Duke Louis of Württemberg


Duke Louis of Württemberg was the second son of Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg and Margravine Sophia Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt. His elder brother was Frederick I, the first King of Württemberg, his sister was the Russian Empress consort, Maria Feodorovna. Louis retained the pre-royal title of Duke.

Biography

Life in military

Louis Frederick was a general in the cavalry. He was briefly a high ranking commander the Army of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth appointed the commander of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania's army, but betrayed the Commonwealth, refusing to fight against Russian troops throughout the Polish–Russian War of 1792, while feigning illness. For his betrayal he was dismissed from his post, but never prosecuted. His Polish wife, Duchess Maria, divorced him shortly afterward after his treason became public knowledge.

Marriages and issue

He married on 28 October 1784 Princess Maria Czartoryska, daughter of Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski and Countess Isabella von Flemming.
They had one child before they divorced in 1793 :
On 28 January 1797 in, near Bayreuth, Louis Frederick was married to Princess Henriette of Nassau-Weilburg, daughter of Charles Christian, Duke of Nassau-Weilburg and Princess Carolina of Orange-Nassau. The couple had five children:
He is an ancestor of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and her husband Prince Philip, King Felipe VI of Spain and Charles Napoléon.
Between 1807 and 1810, Duke Louis employed the composer Carl Maria von Weber as his secretary with no musical duties. Weber and the duke's older brother Frederick mutually disliked each other, and the composer was banished from Württemberg after accusations of misappropriating some of the duke's money.

Ancestry