March 23, 1732: Birth of Princess Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon of France

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Fanz Xavier of Saxony, French Revolution, Louis François II of Conti, Louis XV of France and Navarre, Louis XVI of France, Marie Antoinette of Austria, Marie Leszczyńska, Pope Pious VI, Princess Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon of France

Princess Marie Adélaïde de Bourbon of France (March 23, 1732 – February 27, 1800).

King Louis XV of France and Navarre

Marie Adélaïde was born on March 23, 1737 in France as the sixth child and fourth daughter of King Louis XV of France and his wife, Marie Leszczyńska. She was named after her paternal grandmother, Marie Adélaïde, Dauphine of France, and was raised at the Palace of Versailles with her older sisters, Madame Louise Elisabeth, Madame Henriette, and Madame Marie Louise, along with her brother Louis, Dauphin of France.

Marie Adélaïde was a fille de France. She was referred to as Madame Quatrième (“Madame the Fourth”) until the death of her older sister Marie Louise in 1733, and then as Madame Troisième (“Madame the Third”); as Madame Adélaïde from 1737 to 1755; as Madame from 1755 to 1759; and then as Madame Adélaïde again from 1759 until her death.

Marie Adélaïde was never married. In the late 1740s, when she had reached the age when princesses were typically married, there were no potential Catholic consorts of desired status available, and she preferred to remain unmarried rather than marry someone below the status of a monarch or an heir to a throne.

Marriage prospects suggested to her were liaisons with the Louis François II, Prince of Conti and Prince Franz Xavier of Saxony, neither of whom had the status of being a monarch or an heir to a throne. In her teens, Marie Adélaïde fell in love with a member of the Lifeguard after having observed him perform his duties; she sent him her snuffbox with the message, “You will treasure this, soon you shall be informed from whose hand it comes.”

The guardsman informed his captain Duc d’Ayen, who in turn informed the king, who recognized the handwriting as his daughter’s, and granted the guard an annual pension of four thousand under the express condition that he should “at once remove to some place far from the Court and remain there for a very long time”.

In 1761, long after she passed the age when 18th-century princesses usually wed, she was reportedly suggested to marry the newly widowed King Carlos III of Spain. However, after she had seen his portrait, she refused, a rejection which was said to be the reason why King Carlos III never remarried.

Marie Adélaïde was described as an intelligent beauty; her appearance an ephemeral, “striking and disturbing beauty of the Bourbon type characterized by elegance”, with “large dark eyes at once passionate and soft”, and her personality as extremely haughty, with a dominant and ambitious character with a strong will, who came to dominate her younger siblings: “Madame Adélaïde had more mind than Madame Victoire; but she was altogether deficient in that kindness which alone creates affection for the great, abrupt manners, a harsh voice, and a short way of speaking, rendering her more than imposing. She carried the idea of the prerogative of rank to a high pitch.

From April 1774, Madame Adélaïde and her sisters attended to their father Louis XV on his deathbed until his death from smallpox on May 10. Despite the fact that the sisters never had the disease and the male members of the royal family, as well as the Dauphine, were kept away because of the high risk of catching the illness, the Mesdames were allowed to attend to him until his death, being female and therefore of no political importance because of the Salic Law even if they died. After the death of Louis XV, he was succeeded by his grandson Louis-Auguste as Louis XVI, who referred to his aunts as Mesdames Tantes.

Their nephew the King allowed the sisters to keep their apartments in the Palace of Versailles, and they kept attending court at special occasions – such as for example at the visit of Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor, who reportedly charmed Marie Adélaïde. In 1777, Madame Marie Adélaïde and her sister Sophie were both created the Duchesses of Louvois in their own right by their nephew the King. However, they distanced themselves from court and often preferred to reside in their own Château de Bellevue in Meudon; they also traveled annually to Vichy, always with a retinue of at least three hundred people, and made the waters there fashionable.

Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor

Marie Adélaïde and her sisters did not get along well with Queen Marie Antoinette. When the queen introduced the new custom of informal evening family suppers, as well as other habits which undermined the formal court etiquette, it resulted in an exodus of the old court nobility in opposition to the queen’s reforms, which gathered in the salon of the Mesdames.

They entertained extensively at Bellevue as well as Versailles; their salon was reportedly regularly frequented by minister Maurepas, whom Adélaïde had elevated to power, by the Prince of Condé and the Prince of Conti, both members of the anti-Austrian party, as well as Beaumarchais, who read aloud his satires of Austria and its power figures.

Marie Adélaïde and her sisters Sophie and Victoire were able to escape France during the French Revolution. They arrived in Rome on April 16, 1791, where Pope Pious VI gave them an official welcome with ringing of bells, and where they stayed for about five years. In Rome, the sisters were given the protection of Pope Pope Pius VI and housed in the palace of Cardinal de Bernis.

In the Friday receptions of Cardinal de Bernis, Cornelia Knight described them: “Madame Adélaïde still retained traces of that beauty which had distinguished her in her youth, and there was great vivacity in her manner, and in the expression of her countenance. Madame Victoire had also an agreeable face, much good sense, and great sweetness of temper.

Their dress, and that of their suite, were old-fashioned, but unostentatious. The jewels they brought with them had been sold, one by one, to afford assistance to the poor emigrées who applied to the princesses in their distress. They were highly respected by the Romans; not only by the higher orders, but by the common people, who had a horror of the French revolution, and no great partiality for that nation in general.”

When news came that Louis XVI and his family had left Paris on the Flight to Varennes in June, a misunderstanding first caused the impression that the escape had succeeded; at this news, “the whole of Rome shouted with joy; the crowd massed itself under the windows of the Princesses crying out: Long live the King!”, and the Mesdames arranged a grand banquet for the nobility of Rome in celebration, which had to be interrupted when it was clarified that the escape had in fact failed.

Upon the invasion of Italy by Revolutionary France in 1796, Adélaïde and Victoire left Rome for Naples, where Marie Antoinette’s sister, Maria Carolina, was queen, and settled at the Neapolitan royal court in the Palace of Caserta. Queen Maria Carolina found their presence in Naples difficult: “I have the awful torment of harboring the two old Princesses of France with eighty persons in their retinue and every conceivable impertinence…”

The same ceremonies are observed in the interior of their apartments here as were formerly at Versailles.” When Naples was invaded by France in 1799, they left in a Russian frigate for Corfu, and finally settled in Trieste, where Victoire died of breast cancer. Adélaïde died one year later, on February 27, 1800 at the age of sixty-seven. Their bodies were returned to France by Louis XVIII at the time of the Bourbon Restoration and buried at the Basilica of Saint-Denis.

