Augusta Reuss of Ebersdorf, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

by Susan Flantzer
© Unofficial Royalty 2015

Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld/Saxe-Coburg and Gotha: In 1675, Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg died. Initially, his seven sons collectively governed the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, as set out in their father’s will. In 1680, the seven brothers concluded a treaty of separation, with each brother getting a portion of the Duchy of Saxe-Gotha Altenburg and becoming a Duke. One of the seven new duchies was the Duchy of Saxe-Saalfeld and Johann Ernst, one of the seven sons of Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg became the first Duke of Saxe-Saalfeld.  When two of his brothers died without male heirs, Johann Ernst took possession of Coburg (in 1699) and Römhild (in 1714). In 1699, Johann Ernst’s title changed to Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.

In 1825, 145 years after the initial split, another line became extinct and there was another split between three surviving duchies. Ernst III, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld became Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. For more information on the switch, see Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld/Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Index.

On November 9, 1918, after the German Empire lost World War I, the Workers’ and Soldiers Council of Gotha, deposed the last Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Charles Edward, a grandson of Queen Victoria.  Five days later, he signed a declaration relinquishing his rights to the throne. The territory that encompassed the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha is now in the German states of Bavaria and Thuringia.

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Augusta Reuss of Ebersdorf, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld; Credit – Wikipedia

The grandmother of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Augusta Caroline Sophie was born a Countess Reuss of Ebersdorf on January 19, 1757, in Ebersdorf Castle, in Ebersdorf, County of  Reuss-Ebersdorf, now in Thuringia, Germany. She was the second of the seven children of Heinrich XXIV, Count Reuss of Ebersdorf and Karoline Ernestine of Erbach-Schönberg.

Ebersdorf Castle, Augusta’s birthplace; Photo Credit – Wikipedia

Only three of Augusta’s six siblings survived childhood:

Ebersdorf was a center of Pietism in Germany. Pietism was a form of Lutheranism that stressed practicing individual piety and living a strict Christian life, and Augusta’s grandparents were considered ardent admirers of their religion. As a result, Augusta developed a deep religious belief.

Little is known of Augusta’s upbringing, but a portrait exists of Augusta in her youth as Artemisia II of Caria (died 350 BCE), the sister, the wife, and the successor of Mausolus, ruler of Caria. Augusta is the picture of serenity in the portrait with a peaceful smile on her face and her hands and eyes resting on an urn and an accompanying goblet. The painter, German artist Johann Heinrich Tischbein, made his living from painting German nobility and minor royalty. Augusta’s father had the portrait exhibited at the Perpetual Diet of Regensburg, the general assembly of Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire, so potential marriage candidates were aware of his beautiful daughter.

Augusta Reuss of Erbersdorf as Artemisia; Credit – Wikipedia

Franz Friedrich Anton, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld had fallen in love with the beautiful Augusta and had purchased the Artemisia painting for four times the original price. However, he had to marry a relative, Princess Sophie of Saxe-Hildburghausen, but Sophie died seven months after the wedding. On June 13, 1777, in the bride’s hometown of Ebersdorf, Franz married Augusta.

Franz and Augusta had nine children:

Franz Friedrich Anton,Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld; Credit – Wikipedia

Like her famous granddaughter Queen Victoria, Augusta kept a detailed journal of her adult life, outlining much of her rather astonishing accomplishments. Her great-granddaughter Princess Beatrice, the youngest child of Queen Victoria, translated and edited the memoirs of her great-grandmother which were published under the title In Napoleonic Times.

At the time of his marriage to Augusta, Franz was an avid collector of art (particularly engravings) and books. When he inherited the dukedom from his father in 1800, Franz inherited the legacy of his father’s poor administration and huge debts. Furthermore, Franz had little aptitude for or interest in running the duchy himself. Franz’s art-buying days were over as the family began a life of aristocratic poverty. Victoria, the future Duchess of Kent, remembered her mother once scolding her for tearing her dress, as there was no money for another.

Augusta may have been the first person to suggest a marriage between two of her grandchildren. In 1821, in a letter to her daughter Victoria, Duchess of Kent, she suggested the possibility of marriage between Victoria’s daughter, the future Queen Victoria, and Albert, the second son of her son Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Victoria and Albert were only two years old at the time.

Augusta did not live long enough to see the marriage of her grandchildren Victoria and Albert. She died in Coburg at the age of 74 on November 16, 1831, five months after the election of her son Leopold as King of the Belgians, and was buried with her husband in a mausoleum in the Coburg Court Garden.

Mausoleum of Franz Friedrich Anton and Augusta; Credit – “Coburg-Hofgarten-Mausoleum” von Störfix. Lizenziert unter CC BY-SA 3.0 über Wikimedia Commons – http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Coburg-Hofgarten-Mausoleum.jpg#/media/File:Coburg-Hofgarten-Mausoleum.jpg

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Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld/Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Resources at Unofficial Royalty