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Monthly Archives: January 2019

HRH Prince Henri d’Orléans, The Count of Paris, Duke of France, pretender to the throne of France has died at the age of 85.

21 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, Featured Royal, From the Emperor's Desk, In the News today..., Kingdom of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal Succession

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French pretenders, Henri Count of Paris, House of Orléans, King of France, Louis-Philippe of France

HRH Prince Henri d’Orléans, The Count of Paris, Duke of France (Henri Philippe Pierre Marie d’Orléans; June 14, 1933 – January 21, 2019), was head of the House of Orléans as the Orléanist pretender to the defunct French throne as King Henri VII of France.

Prince Henri was descendant in the male-line of France’s “Citizen-King” Louis-Philippe I (ruled 1830–1848), he was also recognized as the legitimate claimant to the throne by those French royalists, called Unionists, who regard him as the rightful heir of Prince Henri de Bourbon, Count of Chambord, the last patrilineal descendant of King Louis XV. Henri was a retired military officer as well as an author and painter.

He was the first son of Henri, Count of Paris (1908–1999), and his wife Princess Isabelle of Orléans-Braganza, and was born in Woluwe-Saint-Pierre. From October 1959 to April 1962, Prince Henri worked at the Secretariat-General for National Defence and Security as a member of the French Foreign Legion. He transferred from there to a garrison in Germany, he took up a new assignment as military instructor at Bonifacio in Corsica, where his wife and children joined him early in 1963.

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HRH Prince Henri d’Orléans, The Count of Paris, Duke of France

Returning to civilian life in 1967, Prince Henri and his family briefly occupied the Blanche Neige pavilion on his father’s Manoir du Coeur-Volant estate at Louveciennes before renting an apartment of their own in the XVe arrondissement. In the early 1970s Prince Henri managed public relations for the Geneva office of a Swiss investment firm while dwelling in Corly.

Marriages and children

On July 5, 1957, Henri married Duchess Marie Therese of Württemberg (born 1934). Marie Therese was the fifth child and fourth daughter of Philipp Albrecht, Duke of Württemberg, and his second wife, Archduchess Rosa of Austria, Princess of Tuscany. She was born at Altshausen Castle, Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Five children were born from this union:

1. Princess Marie Isabelle Marguerite Anne Geneviève d’Orléans of France (born 3 January 1959 in Boulogne-sur-Seine)
2. Prince François, Count of Clermont (7 February 1961 in Boulogne-sur-Seine – December 30, 2017)
3. Princess Blanche Elisabeth Rose Marie d’Orléans of France (born 10 September 1963 in Ravensburg).
4. Prince Jean Charles Pierre Marie d’Orléans of France, (born 19 May 1965, Boulogne-sur-Seine), Duke of Vendôme.
5. Prince Eudes Thibaut Joseph Marie d’Orléans of France (born 18 March 1968, Paris), Duke of Angoulême.

In 1984, Prince Henri and Princess Marie-Thérèse were divorced. On October 31, 1984 Prince Henri entered a civil marriage with Micaëla Anna María Cousiño y Quiñones de León (born on 30 April 1938), daughter of Luis Cousiño y Sebire and his wife Antonia Maria Quiñones de Léon y Bañuelos, 4th Marquesa de San Carlos. For remarrying without consent Henri’s father initially declared him disinherited.

Tensions lessened over the years and on March 7, 1991 the Count of Paris reinstated Henri as heir apparent and Count of Clermont, simultaneously giving Micaëla the title “Princesse de Joinville”.

Head of house

Until he succeeded his father as royal claimant, Prince Henri and his second wife occupied an apartment in Paris. On June 19, 1999, Prince Henri’s father died and Henri became the new head of the House of Orléans. He took the traditional title, Count of Paris, adding an ancient one, Duke of France, which had not borne by his Orléans or Bourbon forebears, but used a thousand years ago by his ancestors before Hugh Capet took the title of King of France. His wife assumed the title “Duchess of France”, deferring to the continued use of “Countess of Paris” by Henri’s widowed mother until her death on July 5, 2003, whereupon Micaela started to use the title Countess of Paris.

Prince Henri recognised his disabled eldest son François as heir, with the title Count of Clermont. He was the Dauphin of France in Orleanist reckoning. However, his mother had been infected with toxoplasmosis during her second and third pregnancies, and the pre-natal exposure left both Prince François and his younger sister, Princess Blanche, developmentally disabled.

