• About Me

European Royal History

~ The History of the Emperors, Kings & Queens of Europe

European Royal History

Monthly Archives: June 2021

June 28, 1914: Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife Duches Sophie of Hohenberg.

28 Monday Jun 2021

Posted by liamfoley63 in Duchy/Dukedom of Europe, Featured Royal, Morganatic Marriage, Royal Death, This Day in Royal History

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Austria-Hungary, Franz Joseph of Austria, Gavrilo Princip, June 28 1914: Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary and his wife Duches Sophie of Duchess of Hohenberg, Sarajevo, Sophie of Hohenberg, World War I

Archduke Franz Ferdinand Carl Ludwig Joseph Maria of Austria (December 18 1863 – June 28, 1914) was the heir presumptive to the throne of Austria-Hungary. His assassination in Sarajevo is considered the most immediate cause of World War I.

Franz Ferdinand was the eldest son of Archduke Karl Ludwig of Austria, the younger brother of Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. Following the death of Crown Prince Rudolf in 1889 and the death of Karl Ludwig in 1896, Franz Ferdinand became the heir presumptive to the Austro-Hungarian throne. His courtship of Sophie Chotek, a lady-in-waiting, caused conflict within the imperial household, and their morganatic marriage in 1900 was only allowed after he renounced his descendants’ rights to the throne.

Franz Ferdinand held significant influence over the military, and in 1913 he was appointed inspector general of the Austro-Hungarian armed forces.

On June 28, 1914, Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo by the 19-year-old Gavrilo Princip, a member of Young Bosnia. Franz Ferdinand’s assassination led to the July Crisis and precipitated Austria-Hungary’s declaration of war against Serbia, which in turn triggered a series of events that eventually led to Austria-Hungary’s allies and Serbia’s allies declaring war on each other, starting World War I.

June 24, 1485: Birth of Elizabeth of Denmark, Electress of Brandenburg

24 Thursday Jun 2021

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Elector of Brandenburg, Elizabeth of Denmark, Hans of Denmark, Joachim I Nestor of Brandenburg, Protestant, Roman Catholic Church

Elizabeth of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden ( June 24, 1485 – June 10, 1555) was a Scandinavian princess who became Electress of Brandenburg as the spouse of Joachim I Nestor, Elector of Brandenburg. She was the daughter of King Hans of Denmark, Norway and Sweden and his spouse, Christina of Saxony.

As a child, Elizabeth had a close relation with her brother, the later King Christian II of Denmark. She was able to read and write in both Danish and German. On April 10, 1502 she married Joachim I Nestor, Elector of Brandenburg, in a double wedding alongside her uncle, the future king Frederick I of Denmark, and her sister-in-law Anna of Brandenburg. Elizabeth and Joachim got along quite well during the first twenty years of their marriage and co-existed harmoniously. She received her mother in 1507, attended her brother Christian’s wedding in 1515 and received Christian in 1523.

Her spouse was a pugnacious adherent of Roman Catholic orthodoxy during the Reformation. In 1523, she visited a sermon of Martin Luther with her brother and her sister-in-law and became a convinced Protestant. In 1527, she received the Protestant communion in public: this meant a public break with the Catholic Church, and caused a conflict with her husband. In 1528, her husband asked a clerical council from the Catholic Church if he should divorce, execute or isolate her if she refused to renounce her new conviction. The church council replied that he should have her imprisoned.

Elizabeth escaped to the court of her uncle, John, Elector of Saxony, and a public debate broke out: the Protestant monarchs and her brother supported her, Luther supported her freedom to leave her husband for her religion, and she declared that she would return only if she was allowed to keep her conviction and if her husband renounced his adultery and his interest in astrology. Otherwise, she suggested that they separate, referring to the separation of her own parents in 1504. She was given a residence near Wittenberg. Her husband refused to give her an allowance and forbade her sons to visit her. In 1532, her uncle died and her brother was imprisoned, and she thereby lost her supporters.

In 1535, her husband died and her sons asked her to return to Brandenburg, but changed their minds when she made the demand that the parishes in her dowry lands be made Protestant. She finally returned in 1545 and stayed in Spandau.

The marriage of her son Joachim II Hector, Elector of Brandenburg, to Hedwig Jagiellon did not satisfy Elizabeth. Catholic services were held for Hedwig in her private chapel, and the Dowager Electress was also unhappy because Hedwig could not speak German.

June 23, 1456 : Birth of Margaret of Denmark, Queen of Scots.

23 Wednesday Jun 2021

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Dorothea of Brandenburg Queen of Denmark, House of Stewart, James III of Scotland, King of Scots, Margaret of Denmark, Queen of Norway, Queen of Scots, Queen of Sweden

Margaret of Denmark (June 23, 1456 – July 14, 1486) was Queen of Scotland from 1469 to 1486 by marriage to King James III. She was the daughter of Christian I, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and Dorothea of Brandenburg, daughter of John, Margrave of Brandenburg-Kulmbach, and Barbara of Saxe-Wittenberg (1405–1465).

Margaret of Denmark’s mother, Dorothea of Brandenburg was Queen of Denmark, Queen of Norway and Queen of Sweden by her marriages to King Christopher III and King Christian I. She served as interim regent during the interregnum in 1448, and as regent in the absence of her second spouse during his reign. She was the mother of two future kings of Denmark: Hans, King of Denmark who reigned from 1481 until 1513; Frederik I of Denmark who reigned from 1523 until 1533.

Margaret was born in Denmark to King Christian I and Queen Dorothea of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Not much is known about Margaret’s upbringing. By the time she was four years old there were talks about her marriage to the Scottish Prince James. In 1468 Margaret was betrothed to James of Scotland as a means to stop a feud regarding the debt Scotland owed Denmark over the taxation of the Hebrides and Isle of Man.

The marriage was arranged on the recommendation of king Charles VII of France. In July 1469, at the age of 13 she married James III at Holyrood Abbey. Upon their marriage all of the Scottish debt was cancelled. Queen Margaret was given the largest jointure allowed by Scottish law in her marriage settlement. She was interested in clothes and jewellery, and known for always being dressed in the latest fashions of the time.

Following the birth of her son James, in 1473 she went on a pilgrimage to Whithorn. She may have taught her son James to speak Danish. She became a popular queen in Scotland and was described as beautiful, gentle, and sensible. Many years later historians called her far better qualified to rule than her spouse.

The relationship between Margaret and James III was not described as a happy one. Reportedly, she was not very fond of her husband and had intercourse with him only for procreation, though she did respect his position as a monarch. One reason for their estrangement was the fact that James favoured their second son over their eldest. In 1476, James had decided that he wanted the Earldom of Ross for his second son and accused John MacDonald of treason. Macdonald was then put on trial before the Parliament, but upon Margaret’s request he was allowed to remain as Lord of Parliament.

