| House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha | |
|---|---|
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| Parent house | House of Wettin |
| Country | |
| Founded | 1826; 199 years ago (1826) |
| Founder | Ernest I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha |
| Current head | Hubertus, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (official) Prince Richard, Duke of Gloucester (agnatic) |
| Deposition | 1910 (inPortugal) 1918 (inSaxe-Coburg and Gotha) 1946 (inBulgaria) |
| Cadet branches |
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TheHouse of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (/ˌsæksˈkoʊbərɡ ... ˈɡɒθə,-ˈɡɒtə/SAKSKOH-bərg ...GOT(H)-ə;[1]German:Haus Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha) is a Europeanroyal house of German origin. It takes its name from its oldest domain, theErnestine duchy ofSaxe-Coburg and Gotha, and its members later sat on the thrones ofBelgium,Bulgaria,Portugal, and theUnited Kingdom andits dominions.
Founded in 1826 byErnest Anton, the sixth duke ofSaxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, it is acadet branch of theSaxonHouse of Wettin. Oneagnatic branch currently reigns in Belgium—the descendants ofLeopold I—and another reigned in the United Kingdom until the death ofElizabeth II—the descendants ofAlbert, Prince Consort.
In 1917, theFirst World War caused the British kingGeorge V to officially change the name from "Saxe-Coburg and Gotha" to "Windsor" in the United Kingdom.[2] In Belgium, due to similar resentment against Germany after the Great War, the use of the name was also changed in 1920 by KingAlbert I to "de Belgique" (French), "van België" (Dutch) or "von Belgien" (German), meaning "of Belgium". However, the "Saxe-Coburg" house name of the Belgian royal family was never officially abolished, and since relations between Belgium and Germany have been normalized for a long time, the use of this family name has been slowly reintroduced since the 2010s (especially since KingPhilippe of Belgium wants to limit the number of princes and princesses of Belgium, and thus the use of the designation "of Belgium", to only a select group of his family).[3]
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The first duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha wasErnest I, who reigned from 1826 until his death in 1844. He had previously been Duke ofSaxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (as Ernest III) from 1806 until the duchy was reorganized in 1826.
Ernest's younger brother Leopold became King of the Belgians in 1831, and his descendants continue to serve as Belgian monarchs. Leopold's only daughter, Princess Charlotte of Belgium, was the consort ofMaximilian I of Mexico, and she was known asEmpress Carlota of Mexico in the 1860s.
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Ernest I's second son,Prince Albert (1819–1861), married his first cousinQueen Victoria in 1840 (Victoria's mother was a sister of Ernest I). Prince Albert thus is theprogenitor of the United Kingdom's current royal family, called theHouse of Windsor since 1917.[4]
In 1826, acadet branch of the house inherited the Hungarian princely estate of theKoháry family and converted to Roman Catholicism. Its members managed to marry aqueen regnant ofPortugal, an imperial princess of Brazil, an archduchess of Austria, a French royal princess, a royal princess of Belgium and a royal princess of Saxony. Ascion of this branch,Ferdinand, became ruling Prince and thenTsar ofBulgaria, and his descendants continued to reign there until 1946. The current head of the House of Bulgaria, the former TsarSimeon Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, who wasdeposed andexiled afterWorld War II, goes by the name of Simeon Sakskoburggotski and served as Bulgaria's prime minister from 2001 to 2005.
The ducal house consisted of all male-line descendants ofJohn Ernest IV, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld legitimately born of anequal marriage, males and females (the latter until their marriage), their wives in equal and authorised marriages, and their widows until remarriage. According to theHouse law of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the full title of the Duke was:
Wir, Ernst, Herzog zu Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, Jülich, Cleve und Berg, auch Engern und Westphalen, Landgraf in Thüringen, Markgraf zu Meißen, gefürsteter Graf zu Henneberg, Graf zu der Mark und Ravensberg, Herr zu Ravenstein und Tonna usw.
We, Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha,Jülich,Cleves andBerg, alsoAngria andWestphalia,Landgrave in Thuringia,Margrave ofMeissen,Princely Count of Henneberg,Count of Mark andRavensberg,Lord of Ravenstein andTonna, and so forth.
There were two officialresidences, in Gotha and Coburg. Therefore, the whole ducal court, including the court theatre, had to move twice a year: from Gotha to Coburg for the summer and from Coburg to Gotha for the winter.
For the Court Theater, two almost identical buildings had to be built in 1840 in Gotha (destroyed inWorld War II) and Coburg (now theCoburg State Theater) and thereafter maintained at the same time. In addition to the residential castles,Friedenstein Palace in Gotha andEhrenburg Palace in Coburg, the ducal family also used the SchlossReinhardsbrunn in Gotha, as well as theSchloss Rosenau andCallenberg Castle in Coburg, and a hunting lodge, Greinburg Castle, inGrein, Austria.
