BATTENBERG  , the name of a

family of German counts which died out about 1314, whose seat was the, castle of Kellerburg, near Battenberg, a small place now in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau . The title was revived in 1851, when Alexander (1823-1888), a younger son of Louis II., grand-duke of Hesse, contracted a morganatic marriage with a Polish lady, Countess Julia Theresa von Haucke (1825-1895), who was then created countess of Battenberg . Raised to the rank of a princess in 1858, the countess and her children were allowed to style themselves princes and princesses of Battenberg, with the addition of Durchlaucht or Serene Highness . The eldest son of this union, Louis Alexander (b . 1854), married in 1884 Victoria, daughter of Louis IV., grand-duke of Hesse, and became an admiral in the British navy . The second son, Alexander Joseph (q.v.), was prince of Bulgaria from 1879 to 1886 . The third son, Henry Maurice, was born in 1858, and married op the 23rd of July 1885 Beatrice, youngest daughter of Victoria, queen of England . He died at sea on the aoth of January 1896 when returning from active service with the British troops during the Ashanti War, and left three sons and a daughter, Victoria Eugenie, who was married in.i906 to Alphonso XIII., king of Spain . The fourth son, Francis Joseph, born in 186r, married in 1897 Anna, daughter of Nicholas I., prince of Montenegro, and is the author of , Die volkswirtschaftliche Entwickelung Bulgariens von 1879 bis zur Gegenwart (Leipzig, 1891) . The only daughter of the princess of Battenberg, Marie Caroline, born in 1852, was married in 1871 to Gustavus Ernest, prince and count of Erbach-Schonberg .