Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld
Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, was a reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, one of the ruling Thuringian dukes of the House of Wettin. As progenitor of a line of Coburg princes who, in the 19th and 20th centuries, ascended the thrones of several European realms, he is a patrilineal ancestor of the royal houses of Belgium and Bulgaria, as well as of several queens consort and empress consort of Mexico in the 1860s.
Portrait by Johann Heinrich Schröder, 1800
Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld was one of the Saxon Duchies held by the Ernestine line of the Wettin Dynasty. Established in 1699, the Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield line lasted until the reshuffle of the Ernestine territories that occurred following the extinction of the Saxe-Gotha line in 1825, in which the Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld line received Gotha, but lost Saalfeld to Saxe-Meiningen.
Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, shown among the other Ernestine duchies
Schloss Saalfeld, built after 1677 as the ducal residence
Coburg Castle