Shortly after becoming sovereign, he had to deal with uprisings in Upper Hesse, which he left to his brother Prince Emil.

Emil and Prime Minister Karl du Thil were the actual government of the Grand Duchy at the time.

Following his death shortly afterwards, he was at first buried in the Stadtkirche Darmstadt, before his body was moved to the Old Mausoleum in Park Rosenhöhe in 1910.

Wilhelmine had four children in the 1820s, but it was widely rumored that their real father was her chamberlain August von Senarclens de Grancy.

Louis II nonetheless acknowledged them, and they were considered legitimate Princes and Princesses of Hesse and by Rhine by the nobles of Europe.