History of the Kingdom of Greece: Part X. First Reign of King George II

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Battle of Dumlupınar, King Christian X of Denmark, king George II of the Hellenes, National Assembly, Princess Elisabeth of Romania, Revolutionary Government, The Second Hellenic Republic

George II (July 19, 1890 – April 1, 1947) was King of the Hellenes from September 1922 to March 1924 and from November 1935 to his death in April 1947.

George was born at the royal villa at Tatoi, near Athens, the eldest son of Crown Prince Constantine of Greece and his wife, Princess Sophie of Prussia; the daughter of German Emperor Friedrich III and his wife Victoria, Princess Royal of the United Kingdom and a daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

George pursued a military career, training with the Prussian Guard at the age of 18, then serving in the Balkan Wars as a member of the 1st Greek Infantry. When his grandfather was assassinated in 1913, his father became King Constantine I and George became the Crown Prince.

After a coup deposed Constantine I during World War I, Crown Prince George, by then a major in the Hellenic Army, followed his father into exile in June 1917. George’s younger brother, Alexander, was installed as king by Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos and the allied powers because George, like his father, was viewed as a germanophile.

King George II of the Hellenes

When Alexander I died following an infection from a monkey bite in 1920, Venizelos was voted out of office, and a plebiscite restored Constantine to the throne. Crown Prince George served as a colonel, and later a major general in the war against Turkey.

During this time he married his second cousin, Princess Elisabeth of Romania on February 27, 1921 in Bucharest. Princess Elisabeth was a daughter of King Ferdinand of Romania and Princess Marie of Edinburgh.

Marie of Edinburgh was born into the British royal family. Her parents were Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh (later Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha), and Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia, the fifth child and only surviving daughter of Emperor Alexander II of Russia and Princess Marie of Hesse and by Rhine.

King George II and his wife Princess Elisabeth of Romania were second cousins and shared common descent from Emperor Paul of Russia and his wife Duchess Sophia Dorothea of Württemberg. Princess Elisabeth was a great-great-great granddaughter of Emperor Paul through his eldest son Emperor Nicholas I of Russia. King George II was a great-great grandson of
Emperor Paul through a younger son Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich of Russia (brother of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia).

On March 10 that same year, his younger sister Princess Helen, married his brother-in-law from his recent marriage to the future King Carol II of Romania.

When the Turks defeated Greece at the Battle of Dumlupınar, the military forced the abdication of King Constantine I, and Crown Prince George succeeded to the Greek throne on September 27, 1922 as King George II of the Hellenes.

Princess Elisabeth of Romania

After the Battle of Dumlupınar the position of the monarchy remained precarious. The military-led “Revolutionary Government” tried and convicted six leading royalists to death as scapegoats for the country’s military defeat, and gradually steered the country in the direction of a republic.

On October 18, 1923, the Revolutionary Government proclaimed elections to be held on December 16 for a National Assembly which would decide on the country’s future form of government. The Revolutionary Government however, headed by Gonatas, had passed an electoral law which heavily favoured the Venizelist Liberal Party and the other anti-monarchist parties.

The royalist parties abstained from the December elections, paving the way for the electoral triumph of the Venizelist parties. The Revolutionary Committee asked King George II to leave Greece while the National Assembly considered the question of the future form of government. He complied and, although he refused to abdicate. King George II left the country on December 19, for exile in his wife’s home nation of Romania

The Second Hellenic Republic was proclaimed by parliament on March 25, 1924, before being confirmed by a referendum two and a half weeks later. George and Elisabeth were officially deposed and banished; along with all members of the royal family they were stripped of their Greek citizenship and their property was confiscated by the government of the new republic. Rendered stateless, they were issued new passports from their cousin, King Christian X of Denmark.

A cold, aloof man, George rarely inspired love or affection from those who knew him, and certainly not from the vast majority of his subjects. Many commented that his moody, sullen personality seemed more appropriate for his ancestral homeland of Denmark than Greece. Furthermore, George’s long years spent living abroad had led him to a mentality that was essentially Western European in outlook. He had come to see Greece very much as Western Europeans did at the time, namely as a primitive.

March 19, 1808: Abdication of King Carlos IV of Spain

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Abdication, Emperor of the French, King Charles III of Spain, King Charles IV of Spain, King Louis XV of France and Navarre, King Louis XVI of France and Navarre, Napoleon Bonaparte, Prime Minister Manuel de Godoy, Princess Maria Louisa of Bourbon-Parma, Queen of Spain

Carlos IV (November 11, 1748 – January 20, 1819) was King of Spain and ruler of the Spanish Empire from 1788 to 1808.

Infante Carlos was the second son of King Carlos III of Spain and his wife, Maria Amalia of Saxony. She was born a Princess of Poland and Saxony, daughter of King Augustus III of Poland (Elector Friedrich August II of Saxony) and Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria, the eldest child of Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor and Princess Wilhelmina Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

King Carlos IV of Spain

Infante Carlos was born in Naples (November 11, 1748), while his father was King Carlo VII of Naples and King Carlo V of Sicily. His elder brother, Infante Felipe, was passed over for both thrones, due to his learning disabilities and epilepsy. In Naples and Sicily, Carlos was referred to as the Prince of Taranto.

Carlos married his first cousin Princess Maria Louisa of Bourbon-Parma, She was the youngest daughter of Filippo, Duke of Parma, the fourth son of King Felipe V of Spain, and Princess Louise Élisabeth of France, the eldest daughter of King Louis XV of France and Navarre and Marie Leszczyńska of Poland.

Born in Parma, she was christened Luisa María Teresa Ana after her maternal grandparents and her mother’s favourite sister Anne Henriette of France, but is known to history by the short Spanish form of this name: María Luisa, while Luisa was the name she used in private.

María Luisa’s mother tried to engage her with Louis, Duke of Burgundy, heir to the French throne. However, the young duke died in 1761. In 1762, Maria Luisa instead became engaged to her cousin Carlos, Prince of Asturias. When her elder sister Isabella died in 1763, there were suggestions that Maria Luisa marry her sister’s widower, Emperor Joseph II, but the proposal was refused and her engagement to Carlos, Prince of Asturias was confirmed.

María Luisa was notoriously reputed to have had many love affairs. The most infamous of them was with the Prime Minister Manuel de Godoy, whom contemporary gossip singled out in particular as a long-time lover; in 1784 a member of the guard, he was promoted through several ranks when Carlos and Maria Luisa succeeded to the throne, and was appointed prime minister in 1792. Godoy was also rumored to be the natural father of several of her children.

