The Benelux Royals Message Board: Re: Biological son of prince Hendrik the sailor?

The survival of the monarchy in the Netherlands well into the 21 century might for a large part be contributed to the fact that we had four strong women on the throne during some very turbulent times in our history.
Neither Willem III nor his children were fit for the job. Willem reduced the House of Orange to a House of ill repute. I don't think Willem III last surviving son, Alexander, would have been able to function as Head of State nor as provider of royal offspring. Luckily Emma wasn't fainthearted and singlehandedly saved the monarchy. I can't praise her enough!

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His second marriage lasted from August 24th 1778 til his death on January 13th 1879. His first one lasted 19 years.
I was just surprised to hear about this son. There have been plenty of stories about extra-marital offspring from Willem I, II and III as well as of Wiwill. So far the only grown up princes who did have not children outside wedlock are Prince Frederik, second son of Willem I and both Alexanders. Neither one of them seemed very interested in women though the younger one did propose to Princess Frederica of Hanover and she was a stunning beauty. Had either of prince Hendrik's two marriages resulted in a son he would have succeeded his uncle in 1890 and not Princess Wilhelmina.

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Never heard of this person. But, as we all know both Willem III and Hendrik took a very young second wife and Willem even fathered a daughter with Emma in his 60's so its quite possible Hendrik was also still capable of fathering children.

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To my surprise the German version of wikipedia mention in it's description of King Willem III's youngest brother Hendrik that he fathered a son between the demise of his first wife Amalia of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach and his second marriage to Marie of Prussia.

The son would have been Elmer Philipp Ladislas zu Istein (1877-1904). This is the first time i heard anything about Hendrik having offspring. Does anyone have more information about this son or are we dealing with someone altering wikipedia with fake information?