Heinrich X, Count of Reuss-Ebersdorf

Heinrich X, Count of Reuss-Ebersdorf (29 November 1662 in Bad Lobenstein – 10 June 1711 in Ebersdorf), was a member of the House of Reuss (younger line). He was Count of Lobenstein, and from 1678, Count of Ebersdorf. He was the founder of Reuss-Ebersdorf line.

Life

Henry was the youngest son of Henry X, Count of Reuss-Lobenstein (1621-1671), Lord of Lobenstein, Hirschberg and Ebersdorf and his wife Marie Sibylle of Reuss-Obergreiz. His paternal grandfather was Henry II, Count of Reuss-Gera. When the county was divided in 1678, Henry X was assigend as his resident the village of Ebersdorf, which was unusual, since it was a village. Before he married, he had the existing manor hose expanded to a modest castle between 1692 and 1694, and added a baroque garden.

When his castle was ready, Henry X finally married, on 29 November 1694, in Laubach with Erdmuthe Benigna (1670-1732), daughter of Count John Frederick of Solms-Laubach. Both spouses were seen as extremely pious. They were close friends of the pietist-pedagogue August Hermann Francke from Halle, and later with the Count Nikolaus Ludwig of Zinzendorf, who would marry their daughter Erdmuthe Dorothea. Ebersdorf soon became a center of the Pietism in Thuringia.

Issue

Count Henry X had the following children:

• Benigna Marie (1695-1751)
• Friederike Wilhelmine (1696-1698)
• Charlotte Louise (1698-1698)
• Heinrich XXIX (1699-1747), Count of Reuss-Ebersdorf, married in 1721 Countess Sophie Theodora of Castell-Remlingen (1703-1777)
• Erdmuthe Dorothea (1700-1756), married in 1722 with Count Nicholas Ludwig of Zinzendorf (1700-1760)
• Bibiane Henriette (1702-1745), married in 1741 with Baron George Adolph Marschall of Bieberstein
• Sophie Albertine Dorothea (1703-1708)
• Ernestine Eleanor (1706-1766)

References

• Thomas Gehrlein: "Das Haus Reuss: Älterer und Jüngerer Linie", booklet, August 2006