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HRH Prince Jean, Duke of Vendôme

Prince Henri maintained that his eldest son would exercise his prerogatives as head of the dynasty under a “regency” of his middle son, Prince Jean, Duke of Vendôme. However, with François’ death on December 30, 2017, Prince Jean became the Dauphin of France within the family’s claim to the throne. Prince Jean succeeds to the claim of King of France and Monarchists recognize him as King Jean IV of France.

Abdication: What To Call A Former Monarch, Part V.

18 Friday Jan 2019

Posted by liamfoley63 in Kingdom of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal Succession

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Abdication, Duke of Aosta, Edward VIII, House of Savoy, King Manuel II of Portugal, Kingdom of Spain, Kingdom of the Netherlands, Queen Isabella II of Spain, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands

In the previous entries I examined how Richard II of England and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V still retained their title of King and Emperor respectively after their abdications. Here are other examples of monarchs who abdicated or were dethroned yet they kept their royal title.

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King Wilhelm II of Württemberg 1891-1918

King James II-VII of England, Scotland and Ireland 1685-1688
King Louis Philippe of the French 1830-1848
King Miguel I of Portugal 1828-1834
King Manuel II of Portugal 1908-1910
Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany 1888-1918
Emperor Karl I-IV of Austria-Hungary 1916-1918
Queen Isabella II of Spain 1833-1868
King Alfonso XIII of Spain 1874-1885
King Mihail of Romania 1927-1930 and 1940-1947
King Simeon II of Bulgaria 1943-1946
King Peter II of Yugoslavia 1934-1954
King Constantine II of Greece 1964-1973
King Ludwig III of Bavaria 1913-1918
King Wilhelm II of Württemberg 1891-1918
King Friederich August III of Saxony 1904-1918
King Juan Carlos of Spain 1975-2014
King Albert II of the Belgians 1993-2013

By remaining kings, those who married after abdicating/being dethroned could even transmit their royal style to their wives – Anne of Bourbon-Parma who married King Mihail Romania and Augusta Victoria of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen wife of King Manuel II of Portugal all were wed and titled Queen long after their husbands ceased to reign.

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Queen Isabella II of Spain 1833-1868

In one case a monarch who abdicated did grant himself a lesser title and yet also kept the title of King. King Willem I of the Netherlands, after his abdication in 1840, styled himself King Willem-Frederick, Count of Nassau. Speaking of the Kingdom of the Netherlands it was only with the abdications of Queens Wilhelmina, Juliana and Beatrix did they downgrade themselves to Royal Highnesses and Princesses.

Here is an example of a monarch that did downgrade his title after his abdication. After the abdication of Queen Isabella II of Spain the Spanish Cortes decided to continue as a monarchy. They chose as their king, Amadeo I (Italian: Amedeo, sometimes anglicized as Amadeus; May 30, 1845 – January 18, 1890) and he was the only King of Spain from the House of Savoy. He was the second son of King Vittorio Emanuele II of Italy and was known for most of his life as the Duke of Aosta, but he reigned briefly as King of Spain from 1870 to 1873.

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Amadeo I of Spain 1870-1873

Amadeo’s reign was fraught with growing republicanism, Carlist rebellions in the north, and the Cuban independence movement. With the possibility of reigning without popular support, Amadeus issued an order against the artillery corps and then immediately abdicated from the Spanish throne on February 11, 1873. At ten o’clock that same night, Spain was proclaimed a republic, at which time Amadeo made an appearance before the Cortes, proclaiming the Spanish people ungovernable. Completely disgusted, the ex-monarch left Spain and returned to Italy, where he resumed the title of Duke of Aosta.

In the final entry I will show why it was deemed necessary to downgrade Edward VIII of the United Kingdom.

Abdication: What To Call A Former Monarch? Part IV

14 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal Succession

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Abdication, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Empire, Imperial Germany, King Henry VIII of England, Kingdom of Spain, Philip II of Spain

Today’s’ post will focus on the Abdication of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, King of Spain and Duke of Burgundy.

Generally I like to render people’s names in their original language. In this case Carl & Carlos for the English name Charles. However, for simplicity, I will retain the English form of all names for this entry.

Charles V (February 24, 1500 – September 21, 1558) was ruler of both the Holy Roman Empire from 1519 and the Spanish Empire (as Carlos I of Spain) from 1516, as well as of the lands of the former Duchy of Burgundy from 1506. He stepped down from these and other positions by a series of abdications between 1554 and 1556. Through inheritance, he brought together under his rule extensive territories in western, central, and southern Europe, and the Spanish viceroyalties in the Americas and Asia. As a result, his domains spanned nearly 4 million square kilometres (1.5 million square miles), and were the first to be described as “the empire on which the sun never sets”.

