Ernest Louis, Grand Duke of Hesse

Ernest Louis was the last Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine, reigning from 1892 until 1918. He was the elder son of Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. He had six siblings, two of whom died in childhood. One of his younger sisters, Alexandra, married Tsar Nicholas II, the last Emperor of Russia. Another sister, Victoria Mountbatten, was the mother of Queen Louise of Sweden, Louis Mountbatten and Princess Alice of Battenberg, who was the mother of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Ernest Louis grew up in a loving household, with parents who demonstrated their affection for their children. He was especially close to his brother Prince Friedrich, who suffered from haemophilia and died at the age of two after falling from a window. Ernest Louis was inconsolable and wished to die with his brother. He also witnessed the death of his mother from diphtheria in 1878, when he was ten years old. His father remarried in 1884 to Alexandrine de Luynes, a French countess. Ernest Louis succeeded his father as Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine in 1892. He married his first cousin Victoria Melita of Edinburgh, daughter of Alfred, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, in 1894. They had one daughter, Princess Elisabeth, who died of typhoid fever at the age of eight in 1903. The marriage was unhappy and ended in divorce in 1901. Ernest Louis remarried in 1905 to Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich, a minor German princess. They had two sons: George Donatus, Hereditary Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine; and Louis, Prince of Hesse and by Rhine. Ernest Louis was best known as a patron of the arts. In 1899 he founded the Darmstadt Artists' Colony for architects, designers, sculptors, and craftsmen. Most of the colony's buildings were designed by the Viennese architect Joseph Maria Olbrich. Much of the work done under the patronage of Ernest Louis was representative of the Jugendstil movement, the German version of Art Nouveau. Ernest Louis himself wrote poems, plays, essays, and piano music. Ernest Louis abdicated his throne in 1918 after the German Revolution that ended the monarchy in Germany. He spent his last years at Schloss Wolfsgarten near Darmstadt. He died on October 9th 1937 from a heart attack at the age of 68. He was buried at Neues Mausoleum in Park Rosenhöhe in Darmstadt.