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Monthly Archives: November 2019

November 30, 1718: Death of King Carl XII of Sweden.

30 Saturday Nov 2019

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Monarch, Royal Succession, This Day in Royal History

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Carl XI of Sweden, Charles XII of Sweden, Frederick I of Sweden, Frederick of Hesse-Cassel, Kingdom of Sweden, The Great Northern War, Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden

Carl XII (June 17, 1682 – November 30, 1718) was the King of Sweden from 1697 to 1718. He belonged to the House of Palatinate-Zweibrücken, a branch line of the House of Wittelsbach. Carl XII was the only surviving son of Carl XI and Ulrika Eleonora the Elder, the daughter of King Frederik III of Denmark and Norway and his spouse Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Carl XII assumed power, after a seven-month caretaker government, at the age of fifteen.

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King Carl XII of Sweden, aged 15.

In 1700, a triple alliance of Denmark–Norway, Saxony–Poland–Lithuania and Russia launched a threefold attack on the Swedish protectorate of Holstein-Gottorp and provinces of Livonia and Ingria, aiming to draw advantage as the Swedish Empire was unaligned and ruled by a young and inexperienced king, thus initiating the Great Northern War.

Carl never married and fathered no children of whom historians are aware. In his youth he was particularly encouraged to find a suitable spouse in order to secure the succession, but he would frequently avoid the subject of sex and marriage. Possible candidates included Princess Sophia Hedwig of Denmark and Princess Maria Elisabeth of Holstein-Gottorp – but of the latter he pleaded that he could never wed someone “as ugly as Satan and with such a devilish big mouth”.

Carl was an exceptionally skilled military leader and tactician as well as an able politician, credited with introducing important tax and legal reforms. As for his famous reluctance towards peace efforts, he is quoted by Voltaire as saying upon the outbreak of the war; “I have resolved never to start an unjust war but never to end a legitimate one except by defeating my enemies”.

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Carl XII of Sweden

Death.

While in the trenches close to the perimeter of the fortress on November 30, 1718, Carl was struck in the head by a projectile and killed. The shot struck the left side of his skull and exited from the right. The shock of the impact caused the king to grasp his sword with his right hand, and cover the wound with his left hand, leaving his gloves covered in blood.

The definitive circumstances around Carl’s death remain unclear. Despite multiple investigations of the battlefield, Carl’s skull and his clothes, it is not known where and when he was hit, or whether the shot came from the ranks of the enemy or from his own men. There are several hypotheses as to how Carl died, though none can be given with any certainty. Although there were many people around the king at the time of his death, there were no known witnesses to the actual moment he was struck.

A likely explanation has been that Carl was killed by the Dano-Norwegians as he was within easy reach of their guns. There are two possibilities that are usually cited: that he was killed by a musket shot, or that he was killed by grapeshot from the nearby fortress.

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From the autopsy of Charles XII in 1917

More sinister theories claim he was assassinated: One is that the killer was a Swedish compatriot and asserts that enemy guns were not firing at the time Carl was struck. Suspects in this claim range from a nearby soldier tired of the siege and wanting to put an end to the war, to an assassin hired by Carl’s own brother-in-law, who profited from the event by subsequently taking the throne himself as Frederick I of Sweden, that person being Frederick’s aide-de-camp, André Sicre. Sicre confessed during what was claimed to be a state of delirium brought on by fever but later recanted.

It has also been suspected that a plot to kill Carl may have been put in place by a group of wealthy Swedes who would benefit from the blocking of a 17% wealth tax that Charles intended to introduce. In the Varberg Fortress museum there is a display with a lead filled brass button – Swedish – that is claimed by some to be the projectile that killed the king.

He was succeeded by his sister Ulrika Eleonora, who in turn was coerced to hand over all substantial powers to the Riksdag of the Estates and opted to surrender the throne to her husband, who became King Frederick I of Sweden, the son of Karl I, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel and Princess Maria Amalia of Courland.

The life of Alexandra of Oldenburg (Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna of Russia) 1838 – 1900.

28 Thursday Nov 2019

Posted by liamfoley63 in Empire of Europe, Featured Royal, Royal Genealogy

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Alexandra of Oldenburg, Arranged Marriage, Catherine Chislova, Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Emperors of Russia, Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievich, Russian Empire, Sister Anastasia

On Monday I posted about the life of Grand Duchess Catherine (Ekaterina) Pavlovna of Russia. This post is about her granddaughter, Alexandra of Oldenburg, who also married into the Romanov family a lead a very sad life.

Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna of Russia (Born Duchess Alexandra Frederica Wilhelmina of Oldenburg; June 2, 1838 – April 25, 1900) was a great-granddaughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia and the wife of Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich of Russia, the elder. She was the eldest of the eight children of Duke Peter of Oldenburg and his wife Princess Therese of Nassau-Weilburg, half-sister of Sofia of Nassau, queen consort of Oscar II of Sweden. Alexandra belonged to the House of Holstein-Gottorp but grew up in Russia, where her family was closely related to the Romanov dynasty. Her father was a nephew of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia.

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Princess Alexandra of Oldenburg

After Alexandra made her debut at court with a series of dinners and receptions, her parents arranged a high-status marriage for her. During a family dinner at the Anichkov Palace, Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, the third son of Emperor Nicholas I and Princess Charlotte of Prussia, and also her first cousin once removed, proposed and she accepted to marry him. The engagement was announced publicly that same day, October 25, 1855.

The Russian Imperial family, in an attempt to control the Grand Duke’s excesses, he was a notorious womanizer, had propelled Grand Duke Nicholas to marry Alexandra, hoping that she would have a good influence on him. Alexandra, who had been raised in the Lutheran church, converted to the Russian Orthodox faith on January 7, 1856, and was styled as: HIH Alexandra Petrovna, Grand Duchess of Russia. The wedding took place on February 6, 1856 at Peterhof Palace and it was followed by a dinner ball at the Nicholas Hall of the Winter Palace.

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Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich Of Russia

Alexandra was described by Anna Tyutcheva (1829-1889), a lady in waiting to Empress Maria Alexandrovna, as: “a sweet and docile creature… Although not beautiful, she is captivating with the freshness of her seventeen years of age, and also with the sincerity and kindness that shines on her face”. Tyutcheva later commented about Alexandra: “her complexion is, in fact, the only thing that’s good about her. Her facial features are rather plain and quite irregular”.

Alexandra loved her husband and her sons deeply but she felt it was also her duty to help those in need. She embraced wholeheartedly charitable work, spending her allowance on donations to schools, hospitals and other institutions. Plain and unsophisticated, Alexandra liked simplicity and preferred to dress modestly, avoiding public life. She dedicated her time to religion and to her consuming interest in medicine.

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Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna of Russia

In spite of the differences in character and outlook, Alexandra and her husband lived in harmony for the first ten years of their married life. Initially, Grand Duke Nicholas respected and admired his wife’s interest in charities and medicine as well as her being extremely religious.

However, as time went by, Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievich grew tired of Alexandra’s increasing preoccupation with religion and began complaining of his wife’s lack of glamour and distaste for society. In 1865, the grand duke started a permanent relationship with Catherine Chislova, a dancer from the Krasnoye Selo Theater. Nicholas Nicholaievich did not attempt to hide his affair. He installed his mistress in a house visible from the study of his palace in St Petersburg. In 1868, Catherine Chislova gave birth to the first of the couple’s five illegitimate children.

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Catherine Chislova

Alexandra Petrovna was deeply upset by her husband’s infidelity. She was torn between her duties, the breaking up of her marriage and the death of her sister Catherine Petrovna in 1866. By 1870, nothing was left of her marriage except the bitterness. Alexandra found solace in her two sons and her charity work while her husband divided his time between his children with Alexandra and his second family. The couple’s palace in St. Petersburg was so large that they did not have to see each other.

