Emmanuel Ignatius of Nassau-Siegen

Emmanuel Ignatius of Nassau-Siegen (6 January 1688 - 1 August 1735), was a Fieldmarshal of the Spanish and Austrian Army, and Regent of the Principality of Nassau-Siegen in 1727.

Born in Roermond, he was the twenty-second child of John Francis Desideratus, Prince of Nassau-Siegen, but the ninth born from his third and last marriage with the French Isabella Clara du Puget de la Serre.

A member of the Catholic branch of the House of Nassau-Siegen, his status and that of his full brothers as dynastic members of the family was disputed because their parents' marriage was deemed morganatic. The marriage contract between John Francis Desideratus and Isabella Clara du Puget (signed one month after their marriage, on 13 March) stipulated that their offspring would have no higher rank than that of untitled nobles unless the male descendants of the Prince, through his two previous (and equal) marriages, became extinct. Despite this provision, after the death of John Francis Desideratus on 17 December 1699, Emmanuel Ignatius (who inherited the Barony de Renaix with his older brothers) and his surviving full-siblings assumed the title, name and arms of Nassau-Siegen. Their older half-brother William Hyacinth, Prince of Nassau-Siegen obtained from the Reichshofrat (in 1701) and the Reichskammergericht (in 1709) legal judgments denying dynastic titles of the Princes of Nassau-Siegen to the descendants of the John Francis Desideratus' third marriage on the grounds that the marriage contract signed in 1669 was for a morganatic union. Despite this, Emmanuel Ignatius and his siblings all used the title of Prince(ss) of Nassau, Count(ess) of Katzenelnbogen, Vianden and Diez, Baron(ess) of Beilstein and Ronse.

In Paris on 14 May 1711, Emmanuel Ignatius married with Charlotte (17 March 1688 - 17 March 1769), daughter of Louis II, Count de Mailly-Nesle. They had two sons, who died in infancy: Charles Nicholas (14 February 1712 - 1 July 1712) and Maximilian (29 August 1713 - 1714).

Almost since the beginning, the marriage was extremely unhappy. In 1716 Emmanuel Ignatius and Charlotte became officially separated; since them, she maintained a dissolute life in Paris, and her husband had her imprisoned in a monastery for adultery.

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