June 22, 1948: King George VI formally gives up the title “Emperor of India” Part I.

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East India Company, Emperor of India, Empress of India, George VI of the United Kingdom, India, Indian Empire, Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom

On June 22, 1948 King George VI formally gives up the title “Emperor of India”, half a year after Britain actually gave up its rule of India.

In this two part series I will discuss the history of the title of “Emperor/Empress of India” from it’s origin (Part I) to the abolishing of the title (Part II).

In 1858 after the nominal Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar was deposed at the conclusion of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the government of the United Kingdom decided to transfer control of British India and its princely states from the mercantile East India Company (EIC) to the Crown, thus marking the beginning of the British Raj.

The EIC was officially dissolved on June 1, 1874, and the British prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, decided to offer Queen Victoria the title “Empress of India” shortly afterwards. Victoria accepted this style on May 1, 1876. The first Delhi Durbar (which served as an imperial coronation) was held in her honour eight months later on January 1, 1877.

Constitutionally speaking, the emperor or empress was the source of all legislative, executive, and judicial authority in the British Indian Empire as the sovereign. However, the emperor or empress took little direct part in the affairs of government. The exercise of sovereign powers was instead delegated from the emperor or empress, either by statute or by convention, to a “viceroy and governor-general”, who in turn was appointed by the emperor or empress on the advice of the secretary of state for India, a British minister of the Crown.

The idea of having Queen Victoria proclaimed Empress of India was not particularly new, as Lord Ellenborough had already suggested it in 1843 upon becoming the governor-general of India. By 1874, Major-General Sir Henry Ponsonby, the Queen’s private secretary, had ordered English charters to be scrutinised for imperial titles, with Edgar and Stephen mentioned as sound precedents.

The Queen, possibly irritated by the sallies of the republicans, the tendency to democracy, and the realisation that her influence was manifestly on the decline, was urging the move. Another factor may have been that the Queen’s first child, Victoria, the Princess Royal was married to Crown Prince Friedrich of Prussia, the heir apparent to the German Empire. Upon becoming empress, she would outrank her mother.

By January 1876, the Queen’s insistence was so great that Benjamin Disraeli felt that he could procrastinate no longer. Initially, Victoria had considered the style “Empress of Great Britain, Ireland, and India”, but Disraeli had persuaded the Queen to limit the title to India in order to avoid controversy. Hence, the title Kaisar-i-Hind was coined in 1876 by the orientalist G.W. Leitner as the official imperial title for the British monarch in India.

The term Kaisar-i-Hind means emperor of India in the vernacular of the Hindi and Urdu languages. The word kaisar, meaning ’emperor’, is a derivative of the Roman imperial title caesar (via Persian, Turkish – see Kaiser-i-Rum), and is cognate with the German title Kaiser, which was borrowed from the Latin at an earlier date.

Many in the United Kingdom, however, regarded the assumption of the title as an obvious development from the Government of India Act 1858, which resulted in the founding of British India, ruled directly by the Crown. The public were of the opinion that the title of “queen” was no longer adequate for the ceremonial ruler of what was often referred to informally as the Indian Empire. The new styling underlined the fact that the native states were no longer a mere agglomeration but a collective entity.

June 10, 1974: Death of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester

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Abdication, Duke of Gloucester, King Edward VIII, King George V, King George VI, Lady Alice Montagu Douglas Scott, Prince Albert, Prince Henry, Prince Richard of Gloucester, Prince William of Gloucester

Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, (March 31, 1900 – June 10,1974) was the third son and fourth child of King George V and Queen Mary. Prince Henry served as Governor-General of Australia from 1945 to 1947, the only member of the British royal family to hold the post.

Prince Henry was born on March 31, 1900, at York Cottage, on the Sandringham Estate during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria. His father was the Duke of York (later King George V), the eldest surviving son of the Prince and Princess of Wales (later King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra). His mother was the Duchess of York (later Queen Mary), the only daughter of the Duke Francis and Duchess Mary Adilaide of Teck (a granddaughter of King George III). At the time of his birth, he was fifth in the line of succession to the throne, behind his grandfather, father and two elder brothers.

Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester

Henry was the first son of a British monarch to be educated at school, where he excelled at sports, and went on to attend Eton College, after which he was commissioned in the 10th Royal Hussars, a regiment he hoped to command. However, his military career was frequently interrupted by royal duties, and he was nicknamed “the unknown soldier”.

On March 31, 1928, his father created him Duke of Gloucester, Earl of Ulster, and Baron Culloden, three titles that linked him with three parts of the United Kingdom, namely England, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Prince Henry visited Canada in 1928.

While big-game shooting in Kenya, he met the future pilot Beryl Markham, with whom he became romantically involved. When he returned from a trip to Japan in 1929, the affair with Markham ended.

Her husband wanted a divorce and threatened to disclose Prince Henry’s private letters to his wife if he did not “take care of Beryl”. The court put pressure on him to end the relationship, but he had to pay regular hush-money to avert a public scandal.

The Duke and Beryl never met again, although she did write to him when he visited Kenya in 1950 with his wife, but he did not write back. Prince Henry’s solicitors paid out an annuity until her death in 1985.

After his tour of Australia and New Zealand, and pressured by his parents, Prince Henry decided it was time to settle down and proposed to Lady Alice Montagu Douglas Scott, sister of one of Henry’s best friends Lord William Montagu Douglas Scott.