Charles was the heir of three of Europe’s leading dynasties: Valois of Burgundy, Habsburg of Austria, and Trastámara of Spain. Charles was the eldest son of Philip of Habsburg (July 22, 1478 – September 25, 1506), called the Handsome or the ouse of Habsburg to be King of Castile as Philip I. Philip was the eldest son of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and Mary, Duchess of Burgundy in her own right. Charles’ mother was Joanna of Castile was the third child and second daughter of Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II-V of Aragon-Castile of the royal House of Trastámara.

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Holy Roman Emperor Charles V

As heir of the House of Burgundy, he inherited areas in the Netherlands and around the eastern border of France. As a Habsburg, he inherited Austria and other lands in central Europe, and was also elected to succeed his grandfather, Maximilian I, as Holy Roman Emperor. As a grandson of the Catholic Monarchs of Spain, (Ferdinand II-V of Aragon-Castile & Isabel I of Castile) he inherited the Crown of Castile, which was developing a nascent empire in the Americas and Asia, and the Crown of Aragon, which included a Mediterranean empire extending to southern Italy. Charles was the first king to rule Castile and Aragon simultaneously in his own right (as a unified Spain), and as a result he is often referred to as the first king of Spain. The personal union under Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire with the Spanish Empire was the closest Europe has come to a universal monarchy since the time of Charlemagne in the 9th century.

The titles of King of Hungary, of Bohemia, and of Croatia, were incorporated into the imperial family during Charles’s reign, but they were held, both nominally and substantively, by his brother Ferdinand, who initiated a four-century-long Habsburg rule over these eastern territories. However, according Charles V testament, the titles of King of Hungary, of Dalmatia, and of Croatia and others were legated to his grandson, Infante Carlos, Prince of Asturias who was the son of Philip II of Spain, and who died young. Charles’s full titulature went as follows:

Charles, by the grace of God, Holy Roman Emperor, forever August, King of Germany, King of Italy, King of all Spains, of Castile, Aragon, León, of Hungary, of Dalmatia, of Croatia, Navarra, Grenada, Toledo, Valencia, Galicia, Majorca, Sevilla, Cordova, Murcia, Jaén, Algarves, Algeciras, Gibraltar, the Canary Islands, King of Two Sicilies, of Sardinia, Corsica, King of Jerusalem, King of the Western and Eastern Indies, of the Islands and Mainland of the Ocean Sea, Archduke of Austria, Duke of Burgundy, Brabant, Lorraine, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Limburg, Luxembourg, Gelderland, Neopatria, Württemberg, Landgrave of Alsace, Prince of Swabia, Asturia and Catalonia, Count of Flanders, Habsburg, Tyrol, Gorizia, Barcelona, Artois, Burgundy Palatine, Hainaut, Holland, Seeland, Ferrette, Kyburg, Namur, Roussillon, Cerdagne, Drenthe, Zutphen, Margrave of the Holy Roman Empire, Burgau, Oristano and Gociano, Lord of Frisia, the Wendish March, Pordenone, Biscay, Molin, Salins, Tripoli and

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Carlos I, King of Spain, King of Naples & Sicily.

On December 21, 1507, Charles was first betrothed to 11-year old Mary of England the daughter of King Henry VII of England and younger sister to the future King Henry VIII of England, who was to take the throne in two years. However, the engagement was called off in 1513 on the advice of Thomas Wolsey and Mary was instead married to King Louis XII of France in 1514.

After his ascension to the Spanish throne, negotiations for Charles’s marriage began shortly after his arrival in Spain, with the Spanish nobles expressing their wishes for him to marry his first cousin Isabella of Portugal, the daughter of King Manuel I of Portugal and Charles’s aunt Maria of Aragon. The nobles desired for Charles to marry a princess of Spanish blood and a marriage to Isabella would secure an alliance between Spain and Portugal. The 18-year-old King, however, was in no hurry to marry and ignored the nobles’ advice. Instead of marrying Isabella, he sent his sister Eleanor to marry Isabella’s widowed father, King Manuel, in 1518. In 1521, on the advice of his Flemish advisors, especially William de Croÿ, Charles became engaged to his other first cousin, Mary of England daughter of his aunt Catherine of Aragon and King Henry VIII of England, in order to secure an alliance with England. However, this engagement was very problematic since Mary was only 6 years old at the time, sixteen years Charles’s junior, which meant that he would have to wait for her to be old enough to marry.