During the crisis of 1482, when James III was deprived of power by his brother for several months, Margaret was said to have shown more interest in the welfare of her children than her spouse, which led to a permanent estrangement. Politically, she worked for the reinstatement of her spouse in his powers as monarch during this incident. After the crisis of 1482, the couple lived apart: James III lived in Edinburgh, while queen Margaret preferred to live in Stirling with her children.

Death

Margaret died at Stirling Castle on 14 July 1486 after falling ill, and was buried in Cambuskenneth Abbey. Her husband, James III, was interred with her after his death in 1488. The abbey has mostly been reduced to ruins, apart from its bell-tower, which is still standing today. The grave was enclosed and restored in 1865 at the expense of Margaret’s descendant, Queen Victoria.

A story given by her son claims that Margaret was killed by poison given to her by John Ramsay, 1st Lord Bothwell, leader of one of the political factions. However, as Ramsay was favoured by the royal family also after the death of the queen, this is considered doubtful and may have been slander, although he did have some knowledge of poisons.

Reportedly, James III mourned her death, and sent a supplication to the Pope where he applied for her to be declared a saint.

History of Male British Consorts Part X

22 Tuesday Jun 2021

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Duke of Cumberland, George of Denmark, Male British Consorts, Mary II, Queen Anne, William III

Anne’s older sister Mary had moved to the Netherlands after her marriage to William of Orange. Protestant opposition to James was therefore increasingly focused around Anne and George instead of Mary, who was heir presumptive. The social and political grouping centred on George and Anne was known as the “Cockpit Circle” after their London residence.

On 5 November 1688, William invaded England in an action, known as the “Glorious Revolution”, which ultimately deposed King James II-VII. George was forewarned by the Danish envoy in London, Frederick Gersdorff, that William was assembling an invasion fleet. George informed Gersdorff that James’s army was disaffected, and as a result he would refuse any command under James, but only serve as an uncommissioned volunteer. Gersdorff’s alternative plan to evacuate George and Anne to Denmark was rejected by George.

George accompanied the King’s troops to Salisbury in mid-November, but other nobles and their soldiers soon deserted James for William. At each defection, George apparently exclaimed, “Est-il possible?” (Is it possible?). He abandoned James on 24 November, and sided with William. The defection of George and other nobles was instrumental in whittling away the King’s support. In December, James fled to France, and early the following year William and Mary were declared joint monarchs, with Anne as heir presumptive.

In early April 1689, William assented to a bill naturalizing George as an English subject, and George was created Duke of Cumberland, Earl of Kendal and Baron of Okingham (Wokingham) by the new monarchs. He took his seat in the House of Lords on April 20, 1689, being introduced by the Dukes of Somerset and Ormonde.

The mistrust between George and William was set aside during the revolution of 1688–89 but dogged relations during the latter’s reign. George held mortgages on Femern, Tremsbüttel and Steinhorst, Schleswig-Holstein, which he surrendered to the Duke of Holstein as part of the peace of Altona of 1689 negotiated by William between Denmark and Sweden.

William agreed to pay George interest and the capital in compensation, but George remained unpaid. During the military campaign against James’s supporters in Ireland, George accompanied the Williamite troops at his own expense, but was excluded from command, and was even refused permission to travel in his brother-in-law’s coach.

Snubbed from the army by William, George sought to join the navy, without rank, but was again thwarted by his brother-in-law. When William’s Dutch guards failed to salute George, Anne assumed they were acting under orders. George and Anne retired from court. Some degree of reconciliation was achieved following Queen Mary’s sudden and unexpected death from smallpox in 1694, which made Anne heir apparent. In November 1699, William finally recommended that Parliament pay the mortgage debt to George, and in early 1700, the debt was honoured.

By 1700, Anne had been pregnant at least seventeen times; twelve times, she miscarried or gave birth to stillborn children, and two of their five children born alive died within a day. The only one of the couple’s children to survive infancy—Prince William, Duke of Gloucester—died in July 1700 at the age of 11. With Gloucester’s death, Anne was the only person in the line of succession to the throne, as established by the “Glorious Revolution”. To extend the line and secure the Protestant succession, Parliament passed the Act of Settlement 1701, which designated William and Anne’s nearest Protestant cousins, the House of Hanover, as the next in line after Anne.

George did not play a senior role in government until his wife Anne succeeded as queen on William’s death in 1702. George was the chief mourner at William’s funeral. Anne appointed him generalissimo of all English military forces on 17 April, and Lord High Admiral, the official but nominal head of the Royal Navy, on 20 May. Actual power at the Admiralty was held by George Churchill, whose elder brother was John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, a great friend of Anne’s and the captain-general of English land forces. Prince George had known the Churchills for years: another brother Charles Churchill, had been one of his gentlemen of the bedchamber in Denmark, and Marlborough had accompanied George on his journey from Denmark to England for his marriage to Anne in 1683.

George’s secretary in the 1680s was Colonel Edward Griffith, brother-in-law of the Duchess of Marlborough, who was Anne’s close confidante and friend. George followed William III as Captain-General of the Honourable Artillery Company, and was made Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports. Anne failed, however, in her attempts to persuade the States General of the Netherlands to elect her husband captain-general of all Dutch forces, to maintain the unified command of the Maritime Powers that William had held.

Anne obtained a parliamentary allowance of £100,000 a year for George in the event of her death. The bill sped through the House of Commons easily but it was only narrowly passed by the House of Lords. Marlborough supported the bill, but one of the lords against was Marlborough’s son-in-law, Charles Spencer, 3rd Earl of Sunderland. Marlborough dissuaded her from asking Parliament to make “her dearly loved husband King Consort”.

Generally, during her reign, Anne and her husband spent the winter at Kensington and St James’s Palaces, and the summer at Windsor Castle or Hampton Court Palace, where the air was fresher. George had recurrent asthma, and the cleaner air in the country was better for his breathing. They visited the spa town of Bath, Somerset, in mid-1702, on the advice of George’s doctors, and again in mid-1703. They occasionally visited Newmarket, Suffolk, to view the horse racing. On one visit, Anne bought George a horse, Leeds, for the vast sum of a thousand guineas.

At the end of 1702, the Occasional Conformity Bill was introduced to Parliament. The bill aimed to disqualify Protestant Dissenters from public office by closing a loophole in the Test Acts, legislation that restricted public office to Anglican conformists. The existing law permitted nonconformists to take office if they took Anglican communion once a year. Anne was in favour of the measure, and forced George to vote for the bill in the House of Lords, even though, being a practising Lutheran, he was an occasional conformist himself.

As he cast his vote, he reportedly told an opponent of the bill, “My heart is vid you” [sic]. The bill did not gather sufficient parliamentary support and was eventually dropped. The following year, the bill was revived, but Anne withheld support, fearing its reintroduction was a deliberate pretence to cause a quarrel between the two main political groups: the Tories (who supported the bill) and the Whigs (who opposed it). Once again it failed. George never became a member of the Church of England, which was headed by his wife throughout her reign. He remained Lutheran even after her accession, and had his own personal chapel.

