Ancestry
 | This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources .(November 2021) |
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| Donatus | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Head of the House of Hesse | |||||
| Tenure | 23 May 2013 – present | ||||
| Predecessor | Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse | ||||
| Heir apparent | Moritz | ||||
| Born | 17 October 1966 Kiel, Schleswig-Holstein, West Germany | ||||
| Spouse | Countess Floria Franziska Marie-Luisa Erika von Faber-Castell | ||||
| Issue | Moritz, Hereditary Prince of Hesse Princess Paulina Prince August | ||||
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| House | Hesse | ||||
| Father | Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse | ||||
| Mother | Princess Tatiana of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg | ||||
Donatus, Prince and Landgrave of Hesse (legally Heinrich Donatus Philipp Umberto Prinz und Landgraf von Hessen; born 17 October 1966) is a German businessman and the head of the House of Brabant and the House of Hesse.
He is the eldest son and successor of German aristocrat Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse, and his former wife, Princess Tatiana of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg (b. 1940). [1] A great-grandson of Victor Emmanuel III of Italy, he is named in part after Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse. He is also a descendant of Queen Victoria, Frederick III, German Emperor, and of King Nicholas I of Montenegro. [2] He is a relative of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, whose funeral he attended. [3] The two are related through the Duke's British-born mother and a Princess of Battenberg by birth, Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark, and the marriages of Philip's sisters Cécilie and Sophie into the House of Hesse.
Donatus's father became the head of the Hesse-Cassel line on the death of his own father, Landgrave Philipp in 1980. [4] Having also been the adopted son and heir of his distant cousin, Louis, Prince of Hesse and by Rhine, [5] the latter's death in 1968 as the last male of the Hesse-Darmstadt branch left Moritz head of the entire House of Hesse, to which Donatus is the successor.
Donatus directs the Hessische Hausstiftung (Foundation of the House of Hesse), a foundation (see below) established to curate and showcase the cultural heritage and history of the House of Hesse, [6] a dynasty which ruled the Electorate of Hesse-Cassel until 1866, the Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine until 1918, and whose male-line antecedents and co-lateral ties include the Protestant leader Philip the Magnanimous, the Swedish king Frederick I, Russia's last tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, the exiled Spanish queen Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg, and Britain's last viceroy of India, the assassinated Louis, Earl Mountbatten of Burma.
Donatus also manages Prinz von Hessen, a winery specializing in production of varietal vintages on his 45 hectare vineyard. [6]
Donatus married Countess Floria Franziska Marie-Luisa Erika von Faber-Castell (born 14 October 1974, Düsseldorf) in a civil ceremony in Wiesbaden on 25 April 2003. The bride is a communications professional and a niece of Count Anton Wolfgang von Faber-Castell, chairman of the board of the famous Faber-Castell pen-and-pencil company headquartered near Nuremberg and scion of the eponymous family, which is a morganatic branch of the Castell-Rüdenhausen princely family. [6] Prince Donatus and Floria Franziska are 6th cousins, as both descended from Frederick II, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel and his first wife Princess Mary of Great Britain.
The couple's religious wedding ceremony took place on 17 May 2003, attended by royalty and aristocrats. [7] [ better source needed ] Held at the Johanneskirche and followed by a grand ball in the Green Salon, state room of the former Friedrichshof palace in Kronberg (now a luxury hotel and golf course owned by the House of Hesse's family foundation) where Donatus's ancestress, the German Empress Frederick, Princess Royal, lived in widowhood, more than 300 guests were present. [6] Among them was Caroline, Princess of Hanover, Princess Benedikte of Denmark, aunt of the bridegroom and sister of Queens Margrethe II and Anne-Marie of Greece; and Gloria, Princess of Thurn and Taxis.
Landgrave Donatus and his wife have a daughter and two sons: [8]
In 2021, Donatus was one of only 30 mourners at Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh's, funeral at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. [9] He also attended the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II at Westminster Abbey, London, on 19 September 2022. [10] King Charles III appointed Donatus his personal representative to the funeral of his first cousin Maximilian, Margrave of Baden, on 13 January 2023. [11]
Although, as a descendant of Queen Victoria, he is only a distant relative of today's British royals who are more closely related to some other princes of Hesse, descendants of Prince Philip's sister Sophie, there is a close connection to the British royal family through Donatus' adoptive grandparents, Louis, Prince of Hesse and by Rhine, and his wife Margaret Campbell Geddes, who were relatives and close friends of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, as Philip's sister Cecilie had been married to Louis' elder brother Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse. [12] [13] The late Queen, Prince Philip and Charles (then Prince of Wales) have visited Wolfsgarten on several occasions. [14] [15] [16] In London's Westminster Abbey Donatus and his wife also attended the state funeral of Queen Elizabeth II in 2022 and the Coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla in 2023.
| This section of a biography of a living person does not include any references or sources .(November 2021) |
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Founded in 1928, the Foundation of the House of Hesse is the successor institution of a family trust that had been established in 1830, confiscated by the Kingdom of Prussia in 1866, and re-established after partial restitution in 1878. The foundation manages the family fortunes including forests, agricultural estates, castles, hotels and an art collection. [17] The latter is mainly shown at Fasanerie Palace in Eichenzell, Hesse, a former summer palace of the Prince Abbots of Fulda that had been taken over by the Landgraves of Hesse after the secularization and mediatisation of the Prince-bishopric of Fulda in 1803. Schlosshotel Kronberg and (until 2020 [18] ) Grandhotel Hessischer Hof in Frankfurt are hotels operated by the foundation, the Weingut Prinz von Hessen a winery in Johannisberg which was purchased in 1957, while Schloß Wolfsgarten south of Frankfurt am Main and Panker estate in Schleswig-Holstein are used as private seats of the family. Other castles have been sold, such as Schloss Philippsruhe in Hanau (in 1950), Schloss Rumpenheim in Offenbach am Main (in 1965) and Tarasp Castle in Switzerland (in 2016). The Landgrave and his family live in Wolfsgarten and Panker.
