Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse

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Ernest Louis
Ernst Ludwig von Hessen 1905 Foto Jacob Hilsdorf.jpeg
Photograph by Jacob Hilsdorf, 1905
Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine
Reign 13 March 1892 – 9 November 1918
Predecessor Louis IV
Successor Monarchy abolished
Born (1868-11-25)25 November 1868
New Palace, Darmstadt, Grand Duchy of Hesse
Died Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
Schloss Wolfsgarten, Langen, Hesse, Nazi Germany
Burial Neues Mausoleum, Park Rosenhöhe, Darmstadt, Germany
Spouse Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
(m. 1894; div. 1901)
Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich
(m. 1905)
Issue <templatestyles src="Plainlist/styles.css"/>
Full name
Ernest Louis Charles Albert William
German: Ernst Ludwig Karl Albrecht Wilhelm
House Hesse-Darmstadt
Father Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine
Mother Princess Alice of the United Kingdom

Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Ernest Louis (German: Ernst Ludwig Karl Albrecht Wilhelm; 25 November 1868 – 9 October 1937) was the last Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, reigning from 1892 until 1918.[1]

Early life

Ernest in 1879 with his grandmother Queen Victoria and sisters Victoria, Elizabeth, Irene and Alix two months after the deaths of their mother and youngest sister. All are wearing mourning clothes.

Ernest Louis was the elder son of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He was named Louis after his father. His nickname was "Ernie". One of seven siblings, two of whom died in childhood, Ernest grew up with his four surviving sisters in Darmstadt. One of his younger sisters, Alexandra, would marry Tsar Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia, while another sister, Victoria Mountbatten, would be the mother of Queen Louise of Sweden, Louis Mountbatten and Princess Alice of Battenberg, who was the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Ernest Louis grew up in a loving household, with parents who demonstrated their affection for their children, something not typical for that social stratum in those days. He grew much attached to his parents and siblings, and it was his misfortune that he was fated to witness several deaths among them during his childhood. When he was five, his only brother Prince Friedrich died. The two boys had been playing a game when the younger boy, who suffered from haemophilia, fell through a window onto the balcony twenty feet below.[2] Ernest Louis was inconsolable. "When I die, you must die too, and all the others. Why can't we all die together? I don't want to die alone, like Frittie," he told his nurse.[3] To his mother he said, "I dreamt that I was dead and was gone up to Heaven, and there I asked God to let me have Frittie again and he came to me and took my hand."[4]

In 1878, when Ernest was ten, an epidemic of diphtheria swept through Darmstadt. His father and all the children, except Elisabeth, who was visiting her paternal grandmother, fell ill.[5] Princess Alice cared for her sick husband and children, but on 16 November, the youngest of them, Princess Marie, died. Alice kept the news from her family for several weeks, until Ernest Louis, who was devoted to little Marie, asked for his sister. When his mother revealed Marie's death, Ernest Louis was overcome with grief. In comforting her grieving son, Alice kissed him.[6] She fell ill within a week, and died on 14 December, the anniversary of her own father's death.[7][8]

Marriages

First marriage

On 19 April 1894, at Schloss Ehrenburg, Ernest Louis married his maternal first cousin, Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha ("Ducky"), the daughter of his mother's brother, Prince Alfred. The match was actively encouraged by their mutual grandmother, Queen Victoria, who attended the wedding. At the wedding, Ernest's youngest surviving sister, Alix, became engaged to marry Tsarevich Nicholas of Russia, and the excitement of that imminent match threw the nuptial celebrations into the shade.[9]

File:ErnstwithElisabeth.jpg
Ernest was still devastated by the memory of his daughter's death thirty years later. "My little Elisabeth," he wrote in his memoirs, "was the sunshine of my life."[10]

Ernest and Victoria Melita had two children:

  • a daughter, Elisabeth (11 March 1895 – 16 November 1903). Her early death at age 8 of typhoid fever greatly devastated her father who wrote "My little Elisabeth" in his memoirs "was the sunshine of my life" 30 years after her death.[11]
  • stillborn son on 25 May 1900.