Princess Maria Louisa of Bourbon-Parma, Queen of Spain

In 1788, Carlos III died and Carlos IV succeeded to the throne and ruled for the next two decades. Even though he had a profound belief in the sanctity of the monarchy and kept up the appearance of an absolute, powerful king, Carlos never took more than a passive part in his own government.

The affairs of the government were left to his wife, Maria Luisa, and the first minister, Manuel de Godoy who was appointed by King Carlos IV himself. King Carlos IV occupied himself with hunting in the period that saw the outbreak of the French Revolution, the executions of his Bourbon relative King Louis XVI of France and his queen, Marie Antoinette, and the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte. Ideas of the Age of Enlightenment had come to Spain with the accession of the first Spanish Bourbon, Felipe V.

Spain’s economic problems were of long standing, but deteriorated further when Spain was ensnared in wars that its ally France pursued. Financial needs drove his domestic and foreign policy. Godoy’s economic policies increased discontent with King Carlos IV’s regime.

The Economic troubles, the rumors about a sexual relationship between the Queen and Godoy, and the King’s ineptitude, caused the monarchy to decline in prestige among the population. Anxious to take over from his father, and jealous of the prime minister, Infante Fernando, Prince Asturias attempted to overthrow the King in an aborted coup in 1807. He was successful in 1808, forcing his father’s abdication following the Tumult of Aranjuez.

King Carlos IV of Spain

Riots, and a popular revolt at the winter palace Aranjuez, in 1808 forced the king to abdicate on March 19, in favor of his son. Infante Fernando took the throne as King Fernando VII, but was mistrusted by Napoleon, who had 100,000 soldiers stationed in Spain by that time due to the ongoing War of the Third Coalition.

The ousted King, having appealed to Napoleon for help in regaining his throne, was summoned before Napoleon in Bayonne, along with his son, in April 1808. Napoleon forced both Carlos IV and his son Fernando VII to abdicate, declared the Bourbon dynasty of Spain deposed, and installed his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, as King José I of Spain, which began the Peninsular War.

Following Napoleon’s deposing of the Bourbon dynasty, the ex-King, his wife, and former Prime Minister Godoy were held captive in France first at the château de Compiègne and three years in Marseille (where a neighborhood was named after him).

After the collapse of the regime installed by Napoleon, King Fernando VII was restored to the throne. The former King Carlos IV drifted about Europe until 1812, when he finally settled in Rome, in the Palazzo Barberini. His wife died on January 2, 1819, followed shortly by Carlos, who died on January 20 of the same year.

The Life of Princess Victoria of Baden, Queen of Sweden. Part I.

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German Emperor Wilhelm I, Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden, House of Bernadotte, Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, King Carl XIV of Sweden and Norway, King Gustaf IV Adolph of Sweden, King Gustaf V of Sweden, Princess Royal, Princess Victoria of the United Kingdom., Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, Victoria of Baden

Victoria of Baden (August 7, 1862 – April 4, 1930) was Queen of Sweden from December 8, 1907 until her death in 1930 as the wife of King Gustaf V. She was politically active in a conservative fashion during the development of democracy and known to be pro-German during the First World War.

Princess Victoria was born at Karlsruhe Palace, Baden. Her parents were Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden, and Princess Louise of Prussia, the second child and only daughter of German Emperor Wilhelm I and Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach. She was the younger sister of German Emperor Friedrich III, and aunt of German Emperor Wilhelm II.

Princess Victoria of Baden

Victoria was named after her aunt by marriage, Victoria, the Princess Royal, daughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.

Victoria was tutored privately in the Karlsruhe Palace, by governesses and private teachers, in an informal “Palace School” with carefully selected girls from the aristocracy. She was given a conventional education for her gender and class with focus on art, music and languages, and could play the piano, paint and speak French and English.

Victoria was given a strict and Spartan upbringing with a focus on duty. Among other things, her mother ordered her to sleep on hard mattresses by an open window. Such spartan methods were recommended at the time as beneficiary and something that would harden the child’s future health; but it is believed, that this had bad consequences for Victoria’s health later in life.

Photograph of Crown Prince Gustav, c. 1897

Victoria was given her confirmation in 1878. After this, she made her debut in adult social life and marriage prospects were discussed.

On September 20, 1881 in Karlsruhe Princess Victoria married Crown Prince Gustaf of Sweden and Norway, the son of King Oscar II of Sweden and Norway and Sofia of Nassau.

Her grandparents parents German Emperor Wilhelm I and Empress Augusta were present at the wedding, and the marriage was arranged as a sign that Sweden belonged to the German sphere in Europe.

Princess Victoria of Baden and Crown Prince Gustaf of Sweden

The marriage was popular in Sweden where she was called “The Vasa Princess”, because of her descent from the old Vasa dynasty, and she received a very elaborate welcome on the official cortege into Stockholm October 1, 1881.

Victoria of Baden’s father, Grand Duke Friedrich I of Baden, was the son of Princess Louise of Sweden who in turn was the daughter of King Gustaf IV Adolph of Sweden and his wife Frederica of Baden.

This means Princess Victoria brought in the blood of the old Swedish Royal Family. Victoria’s husband, King Gustaf V of Sweden, was the great-grandson of King Carl XIV Johan of Sweden and Norway of the House of Bernadotte. In 1810, Jean Baptiste Bernadotte was unexpectedly elected the heir-presumptive (Crown Prince) to the childless King Carl XIII of Sweden, (uncle of the deposed King Gustaf IV Adolph. Jean Baptiste assumed the name Carl Johan.Upon Carl XIII’s death on February 5,1818, Crown Prince Carl Johan ascended the Swedish throne as King Carl XIV Johan. In Norway he was known as King Carl III. He was initially popular in both countries.

Princess Victoria of Baden and Crown Prince Gustaf of Sweden

With the election of Jean Baptiste Bernadotte to the Swedish throne this created a new Swedish Dynasty that had no relationship by blood to any previous Swedish Dynasty. With the marriage of Princess Victoria of Baden to the future King Gustaf V of Sweden she brought into the Swedish Royal Family the blood of the previous Swedish Dynasties making her descendants and the current King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden a descendant of the older Swedish Royal Dynasties.

Sadly, Victoria and Gustaf were brought together by their families and their marriage was reported not to have been a happy one. Their marriage produced three children. In 1890–1891, Victoria and Gustaf travelled to Egypt to repair their relationship, but it did not succeed, allegedly due to Victoria’s interest in one of the courtiers, and she repeated the trip to Egypt in 1891–1892.

After 1889, the personal relationship between Victoria and Gustaf is considered to have been finished, in part, as estimated by Lars Elgklou, due to the bisexuality of Gustaf.

