Tuesday, May 5, 2020

Hohenzolllern Princes--

HOHENZOLLERN.
Frederick of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
@Wikimedia
Friedrich von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen (1843-1904)
Prussia General of the Cavalry

Son of Karl Anton von Hohenzollern & Josephine von Baden

Husband of Louise of Thurn and Taxis, mar 1879

His lover was:
Elisabeth Berard (1848-c1905)
Lover in 1870s-1879.
German courtier.

Wife of: Hermann von Wedel, mar 1879, div 1884

" . . .In the 1870s, Elizabeth Berard was the mistress of Prince Friedrich of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen until he married Princess Luise of Thurn and Taxis in 1879.  It was widely accepted that Fritz Hohenzollern, the brother of the King of Romania, was the father of her twin children, Eugenie and Frederic. . . ." (Rohl, 1998, p. 491)

Elisabeth's personal & family background.
"The life of Countess Elisabeth Wedel-Berard reads like a novel, and indeed -- it later became the subject of a novel. Her background is murky. She was born Wilhelmine Emilie Elisabeth Berard on 27 December 1848 somewhere in Germany, but it is not known where. We also know nothing about her family background. . . At the end of her life, when she was no longer of sound mind, she claimed to be the daughter of Kaiser Wilhelm I, and on her mother's side the great granddaughter of Friedrich Wilhelm II. Evidently an exceptionally beautiful woman, she appeared in Berlin court circles when she was barely twenty, and until the age of forty was quite the talk of the town. By her own account, she was 'discovered' by Chamberlain Louis von Prillwits when the Berlin race-track was opened in May 1869, and thus came into contact with the aristocratic and wealthy members of the Union Club...."
(Rohl, 1998, p. 490-491)

Elisabeth's spouse & children.

" . . .  On 24 November 1879, Elisabeth Berard married Count Hermann von Wedel in Zurich. . . The marriage, which was seen by her from the beginning as a marriage of convenience in order to provide the Hohenzollern children with an aristocratic title, ended in divorce as early as February 1884, purportedly because Elisabeth -- having discovered that Hermann Wedel had a mistress and a daughter by her -- denied him all conjugal rights on their wedding night. . . ." (Rohl, 1998, p. 490-491)
George William, Margrave Bayreuth.jpg
Georg Wilhelm of Brandenburg-Bayreuth
@Wikipedia
(1678-1726)

Son of: Christian Ernst of Brandenburg-Bayreuth & Sophia Luise of Württemberg

Sophia of Saxe-Weissenfels
@Wikipedia
Husband of: Sophia of Saxe-Weissenfels.

Extraordinary beauty of infamous morals.

" . . . George William, Margrave of Baireuth, was born in 1678 and married Sophia of Saxe-Weissenfels, when she was only just fifteen; a princess of extraordinary beauty but of infamous morals. George William of Baireuth and Sophia exhibited German court life in the eighteenth century in its full extravagance. . . The Margravine Sophia carried her gallantries to such a pass of shamelessness, that the Margrave was at length obliged to consign her to prison in the Plassenburg. . . ." (Germany, Present & Past: 464)

Sophia's physical appearance & personal qualities.
" . . . The Margravine Wilhelmina thus describes the Margravine Sophia:---'In her youth she was lovely as an angel, but she never lived happily with her husband. She may be numbered with the famed women of antiquity, for she was in her morals the Lais of her age. No one attributed to her great good sense. When I saw her in 1732, she was aged forty-eight; she was stout and well-shaped, her face rather long, as was also her nose, which, however, di-figured her, for it was red as a cherry; her brown eyes, with which she was wont to lay down the law, were well formed but dull, with no more sparkle in them. Her eyebrows were coal black---but then they were false. Her mouth, though large, was yet well moulded and full of charm; she had teeth white as ivory and like a row of pearls; but her skin, thought clean, was quite withered. Consequently, she looked like an old worn-out theatrical prima donna, and her manner gave one the same impression. Yet in spite of all, she was still a handsome woman. Of the crimes of this infamous woman, the gossiping Margravine Wilhelmina has plenty to say, but they cannot be told here." (Germany, Present & Past: 465)
Sophie's secondyears husband.

"After the death of the Margrave (1726) she was released from prison. She married, when she was fifty years old, Count Albert of Hoditz, a Moravian nobleman, who was twenty-two years her junior. 'As long as she had a halfpenny in her purse,' writes the Margravine, 'her husband flattered her. She had to sell all her clothes to meet his exactions, and then he deserted her, leaving her in the direct poverty.' She lived in Vienna generally despised, and in want of the necessaries of life, upon the alms flung her by the nobility, and there she died in 1750." (Germany, Present & Past: 465)

"Sophia was superficial and her marriage proved unhappy. Her dalliance with a Swedish baron irritated George William that he attacked the baron at table with a stick and had his wife taken to Plassenburg. After her husband's death, she moved to Schloss Erlangen, where she lived for 8 years. She remarried on 14 July 1734 to Albert Joseph, Count of Hoditz and Wolframitz (1706-1778), twenty-two years her junior, making her reichsgräfin (imperial countess) of Hoditz and Wolframitz.. To marry him Sophia converted to Catholicism and as a result she was granted an annual pension from the imperial court in Vienna. After her death in 1752 Sophia was cremated - this was the first cremation in a German-speaking country since their occurrence in non-Christian parts of the German Empire in the 13th century." (Wikipedia)


Georg Wilhelm's lover was:

a. Christiane Emilie von Gleichen.

Natural offspring:
a. Georg Wilhelm von Plassenberg

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