When the Grand Duke arranged a change of class into the gentry for his mistress and the couple’s illegitimate children, Alexandra Petrovna appealed to Alexander II to intervene, but she found her brother-in-law less than sympathetic. “You see,” he bluntly told her, “your husband is in the prime of his life, and he needs a woman with whom he can be in love. And look at yourself! See even how you dress! No man would be attracted”.

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Emperor Alexander II of Russia

In 1879, determined to get rid of his wife, Grand Duke Nicholas expelled Alexandra from the Nicholas Palace, publicly accusing her of infidelity with her confessor, Vasily Lebedev. Grand Duchess Alexandra, leaving behind her jewelry, clothes and possessions, had to move to her parents’ house. The same year, Alexandra suffered a carriage accident which left her almost completely paralyzed She could move neither her legs nor her right arm. Alexandra asked her brother-in-law, Emperor Alexander II, for help. Appalled by the scandal, Alexander II was not sympathetic towards Alexandra and instead made her leave Russia indefinitely to seek medical treatment abroad. Alexander II himself paid for the trip expenses.

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Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna of Russia

In November 1880, the Grand Duchess left for Italy with her two sons on board the naval steamer Eriklik. She was hoping to find relief for her ailments in the mild climate of Naples. Her godson Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and his brother Grand Duke Paul, who were on an Italian tour, visited her for two days. In January 1881, her estranged husband, Grand Duke Nicholas, arrived unexpectedly and took both their sons with him. According to Alexandra: he “made me experience things I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy”.

Alexandra left Naples in early 1881 and sailed to Northern Greece. With the assassination of Tsar Alexander II in March 1881, Alexandra asked for help from her nephew Alexander III, who was sympathetic towards her, unlike his father. Alexander III disliked his uncle and removed him from all his posts. He also lifted Alexandra’s exile, allowing her to return to Russia.

Alexandra started a new life in Kiev. Initially, she settled at the Mariyinsky Palace, the Emperor’s residence in Kiev, in the hope that she could recover. She completely relied on religion for solace and comfort. Bound to a wheelchair, the Grand Duchess decided to stay in Kiev for good. This was convenient for her husband, who wanted to divorce her so he could marry his mistress. Alexandra vehemently refused to grant a divorce and Nicholas hoped that he could be a widower so he could remarry, as it had been the case of his brother Alexander II, who after his wife’s death married his mistress. Alexandra, in spite of her poor health, outlived both her husband and her husband’s mistress.

In the summer of 1889, she recovered the mobility of her legs. She bandaged them tightly to relieve the pain. Alexandra became a nun, as Sister Anastasia, taking Holy Orders on November 3, 1889 in Kiev, while her husband was still alive. For the rest of her life, she worked at the hospital performing nursing duties, helping contagious patents and cleaning infected wounds. She often assisted in surgeries.

Catherine Chislova died in 1889, and Grand Duke Nicholas survived his lover by only two years. When he died in the Crimea in 1891, Alexandra Petrovna did not attend the funeral. She also refused to pay homage to her dead husband when the funeral catafalque, taking his body for burial in the St Peter and St Paul Cathedral in St Petersburg, came by train via Kiev on its route from the south.

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Grand Duchess Alexandra as Sister Anastasia

The Grand Duchess remained close to her sons, who had taken her side in the family breakup. She was in the Crimea in 1898 when her daughter-in-law, Grand Duchess Militsa, gave birth to twin daughters, one of whom died shortly after birth. Alexandra took her granddaughter’s remains with her and buried the coffin in the convent cemetery in Kiev.

Afflicted with stomach cancer, Alexandra Petrovna died at Kievo Pechersky Monastery in Kiev on April 25, 1900, when she was 61. She was buried within the monastery graveyard in a plain white coffin, wearing her monastic habit. On the day of her burial, Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra Feodorovna attended a memorial service held in the Moscow Kremlin palace church.

In the 1950s, Alexandra’s remains were moved to the Lukianovskoe Cemetery. She was reburied in the garden at the St. Nicholas Cathedral of the Pokrov Monastery on November 2, 2009. Grand Duchess Alexandra Petrovna was canonized by the Holy Synod of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church on November 24, 2009 as the locally venerated Reverend Grand Duchess Anastasia of Kiev, patron saint of all divorced men and women. Today her grave in the convent garden is again tended by nuns and her works continues.

Life of Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (later Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia the Elder).

27 Wednesday Nov 2019

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

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Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Emperor Alexander III of Russia, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Emperors of Russia, Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia, Maria Pavlovna the Elder, Russian Empire, Russian Revolution

Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (later Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, known as “Miechen” or “Maria Pavlovna the Elder”; May 14, 1854 – September 6, 1920) was born Marie Alexandrine Elisabeth Eleonore of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, daughter of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Princess Augusta Reuss of Köstritz.

A prominent hostess in St Petersburg following her marriage to the Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia, she was known as the grandest of the grand duchesses and had an open rivalry with her sister-in-law the Empress Maria Feodorovna, wife of Emperor Alexander III of Russia and born Princess Dagmar of Denmark the daughter King Christian IX of Denmark and Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel.

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On August 28, 1874 she married her second cousin, Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia (April 22, 1847 – February 17, 1909) the third son of Alexander II of Russia (and a brother of Emperor Alexander III. She had been engaged to George Albert I, Prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, but broke it off as soon as she met Vladimir. It took three more years before they were permitted to marry as she had been raised a Lutheran and refused to convert to the Russian Orthodox Church.

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Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich of Russia

Emperor Alexander II finally agreed to let Vladimir marry her without insisting on her conversion to Orthodoxy. Upon her marriage she took the Russian name of Maria Pavlovna – the name she is best known by. Maria remained Lutheran throughout most of her marriage, but converted to Orthodoxy later in her marriage, some said to give her son Kirill a better chance at the throne. As a result of marrying the son of a Russian Emperor, she took on a new style Her Imperial Highness; the couple had four sons and one daughter.

Life in Russia

In Russia, she lived at the Vladimir Palace situated on the Palace Embankment on the Neva River. Socially ambitious, it was there that she established her reputation as being one of the best hostesses in the capital. An addiction to gambling, which saw her defy a prohibition by Nicholas II on the playing on roulette and baccarat in private homes, resulted in her temporarily being banned from Court. In 1909, her husband died and she succeeded him as president of the Academy of Fine Arts.

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Her Grand Ducal court, was in the later years of the reign of her nephew, Emperor Nicholas II the most cosmopolitan and popular in the capital. The Grand Duchess was personally at odds with Emperor Nicholas II and Empress Alexandra. She wasn’t the only Romanov who feared the Empress would “be the sole ruler of Russia” after Nicholas took supreme command of the Russian armies on August 23, 1915 hoping this would lift morale.

Escape from Russia

The Grand Duchess held the distinction to be the last of the Romanovs to escape Revolutionary Russia, as well as the first to die in exile. She remained in the war-torn Caucasus with her two younger sons throughout 1917 and 1918, hoping to make her eldest son Kirill Vladimirovich the Tsar. As the Bolsheviks approached, the group finally escaped aboard a fishing boat to Anapa in 1918. Maria spent fourteen months in Anapa, refusing to join her son Boris in leaving Russia.

When opportunities for escape via Constantinople presented themselves she refused to leave for fear she would be subjected to the indignity of delousing. She finally agreed to leave when the general of the White Army warned her that his side was losing the civil war. Maria, her son Andrei, Andrei’s mistress Mathilde Kschessinska, and Andrei and Mathilde’s son Vladimir, boarded an Italian ship headed to Venice on February 13, 1920.

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Nicholas II, Last Emperor of Russia

She made her way from Venice to Switzerland and then to France, where her health failed. Staying at her villa (now the Hotel La Souveraine), she died on September 6, 1920, aged 66, surrounded by her family at Contrexéville.