In the first years of Anne’s reign, the Whigs gained more power and influence at the expense of the Tories. In his capacity as Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, George held influence in parliamentary boroughs on the south coast of England, which he used to support Whig candidates in the general election of 1705. In that year’s election for Speaker of the House of Commons, George and Anne supported a Whig candidate, John Smith. George instructed his secretary, George Clarke, who was a Member of Parliament, to vote for Smith, but Clarke refused, instead supporting the Tory candidate William Bromley. Clarke was sacked, and Smith was elected.

Illness and death

In March and April 1706, George was seriously ill. There was blood in his sputum, but he seemed to recover, although he was too ill to attend a thanksgiving service at St Paul’s Cathedral in June for a British victory in the Battle of Ramillies. He missed another thanksgiving service in May 1707, to celebrate the union of England and Scotland, as he was recuperating at Hampton Court.

The Scilly naval disaster of 1707, in which a fleet commanded by Sir Cloudesley Shovell foundered, highlighted mismanagement at the Admiralty, for which George was nominally responsible. Pressure grew to replace Admiral Churchill with someone more dynamic. By October 1708, five powerful politicians, known as the Whig Junto—Lords Somers, Halifax, Orford, Wharton and Sunderland—were clamouring for the removal of both Prince George and Churchill. Marlborough wrote to his brother telling him to resign, but Churchill refused, protected by Prince George.

Amid the political pressure, George was on his deathbed, suffering from severe asthma and dropsy. He died at 1:30 p.m. on 28 October 1708 at Kensington Palace. The Queen was devastated. James Brydges wrote to General Cadogan,

His death has flung the Queen into an unspeakable grief. She never left him till he was dead, but continued kissing him the very moment his breath went out of his body, and ’twas with a great deal of difficulty my Lady Marlborough prevailed upon her to leave him.

Anne wrote to her nephew, Frederik IV of Denmark, “the loss of such a husband, who loved me so dearly and so devotedly, is too crushing for me to be able to bear it as I ought.” Anne was desperate to stay at Kensington with the body of her husband, but under pressure from the Duchess of Marlborough, she reluctantly left Kensington for St James’s Palace. Anne resented the Duchess’s intrusive actions, which included removing a portrait of George from the Queen’s bedchamber and then refusing to return it in the belief that it was natural “to avoid seeing of papers or anything that belonged to one that one loved when they were just dead”. Anne and the Duchess had been very close, but their friendship had become strained over political differences. The immediate aftermath of George’s death damaged their relationship further. He was buried privately at midnight on 13 November in Westminster Abbey.

Personal traits and portrayal

Charles II, Anne’s uncle, famously said of Prince George, “I have tried him drunk, and I have tried him sober and there is nothing in him”. He was quiet and self-effacing. John Macky thought him “of a familiar, easy disposition with a good sound understanding but modest in showing it … very fat, loves news, his bottle & the Queen.” In making fun of George’s asthma, Lord Mulgrave said the Prince was forced to breathe hard in case people mistook him for dead and buried him. By the time of Queen Victoria, George had a reputation as a dullard, and was the target of disdain. Victoria hoped her own husband, Prince Albert, would never fill the “subordinate part played by the very stupid and insignificant husband of Queen Anne”. In the 1930s, Winston Churchill said he “mattered very little”, except to Anne.

He had little impact on the running of the navy, but he was interested enough in navigation and welfare at sea to sponsor the publication of John Flamsteed’s Observations in 1704. He was not one of the most colourful political characters of his day—he was content to spend his time building model ships—but he was a loyal and supportive husband to Queen Anne. Their marriage was a devoted, loving and faithful one, though beset by personal tragedy.

The previous husband of a British queen regnant, William of Orange, had become king, refusing to take a subordinate rank to Mary. William and Mary had exemplified the traditional gender roles of seventeenth-century Europe: Mary was the dutiful wife and William held the power. George and Anne, however, reversed the roles: George was the dutiful husband and it was Anne who exercised the royal prerogatives. William had assumed incorrectly that George would use his marriage to Anne as a means of building a separate power base in Britain, but George never challenged his wife’s authority and never strove to accrue influence. Anne occasionally used the image of wifely virtue to escape unpalatable situations by claiming, as a woman, she knew “nothing except what the prince tells me”, but it was an artifice.

Husbands had a legal right to their wife’s property, and it was argued that it was unnatural and against the church’s teachings for a man to be subject to his wife. George made no such claim or demand; he was content to remain a prince and duke. “I am her Majesty’s subject”, he said, “I shall do naught but what she commands me.” In the words of historian Anne Somerset, “the fact that Prince George was widely regarded as a nonentity helped reconcile people to his anomalous status, and so, almost by accident, George achieved a major advance for feminism.” Winston Churchill wrote that he

was a fine-looking man, tall, blond, and good-natured … He was neither clever nor learned—a simple, normal man without envy or ambition, and disposed by remarkable appetite and thirst for all the pleasures of the table. Charles’s well-known verdict … does not do justice to the homely virtues and unfailing good-humour of his staid and trustworthy character.

The Prince of Denmark’s March by Jeremiah Clarke was written in his honour, and Prince George’s County, Maryland, was named after him in 1696. Portraits by Sir Godfrey Kneller are at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, Drumlanrig Castle in Dumfriesshire, and (in a double portrait with George Clarke) All Souls College, Oxford. Portraits in Denmark include one by Willem Wissing in the Reedtz-Thott collection and one by Karel van Mander in the national collection at Frederiksborg Palace.

History of Male British Consorts Part IX

17 Thursday Jun 2021

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Noble, Featured Royal, Royal Genealogy, royal wedding

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Charles II of England, George of Denmark, James II of England, Male British Consorts, Mary II of England, Queen Anne of England, Queen Anne of Great Britain, William and Mary, William III of England

Anne (February 6, 1665 – August 1, 1714) was Queen of England, Scotland, and Ireland between March 8, 1702 and May 1, 1707. On May 1, 1707, under the Acts of Union, the kingdoms of England and Scotland united as a single sovereign state known as Great Britain. She continued to reign as Queen of Great Britain and Ireland until her death in 1714.

The Lady Anne was born in the reign of Charles II to his younger brother and heir presumptive, James, whose suspected Roman Catholicism was unpopular in England. On Charles’s instructions, Anne and her elder sister, Mary, were raised as Anglicans. Mary married their Dutch Protestant cousin, William III of Orange, in 1677, and Anne married Prince George of Denmark in 1683. On Charles’s death in 1685, James succeeded to the throne, but just three years later he was deposed in the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Mary and William became joint monarchs.