March 8, 1748: Birth of Willem V, Prince of Orange and the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic.

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August Willem of Prussia, Dutch Republic, Exile, King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, King George III of Great Britain, Prince Willem V of Orange, Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia, Stadtholder of the United Netherlands, Treaty of Paris 1783

From the Emperor’s Desk: It seems I’m on roll here with Dutch Royals today!

Willem V (Willem Batavus; March 8, 1748 – April 9, 1806) was a Prince of Orange and the last Stadtholder of the Dutch Republic. He went into exile to London in 1795. He was furthermore ruler of the Principality of Orange-Nassau until his death in 1806. In that capacity he was succeeded by his son as Willem VI, Prince of Orange.

Prince Willem Batavus was born in the Hague on March 8, 1748, the only son of Willem IV Prince of Orange and who had the year before been restored as Stadtholder of the United Provinces. He was only three years old when his father died in 1751, and a long regency began.

Prince Willem V of Orange

Prince Willem V’s mother was Princess Anne, Princess Royal, the second child and eldest daughter of King George II of Great Britain and his consort Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach .

Willem V assumed the position of Stadtholder and Captain-General of the Dutch States Army on his majority in 1766. However, he allowed his cousin Duke Ludwig Ernst of Brunswick-Lüneburg (younger brother of Charles I, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel) to retain a large influence on the government with the secret Acte van Consulentschap.

On October 4, 1767 in Berlin, Prince Willem married Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia, the daughter of Prince August Willem of Prussia and Duchess Luise of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel a daughter of Ferdinand Albrecht II, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and his wife and cousin Duchess Antoinette of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel.

Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia was a niece of King Friedrich II the Great of Prussia and a cousin of King George III of Great Britain (Willem himself was George III’s first cousin).

Princess Wilhelmina of Prussia

After the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1783), which ended the War For American Independence, there was growing restlessness in the United Provinces with Willem V’s rule. A coalition of old Dutch States Party regenten and democrats, called Patriots, was challenging his authority more and more.

Mid September 1785 Willem left the Hague and removed his court to Het Loo Palace in Gelderland, a province remote from the political center. In September 1786 he sent States-Army troops to Hattem and Elburg to overthrow the cities’ Patriot vroedschap, despite the defense by Patriot Free Corps, organised by Herman Willem Daendels.

This provoked the Patriot-dominated States of Holland to deprive him of his office of Captain-General of the States Army.

In June 1787 his energetic wife Wilhelmina tried to travel to the Hague to foment an Orangist rising in that city. Outside Schoonhoven, she was stopped by Free Corps, taken to a farm near Goejanverwellesluis and after a short detention made to return to Nijmegen.

To Wilhelmina and her brother, King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, this was both an insult and an excuse to intervene militarily. King Friedrich Wilhelm II launched the Prussian invasion of Holland in September 1787 to suppress the Patriots. Many Patriots fled to the North of France, around Saint-Omer, in an area where Dutch was spoken. Until his overthrow they were supported by King Louis XVI of France and Navarre.

Prince Willem V of Orange, Portrait by Johann Georg Ziesenis (c. 1768–1769)

Exile in Great Britain and Ireland

Prince Willem V joined the First Coalition against Republican France in 1793 with the coming of the French Revolution. His troops fought in the Flanders Campaign, but in 1794 the military situation deteriorated and the Dutch Republic was threatened by invading armies.

The year 1795 was a disastrous one for the ancien régime of the Netherlands. Supported by the French Army, the revolutionaries returned from Paris to fight in the Netherlands, and in 1795 Willem V went into exile in England. A few days later the Batavian Revolution occurred, and the Dutch Republic was replaced with the Batavian Republic.

Directly after his arrival in England, the Prince wrote a number of letters (known as the Kew Letters) from his new residence in Kew to the governors of the Dutch colonies, instructing them to hand over their colonies to the British as long as France continued to occupy the “mother country”.

Only a number complied, while those that demurred from doing so became confused and demoralised. Almost all Dutch colonies were eventually captured by the British, who in the end returned most, but not all (South Africa and Ceylon), first at the Treaty of Amiens and later with the Convention of London signed in 1814.

In 1799 Prince Willem V took an active part in the Anglo-Russian invasion of Holland, engineering the capture of a Batavian naval squadron in the Vlieter Incident. The surrender of the ships (that had been paid for by the Batavian Republic) was formally accepted in the name of Willem V as Stadtholder, who was later allowed to sell them to the Royal Navy (for an appreciable amount).

But that was his only success, as the troops suffered from choleric diseases, and civilians at that time were unwilling to re-instate the old regime. The arrogance of the tone in his proclamation, demanding the restoration of the stadtholderate, may not have been helpful, according to Simon Schama.

King Willem I of the Netherlands (Willem VI, Prince of Orange)

After the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, in which Great Britain recognised the Batavian Republic, an additional Franco-Prussian Convention of May 23, 1802 declared that the House of Orange would be ceded in perpetuity the domains of Dortmund, Weingarten, Fulda and Corvey in lieu of its Dutch estates and revenues (this became the Principality of Nassau-Orange-Fulda).

As far as Napoleon was concerned, this cession was conditional on the liquidation of the Stadtholder and other hereditary offices of the Prince. William V, however, had no interest in towns, territories and abbeys confiscated from other rulers, including alternatives as Würzburg and Bamberg, but wanted what was his due: his arrears in salaries and other financial perquisites since 1795, or a lump sum of 4 million guilders.

The foreign minister of the Batavian Republic, Maarten van der Goes, was willing to secretly try to persuade the Staatsbewind of the Batavian Republic to grant this additional indemnity, but Napoleon put a stop to it, when he got wind of the affair.

The last of the Dutch Stadtholders, Willem V died in exile at his daughter’s palace in Brunswick, now in Germany. His body was moved to the Dutch Royal Family crypt in the Nieuwe Kerk in Delft on April 28, 1958.

In 1813, his son, William VI returned to the Netherlands and proclaimed himself King Willem I of the Netherlands thus becoming the first Dutch monarch from the House of Orange.

March 8, 1702: Death of William III-II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, Prince of Orange, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic.

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Convention Parliament, Duke of York, Glorious Revolution, King James II-VII, King William III-II, Prince of Orange Mary, Princess Royal of England, Queen Mary II of England, Willem II, William III of Orange

William III-II (William Henry; Dutch: Willem Hendrik; November 4, 1650 – March 8, 1702), also widely known as William of Orange, was the sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Stadtholder of Holland, Zeeland, Utrecht, Guelders, and Overijssel in the Dutch Republic from the 1670s, and King of England, Ireland, and Scotland from 1689 until his death in 1702.

