Discussions about the Imperial Family and European Royalty > The Danish Royal Family

Countess Dorothea Christina von Aichelberg,Princess of Denmark

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Marc:
Born as Countess von Aichelberg,Frau von Karlstein(1674 - 1762)...married to Duke Christian Karl von Holstein-Sonderburg-Norburg and created Princess of Denmark in 1722...

Why was she created Princess of Denmark?Something more about her or her family?

Marc:
Plus,she is an ancestor of so many royals including Head of the House of Prussia...I wanted to know why was she created Princess of Denmark when at that time the House of Oldenburg had ''secured'' succession in Denmark of their line...

Naslednik Norvezhskiy:
According to Dansk Biografisk Lexikon, King Frederik IV recognized Duke Carl Christian's  son Frederik Christian as of equal, princely birth and able to succeed to the Dukedom of Plön, which he was in line to inherit from his uncle, by making his mother a Princess of Denmark. In return Frederik Christian gave up his inheritance in Schleswig, i.e. parts of the islands of Als and Ærø, to the King.

He succeeded as Duke of Plön, but as he had only daughters (who perhaps might not have been ebenbürtige, as their mother was a mere Countess Reventlow, although she was the niece of King Frederik IV's morganatic wife), he agreed in the so-called Plönisches Successionstraktat to leave his Duchy to the King of Denmark when he died in 1761. In return King Frederik V paid all of his large debts.

Twelve years later the remaining part of Holstein-Gottorp did of course also revert to the King of Denmark through that brilliant Treaty of Tsarskoe Selo. Only that odd Bishopric of Lübeck remained...

Marc:
That is very interesting,thank you for this information...any pictures of Dorothea?

Naslednik Norvezhskiy:
You are welcome!

I just found a very small and bad quality portrait of her online, at Guide2Womenleaders (scroll down). Perhaps the original is in Plön or at her dower seat Reinfeld castle.

Here are her alleged arms:

FromRoskildehistorie: Slesvig-Holstein-Sønderborg-Plön

NB she wasn't born as a countess. Her parents were just nobles, but her father had attended the Princely School in Eutin in the Bishopric of Lübeck together with Christian Karl's father Duke August and later became his "house master" and governor/bailiff. Dorothea Christine was the Dowager Duchess's lady-in-waiting and grew up with the ducal children, who were her playmates, among them her future husband. She had to flee to her friend and future sister-in-law the Princess of Nassau-Dillenburg in Umstadt in present Hesse when her employer, the Dowager Duchess and her eldest son found out that Christian Karl wanted to marry her. They subsequently married in Umstadt and she became his morganatic wife as Frau von Karlstein. They moved into a town house in Sønderborg. Christian Karl was fond of fishing in the sea and eventually died from getting a plague-infested handkerchief blown into his face from a nearby plague-infested ship when out fishing in the fjord outside Sønderborg!
Source: This local Als site

Those Schleswig-Holstein Duchies really were a world unto themselves.....  

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