Lady Alice Montagu Douglas Scott was the third daughter and fifth child of John Montagu Douglas Scott, Earl of Dalkeith (later Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry), and his wife, the former Lady Margaret Alice “Molly” Bridgeman, daughter of the 4th Earl of Bradford.

Lady Alice Montagu Douglas Scott

The proposal, wrote Lady Alice many years later, was not at all romantic as “it was not his way”, instead he just “mumbled it as we were on a walk one day”. They were married on November 6, 1935. The marriage was originally planned to take place at Westminster Abbey, but was moved to the more modest Private Chapel at Buckingham Palace due to the death of Lady Alice’s father, on 19 October 1935, barely a fortnight before the wedding.

In January 1936 his father King George V died and was succeeded by Henry’s eldest brother as King Edward VIII. However, by December Edward VIII abdicated the throne to marry divorcée Wallis Simpson. His brother, Prince Albert, ascended the throne as King George VI.

Although third in line to the throne, following his two nieces Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret, Henry became the first adult in line, meaning he would act as regent if anything were to happen to the King before Princess Elizabeth came of age on April 21, 1944, her 18th birthday. Because of this, Prince Henry could not leave the UK at the same time as the King. Furthermore, he and his younger brother, the Duke of Kent, had to increase their royal engagements considerably to support the new King.

Edward VIII, who became Duke of Windsor after abdicating, recalled that it was Henry who reacted least to the news of his abdication. The brothers had never been close and, apart from horses, they had not much in common.

The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester with their two sons William (standing) and Richard in Canberra

From 1939 to 1940, Henry served in France as a liaison officer to Lord Gort. He performed military and diplomatic duties during the rest of the war, then in 1945 was appointed as Australia’s governor-general at the request of Prime Minister John Curtin.

The post had originally been offered to his younger brother, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent, who died in an air crash. Henry attended the coronation of his niece Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and carried out several overseas tours, often accompanied by his wife. From 1965, he became incapacitated by a number of strokes. Upon his death in 1974, he was succeeded as the Duke of Gloucester by his only living son, Richard. His eldest son Prince William died in 1972, aged 30, in an air crash while piloting his plane in a competition.

Prince Henry was the last surviving child of King George V and Queen Mary. His widow, who died at the age of 102, became the longest-lived member ever of the British royal family.

June 6, 1654: Abdication of Queen Christina of Sweden. Part I

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Abdication, Holy Roman Empire, House of Hohenzollern, House of Vasa, House of Wittelsbach, King Gustaf II Adolph of Sweden, Maria Eleonora of Prussia, Queen Christina of Sweden, Thirty Years War

Christina (December 18, 1626 – April 19, 1689), a member of the House of Vasa, was Queen of Sweden from 1632 until her abdication in 1654. She succeeded her father Gustaf II Adolph upon his death at the Battle of Lützen in 1632, but began ruling the Swedish Empire when she reached the age of eighteen in 1644.

Christina was born in the royal castle Tre Kronor. Her parents were the Swedish king Gustaf II Adolph and his German wife, Maria Eleonorana of the House of Hohenzollern and a daughter of Johann Sigismund, Elector of Brandenburg, and Anna, Duchess of Prussia, daughter of Albrecht Friedrich, Duke of Prussia.

In 1620, Maria Eleonora married Gustaf II Adolph with her mother’s consent, but against the will of her brother Georg Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg.

They had already had three children: two daughters (a stillborn princess in 1621, then the first Princess Christina, who was born in 1623 and died the following year) and a stilborn son in May 1625.

Excited expectations surrounded Maria Eleonora’s fourth pregnancy in 1626. When the baby was born, it was first thought to be a boy as it was “hairy” and screamed “with a strong, hoarse voice.”

She later wrote in her autobiography that, “Deep embarrassment spread among the women when they discovered their mistake.” The king, though, was very happy, stating, “She’ll be clever, she has made fools of us all!” From most accounts, Gustaf II Adolph appears to have been closely attached to his daughter, and she appears to have admired him greatly.

The Crown of Sweden was hereditary in the House of Vasa, but from King Carl IX’s time onward (reigned 1604–11), it excluded Vasa princes descended from a deposed brother (Eric XIV of Sweden) and a deposed nephew (Sigismund III of Poland). Gusta II Adolph’s legitimate younger brothers had died years earlier.

The one legitimate female left, his half-sister Catharine, came to be excluded in 1615 when she married a non-Lutheran. So Christina became the undisputed heir presumptive. From Christina’s birth, King Gustaf II Adolph recognized her eligibility even as a female heir, and although called “queen”, the official title she held as of her coronation by the Riksdag in February 1633 was king.

Before Gustaf II Adolph left for the Holy Roman Empire to defend Protestantism in the Thirty Years’ War, he secured his daughter’s right to inherit the throne, in case he never returned, and gave orders to Axel Gustafsson Banér, his marshal, that Christina should receive an education of the type normally only afforded to boys.

Christina was educated as a royal male would have been. The theologian Johannes Matthiae Gothus became her tutor; he gave her lessons in religion, philosophy, Greek and Latin. Chancellor Oxenstierna taught her politics and discussed Tacitus with her. Oxenstierna wrote proudly of the 14-year-old girl that, “She is not at all like a female” and that she had “a bright intelligence”. Christina seemed happy to study ten hours a day. Besides Swedish she learned at least seven other languages: German, Dutch, Danish, French, Italian, Arabic and Hebrew.

