Auguste de Beauharnais, 2nd Duke of Leuchtenberg
Encyclopedia
Auguste Charles Eugène Napoléon de Beauharnais, 2nd Duke of Leuchtenberg (9 December 1810 – 28 March 1835) was the first Prince consort
of Maria II of Portugal.
, Lombardy
, he was the eldest son of Eugène de Beauharnais
, Napoleon I
's stepson, and Princess Augusta of Bavaria
. His dynastic
connections were exceptional, considering his paternal lineage: among his sisters were Joséphine
, Queen consort
of Oscar I of Sweden
, and Amélie, Empress consort of his future father-in-law Pedro I of Brazil. Later, his brother Maximilian would wed Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, eldest daughter of Tsar Nicholas I
.
and the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt
. Despite the promise of an independent principality inserted into the final treaty, the Congress of Vienna
adjourned without creating a state for Eugène, so Auguste and his siblings had no inheritance. To the empty Leuchtenberg ducal title had been added the estate of Eichstätt
in dowry
, made a nominal principality, also by King Maximilian. Eugène's eldest son Auguste was heir to this modest property, which he inherited when Eugène died on 21 February 1824.
On 4 February 1831 Leuchtenberg was one of three candidates for the throne of the newly-independent Belgium
, his Napoleonic connections allaying the concerns of some of the Great Powers worried that the breakaway Roman Catholic realm might otherwise ally itself too closely with the likewise Catholic and revolutionary "bourgeois monarchy" of Orléans
France. But in the election by the Belgian National Congress, Auguste came in second after the younger son of the King of the French, Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours
, though ahead of the Habsburg candidate, Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen
. In the event, none of these men attained the Belgian throne, which went to Britain's candidate, the freshly widowed, wily Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg
.
.
Maria's childhood betrothal to Dom Miguel was broken so that a more pliant husband could be found to beget a new Portuguese dynasty, one whose loyalty might prove more trustworthy if he had no other prospects, such that he would be entirely beholden for his dynastic fortune to Portugal's constitutional regime. The Queen obligingly settled on Auguste de Beauharnais who, once again, proved unthreatening to the Great Powers because of his lack of membership in an already reigning dynasty and lack of conflicting foreign obligations or ambitions. He was also the eldest brother of Maria's stepmother Empress Amélie, her late father's second wife.
Auguste and Maria II were married by proxy in Munich
on 1 December 1834. The groom was almost twenty-four years old and the bride only fifteen years old. On his wedding day his bride conferred upon him the Brazilian and Portuguese style of "His Imperial and Royal Highness The Prince Consort of Portugal, Duke of Santa Cruz".
He arrived in Portugal shortly thereafter and the couple were wed in person in Lisbon on 26 January 1835. However Auguste fell ill and died only two months later.
Childless at the time of his death, Auguste left as heir in Bavaria his younger brother, who became Maximilian, 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg
, and briefly Auguste's successor in ownership of Eichstätt which, however, he returned to the Bavarian king in 1855 upon deciding to make his home in Russia, the realm of his own father-in-law.
A year later Maria II would marry Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
, a nephew of the Coburg prince who had beat out her first husband in competition for the constitutional crown of Belgium.
Because Auguste died before fathering an heir to the Portuguese throne, he never obtained the title of King Consort, which Maria's next husband did obtain in 1837, becoming founder of the Coburg-Braganza dynasty.
Prince consort
A prince consort is the husband of a queen regnant who is not himself a king in his own right.Current examples include the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh , and Prince Henrik of Denmark .In recognition of his status, a prince consort may be given a formal...
of Maria II of Portugal.
Family
Born in MilanMilan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
, Lombardy
Lombardy
Lombardy is one of the 20 regions of Italy. The capital is Milan. One-sixth of Italy's population lives in Lombardy and about one fifth of Italy's GDP is produced in this region, making it the most populous and richest region in the country and one of the richest in the whole of Europe...
