Caroline of Ansbach - Early Life

Early Life

Caroline was born on 1 March 1683 at Ansbach, the daughter of John Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, and his second wife, Princess Eleonore Erdmuthe of Saxe-Eisenach. Her father was the ruler of one of the smallest German states; he died of smallpox at the age of 32, when Caroline was three years old. Caroline and her only full sibling, her younger brother Margrave William Frederick, left Ansbach with their mother, who returned to her native Eisenach. In 1692, Caroline's widowed mother was pushed into an unhappy marriage with the Elector of Saxony, and she and her two children moved to the Saxon court at Dresden. Eleanore Erdmuthe was widowed again two years later, after her unfaithful husband contracted smallpox from his mistress. Eleonore remained in Saxony for another two years, until her death in 1696. The orphaned Caroline and William Frederick returned to Ansbach to stay with their elder half-brother, Margrave George Frederick II. George Frederick was a youth with little interest in parenting a girl, and so Caroline soon moved to Lützenburg outside of Berlin, where she entered into the care of her new guardians, Frederick, Elector of Brandenburg, and his wife, Sophia Charlotte, who had been a friend of Eleanore Erdmuthe.