Diana, Princess of Wales: A Perspective

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Buckingham Palace, Camilla Parker Bowles, Diana Spencer, Duke of Cambridge, Duke of Edinburgh, Elizabeth II, Kings and Queens of England, kings and queens of Scotland, Prince Charles, Prince of Wales, the prince of Wales, The Princess of Wales

I was on a Facebook page that was dedicated to English royalty. The page displayed pictures of HRH The Prince of Wales with HRH The Duchess of Cornwall. I was surprised to read the hate toward the Duchess in the name of Diana, Princess of Wales. There are still some die-hard Diana fans who can be very rigid and venomous in their attacks on The Duchess of Cornwall. The responses surprised me because I thought this type of behavior was in the past. Apparently it is not. Today I wanted to write about Diana, Princess of Wales, a person I seldom write about, and see if I can put some things into perspective.

I understand that many people are royalty watchers, or interested in the British monarchy, because of Diana, Princess of Wales. The wedding of Lady Diana Spencer to HRH The Prince of Wales back in 1981 was the doorway into their fascination with not only the British Monarchy, but Diana herself. I have observed that it is these people who are often most vocal in their praises of Diana and their criticisms of The Duchess of Cornwall. Then there are those, like myself, who were interested in British royalty prior to the royal wedding. This group tends to follow the royal family for other motives. I state this as fact with no judgment implied.

I actually did, and do, admire Diana, Princess of Wales. However, I do not do it at the expense of The Duchess of Cornwall and I also recognize that Diana brought both positive and negative changes to the royal family. Those are the things that i want to write about today.

I think Diana brought a breath of fresh air into the royal family. Her warmth and kindness and willing to be open was a message to the rest of the royal family that they too need to be more down to earth and show their warmth. I think they have followed suit and I think that is one of the biggest influences that Diana brought. I also think she was a wonderful Mom. She did work very hard to give her two boys as normal a life possible given the circumstances of their lives. This was not only beneficial to the boys, it also helped to modernize the royal family and bring it closer to the people.

Although the royal family has been a patron of charities for many many years, Diana brought a style to her charity work that again emphasized her down to earth spirit and care for other people. In a day when AIDS was a frightening unknown entity and people with AIDS were demonized and shunned the attitude that Diana had toward people with this affliction helped to not only reduce the stigma it helped educate people and brought them out of ignorance.

When any marriage ends both parties often share responsibility. There is rarely a one-sided relationship. I really do not wish to rehash what went on in their marriage and who is to blame. First of all I wasn’t there so anything I do know might not be an accurate.

I think my major point in all of this is about moving on. In August of 2013 it will be 16 years since Diana passed away. The problem seems to be that many have not yet moved on and are stuck in some type of anger phases toward the Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall. I do think it is time to move on, to celebrate and always honor the life of Diana, Princess of Wales and to also recognize that the Duchess of Cornwall is also a very good person that has brought many good qualities and hard work to the royal family. I do think it is time to move on, to forgive and accept what is and has come to be.

Divided by War: Austro-Prussian War 1866

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Austria, German Unification, Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and By Rhine, Habsburg, Hohenzollern, Otto von Bismark, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prussia, Queen Victoria of Great Britain

Often when I think of monarchy I envision a family, royal family, or, if you will, a national family. In the context of a national family which represents the nation it leaves out a part of their story and who they are. Throughout history royal families have been large extended families that often transcend national boarders. We can see this played out during the Victorian era when the numerous descendants of Victoria and Prince Albert were scattered about Europe. With centuries of inter-marriage the royal families of Europe, were in truth a grand family with many branches. Although we mere commoners may not have the degrees of consanguinity that the royals have, we too often belong to large extended families that may be scattered about all over the globe. We also, through our ethnic heritage may share kinship with more people than we are aware of. A problem that occurs when large extended families are separated by geography and culture and nationality it can place family members in conflicting positions both socially and politically.

