March 24, 1720: Prince Frederick of Hesse-Cassel is Elected King of Sweden

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Battle of Blenheim, Battle of Speyerbach, Frederick of Hesse-Cassel, King Carl XII of Sweden, King Frederick I of Sweden, Queens Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden, Swedish Estates

Frederick I (April 28, 1676 – April 5, 1751) was Prince Consort of Sweden from 1718 to 1720, and King of Sweden from 1720 until his death and also Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel from 1730.

He was the son of Charles I, Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, and Princess Maria Amalia of Courland. In 1692 the young prince made his Grand Tour to the Dutch Republic, in 1695 to the Italian Peninsula and later he studied in Geneva.

After this he had a military career, leading the Hessian troops as Lieutenant General in the War of the Spanish Succession on the side of the Dutch. He was defeated in 1703 in the Battle of Speyerbach, but participated the next year in the great victory in the Battle of Blenheim. In 1706 he was again defeated by the French in the Battle of Castiglione. In 1716 and 1718 he joined the campaign of King Carl XII of Sweden against Norway, and was appointed Swedish Generalissimus.

Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden

On May 31, 1700 Frederick married Luise Dorothea of Prussia the daughter of Friedrich I, the first king in Prussia, by his first wife Elisabeth Henriette of Hesse-Cassel. They were married in Berlin in a grand ceremony which took place for several weeks at great costs. Conrad Mel wrote Font Legatio orientalis at the occasion. During her five years of marriage, Luise Dorothea suffered from poor health. She died in childbirth.

Prince Consort of Sweden

Frederick married his second wife, Princess Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden, in 1715. She was the youngest child of King Carl XI and Ulrika Eleonora of Denmark and named after her mother. Ulrika Eleonora of Denmark was the daughter of King Frederik III of Denmark-Norway and his spouse, Sophie Amalie of Brunswick-Lüneburg.

After the death of her brother King Carl XII in 1718, she claimed the throne. Her deceased older sister, Hedvig Sophia, had left a son, Charles Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp, who had the better claim by primogeniture. Ulrika Eleonora asserted that she was the closest surviving relative of the late king (the idea of proximity of blood) and cited the precedent of Queen Christina. She was recognized as a successor by the Riksdag after she had agreed to renounce the powers of absolute monarchy established by her father.

Upon his marriage to Princess Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden, Frederick was then granted the title Prince of Sweden, with the style Royal Highness, by the estates, and was prince consort there during Ulrika Eleonora’s rule as queen regnant from 1718 until her abdication in 1720. He is the only Swedish prince consort there has been to date. Frederick I had much influence during the reign of his spouse.

King Frederick I of Sweden

Some historians have suggested that the bullet which killed his brother-in-law Carl XII of Sweden in 1718 was actually fired by Frederick’s aide André Sicre. Carl XII had been an authoritarian and demanding ruler.

Frederick succeeded Ulrika Eleonora on the throne upon her abdication in his favor on February 29, 1720, and was elected King of Sweden on March 24 by the Swedish Estates. One reason the Swedish Estates elected Frederick was because he was taken to be fairly weak, which indeed he turned out to be.

The defeats suffered by Carl XII in the Great Northern War ended Sweden’s position as a first-rank European power. Under Frederick, this had to be accepted. Sweden also had to cede Estonia, Ingria and Livonia to Russia in the Treaty of Nystad, in 1721.

Frederick I was a very active and dynamic king at the beginning of his 31-year reign. But after the aristocracy had regained power during the wars with Russia, he became uninterested in affairs of state. In 1723, he tried to strengthen royal authority, but after he failed, he never had much to do with politics. He did not even sign official documents; instead a stamp of his signature was used. He devoted most of his time to hunting and love affairs. His marriage to Queen Ulrika Eleonora was childless, but he had several children by his mistress, Hedvig Taube.