Her eldest surviving son, Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich, of Russia married, in 1905, his first cousin Victoria Melita of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, daughter of Vladimir’s sister Grand Duchess Maria the Duchess of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, spouse of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Gotha (second son of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom).

Other than the fact that first cousin marriages were not allowed, she was also the former wife of Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse of and By Rhine, the brother of the Empress Alexandra (born Alix of Hesse and by Rhine daughter of Grand Duke Ludwig IV of Hesse and By Rhine and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (second daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom).

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Alexandra, Last Emperess of Russia.

This marriage between Cyril and Victoria Melita was not approved by Nicholas II and Cyril was stripped of his imperial titles. The treatment of Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna’s son created a strife between her husband, Grand Duke Vladimir, and the Emperor. However, after several deaths in the family put Cyril third in the line of succession to the Imperial Throne, Nicholas agreed to reinstate Cyril’s Imperial titles, and the latter’s wife was acknowledged as HIH Grand Duchess Viktoria Fedorovna.

November 26, 1847: Birth of Princess Dagmar of Denmark. Part I.

26 Tuesday Nov 2019

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

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Birthday, Christian IX, Dagmar of Denmark, Emperor Alexander III of Russia, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Kingdom of Denmark, Maria Feodorovna, Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich

Maria Feodorovna (November 26, 1847 – October 13, 1928), known before her marriage as Princess Dagmar of Denmark, was a Danish princess and Empress of Russia as spouse of Emperor Alexander III (reigned 1881–1894). She was the second daughter and fourth child of King Christian IX of Denmark and Louise of Hesse-Cassel; her siblings included Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, King Frederik VIII of Denmark and King George I of Greece, Thera Duchess of Cumberland and Valdemar of Denmark. Her eldest son became the last Russian monarch, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia. She lived for ten years after he and his family were killed.

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Princess Marie Sophie Frederike Dagmar was born at the Yellow Palace in Copenhagen. Her father was Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, a member of a relatively impoverished princely cadet line. Her mother was Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel.

She was baptised as a Lutheran and named after her kinswoman Marie Sophie of Hesse-Cassel, Queen Dowager of Denmark as well as the medieval Danish queen, Dagmar of Bohemia. Her godmother was Queen Caroline Amalie of Denmark. Growing up, she was known by the name Dagmar. Most of her life, she was known as Maria Feodorovna, the name which she took when she converted to Orthodoxy immediately before her 1866 marriage to the future Emperor Alexander III. She was known within her family as “Minnie”.

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Princess Dagmar, Prince Vilhelm, Christian IX of Denmark and Princess Alexandra

The rise of Slavophile ideology in the Russian Empire led Alexander II of Russia to search for a bride for the heir apparent, Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich, in countries other than the German states that had traditionally provided consorts for the tsars. In 1864, Nicholas, or “Nixa” as he was known in his family, went to Denmark where he was betrothed to Dagmar. On April 22, 1865 he died from meningitis. His last wish was that Dagmar would marry his younger brother, the future Alexander III. Dagmar was distraught after her young fiancé’s death. She was so heartbroken when she returned to her homeland that her relatives were seriously worried about her health.

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Dagmar of Denmark and Tsarevich Nicholas Alexandrovich

She had already become emotionally attached to Russia and often thought of the huge, remote country that was to have been her home. The disaster had brought her very close to “Nixa’s” parents, and she received a letter from Alexander II in which the Emperor attempted to console her. He told Dagmar in very affectionate terms that he hoped she would still consider herself a member of their family. In June 1866, while on a visit to Copenhagen, the Tsarevich Alexander asked Dagmar for her hand. They had been in her room looking over photographs together.

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Dagmar of Denmark and the future Emperor Alexander III of Russia

She converted to Orthodoxy and became Grand Duchess Maria Feodorovna of Russia. The lavish wedding took place on November 9, 1866 in the Imperial Chapel of the Winter Palace in Saint Petersburg. Financial constraints had prevented her parents from attending the wedding, and in their stead, they sent her brother, Crown Prince Frederick. Her brother-in-law, the Prince of Wales, had also travelled to Saint Petersburg for the ceremony; pregnancy had prevented the Princess of Wales from attending. After the wedding night, Alexander wrote in his diary, “I took off my slippers and my silver embroidered robe and felt the body of my beloved next to mine… How I felt then, I do not wish to describe here. Afterwards we talked for a long time.” After the many wedding parties were over the newlyweds moved into the Anichkov Palace in Saint Petersburg where they were to live for the next 15 years, when they were not taking extended holidays at their summer villa Livadia in the Crimean Peninsula.

On May 18, 1868, Maria Feodorovna gave birth to her eldest son, Nicholas. Her next son, Alexander Alexandrovich, born in 1869, died from meningitis in infancy. She would bear Alexander four more children who reached adulthood: George (b. 1871), Xenia (b. 1875), Michael (b. 1878), and Olga (b. 1882). As a mother, she doted on and was quite possessive of her sons. She had a more distant relationship with her daughters.

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In 1873, Maria, Alexander, and their two eldest sons made a journey to the United Kingdom. The imperial couple and their children were entertained at Marlborough House by the Prince and Princess of Wales. The royal sisters Maria and Alexandra delighted London society by dressing alike at social gatherings. The following year, Maria and Alexander welcomed the Prince and Princess of Wales to St. Petersburg; they had come for the wedding of the Prince’s younger brother, Alfred, to Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, daughter of Tsar Alexander II and the sister of the tsarevich.

Unification of the Kingdom of Spain: Part II. November 26, 1504 the death of Queen Isabella I of Castile.

26 Tuesday Nov 2019

Posted by liamfoley63 in Duchy/Dukedom of Europe, Empire of Europe, Featured Monarch, Principality of Europe, Royal Genealogy, Royal Succession, This Day in Royal History

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Carlos I of Spain, Charles V, Ferdinand and Isabella, Ferdinand II of Aragon, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Empire, Isabella I of Castile, Isabella of Spain, Joanna of Castile, Philip II of Spain, Unification of Spain

Philipp of Habsburg was the son of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I by his first wife Mary, Duchess of Burgundy in her own right. Philipp was less than four years old when his mother died, and upon her death, he inherited the greater part of the Duchy of Burgundy and the Burgundian Netherlands as Philippe IV. In 1496, his father arranged for him to marry Joanna of Castile, second daughter of Fernando II-V and Isabella I, rulers of Aragon and Castile respectively.

At Isabella’s death on November 26, 1504 and the crown of Castile passed to their daughter Joanna, by the terms of their prenuptial agreement and Isabella‘s last will and testament, and her husband Fernando lost his monarchical status in Castile. Joanna’s husband Philipp of Habsburg, Duke of Burgundy became de jure uxoris King of Castile, as Felipe I, but died in 1506, and Joanna ruled in her own right.

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Isabella I, Queen of Castile.

In 1504, after a war with France, Fernando became King of Naples as Ferdinand III, reuniting Naples with Sicily permanently and for the first time since 1458. In 1506, as part of a treaty with France, Fernando (aged 54) married Germaine of Foix of France (aged 18). Germaine’s father was Jean of Foix, Viscount of Narbonne and son of Queen Eleanor of Navarre. Her mother, Marie of Orléans, was the sister of King Louis XII of France. Sadly, Fernando’s only son and child of this union, Juan, Prince of Girona born on May 3, 1509, but died shortly after birth. (Had the child survived, the personal union of the crowns of Aragon and Castile would have ceased.) In 1512, Fernando became King of Navarre by conquest.

As mentioned, Fernando II, lost his monarchical status in Castile although his wife’s will permitted him to govern in Joanna’s absence or, if Joanna was unwilling to rule herself, until Joanna’s heir (Infante Carlos) reached the age of 20.

