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| Joachim II of Brandenburg Hector @Wikipedia |
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| Magdalene of Saxony @Wikipedia |
1. Magdalene von Sachsen (1507-1534), mar 1524
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| Jadwiga of Poland @Wikipedia |
2. Jadwiga of Poland (1513-1573), mar 1535
" . . . [W]hen the new Elector Joachim assumed the ermine in his thirtieth year, he appeared to be a person devoid of sentiment, and little given to the tenderer emotions. He had inherited, as his portraits suggest, a tendency to gloom from his father, but in him this was conjoined with a certain indolence and love of ease that cause him, like Frederick William II, to meet the troubles of his times and the complaints of his subjects with bored inertia. . . ." (The Hohenzollerns)
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| Anna Sydow the White Lady @Wikipedia |
Anna Sydow (1525-1575)
Lover in 1549.
Daughter of Andreas Sydow and Gertraud Schneidewind
Wife of Michael Dieterich (d.1561)
Natural offspring:
a. Magdalene von Brandenburg, Countess of Arneburg (1558–1610)
b. Andreas von Brandenburg (1562-1569)
"Joachim's consort did not follow her husband's example by embracing Lutheranism. She was a Polish princess, and showed no inclination to forsake the faith of her forbears. Even apart from this difference the relations between the Elector and his second wife--the first died before his accession--do not appear to have been very affectionate. His Electoral Highness greatly preferred the company of the beautiful widow of a Berlin gunsmith, the complaisant Anna Sydow, who would accompany her lover on the chase clad in a man's leather riding-breeches. Joachim's subjects actually ventured to admonish him on his persistently scandalous way of life, and suggested that he should give more of his time to affairs of State and less to idling about the woods; they were rewarded for their interference with the same insulting answer that Gotz von Berlichingen made to the Emperor's emissary. As he grew older Joachim II became more and more spendthrift and prodigal, a luxury-loving hedonist, living recklessly and supporting a crowd of favourites who did the same. 'His generosity degenerated into prodigality,' complains Frederick the Great in his family history. . . ." (The Hohenzollerns)
"The Pole Electress broke a thigh and damaged her back in the collapse of a floor at a hunting lodge and spent the last twenty-two years of her life in invalid retirement. A mistress took her place, Anna Sydow, daughter of a civil servant, probably the first 'ducal' mistress to be recognized publicly in a Protestant country. Joachim II treated her as his wife. The people minded that she sometimes wore male costume when she went out with him, but excused the relationship because of the invalid Pole. She grew quite rich. He gave her a daughter whom the emperor made into a countess. When Joachim died his son immediately locked her up. She does not seem to have affected religion except that ther brother-in-law became a court chaplain and then the dean." (The Early Reformation on the Continent: 29)
"The Great Elector was fond of alluding to the story of the White Lady---the 'Weisse Frau'---whose appearance portended calamity or death os some member of the roal family. She is said to have been seen in the ominous years of 1640, 1740 and 1840. She was first seen shortly after the death of John Sigismund, in 1619. She is supposed by some to have been the mistress of Joachim II, Anna Sydow, who died a prisoner in the fortress of Spandau; others say she was a certain Beatrix, Countess of Orlamunde, who fell in love with the Burgrave Albrecht of Nuremberg; other,s again, say that her name was Bertha of Rosenberg, who was condemned to haunt the castles of der descendants in Brandenburg, Baden, and Darmstadt. . . ." (The Eclectic Magazine, Vol 30: 94)
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| Grunewald Hunting Lodge @Wikipedia |
" . . . Joachim employed an excellent architect, Caspar Theyss to build him the hunting-box 'Grune-wald,' where the merry gunmaker's widow spent many a night with her Royal lover. . . ." (The Hohenzollerns)
"In the same year that he became prince-elector, he married a lady from Poland named Hedwig. In 1549 she was involved in a tragic accident, severely injuring her abdomen and making it very difficult for her to walk. Joachim II consequently decided to have a relationship with a lady named Anna Sydow, who would eventually live in the Grunewald hunting lodge (which Joachim II had built) west of Berlin and gave birth to two of the Elector’s children there." (BBS)
"Yet according to another legend, Anna Sydow was walled in alive at the Grunewald hunting lodge, which means that the skeleton assumed to be hers in 1709 could very well have been the remains of someone else." (BBS)
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| Spandau Citadel @Wikipedia |
Affair's end & aftermath.
"The Spandau Citadel has become a popular tourist spot. Considered as one of Germany’s 10 most haunted places, the Citadel has a sad ghost story. Anna Sydow, the ex lover of ruler Joachim II in the 15th century, was locked in the structure when it was briefly a prison. While Joachim II had asked his son to care for Anna, he put her in the prison. According to the legends, Anna remains there today, still imprisoned, walking the halls." (The National Paranormal Society)
"The Citadel in Spandau is an old 16th century fortress which some sentimental Berliners might tell you is still haunted by the “Weiße Frau (white lady) of Hohenzollern” today.