Already at the age of nine Christina was impressed by the Catholic religion and the merits of celibacy. She read a biography on the virgin queen Elizabeth I of England with interest. Christina understood that it was expected of her to provide an heir to the Swedish throne.

Her first cousin Carl Gustaf of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg was infatuated with her, and they became secretly engaged before he left in 1642 to serve in the Swedish army in the Holy Roman Empire for three years.

Carl Gustaf was the son of the Johann Casimir, Count Palatine of Zweibrücken-Kleeburg of the Bavarian Wittelsbach family and Catherine of Sweden. Catherine of Sweden was the daughter of King Cark IX of Sweden and his first spouse Maria of the Palatinate-Simmern (also a member of the Wittelsbach family).

Christina revealed in her autobiography that she felt “an insurmountable distaste for marriage” and “for all the things that females talked about and did.” She once stated, “It takes more courage to marry than to go to war.

On February 26, 1649, Christina announced that she had decided not to marry and instead wanted her first cousin Carl to be heir to the throne. While the nobility objected to this, the three other estates – clergy, burghers, and peasants – accepted it. The coronation took place on October 22, 1650.

June 3, 1937 – The Duke of Windsor marries Wallis Simpson.

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1936 Abdication Crisis, Duke of Windsor, Duke of York, Edward VIII of the United Kingdom, George VI of the United Kingdom, Prince Albert, Privy Council, Wallis Warfield Simpson

Edward VIII (Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David; June 23, 1894 – May 28, 1972) was King of the United Kingdom and the Dominions of the British Empire, and Emperor of India from January 20, 1936 until his abdication in December of the same year.

Edward was born during the reign of his great-grandmother Queen Victoria as the eldest child of the Duke and Duchess of York, later King George V and Queen Mary.

Edward was created Prince of Wales on his 16th birthday, seven weeks after his father succeeded as king. As a young man, Edward served in the British Army during the First World War and undertook several overseas tours on behalf of his father. While Prince of Wales, he engaged in a series of sexual affairs that worried both his father and then-British prime minister Stanley Baldwin.

Upon his father’s death in 1936, Edward became the second monarch of the House of Windsor. The new king showed impatience with court protocol, and caused concern among politicians by his apparent disregard for established constitutional conventions.

Only months into his reign, a constitutional crisis was caused by his proposal to marry Wallis Simpson, an American who had divorced her first husband and was seeking a divorce from her second.

The prime ministers of the United Kingdom and the Dominions opposed the marriage, arguing a divorced woman with two living ex-husbands was politically and socially unacceptable as a prospective queen consort.

Additionally, such a marriage would have conflicted with Edward’s status as titular head of the Church of England, which, at the time, disapproved of remarriage after divorce if a former spouse was still alive.

Edward knew the Baldwin government would resign if the marriage went ahead, which could have forced a general election and would have ruined his status as a politically neutral constitutional monarch. When it became apparent he could not marry Wallis and remain on the throne, he abdicated.

Edward VIII was succeeded by his younger brother, Prince Albert, the Duke of York, who chose to reign as King George VI to display continuity with his father, George V.

With a reign of 326 days, Edward VIII is the shortest-reigning British monarch. Although it’s possible to consider Edgar Ætheling or Edgar II (c. 1052 – 1125 or after) the shortest reigning British monarch.

Edgar was the last male member of the Royal House of Wessex. Edgar was elected King of English by the Witenagemot in October 1066, after the defeat of Harold II Godwinson by William I the Conqueror. Edgar was never crowned.

When William crossed the Thames at Wallingford, he was met by Stigand, who now abandoned Edgar and submitted to the invader. As the Normans closed in on London, Edgar’s key supporters in the city began negotiating with William. In early December, the remaining members of the Witan in London met and resolved to take the young uncrowned king out to meet William to submit to him at Berkhamsted, quietly setting aside Edgar’s election. Edgar, alongside other lords, did homage to King William at his coronation in December. Thank you for indulging my little tangent. 😊

On December 12, 1936, at the accession meeting of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom, George VI announced his intention to make his brother the “Duke of Windsor” with the style of Royal Highness.

George VI wanted this to be the first act of his reign, although the formal documents were not signed until March 8, the following year. During the interim, Edward was known as the Duke of Windsor. George VI’s decision to create Edward a royal duke ensured that he could neither stand for election to the British House of Commons nor speak on political subjects in the House of Lords.

Letters Patent dated May 27, 1937 re-conferred the “title, style, or attribute of Royal Highness” upon the Duke, but specifically stated that “his wife and descendants, if any, shall not hold said title or attribute”.

Some British ministers advised that the reconfirmation was unnecessary since Edward had retained the style automatically, and further that Simpson would automatically obtain the rank of wife of a prince with the style Her Royal Highness; others maintained that he had lost all royal rank and should no longer carry any royal title or style as an abdicated king, and be referred to simply as “Mr Edward Windsor”.

On April 14, 1937, Attorney General Sir Donald Somervell submitted to Home Secretary Sir John Simon a memorandum summarising the views of Lord Advocate T. M. Cooper, Parliamentary Counsel Sir Granville Ram, and himself:

“We incline to the view that on his abdication the Duke of Windsor could not have claimed the right to be described as a Royal Highness. In other words, no reasonable objection could have been taken if the King had decided that his exclusion from the lineal succession excluded him from the right to this title as conferred by the existing Letters Patent.

