George William, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth


George William of Brandenburg-Bayreuth was a member of the House of Hohenzollern and Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth.

Family

He was the first son of Christian Ernst, Margrave of Brandenburg-Bayreuth by his second wife, Sophie Louise of Württemberg-Stuttgart, the fifth of six children. Two sisters died in infancy before his own birth, and his only brother, born in 1679, lived only five months. Of his two surviving sisters, the eldest, Christiane Eberhardine, became the wife of August II the Strong, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and the youngest, Eleonore Magdalene, married a distant kinsman, Hermann Frederick, Count of Hohenzollern-Hechingen.

Life

George William succeeded his father as margrave of Bayreuth when he died on 20 May 1712. He pursued a military career due to a lack of academic aptitude and participated successfully on the imperial side in numerous battles. In this connection, he was seriously hit by a musket ball near Landau, a wound that never healed completely. In his youth, before acceding to the margraviate, he created the suburb Saint George in The Lake. It was intended to be a self-contained city built in baroque style with a castle in the lake. In the artificially-created Brandenburg Pond, fed by the Steinach tributary, he installed a ski jump and organized naval battles with real ships. On 17 November 1705, he created the Order of the Red Eagle, then known as the Ordre de la Sincérité, and celebrated the anniversary of its foundation every year with splendid festivities. The Order of the Red Eagle also possessed its own church, the Sophienkirche. 18th-century coats of arms of the Order are displayed there to this day.
The margrave was an enthusiastic hunter who built the Emperor's Hunting Seat and the Thiergarten. In addition, he is considered the builder of the Hermitage Museum and Schloss Neustädtlein. As margrave, he expanded the armed forces substantially.

Marriage and issue

In Leipzig on 16 October 1699 George William married Sophie of Saxe-Weissenfels. They had five children:
  1. Christiane Sophie Wilhelmine. The only surviving child of her parents, she was involved in a scandal that led to the birth of twins born out of wedlock. Both died shortly after their birth in 1724. For her indiscretion, she was banished to her uncle's court in Kulmbach, where she died, unmarried and childless, twenty-five years later. Before her departure from her father's court, was allowed to imbed her petschaft in the wall of her room in the Schloss Himmelkron. In 1977 this object was finally found and is now displayed in the Museum of the Collegiate Church of Bayreuth ''.
  2. Eberhardine Elisabeth.
  3. Christian William.
  4. Christian Frederick William.
  5. Francis Adolph William, Christian's twin.
Devastated by the tragedy surrounding his beloved daughter, George William suffered a fatal decline in his health and died only two years later. Without surviving male issue, he was succeeded by his cousin George Frederick Charles, Margrave of Kulmbach.

Ancestors