Prince Philipp of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Ferdinand Philipp Maria August Raphael of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (28 March 1844 – 3 July 1921) was the second prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and lord of Csábrág and Szitnya [sk], both in modern-day Slovakia.

Life

Born in the Tuileries Palace in Paris as Ferdinand Philipp Maria August Raphael of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, he was the eldest son of August, prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and Clémentine of Orléans. His mother was a daughter of King Louis Philippe I of France. He was a member of the Catholic Koháry line of the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha-Koháry and an elder brother of Ferdinand, tsar of Bulgaria.

In 1870, he became a Major in the Hungarian army. He was a close confidant to his brother-in-law, Crown Prince Rudolf. On the morning of 30 January 1889, he and Count Josef Hoyos-Sprinzenstein and valet Johann Loschek discovered the bodies of Rudolf and his teenage mistress Baroness Mary Vetsera, who had also been shot dead.

Philipp spent his last years at Bürglaß castle [de] in Coburg, where he died in 1921, aged 77. He was buried in the Koháry crypt in the St. Augustin church in Coburg.

Marriage and issue

In Brussels on 4 February/4 May 1875, Philipp married Louise, princess of Belgium, his second cousin, daughter of Leopold II, king of the Belgians and granddaughter of Leopold I, king of the Belgians, brother of Philipp's grandfather Ferdinand.

The marriage of Philip and Louise proved disastrous and she left her husband in 1896. In 1898, she lost parental power over her children and on 15 January 1906, the divorce was pronounced in Gotha. The reason for the separation was her long-standing relationship with Count Géza of Mattachich-Keglevich (1867-1923), with whom Philipp had dueled on the orders of Emperor Franz Josef I. Louise had had other affairs before she met Géza, among others with Philipp's adjutant.

They had two children:

• Leopold Clement Philipp August Maria (19 July 1878, Szent-Antal, Hungary - 27 April 1916, Vienna); he died when a former lover flung acid in his face.
• Dorothea Maria Henriette Auguste Louise (30 April 1881, Vienna - 21 January 1967, Taxis, Württemberg), married on 2 August 1898 to Ernst Günther, duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg.

Numismatics

Prince Philip had an important collection of coins from Saxony, the East and overseas. He published about Oriental numismatics. His coin collection was auctioned in 1928 by the auction house Leo Hamburger in Frankfurt. Several commemorative medals were issued during his lifetime, for example in 1875 on the occasion of his marriage to Louise and in the same year for his honorary membership of the Belgian Numismatic Society.

Honours

•  Austria-Hungary: Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece. (1881)
•  Kingdom of Bavaria: Knight of the Order of St. Hubert. (1882)
•  Belgium: Grand Cordon of the Royal Order of Leopold I; Wedding gift of his father-in-law. (1874)
•  Kingdom of Bulgaria: Grand Cross of the Order of Saints Cyril and Methodius
• Ernestine duchies: Grand Cross of the Saxe-Ernestine House Order. (1862)
•  Sovereign Military Order of Malta: Bailiff Grand Cross of Honour and Devotion
•  Kingdom of Portugal: Recipient of the Order of the Tower and Sword.
• Kingdom of Prussia: Knight of the Order of the Black Eagle
•  Kingdom of Saxony: Knight of the Order of the Rue Crown
•  Spain: Grand Cross of the Order of Charles III. (1884)
•  United Kingdom:
  • Honorary Knight Grand Cross (civil) of the Order of the Bath. (1885)
  • Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order. (1906)

Ancestry

Footnotes