The question however has to be considered on the basis of the fact that, for reasons which are readily understandable, he with the express approval of His Majesty enjoys this title and has been referred to as a Royal Highness on a formal occasion and in formal documents.

In the light of precedent it seems clear that the wife of a Royal Highness enjoys the same title unless some appropriate express step can be and is taken to deprive her of it.

We came to the conclusion that the wife could not claim this right on any legal basis. The right to use this style or title, in our view, is within the prerogative of His Majesty and he has the power to regulate it by Letters Patent generally or in particular circumstances.”

The Duke married Simpson, who had changed her name by deed poll to Wallis Warfield, in a private ceremony on June 3, 1937, at Château de Candé, near Tours, France. When the Church of England refused to sanction the union, a County Durham clergyman, the Reverend Robert Anderson Jardine (Vicar of St Paul’s, Darlington), offered to perform the ceremony, and the Duke accepted.

George VI forbade members of the royal family to attend, to the lasting resentment of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. Edward had particularly wanted his brothers the dukes of Gloucester and Kent and his second cousin Lord Louis Mountbatten to attend the ceremony.

The denial of the style Royal Highness to the Duchess of Windsor caused further conflict, as did the financial settlement. The Government declined to include the Duke or Duchess on the Civil List, and the Duke’s allowance was paid personally by George VI. The Duke compromised his position with his brother by concealing the extent of his financial worth when they informally agreed on the amount of the allowance

Later that year, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor toured Nazi Germany.

May 6, 1954: Death Duchess Cecilie Auguste Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, German Crown Princess and Crown Princess of Prussia

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Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany and Prussia, Duchess Cecilie Auguste Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, German Crown Princess and Crown Princess of Prussia, German Emperor Wilhelm II, Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia, Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, King Christian X of Denmark, Princess Alexandrine of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Princess Charlotte of Prussia

Duchess Cecilie Auguste Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (September 20, 1886 – May 6, 1954) was the last German Crown Princess and Crown Princess of Prussia as the wife of Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, the son of German Emperor Wilhelm II.

Cecilie was a daughter of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia.

Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia was the daughter of Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich of Russia was the fourth son and seventh child of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia and Charlotte of Prussia.

On August 16, 1857, Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich of Russia married Princess Cecilie of Baden (1839–1891), daughter of Leopold, Grand Duke of Baden and Sophie of Sweden.

Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was the son of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz II of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and his first wife Princess Augusta Reuss of Köstritz.

Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and her husband, Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany and Prussia were cousins. Both were descendants of Friedrich Wilhelm III, King of Prussia, and Duchess Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (from a collateral branch of the Mecklenburg Royal House).

Cecilie was a granddaughter of Charlotte of Prussia the eldest surviving daughter and fourth child of Friedrich Wilhelm III, King of Prussia, while her husband was a great-grandson of Charlotte’s brother, Wilhelm I, German Emperor and King of Prussia.

She was brought up with simplicity. and her early life was peripatetic, spending summers in Mecklenburg and the rest of the year in the south of France. After the death of her father, she traveled every summer between 1898 and 1904 to her mother’s native Russia.

She spent most of her childhood in Schwerin, at the royal residences of Ludwigslust Palace and the Gelbensande hunting lodge, only a few kilometres from the Baltic Sea coast. Her father suffered badly from asthma and the wet damp cold climate of Mecklenburg was not good for his health.

As a result, Cecilie spent a large amount of time with her family in Cannes in the south of France, favoured at the time by European royalty, including some whom Cecilie met such as Empress Eugénie and her future husband’s great-uncle, Edward VII.

During the winter visit of 1897, Cecilie’s sister, Alexandrine, met her future husband, Crown Prince Christian, later Christian X of Denmark, shortly before the death of their father at the age of 46. After returning to Schwerin, Cecilie spent time with her widowed mother in Denmark.

The wedding of her sister took place in Cannes in April 1898. After the death of her father, she traveled every summer, from 1898 to 1904, visiting her relatives in Russia. Cecilie lived there in Mikhailovskoe on Kronstadt Bay, the country home of her maternal grandfather, Grand Duke Michael Nikolaevich of Russia.

Engagement

Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and the Wilhelm, Crown Prince of Germany in 1905.

During the wedding festivities of her brother Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV of Mecklenburg-Schwerin in Schwerin in June 1904, the 17-year-old Duchess Cecilie got to know her future husband, Wilhelm, German Crown Prince.

German Emperor Wilhelm II had sent his eldest son to the festivities as his personal representative. Taller than most women of her time at 182 centimetres (over 5’11”), Cecilie was as tall as the German Crown Prince. Wilhelm was struck by her great beauty, and her dark hair and eyes.

On September 4, 1904, the young couple celebrated their engagement at the Mecklenburg-Schwerin hunting lodge, Gelbensande. The Emperor as an engagement present had a wooden residence built nearby for the couple. On September 5, the first official photos of the couple were taken.

Wedding

The wedding of Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and the German Crown Prince Wilhelm took place on June 6, 1905 in Berlin. Arriving from Schwerin at Berlin’s Lehrter Station, the future Crown Princess was greeted on the platform with a gift of dark red roses.

She was greeted at Bellevue Palace by the entire German Imperial Family and later made a joyeuse entrée through the Brandenburg Gate to a gun salute in the Tiergarten. Crowds lined the sides of the Unter den Linden as she passed on the way to the Berlin Royal Palace.