William III-II was born in The Hague in the Dutch Republic on 4 November 4, 1650. Baptised William Henry (Dutch: Willem Hendrik), he was the only child of Mary, Princess Royal, and stadtholder Willem II, Prince of Orange. His mother was the eldest daughter of King Charles I of England, Scotland and Ireland and Princess Henrietta Marie de Bourbon of France. The Princess Royal was also the sister of King Charles II and King James II-VII.

Willem II, Prince of Orange and Mary, Princess Royal of England

Eight days before William was born, his father died of smallpox; thus William was the sovereign Prince of Orange from the moment of his birth as Prince William III of Orange. Immediately, a conflict ensued between his mother and paternal grandmother, Amalia of Solms-Braunfels, over the name to be given to the infant.

Mary wanted to name him Charles after her brother, but her mother-in-law insisted on giving him the name William (Willem) to bolster his prospects of becoming stadtholder.

Prince Willem II had appointed his wife as their son’s guardian in his will; however, the document remained unsigned at Willem II’s death and was void. On August 13, 1651, the Hoge Raad van Holland en Zeeland (Supreme Court) ruled that guardianship would be shared between his mother, his grandmother and Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg, husband of his paternal aunt Louise Henriette of Orange.

A Protestant, William participated in several wars against the powerful Catholic ruler King Louis XIV of France and Navarre in coalition with both Protestant and Catholic powers in Europe. Many Protestants heralded Prince William III of Orange as a champion of their faith.

William III, Prince of Orange

At the age of fifteen, Princess Mary of England became betrothed to her cousin, Prince William III of Orange. At first, King 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.

Mary’s father, 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, Duke of York told Mary that she was to marry her cousin, “she wept all that afternoon and all the following day”.

Marriage

William and a tearful Mary were married in St James’s Palace by Bishop Henry Compton on November 4, 1677. The bedding ceremony to publicly establish the consummation of the marriage was attended by the royal family, with her uncle the King himself drawing the bed curtains.

Mary II, Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland, Princess of Orange

Mary accompanied her husband on a rough sea crossing to the Netherlands later that month, after a delay of two weeks caused by bad weather. Rotterdam was inaccessible because of ice, and they were forced to land at the small village of Ter Heijde, and walk through the frosty countryside until met by coaches to take them to Huis Honselaarsdijk. On December 14, they made a formal entry to The Hague in a grand procession.

In 1685, his Catholic uncle and father-in-law, James, Duke of York became king of England, Scotland, and Ireland as King James II-VII. James’s reign was unpopular with the Protestant majority in Britain, who feared a revival of Catholicism.

In June 1688, two events turned dissent into a crisis. Firstly, the birth of James’s Catholic son and heir, Prince James Francis Edward on June 10, with his second wife Princess Mary of Modena, raised the prospect of establishing a Roman Catholic dynasty and excluding his Anglican daughter’s Mary and her sister Anne and Mary’s Protestant husband William III of Orange from the line of succession.

James II-VII, King of England, Scotland and Ireland

Secondly, the prosecution of the Seven Bishops for seditious libel was viewed as further evidence of an assault on the Church of England, and their acquittal on June 30 destroyed his political authority in England. The ensuing anti-Catholic riots in England and Scotland led to a general feeling that only James’s removal from the throne could prevent another Civil War.

Supported by a group of influential British political and religious leaders, William III of Orange was invited to invaded England in what became known as the Glorious Revolution. In 1688, he landed at the south-western English port of Brixham; King James II-VII was deposed shortly afterward.

William’s reputation as a staunch Protestant enabled him and his wife to take power. On February 13, 1689 the Convention Parliament proclaimed both William and Mary as equal joint sovereigns as King William III and Queen Mary II of England and Ireland. William and Mary were declared King and Queen by the Parliament of Scotland on April 11, 1689. As King of Scotland, William is known as William II. Under the 1542 Crown of Ireland Act, the English monarch is automatically king of Ireland as well.

King William III-II and Queen Mary II of England, Scotland and Ireland

During the early years of his reign, King William III-II was occupied abroad with the Nine Years’ War (1688–1697), leaving Queen Mary II to govern Britain alone.

In late 1694, Queen Mary II contracted smallpox. She sent away anyone who had not previously had the disease, to prevent the spread of infection. Anne, who was once again pregnant, sent Mary a letter saying she would run any risk to see her sister again, but the offer was declined by Mary’s groom of the stool, the Countess of Derby. Several days into the course of her illness, the smallpox lesions reportedly disappeared, leaving her skin smooth and unmarked, and Mary said that she felt improved.

Her attendants initially hoped she had been ill with measles rather than smallpox, and that she was recovering. But the rash had “turned inward”, a sign that Mary was suffering from a usually fatal form of smallpox, and her condition quickly deteriorated. Queen Mary II died at Kensington Palace shortly after midnight on the morning of December 28 at the young age of 32.

William III-II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland. Prince of Orange

The death of Queen Mary II left William III-II to rule alone. William deeply mourned his wife’s death. Despite his conversion to Anglicanism, William’s popularity in England plummeted during his reign as a sole monarch.

During the 1690s rumours grew of William’s alleged homosexual inclinations and led to the publication of many satirical pamphlets by his Jacobite detractors.

King William III-II never remarried. Had he remarried his new wife would not have been a joint sovereign, or a Queen Regnant, as Queen Mary II had been; she would have been a Queen Consort, the traditional role of women married to a reigning British King.

In 1696 the Jacobites, a faction loyal to the deposed King James II-VII plotted unsuccessfully to assassinate William and restore James to the throne. William’s lack of children and the death in 1700 of his nephew Prince William, Duke of Gloucester, the son of his sister-in-law Anne, threatened the Protestant succession.

The danger was averted by placing distant relatives, the Protestant Hanoverians, in line to the throne with the Act of Settlement 1701.

On March 8, 1702, King William III-II died of pneumonia, a complication from a broken collarbone following a fall from his horse, Sorrel. William was buried in Westminster Abbey alongside his wife. His sister-in-law and cousin, Anne, became Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland.

William’s death meant that he would remain the only member of the Dutch House of Orange to reign over England.

With the death of William III as sovereign Prince of Orange, the legitimate male line of Willem the Silent (the second House of Orange) became extinct. Prince Johan Willem Friso, the senior agnatic descendant of Willem the Silent’s brother and a cognatic descendant of Prince Frederik Hendrik of Orange, grandfather of William III, claimed the succession as stadtholder in all provinces held by William III. This was denied to him by the republican faction in the Netherlands.

