Louise Karoline Geyer of Geyersberg. The former morganatic child Leopold of Hochberg, recently raised to princely rank, now succeeded as the fourth Grand Duke of Baden.

Marriage and issue

On 25 July 1819, Leopold married in Karlsruhe his half-grand-niece Sophie of Sweden (21 May 1801 – 6 July 1865), the eldest daughter of the former King Gustav IV Adolf of Sweden and Queen Frederika, who herself was a daughter of Hereditary Prince Charles Louis of Baden (Leopold's half-brother).

Sophia and Leopold had the following children.

• Alexandrine (1820–1904), married Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (1818–93), childless marriage due to which Ernest's younger brother Albert's British issue succeeded in that duchy.
• Louis (1822-22)
• Louis II (1824–58), reigned as Grand Duke 1852-58, deemed mentally unfit to rule
• Frederick I (1826–1907), Grand Duke 1858-1907, Regent 1852-58
• Wilhelm (1829–97), Prince, Prussian General, ancestor of the younger line of princes of Baden and father of Prince Max of Baden, German Chancellor, and later the heir of Grand Duchy
• Charles (1832–1906), married Rosalie of Beust (morganatic)
• Mary (1834–99), married Prince Ernest of Leiningen (1830–1904)
• Cecilie (1839–91), known as Olga Fedorovna, married Grand Duke Michael Nicolaievich of Russia (1832–1902), Governor General in Tbilisi

According to church records in Baden, Leopold also had two children with Sophia Vittali, the daughter of an Italian-born merchant named Pietro Vittali.

Ancestry

References

External links

Leopold, Grand Duke of Baden House of Zähringen Born: August 29 1790 Died: April 24 1852
Regnal titles
Preceded by Louis I	Grand Duke of Baden 1830-1852	Succeeded by Louis II

Persondata
Name	Leopold, Grand Duke Of Baden
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	29 August 1790
Place of birth
Date of death	24 April 1852
Place of death