As a king, he was not very respected. When he was crowned, it was said of him: “King Carl XII we recently buried, King Frederick we crown – suddenly the clock has now passed from twelve to one”. It is said about him, that although a lot of great achievements in the country’s development happened during his reign, he never had anything to do with them himself.

His powerless reign and lack of legitimate heirs of his own saw his family’s elimination from the line of succession after the parliamentary government dominated by pro-revanchist Hat Party politicians ventured into a war with Russia, which ended in defeat and the Russian Empress Elizabeth getting Adolf Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp instated following the death of the king. Whilst being the only Swedish monarch to be named Frederick, he is known as Frederick I despite other Swedish monarchs with non-repeating names (such as Birger, Sigismund and his successor: Adolph Frederick) not being given numerals.

King Frederick I of Sweden

Frederick became Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel only in 1730, ten years after becoming King of Sweden. He immediately appointed his younger brother Wilhelm governor of Hesse.

As Landgrave, Frederick is generally not seen as a success. Indeed, he did concentrate more on Sweden, and due to his negotiated, compromise-like ascension to the throne there, he and his court had a very low income. The money for that very expensive court, then, since the 1730s came from wealthy Hesse, and this means that Frederick essentially behaved like an absentee landlord and drained Hessian resources to finance life in Sweden.

Upon his death Frederick was succeeded in Sweden by Adolph Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp; (1710 – 1771). He was the son of Christian August of Holstein-Gottorp, Prince of Eutin, and Albertina Frederica of Baden-Durlach. He was an uncle of Empress Catherine II the Great of Russia.

In Hesse-Cassel, he was succeeded by his younger brother as Landgrave Wilhelm VIII, a famous general.

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.

History of the Kingdom of Greece: Part IX, Second Reign and Abdication of King Constantine I

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Anatolia, Balkan War of 1913, Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir, King Alexander of the Hellenes, King Constantine I of the Hellenes, king George II of the Hellenes, Plebiscite, Prime Minister Venizelos, princess Sophie of Prussia, World War I

As mentioned in my last entry, King Alexander died on October 25, 1920, after a freak accident: he was strolling with his dogs in the royal menagerie, when they attacked a monkey. Rushing to save the poor animal, the king was bitten by the monkey and what seemed like a minor injury turned to sepsis. He died a few days later. The following month Prime Minister Venizelos suffered a surprising defeat in a general election.

Greece had at this point been at war for eight continuous years: World War I had come and gone, but yet no sign of an enduring peace was near, as the country was already at war against the Kemalist forces in Asia Minor. Young men had been fighting and dying for years, lands lay fallow for lack of hands to cultivate them, and the country, morally exhausted, was at the brink of economic and political unravelling.

Constantine I, King of the Hellenes

The pro-royalist parties had promised peace and prosperity under the victorious Field Marshal of the Balkan Wars, he who knew of the soldier’s plight because he had fought next to him and shared his ration.

Following a plebiscite in which nearly 99% of votes were cast in favor of the return of the King, Constantine returned as king on December 19, 1920. This caused great dissatisfaction not only to the newly liberated populations in Asia Minor, but also to the British and even more the French, who opposed the return of Constantine.

The new government decided to continue the war. The inherited, ongoing campaign began with initial successes in western Anatolia against the Turks. The Greeks initially met with disorganized opposition.

In March 1921, despite his health problems, Constantine was landed in Anatolia to boost the Army’s morale and command personally the Battle of Kütahya-Eskişehir.

However, an ill-conceived plan to capture Kemal’s new capital of Ankara, located deep in barren Anatolia, where there was no significant Greek population, succeeded only in its initial stages. The overextended and ill-supplied Greek Army was routed and driven from Anatolia back to the coast in August 1922.

Constantine with his family, ca. 1910. Top left: the king holding the toddler Princess Irene. Top right: the future George II. Left: Queen Sophia. Center: Princess Helen. Right: the future Alexander I. Front: the future Paul I. Princess Katherine not yet born.