Under William III-II’s will, Johan Willem Friso stood to inherit the Principality of Orange as well as several lordships in the Netherlands. He was William’s closest agnatic relative, as well as grandson of William’s aunt Countess Henriette Catherine of Nassau.

Countess Henriette Catherine of Nassau

Countess Henriette Catherine of Nassau was a daughter of Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange, and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels. She was princess of Anhalt-Dessau by marriage to Johann Georg II, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau, and regent of Anhalt-Dessau from 1693 to 1698 during the minority (and then the absence) of her son Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau.

However, King Friedrich I in Prussia also claimed the Principality as the senior cognatic heir, his mother Louise Henriette of Nassau being Henriette Catherine’s older sister.

Countess Louise Henriette of Nassau was forced to marry Friedrich Wilhelm, Elector of Brandenburg (1620-1688), “the Great Elector,” at The Hague on December 7, 1646, her nineteenth birthday. She was the eldest daughter of Frederik Hendrik, Prince of Orange, and Amalia of Solms-Braunfels and they were the parents of King Friedrich I in Prussia.

Under the Treaty of Utrecht (1713), Friedrich I’s successor, King Friedrich Wilhelm I in Prussia, ceded his territorial claim to King Louis XIV of France and Navarre, keeping only a claim to the title. Friso’s posthumous son, Willem IV, succeeded to the title at his birth in 1711; in the Treaty of Partition (1732), Willem IV agreed to share the title “Prince of Orange” with King Friedrich Wilhelm I.

Incidentally, Prince Willem IV of Orange also married a British Princess. On March 25, 1734 he married at St James’s Palace Anne, Princess Royal, eldest daughter of King George II of Great Britain and Caroline of Brandenburg-Ansbach. They had five children and are the ancestors of the present Dutch Royal Family.

The Life of Maria Sophie, Duchess in Bavaria, the last Queen consort of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Part II.

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Félix-Emmanuel de Lavaÿsse, King Francis II of the Two Sicilies, King Umberto I of Italy, Maria Sophie in Bavaria, Princess Maria Cristina Pia of the Two-Sicilies, Queen of the Two-Sicilies

While in exile in Rome, Marie Sophie became pregnant with an illegitimate child. In order to avoid a public scandal, she gave health reasons to urgently visit her parents’ house in Possenhofen. It was decided in a family council that Marie Sophie should retire to the Ursuline Convent in Augsburg, where on November 24, 1862 she gave birth to a daughter who was named Mathilde Marie Sophie Henriette Elisabeth Louise, but commonly known as Daisy.

The child was immediately given to foster parents, the Count and Countess de Gineste, who raised her at Castle Garrevaques in Département Tarn. However, Maria Sophie was able to keep in touch with her daughter until she died in January 1886 and even attended her funeral in Paris. This story was revealed by a great-great-grandniece of the Ginestes in a book published in 2021.

Countess Marie Larisch von Moennich, niece of Marie Sophie, had spread the story that the child’s father was a Belgian officer of the papal guard named Count Armand de Lavaÿss.

Although Countess Larisch’s biographer Brigitte Sokop refuted this assertion and speculated that a possible father of the child would be the Spanish diplomat Salvador Bermúdez de Castro (later Duke of Ripalda and Santa Lucía), who was often to be seen in the company of the Neapolitan royal couple and who was also said to have had an affair (and also an illegitimate daughter) with Marie Sophie’s sister Mathilde, Countess of Trani, Lorraine Kaltenbach in her 2021 biography of Marie Sophie established that the father of her illegitimate daughter was indeed a certain Félix-Emmanuel de Lavaÿsse, a pontifical zouave, whom officially recognized Daisy as his daughter on May 16, 1867 shortly before his death on April 18, 1868 aged 32.

A year later, on the advice of her family, Marie Sophie decided to confess the affair to her husband. Afterwards, the relationship between the two improved for a time. Francis submitted to an operation which allowed him to consummate the marriage, and Marie Sophie became pregnant a second time, this time by her husband.

Both were overjoyed at the turn of events and full of hope. On December 24, 1869, after ten years of marriage, Marie Sophie gave birth to a daughter, Maria Cristina Pia. Cristina was born on the birthday of her aunt, Empress Elisabeth, who became her godmother. Unfortunately, the baby lived only three months and died on March 28, 1870. Marie Sophie and her husband never had another child.

Later life

In 1870, Rome fell to the forces of Italy and the King and Queen fled to Bavaria. The king died in 1894. Marie Sophie spent time in Munich, and then moved to Paris where she presided over somewhat of an informal Bourbon court-in-exile.

It was rumored she was involved in the anarchist assassination of King Umberto I in 1900 in hopes of destabilizing the new nation-state of Italy. Recent historians have resurrected that rumor based on the apparent credence given to this conspiracy theory by the then Prime Minister of Italy, Giovanni Giolitti. Others regard it as anecdotal. In any event, the case against Marie Sophie is circumstantial.

During World War I, Marie Sophie was actively on the side of the German Empire and Austria-Hungary in their war with the Kingdom of Italy. Again, the rumors claimed she was involved in sabotage and espionage against Italy in the hope that an Italian defeat would tear the nation apart and that the kingdom of Naples would be restored.

During her life, she generated an almost cult-like air of admiration even among her political enemies. Gabriele d’Annunzio called her the “stern little Bavarian eagle” and Marcel Proust spoke of the “soldier queen on the ramparts of Gaeta”. She and her sister Elisabeth were considered amongst the great beauties of their age.

Maria Sophie died in Munich in 1925. Since 1984 her remains now rest with those of her husband and their daughter in the Church of Santa Chiara in Naples.

February 13, 1861: King Francis II of the Two Sicilies is Deposed

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Archduchess Maria Christina of Austria-Este, Empress Elisabeth of Austria, Giuseppe Garibaldi, King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies, King Francis II of the Two Sicilies, Kingdom of Naples, Kingdom of Sicily, Kingdom of the Two-Sicilies, Pope Francis, Pope Pius IX, Sisi

Francis II (January 16, 1836 – December 27, 1894) was King of the Two Sicilies from 1859 to 1861.

Early life

The only son and heir of King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies by his first wife, Princess Maria Christina of Savoy, the youngest daughter of King Victor Emmanuel I of Sardinia-Piedmont and Archduchess Maria Teresa of Austria-Este.