Emperor Wilhelm II greeted her at the palace and conducted her to the Knight’s Hall where over fifty guests from different European royal houses awaited the young bride including Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria as well as representatives from Denmark, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and the Netherlands. On her wedding day, Emperor Wilhelm II presented his daughter-in-law with the Order of Louise.

The wedding ceremony took place in the Royal Chapel and also the nearby Berlin Cathedral. The royal couple received as wedding presents jewellery, silverware and porcelain. At the wish of the bride, Richard Wagner’s famous wedding march from Lohengrin was played along with music from The Meistersinger from Nuremberg conducted by Richard Strauss.

On her wedding day, Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin became Her Imperial and Royal Highness The German Crown Princess and Crown Princess of Prussia. She was expected to one day become German Empress and Queen of Prussia.

German Crown Princess

As German Crown Princess, Cecilie quickly became one of the most beloved members of the German Imperial House. She was known for her elegance and fashion consciousness. It was not long before her fashion style was copied by many women throughout the German Empire.

However, her husband was a womanizer and the marriage was unhappy.

After the fall of the German monarchy, at the end of World War I, Cecilie and her husband lived mostly apart. During the Weimar Republic and the Nazi period, Cecilie lived a private life mainly at Cecilienhof Palace in Potsdam.

With the advance of the Soviet troops, she left the Cecilienhof in February 1945, never to return. She settled in Bad Kissingen until 1952 when she moved to an apartment in the Frauenkopf district of Stuttgart. In 1952, she published a book of memoirs. She died two years later, on May 6, 1954, which would have been her husband’s 72nd birthday.

May 6, 1882: Birth of Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, Crown Prince of Prussia

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Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Crown Prince Wilhelm of Germany and Prussia, German Emperor Wilhelm II, Head of the House of Prussia, House of Hohenzollern, King of Prussia, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, World War I

Wilhelm, German Crown Prince, Crown Prince of Prussia (Friedrich Wilhelm Victor August Ernst; May 6, 1882 – July 20, 1951) was the eldest child of the last German Emperor, Wilhelm II, and his consort Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. As Emperor Wilhelm’s heir, he was the last Crown Prince of the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia.

Wilhelm was born on May 6, 1882 as the eldest son of the then Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, and his first wife, Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. He was born in the Marmorpalais of Potsdam in the Province of Brandenburg, where his parents resided until his father acceded to the throne.

When he was born, his great-grandfather Wilhelm I was the German Emperor and King of Prussia while his grandfather Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm was the heir apparent, making Wilhelm third in line to the throne.

His birth sparked an argument between his parents and his grandmother Crown Princess Victoria. Before Wilhelm was born, his grandmother, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, had expected to be asked to help find a nurse, but since her son did everything he could to snub her, the future Wilhelm II asked his aunt Princess Helena to help instead. His mother was hurt and his grandmother, Queen Victoria, who was the younger Wilhelm’s great-grandmother, was furious.

Wilhelm became crown prince at the age of six in 1888, when his grandfather Friedrich III died and his father became emperor.

Wilhelm married Duchess Cecilie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (September 20, 1886 – May. 6, 1954) in Berlin on June 6, 1905. After their marriage, the couple lived at the Crown Prince’s Palace in Berlin in the winter and at the Marmorpalais in Potsdam.

Cecilie was the daughter of Grand Duke Friedrich Franz III of Mecklenburg-Schwerin (1851–1897) and his wife, Grand Duchess Anastasia Mikhailovna of Russia (1860–1922). Their eldest son, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, was killed fighting for the German Army in France in 1940.

However, Crown Prince Wilhelm was a womanizer and the marriage was unhappy. After the fall of the German monarchy, at the end of World War I, Wilhelm and Cecilie lived mostly apart.

Wilhelm was crown prince for 30 years until the fall of the German Empire on November 9, 1918. During World War I, he commanded the 5th Army from 1914 to 1916 and was commander of the Army Group German Crown Prince for the remainder of the war.

After his return to Germany in 1923, he fought the Weimar Republic and campaigned for the reintroduction of the monarchy and a dictatorship in Germany.

After his plans to become president had been blocked by his father, Wilhelm supported Adolf Hitler’s rise to power, but when Wilhelm realised that Hitler had no intention of restoring the monarchy, their relationship cooled.

Wilhelm became head of the House of Hohenzollern on June 4, 1941 following the death of his father. Although the Monarchy had been abolished, to his supporters and monarchists he had become Wilhelm III, German Emperor and King of Prussia. He held the position until his own death on July 20, 1951. He was succeeded in the headship of the House of Hohenzollern by his second son, Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia.

May 4, 1814: King Fernando VII of Spain Abolishes the Constitution

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Absolutism, Battle of Trocadero, Cortes, King Fernando VII of Spain, King Louis XVIII of France, Liberal Constitution 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte

Fernando VII (October 14, 1784 – September 29, 1833) was the King of Spain during the early- to mid-19th century. He reigned over the Spanish Kingdom in 1808 and again from 1813 to his death in 1833. He was known to his supporters as el Deseado (the Desired) and to his detractors as el Rey Felón (the Felon King).

Fernando VII was born in Madrid at El Escorial, the eldest surviving son of King Carlos IV of Spain and Maria Luisa of Parma, the youngest daughter of Filippo, Duke of Parma and Louise Élisabeth of France.

