His Royal Highness Prince Leopold Charles Edward George Albert, KG, Duke of Albany, Earl of Clarence, and Baron Arklow, later reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was born at Claremont House, Surrey, the posthumous son and younger child of Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, the fourth son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, and his wife, Princess Helena of Waldeck. Known as Prince Charles Edward in Britain and later as Prince Carl Eduard in Germany, he succeeded to his father's peerages upon birth. King Edward VII made him a Knight of the Garter on 15 July 1902.
In 1900, the fourteen year-old Duke of Albany inherited from his uncle the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Victoria's second son, the German duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The Duke of Edinburgh's only son, Prince Alfred ("Young Alfie"), committed suicide in 1899 and the Duke of Connaught, the Queen's third son, rennounced his claims to the duchy on behalf of himself and his son. For the next five years, he reigned under the regency of the Hereditary Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. Upon coming of age on 19 July 1905, the Duke of Albany assumed full constitutional powers as Duke Carl Eduard of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. As a grandson of Queen Victoria, the new Duke of Saxe-Coburg was a first cousin of the German Emperor Wilhelm II, Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine, the Prince of Wales (the future King George V), the Empress Alexandra of Russia, Queen Marie of Romania, Queen Maud of Norway, and Queen Victoria Eugenia of Spain.
On 11 October 1905, at Glücksburg Castle, Holstein, the Duke married Princess Victoria Adelaide (31 December 1885 - 5 October 1970), the daughter of the Duke Friedrich Ferdinard of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. The Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha had five children:
On 18 November 1918, the Workers' and Soldiers' Council of Gotha deposed Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Five days later, the Duke signed a declaration relinquishing his rights to the throne. Now a private citizen, the deposed Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha became associated with various right-wing paramilitary and political organizations.2 In 1932, he took part in the creation of the so-called Harzburg Front, through which the Deutchnationale (Conservative) Party became associated with the Nazi Party. He joined the Nazi Party and became a member of the SA (or Brownshirts), rising to the rank of Obergruppenfuhrer. He also served a member of the Reichstag from 1937 to 1945 and as president of the German Red Cross from 1933 to 1945. He formally joined the Nazi Party in 1935.
In 1936, Adolph Hitler sent the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Britain as president of the Anglo-German Friendship Society. His mission was to improve Anglo-German relations and to explore the possibility of a pact between the two countries. The Duke, who attended the funeral of George V in his SA uniform, approached the new king, Edward VIII, about the possibility of a pact; nothing came of these talks. Nontheless, he continued to send Hitler encouraging reports about the strength of pro-German sentiment among the British aristocracy. After the abdication crisis, he played host to the former British king and his wife, by then the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, during their official tour of Germany in 1938.
When World War II ended, the American Military Government in Bavaria, under the command of General George S. Patton, placed the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha under house arrest because of his Nazi sympathies. In 1946, he was sentenced to a "de-nazification" court and heavily fined. Many of his properties in Saxony, and Coburg were seized by the Soviet army.
The former Duke of Saxe-Coburg Gotha spent the last years of his life in poverty and seclusion. He died in 1954.
Footnotes
1 As a male-line grandson of the British Sovereign, Prince Carl Eduard was a prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with the qualification of Royal Highness, in accordance with Queen Victoria's Letters Patent of 30 January 1864 and of 27 May 1898. The suspension of his peerages under the Title Deprivation Act, did not affect the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha's status as a prince of Great Britain and Ireland or his place in the line of succession to the British throne. Under settled practice dating to 1714, the Duke's children, as legitimate male-line great grandchildren of the British Sovereign, were princes and princesses of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland with the qualification of Highness. However, their right to use these British titles and styles ceased with George V's Letters Patent of 30 November 1917.
2 The hereditary and legal privileges of the various German royal, princely, ducal, and noble families ended in August 1919 when the constitution of the so-called Weimar Republic went into effect. However, the Weimar Republic did not ban the use of titles and the designations of nobility, as did Austria. Instead, the Reichstag passed legislation that made the former royal and noble titles part of these families' surname. Legally, the former reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha became Carl Eduard Herzog von Sachen-Coburg und Gotha.