King Ferdinand II of the Two Sicilies

Princess Maria Christina of Savoy’s maternal grandparents were Archduke Ferdinand of Austria-Este and Maria Beatrice Ricciarda d’Este. Archduke Ferdinand was the fourteenth child and third son born to Franz I Stefan, Holy Roman Emperor, and Empress Maria Theresa, Queen of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia and Archduchess of Austria. Maria Beatrice was the eldest daughter of Ercole III d’Este and Maria Teresa Cybo-Malaspina, Duchess of Massa and Princess of Carrara.

Princess Maria Christina of Savoy

King Francis II was the last of the Bourbon kings of Naples and Sicily (Kingdom of the Two Sicilies), where he was born in 1836. His education had been much neglected and he proved a man of weak character, greatly influenced by his stepmother Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria, whom he feared, and also by the priests, and by the camarilla, or reactionary court set.

On February 3, 1859 in Bari, Francis married Duchess Maria Sophie of Bavaria, of the royal Bavarian House of Wittelsbach. Duchess Maria Sophie was one of the ten children of Maximilian Joseph, Duke in Bavaria and Princess Ludovika of Bavaria. She was a younger sister of Empress Elisabeth “Sissi” of Austria).

King Francis II of the Two Sicilies

Maria Sophie, along with Elisabeth, was a great beauty. However, their marriage was unhappy. Their only daughter, Maria Cristina, was born ten years after her parents married, and lived only three months (December 24, 1869 – March 28, 1870).

The Two Sicilies

The kingdom was formed when the Kingdom of Sicily merged with the Kingdom of Naples. The Kingdom of Naples was officially also known as the Kingdom of Sicily. Since both kingdoms were named Sicily, they were collectively known as the “Two Sicilies” (Utraque Sicilia, literally “both Sicilies”), and the unified kingdom adopted this name.

Reign

Francis II took the throne on May 22, 1859, after the death of his father. For the post of prime minister he at once appointed Carlo Filangieri, who, realizing the importance of the Franco-Piedmontese victories in Lombardy, advised Francis II to accept the alliance with the Kingdom of Sardinia proposed by Cavour.

Duchess Maria Sophie in Bavaria

Cavour proposed an alliance to divide the Papal States between Piedmont and Naples (the province of Rome excepted), but Francis rejected an idea which to him seemed like heresy. Filangieri strongly advocated a Constitution as the only measure which might save the dynasty, but on the king’s refusal he resigned.

Garibaldi’s invasion

Meanwhile, the revolutionary parties were conspiring for the overthrow of the Bourbons in Calabria and Sicily, and Giuseppe Garibaldi was preparing for a raid in the south of Italy. A conspiracy in Sicily was discovered and the plotters punished with brutal severity, but Rosalino Pilo and Francesco Crispi, who had organized the movement, escaped execution. When Garibaldi landed at Marsala (May 1860) with his Expedition of the Thousand, he conquered the Sicilian island with astonishing ease.

These events at last coaxed Francis II into granting a constitution, but its promulgation was followed by disorders in Naples and the resignation of several ministers; Liborio Romano became head of the government.

The disintegration of the army and navy proceeded apace, and Cavour sent a Piedmontese squadron carrying troops on board to watch over these events. Garibaldi, who had crossed the strait of Messina, was advancing northwards and was everywhere received by the people as a liberator.

After long hesitations and even an appeal to Garibaldi himself, and on the advice of Romano, Francis II left Naples on September 6 with his wife Maria Sophia, the court and the diplomatic corps (except the French and British ministers), and went by sea to Gaeta, where a large part of the army was concentrated.

The next day Garibaldi entered Naples, was enthusiastically welcomed, and formed a provisional government.

Piedmontese invasion

King Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia-Piedmont had decided on the invasion of the Papal States, and after occupying Umbria and the Marche entered the Neapolitan kingdom. Garibaldi’s troops defeated the Neapolitan royalists at the Battle of Volturno (which took place on October 1, 1860), while the Piedmontese captured Capua.

By late 1860, only Gaeta, Messina, and Civitella del Tronto still held out. The Siege of Gaeta by the Piedmontese began on November 6, 1860. Both Francis II and his wife behaved with great coolness and courage.

Giuseppe Garibaldi

Even when the French fleet, whose presence had hitherto prevented an attack by sea, was withdrawn, they still resisted. It was not until February 13, 1861 that the fortress capitulated and Francis II was deposed.

Overthrow

Thus, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies ceased to exist. After the overthrow he people voted in a plebiscite to join the Savoyard Kingdom of Sardinia. The annexation of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies completed the first phase of Italian unification, and the new Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861.

King Francis II and Queen Maria Sophia first lived in Rome as guests of the Pope Pius IX, where they maintained a government in exile recognized by some Catholic powers including France, Spain, Austria and Bavaria.

Pope Pius IX

After the Prussian victory against Austria in 1866 and subsequent expansion of Italian territory, they disbanded this government and left Rome before it was occupied by the Italians in 1870. They led a wandering life from then on, living in Austria, France, and Bavaria.

In 1894, Francis died at Arco in Trentino (now north-eastern Italy, but at the time in Austria-Hungary). His widow survived him by 31 years and died in Munich. Upon the death of Francis II, his half-brother, Prince Alfonso, became the pretender to the throne of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies.

Cause of beatification and canonization

On December 11, 2020, the cause of the beatification of King Francis II of the Two Sicilies was introduced by the Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, the Archbishop of Naples. Pope Francis declared the king a Servant of God.

Was He A Usurper? King Edward IV: Conclusion.

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Duke of Lancaster, Duke of York, Edmund Crouchback, Henry Bolingbroke, House of Lancaster, House of York, King Edward IV of England and Lord of Ireland, King Henry IV of England, King Henry VI of England, Usurper, Wars of the Roses

This is the concluding post to whether or not King Edward IV of England, Lord of Ireland was a usurper. I took the long and winding road through many posts to demonstrate that King Edward IV had a much more superior claim to the throne than King Henry VI.

For a long time I did not consider King Edward IV a usurper. However, over the last several years I have run into many other historians who do consider King Edward IV a usurper and I have changed my mind.

The main reasons why I did not consider Edward IV a usurper for many years was because his assuming the crown restored the superior claim to the throne via primogenitor that was broken when Henry Bolingbroke usurped the throne.

In other words, I viewed that when Edward IV became king he restored the line of hereditary succession to how it would have been had Henry IV never usurped the throne. For myself there was a sense of justice with the superior claim of Edward IV being restored which negated any claim of illegality

Or so I thought.

Edward IV took the throne during the Wars of the Roses which is generally considered the conflict for the crown that began with the reign of Henry VI and concluded with Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond becoming King Henry VII after defeating King Richard III at the Battle of Bosworth field in August of 1485.

