Eberhard Louis, Duke of Württemberg

This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. (Learn how and when to remove these messages) This article's lead section may be too short to adequately summarize the key points. Please consider expanding the lead to provide an accessible overview of all important aspects of the article. (July 2021) This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Eberhard Louis, Duke of Württemberg" – news · newspapers · books · scholar · JSTOR (May 2019) (Learn how and when to remove this message) You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in German. (January 2024) Click [show] for important translation instructions. View a machine-translated version of the German article. Machine translation, like DeepL or Google Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. You must provide copyright attribution in the edit summary accompanying your translation by providing an interlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary is Content in this edit is translated from the existing German Wikipedia article at [[:de:Eberhard Ludwig (Württemberg)]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template {{Translated|de|Eberhard Ludwig (Württemberg)}} to the talk page. For more guidance, see Wikipedia:Translation. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Eberhard Louis
Eberhard Louis, Duke of Württemberg
Duke of Württemberg
Reign	23 June 1677 – 31 October 1733
Predecessor	William Louis
Successor	Charles Alexander
Born	(1676-09-18)18 September 1676 Stuttgart, Germany
Died	31 October 1733(1733-10-31) (aged 57) Ludwigsburg, Germany
Spouse	Joanna Elisabeth of Baden-Durlach ​ ​ (m. 1697)​ Wilhelmine von Grävenitz
Issue	Friedrich Ludwig, Hereditary Prince of Württemberg
House	Württemberg
Father	William Louis, Duke of Württemberg
Mother	Magdalena Sibylla of Hesse-Darmstadt
Religion	Lutheran

Duke Eberhard Louis (18 September 1676 – 31 October 1733) was the Duke of Württemberg, from 1692 until 1733.

Eberhard Louis was born in Stuttgart the third child of Duke William Louis and his wife, Magdalena Sibylla of Hesse-Darmstadt. After the early and unexpected death of his father in 1677, the royal court decided to give guardianship to his uncle, Frederick Charles, Duke of Württemberg-Winnental.

In 1693, Magdalena Sibylla had the 16-year-old Eberhard Louis prematurely proclaimed Duke of Württemberg by Emperor Leopold I. The young duke showed no excessive interest in governmental affairs. Eberhard Louis was described by his contemporaries as superficial and easily influenced. Most importantly, his behavior led to the political fate of the land being largely decided by his council. The duke preferred hunting and left the administration of his county in the hands his advisors. In 1697, he married Joanna Elisabeth of Baden-Durlach.

In 1707 he became the field marshal of the Swabian troops in the War of the Spanish Succession.

Shortly before 1700, he visited Louis XIV of France at the Palace of Versailles and planned to make Württemberg an absolutist state. He raised taxes, but financing still remained an obstacle. In 1704, he laid the foundation for his Ludwigsburg Palace. To save money, he allowed the workers to reside tax-free around the palace for 15 years. Later, the city of Ludwigsburg developed out of these residences.

As of 1711, Eberhard Louis spent ever more time in Ludwigsburg, usually in the company of his mistress, Wilhelmine von Grävenitz, whom he married in 1707. Because of pressure from the emperor, the marriage had to be quickly dissolved, and Grävenitz went into exile. Eberhard Louis followed her to Switzerland, where they stayed until 1710. The influential mistress was only allowed to return to the royal court once she had married another man, Count Johann Franz Ferdinand von Würben und Freudenthal (d. 1729). For over two decades, Grävenitz had a strong influence on the government of the land, and it was she who, together with Eberhard Ludwig, moved the royal residence and capital of the duchy from Stuttgart to the sparsely populated city of Ludwigsburg. Duchess Joanna Elisabeth of Baden-Durlach stayed in the royal palace in Stuttgart.

Because of the early death of his heir, Prince Frederick Louis, in 1731, the power threatened to shift into Catholic hands, which was unthinkable for Protestant Württemberg. Thus Duke Eberhard Louis dissolved his relations with Wilhelmine von Grävenitz and hoped to receive an heir from his legitimate and long ignored wife, Joanna Elisabeth. However, as he died in Ludwigsburg of a stroke on 31 October 1733, he left no heir behind. The duchy then fell into the hands of his converted cousin, Charles Alexander, Duke of Württemberg of the bloodline Württemberg-Winnental, though only for a few years.

For his time, Eberhard Louis was a very tolerant ruler, commonly noted by modern scholars as "enlightened."^[1] An example of this is the hiring of Oberkapellmeister Johann Christoph Pez, a Roman Catholic, whom Eberhard Louis guaranteed freedom from religious persecution.^[2]