By 1525, Charles was no longer interested in an alliance with England and could not wait any longer to have legitimate children and heirs. Following his victory in the Battle of Pavia, Charles abandoned the idea of an English alliance, cancelled his engagement to Mary and decided to marry Isabella and form an alliance with Portugal. He wrote to Isabella’s brother King John III of Portugal, making a double marriage contract – Charles would marry Isabella and John would marry Charles’s youngest sister, Catherine. A marriage to Isabella was more beneficial for Charles, as she was closer to him in age, was fluent in Spanish and provided him with a very handsome dowry of 900,000 Portuguese cruzados or Castilian folds that would help to solve his financial problems brought on by the Italian Wars.

On March 10, 1526, Charles and Isabella met at the Alcázar Palace in Seville. The marriage was originally a political arrangement, but on their first meeting, the couple fell deeply in love, with Isabella captivating the Emperor with her beauty and charm. They were married that very same night in a quiet ceremony in the Hall of Ambassadors just after midnight. Following their wedding, Charles and Isabella spent a long and happy honeymoon at the Alhambra in Granada.

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Isabella, Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Spain.

The marriage lasted for thirteen years until Isabella’s death in 1539. The Empress contracted a fever during the third month of her seventh pregnancy, which resulted in antenatal complications that caused her to miscarry to a stillborn son. Her health further deteriorated due to an infection and she died two weeks later on May 1, 1539, aged 35. Charles was left so grief-stricken by his wife’s death that he shut himself up in a monastery for two months where he prayed and mourned for her in solitude.

In the aftermath, Charles never recovered from Isabella’s death, dressing in black for the rest of his life to show his eternal mourning, and, unlike most kings of the time, he never remarried. In memory of his wife, the Emperor commissioned the painter Titian to paint several posthumous portraits of Isabella; the portraits that were produced included Titian’s Portrait of Empress Isabel of Portugal and La Gloria. Charles kept these portraits with him whenever he travelled and they were among those that he later brought with him to the Monastery of Yuste in 1557 after his retirement.

Charles also paid tribute to Isabella’s memory with music when, in 1540, he commissioned the Flemish composer Thomas Crecquillon to compose new music as a memorial to her. Crecquillon composed his Missa ‘Mort m’a privé in memory of the Empress, which itself expresses the Emperor’s grief and great wish for a heavenly reunion with his beloved wife.

Health

Charles suffered from an enlarged lower jaw, a deformity that became considerably worse in later Habsburg generations, giving rise to the term Habsburg jaw. This deformity may have been caused by the family’s long history of inbreeding, which was commonly practiced in royal families of that era to maintain dynastic control of territory.[citation needed] He suffered from epilepsy. and was seriously afflicted with gout, presumably caused by a diet consisting mainly of red meat. As he aged, his gout progressed from painful to crippling. In his retirement, he was carried around the monastery of St. Yuste in a sedan chair. A ramp was specially constructed to allow him easy access to his rooms.

Abdications and Later Life.

Charles abdicated the parts of his empire piecemeal. First he abdicated the thrones of Sicily and Naples, both fiefs of the Papacy, and the Duchy of Milan to his son Philip in 1554. Upon Charles’s abdication of Naples on 25 July, Philip was invested with the kingdom (officially “Naples and Sicily”) on 2 October by Pope Julius III. The abdication of the throne of Sicily, sometimes dated to 16 January 1556, must have taken place before Joanna’s death in 1555. There is a record of Philip being invested with this kingdom (officially “Sicily and Jerusalem”) on 18 November 1554 by Julius. These resignations are confirmed in Charles’s will from the same year.

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His Imperial Majesty, The Emperor.

The most famous—and public—abdication of Charles took place a year later, on 25 October 1555, when he announced to the States General of the Netherlands his abdication of those territories and the county of Charolais and his intention to retire to a monastery. He abdicated as ruler of the Spanish Empire in January 1556, with no fanfare, and gave these possessions to Philip. On 27 August 1556, he abdicated as Holy Roman Emperor in favor of his brother Ferdinand, although the abdication was not formally accepted by the Electors of the Empire until 1558. The delay had been at the request of Ferdinand, who had been concerned about holding a risky election in 1556.