, he was the eldest son of Eugène de Beauharnais
Eugène de Beauharnais
Eugène Rose de Beauharnais, Prince Français, Prince of Venice, Viceroy of the Kingdom of Italy, Hereditary Grand Duke of Frankfurt, 1st Duke of Leuchtenberg and 1st Prince of Eichstätt ad personam was the first child and only son of Alexandre, Vicomte de Beauharnais and Joséphine Tascher de la...
, Napoleon I
Napoleon I
Napoleon Bonaparte was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution.As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815...
's stepson, and Princess Augusta of Bavaria
Princess Augusta of Bavaria
Princess Augusta of Bavaria, Duchess of Leuchtenberg was the second child and eldest daughter of Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt.- Marriage and issue :...
. His dynastic
Dynasty
A dynasty is a sequence of rulers considered members of the same family. Historians traditionally consider many sovereign states' history within a framework of successive dynasties, e.g., China, Ancient Egypt and the Persian Empire...
connections were exceptional, considering his paternal lineage: among his sisters were Joséphine
Josephine of Leuchtenberg
Joséphine of Leuchtenberg was Queen consort of Sweden and Norway as the wife of King Oscar I...
, Queen consort
Queen consort
A queen consort is the wife of a reigning king. A queen consort usually shares her husband's rank and holds the feminine equivalent of the king's monarchical titles. Historically, queens consort do not share the king regnant's political and military powers. Most queens in history were queens consort...
of Oscar I of Sweden
Oscar I of Sweden
Oscar I was King of Sweden and Norway from 1844 to his death. When, in August 1810, his father Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte was elected Crown Prince of Sweden, Oscar and his mother moved from Paris to Stockholm . Oscar's father was the first ruler of the current House of Bernadotte...
, and Amélie, Empress consort of his future father-in-law Pedro I of Brazil. Later, his brother Maximilian would wed Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia, eldest daughter of Tsar Nicholas I
Nicholas I of Russia
Nicholas I , was the Emperor of Russia from 1825 until 1855, known as one of the most reactionary of the Russian monarchs. On the eve of his death, the Russian Empire reached its historical zenith spanning over 20 million square kilometers...
.
Duke of Leuchtenberg
His maternal grandfather, King Maximilian I of Bavaria, had given Eugène the title "Duke of Leuchtenberg" on 14 November 1817, after the loss in 1815 of his Napoleonic titles and the associated expectancies of the Kingdom of ItalyKingdom of Italy
There have been several distinct entities known as the Kingdom of Italy. Italy under the rule of Odoacer from 476 to 493 is often called the Kingdom of Italy, since it encompassed the Roman province of Italy and Odoacer is periodically styled rex...
and the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt
Grand Duchy of Frankfurt
The Grand Duchy of Frankfurt was a German satellite state of Napoleonic creation. It came into existence in 1810 through the combination of the former territories of the Archbishops of Mainz along with the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt itself....
. Despite the promise of an independent principality inserted into the final treaty, the Congress of Vienna
Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna was a conference of ambassadors of European states chaired by Klemens Wenzel von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September, 1814 to June, 1815. The objective of the Congress was to settle the many issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars, the Napoleonic Wars,...
adjourned without creating a state for Eugène, so Auguste and his siblings had no inheritance. To the empty Leuchtenberg ducal title had been added the estate of Eichstätt
Eichstätt
Eichstätt is a town in the federal state of Bavaria, Germany, and capital of the District of Eichstätt. It is located along the Altmühl River, at , and had a population of 13,078 in 2002. It is home to the Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, the lone Catholic university in Germany. The...
in dowry
Dowry
A dowry is the money, goods, or estate that a woman brings forth to the marriage. It contrasts with bride price, which is paid to the bride's parents, and dower, which is property settled on the bride herself by the groom at the time of marriage. The same culture may simultaneously practice both...
, made a nominal principality, also by King Maximilian. Eugène's eldest son Auguste was heir to this modest property, which he inherited when Eugène died on 21 February 1824.
On 4 February 1831 Leuchtenberg was one of three candidates for the throne of the newly-independent Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...
