All About Royal Families

April 13th. 1229 marks the birth of Louis II, Duke of Bavaria. His parents had been Otto II Wittelsbach, Duke of Bavaria and Agnes of the Palatinate. Louis II of Bavaria - Source picture: Wikipedia By the death of Louis's father Otto in 1253, Bavaria was devided. He received the Palatinate and Upper Bavaria, while his brother Henry XIII received Lower Bavaria. On August 12th. 1254 Louis married Maria of Brabant. Their marriage should last 2 years and they would have no children. In 1256 Louis accused his own wife of adultery. Therefore she even was beheaded. According to many tales Louis had been away from home for a long time for state affairs. His wife Maria wrote two letters: one to her husband and one to a friend. Those letters had been given to the wrong person ... Later Louis gave the order to found the Fürstenfeld Abbey near Munich as penance for his act. In 1260 Louis married Agnes of Glogau, they should have 2 children. Agnes died in 1271 when s

My Happy Weekend Picture was taken several weeks ago at the Reien in Bruges. Bruges is a lovely medieval city located in the Province of West-Flanders in Belgium. Bruges Beligum Reien  At the picture you can see the Reien (canals) in Bruges with a lot of White Swans. There is a very nice and royal connection with these Swans. It returns back to the time of Emperor Maximilian I of Austria and his first wife Mary,  Duchess of Burgundy.   See also the page House of Habsburg on top of this blog or on next link . Emperor Maximilian I of Austria - Source picture: Wikipedia In 1482 his wife Mary of Burgundy visited Bruges to do her favorite hobby: falconry. Unfortunately her horse stumbled, she fell down and died to her injuries. Mary of Burgundy - Source picture: Wikipedia During that time Bruges wanted the same city rights as Antwerp or Ghent. When Emperor Maximilian I of Austria refused to grant the cities their rights, he was captured

April 8th. 1655 marks the birth of Louis William, Margrave of Baden-Baden. This event took place in Paris (France). His parents were Hereditary Prince Ferdinand of Baden-Baden and Louise of Savoy. His godfather was King Louis XIV of France. As a child, Louis William was kidnapped from his mother's home in Paris and re-patriated to Germany. There he was raised by his step-grandmother. At the siege of Vienna in 1683, Louis William fought against the Turks. There he had a splendid plan to drove his troops into the city. In 1689 he defeated the Turks, who called Louis William the Red King because of his jacket. He married Duchess Sibylle of Saxe-Lauenburg see my today in history of January 21st at next link .  They would have 9 children. Only their daughters would survive childhood.  His daughter Princess Auguste would marry Louis d'Orléans. Their descendent would be King Louis Philippe of France, father of Queen Louise of Belgium. Louis William, Margra

On april 7th. 1826, King Ludwig I of Bavaria ordered to build a new gallery for the Wittelbachs Collection. Archictect Leo von Klenze accepted this job with pleasure. The Alte Pinakothek (Old Pinakothek) was at that time the largest museum in the world with a neo-renaissance exterior. So, the museum looked like a castle, which was common in the 19th. century. Alte Pinakothek Munich Germany Own Picture After its inauguration in 1836, the Alte Pinakothek became model for many gallleries in the world like Rome (Italy), Saint Petersburg (Russia) and Brussels (Belgium). Munich Alte Pinakothek around 1900 - Source picture: Wikipedia During World War I the building was seriously damaged by bombing. In the late 1950's it was restored and back opened for public. I visited the museum in 2014 during a holiday in Munich and its architecture really fascinates me a lot. There also is a huge collection of Early Italian, Old German, Old Dutch and even Flemish paint