Charles retired to the Monastery of Yuste in Extremadura but continued to correspond widely and kept an interest in the situation of the empire. He suffered from severe gout. Some scholars think Charles decided to abdicate after a gout attack in 1552 forced him to postpone an attempt to recapture the city of Metz, where he was later defeated.

Charles’s abdication has been variously interpreted by historians and even contemporaries. While many saw in it an unsuccessful man’s escape from the world, his peers thought differently. Charles himself had been considering abdication even in his prime. In 1532 his secretary, Alfonso de Valdés, suggested to him the thought that a ruler who was incapable of preserving the peace and, indeed, who had to consider himself an obstacle to its establishment was obliged to retire from affairs of state. Once the abdication had become a fact, St. Ignatius of Loyola had this to say:

The emperor gave a rare example to his successors…in so doing, he proved himself to be a true Christian prince…may the Lord in all His goodness now grant the emperor freedom.

The quote by St. Ignatius of Loyola is evidence that even after his abdications Charles V was still referred to by his Imperial title.

In August 1558, Charles was taken seriously ill with what was later revealed to be malaria. He died in the early hours of the morning on 21 September 1558, at the age of 58, holding in his hand the cross that his wife Isabella had been holding when she died.

Abdication: What to Call a Former Monarch? Part III

07 Monday Jan 2019

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Royal, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal Succession

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Abdication, Charles IV of France, Duke of Lancaster, Henry IV of England, House of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, King of England, Kingdom of England, Kingdom of France, Kings and Queens of England, Lord Appellant, Radcot Bridge, Richard II of England, Second Crisis, Tyranny

Second crisis of 1397–99

After having his Royal authority clipped Richard gradually worked to re-established royal authority in the months after the deliberations of the Merciless Parliament. The aggressive foreign policy toward France of the Lords Appellant failed when their efforts to form a wide, anti-French coalition came to nothing. Shorty thereafter the north of England fell victim to a Scottish incursion. In 1389 the king’s ncle, John of Gaunt, returned to England and settled his differences and made peace with the king, after which the old statesman acted as a moderating influence on English politics.

Richard was now over twenty-one years old and could with confidence claim the right to govern in his own name. Therefore, on May 3rd, King Richard II assumed full control of the government, claiming that the difficulties of the past years had been the result of listening to bad councillors. He outlined a foreign policy that reversed the actions of the Lords Appellant by seeking peace and reconciliation with France instead of war. Richard promised to lessen the burden of taxation on the people significantly. These decisions allowed Richard II to rule peacefully for the next eight years, the most tranquil part of his reign.

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King Richard II of England

With national stability secured, Richard began negotiating a more permanent peace with France. A proposal put forward in 1393 that would have greatly expanded the territory of Aquitaine, possessed by the English crown, failed because it included a requirement that the English king pay homage to King Charles VI of France – a condition that proved unacceptable to the English public. Instead, in 1396, a 28 year truce was agreed to, wherein Richard agreed to marry Isabella, daughter of the King of France, when she came of age. There were some misgivings about the betrothal, in particular because the princess was then only six years old, and thus would not be able to produce an heir to the throne of England for many years.

Despite the peaceful years of Richard’s rule he had not forgotten or forgiven the indignities he perceived. In particular, the execution of his former teacher Sir Simon de Burley was an insult not easily forgotten. These resentments simmered within the king.

The period referred to as the “tyranny” of Richard II began towards the end of the 1390’s. The king had the Duke of Gloucester, the Earl’s of Arundel and Warwick arrested in July 1397. The timing of these arrests and Richard’s motivation are not entirely clear. Although one chronicle suggested that a plot was being planned against the king, yet there is no evidence that this was the case. The most likely scenario is that Richard had simply come to feel strong enough in his powers and position as king and to safely retaliate against these three men for their role in events of 1386–88 and eliminate them as threats to his power. In simpler terms it was time for the king’s revenge.

The Earl of Arundel was the first of the three to be brought to trial, at the parliament of September 1397. The Earl of Arundel and Richard II had a antagonistic relationship that began during the First Crisis.

In August 1387, the time known as the First Crisis, the King dismissed the Duke of Gloucester and the Earl of Arundel from the Council and replaced them with his favourites – including the Archbishop of York, Alexander Neville; the Duke of Ireland, Robert de Vere; Michael de la Pole; the Earl of Suffolk, Sir Robert Tresilian, who was the Chief Justice; and the former Mayor of LondonNicholas Bremb

Radcot Bridge

The King summoned Gloucester and Arundel to a meeting. However, instead of coming, they raised troops and defeated the new Councilors of the king at Radcot Bridge on December 22, 1387. During that battle, Gloucester and Arundel took the favourites prisoner. The next year, the Merciless Parliament condemned the favourites.