Fernando refused to accept this, therefore he minted Castilian coins in the name of “Fernando and Joanna, King and Queen of Castile, León and Aragon,” and, in early 1505, persuaded the Cortes that Joanna’s “illness is such that the said Queen Doña Joanna our Lady cannot govern”. The Cortes then appointed Ferdinand as Joanna’s guardian and the kingdom’s administrator and governor.

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Fernando II-V, King of Aragon and Castile.

Joanna’s husband, Philipp of Habsburg was unwilling to accept any threat to his chances of ruling Castile and also minted coins in the name of “Felipe and Joanna, King and Queen of Castile, Léon and Archdukes of Austria, etc.” In response, Ferdinand embarked upon a pro-French policy, marrying Germaine de Foix, niece of Louis XII of France (and his own great-niece), in the hope that she would produce a son to inherit Aragon and perhaps Castile.

Fernando’s remarriage merely strengthened support for Felipe and Joanna in Castile, and in late 1505, the pair decided to travel to Castile. Leaving Flanders on January 10, 1506, their ships were wrecked on the English coast and the couple were guests of Henry, Prince of Wales, (later Henry VIII) and Joanna’s sister Catherine of Aragon at Windsor Castle. They weren’t able to leave until April 21, by which time civil war was looming in Castile.

Felipe apparently considered landing in Andalusia and summoning the nobles to take up arms against Ferdinand in Aragon. Instead, he and Joanna landed at A Coruña on April 26, whereupon the Castilian nobility abandoned Fernando en masse. Fernando met Felipe at Villafáfila on 27 of June 1506 for a private interview in the village church. To the general surprise Ferdinand had unexpectedly handed over the government of Castile to his “most beloved children”, promising to retire to Aragon. Felipe and Fernando then signed a second treaty secretly, agreeing that Joanna’s “infirmities and sufferings” made her incapable of ruling and promising to exclude her from government and deprive the Queen of crown and freedom.

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Felipe I, King of Castile, Duke of Burgundy and Archduke of Austria.
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Joanna, Queen of Castile.

Fernando promptly repudiated the second agreement the same afternoon, declaring that Joanna should never be deprived of her rights as Queen Proprietress of Castile. A fortnight later, having come to no fresh agreement with Felipe, and thus effectively retaining his right to interfere if he considered his daughter’s rights to have been infringed upon, he abandoned Castile for Aragon, leaving Felipe to govern in Joanna’s stead.

Felipe’s death

By virtue of the agreement of Villafáfila, the procurators of the Cortes met in Valladolid, Castile on July 9, 1506. On 12 July, they swore allegiance to Felipe I and Joanna together as King and Queen of Castile and León and to their son Carlos as their heir-apparent. This arrangement only lasted for a few months.

On September 25, 1506, Felipe died after a five-day illness in the city of Burgos in Castile. The official cause of death was typhoid fever. The general opinion publicly declared was that his father-in-law Fernando II, who had always disliked his foreign Habsburg origins and with whom he never wanted to share power, had had him poisoned by “bocado.” Joanna was pregnant with their sixth child, a daughter named Catherine (1507–1578), who later became Queen of Portugal as the spouse of King João III of Portugal (1521-1557).

Fernando II and Joanna met at Hornillos, Castile on July 30, 1507. Fernando then constrained her to yield her power over the Kingdom of Castile and León to himself. On August 17, 1507, three members of the royal council were summoned – supposedly in her name – and ordered to inform the grandees of her father Fernando II’s return to power: “That they should go to receive his highness and serve him as they would her person and more.” However, she made it evident that this was against her will, by refusing to sign the instructions and issuing a statement that as queen regnant she did not endorse the surrender of her own royal powers.

Nonetheless, she was thereafter queen in name only, and all documents, though issued in her name, were signed with Fernando’s signature, “I the King”. He was named administrator of the kingdom by the Cortes of Castile in 1510, and entrusted the government mainly to Archbishop Cisneros. He had Joanna confined in the Royal Palace in Tordesillas, near Valladolid in Castile, in February 1509 after having dismissed all of her faithful servants and having appointed a small retinue accountable to him alone. At this time, some accounts claim that she was insane or “mad”, and that she took her husband’s corpse with her to Tordesillas to keep it close to her.

Fernando II ended his days embittered: his second marriage to Germaine de Foix had failed to produce a surviving male heir, leaving his daughter Joanna as his heiress-presumptive. Fernando resented that upon his death, Castile and Aragon would effectively pass to his foreign-born-and-raised grandson Carlos to whom he had transferred his hatred of Felipe I. He had hoped that his younger grandson and namesake, Archduke Ferdinand who was Carlos I’s brother and had been born and raised in Castile, would succeed him. Fernando named Ferdinand as his heir in his will before being persuaded to revoke this bequest and rename Joanna and Carlos as his heirs-presumptive instead.

When Fernando II died in 1516, the Kingdoms of Castile and León, and Aragon and their associated crowns and territories/colonies, would pass to Joanna I and her son as King Carlos I. With Carlos still in Flanders, Aragon was being governed after Fernando II’s death by his bastard son, Alonso de Aragón. Meanwhile, Castile and León, already subjects of Joanna, were governed by Archbishop Cisneros as regent. A group of nobles, led by the Duke of Infantado, attempted to proclaim the Archduke Ferdinand as King of Castile but the attempt failed.

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Carlos I/Karl V, Holy Roman Emperor, King of Spain, Duke of Burgundy and Archduke of Austria.

In October 1517, seventeen-year-old Carlos I arrived in Asturias at the Bay of Biscay. On November 4, he and his sister Eleanor met their mother Joanna at Tordesillas – there they secured from her the necessary authorisation to allow Carlos to rule as her co-King of Castile and León and of Aragon. Despite her acquiescence to his wishes, her confinement would continue. The Castilian Cortes, meeting in Valladolid, insulted Carlos by addressing him only as Su Alteza (Your Highness) and reserving Majestad (Majesty) for Joanna. However, no one seriously considered rule by Joanna a realistic proposition.

In 1519, Carlos I now ruled the Kingdom of Aragon and its territories and the Kingdom of Castile and León and its territories, in personal union. In addition, that same year Carlos was elected Holy Roman Emperor as Karl V. The kingdoms of Castile and Aragon (and Navarre) remained in personal union. Carlos I is recognized as the first king of a United Spain. It is interesting to note that during the regency of Fernando II-V, many called him the King of Spain as distinct from his daughter Joanna, “queen of Castile”. Despite Carlos ruling over the main Spanish kingdoms, the crowns of the Kingdoms of Castile and León and Aragon were still ruled in personal union of the king and were not legally united into a single Kingdom of Spain until the Bourbon King Felipe V in the early 18th century.

Felipe V signed the Decreto de Nueva Planta in 1715. This new law revoked most of the historical rights and privileges of the different kingdoms that formed the Spanish Crown, especially the Crown of Aragon, unifying them under the laws of Castile, thus unifying Spain under one legal system.

Carlos I eventually abdicated as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire in favour of his brother Ferdinand, and the personal union with the Spanish kingdoms was dissolved. In Spain Carlos’s son became the new Spanish king as Felipe II.

The life of Grand Duchess Catherine (Ekaterina) Pavlovna of Russia

25 Monday Nov 2019

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

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Cathereine the Great, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, George of Oldenburg, Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna, Napoleon I, Queen Ekaterina of Württemberg, William I Württemberg

As mentioned yesterday in the post about Princess Beatrice of Edinburgh, Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna, was denied marriage to Emperor Napoleon I of France, but was twice allowed to wed first cousins; her descendants became the Russian branch of the Dukes of Oldenburg. This post will fill in that information.

