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The Princes of Bentheim-Tecklenburg.
They once ruled their own kingdom in North Rhine-Westphalia.
Rheda Castle in East Westphalia, with more than 100 rooms, is still the ancestral seat of the princely family today.
Today, the castle in Rheda-Wiedenbrück is home to the 24th generation of a young family: Maximilian Erbprinz zu Bentheim-Tecklenburg and his wife Marissa, née Fortescue from London, with her three children.
It is an aristocratic life in the middle of North Rhine-Westphalia.
The Bentheim-Tecklenburgs are related to almost every royal house in Europe.
The British, Dutch, Spanish and Swedes have all visited the princely family at one of their castles.
And the bestselling author Rosamunde Pilcher, an aunt of Hereditary Princess Marissa, has also visited Rheda Castle - where a rose in the castle garden was named after her in her honor.
The four castles of Hohenlimburg, Rheda, Clarholz and Herzebrock form something like the center of Westphalia.
However, few people today know that the County of Limburg was once an independent state.
The fortunes of this region were closely linked to the House of Bentheim-Tecklenburg for centuries.
The counts and princes ruled as sovereign rulers in the Holy Roman Empire.
Commissioned by WDR, BROADVIEW TV tells the exciting story of the aristocratic dynasty of the Princes of Bentheim-Tecklenburg.
In addition to exclusive interviews with Rosamunde Pilcher, family members, companions and well-known personalities from North Rhine-Westphalia, filmmaker Jobst Knigge has access to previously unpublished private and archive footage to tell the moving story of the zu Bentheim-Tecklenburgs.
First broadcast: Friday, October 2, 2009, 8:15 p.m., WDR