"Ten years before Joachim II died, he made his son, Johann Georg, promise him to protect his beloved mistress, Anna Sydow, long after he was gone. But as soon as Johann Georg came to the throne in 1571, he went against his father’s wishes and had her immediately arrested and taken to the Spandau Citadel where she was imprisoned until her death in 1575.
" Just days before Johann Georg passed away in 1598, he supposedly saw her spirit appear to him as a “Weiße Frau” who would subsequently return to haunt the halls of the Spandau Citadel in the years thereafter." (BBS)
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Karl Alexander of Brandenburg-Ansbach |
Also known as:
Christian Friedrich Karl Alexander von Brandenburg-Ansbach.
Son of: Karl Wilhelm Friedrich, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach & Friederike Louise von Preussen.
Husband of:
1. Caroline Friederike von Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld, daughter of Franz Josias, Duke of Sachsen-Coburg-Saalfeld & Anne Sophie von Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, mar 1754
2. Elizabeth Berkeley (1750-1828), Lady Craven, mar 1767, daughter of Augustus Berkeley, 4th Earl of Berkeley & Elizabeth Drax.
2. Elizabeth Berkeley (1750-1828), Lady Craven, mar 1767, daughter of Augustus Berkeley, 4th Earl of Berkeley & Elizabeth Drax.
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| Elizabeth Berkeley Lady Craven @Wikipedia |
His lovers were:
1) Elizabeth Berkeley (1750-1828)
Lady Craven.
Lady Craven.
" . . . In 1789, Craven indulged the public with A Journey Through the Crimea to Constantinople, but chose to print only those letters addressed to a single correspondent. This was the Margrave Christian Frederick, sovereign of the Franconian principality of Ansbach-Bayreuth and a passionate Anglophile some thirty years older than Craven. It is unclear when or when the correspondents first met, although Craven suggests decorously that the Prince had known her from her 'infancy', and frames the relationshop throughout the letters as platonic and fraternal: a sympathetic meeting of minds over a shared loved of literature and music. Craven went to live with the Margrave and his first (estranged) wife at Triesdorf at the completion of her journey, and in 1791, immediately following the deaths of the Margrave's wife and Lord Craven, the couple were married in Lisbon, Portugal. The Margrave thus represents a third possible identification for the figure of 'Lady Craveling's' lover in the teapot, and the one most commonly assumed by subsequent curators and commentators." (Spaces for Feeling)
2) Fraulein Kurz.
French actress.
" . . . He was greatly interested in the stage, which led to his intimacy with the famous actress, Mlle. Clairon, who had made her reputation in the tragedies of Voltaire. In 1773 she was installed at his court as friend, adviser, mistress---'Maman' was his pet name for her, for she was long past her first youth---and for seventeen years she ruled the Margrave, and his poor sick pathetic wife, his court, and his Ministers, to their eternal benefit, according to her own testimony." (Benjamin Constant: 34)
"In 1769, when the Bayreuth line became extinct through the death of Charles Frederic without male issue, Charles Alexander, the last male of the house of Anspach-Brandenburg, succeeded as Margrave of Bayreuth-Anspach. . . ." (Benjamin Constant: 34)
" . . . He was greatly interested in the stage, which led to his intimacy with the famous actress, Mlle. Clairon, who had made her reputation in the tragedies of Voltaire. In 1773 she was installed at his court as friend, adviser, mistress---'Maman' was his pet name for her, for she was long past her first youth---and for seventeen years she ruled the Margrave, and his poor sick pathetic wife, his court, and his Ministers, to their eternal benefit, according to her own testimony." (Benjamin Constant: 34)
"In 1769, when the Bayreuth line became extinct through the death of Charles Frederic without male issue, Charles Alexander, the last male of the house of Anspach-Brandenburg, succeeded as Margrave of Bayreuth-Anspach. . . ." (Benjamin Constant: 34)
Physical appearance and personal qualities
" . . . He was the Margrave whom Benjamin knew. According to the delightful gossip, the baroness d'Oberkirch, the new Margrave set all Europe talking of his follies and eccentricities, which knew no bounds. In appearance he was a 'caricature of Cicero's bust ; retreating forehead, eyes high up in his head, nose like a trumpet, enormous turned-up chin, long ungainly neck.' He had a gift for mimicry, to which all the peculiarities of his courtiers were sacrificed. But was beloved by his people, in spite of his idiosyncrasies. . . ." (Benjamin Constant: 34)
Son of Georg Friedrich Karl von Brandenburg-Bayreuth & Dorothea von Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Beck
His lover was:
Rosalie Astrodi (1733-1756)
Lover in 1753-1755.
Italian singer, dancer, and actress.
" . . . The beautiful Astrodi whom all Paris knew: Rosalie Astrodi (1733-after 1756), singer, dancer, and actress with the Comedie Italienne, elder sister of Marguerite Astrodi; after first being the mistress of the Count of Egmont, in 1756 she married the Sieur Pajot de Villiers." (History of My Life, Vol 7: 305)
References.
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