Arundel was one of the Lords Appellant who accused and condemned Richard II’s favorites. He made himself particularly odious to the King by refusing, along with Gloucester, to spare the life of Sir Simon de Burley who had been condemned by the Merciless Parliament. This was even after the queen, Anne of Bohemia, went down on her knees before them to beg for mercy. King Richard never forgave this humiliation and planned and waited for his moment of revenge.

By 1394, Arundel was again a member of the royal council, and was involved in a quarrel with John of Gaunt, in the parliament of that year. Arundel, further antagonized the King by arriving late for the queen’s funeral. Richard II, in a rage, snatched a wand and struck Arundel in the face and drew blood. Shortly after that, the King feigned a reconciliation but he was only biding his time for the right moment to strike.

Arundel was persuaded by his brother Thomas, Archbishop of Canterbury, to surrender himself and to trust to the king’s clemency. On July 12, 1397, Richard FitzAlan, 10th Earl of Arundel was arrested for his opposition to Richard II as well as plotting with Gloucester to imprison the king. He stood trial at Westminster and was attainted. He was beheaded on September 21, 1397 and was buried in the church of the Augustin Friars, Bread Street, London.

Thomas of Woodstock (The Duke of Gloucester) was imprisoned in Calais to await trial for treason. During that time he was murdered, probably by a group of men led by Thomas de Mowbray, 1st Duke of Norfolk, and the knight Sir Nicholas Colfox, presumably on behalf of Richard II. This caused an outcry among the nobility of England that is considered by many to have added to Richard’s unpopularity.

Warwick was also condemned to death, but his life was spared and his sentence reduced to life imprisonment. Arundel’s brother Thomas Arundel, the Archbishop of Canterbury, was exiled for life. Richard then took his persecution of adversaries to the localities. While recruiting retainers for himself in various counties, he prosecuted local men who had been loyal to the appellants. The fines levied on these men brought great revenues to the crown, although contemporary chroniclers raised questions about the legality of the proceedings.

Despite the destruction of the Lords Appellant a threat to Richard’s authority still existed in the form of the House of Lancaster, represented by John of Gaunt and his son Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Hereford. The House of Lancaster not only possessed greater wealth than any other family in England, they were of royal descent and, as such, likely candidates to succeed the childless Richard II.

John of Gaunt had been at the centre of English politics for over thirty years, and when he died on February 3, 1399 at the age of led to insecurity within the government. Rather than allowing Bolingbroke to succeed to his father’s title, Duke of Lancaster, Richard extended the term of his exile to life and confiscated all of John of Gaunt’s his properties. The king felt safe from Henry Bolingbroke, who was residing in Paris, since the French had little interest in any challenge to Richard and his peace policy. Richard II left the country in May for another expedition in Ireland.

In 1398 Richard summoned a packed Parliament to Shrewsbury—known as the Parliament of Shrewsbury—which declared all the acts of the Merciless Parliament to be null and void, and announced that no restraint could legally be put on the king. It delegated all parliamentary power to a committee of twelve lords and six commoners chosen from the king’s friends, making Richard an absolute ruler unbound by the necessity of gathering a Parliament again.

Overthrow and death

In June 1399, Louis, Duke of Orléans, gained control of the court of Charles VI of France who had become debilitated by his mental Illness. The policy of rapprochement with the English crown established by Richard II did not suit Louis’s political ambitions, and for this reason he found it opportune to allow Henry Bolingbroke to leave for England. With a small group of followers, Bolingbroke landed at Ravenspur in Yorkshire towards the end of June 1399.

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Men from all over the country soon rallied around the duke. Meeting with Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, who had his own misgivings about the king, Bolingbroke insisted that his only object was to regain his own land and titles. Percy took him at his word and declined to interfere. The king had taken most of his household knights and the loyal members of his nobility with him to Ireland, so Henry experienced little resistance as he moved south. Edmund of Langley, Duke of York, who was acting as Keeper of the Realm, had little choice but to side with Bolingbroke. Meanwhile, Richard was delayed in his return from Ireland and did not land in Wales until July 24, 1399.

