Battenberg

Battenberg, the name of a family of German counts which died out about 1314, whose seat was the castle of Kellerburg, near Battenberg, a small place now in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau. The title was revived in 1851, when Alexander (1823-1888), a younger son of Louis II., grand-duke of Hesse, contracted a morganatic marriage with a Polish lady, Countess Julia Theresa von Haucke (1825-1895), who was then created countess of Battenberg. Raised to the rank of a princess in 1858, the countess and her children were allowed to style themselves princes and princesses of Battenberg, with the addition of Durchlaucht or Serene Highness. The eldest son of this union, Louis Alexander (b. 1854), married in 1884 Victoria, daughter of Louis IV., grand-duke of Hesse, and became an admiral in the British navy. The second son, Alexander Joseph (q.v.), was prince of Bulgaria from 1879 to 1886. The third son, Henry Maurice, was born in 1858, and married on the 23rd of July 1885 Beatrice, youngest daughter of Victoria, queen of England. He died at sea on the 20th of January 1896 when returning from active service with the British troops during the Ashanti War, and left three sons and a daughter, Victoria Eugénie, who was married in 1906 to Alphonso XIII., king of Spain. The fourth son, Francis Joseph, born in 1861, married in 1897 Anna, daughter of Nicholas I., prince of Montenegro, and is the author of Die volkswirtschaftliche Entwickelung Bulgariens von 1879 bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1891). The only daughter of the princess of Battenberg, Marie Caroline, born in 1852, was married in 1871 to Gustavus Ernest, prince and count of Erbach-Schönberg.