The Crown of Baden

In 1803 Napoleon conferred the title of 'Prince Elector' on The Margrave of Baden. Three years later he declared himself to be a Sovereign Prince with the title Grand Duke.

Charles Frederick, the first holder of the title had died in 1811 and was succeeded by his grandson Charles, who married Stephanie de Beauharnais, Napoleon's adopted daughter. Charles received from his father-in-law a set of Crown Jewels, which included this crown, made of gold fabric stitched with precious and semi-precious stones.

Under Charles Frederick, Baden enjoyed a long period of prosperity. He had to cede territory west of the Rhine to Revolutionary France in the 1790's, however, and was forced into an allliance with France in 1796. Baden thus became a satellite of France but was well compensated by its new ally for the possessions it had lost ... its territory was extended north as far as the Main River and South to Lake Constance (the Bodensee). The magravate was thus enlarged to four or five times its former size. Accordingly, in 1803 Baden was made an electorate of the Holy Roman Empire and in 1806, on the Empire's dissolution, a Grand Duchy and a member of Napoleon's Confederation of the Rhine.

Baden as a unified state was recognised as a sovereign member of the newly formed German Confederation by the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15. In 1818 the Grand Duke issued a constitution that made Baden one of the first German states to establish a representative assembly. However, liberal reforms under Leopold, Grand Duke from 1830 to 1852, did not keep pace with radical demands that eventually precipitated a revolution led by Frederich Hecker and Gustav von Struve in 1848. Prussian military force supressed the revolutionary and restored Loepold in 1849.

Frederick I, Grand Duke from 1852 to 1907, was an ally of Prussia (except during the 7 Weeks War of 1866) and helped to found the German Empire. The last Grand Duke of Baden, Frederick II, abdicated in 1918 at the end of World War I.