Princess Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt

Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt
Duchess of Zweibrücken

Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt, Duchess of Zweibrücken
Born (1765-04-14)14 April 1765
Darmstadt
Died 30 March 1796(1796-03-30) (aged 30)
Rohrbach
Spouse Maximilian, Duke of Zweibrücken
Issue Ludwig I of Bavaria
Princess Augusta, Duchess of Leuchtenberg
Princess Amalie of Bavaria
Caroline, Empress of Austria
Prince Karl Theodor of Bavaria
Full name
German: Marie Auguste Wilhelmine
House House of Hesse-Darmstadt
House of Wittelsbach
Father Prince Georg Wilhelm of Hesse-Darmstadt
Mother Maria Luise Albertine of Leiningen-Falkenburg-Dagsburg
Religion Lutheranism

Princess Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt (German: Marie Auguste Wilhelmine von Hessen-Darmstadt) (14 April 1765 – 30 March 1796) was the mother of King Ludwig I of Bavaria.

Augusta Wilhelmine was born at Darmstadt, the fourth daughter and ninth child of Prince Georg Wilhelm of Hesse-Darmstadt (second son of Louis VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt) and Maria Louise Albertine of Leiningen-Falkenburg-Dagsburg.

Biography

Marriage and children

On 30 September 1785, in Darmstadt, Augusta Wilhelmine married Maximilian, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken (later King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria). They had five children:

Maximilian was an officer in the French army stationed at Strasbourg, but the couple also often visited Paris.[1] There Augusta Wilhelmine met Queen Marie Antoinette with whom she maintained an ongoing correspondence.

In 1789 Maximilian's regiment rose in revolt and he and Augusta Wilhelmine fled to her parents' home in Darmstadt.[2] For the next five years they lived mostly in the neighbouring town of Mannheim. In December 1794 the French army attacked Mannheim. Augusta Wilhelmine fled the city when her home was shelled by French artillery.[3]

Duchess of Zweibrücken

In April 1795 Maximilian succeeded his brother as reigning Duke of Zweibrücken; however, his duchy was entirely occupied by the French. In March 1796 Augusta Wilhelmine, who had always had delicate lungs, finally succumbed and died at Rohrbach.[4] She was buried in the Schlosskirche in Darmstadt.[5]

Ancestry

Footnotes

  1. Egon Caesar Corti, Ludwig I of Bavaria (London: Thornton Butterworth, 1938), 15.
  2. Corti, 19.
  3. Corti, 21.
  4. Corti, 24.
  5. Hans Rall, Wittelsbacher Lebensbilder von Kaiser Ludwig bis zur Gegenwart (Munich: Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfonds), 142.

Bibliography

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