List of Heirs To Saxe-Coburg and Gotha - Heirs To Ernst II, 1844-1893

Heirs To Ernst II, 1844-1893

The new Duke had married Princess Alexandrine of Baden in 1842, but did not yet have any sons. The heir-presumptive at his accession was therefore his younger brother

• Franz August Karl Albert Emmanuel. He had married in 1840 his first cousin Queen Victoria, and had been granted the style of Royal Highness in Britain, where he was known as "Prince Albert".

As Duke Ernst II's marriage continued to be childless, the prospect that the Duchy would pass to Albert or his son Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, resulting in a personal union with the crown of the United Kingdom, became increasingly likely. Accordingly, when Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Gotha were merged in 1852, the new constitution contained a provision that the Duchy would not pass to the British monarch or the British heir-apparent, but would pass to the next prince in line among the descendants of Prince Albert. When Prince Albert died on 14 December 1861, he was succeeded as heir-presumptive not by his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, but by his second son

• Alfred Ernest Albert, later created Duke of Edinburgh.

Prince Alfred's elder brother the Prince of Wales married Princess Alexandra of Denmark on 10 March 1863. The following month, on 19 April, he made a renunciation on behalf of his future issue of succession rights to Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, providing that his line would not succeed until after the lines of his brothers Alfred, Arthur and Leopold. Had it not been for this renunciation, the Prince of Wales's eldest son Prince Albert Victor, as the next in line after the British heir-apparent, would have replaced his uncle Alfred as heir-presumptive at his birth on 8 January 1864. As it was, Prince Alfred remained as heir-presumptive to Ernst II until the latter's death on 22 August 1893, when he became reigning Duke.