Frederick II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg


Friedrich Eugen, Duke of Württemberg was the fourth son of Karl Alexander, Duke of Württemberg, and Princess Maria Augusta of Thurn and Taxis. He was born in Stuttgart. From 1795 until 1797 he was Duke of Württemberg.

Soldier

After serving with Frederick the Great during the Seven Years' War, he took up residence in 1769 at his family's exclave, the County of Montbéliard, of which he was also made lieutenant-general in March 1786 by his eldest brother, Charles Eugene, Duke of Württemberg, who had begun to come into the inheritance of portions of the County of Limpurg in the 1780s. He bought the castle and lordship of Hochberg in 1779, but re-sold it in 1791 to his brother. The next year he was named governor of the margraviate of Ansbach-Bayreuth by King Frederick William II of Prussia, to whom it had been sold by the last prince of that branch of the House of Hohenzollern. Montbéliard was taken over by the short-lived Rauracian Republic in 1792, then annexed by the French Republic in 1793.

Duke

His elder brothers had only daughters, so following Charles Eugene's death in 1793 and then that of their brother Duke Ludwig Eugen, Frederick Eugene became reigning duke until his own death two years later. He acquiesced to the Treaty of Paris with revolutionary France, in which his claims to Montbéliard and all other territories on the left bank of the Rhine River were renounced. Frederick Eugene retained, however, France's recognition of the integrity of the duchy of Württemberg itself.

Marriage and children

Frederick Eugene married Friederike Sophia Dorothea of Brandenburg-Schwedt, a niece of Frederick the Great, by whom he had twelve children:
  1. Frederick I, his successor, who would later become the first King of Württemberg;
  2. Louis, commander of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania's army, married Polish princess Maria Anna Czartoryska;
  3. Eugene ;
  4. Sophie Dorothea, married to Paul I, Emperor of Russia;
  5. William Frederick Philip ; father of Wilhelm, 1st Duke of Urach;
  6. Ferdinand Frederick Augustus, married Princess Kunigunde von Metternich, sister of Klemens Wenzel, Prince von Metternich;
  7. Friederike Elisabeth Amalie, married to Peter I, Grand Duke of Oldenburg;
  8. Elisabeth Wilhelmine Luise, married to Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor;
  9. Friederike Wilhelmine Katharina ;
  10. Charles Frederick Henry ;
  11. Alexander Frederick Charles, the founder of the fifth branch of Württemberg, to which today's head of the House, Duke Carl Maria of Württemberg, belongs;
  12. Charles Henry, married under the name "Count von Sontheim" in 1798 Christianne-Caroline Alexeï, who was created Baroness von Hochberg und Rottenburg in 1807 and was raised, along with her children, to the rank and title of Countess von Urach on 12 November 1825. Of their five daughters three died young, while Countess Marie von Urach wed Karl, Prince of Hohenlohe-Kirchberg in 1821 and Countess Alexandrine von Urach married Charles, Count Arpeau de Gallatin in 1825, from whom she was divorced in 1843.
The duke died at Hohenheim, aged 65.

Notable descendants

His daughter, Sophie Dorothea, married Emperor Paul I of Russia and became Empress Marie Feodorovna. The Empress was mother to Emperors Alexander I and Nicholas I of Russia as well as Queen Anna Paulowna of the Netherlands and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, great-grandmother of German Emperor William II.
Through his second son, Duke Louis of Württemberg, he is also an ancestor of Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and Juan Carlos I of Spain. Through his eldest son, Frederick I, he is an ancestor of Boris Johnson, elected Mayor of London in 2008 and 2012, and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom in 2019.

Ancestry

On-line material