Anna Louise Föhse


Anna Louise Föhse, Princess of the Holy Roman Empire was a German imperial princess. Born as a commoner to Rudolf Föhse, the court pharmacist in Dessau, and his wife, Agnes Ohme, she married Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau and was later ennobled by Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor.

Life

Anna Louise Föhse was the childhood sweetheart and later morganatic wife of Prince Leopold I of Anhalt-Dessau. Despite great resistance on the part of her own father and of her mother-in-law Henriette Catherine, the daughter of Frederick Henry of Orange-Nassau, she married him in 1698 at age 22. After paying to the imperial treasury, she was raised to Imperial Princess by Emperor Leopold I three years later, giving her a higher rank than him.
In the same year 1698, he took up government. Anna Louise and Leopold had ten children together; Leopold also fathered two illegitimate children in 1733 and 1735.
Relations between Anna Louise and her mother-in-law later improved. She also had a good relationship with the Prussian royal family. Her career was the subject of the tabloid press of the day, and of several plays. She died in 1745; broken-hearted by her loss, Leopold died only two years later.

Issue

  1. William Gustav
  2. Leopold II Maximilian, Leopold's successor and a Prussian Field Marshal
  3. Dietrich, also a Prussian field marshal
  4. Frederick Henry
  5. Henriette Marie Louise
  6. Louise, married Victor Frederick, Prince of Anhalt-Bernburg
  7. Maurice, also a Prussian field marshal
  8. Anna Wilhelmine
  9. Leopoldine Marie - married to Frederick Henry of Brandenburg-Schwedt
  10. Henriette Amalie

    Footnotes