Although the ducal branch iseponymous with the dynasty, its head is not the senior member of the familygenealogically oragnatically. In 1893, the reigning dukeErnest II died childless, whereupon the throne would have devolved, by maleprimogeniture, upon the descendants of his brotherPrince Albert. However, as heirs to the British throne, Albert's descendants consented and the law of the duchy ratified that the ducal throne would not be inherited by the British monarch orheir apparent. Therefore, the German duchy became asecundogeniture, hereditary among the younger princes of the British royal family who belonged to the House of Wettin, and their male-line descendants.
Instead of Albert Edward, Prince of Wales (the futureEdward VII of the United Kingdom) inheriting the duchy, it was diverted to his next brother,Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. Upon the latter's death without surviving sons, it went to the youngest grandson of Prince Albert and Queen Victoria,Prince Charles Edward, Duke of Albany. Charles Edward's unclePrince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and his male line had renounced their claim. Although senior by birth, they were either not acceptable to the German Emperor as either a member of the British military or unwilling to move to Germany.
The current head of the ducal branch isHubertus, the great-grandson of Charles Edward. Since the duchy was abolished in 1918, the heads use the title Prince rather than Duke.
![Personal arms of the family since the reign of Charles Edward[5]](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aArms_of_Charles_Edward%2c_Duke_of_Saxe-Coburg_and_Gotha_(and_his_descendants).svg)
TheHouse of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry is aCatholiccadet branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. It was founded with the marriage ofPrince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, second son ofFrancis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, withPrincess Maria Antonia Koháry de Csábrág. Their second sonPrince August inherited the estates of the House of Koháry in Hungary and Austria. August's youngest son becameFerdinand I of Bulgaria.
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The Portuguese line was founded by Prince Ferdinand's eldest son,Ferdinand the younger, who marriedQueen Maria II of theHouse of Braganza and became king himself. It was overthrown in theRevolution of 1910, after which it became extinct in 1932 upon the death of Manuel II.Duarte Nuno of Braganza and his successors were descendants of the banishedMiguelist line.
From the accession of Boris III in 1918 onward, this branch of the family belongs to theBulgarian Orthodox Church.
The Belgian line was founded byLeopold, youngest son ofFrancis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. Following Leopold's conversion to Catholicism to take the newly-created Belgian throne, this line of the house is predominantly Catholic.[10]
Because of theFirst World War, the title of the family was unofficially changed in 1920 or 1921 to "of Belgium",[11][12] and the armorial bearings of Saxony were removed from the Belgian royal coat of arms.[12] Since the 2017Carnet Mondain, the title "Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha" is again in use for all the descendants of Leopold I, with the exception ofKing Philippe,his wife,his sister andhis brother who keep their title "of Belgium"; therefore the descendants of Astrid of Belgium do not bear this title, but that of "of Austria-Este" oftheir father.[13][14][15] The armorial bearing of Saxony was put back in 2019.[16]
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The British line was founded by KingEdward VII, eldest son ofQueen Victoria andPrince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. His successor and son, KingGeorge V, changed the name of this line of the royal house and family toWindsor in 1917.[17]
Patrilineality, descent as reckoned from father to son, had historically been the principle determining membership inreigning families until late in the 20th century, thus the dynasty to which the monarchs of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha belonged genealogically throughout the 1900s is theHouse of Wettin, despite the official use of varying names by different branches of the patriline.
Il [Albert Ier] décide le 22 avril 1921 de ne plus porter ses titres de comte de Saxe et prince de Saxe-Cobourg-Gotha, mais n'abandonne pas ses qualités et titres officiels allemands, tout comme Elisabeth garde son titre de duchesse en Bavière. Leur fils, Léopold III, les reprendra plus tard, ces titres n'ayant pas été juridiquement supprimés.
House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Cadet branch of theHouse of Wettin | ||
| New title | Ruling house of theDuchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha 1826–1918 | Duchy Abolished |
| Ruling house of theKingdom of Belgium 1831–present | Incumbent | |
| Preceded by | Ruling house of theKingdom of Portugal (Ruled under the nameHouse of Braganza) 1853–1910 | Monarchy Abolished |
| Preceded by | Ruling house of theKingdom of Bulgaria 1887–1946 | |
| Preceded by | Ruling house of theUnited Kingdom (RenamedHouse of Windsor by Royal Proclamation of 17 July 1917) 1901–1917 | Succeeded by |
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