Princess Anna Elisabeth Louise of Brandenburg-Schwedt

Princess and Margravine Anna Elisabeth Louise of Brandenburg-Schwedt (German: Luise; 22 April 1738 – 10 February 1820) was a Prussian princess by marriage to her uncle Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia. She was a daughter of Margrave Frederick William of Brandenburg-Schwedt and Princess Sophia Dorothea of Prussia.[1]

Anna Elisabeth Louise of Brandenburg-Schwedt
Princess Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia
Portrait by Anna Rosina de Gasc, 1756
Born(1738-04-22)22 April 1738
Schwedt
Died22 February 1820(1820-02-22) (aged 81)
Berlin, Brandenburg
Burial
Berlin Cathedral
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1755; died 1813)​
Issue
Names
German: Anna Elisabeth Luise
HouseBrandenburg-Schwedt
FatherFrederick William, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt
MotherPrincess Sophia Dorothea of Prussia

Early life

Anna Elisabeth Louise was one of five children born to Margrave Frederick William of Brandenburg-Schwedt and Sophia Dorothea of Prussia. Her siblings included Sophia Dorothea, Duchess of Württemberg, and Philippine, Landgravine of Hesse-Cassel.

Her father was a son of Philip William, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt and Princess Johanna Charlotte of Anhalt-Dessau.

Her mother was a daughter of Frederick William I of Prussia and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover. Through her mother, Anna Elisabeth Louise was a niece of Frederick the Great.

Princess of Prussia

On 27 September 1755 in Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin, Anna Elisabeth Louise married her uncle Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia, a younger brother of her mother, Sophia Dorothea.[1] He was eight years older than she and was a younger son of Frederick William I of Prussia and Sophia Dorothea of Hanover (herself the only daughter of George I of Great Britain).

The biological father of her daughter Louise, who was born in 1770, may have been Count Friedrich Wilhelm Carl von Schmettau.[2] Louise was described as nice, witty and kind.[3] The Swedish Princess Hedwig Elizabeth Charlotte described her at the time of her visit in 1798:

In the afternoon, we visited this Princess, who lives at Bellevue in the outskirts of Berlin. It is a little villa, very suitable for a private person but far from royal. The reception here was quite dissimilar from the one at my aunt. Princess Ferdinand is stiff and made it obvious that she wished to impress us. I was of course polite, but after I had noticed, that she took on a condescending tone and wished to embarrass me, I replied the same way and displayed the same haughtiness. The Princess is no longer young, has surely been beautiful, looks like an aristocratic Frenchwoman but not like a Princess, for she has nothing royal about her. I do not think she is that clever, but she can make a pleasant conversation and is quite confident, as one becomes through a long habit of socializing in the grand world.[4]

Anna Elisabeth Louise was one of the few members of the royal house to remain in Berlin during the French occupation in 1806. While most of the royal family left, reportedly because of the anti-Napoleonic criticism they had expressed, and the members of the royal court either followed them or left the capital for their country estates, Elisabeth Louise remained with her spouse and Princess Wilhelmina of Hesse-Kassel because of "their great age", as did Princess Augusta of Prussia, who was pregnant at the time.[5]

One visitor to her in 1813–14 commented that, "I never saw such a formal, stiff, disagreeable old woman - vieille cour outree, and she frightened me to death. I was glad to get away...".[6]

Death

Augustus Ferdinand died in Berlin on 2 May 1813. Elisabeth Louise died seven years later, on 22 February 1820. She is buried in Berlin Cathedral.

Issue

On 27 September 1755 in Charlottenburg Palace, Berlin, Anna Elisabeth Louise married her uncle Prince Augustus Ferdinand of Prussia The couple had seven children:

Ancestry

References
  1. Lundy, Darryl. "The Peerage: Anne Elisabeth Luise Prinzessin von Brandenburg-Schwedt". Retrieved 15 December 2009.
  2. Tobias Debuch: Prinz Louis Ferdinand von Preußen (1772–1806) als Musiker im soziokulturellen Umfeld seiner Zeit. Berlin 2004, S. 9 f.
  3. Weidinger, Carl, Das Leben und Wirken Friedrichs des Grossen, Königs von Preussen, B.G. Teubner, 1863, p. 326
  4. Charlottas, Hedvig Elisabeth (1927) [1797–99]. af Klercker, Cecilia (ed.). Hedvig Elisabeth Charlottas dagbok [The diary of Hedvig Elizabeth Charlotte] (in Swedish). Vol. VI 1797–1799. Translated by Cecilia af Klercker. Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & Söners förlag. p. 121. OCLC 14111333. (search for all versions on WorldCat)
  5. Charlottas, Hedvig Elisabeth (1936) [1800–06]. af Klercker, Cecilia (ed.). Hedvig Elisabeth Charlottas dagbok [The diary of Hedvig Elizabeth Charlotte] (in Swedish). Vol. VII 1800–1806. Translated by Cecilia af Klercker. Stockholm: P.A. Norstedt & Söners förlag. p. 455. OCLC 14111333. (search for all versions on WorldCat)
  6. Westmorland, Countess Priscilla Anne Wellesley Pole Fane (2009). The letters of Lady Burghersh: (afterwards Countess of Westmorland) From Germany and France During the Campaign of 1813–14. Cornell University Library. p. 57. ISBN 978-1-112-58028-4.
  7. Genealogie ascendante jusqu'au quatrieme degre inclusivement de tous les Rois et Princes de maisons souveraines de l'Europe actuellement vivans [Genealogy up to the fourth degree inclusive of all the Kings and Princes of sovereign houses of Europe currently living] (in French). Bourdeaux: Frederic Guillaume Birnstiel. 1768. p. 21.
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