Although the sisters had been close, disagreements over Anne’s finances, status, and choice of acquaintances arose shortly after Mary’s accession and they became estranged. William III and Mary II had no children. After Mary’s death in 1694, William reigned alone until his own death in 1702, when Anne succeeded him.

George of Denmark was born in Copenhagen Castle, and was the younger son of Frederik III, King of Denmark and Norway, and Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg. His mother was the sister of Ernst August, Duke of Brunswick-Lüneburg, later Elector of Hanover. Ernst August’s son, George, succeeded George of Denmark’s wife, Queen Anne, on the British throne.

In 1674, George was a candidate for the Polish elective throne, for which he was backed by King Louis XIV of France. George’s staunch Lutheranism was a barrier to election in Roman Catholic Poland, and John Sobieski was chosen instead.

In 1677, George served with distinction with his elder brother Christian in the Scanian War against Sweden. His brother was captured by the Swedes at the Battle of Landskrona, and George “cut his way through the enemies’ numbers, and rescued him at the imminent danger of his own life.”

As a Protestant, George was considered a suitable partner for the niece of King Charles II of England, Lady Anne. They were distantly related (second cousins once removed; they were both descended from King Frederik II of Denmark), and had never met. George was hosted by Charles II in London in 1669, but Anne had been in France at the time of George’s visit. Both Denmark and Britain were Protestant, and Louis XIV was keen on an Anglo-Danish alliance to contain the power of the Dutch Republic.

Anne’s uncle Laurence Hyde, 1st Earl of Rochester, and the English Secretary of State for the Northern Department, Robert Spencer, 2nd Earl of Sunderland, negotiated a marriage treaty with the Danes in secret, to prevent the plans leaking to the Dutch. Anne’s father, James, Duke of York, welcomed the marriage because it diminished the influence of his other son-in-law, Dutch Stadtholder William III of Orange, who was naturally unhappy with the match.

George and Anne were married on July 28, 1683 in the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace, London, by Henry Compton, Bishop of London. The guests included King Charles II, Queen Catherine, and the Duke and Duchess of York. Anne was voted a parliamentary allowance of £20,000 a year, while George received £10,000 a year from his Danish estates, although payments from Denmark were often late or incomplete.

King Charles gave them a set of buildings in the Palace of Whitehall known as the Cockpit (near the site of what is now Downing Street in Westminster) as their London residence.

George was not ambitious, and hoped to live a quiet life of domesticity with his wife. He wrote to a friend: “We talk here of going to tea, of going to Winchester, and everything else except sitting still all summer, which was the height of my ambition. God send me a quiet life somewhere, for I shall not be long able to bear this perpetual motion.”

More on Prince George of Denmark tomorrow.

German Emperor Wilhelm II: Psychology and Relationships

16 Wednesday Jun 2021

Posted by liamfoley63 in Empire of Europe, Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Albert Edward, German Emperor Friedrich III, German Emperor Wilhelm II, King Edward VII, Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

With yesterday being the anniversary of the death of German Emperor Friedrich III and the accession of his son, Wilhelm II, I thought i do a little character study. I find German Emperor Wilhelm II a fascinating subject to study. Historians like myself have frequently stressed the role of Wilhelm’s personality in shaping his reign. Historian Thomas Nipperdey concludes WilhelmII was :

gifted, with a quick understanding, sometimes brilliant, with a taste for the modern,—technology, industry, science—but at the same time superficial, hasty, restless, unable to relax, without any deeper level of seriousness, without any desire for hard work or drive to see things through to the end, without any sense of sobriety, for balance and boundaries, or even for reality and real problems, uncontrollable and scarcely capable of learning from experience, desperate for applause and success,—as Bismarck said early on in his life, he wanted every day to be his birthday—romantic, sentimental and theatrical, unsure and arrogant, with an immeasurably exaggerated self-confidence and desire to show off, a juvenile cadet, who never took the tone of the officers’ mess out of his voice, and brashly wanted to play the part of the supreme warlord, full of panicky fear of a monotonous life without any diversions, and yet aimless, pathological in his hatred against his English mother.

Historian David Fromkin states that Wilhelm had a love–hate relationship with Britain. According to Fromkin “From the outset, the half-German side of him was at war with the half-English side. He was wildly jealous of the British, wanting to be British, wanting to be better at being British than the British were, while at the same time hating them and resenting them because he never could be fully accepted by them”.

Langer et al. (1968) emphasise the negative international consequences of Wilhelm’s erratic personality: “He believed in force, and the ‘survival of the fittest’ in domestic as well as foreign politics … William was not lacking in intelligence, but he did lack stability, disguising his deep insecurities by swagger and tough talk. He frequently fell into depressions and hysterics … William’s personal instability was reflected in vacillations of policy. His actions, at home as well as abroad, lacked guidance, and therefore often bewildered or infuriated public opinion. He was not so much concerned with gaining specific objectives, as had been the case with Bismarck, as with asserting his will. This trait in the ruler of the leading Continental power was one of the main causes of the uneasiness prevailing in Europe at the turn-of-the-century”.

Relationships with foreign relatives

Because of Wilhelm’s personality issues it created difficult relationships amongst his foreign relatives. As a grandchild of Queen Victoria, Wilhelm was a first cousin of the future King George V of the United Kingdom, as well as of Queens Marie of Romania, Maud of Norway, Victoria Eugenie of Spain, and the Empress Alexandra of Russia. In 1889, Wilhelm’s younger sister, Sophia, married the future King Constantine I of the Hellenas (Greece). Wilhelm was infuriated by his sister’s conversion to Greek Orthodoxy; upon her marriage, that he attempted to ban her from entering Germany.

Wilhelm’s most contentious relationships were with his British relations. He craved the acceptance of his grandmother, Queen Victoria, and of the rest of her family. Despite the fact that his grandmother treated him with courtesy and tact, his other relatives found him arrogant and obnoxious, and they largely denied him acceptance. He had an especially bad relationship with his Uncle Bertie, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII). Between 1888 and 1901 Wilhelm resented his uncle, himself a mere heir to the British throne, treating Wilhelm not as Emperor of Germany, but merely as another nephew.

In turn, Wilhelm often snubbed his uncle, whom he referred to as “the old peacock” and lorded his position as emperor over him. Beginning in the 1890s, Wilhelm made visits to England for Cowes Week on the Isle of Wight and often competed against his uncle in the yacht races. Edward’s wife, the Danish-born Alexandra, first as Princess of Wales and later as Queen, also disliked Wilhelm, never forgetting the Prussian seizure of Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark in the 1860s, as well as being annoyed over Wilhelm’s treatment of his mother.

Despite his poor relations with his English relatives, when he received news that Queen Victoria was dying at Osborne House in January 1901, Wilhelm travelled to England and was at her bedside when she died, and he remained for the funeral. He also was present at the funeral of King Edward VII in 1910.

