Countess Clotilde of Nassau-Merenberg


Clotilde, Countess von Merenberg, is a German psychiatrist and the last patrilineal descendant of the House of Nassau. She is a descendant of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin.

Family

A psychiatrist, Clotilde is the only child of Count George von Merenberg and Elisabeth Müller-Uri. She is the last patrilineal descendant of the House of Nassau, the male line of which ruled the Duchy of Nassau until 1866, provided a 12th-century German king, a line of Princes of Orange who served first as stadholders of the United Dutch Provinces and, from 1815 to 1948, as kings of the Netherlands, and reigned as grand dukes of Luxembourg until 1968. Neither she, however, nor her father or paternal grandfather were deemed full members of the Nassau dynasty, the last member of which, Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg, died in 1985. While Countess Clothilde's branch of the family had legitimate male members until 1965, they had been bypassed for Luxembourg's throne since 1907.
The Counts von Merenberg descend legitimately from the morganatic marriage in 1868 of Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau and Natalia Pushkina, an untitled member of the lower Russian nobility, a daughter of the renowned poet Alexander Pushkin. Although their son, :de:Georg von Merenberg|Count George von Merenberg married Princess Olga Alexandrovna Yurievskaya, a daughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia, and pressed for recognition as heir presumptive to the Luxembourgeois throne as its grand ducal line approached extinction, a 1907 law of the grandduchy dismissed the Merenbergs' claim to the throne.
Prince Nikolaus was a great-grandson of Charles Christian, 3rd Prince of Nassau-Weilburg, who in 1760 married Princess Carolina of Orange-Nassau, a daughter of the Dutch stadholder William IV, Prince of Orange and Anne, Princess Royal of Great Britain. Countess Clotilde is also a great-granddaughter of the Russian Emperor Alexander II.

Marriage and children

In 1965, she married Jonkheer Enno von Rintelen, a gynecologist, son of Jonkheer Viktor von Rintelen and Antonie Bracht. He was a grandson of :de:Wilhelm von Rintelen|Wilhelm von Rintelen, a prussian Lieutenant general ennobled in 1913 by German Emperor Wilhelm II.
Clotilde and Enno have three sons:
Clotilde is the chairwoman of the German Pushkin society and also the chairwoman of the Herus e.V. - Hessisch-russischer interkultureller Austausch und humanitäre Hilfe.

Ancestry

  1. Drutwin
  2. Drutwin
  3. Drutwin, Count in Königssundergau
  4. Adelhart, Vogt in Haiger
  5. :de:Ruprecht von Laurenburg|Rupert of Laurenburg
  6. Dudo of Laurenburg
  7. Rupert I, Count of Laurenburg
  8. Walram I, Count of Nassau
  9. Henry II, Count of Nassau
  10. Walram II, Count of Nassau
  11. Adolf of Nassau, King of Germany
  12. Gerlach I, Count of Nassau
  13. John I, Count of Nassau-Weilburg
  14. Philipp I, Count of Nassau-Weilburg
  15. Philip II, Count of Nassau-Weilburg
  16. John III, Count of Nassau-Weilburg
  17. Louis I, Count of Nassau-Weilburg
  18. Philip III, Count of Nassau-Weilburg
  19. Albert, Count of Nassau-Weilburg
  20. Louis II, Count of Nassau-Weilburg
  21. Ernest Casimir, Count of Nassau-Weilburg
  22. Frederick, Count of Nassau-Weilburg
  23. John Ernst, 1st Prince of Nassau-Weilburg
  24. Charles August, 2nd Prince of Nassau-Weilburg
  25. Charles Christian, 3rd Prince of Nassau-Weilburg
  26. Frederick William, 4th Prince of Nassau-Weilburg
  27. William, Duke of Nassau
  28. Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau
  29. :de:Georg von Merenberg|Count George of Merenberg
  30. Count George of Merenberg
  31. Countess Clotilde of Merenberg