Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxembourg
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Adolphe I, Grand Duke of Luxembourg (Adolph Wilhelm August Karl Friedrich of Nassau-Weilburg) (July 24, 1817 – November 17, 1905) was the last Duke of Nassau, and the fourth Grand Duke of Luxembourg.
He was a son of Wilhelm, Duke of Nassau (1792 - 1839) and his first wife Charlotte Luise Friederike of Saxe-Altenburg. Adolphe's half-sister, Sophia of Nassau, married King Oscar II of Sweden.
Adolph became Duke of Nassau on August 30, 1839, after the death of his father. He supported the Austrian Empire in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. After Austria's defeat, Nassau was annexed to the Kingdom of Prussia.
In 1879, Adolphe's niece Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont, the daughter of another of his half-sisters, married her distant relative King William III of the Netherlands. In 1890, their only daughter Wilhelmina succeeded to the Dutch throne, but was excluded from the succession to Luxembourg by the Salic Law. The Grand Duchy, which had been linked to the Netherlands since 1815, passed to the Dutch royal family's distant relative - the dispossessed Duke Adolphe. The Grand Dukes of Luxembourg are still descendants of Adolphe, although through female lines.
On January 31, 1844, Adolph married Elisabeth Mikhailovna, Grand Duchess of Russia, who died less than a year afterwards.
On April 23, 1851, he remarried Adelheid-Marie of Anhalt-Dessau, a daughter of Friedrich of Anhalt-Dessau. They had five children, of whom only two lived to the age of eighteen and to become prince and princess of Luxembourg. The eldest son, William (1852–1912), became Grand Duke at his father's death in 1905. His daughter, Princess Hilda Charlotte Wilhelmine (1864 - 1952), married HRH Friedrich II, Grand Duke of Baden.
In 1892, Grand Duke Adolphe conferred the hereditary title Count of Wisborg on his Swedish nephew, Oscar, who had lost his Swedish titles after marrying without his father's approval. Wisborg (also spelt Visborg) lay within Adolphe's lost Duchy of Nassau, but the title itself was created within the nobility of Adolphe's new realm.
| Preceded by William III |
Grand Duke of Luxembourg 1890–1905 |
Succeeded by William IV |
| Preceded by Wilhelm |
Duke of Nassau 1839-1866 |
Succeeded by annexed to Prussia |
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