First marriage
On 19 April 1894, at Schloss Ehrenburg, Ernest Louis married his maternal first cousin, Princess Victoria Melita of Edinburgh, nicknamed "Ducky", the daughter of his mother's brother, Prince Alfred. The match was encouraged by their mutual grandmother, Queen Victoria, who had first suggested it in autumn 1891 when Ducky (who shared a birthday with Ernest Ludwig) was only fifteen years old.
At the wedding, Ernest's youngest surviving sister, Alix, became engaged to marry Tsarevich Nicholas of Russia, and the excitement of that imminent match overshadowed the wedding celebrations.
Ernest and Victoria Melita had two children:
a daughter, Elisabeth (11 March 1895 – 16 November 1903). Her early death at age eight from typhoid fever devastated her father, who wrote "My little Elisabeth" in his memoirs "was the sunshine of my life" 30 years after her death.
stillborn son on 25 May 1900.
Ernest and Victoria entertained in style, frequently holding house parties for young friends under the age of 30, dispensing with formality on those occasions to indulge in fun and frolic. Victoria's cousin, Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, remembered one stay with them as "the jolliest, merriest house party to which I have ever been in my life." These revelries were more in keeping with Victoria's inclinations than Ernest's. Their marriage was unhappy due to differences in temperament and attitude. Fond of revelry, Victoria was less enthusiastic about fulfilling her public role. She avoided answering letters, put off visits to elderly relations whose company she did not enjoy, and talked to people who amused her at official functions while ignoring people of higher social or official standing whom she found boring. Her inattention to her duties provoked quarrels with Ernest Louis. The young couple had loud arguments which sometimes turned physical. Victoria shouted, threw tea trays, smashed china against the wall, and tossed anything at hand at Ernest Louis during their arguments.
Queen Victoria was saddened when she heard of the trouble in the marriage from Sir George Buchanan, her chargé d'affaires in Darmstadt, but because of their daughter Elisabeth she refused to consider permitting her grandchildren to divorce. Ernest also held off from divorce mainly for this reason. He adored his daughter and lavished his time and attention on her. The child reciprocated his affection and preferred the company to that of her mother. Meanwhile, all efforts to rekindle the marriage failed. Victoria spent most of the year in the south of France, spending large sums of money. When Queen Victoria died in January 1901, significant opposition to ending the marriage was removed. The couple were divorced 21 December 1901 on grounds of "invincible mutual antipathy" by a special verdict of the Supreme Court of Hesse. After the divorce, Victoria told some close relatives that Ernest Louis was a homosexual. She allegedly caught her husband in bed with a male servant when, in 1897, she returned home from a visit to her sister Queen Marie of Romania. She did not make her accusation public, but told when her niece Ileana found herself engaged to the homosexual Count Alexander von Hochberg in 1930, she spoke of her own experience with Ernest Louis, and said that "no boy was safe, from the stable hands to the kitchen help. He slept quite openly with them all."
Victoria later married another first cousin, this time on her mother's side in October 1905, while Ernest married his distant cousin, Eleonore of Solms-Hohensolms-Lich
