Name Prince of | Religion Roman Catholic | |
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Born 28 March 1844Paris ( 1844-03-28 ) Issue Prince Leopold ClementDorothea, Duchess of Schleswig-Holstein Mother Princess Clementine of Orleans Role Prince of Saxe-Coburg-Kohary Died July 3, 1921, Coburg, Germany House House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Children Princess Dorothea of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Prince Leopold Clement of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Parents Prince August of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Princess Clementine of Orleans Similar People Princess Louise of Belgium, Princess Clotilde of Saxe‑Co, Princess Clementine of Orleans, Marie Henriette of Austria, Maria Antonia Kohary d | ||
Ferdinand Philipp Maria August Raphael of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (28 March 1844, Paris – 3 July 1921, Coburg) was the second prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and lord of Csabrag and Szitnya, both in modern-day Slovakia.
Contents
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 Clementine of Orleans. His mother was a daughter of King Louis Philippe I of France. He was a member of the Catholic Kohary line of the House of Wettin 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 underage sweetheart Baroness Mary Vetsera, who had also been shot dead.
Philipp spent his last years at Burglas castle in Coburg. He died in 1921, aged 77. He was buried in the Kohary crypt in the St. Augustin church in Coburg. He was a knight in the Order of the Golden Fleece and a recipient of the Portuguese Order of the Tower and Sword.
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 Geza 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 Geza, among others with Philipp's adjutant.
They had two children:
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.