One of the examples of that was during the 1866 War between Prussia and Austria. This war was part of the plan in uniting Germany under Prussian leadership that Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismark had constructed. The origins of the war are complex and worthy of a series of blog posts of its own, so I will only give you a brief synopsis. In 1864 there was a great controversy over the ownership of the thrones of the united Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. When the succession to that throne was contested between Denmark and Prussia war ensued with Denmark being easily trounced by Prussia. At this time both the Hohenzollerns of Prussia and the Habsburgs of Austria were wrestling for supremacy over the German nation and to see who would become the central power within Germany. Bismark desired a Germany with Prussia as its head and he found no room for Austria in this system. After the 1864 war with Denmark both Austria and Prussia took jurisdiction over the twin duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. The next step in German unification for Bismark was to remove Austria from German interests and to do this he goaded them into War. With Prussia at war with Austria many of the smaller, or lesser, German states in southern Germany, sided with Austria. Like the US Civil War which happened in that same decade, this conflict divided families, even royal families.

This conflict affected two sisters specifically, Crown Princess Victoria of Prussia, and Hereditary Grand Duchess Alice of Hesse and By Rhine. Prior to their marriage they were both princesses of the United Kingdom of Great Britain. Victoria, was the Princess Royal, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the Prince Consort, and Princess Alice was their second daughter. In 1858 Victoria married the future German Kaiser and King of Prussia, Friedrich III. In 1862 Alice married the future Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and By Rhine. Crown Prince Friedrich of Prussia was commander of one of the three division sof the Prussian Army and he was an essential leader in the Prussian victory at the Battle of Königgrätz on July 3, 1866. Prince Ludwig of Hesse and By Rhine found himself on the side with Austria and pitted against Prussia. He was a front line officer in a Hessian Regiment. With Prussia easily winning this war, Vicky was proud of the victories and accomplishments of her husband. However, Ludwig was feared for his life as Prussian troops marched into Darmstadt, the capital of the Hessian Grand Duchy.

Vicky and Alice, despite being on opposite sides of the war did have a strong relationship through the short conflict. Although Crown Prince Friedrich was a succesful leader during the conflict he was personally against the war. That did have some solace in easing family tensions. All of the parties mentioned wanted Great Britain to mediate the conflict but all efforts were squashed by Bismark. during this time Vicky had a tragedy. Days prior to her husband’s triumphant victory at the Battle of Königgrätz their son, Prince Sigismund, died of meningitis at 21 months and was the first grandchild of Queen Victoria to die. Therefore this tragedy also helped to detract Vicky from the war.

Another aspect of their relationship which helped them through the war was the fact that both being intellectual they were brought together over recent developments in both science and philosophy that made them both question their Christian faith. Liberal Biblical scholarship was in its infancy in 1866 but it had left the sisters to question some of the historical accuracy of the faith. They were also interested Darwin’s book, Origin of the Species, published in 1859. Their enlightened attitudes put them in disfavor with their mother, Queen Victoria, who could easily show favoritism or displeasure not only her children but anyone who displeased her and these new attitudes of her daughters did just that. It is interesting to see that royal families have petty squabbles just like the rest of us.

The Duke of Cambridge and royal genealogy

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Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine, Duchess of Portsmouth, Duke of Cambridge, Elizabeth II, Eystein Glumra, HRH The Prince of Wales, King George VI, Kings and Queens of England, kings and queens of the United Kingdom, Kings of Wessex, Louise de Kérouaille, Prince of Wales, Thierry I of Liesgau, William I the Conqueror

Happy 31st birthday to HRH Prince William Arthur Philip Louis of Wales, Duke of Cambridge, Earl of Strathearn, Baron Carrickfergus, Royal Knight Companion of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, Knight of the Most Ancient and Most Noble Order of the Thistle, Aide-de-camp to Her Majesty the Queen. In honor of his birthday I wanted to focus on The Duke of Cambridge and his genealogy.

I began to study a little more of the genealogy of the Duke of Cambridge and it brought up questions of ethnicity, nationality and I quickly realized how complex of a topic it really is!! In an article I wrote about changing the name of the House of Windsor, I touched upon the royal family’s Germanic roots. It is interesting to trace the nationality of the royal family through the decades from its origins as the Saxon Kingdom of the House of Wessex to today’s House of Windsor. Cerdic of Wessex, the first king of Wessex, reign circa 519-534, was of Germanic origins. The reason that the first king of Wessex was an ethnic German was due to the fact that many Germanic tribes invaded England after the fall of the Roman empire which succeeded in supplanting the native Celtic tribes.