Ernest and Victoria entertained in style, frequently holding house parties for young friends (anybody above 30 was deemed "too old" by Victoria), dispensing with formality on those occasions to indulge in fun and frolic; Victoria's cousin Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark remembered one stay with them as having been "the jolliest, merriest house party to which I have ever been in my life."[12] These revelries were more in keeping with Victoria's inclinations than Ernest's. Their marriage was unhappy due to differences in temperament and attitude. Fond as she was of revelry, Victoria was less enthusiastic about fulfilling her public role. She avoided answering letters, put off visits to elderly relations whose company she did not enjoy, and talked to people who amused her at official functions while ignoring people of higher social or official standing whom she found boring.[13] Victoria's inattention to her duties provoked quarrels with Ernest. The young couple had loud arguments which sometimes turned physical. The volatile Victoria shouted, threw tea trays, smashed china against the wall, and tossed anything that was handy at Ernest during their arguments.[13]

Queen Victoria was saddened when she heard of the trouble in the marriage from Sir George Buchanan, her chargé d'affaires at Darmstadt, but because of their daughter, Elisabeth, she refused to consider permitting her grandchildren to divorce. Ernest also held off from divorce mainly for this reason. He adored his daughter to distraction and lavished his time and attention on her. The child reciprocated her father's affection, preferred the company of her father to that of her mother.[14] Meanwhile, all efforts to rekindle the marriage failed; Victoria took to spending most of the year in the south of France, spending vast sums in expenses and at the card-tables in Monte Carlo. When Queen Victoria died in January 1901, significant opposition to the end of the marriage was removed.[15] The couple were divorced 21 December 1901 on grounds of "invincible mutual antipathy" by a special verdict of the Supreme Court of Hesse. After the divorce had come through, Victoria told some close relatives that Ernest was a homosexual.[16][17] Allegedly, she had caught her husband in bed with a male servant when, in 1897, she returned home from a visit to her sister Queen Marie of Romania. She did not make her accusation public, but told her sister that "no boy was safe, from the stable hands to the kitchen help. He slept quite openly with them all."[18][19] Victoria later married another first cousin, this time on her mother's side, while Ernest married Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich.

Second marriage

Ernest Louis remarried in Darmstadt, on 2 February 1905, to Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich (17 September 1871 – 16 November 1937).[20] This marriage proved harmonious and happy. The couple had two sons:

In addition to his marriage, Ernest Louis maintained a close friendship with the bisexual Karl August Lingner, the inventor of Odol, one of the first liquid mouthwashes.[26] When Lingner died of tongue cancer, he bequeathed Tarasp Castle in Switzerland to Ernest Louis. However, the Hesse family never lived in it, and it was sold in 2016.

Grand Duke of Hesse

In 1892, Ernest Louis succeeded his father as grand duke.

Throughout his life, Ernest Louis was a patron of the arts,[27] founding the Darmstadt Artists' Colony, and was himself an author of poems, plays, essays, and piano compositions.

Ernest Louis commissioned the New Mausoleum in 1903. It was consecrated on 3 November 1910, in the presence of the Grand Duke and his immediate family, that is to say, his wife Eleonore, Tsar Nicholas II and his two sisters, the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia, Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna (Ella), Victoria, Princess Louis of Battenberg and her daughter, Louise, and Princess Heinrich of Prussia accompanied by her husband. The remains of Grand Duke Ludwig IV, Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine along with their children 'Frittie' and 'May' were re-interred in the New Mausoleum.[28]

First World War

Ernest Louis in 1917, as officer during the First World War.