Following an army revolt by Venizelist officers, considering him as key responsible for the military defeat, King Constantine abdicated the throne again on September 27, 1922 and was succeeded by his eldest son, as King George II of the Hellenes.

Second exile and death

Constantine spent the last four months of his life in exile in Italy and died at 1:30 am on January 11, 1923 at Palermo, Sicily of heart failure. His wife, Sophie of Prussia, was never allowed back to Greece and was later interred beside her husband in the Russian Church in Florence.

After his restoration on the Greek throne, George II organized the repatriation of the remains of members of his family who died in exile. An important religious ceremony that brought together, for six days in November 1936, all members of the royal family still alive. Constantine’s body was buried at the royal burial ground at Tatoi Palace, where he remains.

March 17, 1473: Birth of King James IV of Scotland

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Battle of Flodden, Duke of Rothesay, Edinburgh Castle, Emperor Maximilian I, King Fernando II of Aragon, King James IV of Scotland, King Louis XII of France, Linlithgow Palace, Margaret Tudor of England, Palace of Holyroodhouse, Pope Alexander VI, Pope Julius II, Queen Isabella I of Castile, Stirling Castle, Treaty of Perpetual Peace

James IV (March 17, 1473 – September 9, 1513) Born at Stirling Castle, James was the eldest son of King James III of Scotland and Margrethe of Denmark, the daughter of Christian I, King of Denmark, Norway and Sweden, and Dorothea of Brandenburg.

As heir apparent to the Scottish crown, James became Duke of Rothesay at birth.

James was King of Scotland from June 11, 1488 until his death at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. He inherited the throne at the age of fifteen on the death of his father, King James III, at the Battle of Sauchieburn, following a rebellion in which the younger James was the figurehead of the rebels. King James IV is generally regarded as the most successful of the Stewart monarchs. He was responsible for a major expansion of the Scottish royal navy, which included the founding of two royal dockyards and the acquisition or construction of 38 ships, including the Michael, the largest warship of its time.

Spanish monarchs Fernando II of Aragon and Queen Isabella I of Castile were appointed to arbitrate future disputes and unresolved issues such as redress for damages caused by the recent invasions. The possibility was also raised of strengthening the peace between both kingdoms with the marriage of James IV to Henry VII’s eldest daughter, Margaret.

King James IV of Scotland

Scottish and English commissioners met at Richmond Palace on 24 January 24, 1502, where they agreed on the marriage between James IV and Margaret, with a dowry of £35,000 Scots, and a peace treaty between the two kingdoms.

Under the terms of the Treaty of Perpetual Peace, there was to be “good, real and sincere, true, sound, and firm peace, friendship, league and confederation, to last all time coming” between England and Scotland, neither king or their successors were to make war against the other, and if either king broke the treaty, the Pope would excommunicate them.

In a ceremony at the altar of Glasgow Cathedral on December 10, 1502, King James IV confirmed the Treaty of Perpetual Peace with King Henry VII, the first peace treaty between Scotland and England since 1328.

The marriage was completed by proxy on January 25, 1503 at Richmond Palace in the presence of the King and Queen of England, the Earl of Bothwell standing as a proxy for the Scottish king. Margaret left Richmond for Scotland on June 27 and, after crossing the border at Berwick upon Tweed on August 1, 1503, was received at Lamberton by the Archbishop of Glasgow and the Bishop of Moray.

On August 8, 1503, the marriage of the 30-year old Scottish king and his 13-year old English bride was celebrated in person in Holyrood Abbey. The rites were performed by Robert Blackadder, Archbishop of Glasgow and Thomas Savage, Archbishop of York.

Their wedding was commemorated by the gift of the Hours of James IV of Scotland, and was portrayed as the marriage of The Thrissil and the Rois (the thistle and rose – the flowers of Scotland and England, respectively) by the poet William Dunbar, who was then resident at James’ court.

It is possible that the consummation of the marriage was delayed. This was not uncommon when young medieval brides were married, with the couple maintaining separate households or simply avoiding consummation until the bride was a more acceptable age. Margaret did not bear her first child until she was 17, so it is likely that James IV respected this convention.

