Gleichen
The first is a group of three (hence called "die drei [three] Gleichen"), each situated on a hill in Thuringia between Gotha and Erfurt.[1] One of these called Gleichen, the Wanderslebener Gleiche (1221 ft. above the sea), was besieged unsuccessfully by the emperor Henry IV in 1088.It was the seat of a line of counts, one of whom, Ernest III, a crusader, is the subject of a romantic legend.Having been captured, he was released from his imprisonment by a Turkish woman, who returned with him to Germany and became his wife, a papal dispensation allowing him to live with two wives at the same time (see Reineck, Die Sage von der Doppelehe eines Grafen von Gleichen, 1891).The third castle, Wachsenburg (1358 ft.), was still inhabited in 1911 and contained a collection of weapons and pictures belonging to its owner, the duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, whose family obtained possession of it in 1368.