Princess Karoline Amalie of Hesse-Kassel | |||||
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Duchess of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg | |||||
![]() Karoline Amalie, Duchess of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, by Josef Mathias Grassi, 1804.
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Born |
Hanau |
11 July 1771||||
Died | 22 February 1848 Gotha |
(aged 76)||||
Burial | 27 February 1848 Parkinsel, Gotha |
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Spouse | Augustus, Duke of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg | ||||
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House |
House of Hesse-Kassel (by birth) House of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (by marriage) |
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Father | William I, Elector of Hesse | ||||
Mother | Princess Wilhelmina Caroline of Denmark and Norway |
Full name | |
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German: Karoline Amalie |
Karoline Amalie of Hesse-Kassel (11 July 1771, Hanau – 22 February 1848, Gotha), was a German princess and member of the House of Hesse-Kassel by birth, and Duchess of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg by marriage.
She was the second daughter of Landgrave (later Prince) William I of Hesse by Princess Wilhelmina Caroline of Denmark and Norway, daughter of King Frederick V.
Since early childhood, Karoline Amalie was betrothed to her double first-cousin Prince Frederik of Hesse; however, the engagement was dissolved in 1799 after the apparent affair between her and chamberlain Count Ludwig von Taube, who ended when Landgrave William I dismissed him from his service and expelled from court. In the summer of 1801 Karoline Amalie met Hereditary Prince Augustus of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg when he visited the Kassel court. In January 1802 Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg, in the name of his son, asked the hand of the princess in marriage. The wedding ceremony took place in her homeland, Kassel, on 24 April of that year.
The union remained childless, but Karoline Amalie was a devoted stepmother for her husband's daughter from his first marriage, Princess Louise. Two years later, in 1804, Karoline Amalie became Duchess consort of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg after the death of her father-in-law.
The well-known painter Caroline Louise Seidler, who was at the court of Gotha in the winter of 1811 to paint the Ducal family, described Karoline Amalie rather unflattering as "good, benevolent, but not just an excellent lady". About the relation of the Duchess with her husband August, she also quoted: "She loved him enthusiastically, whose spirit they anstaunte".