Louise Élisabeth of France the eldest daughter of King Louis XV of France and Maria Leszczyńska and the elder twin of Anne Henriette de France.

Filippo, Duke of Parma was the second son of King Felipe V of Spain and his wife, Elisabeth Farnese.

Fernando VII spent his youth as heir apparent to the Spanish throne. Carlos IV detested his son and heir Fernando, who led the unsuccessful El Escorial Conspiracy and later forced his father, Carlos IV to abdicate after the Tumult of Aranjuez on March 19, 1808.

Fernando VII’s first reign lasted from March 19, 1808 until May 6 of the same year when Napoleon Bonaparte, forced Fernando VII to abdicate, paving the way for Napoleon to place his older brother Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of Spain.

Five years later after experiencing serious setbacks on many fronts, Napoleon agreed to acknowledge Fernando VII as king of Spain on December 11, 1813 and signed the Treaty of Valençay, so that the king could return to Spain.

On March 24, 1814 the French handed Fernando over to the Spanish Army in Girona, and thus began his procession towards Madrid. During this process and in the following months, he was encouraged by conservatives and the Church hierarchy to reject the Constitution.

Fernando soon found that in the intervening years a new world had been born of foreign invasion and domestic revolution. Spain was no longer the absolute monarchy he had relinquished six years earlier. Instead he was now asked to rule under the liberal Constitution of 1812. Before being allowed to enter Spanish soil, Ferdinand had to guarantee the liberals that he would govern on the basis of the Constitution, but only gave lukewarm indications he would do so.

On May 4, he ordered the Constitution abolished and on May 10 had the liberal leaders responsible for the Constitution arrested. Fernando justified his actions by claiming that the Constitution had been made by a Cortes illegally assembled in his absence, without his consent and without the traditional form. (It had met as a unicameral body, instead of in three chambers representing the three estates: the clergy, the nobility and the cities.)

Fernando initially promised to convene a traditional Cortes, but never did so, thereby reasserting the Bourbon doctrine that sovereign authority resided in his person only.

A revolt in 1820 led by Rafael del Riego in which the King was quickly taken prisoner. .

In the spring of 1823, the restored Bourbon French King Louis XVIII of France invaded Spain, “invoking the God of St. Louis, for the sake of preserving the throne of Spain to a fellow descendant of Henri IV of France, and of reconciling that fine kingdom with Europe.” In May of 1823, the revolutionary party moved Fernando to Cádiz, where he continued to make promises of constitutional amendment until he was free.

Fernando VII was eventually freed after the Battle of Trocadero. The liberated Fernando turned on the liberals and constitutionalists with fury. The last ten years of reign (sometimes referred to as the Ominous Decade) saw the restoration of absolutism, the re-establishment of traditional university programs and the suppression of any opposition.

Under his rule, Spain lost nearly all of its American possessions, and the country entered into a large-scale civil war upon his death. His political legacy has remained contested since his passing, with some historians regarding him as incompetent, despotic, and short-sighted.

After Ferdinand’s death in 1833, the 1812 Constitution was in force again briefly in 1836 and 1837, while the Constitution of 1837 was being drafted. Since 1812, Spain has had a total of seven constitutions; the current one has been in force since 1978.

April 23, 1016: Death of Æthelred II, The Unready, King of the English

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Æthelred II the Unready, Battle of Assandun, Canute the Great, Edmund Ironside, House of Wessex. the Danelaw, King of Denmark, King of the English, Swyne Forkbeard of Denmark

Æthelred II (c. 966 – April 23, 1016), known as the Unready, was King of the English from 978 to 1013 and again from 1014 until his death in 1016.

Æthelred was the son of King Edgar the Peaceful and Queen Ælfthryth, the daughter of Ealdorman Ordgar. Her mother was a member of the royal family of Wessex. The family’s power lay in the west of Wessex.

Ælfthryth was the first wife of an English king known to have been crowned and anointed as queen. She had two sons with Edgar, the ætheling Edmund (who died young) and King Æthelred the Unready. Ælfthryth was a powerful political figure and possibly orchestrated the murder of her stepson, King Edward the Martyr, in order to place her son Æthelred on the throne. She appeared as a stereotypical bad queen and evil stepmother in many medieval histories.

Æthelred came to the throne at about the age of 12, following the assassination of his older half-brother, King Edward the Martyr. Æthelred’s mother may have ordered the murder of his half-brother in order to place Æthelred on the throne.

The chief problem of Æthelred’s reign was conflict with the Danes. After several decades of relative peace, Danish raids on English territory began again in earnest in the 980s, becoming markedly more serious in the early 990s.

Following the Battle of Maldon in 991, Æthelred paid tribute, or Danegeld, to the Danish king. In 1002, Æthelred ordered what became known as the St. Brice’s Day massacre of Danish settlers. In 1013, King Sweyn Forkbeard of Denmark invaded England, as a result of which Æthelred fled to Normandy in 1013 and was replaced by Sweyn. After Sweyn died in 1014, Æthelred returned to the throne,

Over the next few months Canute the Great of Denmark conquered most of England, while Edmund rejoined Æthelred to defend London when Æthelred died on April 23, 1016. The subsequent war between Æthelred’s successor, Edmund Ironside and Canute ended in a decisive victory for Canute at the Battle of Assandun on October 18, 1016.

