#louis iv

[illustratus]

Louis IV, Holy Roman Emperor by Anton Hoffmann

[teatimeatwinterpalace]

Darmstadt, 1880s.

[royalty-nobility]

The Marriage of Princess Alice, 1st July 1862

Artist: George Housman Thomas (British, 1824-1868)

Date: 1862-1863

Medium: Oil on canvas

Collection: Royal Collection Trust, London, United Kingdom

Description

The marriage of Princess Alice, the third child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and Prince Louis of Hesse took place 'in the strictest privacy' barely six months after the death of Prince Albert. The ceremony was held in the Dining Room at Osborne 'which was very prettily decorated, the altar being placed under our large family picture', as the Queen recorded in her Journal. A portrait of Victoria, Duchess of Kent, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter also hangs on the back wall in this painting. The Archbishop of York stands behind the altar and Queen Victoria sits in the light from the window, with Prince Arthur and Prince Leopold next to her. The bridegroom's parents, Prince and Princess Charles of Hesse, stand facing Queen Victoria. The bridesmaids were Princess Alice's sisters: Princess Louise, Princess Helena and Princess Beatrice, and Princess Anna of Hesse.

[thehessiansisters]

Painting of Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna of Russia by François Flameng, 1894.

[littlehistorian]

Louis the Child (893-911) was the last Carolingian rouler of East Francia.

His brief reign was marked by severe Magyar invasions and the erosion of central royal power.

[wonder-worker]

Gerberga of Saxony, Queen of West Francia, Duchess of Lotharingia

"Gerberga was unquestionably one of the pivotal figures in the dynastic politics of her age. Born around 913, she was a daughter of the east Frankish/Saxon king Henry I and sister of his celebrated successor Otto I “the Great”. She was not only a daughter and sister of rulers, but also a wife and mother. Her first marriage, probably contracted in 928, was to Giselbert, dux of Lotharingia, who died in 939 whilst rebelling against [her brother] Otto; and her second husband, acquired in the same year she lost her first, was the young Carolingian king Louis IV of West Francia, her junior by some six or seven years. Their son Lothar became West Frankish king in 954.

Gerberga’s royal upbringing and connections made her a potent figure throughout her career. While we have to be wary of an eleventh-century source which claims that she was the driving force behind Giselbert’s rebellion of 939 [by claiming that she was equal to her brother Otto and just as suited for the throne as he was], contemporary witnesses do confirm that she was at the duke’s side at key moments in his reign. Marriage to Louis, who was often at loggerheads with Otto, and consecration as West Frankish queen, created potential for divided loyalties (that they named their son Lothar hints at an ambition to take Lotharingia, which was part of the eastern kingdom), but Gerberga was instrumental in effecting an eventual rapprochement between the two rulers and enlisting her brother’s help against her husband’s internal enemies in the late 940s. [She was active in the defense of Laon and Reims, accompanied Louis IV on military expeditions to Aquitaine and Burgundy, and served as the effective head of state when the king was captured by the Normans in 945-946. Gerberga refused to give up the West Frankish heir to Duke Hugh the Great and instead negotiated with her brother, Otto, who ravaged her enemies’ territories until they were forced to come to terms with Louis IV. When hostilities broke out again in 948 and Hugh attacked Laon, she led its defense. During the conclusion of the conflict in 953, it was Gerberga who renegotiated peace between Louis and Hugh, the latter of whom specifically requested for a meeting with her to set the diplomatic process in motion].

The high point of her role as a bridge between the eastern and western dynasties came during her widowhood, which saw her acting as a kind of regent for her young son Lothar. Lothar’s marriage in 966 to Otto's step-daughter Emma was planned with Gerberga’s active involvement and joined together the various branches of her family tree, placing her together with her brother at the apex of an extended European family of dynasties."

— Simon MacLean, "Reform, Queenship and the End of the World in Tenth-Century France: Adso’s “Letter on the Origin and Time of the Antichrist” Reconsidered" / Depiction in the Ottonian family tree in the Chronica St. Pantaleonis

[ykzzr]

The Hesse family 1872

Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse his wife Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse and their five children Victoria, Elisabeth, Irene, Ernest Louis, and Friedrich of Hesse and by Rhine.

[roehenstart]

Carolingian child king. Attributed to Jean-Paul Laurens.

Louis IV (893-911), nicknamed "the Child", was the son of Arnulf of Carinthia and his wife Ota, king of Eastern France and Lotaringia and the last Carolingian representative in Eastern France.