Amalie of Hessen-Darmstadt
Friederike Amalie von Hessen-Darmstadt (born June 20, 1754 in Prenzlau , † July 21, 1832 in Bruchsal ) was Hereditary Princess of Baden by marriage .
Life
Amalie was a daughter of Landgrave Ludwig IX. von Hessen-Darmstadt (1719–1790) and his wife Henriette Karoline (1721–1774), daughter of the Count Palatine and Duke Christian III. from Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld . The princess was born in Prenzlau, where her father was stationed in Prussian services, and was raised in Buchsweiler by her mother, the so-called " Great Landgravine " . In 1772 she traveled to Saint Petersburg with her mother and her sisters Wilhelmine and Luise so that the future Tsar Paul could choose a bride from among the sisters. He chose Wilhelmine.
Amalie married her cousin, Hereditary Prince Karl Ludwig von Baden (1755-1801) , on July 15, 1774 in Darmstadt . At first she felt uncomfortable in her home town in Baden. She didn't get along very well with her aunt and mother-in-law, Margravine Karoline Luise . She complained about the coldness of Margrave Karl Friedrich and the childish behavior of her husband. In addition, she missed the glamor and dignity that she had come to know, for example, at the Prussian and Russian courts.
After the death of her mother-in-law in 1783, Amalie became the first lady at court. After the death of her husband in 1801, whose body was transferred from Sweden to Karlsruhe in a copper coffin, Margrave Karl Friedrich had Friedrich Weinbrenner build a chapel, the so-called Gothic Tower and a bathing cabinet for Margravine Amalie, in memory of the deceased Hereditary Prince in 1802 to which the copper coffin was honored as a bathtub. Amalie held the position of first lady until 1806 when Stéphanie de Beauharnais married her son Karl. As an opponent of Napoléon Bonaparte , she had tried to prevent the wedding of her son Karl Ludwig Friedrich with Napoleon's niece and later adopted daughter Stéphanie. She didn't get along well with her new daughter-in-law or with Karl Friedrich's second wife Luise von Hochberg , which prompted her to move to Bruchsal Castle .
Napoleon gave her the former residence of the Prince-Bishops of Speyer in Bruchsal - this had fallen to Baden in 1803 - as a widow's seat. Amalie received an allowance of 120,000 guilders annually. She had her summer residence in the Rohrbach Castle near Heidelberg. The castle was a gift from her son-in-law Maximilian von Bayern . Here she received besides Tsar Alexander I and Emperor Franz I also Johann Wolfgang von Goethe .
During the Congress of Vienna, Amalie, through her strong influence on her son-in-law Tsar Alexander I, contributed to the fact that the Grand Duchy of Baden, created by Napoleon, was preserved without losing territory.
progeny
Amalie is known as the “mother-in-law of Europe”, because she wed her daughters in influential royal courts through skillful action. From their marriage, Amalie had six daughters and two sons:
- Amalie Christiane (1776–1823), unmarried
- Karoline (1776–1841), twin sister of Amalie Christiane,
- ⚭ 1797 King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria (1756–1825)
- Luise (1779-1826)
- ⚭ 1793 Tsar Alexander I of Russia (1777–1825)
- Friederike (1781-1826)
- ⚭ 1797 (divorced 1812) King Gustav IV of Sweden (1778–1837)
- Marie (1782-1808)
- ⚭ 1802 Duke Friedrich Wilhelm of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel (1771–1815)
- Karl Friedrich (1784–1785)
- Karl (1786–1818), Grand Duke of Baden
- ⚭ 1806 Princess Stéphanie de Beauharnais (1789–1860)
- Wilhelmine (1788-1836)
- ⚭ 1804 Grand Duke Ludwig II of Hesse (1777–1848)
ancestors
| Ernst Ludwig Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (1667–1739) | |||||||||||||
| Ludwig VIII Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (1691–1768) | |||||||||||||
| Dorothea Charlotte of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1661–1705) | |||||||||||||
| Louis IX Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt (1719–1790) | |||||||||||||
| Johann Reinhard III. von Hanau (1665–1736) | |||||||||||||
| Charlotte von Hanau-Lichtenberg (1700–1726) | |||||||||||||
| Dorothea Friederike of Brandenburg-Ansbach (1676–1731) | |||||||||||||
| Amalie of Hessen-Darmstadt | |||||||||||||
| Christian II of Pfalz-Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld (1637–1717) | |||||||||||||
| Christian III of Pfalz-Zweibrücken (1674–1735) | |||||||||||||
| Katharina Agathe von Rappoltstein (1648–1683) | |||||||||||||
| Caroline of Pfalz-Zweibrücken (1721–1774) | |||||||||||||
| Ludwig Kraft of Nassau-Saarbrücken (1663–1713) | |||||||||||||
| Caroline of Nassau-Saarbrücken (1704–1774) | |||||||||||||
| Philippine Henriette zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg (1679–1751) | |||||||||||||
literature
- Anna Schiener : Margravine Amalie of Baden (1754–1832) . Verlag Friedrich Pustet, Regensburg 2007, ISBN 978-3-7917-2046-3 .
- Ilona Scheidle: "The only man in Baden" in dispute with Napoleon. Margravine Amalie von Baden (1754-1832) . In: Heidelberg women who made history. Munich 2006, pp. 51-63
- Günther Schiwy : Eichendorff , p. 242
- Edelgard Spaude: Idiosyncratic women in Baden , Rombach, 1999
Web links
- Works by and about Amalie von Hessen-Darmstadt in the German Digital Library
- Baden, Friederike Amalie Hereditary Princess of. Hessian biography. (As of January 22, 2020). In: Landesgeschichtliches Informationssystem Hessen (LAGIS).
Individual proof
- ↑ Source: Karlsruhe City Archives
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Amalie of Hessen-Darmstadt |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Wife of the Hereditary Prince of Baden, Karl Ludwig von Baden |
| DATE OF BIRTH | June 20, 1754 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Prenzlau |
| DATE OF DEATH | July 21, 1832 |
| Place of death | Bruchsal |