The king He his way to Conwy, where on August 12, he met with the Earl of Northumberland for negotiations. On August 19, Richard II surrendered to Henry at Flint Castle, promising to abdicate if his life were spared. Both men then returned to London, the indignant king riding all the way behind Henry. On arrival, he was imprisoned in the Tower of London on September 1, 1399.

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King Henry IV of England

Henry was by now fully determined to take the throne, but presenting a rationale for this action proved a dilemma. It was argued that Richard, through his tyranny and misgovernment, had rendered himself unworthy of being king. However, Henry was not next in line to the throne; the heir presumptive was Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, who was descended from Edward III’s third son, the second to survive to adulthood, Lionel of Antwerp. Bolingbroke’s father, John of Gaunt, was Edward’s fourth son, the third to survive to adulthood. The problem was solved by emphasising Henry’s descent in a direct male line, whereas the Earl of March’s descent was through his grandmother.

According to the official record (read by Thomas Arundel, archbishop of Canterbury, during an assembly of lords and commons at Westminster Hall on Tuesday September, 30, 1399), Richard gave up his crown willingly and ratified his deposition citing as a reason his own unworthiness as a monarch. On the other hand, the Traison et Mort Chronicle suggests otherwise. It describes a meeting between Richard and Henry that took place one day before the parliament’s session. The king succumbed to blind rage, ordered his release from the Tower, called his cousin a traitor, demanded to see his wife and swore revenge throwing down his bonnet, while the duke refused to do anything without parliamentary approval.

When parliament met to discuss Richard’s fate, the bishop of St Asaph read thirty-three articles of deposition that were unanimously accepted by lords and commons. On October 1, 1399, Richard II was formally deposed and on October 13, the feast day of Edward the Confessor, Henry Bolingbroke, Duke of Lancaster, was crowned Henry IV of England. Henry had previously agreed to let Richard live after his abdication.

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Coat of Arms of King Henry IV of England

This all changed when it was revealed that the earls of Huntingdon, Kent and Salisbury and Lord Despenser, and possibly also the Earl of Rutland – all now demoted from the ranks they had been given by Richard – were planning to murder the new king and restore Richard in the Epiphany Rising. Although averted, the plot highlighted the danger of allowing Richard to live. He is thought to have starved to death in captivity on or around February 14, 1400, although there is some question over the date and manner of his death. His body was taken south from Pontefract and displayed in the old St Paul’s Cathedral on February 17, before burial in King’s Langley Priory on March 6, 1400.

King Richard II of England did not live long after his abdication. Although he was removed from the throne he did retain his title of King of England.

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Royal Standard of King Henry IV of England

Abdication and what to call a former Monarch: Part II.

06 Sunday Jan 2019

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal Succession, This Day in Royal History

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Anne of Bohemia, Duke of Aquitaine, Henry IV, Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, Kingdom of Bohemia, Kingdom of England, Parliament, Richard II of England, The Black Prince

In my last blog entry I said that I would discuss the oddity of the downgrading of Edward VIII and his titles for this next blog entry. I have slightly changed plans. I will speak of Edward VIII’s downgrading in my last post of this series. Prior to that I want to discuss other abdications to show just how unique was the abdication and reduction of the Titles of King Edward VIII of the United Kingdom.

I’d like to begin with King Richard II of England, for example, who was forced to abdicate after power was seized by his cousin, Henry Bolingbroke, while Richard was abroad. Today is also the anniversary of the birth of Richard II, January 6, 1367.

There were two crises that brought Richard down. Today we focus on the first crisis.

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Richard II, King of England and Duke of Aquitaine.

Richard II (January 6, 1367 – c. February 14, 1400), also known as Richard of Bordeaux, was King of England from 1377 until he was deposed in 1399. Richard, a son of Edward the Black Prince, was born in Bordeaux during the reign of his grandfather, Edward III. Richard was not the heir of father as he had an older brother, Edward of Angoulême. Edward died at the age of five in 1370, leaving his three-year-old brother, Richard of Bordeaux, as the new second in line to the throne. After the Black Prince’s death in 1376, Richard became heir apparent to his grandfather Edward III and succeeded the following year. Richard’s advancement through the order of succession ahead of any Royal uncles confirms that the principle of primogeniture was firmly established at that time.

Since Richard II was a minor, his first years as king found governmental responsibilities were in the hands of a series of councils. The majority of the aristocracy preferred this system rather than a regency led by the king’s uncle, John of Gaunt. Despite John of Gaunt not being in power he remained highly influential. England then faced various problems, including an ongoing war against France (which was not going well for the English), border conflicts with Scotland, and economic difficulties related to the Black Death.