Margaret of England

King James IV’s marriage to Margaret meant that only the future King Henry VIII stood between the Scottish king and the English succession, as Henry’s lack of an heir made it possible that either James or one of his successors might succeed if the Tudors failed to produce heirs.

Margaret’s first pregnancy resulted in the birth of James, Duke of Rothesay at the Palace of Holyroodhouse in February 1507. However, this heir to the throne died a year later in February 1508. At this point Margaret was already pregnant with a second child, a daughter whose name is unknown, and who was born and died in July 1508. In October 1509, a second son was born and named Arthur, a name recalling Margaret’s late brother, Arthur, Prince of Wales, and reminding the still heirless Henry VIII that, if he were unable to produce a legitimate son to succeed him, it might be a son of Margaret Tudor who would succeed.

James was a patron of the arts and took an active interest in the law, literature and science, even personally experimenting in dentistry and bloodletting. With his patronage the printing press came to Scotland, and the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and the University of Aberdeen were founded. He commissioned the building of the Palace of Holyroodhouse and Falkland Palace, and extensive building work at Linlithgow Palace, Edinburgh Castle and Stirling Castle. The education act passed by the Parliament of Scotland in 1496 introduced compulsory schooling.

During James’s 25 year reign, royal income doubled, the crown exercised firm control over the Scottish church, royal administration was extended to the Highlands and the Hebrides, and by 1493 James had overcome the last independent Lord of the Isles.

Relations with England were improved with the Treaty of Perpetual Peace in 1502 and James’s marriage to Margaret Tudor in 1503 (the marriage led to the Union of the Crowns in 1603, when Elizabeth I of England died without heirs and James IV’s great-grandson James VI succeeded to the English throne).

The long period of domestic peace after 1497 allowed James to focus more on foreign policy, which included the sending of several of his warships to aid his uncle, King Hans of Denmark, in his conflict with Sweden; amicable relations with Pope Alexander VI, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I and Louis XII of France; and James’s aspiration to lead a European naval crusade against the Turks of the Ottoman Empire. James was granted the title of Protector and Defender of the Christian Faith in 1507 by Pope Julius II.

When Henry VIII of England invaded France in 1513 as part of the Holy League, James chose the Auld Alliance with the French over the ‘Perpetual Peace’ with the English, and answered France’s call for assistance by leading a large army across the border into England. James and many of his nobles were killed at the Battle of Flodden on September 9, 1513. He was the last monarch in Great Britain to be killed in battle, and was succeeded by his son James V.

March 9, 1888: Death of Wilhelm I, German Emperor and King of Prussia

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Franco-Prussian War, German Chancellor, German Emperor Wilhelm I, King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, King of Prussia, Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Otto von Bismarck, Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Wilhelm I (March 22, 1797 – March 9, 1888) was King of Prussia and German Emperor. A member of the House of Hohenzollern, he was the first head of state of a united Germany. He was de facto head of state of Prussia from 1858, when he became regent for his brother Friedrich Wilhelm IV, whose death three years later would make him king.

Queen Louise of Prussia with her two eldest sons (later King Frederick William IV of Prussia and the first German Emperor William I), circa 1808

The future King and Emperor was born Wilhelm Friedrich Ludwig of Prussia in the Kronprinzenpalais in Berlin on March 22, 1797. As the second son of Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia the future King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia.

His mother was Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the fourth daughter and sixth child of Duke Charles of Mecklenburg-Strelitz and his wife Princess Friederike of Hesse-Darmstadt. Her father Charles was a brother of Queen Charlotte of the United Kingdom and wife of King George III. Her mother Frederike was a granddaughter of Ludwig VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt.

When Wilhelm was born his grandfather Friedrich Wilhelm II, was King of Prussia and Wilhelm was not expected to ascend to the throne. His grandfather died the year he was born, at age 53, in 1797, and his father became King Friedrich Wilhelm III.