In 1913, Wilhelm hosted a lavish wedding in Berlin for his only daughter, Victoria Louise. Among the guests at the wedding were his cousins Tsar Nicholas II of Russia and King George V, and George’s wife, Queen Mary.

June 15, 1888: Death of Friedrich III, German Emperor and King of Prussia.

15 Tuesday Jun 2021

Posted by liamfoley63 in Empire of Europe, Featured Monarch, Kingdom of Europe, Royal Death, Royal Succession, Royal Titles

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Frederick III of Germany, Potsdam, Princess Victoria the Princess Royal, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Throat Cancer, Wilhelm I of Prussia, Wilhelm II of Germany

Prince Friedrich-Wilhelm of Prussia was born in the New Palace at Potsdam in Prussia on October 18, 1831. He was a scion of the House of Hohenzollern, rulers of Prussia, then the most powerful of the German states. Friedrich’s father, Prince Wilhelm (future German Emperor and King of Prussia), was a younger brother of King Friedrich-Wilhelm IV and, having been raised in the military traditions of the Hohenzollerns, developed into a strict disciplinarian.

Prince Friedrich’s mother was Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, the second daughter of Charles-Friedrich, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia, a daughter of Paul I of Russia and Sophie-Dorothea of Württemberg.

In 1851, his mother sent Friedrich to England, ostensibly to visit the Great Exhibition but in truth, she hoped that the cradle of liberalism and home of the industrial revolution would have a positive influence on her son. Prince Albert took Friedrich under his wing during his stay but it was Albert’s daughter, Victoria, Princess Royal, only eleven at the time, who guided the German prince around the Exhibition.

Friedrich only knew a few words of English, while Victoria could converse fluently in German. He was impressed by her mix of innocence, intellectual curiosity and simplicity, and their meeting proved to be a success. A regular exchange of letters between Victoria and Friedrich followed.

Friedrich proposed to Victoria in 1855, when she was 14 years old and he was 23. The betrothal of the young couple was announced on May 19, 1857, at Buckingham Palace and the Prussian Court, and their marriage took place on January 25, 1858 in the Chapel Royal of St. James’s Palace, London. Victoria too had received a liberal education and shared her husband’s views. Of the two, Victoria was the dominant one in the relationship.

The couple often resided at the Crown Prince’s Palace and had eight children: Wilhelm in 1859, Charlotte in 1860, Heinrich in 1862, Sigismund in 1864, Victoria in 1866, Waldemar in 1868, Sophia in 1870 and Margaret in 1872. Sigismund died at the age of 2 and Waldemar at age 11, and their eldest son, Wilhelm, suffered from a withered arm—probably due to his difficult and dangerous breech birth, although it could have also resulted from a mild case of cerebral palsy.

When his father succeeded to the Prussian throne as King Wilhelm I of Prussia on January 2, 1861, Friedrich became the Crown Prince of Prussia.

Three days after Friedrich was confirmed to be suffering from cancer, his father Emperor Wilhelm I died aged 90 at 8:22 a.m. on March 9, 1888, upon which Friedrich became German Emperor and King of Prussia. His son, Wilhelm, now Crown Prince, telegraphed the news to his father in Italy. Later the same day, Friedrich wrote in his diary that he had received the telegram upon returning from a walk, “…and so I have ascended the throne of my forefathers and of the German Kaiser! God help me fulfill my duties conscientiously and for the weal of my Fatherland, in both the narrower and the wider sense.” Germany’s progressive elements hoped that Wilhelm’s death, and thus Friedrich’s succession, would usher the country into a new era governed along liberal lines.

Logically, Friedrich should have taken as his regnal name, Friedrich I (beccause the Bismarckian empire was considered a new entity). The new Emperor wanted to call himself Friedrich IV, (mistakenly thinking this new empire was a continuation of the old Holy Roman Empire, which had had three emperors named Friedrich). However, on the advice of Bismarck that this would create legal problems, he opted to simply keep the same regnal name he had as the king of Prussia, Friedrich III.

The new Emperor reached Berlin at 11 p.m. on the night of March 11; those who saw him were horrified by his “pitiful” appearance. The question now was how much longer the mortally ill emperor could be expected to live, and what, if anything, he could hope to achieve. In spite of his illness, Friedrich did his best to fulfill his obligations as Emperor.
Immediately after the announcement of his accession, he took the ribbon and star of his Order of the Black Eagle from his jacket and pinned it on the dress of his wife; he was determined to honor her position as Empress. Too ill to march in his father’s funeral procession, he was represented by Wilhelm, the new Crown Prince, while he watched, weeping, from his rooms in the Charlottenburg Palace.

As the German Emperor, he officially received Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom (his mother-in-law) and King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway, and attended the wedding of his son Prince Heinrich to his niece Princess Irene. However, Friedrich III reigned for only 99 days, and was unable to bring about much lasting change. The majority of the German ruling elite viewed Friedrich III’s reign as merely a brief interim period before the accession of his son Wilhelm to the throne.

An edict he penned before he ascended to the throne that would limit the powers of the chancellor and monarch under the constitution was never put into effect,although he did force Robert von Puttkamer to resign as Prussian Minister of the Interior on June 8, when evidence indicated that Puttkamer had interfered in the Reichstag elections. Dr. Mackenzie wrote that the Emperor had “an almost overwhelming sense of the duties of his position.”

A letter to Lord Napier, Empress Victoria wrote “The Emperor is able to attend to his business, and do a great deal, but not being able to speak is, of course, most trying.” Friedrich III had the fervour but not the time to accomplish his desires, lamenting in May 1888, “I cannot die … What would happen to Germany?”

From April 1888, Friedrich III became so weak he was unable to walk, and was largely confined to his bed; his continual coughing brought up large quantities of pus. In early June, the cancer spread to and perforated his esophagus, preventing him from eating. He suffered from bouts of vomiting and ran high fevers, but remained alert enough to write a last diary entry on June 11: “What’s happening to me? I must get well again; I have so much to do!”

Friedrich III died in Potsdam at 11:30 a.m. on June 15, 1888, and was succeeded by his 29-year-old son as Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia. Under Emperor Wilhelm II, his parents and maternal grandparents, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s hopes of a liberal Germany were not fulfilled. He believed in the autocracy and Conservative principles of his paternal grandfather, Emperor Wilhelm I.

Frederick is buried in a mausoleum attached to the Friedenskirche in Potsdam. After his death, William Ewart Gladstone described him as the “Barbarossa of German liberalism.” His wife, Empress Victoria, now calling herself the Empress Friedrich, went on to continue spreading her husband’s thoughts and ideals throughout Germany, but no longer had power within the government.

The early death of Emperor Friedrich III is a tragedy in German history. For if he lived and was able to enact his Liberal policies the history of Germany would have been much different.