Edmund’s reputation as a warrior was such that Canute nevertheless agreed to divide England, Edmund taking Wessex and Canute the whole of the country beyond the Thames. However, Edmund died on November 30, 1016 and Canute became king of all of England.

Æthelred was buried in Old St Paul’s Cathedral, London.

Æthelred’s 37-year combined reign was the longest of any Anglo-Saxon English king, and was only surpassed in the 13th century, by Henry III. Æthelred was briefly succeeded by his son, Edmund Ironside, but he died after a few months and was replaced by Sweyn’s son Cnut. Another of Æthelred’s sons, Edward the Confessor, became king in 1042.

Name

Æthelred’s first name, composed of the elements æðele, “noble”, and ræd, “counsel, advice”, is typical of the compound names of those who belonged to the royal House of Wessex, and it characteristically alliterates with the names of his ancestors, like Æthelwulf (“noble-wolf”), Ælfred (“elf-counsel”), Eadweard (“rich-protection”), and Eadgar (“rich-spear”).

Æthelred’s notorious nickname, Old English Unræd, is commonly translated into present-day English as “The Unready” (less often, though less inaccurately, as “The Redeless”). The Anglo-Saxon noun unræd means “evil counsel”, “bad plan”, or “folly”. It was most often used in reference to decisions and deeds, but once in reference to the ill-advised disobedience of Adam and Eve.

The element ræd in unræd is the same element in Æthelred’s name that means “counsel” (compare the cognate in the German word Rat). Thus Æþelræd Unræd is an oxymoron: “Noble counsel, No counsel”. The nickname has also been translated as “ill-advised”, “ill-prepared”, thus “Æthelred the ill-advised”.

Because the nickname was first recorded in the 1180s, more than 150 years after Æthelred’s death, it is doubtful that it carries any implications as to the reputation of the king in the eyes of his contemporaries or near contemporaries.

April 20, 1929: Death of Prince Heinrich of Prussia

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German Emperor Friedrich III, German Emperor Wilhelm II, German Empire, German Navy, German Revolution, Hemophilia, House of Hohenzollern, Prince Henry of Prussia, Princess Irene of Hesse and By Rhine, Princess Royal, Princess Victoria of the United Kingdom., Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, World War I

Prince Albert Wilhelm Heinrich of Prussia (August 1862 – April 20, 1929) known by his last name, Heinrich, he was a younger brother of German Emperor Wilhelm II and a Prince of Prussia. He was also a grandson of Queen Victoria. A career naval officer, he held various commands in the Imperial German Navy and eventually rose to the rank of Grand Admiral and Generalinspekteur der Marine.

Biography

Born in Berlin, Prince Heinrich was the third child and second son of eight children born to Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm (later Emperor Friedrich III), and Victoria, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom (later Empress Victoria and in widowhood Empress Frederick), eldest daughter of the British Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Heinrich was three years younger than his brother, the future Emperor Wilhelm II (born January 27, 1859). He was born on the same day as King Friedrich Wilhelm I “Soldier-King” of Prussia.

After attending the gymnasium in Cassell, which he left in the middle grades in 1877, the 15-year-old Heinrich entered the Imperial Navy cadet program. His naval education included a two-year voyage around the world (1878 to 1880), the naval officer examination in October 1880, and attending the German naval academy (1884 to 1886).

At the beginning of World War I, Prince Heinrich was named Commander-in-Chief of the Baltic Fleet. Although the means provided to him were far inferior to Russia’s Baltic Fleet, he succeeded, until the 1917 Revolution, in putting Russian naval forces far on the defensive and hindered them from making attacks on the German coast. After the end of hostilities with Russia, his mission was ended, and Prince Heinrich simply left active duty. With the war’s end and the dissolution of the monarchy in Germany, Prince Heinrich left the navy.

Family

On May 24, 1888, Heinrich married Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine, his first cousin. She was the third child and third daughter of Princess Alice of the United Kingdom and Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine. Her maternal grandparents were Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Her paternal grandparents were Prince Charles of Hesse and by Rhine and Princess Elizabeth of Prussia.

Princess Irene of Hesse and by Rhine

Heinrich’s dying father, German Emperor Friedrich III and his mother Empress Victoria were in attendance. The marriage produced three children:

Their sons Waldemar and Heinrich were both hemophiliacs, a disease which they inherited through Irene from the maternal grandmother of both of their parents, Queen Victoria, who was a carrier.

Personality and private life

Heinrich received one of the first pilot’s licenses in Germany, and was judged a spirited and excellent seaman. He was dedicated to modern technology and was able to understand quickly the practical value of technical innovations. A yachting enthusiast, Prince Heinrich became one of the first members of the Yacht Club of Kiel, established by a group of naval officers in 1887, and quickly became the club’s patron.

Heinrich was interested in motor cars as well and supposedly invented a windshield wiper and, according to other sources, the car horn.

After the German Revolution, Heinrich lived with his family in Hemmelmark near Eckernförde, in Schleswig-Holstein. He continued with motor sports and sailing and even in old age was a very successful participant in regattas. He popularized the Prinz-Heinrich-Mütze (“Prince Henry cap”), which is still worn, especially by older sailors.

In 1899, Heinrich received an honorary doctorate (Doctor of Engineering honoris causa) from the Technical University of Berlin. Also in foreign countries he received numerous similar honors, including an honorary doctorate (LL.D.) from Harvard University in March 1902, during his visit to the United States.

Prince Heinrich died of throat cancer, as his father had, in Hemmelmark on April 20, 1929.