, his Napoleonic connections allaying the concerns of some of the Great Powers worried that the breakaway Roman Catholic realm might otherwise ally itself too closely with the likewise Catholic and revolutionary "bourgeois monarchy" of Orléans
House of Orleans
Orléans is the name used by several branches of the Royal House of France, all descended in the legitimate male line from the dynasty's founder, Hugh Capet. It became a tradition during France's ancien régime for the duchy of Orléans to be granted as an appanage to a younger son of the king...
France. But in the election by the Belgian National Congress, Auguste came in second after the younger son of the King of the French, Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours
Louis, Duke of Nemours
Prince Louis of Orléans was the second son of the future King Louis-Philippe I of France, and his wife Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily. Under the reign of his father from 1830–1848, he was styled as Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours.-Childhood:He was born at the Palais Royal, in Paris...
, though ahead of the Habsburg candidate, Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen
Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen
Archduke Charles of Austria, Duke of Teschen was an Austrian field-marshal, the third son of emperor Leopold II and his wife Infanta Maria Luisa of Spain...
. In the event, none of these men attained the Belgian throne, which went to Britain's candidate, the freshly widowed, wily Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg
Leopold I of Belgium
Leopold I was from 21 July 1831 the first King of the Belgians, following Belgium's independence from the Netherlands. He was the founder of the Belgian line of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha...
.
Prince Consort of Portugal
On 26 May 1834, young Queen Maria II of Portugal was restored to the throne of Portugal, gifted to her by the abdication – and subsequent conquest in war – of her father, Emperor Pedro I of Brazil, who had to do battle against the usurpation of his rebellious younger brother, Dom MiguelMiguel of Portugal
Dom Miguel I, sometimes Michael , was the King of Portugal between 1828 and 1834, the seventh child and second son of King John VI and his queen, Charlotte of Spain....
.
Maria's childhood betrothal to Dom Miguel was broken so that a more pliant husband could be found to beget a new Portuguese dynasty, one whose loyalty might prove more trustworthy if he had no other prospects, such that he would be entirely beholden for his dynastic fortune to Portugal's constitutional regime. The Queen obligingly settled on Auguste de Beauharnais who, once again, proved unthreatening to the Great Powers because of his lack of membership in an already reigning dynasty and lack of conflicting foreign obligations or ambitions. He was also the eldest brother of Maria's stepmother Empress Amélie, her late father's second wife.
Auguste and Maria II were married by proxy in Munich
Munich
Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...
on 1 December 1834. The groom was almost twenty-four years old and the bride only fifteen years old. On his wedding day his bride conferred upon him the Brazilian and Portuguese style of "His Imperial and Royal Highness The Prince Consort of Portugal, Duke of Santa Cruz".
He arrived in Portugal shortly thereafter and the couple were wed in person in Lisbon on 26 January 1835. However Auguste fell ill and died only two months later.
Childless at the time of his death, Auguste left as heir in Bavaria his younger brother, who became Maximilian, 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg
Maximilian, Duke of Leuchtenberg
Maximilian Joseph Eugene Auguste Napoleon de Beauharnais , 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg, 3rd Prince of Venice Prince des Français and Hereditary Prince of the Kingdom of Italy and claimant to the Grand Duchy of Frankfurt was the husband of Grand Duchess Maria Nikolayevna of...
, and briefly Auguste's successor in ownership of Eichstätt which, however, he returned to the Bavarian king in 1855 upon deciding to make his home in Russia, the realm of his own father-in-law.
A year later Maria II would marry Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
Ferdinand II of Portugal
Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha , named Prince Ferdinand Augustus Francis Anthony of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Koháry, was King of Portugal as husband of Queen Maria II of Portugal from the birth of their son in 1837 to her death in 1853.In keeping with Portuguese law, only after the birth of his son in...
, a nephew of the Coburg prince who had beat out her first husband in competition for the constitutional crown of Belgium.
Because Auguste died before fathering an heir to the Portuguese throne, he never obtained the title of King Consort, which Maria's next husband did obtain in 1837, becoming founder of the Coburg-Braganza dynasty.