Gustav, Duke of Zweibrücken

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Gustav Samuel Leopold
Lutheran

Count Palatine Gustav Samuel Leopold of the

Count Palatine of the Rhine, and Duke in Bavaria.[1]

He was the last male member of the Kleeburg line of the House of Wittelsbach to reign.

Life

Gustavus Samuel Leopold was born at

Maria Elizabeth to escape from their parents to the protection of the Swedish royal court, which became a scandal in contemporary Sweden.[2]

He succeeded his brother Adolph John II as Count Palatine of Kleeburg in 1701, and his cousin Charles XII, King of Sweden, as Duke of Zweibrücken in 1718.[1] The king's death also made him one of the eligible candidates for the Swedish throne. From 1720 until 1725 he moved his residence to a palace, Zweibrücken Castle, built by Jonas Erikson Sundahl.

Gustavus Samuel Leopold died in Zweibrücken in 1731 and was buried in the Alexanderkirche. As the last male member of his branch of the House of Wittelsbach, his territories were inherited by Christian III, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Birkenfeld.

He competed for the

Francesco Farnese, Duke of Parma in 1696. In the annals of that chivalric institution and of the Vatican, Gustav is referred as a Duke of Bavaria. Gustav failed in his aspirations, and the grand-mastership was confirmed in 1701 by the pope to be hereditary in the House of Farnese and its successors (the Dukes of Castro). The Farnese duke was later succeeded in the position by his nearest male kinsman, the future king Charles III of Spain
.

Duke Gustav had the baroque Residenz of Zweibrücken constructed in the 1720s, the Swede Jonas Eriksson Sundahl being the builder.

In Swedish politics, Duke Gustav was the last male of the line of his paternal grandmother,

grand duchy of Finland. He would have become king Gustav III, had he succeeded. However, no strong faction or party in Sweden took up his cause, and his succession rights are not much remembered by history. Instead, his cousin Ulrica Eleonora
managed to become the Swedish queen regnant.

Duke Gustav died during the reign of Frederick I of Sweden. His Swedish rights were inherited either by his nephew Charles Adolf Gyllenstierna, count of Ericsberg, or his sister, Countess Palatine Marie Elisabeth of Kleeburg, or their cousin, Charles Frederick, Duke of Holstein-Gottorp.

Marriage

On 10 July 1707, Gustav married Countess Palatine Dorothea (1658 - 1723), daughter of Leopold Louis, Count Palatine of Veldenz. The marriage remained childless.

On 13 May 1723, he morganatically married Louise Dorothea von Hoffmann (30 March 1700 – 14 April 1745) at Zweibrücken, a daughter of Johan Heinrich von Hoffman by his wife, Anne Chocq. She converted to Catholicism in 1723 and was raised by the Holy Roman Emperor on 3 March 1724 to the title Countess von Hoffmann. They also had no children.

Ancestors

Source:[1]

Sources

  • Arthur Kleinschmidt (1879), "Gustav Samuel Leopold", Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (in German), vol. 10, Leipzig: Duncker & Humblot, pp. 188–189
  • Herman Hofberg et al. (eds) (1906) (in Swedish). "Gustaf Samuel Leopold, hertig till Pfalz-Zweibrücken", Svenskt biografiskt handlexikon I:416.
  • Alessandro Cont, La Chiesa dei principi. Le relazioni tra Reichskirche, dinastie sovrane tedesche e stati italiani (1688-1763), preface of Elisabeth Garms-Cornides, Trento, Provincia autonoma di Trento, 2018, pp. 144-145, https://www.academia.edu/38170694/La_Chiesa_dei_principi._Le_relazioni_tra_Reichskirche_dinastie_sovrane_tedesche_e_stati_italiani_1688-1763_prefazione_di_Elisabeth_Garms-Cornides_Trento_Provincia_autonoma_di_Trento_2018

References

  1. ^
    ISBN 2-901138-04-7
    pp.73, 83–84,108–109, 144–145, 206-207
  2. ^ Nanna Lundh-Eriksson (1947). Hedvig Eleonora. Stockholm: Wahlström & Widstrand. ISBN (in Swedish)
Gustav, Duke of Zweibrücken
Born: 12 April 1670 Died: 17 September 1731
Preceded by Count Palatine of Kleeburg
1701-1731 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Duke of Zweibrücken
1718-1731
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