Ludvig Douglas


Ludvig Vilhelm August Douglas, Count of Mühlhausen, Gondelsheim, Skenninge and Stjernorp, Lord of Langenstein and Stjernorp castles, was a conservative Swedish politician and official. He was a direct patrilineal descendant of Field Marshal Robert Douglas.
Ludvig Douglas was born at Zürich, Switzerland. His parents were Count Carl Israel Douglas, first count of the Douglas family in the nobility of Baden as Count of Mühlhausen, and his wife Countess Louise von Gondelsheim and Langenstein, herself a daughter of the morganatic marriage of Louis I, Grand Duke of Baden and Katharina Werner. Through his mother, he was a second cousin of Victoria of Baden, wife of King Gustaf V of Sweden.
He received the fideicommiss of Muhlhausen and the castle of Langenstein as his share of the family inheritance and reclaimed in c1875 his ancestral castle of Stjernorp in Sweden, which had been lost to his family after a fire in 1789. He ultimately succeeded his childless elder brother as head of the comital House of Douglas.
Douglas was a protectionist and solidly oriented towards Germany. From 1895 to 1899, he served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden. He resigned because he refused to accept that Norway would have their flag without the mark of the union, i.e. he opposed the so-called pure flag.
He also held the position of Riksmarskalk , Landshövding of Uppsala County, and Landshövding of Östergötland County. Douglas worked for the Norrlander farmers' party against the forest products companies, they demanded protective legislation in field of wood market.
Count Ludvig died at Lysekil, and is buried at the Douglas family graveyard in Vreta monastic church, Sweden.
His wife was Countess Anna Louise Ehrensvärd, daughter of Count Albert Ehrensvärd the Elder, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden, and sister of Count Albert Ehrensvärd the Younger, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Sweden.
The Swedish branch of the Counts Douglas, to which Ludvig belonged, was the main surviving lineage of the family until Ludvig's sons and grandsons created several new branches wife was Augusta Victoria of Hohenzollern, dowager queen of Portugal.