Wilhelm I, German Emperor and King of Prussia

He was educated from 1801 to 1809 by Johann Friedrich Gottlieb Delbrück [de], who was also in charge of the education of Wilhelm’s brother, the Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm III. At age twelve, his father appointed him an officer in the Prussian army. The year 1806 saw the defeat of Prussia by France and the end of the Holy Roman Empire.

In 1829, Wilhelm married Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, the daughter of Grand Duke Charles Friedrich of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia a daughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg. Their marriage was outwardly stable, but not a very happy one.

Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia was the sister of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia who married Princess Charlotte of Prussia (1798–1860), sister of Emperor/King Wilhelm of Prussia.

Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

Princess Charlotte of Prussia took the name Alexandra Feodorovna when she converted to Orthodoxy. Nicholas and Charlotte were third cousins, as they were both great-great-grandchildren of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia.

On January 2, 1861, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV died and Wilhelm ascended the throne as King Wilhelm I of Prussia. In July, a student from Leipzig attempted to assassinate Wilhelm, but he was only lightly injured.

Like Friedrich I, King in Prussia, Wilhelm travelled to Königsberg and there crowned himself at the Schlosskirche. Wilhelm chose the anniversary of the Battle of Leipzig, October 18 for this event, which was the first Prussian crowning ceremony since 1701 and the only crowning of a German king in the 19th century. Wilhelm refused to comply with his brother’s wish, expressed in Friedrich Wilhelm’s last will, that he should abrogate the constitution.

In 1867, the North German Confederation was created as a federation (federally organised state) of the North German and Central German states under the permanent presidency of Prussia. King Wilhelm assumed the Bundespräsidium, the Presidency of the Confederation; the post was a hereditary office of the Prussian crown.

Not expressis verbis, but in function he was the head of state. Bismarck intentionally avoided a title such as Präsident as it sounded too republican. King Wilhelm became the constitutional Bundesfeldherr, the commander of all federal armed forces. Via treaties with the South German states, he also became commander of their armies in times of war. In 1870, during the Franco-Prussian War, Wilhelm was in command of all the German forces at the crucial Battle of Sedan.

German Emperor

During the Franco-Prussian War, the South German states joined the North German Confederation, which was reorganized as the German Empire (Deutsches Reich). The title of Bundespräsidium was amended with the title of German Emperor (Deutscher Kaiser).

Wilhelm is proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, France flanked by his only son, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm and son in law – Friedrich I, Grand Duke of Baden. Painting by Anton von Werner

This was decided on by the legislative organs, the Reichstag and Bundesrat, and William agreed to this on December 8 in the presence of a Reichstag delegation. The new constitution and the title of German Emperor came into effect on January 1, 1871.

Wilhelm, however, hesitated to accept the constitutional title, as he feared that it would overshadow his own title as King of Prussia. He also wanted it to be “Emperor of Germany” but Bismarck warned him that the South German princes and Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria might protest as that title indicated supremacy over all German monarchs.

Wilhelm eventually—though grudgingly—relented and on 18 January 18, he was formally proclaimed as German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles. The date was chosen as the coronation date of the first Prussian king in 1701. In the national memory, January 18 became the day of the foundation of the Empire (Reichsgründungstag), although it did not have a constitutional significance.

To many intellectuals, the coronation of Emperor Wilhelm was associated with the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire. Felix Dahn wrote a poem, “Macte senex Imperator” (Hail thee, old emperor) in which he nicknamed Wilhelm Barbablanca (whitebeard), a play on the name of the medieval Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa (redbeard).

According to the King asleep in mountain legend, Barbarossa slept under the Kyffhäuser mountain until Germany had need of him. Wilhelm I was thus portrayed as a second coming of Barbarossa. The Kyffhäuser Monument portrays both emperors.

In 1872, he arbitrated a boundary dispute between the United Kingdom and the United States, deciding in favor of the U.S. and placing the San Juan Islands of modern-day Washington within U.S. national territory, thus ending the 12-year bloodless Pig War.