Grand Duchess Catherine (Ekaterinburg) Pavlovna of Russia (May 21, 1788 – January 9, 1819) was the fourth daughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia and Duchess Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg, a daughter of Friedrich II Eugene, Duke of Württemberg and his wife, Princess Friederike of Brandenburg-Schwedt. She belonged to a junior branch of the House of Württemberg.

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Ekaterina was born in St. Petersburg and named after her grandmother, Empress Catherine II (Ekaterina ) the Great of Russia. Described as beautiful and vivacious, she had a happy childhood and her education was carefully supervised by her mother. Ekaterina received the best education and constantly furthered her education through reading new literary publications and personal contacts with various outstanding persons. Known as Katya in the family, she was very close to her siblings, particularly her eldest brother Emperor Alexander I. Throughout her life she would maintain a close relationship with him.

First marriage

While the Napoleonic Wars were still in progress, the childless Napoléon I arranged his divorce from his beloved but aged wife Empress Joséphine, in order to marry a princess of high birth, get connected to royalty and beget the much desired heir. While the divorce itself did not happen until 1810, Napoleon was on the lookout for a new wife for some years previous to that, and seriously considered Ekaterina as a candidate – in addition to everything else, such a marriage would also provide strategic advantage by drawing the Russians to his side.

The matter was broached or hinted at by the French delegation, at the behest of Talleyrand, at a meeting between them and the Russians at Erfurt in 1808. Ekaterina’s family was utterly horrified, and the Dowager Empress immediately arranged a marriage for her daughter to her nephew, Duke Georg of Oldenburg (1784-1812). Thus, Ekaterina was married to her first cousin Duke Georg of Oldenburg on August 3, 1809. Georg was the second son of Peter, Duke of Oldenburg and his wife, Duchess Frederica of Württemberg.

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Georg, Duke of Oldenburg

The couple were quickly blessed with two sons: Peter Georg (b. 1810) and Constantine Friedrich Peter (b. 1812). Although the match had been arranged by their families, Ekaterina was devoted to her husband, and the marriage was harmonious. It was said that he was not handsome but Ekaterina cared for him deeply, and his death in 1812, due to typhoid fever, was a very severe shock to her. They had been married barely three years, and Ekaterina, now the mother of two infant sons, was only 24 years old.

In 1812, some conspirators who planned to depose Emperor Alexander I had the ambitions to put her on the throne as Empress Catherine III. In 1812, she supported the suggestion to summon a national militia, and formed a special regiment of chasseurs which took part in many of the great battles of the era.

Following the death of her husband, Ekaterina spent much of the next few years with her siblings, especially her brother the Tsar with whom she had a very close relationship. During 1813-1815, she travelled to England with her brother Emperor Alexander I to meet the Prince Regent (future King George IV of the United Kingdom). She was again with her brother during the Congress of Vienna in 1815. She was not without influence upon his political acts during these trips. She also promoted the marriage between her youngest sister Anna and Willem II of the Netherlands during this time.

In England, Ekaterina met the Crown Prince Wilhelm of Württemberg (1781-1864). It was love at first sight for the couple. However, Wilhelm was married to princess Caroline Augusta of Bavaria; (daughter of King Maximilian I Joseph of Bavaria and Princess Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt). Crown Prince Wilhelm took the drastic step of divorcing her.

The background to this turn of events is that Wilhelm and Caroline Augusta had hastily married each other in order to avoid a political marriage devised by Napoleon. They had never got on with each other, and both of them claimed, at the time of seeking an annulment, that their marriage had never been consummated. The annulment was duly granted by Pope Pius VII on grounds of non-consummation. Shortly afterwards (in 1816), Caroline Augusta married Emperor Franz of Austria and became Empress Consort.

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King Wilhelm I of Württemberg.

Very early in the year 1816, Ekaterina was married to the newly divorced William. The wedding was held in Saint Petersburg. The couple was immediately blessed with a daughter, Marie Frederikke Charlotte, who was born on October 30, 1816, perchance the very day on which Ekaterina’s father-in-law, Friedrich I of Wurttemberg, died.

The day therefore marked her husband’s accession as king, and Ekaterina, now Queen Katharina of Württemberg, became active in charity works in her adopted homeland. She established numerous institutions for the benefit of the public. She supported elementary education and organized a charity foundation during the hunger of 1816. In 1818, she gave birth to another daughter, Sophie Frederike Mathilde, who would marry Ekaterina’s nephew Willem III of Orange and become Queen of the Netherlands.

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Queen Ekaterina of Württemberg

Death

In January 1819, six months after the birth of her youngest child, Ekaterina died at Stuttgart of erysipelas complicated by pneumonia. She was barely thirty years old, and left behind four children, dispersed across two different families, the eldest of whom was barely eight years old. After her death, her surviving husband built Württemberg Mausoleum in Rotenberg, Stuttgart, dedicated to her memory. King Wilhelm later married again; his next wife was his first cousin, Princess Pauline of Württemberg.

This date in History: November 24, 1764, Coronation of Stanislaw II Augustus, the last King of Poland.

25 Monday Nov 2019

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

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Augustus III of Poland, Cathereine the Great, Catherine II of Russia, Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Kingdom of Poland, Partition of Poland, Poland-Lithuania Commonwealth, Russian Empire, Stanislaw August, Stanislaw II Augustus of Poland, Stanisław Poniatowski

Stanisław II Augustus (also Stanisław August Poniatowski, January 17, 1732 – February 12, 1798), who reigned as King of Poland and Grand Duke of Lithuania from 1764 to 1795, was the last monarch of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. He remains a controversial figure in Polish history. Recognized as a great patron of the arts and sciences and an initiator and firm supporter of progressive reforms, he is also remembered as the King of the Commonwealth whose election was marred by Russian intervention. He is criticized primarily for his failure to stand against the partitions, and thus to prevent the destruction of the Polish state.

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He was one of eight surviving children and fourth son of Princess Konstancja Czartoryska and of Count Stanisław Poniatowski, Ciołek coat of arms, Castellanof Kraków. He was a great-grandson of the poet, courtier and alleged traitor, Jan Andrzej Morsztyn and through his great-grandmother, Catherine Gordon, lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie Louise Gonzaga, he was related to the House of Stuart and thereby connected to the leading families of Scotland, Spain and France. The Poniatowski family had achieved high status among the Polish nobility (szlachta) of the time.

In 1750, he travelled to Berlin where he met a British diplomat, Charles Hanbury Williams, who became his mentor and friend. In 1751, Poniatowski was elected to the Treasury Tribunal in Radom, where he served as a commissioner. He spent most of January 1752 at the Austrian court in Vienna. Later that year, after serving at the Radom Tribunal and meeting King Augustus III of Poland, he was elected deputy of the Sejm (Polish parliament).

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Young Catherine the Great

In Saint Petersburg, Williams introduced Poniatowski to the 26-year-old Grand Duchess Catherine Alexeievna, the future Empress Catherine II the Great. The two became lovers. Whatever his feelings for Catherine, it is likely Poniatowski also saw an opportunity to use the relationship for his own benefit, using her influence to bolster his career. Poniatowski had to leave St. Petersburg in July 1756 due to court intrigue. Through the combined influence of Catherine, that of Russian Empress Elizabeth and of chancellor Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Poniatowski was able to rejoin the Russian court now as ambassador of Saxony the following January. Still in St. Petersburg, he appears to have been a source of intrigue between various European governments, some supporting his appointment, others demanding his withdrawal He eventually left the Russian capital on August 14, 1758.

In 1762, when Catherine ascended the Russian throne, she sent him several letters professing her support for his own ascension to the Polish throne, but asking him to stay away from St. Petersburg. Nevertheless, Poniatowski hoped that Catherine would consider his offer of marriage, an idea seen as plausible by some international observers. He participated in the failed plot by the Familia to stage a coup d’état against King Augustus III. In August 1763, however, Catherine advised him and the Familia that she would not support a coup as long as King Augustus III was alive.