History of Male British Consorts Part VIII

15 Tuesday Jun 2021

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Convention Parliament, Glorious Revolution, House of Commons, Mary II of England, William III of England, William III of Orange

Mary, the future Queen Mary II, was born at St James’s Palace in London on April 30, 1662, was the eldest daughter of the Duke of York (the future King James II-VII), and his first wife, Anne Hyde. Mary’s uncle was King Charles II, who ruled the three kingdoms of England, Scotland and Ireland; her maternal grandfather, Edward Hyde, 1st Earl of Clarendon, served for a lengthy period as Charles’s chief advisor. She was baptised into the Anglican faith in the Chapel Royal at St James’s, and was named after her ancestor, Mary I, Queen of Scots.

At the age of fifteen, Mary became betrothed to her cousin, the Protestant Stadtholder of the Netherlands, Williem III of Orange. Willem was the son of the King’s late sister, Mary, Princess Royal, and Prince Willem II and thus fourth in the line of succession after James, Mary, and Anne. At first, Charles II opposed the alliance with the Dutch ruler—he preferred that Mary wed the heir to the French throne, the Dauphin Louis, thus allying his realms with Catholic France and strengthening the odds of an eventual Catholic successor in Britain; but later, under pressure from Parliament and with a coalition with the Catholic French no longer politically favourable, he approved the proposed union.

The Duke of York agreed to the marriage, after pressure from chief minister Lord Danby and the King, who incorrectly assumed that it would improve James’s popularity among Protestants. When James told Mary that she was to marry her cousin, “she wept all that afternoon and all the following day”.

James II-VII inherited the thrones of England, Ireland and Scotland from his elder brother Charles II in 1685 with widespread support in all three countries, largely based on the principle of divine right of birth. In June 1688, two events turned dissent toward the Catholic king into a crisis; the first on June 10 was the birth of James’s son and heir James Francis Edward, threatening to create a Catholic dynasty and excluding his Protestant daughter Mary and her husband Willem III of Orange.

The second was the prosecution of the Seven Bishops for seditious libel; this was viewed as an assault on the Church of England and their acquittal on June 30, destroyed James’s political authority in England. Anti-Catholic riots in England and Scotland now made it seem that only his removal as monarch could prevent a civil war.

Representatives of the English political elite invited Willem III of Orange to assume the English throne; after he landed in Brixham on November 5, 1688, James’s army deserted and he went into exile in France on December 23. In February 1689, Parliament held James II-VII had ‘vacated’ the English throne.

Willem (William) summoned a Convention Parliament in England, which met on January 22, 1689, to discuss the appropriate course of action following James’s flight. William desired the throne but felt insecure about his position; though his wife preceded him in the line of succession to the throne, William wished to reign as king in his own right, rather than as a mere consort. William was third in line to the throne at this time behind his wife,, Mary and sister-in-law, Anne. William further demanded that he remain as king even if his wife were to die. As mentioned above, the only precedent for a joint monarchy in England dated from when Queen Mary I married Felipe II of Spain. Felipe II remained king only during his wife’s lifetime, and restrictions were placed on his power.

The English Convention Parliament was very divided on the issue. The radical Whigs in the Lower House proposed to elect William as a king (meaning that his power would be derived from the people); the moderates wanted an acclamation of William and Mary together; the Tories wanted to make him regent or only acclaim Mary as queen. Furthermore, Mary, remaining loyal to her husband, refused to reign on her own without her husband.

The House of Commons, with a Whig majority, believed that the throne was safer if the ruler were Protestant. The Commons made William accept a Bill of Rights, and, on February 13, 1689, Parliament passed the Declaration of Right and the Crown was offered to William III and Mary II as joint sovereigns. It was, however, provided that “the sole and full exercise of the regal power be only in and executed by the said Prince of Orange in the names of the said Prince and Princess during their joint lives.” In other words, even though both monarchs were sovereigns (and neither a consort of the other) William was given the majority of executive power.

William III and Mary II were crowned together at Westminster Abbey on April 11, 1689 by the Bishop of London, Henry Compton. Normally, the coronation is performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, but the Archbishop at the time, William Sancroft, refused to recognise James’s removal from the throne.

William also summoned a Convention of the Estates of Scotland, which met on March 14, 1689 and sent a conciliatory letter, while James sent haughty uncompromising orders, swaying a majority in favour of William. On April 11 the day of the English coronation, the Convention finally declared that James was no longer King of Scotland. William II (as he was numbered in Scotland) and Mary II were offered the Scottish Crown; they accepted on May 11.

History of Male British Consorts Part VII

10 Thursday Jun 2021

Posted by liamfoley63 in Featured Noble, Kingdom of Europe, royal wedding

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

4th Earl of Bothwell, Francis II of France, Henry Stuart, James Hepburn, Lord Darnley, Mary I of Scotland

Mary I of Scotland married a third time to James Hepburn (c. 1534 – 14 April 1578), 1st Duke of Orkney and 4th Earl of Bothwell (better known simply as Lord Bothwell), was a prominent Scottish nobleman.

He was the son of Patrick Hepburn, 3rd Earl of Bothwell, and Agnes Sinclair (d. 1572), daughter of Henry Sinclair, 3rd Lord Sinclair, and was styled The Master of Bothwell from birth. He succeeded his father as Earl of Bothwell and Lord Hailes in 1556.

Marriages

As Lord High Admiral of Scotland, Lord Bothwell visited Copenhagen around 1559. He fell in love with Anna Tronds, known in English as Anna Throndsen or Anna Rustung. She was a Norwegian noblewoman whose father, Kristoffer Trondson, a famous Norwegian admiral, was serving as Danish Royal Consul. After their engagement, or more likely marriage under Norwegian law, Anna left with Bothwell. In Flanders, he said he was out of money and asked Anna to sell all her possessions. She complied and visited her family in Denmark to ask for more money. Anna was unhappy and apparently given to complaining about Bothwell. His treatment of Anna played a part in his eventual downfall.

In February 1566, Bothwell married Lady Jean Gordon, daughter of the 4th Earl of Huntly and sister of Sir John Gordon and the 5th Earl of Huntly. They were divorced on May 7, 1567, citing his adultery with her servant Bessie Crawford. as cause. He married Mary, Queen of Scots, eight days later.

Meeting Queen Mary in France

Lord Bothwell appears to have met Queen Mary when he visited the French Court in the autumn of 1560, after he left Anna Rustung in Flanders. He was kindly received by the Queen and her husband, King François II, and, as he himself put it: “The Queen recompensed me more liberally and honourably than I had deserved” — receiving 600 Crowns and the post and salary of gentleman of the French King’s Chamber. He visited France again in the spring of 1561, and by 5 July was back in Paris for the third time — this time accompanied by the Bishop of Orkney and the Earl of Eglinton. By August, the widowed Queen was on her way back to Scotland in a French galley, some of the organisation having been dealt with by Bothwell in his naval capacity.

