Catherine II: A second marriage

Catherine II was crowned Empress of Russia on September 22, 1762.
Catherine II was a widow. What royal gentleman might she marry?
 
I don't know who would want to marry her after what happened to her first husband.....

Also, I'm not sure if she would want to marry again as her legitimacy had derived from her first husband in the first place...

Although I'm definitely not an expert...
 
Catherine relied upon the support of her lovers to get her to power, and her claim from Russia was derived from her deposed and executed husband. She wouldn't feel that she would need to remarry (which is why she didn't), and besides, the Russian nobles would hardly allow it anyway.

If she was to marry anyone, they would need to be a Russian noble - maybe a cousin from the Romanov family somewhere, just to ensure that her claim is not nullified.
 
Ekaterina did seriously toy with the idea of marrying her former lover, Stanislaw Poniatowskim and annexing Poland that way, but Friedrich II of Prussia warned her that if she did, all of Europe would declare against her. Nonetheless, she was reportedly secretly married to Grigory Potemkin already. Hence the reason that certain members in Europe's charmed circle of kings referred to her as Madame Potemkin.
 
Catherine II marries Ernest Frederick III, Duke of Saxe-Hildburghausen.

Were you not listening to telynk, TheBrunswickian, BBadolato or JonasResende?

Anyway, marriage didn't really work like that in those days - the husband was essentially the master of the wife in the eyes of most people, especially in Russia. It would take a very peculiar type of royal dude to marry a woman who ranked far higher than him. I'm not saying that wouldn't happen, or that it didn't happen occasionally in history, just that you can't just take any German Duke at random and say "Yes, this dude would be willing to be the junior partner in a marriage with a woman who was rumoured to have murdered her first husband, had numerous affairs with men and horses AND would be attractive enough personally and politically to Ekaterina herself that she would be willing to accept his proposal".

True, Hildburghausen was in major debt, but the family was quite chummy with Austria, supplying a few Field Marshals, etc. Why would that change? Anyway, Ernst Friedrich was married to his third wife from 1758 (when Ekaterina was still married to her first husband) to his death in 1780. Even if he outlived his third wife, why (other than love or greed) would he marry a menopausal woman with her sexual lifestyle?
 
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