Ludvig Douglas

Who was 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.