Hohenlohe-Langenburg

In 1253 the town and castle of Langenburg were inherited by the lords of Hohenlohe, after the lords of Langenburg had become extinct. The lordship of Hohenlohe was elevated to the status of a county in 1495. Of the protestant branch of Hohenlohe-Neuenstein, which underwent several partitions and inherited the county of Gleichen in Thuringia (with its residence in Ohrdruf) in 1631, the senior line became extinct in 1805, while in 1701 the junior line divided itself into three branches, those of Langenburg, Ingelfingen and Kirchberg.

In 1701, Hohenlohe-Neuenstein was partitioned into Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen and Hohenlohe-Kirchberg. Hohenlohe-Langenburg was raised from a county to a principality in 1701, and was mediatised to Württemberg in 1806.

The House of Hohenlohe-Langenburg remained Protestant, and has remained closely related to Europe's Protestant ruling dynasties. Queen Adelaide of the United Kingdom was a Hohenlohe-Langenburg on her mother's side and her cousin, Prince Ernst, married in 1828 Feodora of Leiningen, the half-sister of the future Queen Victoria. In 1896, Feodora's grandson, another Prince Ernst, married Victoria's granddaughter, Princess Alexandra of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Prince Gottfried (1897-1960) was married in 1931 to his second cousin once removed, Princess Margarita of Greece and Denmark (1905–1981). She was the eldest daughter of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and his wife Princess Alice of Battenberg, and sister of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.