In the 18th century, modern Germany continued to be a patchwork of various duchies, which kept German nobles in the marriage rotation throughout Europe. So it was that two brothers - Ernst and Leopold - came into the world in the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld in 1784 and 1790. One would become the King of Belgium, and one would be the legal father of Prince Albert, later the husband of Queen Victoria.

We say "legal father" because apparently it's not 100% clear that Ernst's estranged wife, the long suffering Princess Louise, wasn't comforting her brother-in-law after the death of his wife, England's Princess Charlotte, whose death in childbirth prompted the Hanoverian race to reproduce that gave the world Queen Victoria. 

It is, as they say, complicated.

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