Under Mary of Guise’s regency

Bothwell supported Mary of Guise, queen dowager and regent of Scotland, against the Protestant Lords of the Congregation. Bothwell and 24 followers took 6000 crowns of English money destined to be used against Guise from the Laird of Ormiston on Halloween 1559 at an ambush near Haddington. In retaliation the Protestant leader, the Duke of Châtelherault, sent his son the Earl of Arran and the Master of Maxwell to seize Bothwell’s home Crichton Castle and force the Earl, who was at Borthwick, to join them. Bothwell remained true to the Regent, though it was said in January he was “weary of his part”. The English agent Thomas Randolph also hinted at this time of a scandal involving his sister Jean Hepburn.

At Queen Mary’s court

After Protestant Lords gained power following Mary of Guise’s death and the return to Scotland of Mary I, Queen of Scots, Bothwell appears to have been not much more than a troublesome noble at court. His open quarrel with the Earl of Arran and the Hamiltons, who accused him of intriguing against the Crown, caused some degree of anguish to the Queen, and although the Earl of Arran was eventually declared mad, Bothwell was nevertheless imprisoned in Edinburgh Castle without trial in 1562.Later that year, while the Queen was in the Highlands, he escaped and went to Hermitage Castle.

The Queen and Bothwell were by now very close. When Bothwell married Lady Jean Gordon, daughter of The 4th Earl of Huntly, in February 1566, the Queen attended the wedding (the marriage lasted just over a year). In the following summer, upon hearing that he had been seriously wounded and was likely to die, she rode all the way through the hills and forests of the Borders to be with him at Hermitage Castle only a few weeks after giving birth to her son.

However, historian Lady Antonia Fraser asserts that Queen Mary was already on her way to visit Bothwell on matters of state before she heard about his illness, and that therefore this visit is not evidence they were already lovers at the time of his accident. Author Alison Weir agrees, and in fact the records show that Mary waited a full six days after learning of his injuries before going to visit Bothwell. The story of her mad flight to his side was put about later by her enemies to discredit her.

Darnley’s murder

In February 1567, Bothwell was one of those accused of having murdered the Queen’s consort, Lord Darnley. Darnley’s father, the Earl of Lennox, and other relatives agitated for vengeance and the Privy Council began proceedings against Bothwell on 12 April 1567. Sir William Drury reported to Sir William Cecil, Secretary of State to Elizabeth I of England, that the Queen was in continuous ill-health “for the most part either melancholy or sickly”. On the appointed day Bothwell rode magnificently down the Canongate, with the Earl of Morton and William Maitland of Lethington flanking him, and his Hepburns trotting behind. The trial lasted from noon till seven in the evening. Bothwell was acquitted and it was widely rumoured that he would marry Mary.

The next Wednesday, the Queen rode to the Estates of Parliament, with Lord Bothwell carrying the Sceptre, where the proceedings of Bothwell’s trial were officially declared to be just according to the law of the land. On Saturday 19 April, eight bishops, nine earls, and seven Lords of Parliament put their signatures to what became known as the Ainslie Tavern Bond, a manifesto declaring that Mary should marry a native-born subject, and handed it to Bothwell.

On Wednesday April 24, while Mary was on the road from Linlithgow Palace to Edinburgh, Bothwell suddenly appeared with 800 men. He assured her that danger awaited her in Edinburgh, and told her that he proposed to take her to his castle at Dunbar, out of harm’s way. She agreed to accompany him and arrived at Dunbar at midnight.

There, Mary was taken prisoner by Bothwell and allegedly raped by him to secure marriage to her and the crown (though whether she was his accomplice or his unwilling victim remains a controversial issue). On 12 May the Queen created him Duke of Orkney and Marquess of Fife, and on 15 May they were married in the Great Hall at Holyrood, according to Protestant rites officiated by Adam Bothwell, Bishop of Orkney. Mary gave her new husband a fur lined night-gown. Within three days, Sir William Drury wrote to London that although the manner of things appeared to be forcible, it was known to be otherwise.

The marriage divided the country into two camps, and on June 16, the Lords opposed to Mary and the Duke of Orkney (as Bothwell had newly become) signed a Bond denouncing them. A showdown between the two opposing sides followed at Carberry Hill on June 15, 1567, from which Bothwell fled, after one final embrace, never to be seen again by Mary. In December that year, Bothwell’s titles and estates were forfeited by Act of Parliament.

Escape to Scandinavia and imprisonment

After fleeing the confrontation at Carberry Hill, Bothwell went to Huntly Castle and Spynie Palace. He took ship from Aberdeen to Shetland. He was pursued by William Kirkcaldy of Grange and William Murray of Tullibardine, who sailed into Bressay Sound near Lerwick. Four of Bothwell’s ships in the Sound set sail north to Unst, where Bothwell was negotiating with German captains to hire more ships. Kirkcaldy’s flagship, the Lion, chased one of Bothwell’s ships, and both ships were damaged on a submerged rock. Bothwell sent his treasure ship to Scalloway, and fought a three-hour-long sea battle off the Port of Unst, where the mast of one of Bothwell’s ships was shot away. Subsequently, a storm forced him to sail towards Norway.

Bothwell may have hoped to reach Denmark and raise an army with the support of Frederick II of Denmark to put Mary back on the throne. He was caught off the coast of Norway (then in a union with Denmark) at Høyevarde lighthouse in Karmsundet without proper papers, and was escorted to the port of Bergen. This was the native home of Anna Throndsen. Anna raised a complaint against Bothwell, which was enforced by her powerful family; her cousin Erik Rosenkrantz, a high-level official in Norway, remanded Bothwell to the Bergenhus Fortress while Anna sued him for abandonment and return of her dowry.

Anna may have had a soft spot for Bothwell, as he persuaded her to take custody of his ship, as compensation. Bothwell would have been released, but King Frederick heard that the Scottish government was seeking Bothwell for the murder of Darnley, and decided to take him into custody in Denmark.

The Earl was sent to Copenhagen, where the Danish monarch, Frederik II, deliberated on his fate. The Earl was sent across Øresund to the fortress and prison Malmøhus Castle. but as news from both England and Scotland arrived, the King eventually understood that Mary never again would become Queen of the Scots. Without Mary, the King considered him insignificant.

Death

He was imprisoned at Dragsholm Castle, 75 kilometres west of Copenhagen. He was held in what were said to be appalling conditions. He died in April 1578. He was buried in a vault at Fårevejle church near the castle.

A pillar to which he was chained for the last ten years of his life can still be seen, with a circular groove in the floor around the pillar.

In 1858 the body was exhumed and declared to be that of Bothwell. It was in a dried condition and was thereafter referred to as “Bothwell’s mummy”. His extended family tried to get his body sent back to Scotland, but their request has not been granted. The identity of the body has never been conclusively proven.

A body referred to as “Bothwell’s mummy” materialised in 1976 in the Edinburgh Wax Museum on the Royal Mile, as the only non-wax exhibit. The guide book claimed it was brought to Scotland in 1858.