In his memoirs, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck describes Wilhelm as an old-fashioned, courteous, infallibly polite gentleman and a genuine Prussian officer, whose good common sense was occasionally undermined by “female influences”.

This was a reference to Wilhelm’s wife, who had been educated by, among others Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and was intellectually superior to her husband. She was also at times very outspoken in her opposition to official policies as she was a liberal.

Wilhelm, however, had long been strongly opposed to liberal ideas. Despite possessing considerable power as Emperor Wilhelm left the task of governing mostly to his chancellor, limiting himself to representing the state and approving Bismarck’s every policy. In private he once remarked on his relationship with Bismarck: It is difficult to be Emperor under such a chancellor.

Wilhelm’s funeral procession, 1888

Emperor Wilhelm I died on March 9, 1888 in Berlin after a short illness, less than two weeks before his 91st birthday. He was buried on March 16 at the Mausoleum at Park Charlottenburg.

He was succeeded by his son Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm who was already in ill health himself (suffering from throat cancer). Emperor Friedrich III spent the 99 days of his reign fighting his illness before dying and being succeeded by his eldest son Wilhelm on June 15 as German Emperor and King of Prussia Wilhelm II.

History of the Kingdom of East Francia. Heinrich I the Fowler & Otto I the Great

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Battle of Lechfeld, Conrad I of Franconia, Emperor of the Romans, Holy Roman Emperor, Kingdom of East Francia, Kingdom of Germany, Magyars, Matilda of Ringelheim, Pope John XII, Saxon Duchies

Heinrich The Fowler (876 – July 2, 936) was the Duke of Saxony from 912 and the elected King of East Francia from 919 until his death in 936. As the first non-Frankish king, he established the Ottonian Dynasty of kings and emperors, and he is generally considered to be the founder and first Kingdom of the medieval German state, known by

Born in Memleben, in what is now Saxony-Anhalt, Heinrich was the son of Otto the Illustrious, Duke of Saxony, and his wife Hedwiga, daughter of Heinrich of Franconia and Ingeltrude and a great-great-granddaughter of Charlemagne. In 906 Heinrich married Hatheburg of Merseburg, daughter of the Saxon count Erwin. She had previously been a nun.

Heinrich’s father, Otto I, Duke of Saxony died in 912 and was succeeded by Heinrich. The new duke launched a rebellion against the king of East Francia, Conrad I of Franconia over the rights to lands in the Duchy of Thuringia.

They reconciled in 915 and on his deathbed in 918, Conrad recommended Heinrich as the next king, considering the duke the only one who could hold the kingdom together in the face of internal revolts and external Magyar raids.

Heinrich the Fowler, King of East Francia

Heinrich was elected and crowned king in 919. He went on to defeat the rebellious dukes of Bavaria and Swabia, consolidating his rule. In 935 Heinrich planned an expedition to Rome to be crowned as Holy Roman Emperorby the Pope, but the design was thwarted by a hunting accident near the royal palace of Bodfeld in the autumn of 935 that severely injured him.

Heinrich prevented a collapse of royal power, as had happened in West Francia, and left a much stronger kingdom to his successor Otto I. Heinrich died of a stroke on July 2, 936 in his royal palace in Memleben, one of his favourite places. He was buried at Quedlinburg Abbey, established by his wife Matilda in his honor.

Otto I (23 November 912 – 7 May 973) was East Frankish king from 936 and Holy Roman Emperor from 962 until his death in 973. He was the oldest son of Heinrich the Fowler and Matilda of Ringelheim.

Otto inherited the Duchy of Saxony and the kingship of East Francia upon his father’s death in 936. He continued his father’s work of unifying all German tribes into a single kingdom and greatly expanded the king’s powers at the expense of the aristocracy.