The first two branches united in 1997 of the result of the last prince and princess of Hesse-Darmstadt, who were childless, adopting the current head of the house of Hesse-Cassel, Landgrave Moritz. This took place in 1960, and the death of Margaret ("Peg") von Hessen-Darmstadt in 1997 (Ludwig died in 1968) left Landgrave Moritz as the head of both houses.
The House of Hesse is a European dynasty, directly descended from the House of Brabant. They ruled the region of Hesse, one branch as prince-electors until 1866, and another branch as grand dukes until 1918.
Ernest Louis was the last Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, reigning from 1892 until 1918.
The House of Castell is a German noble family of mediatised counts of the old Holy Roman Empire. In 1901, the heads of the two family branches, Castell-Castell and Castell-Rüdenhausen, were each granted the hereditary title of Prince by Luitpold, Prince Regent of Bavaria.
Princess Cecilie of Greece and Denmark was by birth a Greek and Danish princess who became titular Hereditary Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine through her marriage to Prince Georg Donatus, pretender to the throne of the Grand Duchy of Hesse. She was also the third-eldest sister to Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark.
Margaret of Prussia was the youngest child of Frederick III, German Emperor, and Victoria, Princess Royal. She was also the younger sister of Emperor Wilhelm II and the granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She married Prince Frederick Charles of Hesse, the elected King of Finland, making her the would-be Queen of Finland had he not decided to renounce the throne on 14 December 1918. In 1926, they assumed the titles of Landgrave and Landgravine of Hesse. The couple had six sons and lost three of them in wartime, two during the First and one during the Second World War.
Louis IX of Hesse-Darmstadt was the reigning Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt from 1768 to 1790.
Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse was the son of Prince Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, and the head of the House of Brabant and the German House of Hesse.
Georg Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse was the first child of Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse, and his second wife, Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich. He was a nephew of Empress Alexandra and Emperor Nicholas II of Russia.
Louis, Prince of Hesse and by Rhine was the youngest son of Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse by his second wife, Princess Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich. He was a great-grandson of Queen Victoria.
Princess Sophie of Greece and Denmark was by birth a Greek and Danish princess, as well as Princess of Hesse-Kassel and Princess of Hanover through her successive marriages to Prince Christoph of Hesse and Prince George William of Hanover. An elder sister of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, she was, for a time, linked to the Nazi regime.
Prince Christoph of Hesse was a nephew of Kaiser Wilhelm II. He was an SS-Oberführer in the Allgemeine SS and an officer in the Luftwaffe Reserve, killed on active duty in a plane crash during World War II. His brother-in-law, Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, fought on the British side and married the future Queen Elizabeth II after the war.
Bernhard Prinz und Markgraf von Baden, styled Margrave of Baden and Duke of Zähringen as the head of the House of Baden, since 29 December 2022, following the death of his father, Maximilian. He is a first cousin once removed of King Charles III of the United Kingdom.
The House Order of the Golden Lion was an order of the German Landgraviate and Electorate of Hesse-Kassel and later, the Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine. It was first instituted in 1770 by Landgrave Frederick II, in honour of and under the patronage of Saint Elizabeth of Hungary, an ancestor of the House of Hesse, and was intended to award auspicious merit.
Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich was Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine as the second wife of Grand Duke Ernest Louis. She was nicknamed "Onor" by her family. She was regent of Hesse in the absence of her spouse during World War I.
Schloss Wolfsgarten is a former hunting seat of the ruling family of Hesse-Darmstadt, located in the German state of Hessen, approximately 15 kilometers south of Frankfurt am Main. The hunting lodge was established between 1722 and 1724 by Landgrave Ernst Ludwig of Hesse-Darmstadt. Ernst Ludwig's purpose in establishing Wolfsgarten was to pursue his passion for hunting with dogs which he introduced into Hesse in 1709. The original building corresponded to the usual pattern for hunting seats of that era with a rectangular yard around which was grouped housing for gentlemen, the stables for the horses, and kennels for the dogs. After Ernst Ludwig's successors abandoned hunting with dogs in 1768, Wolfsgarten was abandoned until the 1830s when the grand ducal family began to restore and expand the property. From 1879, Wolfsgarten became a favorite country retreat for Grand Dukes Ludwig IV and his son Ernst Ludwig.
Philip August Frederick was Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg from 19 January 1839 until his death. He was a field marshal in the imperial Austrian army.
Leopold Victor Friedrich of Hesse-Homburg was a prince of Hesse-Homburg.
Margaret, Princess of Hesse and by Rhine was the wife of Louis, Prince of Hesse and by Rhine, the last prince of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt. Born in Ireland, she became a noted art patron in her adopted homeland of Germany.
Jagdschloss Kranichstein is a palace in Kranichstein, now part of Darmstadt, Hesse, Germany. It was built north of Darmstadt from 1578 as a Jagdschloss, a hunting lodge for George I, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. It served also as a summer residence. In 1917, it became a museum of hunting. From 1946, it was the first location of the Darmstädter Ferienkurse.