History of Male British Consorts Part VI

08 Tuesday Jun 2021

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

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Crown Matrimonial, Henry Stewart, James I of England. Kingdom of Scotland, James VI of Scotland, Lord Darnley, Mary I of Scotland

Before I proceed with more about Lord Darnley I want to backtrack and talk about the concept of the Crown Matrimonial. In Scots law, the Crown Matrimonial is a person’s right to co-reign equally with his or her spouse.

The Crown Matrimonial of Scotland was sought by King François II of France, husband of Mary, Queen of Scots, by the Parliament of Scotland and Mary’s mother, Mary of Guise, who was regent of Scotland. It would make François the legal co-sovereign of Scotland with Queen Mary, and would also grant Francis the right to keep the Scottish throne if he outlived her. By the terms of the offer, he would be able to pass the Scottish crown to his descendants by a wife other than Mary. The Crown of Scotland was to be sent to France, where it was supposed to be kept at the Abbey of Saint Denis. However, the offer was never realised, as the Hamilton family, who were close to the throne, joined the Protestants and opposed it.

Mary’s second husband, Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, also demanded the Crown Matrimonial. The Protestant peers promised to make him sovereign by the consent of Parliament. They agreed that Henry, as the new sovereign, would pardon all the exiled Protestants and allow them to return to Scotland. However, the plan was never realised.

Now back to the life of Lord Darnley…

Soon after Mary married Darnley, she became aware of his vain, arrogant and unreliable qualities, which threatened the wellbeing of the state. Darnley was unpopular with the other nobles and had a violent streak, aggravated by his drinking. Mary refused to grant Darnley the Crown Matrimonial, which would have made him the successor to the throne if she died childless. By August 1565, less than a month after the marriage, William Cecil heard that Darnley’s insolence had driven Lennox from the Scottish court. Mary soon became pregnant.

Mary’s private secretary, David Rizzio, was stabbed 56 times on 9 March 1566 by Darnley and his confederates, Protestant Scottish nobles, in the presence of the queen, who was six months pregnant. According to English diplomats Thomas Randolph and the Earl of Bedford, the murder of Rizzio (who was rumoured to be the father of Mary’s unborn child) was part of Darnley’s bid to force Mary to cede the Crown Matrimonial. Darnley also made a bargain with his allies to advance his claim to the Crown Matrimonial in the Parliament of Scotland in return for restoring their lands and titles.

Mary and Darnley’s son James (the future King James VI of Scotland and I of England) was born on June 19, 1566 at Edinburgh Castle.

Following the birth of James, the succession was more secure, but Darnley and Mary’s marriage continued to struggle, despite a hunting trip together to Cramalt Tower in the Ettrick Forest in August 1566. Darnley alienated many who would otherwise have been his supporters through his erratic behavior. His insistence that he be awarded the Crown Matrimonial was still a source of marital frustration.

Darnley was murdered eight months after James’ birth. On the night of February 9–10, 1567, his body and that of his valet were discovered in the orchard of Kirk o’ Field, in Edinburgh, where they had been staying.

During the weeks leading up to his death, Darnley was recovering from a bout of smallpox (or, it has been speculated, syphilis). He was described as having deformed pocks upon his face and body. He stayed with his family in Glasgow, until Mary brought him to recuperate at Old Provost’s lodging at Kirk o’ Field, a two-story house within the church quadrangle, a short walk from Holyrood, with the intention of incorporating him into the court again.

Darnley stayed at Kirk o’ Field while Mary attended the wedding of Bastian Pagez, one of her closest servants, at Holyrood. Around 2 A.M. on the night of 9–10 February 1567, while Mary was away, two explosions rocked the foundation of Kirk o’ Field. These explosions were later attributed to two barrels of gunpowder that had been placed in the small room under Darnley’s sleeping quarters. Darnley’s body and the body of his valet William Taylor were found outside, surrounded by a cloak, a dagger, a chair, and a coat. Darnley was dressed only in his nightshirt, suggesting he had fled in some haste from his bedchamber.

Darnley was apparently smothered. There were no visible marks of strangulation or violence on the body. A post-mortem revealed internal injuries, thought to have been caused by the explosion. John Knox claimed the surgeons who examined the body were lying, and that Darnley had been strangled, but all the sources agree there were no marks on the body and there was no reason for the surgeons to lie as Darnley was murdered either way.

← Older posts

Recent Posts

  • January 27, 1859: Birth of Wilhelm II, German Emperor and King of Prussia
  • History of the Kingdom of East Francia: The Treaty of Verdun and the Formation of the Kingdom.
  • January 27, 1892: Birth of Archduchess Elisabeth Franziska of Austria
  • January 26, 1763: Birth of Carl XIV-III Johan, King of Sweden and Norway.
  • January 26, 1873: Death of Amélie of Leuchtenberg, Empress of Brazil

Archives

  • January 2023
  • December 2022
  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • March 2020
  • February 2020
  • January 2020
  • December 2019
  • November 2019
  • October 2019
  • September 2019
  • August 2019
  • July 2019
  • June 2019
  • May 2019
  • April 2019
  • March 2019
  • February 2019
  • January 2019
  • December 2018
  • November 2018
  • October 2018
  • September 2018
  • August 2018
  • July 2018
  • June 2018
  • May 2018
  • April 2018
  • March 2018
  • February 2018
  • January 2018
  • December 2017
  • November 2017
  • September 2017
  • August 2017
  • June 2017
  • April 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • December 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • October 2015
  • September 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • December 2014
  • November 2014
  • October 2014
  • September 2014
  • August 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • February 2014
  • January 2014
  • December 2013
  • September 2013
  • August 2013
  • July 2013
  • June 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • December 2012
  • November 2012
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • June 2012
  • May 2012

From the E

  • Abdication
  • Art Work
  • Bishop of Rome and the Catholic Church
  • Charlotte of Great Britain
  • coronation
  • Crowns and Regalia
  • Deposed
  • Duchy/Dukedom of Europe
  • Elected Monarch
  • Empire of Europe
  • Famous Battles
  • Featured Monarch
  • Featured Noble
  • Featured Royal
  • From the Emperor's Desk
  • Grand Duke/Grand Duchy of Europe
  • Happy Birthday
  • Imperial Elector
  • In the News today…
  • Kingdom of Europe
  • Morganatic Marriage
  • Principality of Europe
  • Regent
  • Royal Bastards
  • Royal Birth
  • Royal Castles & Palaces
  • Royal Death
  • Royal Divorce
  • Royal Genealogy
  • Royal House
  • Royal Mistress
  • Royal Succession
  • Royal Titles
  • royal wedding
  • This Day in Royal History
  • Uncategorized

Like

Like

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 414 other subscribers

Blog Stats

  • 955,673 hits

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • European Royal History
    • Join 414 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • European Royal History
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...