The House of Wessex consolidated its kingdom and became the dominant power in England. However, within 500 years the House of Wessex was replaced by the French line of the Dukes of Normandy in the person of William I the Conqueror 1066-1087. William I of England was not from French stock but was from Norwegian stock as a descendant of Eystein Glumra, Jarl (Earl) of Oppland and Hedmark in Norway. The Plantagenets followed the Normans on the English throne and they were from the House of Anjou, a French noble house descended from Ingelger, Count of Anjou (died 888) . During their long tenure on the English throne the Plantagenet dynasty divided into two collateral branches, the House of Lancaster and the House of York. The Plantagenet dynasty was replaced by the Tudors in 1485 and they were of Welsh nationality and Stock. In 1603 the royal Stuart line from Scotland sat on the English throne. The Stuarts were not originally Scottish as they  were descendants of Alan fitz Flaad a man who was a Breton, an ethnic group located in the region of Brittany in France.

The Hanovarians followed the Stuarts on the British throne in 1714. The House of Hanover was a branch of the House of Guelph in Germany which itself was a collateral branch of the House of Este which were descendants of the Roman/Italian Attii family that migrated from Rome to Este and assisted in defending Italy against the Goths. The Family of Elizabeth II, the Wettins, was also from Germany with Dietrich (ca. 916-ca. 976), also known as Thierry I of Liesgau, being the earliest family member that historians can validate. The Wettin family, in the form of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha came to the British throne under King Edward VII, whose father, Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria, was a member of. In 1917 the Saxe-Coburg dynasty changed its name to Windsor because of social and political pressure during World War I. The Duke of Cambridge, as a grandson of the Duke of Edinburgh, husband of Britain’s current monarch, Elizabeth II, is from the House of Glücksburg, which is a collateral branch of the House of Oldenburg. The House of Oldenburg was also Germanic in origin  with Elimar I, Count of Oldenburg 1101-1108 the founder of the line. The Oldenburg dynasty spread across Europe and ruled Denmark, Norway, Greece, Sweden and Russia at different times in history.

This shows that in the male or paternal line the genealogy of the Duke of Cambridge is of a diverse stock. On his mother’s side, the Duke of Cambridge is related to both the Spencer family as well as the Churchill family and other prominent noble families of Britain. The Duke of Cambridge is also a descendant of King Charles II of England and Scotland through two of the king’s mistresses, Barbara Villiers, Countess of Castlemaine and Louise de Kérouaille, Duchess of Portsmouth. This makes the future King William V of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland of having the distinction of being the only British king who will be a descendant of King Charles I, King Charles II and King Charles III (assuming his father lives to succeed to the throne).

With King George VI having married the daughter of a Scottish Nobleman and the Prince of Wales having married the daughter of an English Nobleman, and with The Duke of Cambridge himself marrying an English woman, the future nationality of the British Royal family is moving away from the foreign dynasties that once sat on the British throne to become more native.

Legal Succession: The House of Stuart, Part IV

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Declaration of Indulgence, Glorious Revolution, King James II-VII of England and Scotland, King Louis XIV of France and Navarre, William III and Mary II, William III of Orange

There are historians that count the succession of William III of Orange as the last time the English throne was usurped. There is debate about that and today we will look at that issue. The succession of William III and his wife, Mary II, known as the Glorious Revolution, did represent a large shift of power from the crown to Parliament. That is one of the issues behind whether or not William III can be regarded as a usurper. The question we are examining is did William III usurp the throne or did Parliament depose James II-VII and replace him with William III and Mary II?

Although in the last entry I mentioned the birth of James, Prince of Wales, a Catholic heir to King James II-VII, as being the last straw which initiated the Glorious Revolution, there was an incident which lead to the breaking of bonds with the king. In April James II-VII re-issued the Declaration of Indulgence, and simultaneously ordered Anglican clergymen to read it in their churches. Consequently as a result, seven Bishops, including the Archbishop of Canterbury, submitted a petition requesting the reconsideration of the King’s religious policies. For this action the King had them arrested and tried for seditious libel. Because of this incidence, seven Protestant noblemen began to negotiate with William of Orange to take the throne. Then in June with the birth of the new Prince of Wales the group of seven Protestant nobles invited the Prince of Orange to come to England with an army. In November William arrived in England and a majority of Protestants placed their support behind William, including his wife, Princess Mary, her sister, Princess Anne, both daughters of King James.