Upon the death of Poland’s King Augustus III October 5, 1763, lobbying began for the election of the new king. Catherine threw her support behind Poniatowski. The Russians spent about 2.5m rubles in aid of his election. Poniatowski’s supporters and opponents engaged in some military posturing and even minor clashes. In the end, the Russian army was deployed only a few miles from the election sejm, which met at Wola near Warsaw. In the event, there were no other serious contenders, and during the convocation sejm on September 7, 1764, 32-year-old Poniatowski was elected king, with 5,584 votes. He swore the pacta conventa on November 13, and a formal coronation took place in Warsaw on November 25. The new King’s “uncles” in the Familiawould have preferred another nephew on the throne, Prince Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, characterized by one of his contemporaries as débauché, sinon dévoyé (in French: debauched if not depraved), but Czartoryski had declined to seek office.

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“Stanisław II Augustus”, as he now styled himself combining the names of his two immediate royal predecessors, began his rule with only mixed support within the nation. It was mainly the small nobility who favoured his election. In his first years on the throne he attempted to introduce a number of reforms. He founded the Knights School, and began to form a diplomatic service, with semi-permanent diplomatic representatives throughout Europe, Russia and the Ottoman Empire.

In the War of the Bar Confederation (1768–1772), Poniatowski supported the Russian army’s repression of the Bar Confederation. In 1770, the Council of the Bar Confederation proclaimed him dethroned. The following year, he was kidnapped by Bar Confederates and was briefly held prisoner outside of Warsaw, but he managed to escape. In view of the continuing weakness of the Polish-Lithuanian state, Austria, Russia, and Prussia collaborated to threaten military intervention in exchange for substantial territorial concessions from the Commonwealth – a decision they made without consulting Poniatowski or any other Polish parties.

Although Poniatowski protested against the First Partition of the Commonwealth (1772), he was powerless to do anything about it. He considered abdication, but decided against it. During the Partition Sejm of 1773–1775, in which Russia was represented by ambassador Otto von Stackelberg, with no allied assistance forthcoming from abroad and with the armies of the partitioning powers occupying Warsaw to compel the Sejm by force of arms, no alternative was available save submission to their will. Eventually Poniatowski and the Sejm acceded to the “partition treaty”.

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In July 1792, when Warsaw was threatened with siege by the Russians, the king came to believe that surrender was the only alternative to total defeat. Having received assurances from Russian ambassador Yakov Bulgakov that no territorial changes would occur, a cabinet of ministers called the Guard of Laws (or Guardians of Law, Polish: Straż Praw) voted eight to four in favor of surrender. On July 24, 1792, Poniatowski joined the Targowica Confederation.

The Polish Army disintegrated. Many reform leaders, believing their cause lost, went into self-exile, although they hoped that Poniatowski would be able to negotiate an acceptable compromise with the Russians, as he had done in the past. Poniatowski had not saved the Commonwealth, however. He and the reformers had lost much of their influence, both within the country and with Catherine. Neither were the Targowica Confederates victorious. To their surprise, there ensued the Second Partition of Poland. With the new deputies bribed or intimidated by the Russian troops, the Grodno Sejm took place. On 23 November 1793, it annulled all acts of the Great Sejm, including the Constitution. Faced with his powerlessness, Poniatowski once again considered abdication; in the meantime he tried to salvage whatever reforms he could.

Poniatowski’s plans had been ruined by the Kościuszko Uprising. The King had not encouraged it, but once it began he supported it, seeing no other honourable option. Its defeat marked the end of the Commonwealth. Poniatowski tried to govern the country in the brief period after the fall of the Uprising, but on December 2, 1794, Catherine demanded he leave Warsaw, a request to which he acceded on January 7, 1795, leaving the capital under Russian military escort and settling briefly in Grodno.

On 24 October 1795, the Act of the final, Third Partition of Poland was signed. One month and one day later, on 25 November, Poniatowski signed his abdication. Reportedly, his sister, Ludwika Maria Zamoyska and her daughter also his favourite niece, Urszula Zamoyska, who had been threatened with confiscation of their property, had contributed to persuading him to sign the abdication: they feared that his refusal would lead to a Russian confiscation of their properties and their ruin.

Catherine died on November 17, 1796, succeeded by her son, Paul I of Russia. On February 15, 1797, Poniatowski left for Saint Petersburg. He had hoped to be allowed to travel abroad, but was unable to secure permission to do so. A virtual prisoner in St. Petersburg’s Marble Palace, he subsisted on a pension granted to him by Catherine. Despite financial troubles, he still supported some of his former allies, and continued to try to represent the Polish cause at the Russian court. He also worked on his memoirs.

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Poniatowski died of a stroke on February 12, 1798. Emperor Paul I sponsored a royal state funeral, and on 3 March he was buried at the Catholic Church of St. Catherine in St. Petersburg. In 1938, when the Soviet Union planned to demolish the Church, his remains were transferred to the Second Polish Republic, and interred in a church at Wołczyn, his birthplace. This was done in secret, and caused controversy in Poland when the issue became known. In 1990, due to the poor state of the Wołoczyn Church (then in the Byelorussian SSR), his body was once more exhumed and brought to Poland, to St. John’s Cathedral in Warsaw, where, on May 3, 1791, he had celebrated the adoption of the Constitution that he had co-authored. A final funeral ceremony was held on February 14, 1995.

The life of Princess Beatrice of Edinburgh, Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Duchess of Galliera.

24 Sunday Nov 2019

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Royal, Royal Genealogy

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Alfonso de Orleans y Borbón, Alfred Duke of Edinburgh, Beatrice of Edinburgh, Carlos IV of Spain, Duke of Edinburgh, Duke of Galliera, Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, Fernando VII of Spain, Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia, Infante of Spain, Isabella II of Spain, Louis Philippe, Princess Beatrice, Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

Princess Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Beatrice Leopoldine Victoria; April 20, 1884 – July 13, 1966) was a member of the British royal family. Her father was Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, (reigning Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) the second son of Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort. Her mother was Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, the only surviving daughter of Alexander II of Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine. She was called “Baby Bee” by her family.

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Beatrice spent much of her early years in Malta, where her father was serving in the Royal Navy. Along with her elder sister Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, she was a bridesmaid at the wedding of their paternal cousins the Duke and Duchess of York (the future King George V and Queen Mary) on July 6, 1893.

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On the death of Prince Alfred’s uncle, Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, on August 22, 1893, the duchy was inherited by the Duke of Edinburgh, since the Prince of Wales, the Duke’s elder brother and future King Edward VII, had renounced his right to the succession. The Duke and Duchess, with their five surviving children, travelled shortly afterwards to Coburg to take up residence.

Marriage prospects

In 1902, Princess Beatrice had a romance with Russian Grand Duke Michael, the younger brother of Emperor Nicholas II, and at that time the heir presumptive to the Imperial Throne. She began receiving letters from him in September 1902 and, although he was a Russian Grand Duke and she now a German Princess, they corresponded in English, and he nicknamed her “Sima”.

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Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia

However she was prevented from marrying the Grand Duke as the Russian Orthodox Church forbade the marriage of first cousins. Although such marriages had been allowed previously in the House of Romanov (Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna, whose hand was denied to Napoleon I, was twice allowed to wed first cousins; her descendants became the Russian branch of the Dukes of Oldenburg), the devout Emperor Nicholas II, official head of Russia’s church, refused to relax the rules for the sake of his brother.