Frederica of Hanover, Queen of the Hellenes. Conclusion

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Anne-Marie of Denmark, Frederica of Hanover, Frederik IX of Denmark, Greek Civil War, King Constantine II of the Hellenes, King Paul I of the Hellenes, Military Junta, Queen of the Hellenes

Queen consort

On April 1, 1947, George II died and Frederica’s husband ascended the throne as Paul I, with Frederica as Queen Consort p. A Communist insurgency in Northern Greece led to the Greek Civil War. The King and Queen toured Northern Greece under tight security to appeal for loyalty in the summer of 1947.

Queen Frederica was constantly attacked for her German ancestry. Left-wing politicians in Greece repeatedly used the fact that the German Emperor Wilhelm II was her grandfather, and that she had brothers who were members of the SS, as propaganda against her.

She was also criticized variously as “very Prussian” and “was a Nazi”. When she was in London representing her sick husband at the wedding of his first cousin Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark to King George VI’s elder daughter Princess Elizabeth in November 1947, Winston Churchill remarked on German Emperor Wilhelm II being her grandfather.

Queen Frederica had replied acknowledging the fact, but reminding him that she was also descended from Queen Victoria, and that her father would be the British king if the country had operated under the Salic Law (allowing only males to inherit the crown).

During the civil war, Queen Frederica set the Queen’s Camps or Child Cities a network of 53 camps around Greece where she would rescue children of members of DSE and former partisans.

The role of these Queen’s Camps is disputed as a means of propaganda by the monarchy through the educational program. There were allegations, generally by opposition or communist sources, which held that children were illegally adopted by American families while they were in the Queen’s Camps. Children were most likely provided with education and care.

The Greek Civil War ended in August 1949. The Sovereigns took this opportunity to strengthen the monarchy, they paid official visits to Marshal Josip Broz Tito in Belgrade, Presidents Luigi Einaudi of Italy in Rome, Theodor Heuss of West Germany, and Bechara El Khoury of Lebanon, Emperor Haile Selassie I of Ethiopia, Chakravarthi Rajagopalachari of India, King George VI of the United Kingdom, and the United States as guest of President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

However, at home in Greece and abroad in the United Kingdom, Queen Frederica was targeted by the opposition, because as a girl she had belonged to the Bund Deutscher Mädel (League of German Girls), a branch of the Hitler Youth group for young women; her supporters argued that evading membership in the group would be difficult under the existing political climate in Nazi Germany at the time.

Her November 16, 1953 appearance in Life as America’s guest was taken on one of the many state visits she paid around the world. Also that year she appeared on the cover of Time. On May 14, 1962 her eldest daughter Sofia married Prince Juan Carlos of Spain, (later King Juan Carlos I of Spain) in Athens.

Frederica has been described as “inherently undemocratic”. She was notorious for her numerous arbitrary and unconstitutional interventions in Greek politics and clashes with democratically elected governments.

She actively politicked against the election of Alexander Papagos. At home in Greece and abroad in the United Kingdom, she was targeted by the opposition. In 1963 while visiting London, rioting by Greek leftists demonstrating against the situation with the political prisoners of the Greek civil war, forced her to temporarily seek refuge in a stranger’s house. Her interference in politics was harshly criticized and possibly was a significant factor in the strengthening of republican sentiments.

Queen dowager

On March 6, 1964, King Paul died of cancer. When her son, now King Constantine II of the Hellenes, married Princess Anne-Marie of Denmark, daughter of King Frederik IX of Denmark and Princess Ingrid of Sweden, later that year on September 18, Queen Frederica stepped back from the majority of her public duties in favor of her daughter-in-law. She remained a figure of controversy and was accused in the press of being the éminence grise behind the throne.

She retired to the countryside where she lived an almost reclusive life. However, she continued to attend Royal events that were family-oriented, such as the baptisms of her grandchildren in both Spain and Greece.

Exile

King Constantine II’s clashes with the democratically elected Prime Minister George Papandreou Sr. were blamed by critics for causing the destabilisation that led to a military coup on April 21, 1967 and the rise of the regime of the colonels.

Faced with a difficult situation, King Constantine initially collaborated with the military dictatorship, swearing in their government under a royalist prime minister. Later that year he attempted a counter-coup in an attempt to restore democracy, whose failure forced him into exile. Following this, the junta appointed a regent to carry out the tasks of the exiled monarch.

In 1971, Frederica published an autobiography, A Measure of Understanding.

On June 1, 1973 the junta abolished the Greek Monarchy without the consent of the Greek people and then attempted to legitimize its actions through a 1973 plebiscite that was widely suspected of being rigged. The new head-of-state became President of Greece George Papadopoulos.

The dictatorship ended on July 24, 1974 and the pre-junta constitutional monarchy was never restored. A plebiscite was held on December 8, 1974 in which Constantine (who was able to campaign only from outside the country) freely admitted his past errors, promised to support democracy, and in particular, promised to keep his mother Frederica away from Greece and out of Greek politics. However, 69% of Greeks voted to make Greece a democratic republic.

Death

Frederica died on February 6, 1981 in exile in Madrid of heart failure, reportedly following eyelid surgery (blepharoplasty), although a biographer has claimed the surgery was cataract removal.

She was interred at Tatoi (the Royal family’s palace and burial ground in Greece). Her son and his family were allowed to attend the service but had to leave immediately afterwards.