Carl, 3rd Prince of Leiningen

Carl Friedrich Wilhelm Emich, Prince of Leiningen (12 September 1804 – 13 November 1856), was the maternal half-brother of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Leiningen briefly played an important role in German politics as the first Prime Minister of the government formed by the Frankfurt Parliament in 1848.

Carl was the son of Emich Carl, 2nd Prince of Leiningen and his second wife, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. He was the only son, as Emich Carl's son by his first wife, Friedrich, had died in 1800. Emich Carl died on 4 July 1814 and Carl succeeded him as third Prince of Leiningen. In 1818, his mother married Prince Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III of the United Kingdom. In 1819, Carl and his sister Feodora were taken to Britain, where his sister Princess Victoria of Kent was born on 24 May. Carl later pursued a career in the Bavarian army. He was Revolutionary Minister-President of Germany from 15 July until 5 September 1848, resigning over Sleswig-Holstein.

Marriage and issue

On 13 February 1829, he married Countess Maria Klebelsberg (27 March 1806 – 28 October 1880), daughter of Count Maximilian Klebelsberg and his wife Maria Anna von Turba. They had two sons:

• Ernst Leopold Victor Carl August Joseph Emich, born on 9 November 1830 and died 1904, who succeeded as the fourth Prince of Leiningen, and
• Eduard Friedrich Maximilian Johann, born on 5 January 1833 and died 9 April 1914.

Later life and death

Carl was made a Knight of the Order of the Garter in 1837. In 1855, shortly after his niece Victoria, Princess Royal became engaged to Prince Frederick of Prussia, he suffered a severe apoplectic attack. A second attack in November the following year was fatal, and he died at Amorbach at the age of fifty-two, with his sister the Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg at his bedside.