His parents were
Charles William Frederick, Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach, and
Friederike Luise of Prussia, daughter of King
Frederick William I of Prussia, sister of
Frederick II of Prussia, a granddaughter of the British King George I and niece of the reigning British King George II (who would die aged 76 and leave his grandson, Charles's second cousin, as King George III, when Charles was 24). After the sudden death of his elder brother Carl Frederick August on 9 May 1737, "Alexander", as he later called himself, became Crown Prince of the principality. From 1748 to 1759, he studied at
Utrecht. As the young "Count of Sayn" (the county of
Sayn-Altenkirchen in the Westerwald having been absorbed into the
Principality of Ansbach in 1741) he travelled to
Turin and
Savoy. On 22 November 1754, in
Coburg, Alexander married
Princess Frederica Caroline of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (1735–1791), daughter of
Franz Josias, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and
Anne Sophia, Princess of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. On 3 August 1757, Alexander became the
Margrave of Brandenburg-Ansbach. The
Residenz of the principality was at Ansbach, but Alexander preferred his hunting estate and country seat in
Triesdorf. Here, he renovated the "White Castle" for his mistress
Hippolyte Clairon, the "Red Castle" for himself, and built the
Villa Sandrina for another mistress, "Fräulein Kurz", and the "Round Villa" (
Villa Rotunda) for his mistress (and later wife)
Elizabeth, Baroness Craven. In 1758, Alexander founded the
porcelain factory in Ansbach and made ventures into agriculture by importing sheep. In 1769, he acquired the principality of
Bayreuth pursuant to the
Haus- und Reichsgesetze laws of the
House of Hohenzollern. In 1780, Alexander founded his own bank, the
Hochfürstlich-Brandenburg-Anspach-Bayreuthische Hofbanco, out of which later came the
Bayerische Hypotheken- und Wechselbank ("Bavarian Mortgage and Change Bank", today absorbed into the
HypoVereinsbank). He evidently wanted to avoid supporting the Jewish banking houses that were then overseeing his financial affairs, and to keep as much of his revenue as possible in his own hands by setting himself up as a private banker.
American Revolutionary War One of Alexander's enterprises earned income from hiring
auxiliary troops to
King George III of Great Britain for the
American Revolutionary War. He had nominal command over the "Frankish Army" of 1,644 mercenaries, of whom only some 1,183 returned to their homeland in 1783. The Margrave leased further troops to Holland. With these incomes, he paid down the principality's debts, which amounted to 5,000,000
guilders at the time he inherited the throne (1757). By the time of his abdication 34 years later, the principality's debt stood at only 1,500,000 guilders.
The end of the Margraviate On 16 January 1791, Alexander sold his Margraviate to
Prussia. The contract was arranged by
Karl August von Hardenberg, who had been Acting Minister in Ansbach since 1790. Under the terms of the contract, Prussia paid the Margrave as compensation an annual stipend of 300,000 guilders. On 2 December, in
Bordeaux, France, he signed his formal
abdication as Margrave.
After abdication Alexander's first wife, Frederica Caroline, died on 18 February 1791 in
Unterschwaningen, where she had lived since separating from her husband. On 19 May of the same year, Alexander left Triesdorf for England. On 13 October or 30 October 1791, in
Lisbon, Alexander married
Elizabeth Craven, Baroness Craven (1750–1828), the daughter of the
Earl of Berkeley and the widow of the
William Craven, 6th Baron Craven, who had died shortly before. Alexander sailed to England as a private citizen with his new wife, and there the couple dedicated themselves to breeding horses. By December 1791, he had found a property near the
River Thames,
Brandenburgh House at
Fulham, and in 1798, he acquired the
Benham Park estate at
Speen near
Newbury in
Berkshire. On 5 January 1806, aged 69, Alexander died after a short illness caused by
lung disease. Today, a memorial in St Mary's Church in
Speen, simply records "In Memory of the Margrave of Anspach, who died at Benham 5th January 1806". The Franconian region over which Alexander had ruled changed hands many times. On 15 December 1805, in the first
Treaty of Schönbrunn, Prussia ceded the
Principality of Ansbach to
France in exchange for the
Electorate of Hanover; in 1806, Ansbach was acquired by the
Kingdom of Bavaria in exchange for the
Duchy of Berg, and soon afterwards the Prussian defeat at
Jena on 14 October 1806 resulted in the
Principality of Bayreuth also being ceded to the French in the
Treaty of Tilsit of July 1807. In 1810, Bayreuth was acquired by Bavaria. In 1871, Bavaria became part of the new
German Empire under the King of Prussia, but retained its internal independence, and it continues as a Land of the present-day
Germany.
Arms == Ancestors ==