Ernst II.
An intellectual duke in the Age of Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
Ernest II was a highly educated and upright man. He had been brought up to be enlightened and virtuous and ruled accordingly in a far-sighted and modern manner.
Ernst was very interested in the natural sciences, especially astronomy and cartography, but also in alchemy. This passion stemmed from his conviction that nature harboured secrets that could be uncovered using scientific methods. He was therefore also interested in how other cultures explored nature and what results they achieved.
Ernst was the son of Duke Friedrich III. of Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg (1699-1772) and Duchess Luise Dorothea (1710-1767) from the House of Saxe-Meiningen. After the death of his elder brother, Hereditary Prince Friedrich Ludwig, who died in 1756 at the age of 21, the highly educated Duchess, who was in close contact with the leading intellectual figures of her time, took intensive care of the education of Princes Ernst and August (1747-1806). They received an outstanding education and were taught literary, scientific and cameralistic subjects by selected tutors.
In 1769, Ernst married Charlotte Amalie of Saxe-Meiningen (1751-1827). Of their four sons, only two reached adulthood, August (1772-1822) and Friedrich (1774-1825).
The Cavalier Tour or Grand Tour, which was to complete the prince’s education, took Ernst to the Netherlands, England, where he visited his cousin King George III (1738-1820), and to France. There, through Friedrich-Melchior Baron von Grimm (1723-1807), who had been the envoy of Saxony-Gotha-Altenburg in Paris since the 1770s and a state councilor of the Russian Tsarina, he became acquainted with the writer, art critic, and encyclopedist Denis Diderot and the sculptor Jean-Antoine Houdon. With the latter, he formed a long-standing friendship, which explains the unique collection of Houdon’s sculptures in Gotha today.
„Young man, you are not made for this world, and your manners are not those of Paris. Do not stay with us too long, it might spoil you.“
Denis Diderot, 1769
Jean-Antoine Houdon’s Sculptures in Gotha
His works are housed in the world’s most prestigious museums, such as the Louvre and the Hermitage in St. Petersburg. However, the Ducal Museum in Gotha preserves and displays the largest collection of Jean-Antoine Houdon’s early works.
After the death of his father, Friedrich III, Ernst II took over the government in 1772. His first task, which occupied him for many years, was to reduce the enormous state debts left by his parents without burdening the subjects anew. Unlike his predecessors, he avoided selling the country’s children as soldiers and found other ways to pay off his country’s debts. He promoted the economy of his country by expanding the manufacturing industry, supported the educational system by enhancing the Gymnasium illustre, and in 1775, founded the first permanent German court theater with Conrad Ekhof as its director.
Ernst was a Freemason and later an Illuminati, thus being part of a society-changing network. Initially, Ernst was open-minded towards the French Revolution, but he saw himself as an enlightened yet absolutist ruler and increasingly rejected the events in Paris.
Freemasons and Illuminati in Gotha
Freemasonry and the Illuminati are significant aspects of Gotha’s development around 1800 into a place of intellectual exchange, thought experiments, scientific discussion, and global interest.
The natural sciences, particularly physics, astronomy, and geography, were the special hobby of Ernst II. He not only engaged in these disciplines himself and acquired significant scientific instruments, but he also succeeded in attracting prominent scientists to Gotha and establishing the location as a center of science.
With the establishment of the first observatory on the Seeberg under the direction of the distinguished astronomer Franz-Xaver von Zach (1754-1832) and the holding of the first Astronomers’ Congress in 1798 in Gotha, Ernst II. attracted international attention.