A countly engagement - Count Mauritz Douglas and Countess Emma of Solms-Laubach

 

The family celebrates Count Mauritz and Countess Emma's engagement. (Archduchess Walburga's Facebook page)

Archduchess Walburga of Austria, Countess Douglas, has announced the engagement of her only child, Count Mauritz Douglas, to Countess Emma of Solms-Laubach.

"This weekend we celebrated Mauritz and Emma's engagement. I waited 66 years, but now I get my dream daughter!"

Walburga, a daughter of the late Archduke Otto of Austria, head of the Imperial House, is married to Swedish  Count Archibald Douglas.    Count Archibald is a descendant of Robert Douglas (1611-1662), a Scottish-born cavalry officer who served in the Thirty Years' War, rising to the field in the Swedish-Polish wars.   He settled in Sweden and served Queen Christina and King Carl X Gustaf.

In 1651, Queen Christina created Robert Douglas a baron.  Three years later, she elevated him to the rank of Count.  He had six sons and one daughter, but only one, Gustaf, had surviving issue.  The Countly line descends from Gustaf.

Count Mauritz Otto Wenzel Douglas was born on March 31, 1994, in Stockholm.  He and his family at Ekensolm Castle in Sweden.

In 2018, Count Mauritz earned a BA in International Relations from the University of Exeter. After graduation, he moved to London to study at Le Cordon Bleu, where he received a diploma in Culinary Management.  After working as a chef for a year,  Mauritz was accepted into the MBA program at Les Roches Global Hospitality School in Crans-Montana, Switzerland.  He recceived his MBA in Global Hospitality Management in 2021.

Now 31, the count is an Operations Specialist with Eksensholm Gård.  He was raised at Eksensholm Castle in Malmköping, Sweden.

H Ill H Countess Emma Margaretha of Solms-Laubach was born in Giessen on July 7, 1992.  She is the eldest of four children of H Ill H Karl Georg, Count of Solms-Laubach, and his first wife, Julia Willers.  The Count and Countess' marriage was dissolved by divorce in 2011.  The following year, he married Celina von Lüttitz.

Emma studied Fashion Design at ESMOD in Berlin, where she received a BA in 2016.  Four years later, she received a Master's in Marketing and Communication from SRH Berlin School of Design and Communication.   Her family seat is Schloss Laubach in Laubach, Hesse, in Germany/

Two paternal aunts, Christina and Marie are married to a Coburg lawyer, Killian von Pezold and Prince Stefan zur Lippe. Christina’s daughter, Helene, is married to the Hereditary Prince of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg.  Another aunt, Countess Marie of Solms-Laubach .

Emma's paternal grandmother,  HSH Princess Madeleine of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, is the second child of the late Gustav Albrecht, Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein, and Marguerite Fouché d'Otrante. 

 Princess Madeleine's younger sister, Princess Tatiana, was married to HRH Moritz, Landgrave of Hesse.   Their mother was the daughter of Charles Louis Fouché d'Otrante, 6th Duc d'Otrante, and Countess Madeleine Douglas, whose father, Count Ludvig, was a maternal grandson of Ludwig I, Duke of Baden, and his mistress,  Katharina Werner, Countess of Gondelsheim and Langenstein.

Count Mauritz is also a descendant of Count Ludvig and his wife, Countess Anna Ehrensvärd.

The newly engaged couple are third cousins once removed.

Ludvig - Madeleine - Margareta - Madeleine - Karl - Emma

Ludvig - Archibald  - Archibald - Archibald - Mauritz

Count Archibald's first cousin, Countess Elisabeth, is the wife of Duke Max in Bavaria and the mother of Hereditary Princess Sophie of Liechtenstein.  Elisabeth's sister, Rosita, was the third wife of the late John, 11th Duke of Marlborough.

Ludvig - Archibald  - Carl - Elisabeth - Sophie - Joseph Wenzel 

HSH Gustav, Prince of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg, and HRH Donatus, Landgrave of Hesse, are among Emma's second cousins.  Emma and Prince Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein are fourth cousins.