For his part, James did not want to attack and cause a civil war so he tried to flee England in December of 1688. The king was captured in Kent and placed under Dutch guards. William did not want to create a situation where James was a martyr so he allowed him to flee to France where he was accepted at the court of his cousin, King Louis XIV of France and Navarre. Parliament did not want to depose the king and declared, by his actions of fleeing to France, that he had abdicated the throne and thus the throne was vacant. William called another Parliament to decide the fate of the throne. At the time of William’s invasion he did have a right to the throne, but his place in the succession was after the new born-Prince of Wales, and even after his wife Mary and her sister Princess Anne.

After James fled the country and the throne was vacant the Prince of Wales was unacceptable and the next in line was William’s wife Mary. Parliament was divided on the succession. More radical Whigs in the Lower House of Parliament (the Commons) proposed to elect William as a king which would symbolize that his right to the throne came from the people. More moderate members of Parliament wanted to give the throne William and Mary together and the more conservative Parliamentarians, the Tory Party,  wanted to make William regent and only acclaim Mary as Queen. A compromise had to be found. William did not want to rule as a regent and Mary let it be known she would not rule without her husband. Other problems within Parliament was the fact that there were still members who were loyal to James and wanted to bring him back if agreements over policies could be made.

It was a contentious time and in hindsight the solution may appear cut and dried but at the time it was not. There were even squabbles on how to word the documents on whether the king had abdicated or deserted the throne. Eventually both houses of Parliament were able to come together and resolved to give the throne jointly to both William and Mary.  Anne declared that she would temporarily wave her right to the crown should Mary die before William. sovereignty was granted to both William and Mary for their lifetime.

In Part V in looking at the House of Stuart. I will discuss the Glorious Revolution and its impact on Scotland and Ireland.

Vacation time

I am taking a break for about a week..maybe  alittle more. I will be back posting on the week of June 17th.

House of Windsor to House of Glücksburg?

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Duke Carlo-Hugo of Burbon- Parma, Duke of Edinburgh, Emperor Peter II of Russia, Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, House of Holstein-Gottorp, House of Oldenburg, House of Romanov, House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, House of Windsor, HRH The Prince of Wales, King George V of Great Britain, Kings and Queens of England, kings and queens of Scotland, kings and queens of the United Kingdom, Prince Charles, Prince Philip, Prince William, World War I

On July 17, 1917 HM King George V of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland changed the name of the royal house from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor. With World War I raging at the time there was a considerable amount of anti-German feelings in the land. For many people it didn’t seem right that the King had a German name while they were fighting a war against the German Empire In searching for a name to rechristened the royal dynasty they decided on the name Windsor, which was felt personified and the strength of the country and it also went along with the royal tradition that many European Royal Houses had of naming their dynasties after a Castle.  The original Windsor Castle was built-in the 11th century after the Norman invasion by William the Conqueror. Since the time of Henry I, it has been used by succeeding monarchs and it is the longest-occupied palace in Europe.

The royal house of the United Kingdom has been known as Windsor now for almost 100 years. Will it remain Windsor one Charles becomes king or will it change? Often when the throne passes through the female line the name of the dynasty will change to reflect the patrilineal descent of the new monarch. This has been the case for the majority of royal houses in Europe although there are  exceptions. Some claim that the changing the name of dynasties was the invention of modern historians and that during some of these time periods dynastic names were not consistently used. Even with the kings and queens of England dynastic name changes have not always been consistent. For example, King Stephen was technically a member of the House of Blois but most historians and text books place him as a member of the House of Normandy. The same case happens with William III. Most books place him as a member of the House of Stuart yet he was, in the male line, a member of the Dutch House of Orange.

From a Genelaogically perspective, Elizabeth II is a member of the Wettin Dynasty from the collateral branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha line via her descent from Prince Albert, the consort of Queen Victoria. Her husband, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, is a member of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. This makes The Prince of Wales and the Duke of Cambridge and his future offsprings members of that dynasty. This is all from a genealogical aspect of course because technically they are members of the House of Windsor. The House of Glücksburg itself is a collateral branch of the House of Oldenburg. The Oldenburg dynasty has ruled in Denmark, Russia, Greece, Norway, Schleswig, Holstein, Oldenburg and Sweden. The question now becomes will the name of the royal house change when Charles succeeds to the throne?

