Married, cast out, banished: divorced women of the high nobility, 1600–1850

The year 1826 marks a decisive turning point in the history of European dynasties: in November of that year, the Treaty of Hildburghausen established the Duchy of Saxony-Coburg and Gotha was established; through skilful marriage alliances in the 19th and early 20th centuries, its ruling house forged kinship ties with a multitude of reigning princely houses and ascended to the throne in several European countries. The very foundation of the ducal house was based on a marriage: the union in 1817, concluded for political reasons, between Duke Ernst of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (1784–1844) to Princess Luise of Saxe-Gotha and Altenburg (1800–1831), the daughter of the penultimate Duke of Gotha, August. Although this union was crucial to the Coburg line’s ability to prevail over the other Ernestine houses, Ernest I divorced his wife in the very year the new duchy was founded. Two years earlier, Luise had already been banished to St. Wendel in the Principality of Lichtenberg (in what is now Saarland), separated from her two sons, with whom she was henceforth forbidden any contact whatsoever.

To mark the 200th anniversary of the creation of the new duchy, this conference will, for the first time, systematically examine such cases of divorced women of the high nobility from the 16th to the early 19th century. Alongside well-known examples such as the English Queen Catherine of Aragon (1485–1536), the Hanoverian Elector’s Princess Sophie Dorothea (1666–1726), who became famous as the “Princess of Ahlden”, and the Danish Queen Caroline Mathilde (1751–1775), there are a multitude of other cases that have received little or no attention from historical research to date. These include a contemporary of Louise: Elisabeth Christine Ulrike of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (1746–1840) was divorced by her husband Frederick William II of Prussia in 1769 and banished to Stettin, where she spent the remaining 70 years of her life.

Individual cases have certainly attracted media attention as “tragic women’s fates”; in some instances, these were highly controversial events even at the time, discussed in pamphlets, newspapers or depicted on medals. However, the underlying motives and contexts – such as the complex legal aspects of marriage, with their connotations of sovereignty and power politics, which become apparent in these separations – have not yet been comprehensively examined.

The aim of the conference is therefore to conduct a systematic analysis of various, similar cases involving women from the high nobility who were disowned and/or whose marriages were dissolved. Equally relevant are attempted divorces and the reasons why these ultimately did not go ahead. Why were divorces sought? Which parties were involved? Who intervened on whose side? What were the details of the respective legal-historical or juridical arguments? Did the separation also become a topic in the media? To what extent did the women concerned express their views on the matter themselves, in correspondence or in literary works? The analysis focuses primarily on cases from the two lines of the House of Wettin and the House of Welf.