Royal Heirs in Imperial Germany by Frank Lorenz Müller

Author:Frank Lorenz Müller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan UK, London

“A Prince, Who is Father to His House, is Father to His People”: Saxony and its Royal Family

In the course of the nineteenth century, Hellmuth Kretzschmar has argued, the Saxon monarchy underwent a process that stripped off the lustrous garb of divine grace and left it with the “characteristics of an office” (Amtscharakter). “One can trace the growing restrictions, the increasing plainness, especially in everyday things and, beyond that, one can observe that there were ever fewer days, when the unfolding of courtly pomp, of grand festive events interrupted the drab rhythm of a dutiful, civil service like, sober princely life.” This development towards a mode of sobriety paralleled the Saxon monarchs’ steady withdrawal from direct governmental intervention. Following the passing of the kingdom’s constitution in 1831 none of the Wettin monarchs showed any inclination to challenge the constitutional restrictions on their position, let alone seek a return to an absolutist status quo ante. On the contrary, both King Friedrich August II (1797–1854, r. 1836–1854), who acted as co-regent for his elderly uncle King Anton (1755–1836, r. 1827–1836) in 1831, and especially his younger brother Johann (1801–1873, r. 1854–1873), who would succeed as king after Friedrich August’s death in 1854, actively supported Saxony’s transformation into a constitutional state. 22

The dynasty’s relatively low-key style and its careful observance of the legal framework meant that the individual monarchs’ personal preferences could give some colour to their reigns: the somewhat introverted, studious and intellectual King Johann fulfilled the administrative responsibilities of his office with dutiful dedication and enjoyed a reputation as a scholar of some distinction. While he was undoubtedly a revered example of the nineteenth-century phenomenon of rulers adapting the persona of an erudite homme de lettres, there is some doubt as to whether his kind of “cultural kingship” amounted to a coherent political programme. 23

Unlike the cerebral Johann, his son Albert (1828–1902, r. 1873–1902) was an “intellectually uncomplicated” soldier. Albert’s significant achievements as a senior commander in the wars of 1866 and 1870/1871 adorned the Wettin dynasty with an aura of martial glory and set the scene for a military presentation of the monarchy. This was complemented and softened, though, by a carefully cultivated sense of homely and modest domesticity. The richly illustrated Volksbuch (“People’s Book”) Sachsen unter König Albert, published in 1898, for instance, provided this account of how the royal couple spent their afternoons in their garden: “Cosily smoking a cigar, the king—side by side with his wife, who, when the weather is cool, is wrapped (just like a middle-class housewife) in a comfortable shawl, and surrounded by his favourite dogs—enjoys the idyll, which his spouse’s tirelessly active, truly German domestic wifely spirit [Hausfrauengeist] has created for his relaxation from the arduous work of government.” 24

With its emphasis on gentle married life, modesty and the monarch’s diligent work for the state, this account—published to mark the 25th anniversary of Albert’s accession—was part of a narrative continuity that dated back to Saxony’s pre-constitutional days. The staging of monarchical jubilees and anniversaries in Saxony got underway in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars.

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