Everything about Leopold I Of Belgium totally explained
Leopold I (
Leopold George Christian Frederick of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, later of
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha) (
16 December,
1790 in
Coburg –
10 December,
1865 in
Laeken/
Laken) was from
21 July,
1831 the first
King of the Belgians. He was the founder of the Belgian line of the
House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. His children included
Leopold II of Belgium and
Empress Carlota of Mexico.
Early life
He was the youngest son of
Franz Frederick Anton, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and Countess
Augusta Reuss-Ebersdorf, and later became a prince of
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha after the territorial swap by his father of Ehrenburg Castle in the
Bavarian town of
Coburg. He was also an uncle of
Queen Victoria of the
United Kingdom.
In
1795, as a mere child, Leopold was appointed
colonel of the Izmaylovsky Imperial Regiment in
Russia. Seven years later he became a
major general. When Napoleonic troops occupied the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg in 1806 Leopold went to
Paris.
Napoléon offered him the position of adjutant, but he refused. Instead he took up a military career in the Imperial Russian cavalry. He campaigned against Napoléon, and distinguished himself at the
Battle of Kulm at the head of his
cuirassier division. In
1815, Leopold reached the rank of
lieutenant general in the
Imperial Russian Army.
In
Carlton House on
2 May,
1816, he married
Princess Charlotte Augusta of Wales, the only legitimate child of the British Prince Regent (later King
George IV of the United Kingdom) and therefore heiress to the British throne, and was created a
British field-marshal and
Knight of the Garter. On
5 November,
1817, Princess Charlotte was delivered of a stillborn son; she herself died the following day. Had she lived, she'd have become Queen of the United Kingdom on the death of her father, and Leopold presumably would have been her consort, and never chosen King of the Belgians. Despite Charlotte's death, the Prince Regent granted Prince Leopold the British style of
Royal Highness by
Order-in-Council on
6 April 1818. In honor of his first wife, Leopold and
Louise-Marie of France, his second wife, named their first daughter Charlotte, who would later become
Empress Carlota of Mexico.
On
2 July,
1829, Leopold participated in nuptials of doubtful validity (a private marriage-contract with no religious or public ceremony) with the actress
Caroline Bauer, created
Countess of Montgomery, a cousin of his advisor,
Christian Friedrich Freiherr von Stockmar. The 'marriage' reportedly ended in
1831 and the following year he married Louise-Marie.
King of the Belgians
Further Information
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