Prince Karl of Leiningen

Prince Karl Vladimir Ernst Heinrich of Leiningen (2 January 1928 – 28 September 1990) was the younger son of Karl, 6th Prince of Leiningen (1898–1946) and Grand Duchess Maria Kirillovna of Russia.[1] Maria was the daughter of Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha and Cyril Vladimirovich, Grand Duke of Russia. As such, Karl was a great-great-grandson of both Queen Victoria of Great Britain and Emperor Alexander II of Russia (as Victoria Melita and Cyril Vladimirovich were both grandchildren of Alexander II).

Prince Karl
Born(1928-01-02)2 January 1928
Coburg, Germany
Died28 September 1990(1990-09-28) (aged 62)
Vered Hagalil, Israel
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1957; div. 1968)​
IssuePrince Boris
Prince Hermann Friedrich
Full name
Karl Vladimir Ernst Heinrich
HouseLeiningen
FatherKarl, 6th Prince of Leiningen
MotherGrand Duchess Maria Kirillovna of Russia

Biography

Career

Born in Coburg, Germany,[2] as a young man, he worked mainly as a salesman in Paris.[2] With his wife, Karl resolved to take up a business career in Toronto.[3] Eventually he became an executive in a brokerage firm.[1]

Marriage and issue

Karl met Princess Marie Louise of Bulgaria in Madrid, where she was living with her mother.[2] She was the only daughter of Boris III of Bulgaria by his wife Princess Giovanna of Italy. Karl announced his engagement to Marie Louise in December 1956.[2] They married in a quiet civil ceremony in Amorbach on 14 February 1957.[2][4] Amorbach had been the residence of the House of Leiningen since 1803, and the town's streets were lined with hundreds of cheering spectators; Karl's family owns huge estates in South Germany, and was considered to be one of the wealthiest of Germany's noble families.[2] As of 1957, his family's fortune was valued at $1.5 billion.[2] The couple also married in a Greek Orthodox religious ceremony in Cannes on 20 February 1957.[4]

After the couple's wedding, they lived in Madrid until June 1958.[3] Karl traveled to Canada early in their marriage, and the couple decided to settle there.[3] The marriage produced two sons:

  • Prince Boris of Leiningen (17 April 1960); married Millena Manov on 14 February 1987 and they were divorced in 1996. They have one son. He remarried Cheryl Riegler on 11 September 1998. They had two children.[1]
  • Prince Hermann Friedrich of Leiningen (16 April 1963) he married Deborah Cully on 16 May 1987. They have three daughters.[1]

The marriage was unhappy, and Karl and Marie Louise divorced on 4 December 1968.[5] Later in life, Carl reminisced, "Princes are expected to marry princesses, so I married Maria-Luisa, the daughter of Bulgarian ex-King Boris III".[5] After the divorce, Marie Louise and their two sons moved to the United States, where they attended a military academy.

Later life

Karl eventually became a naturalized Canadian citizen.[5] He later moved to Zürich. Persuaded by some Jewish friends to visit Israel, Karl eventually found a job through the help of new-found Israeli friends. He subsequently moved there, rarely leaving except for short visits with his family. He lived in Israel until his death on 28 September 1990 in Vered Hagalil.[5]

Ancestry

References
  1. Enache, Nicolas. La Descendance de Marie-Therese de Habsburg. ICC, Paris, 1996. pp. 699, 703. (French). ISBN 2-908003-04-X
  2. "Royalty Glitters at Wedding Rite", The Washington Post and Times Herald, Amorbach, 16 February 1957
  3. "Two Royal Immigrants", The New York Times, Halifax, 15 June 1958
  4. "Bulgarian Princess Wed", The New York Times, Amorbach, Germany, 14 February 1957
  5. Mass, Haim (12 October 1990), "The Prince Who Lived in Galilee", The Jerusalem Post, Jerusalem
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