In November 1903, Michael wrote to Beatrice telling her that he could not marry her. The situation was aggravated by a letter Beatrice then received from her elder sister Victoria Melita (“Ducky”), in which Michael was blamed for having callously initiated the doomed romance. Years later, ironically, or hypocritically, Ducky, having divorced her first cousin Ernst Ludwig, Grand Duke of Hesse and By Rhine, was told that remarriage to another first cousin, Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, would likewise be forbidden by the Tsar, she refused to take no for an answer; the couple eloped and went into exile. The humiliated Beatrice was sent to Egypt to recover from heartbreak, but pined and wrote reproachful letters to Michael until 1905.

Beatrice was then rumoured to be intending to marry King Alfonso XIII of Spain, but this proved to be a false rumour also as he married her cousin Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg in 1906. It was at their wedding that Beatrice met another cousin of King Alfonso, Alfonso de Orleans y Borbón (November 12; 1886 – August 10, 1975), Infante of Spain, 5th Duke of Galliera. The Spanish government objected to an infante’s proposed match with a British Princess who, unlike Queen Victoria Eugenie, had not agreed to convert to Roman Catholicism: the King was obliged to make clear that, should the wedding take place, the couple would have to live in exile.

Genealogy of her husband.

Alfonso de Orleans y Borbón, Infante of Spain, Duke of Galliera (November 12, 1886 – August 6, 1975), was the elder son of Infante Antonio, Duke of Galliera and his wife, Infanta Eulalia of Spain.

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Alfonso de Orleans y Borbón, Infante of Spain, Duke of Galliera

His father, Infante Antonio, was the only surviving son of Prince Antoine of Orléans, Duke of Montpensier, and his wife Infanta Luisa Fernanda of Spain, the youngest daughter of King Fernando VII of Spain and his fourth wife Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies. Infante Antonio’s father, Prince Antoine, was the youngest son of King Louis Philippe of France and his wife Maria Amelia Teresa of the Two Sicilies.

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Infanta Eulalia of Spain

His mother, Infanta Eulalia of Spain, was the youngest of the five children born to Queen Isabella II of Spain and Francis de Assisi de Borbón, Duke of Cadiz, the second son of Infante Francisco de Paula of Spain, (himself the son of the youngest son of Carlos IV of Spain and Maria Luisa of Parma) and of his wife (and niece), Princess Luisa Carlotta of Naples and Sicily.

Alfonso de Orleans y Borbón, Duke of Galliera was also first cousin of Alfonso XIII of Spain.

Nonetheless, Beatrice and Alfonso married in a Roman Catholic and Lutheran ceremony at Coburg on July 13, 1909. The couple settled in Coburg until, in 1912, Alfonso and Beatrice were allowed to return to Spain and his rank of Infante was restored. In August 1913, Beatrice was received into the Roman Catholic Church.

The couple had three sons:
* Alvaro Antonio Fernando Carlos Felipe (April 20, 1910 – August 22, 1997)
* Alonso María Cristino Justo (May 28, 1912 – November 18, 1936); Killed in action during the Spanish Civil War
* Ataúlfo Carlos Alejandro Isabelo (October 20, 1913 – October 4, 1974)

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Princess Beatrice and her eldest son, Infante Alvaro of Spain

Scandal and exile

During King Alfonso XIII’s unhappy marriage, he had numerous affairs and dalliances, some of which produced illegitimate children. He allegedly also made advances toward Princess Beatrice, which she rebuffed. The King expelled her and her husband from Spain, under the pretext of sending Infante Alfonso on a mission to Switzerland. At the same time, the King’s circle of friends, who despised both Beatrice and Queen Ena, started to spread malicious rumours, saying that Beatrice had been expelled because of her bad behaviour, which was not true.

The family moved to England, where their three sons were educated at Winchester College. The Spanish royal family eventually relented, and Beatrice and her family were allowed to return to Spain where they established their home at an estate in Sanlúcar de Barrameda.

The 1930s were an unhappy time for the family, as the collapse of the Spanish monarchy and the subsequent civil war led to the loss of much of the family’s wealth. After the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic in 1931, King Alfonso and his family fled into exile in Italy. In the years that followed, the political situation in Spain worsened as various groups wrestled for power. By the late-1930s, the conflicts had erupted into all-out civil war. Beatrice and Alfonso lost their estate during the war and the couple’s middle son, Alonso, was killed fighting the Republicans.

Later life

Beatrice died at her estate of El Botánico in Sanlúcar de Barrameda on July 13, 1966. Her husband survived her by nine years. Their son Ataulfo died, unmarried, in 1974. Their only grandchildren are the children of Prince Alvaro. At the time of her death, Beatrice was the last surviving child of Prince Alfred and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna.

This date in History: November 23, 1890. The death of Willem III, King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg.

23 Saturday Nov 2019

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

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Abdication, Conservative, King Wilhelm I of Württemberg, Liberal, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands, Sophia of Württemberg, Willem I of the Netherlands, Willem II of the Netherlands, Willem III of the Netherlands

Willem III (Willem Alexander Paul Frederik Lodewijk; February 19, 1817 – November 23, 1890) was King of the Netherlands and Grand Duke of Luxembourg from 1849 until his death in 1890. He was also the Duke of Limburg from 1849 until the abolition of the duchy in 1866.

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Willem was born on February 19, 1817 in the Palace of the Nation in Brussels, which was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands at the time. He was the eldest son of the future king Willem II of the Netherlands and Anna Pavlovna of Russia, daughter of Paul I of Russia and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg. He had three brothers, one of whom died in infancy, and one sister.

Willem married in Stuttgart on June 18, 1839 his first cousin, Sophie, daughter of King Wilhelm I of Württemberg and Grand Duchess Catherine Pavlovna of Russia, daughter of Paul I of Russia and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg.

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Sophie of Württemberg.

The marriage was unhappy and was characterized by struggles about their children. Sophie was a liberal intellectual, hating everything leaning toward dictatorship, such as the army. Willem III was simpler, more strongly conservative, and loved the military. He prohibited intellectual exercise at home, for which action Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, who corresponded with Princess Sophie, called him an uneducated farmer.

Willem III comes across as a very unlikable person. His extramarital affairs, however, led the New York Times to call him “the greatest debauchee of the ages.” Another cause of marital tension (and later political tension) was his capriciousness; he could rage against someone one day, and be extremely polite the next.

The king was a man of immense stature and with a boisterous voice. Standing at 6’5″ (196 cm) he was an exceptionally large and strong man by the standards of his age. Willem III was known to be a philanderer and had several dozen illegitimate children from various mistresses. He could be gentle and kind, then suddenly he could become intimidating and even violent. He kicked and hit his servants about. He was inclined to terrorize and humiliate his courtiers. The king was cruel to animals as well. His ministers were afraid of him. Most people around him agreed that he was, to some degree, insane.

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The king could be erratic, he ordered the dismissal and even the arrest and execution of those that he found in lack of respect, including a Mayor of The Hague. Orders like these were disregarded. The king who thought of himself as a specialist on all matters military frequently tried to take command of manoeuvres, creating chaos wherever he went.

Willem III as a staunch Conservative and therefore loathed the 1848 Liberal constitutional changes initiated by his father (Willem II) and Johan Rudolf Thorbecke. His father saw them as key to the monarchy’s survival in changing times. Sophie, who was a strong Liberal and she shared the views of Willem II and Thorbecke. Willem III himself saw them as useless limitations of royal power, and would have preferred to govern as an enlightened despot in the mold of his grandfather, Willem I, and other royal figures such as Friedrich II The Great of Prussia and Catherine II The Great of Russia.

Because of the growing trend toward Liberalism, Willem III was even reluctant to take the crown. He considered relinquishing his right to the throne to his younger brother Henry and later to his older son. His mother convinced him to cancel this action. The Dutch constitution provided no way to relinquish one’s claim to the throne.