We have seen however, that the seeds for the War of the Roses were actually sown a few generations prior with the usurpation of Henry Bolingbroke as King Henry IV who stole the crown from King Richard II.

It is clear that Henry IV was a usurper. The definition of a usurper being someone who does not have the legal right to the throne. King Henry IV tried to legitimize his succession by outrageously claiming that Edmund Crouchback, Earl of Lancaster and Earl of Leicester (1245 – 1296) the second son of King Henry III of England and Eleanor of Provence, was actually the eldest son of King Henry III and that King Edward I was, in reality, a younger son of King Henry III and therefore all Kings of England from Edward I to Richard II were usurpers.

In this scenario Henry Bolingbroke claimed that his right to the throne stemmed from his descent from his mother and not his father.

Henry Bolingbrook descended twice from King Henry III. The first line of descent was through the male line from King Edward I through to Edward III who was Henry Bolingbrook’s grandfather via his father, John of Gaunt fourth son of King Edward III of England.

The second line of descent was through the female line from King Henry III through to Bolingbrook’s mother, Blanche of Lancaster, a great-great granddaughter of King Henry III via Henry III’s second son Edmund Crouchback Earl of Lancaster.

This is the line which Henry Bolingbroke asserted gave him hereditary right to the throne. Again, Bolingbroke, erroneously claimed that Edmund Crouchback was the eldest son of King Henry III and not King Edward I.

The usurpation of the throne by Henry Bolingbrook raises an interesting question for the House of Lancaster. Namely, when a king clearly usurps the throne how does that illegal reign affect the next king, the son and heir?

In other words, since Henry IV was a usurper shouldn’t that technically bar or disqualify his son, in this case King Henry V, from legally assuming the throne when it came his time to succeed?

Apparently not. As they say, when there is a revolution or a war, those that win are able to rewrite the rules. When Henry IV died on March 20, 1413 his eldest son succeeded to the throne is King Henry V despite the fact that there were others who had the superior hereditary claim.

When the young King Henry VI succeeded to the throne 9 years later upon the death of his father in 1422 he was regarded as the legal King of England.

Therefore, despite Edward IV and his father Richard, 3rd Duke of York, having had the superior hereditary claim to the throne; this fact was irrelevant because King Henry VI was the legal monarch of England.

So when Edward, 4th Duke of York, took the throne from King Henry VI basically by force, without any intervention of Parliament to legalize an altered succession, his assumption of the throne as King Edward IV of England was indeed a userpation.

When Did Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland Become King? Part I.

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Battle of Dunbar, Battle of Worcester, Covenanter Parliament of Scotland, English Civil War, King Charles II of England, Oliver Cromwell, Presbyterian, Scotland and Ireland, The New Army, The War of the Three Kingdoms, Treaty of Breda of 1650

From The Emperor’s Desk: Today is the anniversary of the death of King Charles II of England, Scotland and Ireland on February 6, 1685. Instead of doing a usual biography of the king, today I will examine, in two parts, this philosophical question of when did Charles II become king after the execution of his father King Charles I.

May 29, 1660 is the traditional date of the Restoration to the throne of Charles II as King of England, Scotland and Ireland marking the first assembly of King and Parliament together since the abolition of the English monarchy in 1649.

Charles II was born at St James’s Palace on May 29, 1630, as the second but eldest surviving son of Charles I, King of England, Scotland and Ireland, and his wife Princess Henrietta Maria de Bourbon of France, sister of King Louis XIII of France and Navarre, and the daughter of King Henri IV of France and Navarre and his second wife, Maria de Medici.

On January 30, 1649, despite the diplomatic efforts of Charles, Prince of Wales, to save his father the execution of King Charles I took place, and England became a republic.

Charles II, King of England, Scotland and Ireland

On February 5, 1650 the Covenanter Parliament of Scotland, which had not been consulted before the King’s execution, proclaimed Charles II “King of Great Britain, France and Ireland” at the Mercat Cross, Edinburgh, but refused to allow him to enter Scotland unless he agreed to establish Presbyterianism as the state religion in all three of his kingdoms.

Charles II was initially reluctant to accept these conditions, but after Cromwell’s campaign in Ireland crushed his Royalist supporters there, he felt compelled to accept the Scottish terms, and signed the Treaty of Breda on May 1, 1650.

The Scottish Parliament set about rapidly recruiting an army to support the new king, and Charles II set sail from Breda in the Netherlands to Scotland, landing on June 23, 1650.

Charles’s abandonment of Episcopal church governance, although winning him support in Scotland, left him unpopular in England.

Charles himself soon came to despise the “villainy” and “hypocrisy” of the Covenanters. Charles was provided with a Scottish court, and the record of his food and household expenses at Falkland Palace and Perth survives.

The Scots were divided between moderate Engagers and the more radical Kirk Party, who even fought each other. Disillusioned by these divisions, in October Charles rode north to join an Engager force, an event which became known as “the Start”, but within two days members of the Kirk Party had recovered him.

The leaders of the English Commonwealth government felt threatened and on July 22, 1650 the New Model Army under Oliver Cromwell invaded Scotland.

The Scots, commanded by David Leslie, retreated to Edinburgh and refused battle. After a month of manoeuvring, Cromwell unexpectedly led the English army in a night attack on September 3, 1650 at the Battle of Dunbar and they heavily defeated the Scots.

Despite the defeat, Scotland remained Charles’s best hope of restoration, and he was crowned King of Scotland at Scone Abbey on January 1, 1651. With Cromwell’s forces threatening Charles’s position in Scotland, it was decided to mount an attack on England but many of their most experienced soldiers had been excluded on religious grounds by the Kirk Party, whose leaders also refused to participate, among them Lord Argyll.

Charles II c. 1653

The English secured their hold over southern Scotland, but were unable to advance past Stirling. On July 17, 1651 the English crossed the Firth of Forth in specially constructed boats and defeated the Scots at the Battle of Inverkeithing on July 20, This cut off the Scottish army at Stirling from its sources of supply and reinforcements.

Charles II, believing that the only other alternative was surrender, invaded England in August. Cromwell pursued, few Englishmen rallied to the Royalist cause and the English raised a large army. Cromwell brought the badly outnumbered Scots to Battle at Worcester on September 3 1651 and completely defeated them, marking the end of the Wars of the Three Kingdoms.

Charles managed to escape and after six weeks landed in Normandy on October 16 despite a reward of £1,000 on his head, risk of death for anyone caught helping him and the difficulty in disguising Charles, who, at over 6 ft (1.8 m), was unusually tall for the time.

Charles spent the next nine years in exile in France, the Dutch Republic and the Spanish Netherlands.