There has been no indication either way that it will a change or that it will not change. In times past this would not have been an issue and the name of the royal house would automatically change once the Crown passed through the female line to reflect the patrilineal line. With the name Windsor the British monarchy has a name that does not have foreign roots like many of the former British royal houses had. This trend, of adopting or keeping nationalistic names for European Monarchies has become the new tradition. Many extant monarchies have chosen to keep the dynastic name even when passing through the female line. For example, in the Netherlands the dynastic name of the royal family is Orange-Nassau despite passing through the female line in the last three generations. Even further back in time Austria kept the Habsburg name even though the last male line Habsburg, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, died in 1740. In Russia the name of Romanov was kept even though the last male line Romanov died with the death of Emperor Peter II in 1730.

The dynasty that replaced the Romanov’s were the House of Holstein-Gottorp a collateral branch of the House of Oldenburg, but because Romanov was the name so associated with the Russian royal family it was decided to retain the name. In Belgium and Luxembourg they also have distanced themselves from their dynastic titles. In 1986, former Grand Duke Jean of Luxembourg, dropped the dynastic title of the House of Bourbon-Parma, because the head of that house, Duke Carlo-Hugo of Bourbon Parma deemed that Jean’s son, the current Grand Duke Henri, had entered into an unequal marriage. In 1921 King Albert I of Belgium dropped the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynastic name for the same reasons George V did. Today the Belgian royal family is simply known as being “of Belgium.”

With Britain now having a gender neutral succession it seems wise to just retain the name of Windsor for the name of the royal family even though it may, or will, pass through the female line many times in the future. With such a proud British (or specifically English) name such as Windsor attached to the royal family this association would be lost by changing it to the House of Glücksburg. It would once again be placing the family name under something foreign and not British or English. Some have theorized that a future Charles III could hyphenate Windsor with Mountbatten, something the queen herself decreed in 1961 for all their descendants who did not hold a royal title, or Charles III could call the royal house the House of Mountbatten or even the House Edinburgh. However, none of those scenarios seem likely.

Hopefully this all doesn’t sound xenophobic. My intent was to demonstrate that since the political atmosphere has changed over the centuries when royal families ruled over many different nation-states, and that the modern monarchy is more nationalistic, it makes great sense to abandon that old practice of renaming the royal dynasty when it passed through the female line and to retain a name that reflects and honors the people who the royal family serves.

Legal Succession: The House of Stuart, Part III

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2012. Parliament, Declaration of Indulgence, James Francis Stuart, King James II-VII of England and Scotland, Kings and Queens of England, kings and queens of Scotland, Mary of Modena, Prince of Wales

With James II-VII of England and Scotland on the throne both nations now had a Catholic king. After almost being excluded from the throne by Parliament because of his religion, the first Parliament to sit under James’ rule was known as the Loyal Parliament. The first months of the reign of James II-VII found him having a high level of popularity among the people and Parliament. The large issue that did dominate his short reign was religion. He was a Catholic king ruling a Protestant country. For many years Catholics were persona non-grata in elected offices. When James began to fill the standing army and high offices with Catholics this alarmed both the public and the Parliament.

James was not like Mary I where she tried to restore Catholicism as the official religion through bloody means. James was more like his brother, Charles II, who wanted to give Catholics equal standing in the realm. Charles faced many prejudices and an egalitarian approach toward religion was too far ahead of its time. For James, his attempts to repeal the penal laws that were in place against Catholics. In 1687 he issued the Declaration of Indulgence which was supposed to offset the penal laws. This alienated him more from Parliament and the people. James II-VII was tolerated for these behaviors knowing that in time the throne would pass to his eldest daughter, Princess Mary, a Protestant, who was married to her cousin, and a staunch supporter of Protestantism, Prince Willem III of Orange, stadtholder of the Netherlands.

However, back in 1673 James married, as his second wife, the Italian-Catholic Princess, Marie-Beatrice of Modena. For more than 10 years the marriage did not produce heirs that lived for very long. On June 10, 1688 the queen gave birth to a healthy thriving son, Princes James Francis Edward, shortly thereafter created Prince of Wales. The birth of a healthy male heir, who would be raised Catholic and supplant his protestant half-sister’s place in the succession, was not seen as a positive event. Many people and Parliament felt that this was the start of a long line of Catholic kings on the English and Scottish thrones.

In Part IV I will look at how James II-VII was deposed and discuss whether or not William III was a usurper.