and his successors The Duchy was born when the arbitration of the King of Saxony,
Frederick Augustus, produced the Treaty of Hildburghausen on 12 November 1826 for the
Gothaische Teilung (Gothan Division), the extensive rearrangement of the
Ernestine duchies. After the extinction of the
Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg line, the Duke of
Saxe-Hildburghausen exchanged his Duchy for that of
Saxe-Altenburg. The
Saxe-Meiningen line became Saxe-Hildburghausen and got from
Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld the Saalfelder territories as well as the District of
Themar and the places of
Mupperg,
Mogger,
Liebau and
Oerlsdorf. The Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld received for that the Duchy of
Saxe-Coburg, Districts of
Königsberg and
Sonnefeld from Saxe-Hildburghausen, and the properties of
Callenberg and
Gauerstadt from Saxe-Meiningen. By then, the
Principality of Lichtenberg, on the
Nahe River, had already been a part of the Duchy of Coburg for ten years. Ernest III, the sovereign of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, had received it in 1816 from the
Congress of Vienna for providing assistance to the Allies in their war against France. But, because of the great distance from Coburg and of the unrest caused by the
Hambach Festival, the Duke sold the Principality in 1834 to
Prussia. and their capitals until 1918'''
Free states 1918-1920; united as Thuringia since 1920 Ernestine duchies (Ernestines → House of Wettin) Reussian principalities (House of Reuss → Vögte (advocates) of Weida, Gera and Plauen) ''United as
People's State of Reuss (Gera) 1919-1920''
Schwarzburgian principalities (House of Schwarzburg) Surrounding states and their capitals Not in the German Empire The newly created Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was initially a double duchy, ruled by Ernest III as Duke Ernest I in a
personal union, but with only one vote in the
Bundesrat. The opportunity to unify the two duchies in 1826 was missed. After the state constitution () of 1852, the duchies were bound in a political and
real union. They were then a quasi-federal unitary state. Later attempts to merge the duchies failed in 1867 because the
Landtag of Gotha did not want to assume the higher state debts of Coburg and in 1872 because of the questions about the administration of the whole union. The Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha received on 3 May 1852 a national constitution, which had taken substantial parts of the fundamental rights from the
Constitution of the
National Assembly in Frankfurt. It also joined the German
Zollverein in 1834, the
North German Confederation in 1866 and the
German Empire in 1871. At the
Bundesrat in
Berlin, where it had a seat, it kept its agents but, since 1913, like most of the other
Thuringian states, it had to defer to the Grand Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen for the representation. Ernest I died in 1844. His elder son and successor, Ernest II, ruled until his own death in 1893. Because he had died childless, the throne of the two duchies would have passed to his late brother
Prince Albert's male descendants. But Prince Albert was the husband of
Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and his eldest son,
Edward, the Prince of Wales, was already her
heir apparent. Besides, he was prohibited by the constitutions of both duchies from inheriting the throne if there were other eligible male heirs. But he had already renounced his claim in favour of his next brother,
Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh. So Alfred became the next Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. , (1816–1834) Alfred's only son, also named
Alfred, died in 1899, so when Duke Alfred died in 1900 he was succeeded by his nephew the
Duke of Albany, the 16-year-old son of Queen Victoria's youngest son,
Leopold (died 1884), as Duke Alfred's next brother
Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and his son
Prince Arthur of Connaught had renounced their own claims to the succession. Reigning as Duke Carl Eduard,
Charles Edward, because of his age, began under the Regency of
Prince Ernst von Hohenlohe-Langenburg until he came of age in 1905. The new duke also continued to use his British title, the Duke of Albany. But, because he chose to side with the Germans against the British in the
First World War, he was stripped of his British titles in 1919. After the
November Revolution ended the monarchy in 1918, the duchy became two independent states, the
Free State of Coburg and the
Free State of Saxe-Gotha. Their leaders believed, however, that their new states were too small to be economically viable. On 1 May 1920, the Free State of Gotha became part of the new
State of Thuringia. Following a referendum in the Free State of Coburg on 30 November 1919, it united with the
Free State of Bavaria on 1 July 1920. ==Politics==