During World War I, Ernest Louis served as a general of the infantry at Kaiser Wilhelm's headquarters. In February, 1917, the February Revolution in Russia forced his brother-in-law, Tsar Nicholas II, to abdicate. Sixteen months later, in July 1918, his two sisters in Russia, Elizabeth, the widow of Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich, and Alexandra, the wife of Nicholas II, were murdered by the Bolsheviks, Alexandra dying alongside her husband and children. At the end of the war, he lost his throne during the revolution of 1918, after refusing to abdicate.[29]

Death

In October 1937, Ernest Louis died after a long illness at Schloß Wolfsgarten, near Darmstadt. He received what amounted to a state funeral on 16 November 1937 and was buried next to his daughter, Elisabeth, in a new open air burial ground next to the New Mausoleum he had built in the Rosenhöhe park in Darmstadt.[30]

Honours

He received the following orders and decorations:[31]

German honours

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Foreign honours

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Ancestry

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References

  1. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Paid subscription required to read the full article.
  2. ↑ Packard, p. 161
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Packard, p. 166
  6. ↑ Noel, p. 239
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Packard, p. 167
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ Van der Kiste, John. Princess Victoria Melita, Grand Duchess Cyril of Russia, 1876–1936, p. 64, Sutton Publishing, 1991, ISBN 978-0-86299-815-8
  11. ↑ Van der Kiste, John. Princess Victoria Melita, Grand Duchess Cyril of Russia, 1876–1936, p. 64, Sutton Publishing, 1991, ISBN 978-0-86299-815-8
  12. ↑ Sullivan, p. 148
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Sullivan, p. 152
  14. ↑ Sullivan, pp. 217–218
  15. ↑ See Princess Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
  16. ↑ Röhl, John C. G. R "Wilhelm II: Into the Abyss of War and Exile, 1900–1941", Cambridge University Press, p534
  17. ↑ Cockfield, Jamie H."White Crow: The Life and Times of the Grand Duke Nicholas Mikhailovich", p61
  18. ↑ Terence Elsberry, Marie of Romania, St. Martin's Press, 1972, p.62
  19. ↑ Sullivan, p. 182
  20. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  21. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  22. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  23. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  24. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  25. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  26. ↑ Funke, Ulf-Norbert "Leben und Wirken von Karl August Lingner: Lingners Weg vom Handlungsgehilfen zum Grossindustriellen", Diplomica Verlag GmbH, 2014
  27. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. See section titled Two Important Art Exhibitions in Darmstadt (Hesse) Under the Patronage of the Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt
  28. ↑ Christopher Warwick, author of the biography of Grand Duchess Elisabeth Feodorovna, entitled 'Ella Princess, Saint & Martyr' published in hardback the United Kingdom by John Wiley & Sons.
  29. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found. Hesse mentioned toward the middle of the article
  30. ↑ Grand Duchy of Hesse[permanent dead link] website, discussing burials of the grand ducal family (Retrieved 8 December 2008).
  31. ↑ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Großherzogtum Hessen (1912/13), Genealogy pp. 1–2
  32. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  33. ↑ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Großherzogtum Baden (1896), "Großherzogliche Orden" pp. 63, 77
  34. ↑ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Königreichs Bayern (1908), "Königliche-Orden" p. 8
  35. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  36. ↑ Hof- und Staats-Handbuch des Königreich Württemberg (1907), "Königliche Orden" p. 29
  37. ↑ "A Szent István Rend tagjai" Archived 22 December 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  38. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  39. ↑ Bollettino Ufficiale di Stato
  40. ↑ Shaw, Wm. A. (1906) The Knights of England, I, London, p. 212
  41. ↑ Shaw, p. 69
  42. ↑ Shaw, p. 415

External links

Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse
Cadet branch of the House of Hesse
Born: 25 November 1868 Died: 9 October 1937
Regnal titles
Preceded by Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine
1892–1918		 Vacant
Political offices
Preceded by as Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine Head of State of Hesse-Darmstadt
1892–1918		 Succeeded by
Carl Ulrich
as President of the People's State of Hesse
Titles in pretence
Loss of title
 — TITULAR —
Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine
1918–1937		 Succeeded by
Georg Donatus
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