On March 17, 1849 his father died and Willem succeeded to the throne of the Netherlands. He was at that moment a guest of the Duchess of Cleveland in Raby Castle. Representatives of the Dutch government traveled to London to meet their new king in London. Willem was reluctant to return, but he was convinced to do so. Upon arrival the new Queen welcomed her spouse with the question “did you accept?”. The new king nodded, but he remained uncertain about the matter for some time.

In 1877, Queen Sophie died and years of war in the palace came to an end. In the same year, King Willem III announced his intention to marry Émilie Ambre, a French opera singer, whom he ennobled as countess d’Ambroise – without government consent. Under pressure from society and the government, he abandoned these marriage plans.

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Willem III and Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont, Queen Consort of the Netherlands.

Willem remained eager to remarry. In 1878, he first proposed to his niece, Princess Elisabeth of Saxe-Weimar. He then considered marriage with Princess Pauline of Waldeck and Pyrmont, a small German principality, and Princess Thyra of Denmark, who had her own private scandalous history. He finally decided to marry Pauline’s younger sister Emma, the fourth daughter of Georg Viktor, Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont, and Princess Helena of Nassau. Some politicians were quite angry, as she was 41 years the king’s junior. Emma showed herself, however, as a cordial woman. Willem III asked permission from parliament, this was easily granted. The couple were quickly married in Arolsen on January 7, 1879.

Emma had a positive influence on Willem’s capricious personality and the marriage was extremely happy. The last decade was without any doubt the best of his reign. The king had stopped interfering with most aspects of government. In 1880, Wilhelmina was born.

King Willem III had had three sons with his first wife, Sophie of Württemberg: Willem, Prince of Orange (1840–1879), Maurits (1843–1850), and Alexander (1851–1884) but two of them had died before Wilhelmina’s birth, and the third brother also died before she turned four. None of them had ever married. The only other surviving male member of the House of Orange was the King’s uncle, Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, but he had no son either, only daughters, and he died in 1881 when Wilhelmina was one year old.

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Young Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands.

By 1887, the King, now seventy years of age, finally abandoned hope of a son with his young wife, and made the pragmatic decision to settle the throne upon his only daughter. Under the Semi-Salic system of inheritance that was in place in the Netherlands until 1887, she was third in line to the throne from birth. When Prince Frederick died a year later in 1881, she became second in line. When Wilhelmina was four, Alexander died and the young girl became heir presumptive.

King Willem III died on November 23, 1890. Although ten-year-old Wilhelmina became queen of the Netherlands instantly, her mother, Emma, was named regent.

The Unification of the Kingdom of Spain: Part I.

22 Friday Nov 2019

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

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Ferdimand II of Aragon, Ferdinand and Isabella, Henry IV of Castile, House of Aviz, House of Trastámara, Isabella of Spain, Kingdom of Aragon, Kingdom of Castile, Kingdom of Spain

The history of Spain reaches back into antiquity and the era of the Roman Empire. After the demise of Rome the Iberian Peninsula fractured into many kingdoms. Even as late as the 15th century, the most important among all of the separate Christian kingdoms that made up the old Hispania were the Kingdom of Castile (occupying northern and central portions of the Iberian Peninsula), the Kingdom of Aragon (occupying northeastern portions of the peninsula), and the Kingdom of Portugal occupying the far western Iberian Peninsula.

The death of King Henrique IV of Castile in 1474 set off a struggle for power called the War of the Castilian Succession (1475–1479). Contenders for the throne of Castile were Henrique IV’s one-time heir Joanna la Beltraneja, supported by Portugal and France, and Henrique’s half-sister Isabella of Castile, supported by the Kingdom of Aragon and by the Castilian nobility. The setting of the succession was a step in unifying Aragon and Castile into the Kingdom of Spain.

IMG_1545
Isabella, Queen of Castile

Isabella was born on April 22, 1451 in Madrigal de las Altas Torres, Ávila, to King Juan II of Castile and his second wife, Isabella of Portugal, daughter of João, Constable of Portugal, (of the Aviz dynasty) the youngest surviving son of King João I of Portugal, and his half-niece and wife, Isabella of Barcelos, the daughter of his half-brother Afonso of Barcelos, the Duke of Braganza, an illegitimate son of the king.

At the time of her birth, Isabella was second in line to the throne after her older half-brother the future King Henrique IV of Castile. Henrique was 26 at the birth of his half-sister Isabella and was married to Queen Blanche II of Navarre but the union was childless and later annulled due to Henrique’s impotence. Another younger brother Alfonso of Castile was born two years later on November 17, 1453, lowering her position to third in line. When her father died in 1454, her half-brother ascended to the throne as King Henrique IV of Castile. Isabella and her brother Alfonso were left in King Henrique’s care. Isabell, her mother, and Alfonso then moved to Arévalo.

Henrique IV made a number of attempts throughout his reign to arrange a politically advantageous marriage for his much younger sister. The first attempt was when the six-year-old Isabella was betrothed to Fernando of Aragon and Navarre, son of Juan II of Aragon and Navarre (a cadet branch of the House of Trastámara) and his second wife, Juana Enriquez de Córdoba, 5th Lady of Casarrubios del Monte the daughter of Fadrique Enríquez de Mendoza and Mariana Fernández de Córdoba y Ayala, 4th Lady of Casarrubios del Monte, she was a great-great granddaughter of Alfonso XI of Castile.

In March 1453, before the annulment between King Henrique IV of Castile from Queen Blanche II of Navarre was finalised, there is no record of negotiations for the new marriage between Henrique IV and Joan of Portugal, sister of the king Alfonso V of Portugal. The first marital approaches were made in December of that year, although the negotiations were long and the proposal wasn’t definitively agreed until February 1455. The wedding was celebrated in May 1455, but without an affidavit of official bull authorizing the wedding between them, they were first cousins (their mothers were sisters) and second cousins (their paternal grandmothers were half-sisters). On February 28, 1462, the queen gave birth to a daughter Joanna la Beltraneja, whose paternity came into question during the conflict for succession to the Castillian throne when Henrique IV died.

In 1468, at the age of only 14, Alfonso, the brother of Henrique IV and Isabella, died, most likely from the plague (although poison and slit throat have been suggested). His will left his crown and place in the succession to his sister, Isabella. Henrique IV agreed to exclude Joanna la Beltraneja from the succession, due to her questionable parentage, and to recognize Isabella as his official heir.

IMG_1544
Fernando II, King of Aragon

Infante Fernando of Aragon married Infanta Isabella, on October 19, 1469 in Valladolid, Kingdom of Castile and Leon. Isabella also belonged to the royal House of Trastámara, and the two were cousins by descent from Juan I of Castile. They were married with a clear prenuptial agreement on sharing power, and under the joint motto “tanto monta, monta tanto”.

Isabella became Castile’s next monarch when King Henrique IV died in 1474. However, the succession was not settled. After the death of King Henrique IV, war broke out in Castile. Joanna la Beltraneja was supported by Portugal, while the eventual winner, Henrique’s half-sister Isabella I of Castile, had the support of Aragon. France initially supported Joanna, yet in 1476, after losing the Battle of Toro, France refused to help Joanna, further and in 1478 signed a peace treaty with Isabella.

IMG_1543
Fernando II and Isabella I, King and Queen of Castile and Aragon

Upon Isabella’s succession to the throne of Castile, she ruled jointly with her husband, Fernando of Aragon who succeeded his father as King Fernando II of Aragon in 1479,

Their marriage united both crowns and set the stage for the creation of the Kingdom of Spain, at the dawn of the modern era. That union, however, was a union in title only, as each region retained its own political and judicial structure. Pursuant to an agreement signed by Isabella and Fernando on January 15, 1474, Isabella held more authority over the newly unified Spain than her husband, although their rule was shared. Together, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon were known as the “Catholic Monarchs” (Spanish: los Reyes Católicos), a title bestowed on them by Pope Alexander VI.

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