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Richard II, King of England and Duke of Aquitaine.

A major challenge of the reign was the Peasants’ Revolt in 1381, It is only with the Peasants’ Revolt that Richard starts to emerge clearly in the historical annals. One of his first significant acts after the rebellion was to marry Anne of Bohemia, daughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV, King of Bohemia and his wife Elisabeth of Pomerania, on January 20, 1382. The marriage had diplomatic significance. With the division within Europe caused by the Western Schism, Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire were seen as potential allies against France in the ongoing Hundred Years’ War. Despite these incentives the marriage was not popular in England. Furthermore, the marriage was childless. Anne died from plague in 1394, greatly mourned by her husband.

Michael de la Pole had been instrumental in the marriage negotiation for the king and this raised the king’s confidence in him which lead to de la Pole gradually becoming more involved at court and in government. This all occurred as Richard came of age. Another member of the close circle around the king was Robert de Vere, Earl of Oxford, who in this period emerged as the king’s favourite. Richard’s close friendship to de Vere was also disagreeable to the political establishment. This displeasure was exacerbated by the earl’s elevation to the new title of Duke of Ireland in 1386. The chronicler Thomas Walsingham suspected the relationship between the king and de Vere was of a homosexual nature, due to a resentment Walsingham had toward the king.

Tensions came to a head over the approach to the war in France. While the court party, (closest advisers to the king) preferred negotiations, John of Gaunt and Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Buckingham, (uncles of the king) urged a large-scale campaign to protect English possession. Richard’s course of action was to choose a so-called crusade led by Henry le Despenser, Bishop of Norwich, which failed miserably. In response to this setback, Richard turned his attention instead towards France’s ally, Scotland. In 1385, the king himself led a punitive expedition to the north, which also ended in complete failure. Because of these military failures, the relationship between Richard and his uncle John of Gaunt deteriorated further. In response to the tensions John of Gaunt left England to pursue his claim to the throne of Castile in 1386 amid rumours of a plot against his person. With John of Gaunt gone, the unofficial leadership of the growing dissent against the king and his courtiers passed to Thomas of Woodstock, 1st Earl of Buckingham – who had by now been created Duke of Gloucester.

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John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster

In 1386 The threat of a French invasion did not subside, but instead grew stronger. At the Parliament which convened in October that year, Michael de la Pole – then Chancellor of England  – requested taxation of an unprecedented level for the defence of the Kingdom. Parliament responded by refusing to consider any request until de la Pole was removed from office. Unbeknownst to Richard, Parliament was working with the support of the Duke of Gloucester and Arundel. The king famously responded with defiance that he would not dismiss as much as a scullion from his kitchen at parliament’s request. It was when the king was threatened with deposition that he was forced to give in and let de la Pole go. Afterward a commission was set up to review and control royal finances for a year.

Richard was deeply perturbed by this affront to his royal prerogative, and from February to November 1387 went on a “gyration” (tour) of the country to muster support for his causes. By installing de Vere as Justice of Chester, he began the work of creating a loyal military power base in Cheshire. Richard also secured a legal ruling from Chief Justice Robert Tresilian that Parliament’s conduct had been unlawful and treasonable.

On his return to London, the king was confronted by the Duke of Gloucester, Arundel and Thomas de Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, who brought an appeal of treason against de la Pole, de Vere, Tresilian, and two other loyalists: the mayor of London, Nicholas Brembre, and Alexander Neville, the Archbishop of York. Richard stalled the negotiations to gain time, as he was expecting de Vere to arrive from Cheshire with military reinforcements. The three earls then joined forces with Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby (John of Gaunt’s son, later King Henry IV), and Thomas de Mowbray, Earl of Nottingham – this group known to history as the Lords Appellant. On December 20, 1387 they intercepted de Vere at Radcot Bridge, where he and his forces were routed and he was obliged to flee the country.

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Henry Bolingbroke, Earl of Derby (John of Gaunt’s son, later King Henry IV)

Richard now had no choice but to comply with the appellants’ demands; Brembre and Tresilian were condemned and executed, while de Vere and de la Pole – who had by now also left the country, were sentenced to death in absentia at the Merciless Parliament in February 1388. The proceedings went further, and a number of Richard’s chamber knights were also executed, among these Burley. The appellants had now succeeded completely in breaking up the circle of favourites around the king and thus reducing his power.

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Coat of Arm of King Richard II of England, Duke of Aquitaine.

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