Through strategic marriages and personal appointments, Otto installed members of his family in the kingdom’s most important duchies. This reduced the various dukes, who had previously been co-equals with the king, to royal subjects under his authority. Otto transformed the church in Germany to strengthen royal authority and subjected its clergy to his personal control.

After putting down a brief civil war among the rebellious duchies, Otto defeated the Magyars at the Battle of Lechfeld in 955, thus ending the Hungarian invasions of Western Europe. The victory against the pagan Magyars earned Otto a reputation as a savior of Christendom and secured his hold over the kingdom.

By 961, Otto had conquered the Kingdom of Italy. Following the example of Charlemagne’s coronation as “Emperor of the Romans” in 800, Otto was crowned emperor in 962 by Pope John XII in Rome.

Otto’s later years were marked by conflicts with the papacy and struggles to stabilize his rule over Italy. Reigning from Rome, Otto sought to improve relations with the Byzantine Empire, which opposed his claim to emperorship and his realm’s further expansion to the south. To resolve this conflict, the Byzantine princess Theophanu married his son Otto II in April 972. Otto finally returned to Germany in August 972 and died at Memleben in May 973. Otto II succeeded him.

The Mutual Pact of Succession. Part II.

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Battle of Pfaffenhofen, Elector Charles Albrecht of Bavaria, Elector Maximilian III Joseph of Bavaria, Emperor Charles VI, Emperor Charles VII, Emperor Franz Stefan, Emperor Joseph, Empress Maria Theresa, François Étienne of Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Mutual Pact of Succession, Pragmatic Sanction of 1713, Treaty of Füssen, War of the Austrian Succession

When Emperor Joseph I died on April 17, 1711he left behind two daughters, Archduchesses Maria Josepha and Maria Amalia. Charles, who was at the time still unsuccessfully fighting for the crowns of Spain, succeeded him as King of Hungary, Bohemia, Croatia and Archduke of Austria according to the Mutual Pact of Succession and returned to Vienna.

Joseph I, Holy Roman Emperor

On October 12, 1712 Charles was elected Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.

In 1708, Archduke Charles had married Princess Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel the eldest daughter of Ludwig Rudolph, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and his wife Princess Christine Louise of Oettingen-Oettingen.

At age 13 Elisabeth Christine became engaged to the future Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor, through negotiations between her ambitious grandfather, Anthon Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and Charles’ sister-in-law, Empress Wilhelmine Amalia, whose father was Johann Friedrich, Duke of Brunswick-Calenberg and thus belonged to another branch of the House of Guelph.

However, the Lutheran Protestant bride opposed the marriage at first, since it involved her converting to Roman Catholicism, but finally she gave in. She was tutored in Catholicism by her mother-in-law, Empress Eleonore, who introduced her to the religion and made a pilgrimage with her to Mariazell in 1706.

Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor

Charles VI and his wife Elisabeth Christine of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel by whom he had his four children: Archduke Leopold Johann (who died in infancy), Archduchess Maria Theresa (the last direct Habsburg sovereign), Archduchess Maria Anna (Governess of the Austrian Netherlands), and Archduchess Maria Amalia (who also died in infancy).

According to the Mutual Pact of Succession the heir presumptive to the Habsburg realms was, at that moment, Charles’s niece, Archduchess Maria Josepha, who was followed in the line of succession by her younger sister, Archduchess Maria Amalia.

Four years before the birth of Archduchess Maria Theresa, faced with his lack of male heirs, Charles provided for a male-line succession failure with the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713.

The future Emperor Charles VI favoured his own daughters over those of his elder brother and predecessor, Joseph I, in the succession, ignoring the decree he had signed during the reign of his father, Leopold I.

The Mutual Pact of Succession was finally superseded
by the Pragmatic Sanction on April 9, 1713, the Emperor Charles VI announced the changes in a secret session of the council. The Pragmatic Sanction was to ensure the succession of Charles’s own daughters instead of Joseph.

The hereditary crowns belonging to the House of Habsburg were thus to be inherited by Charles’s elder surviving daughter, Archduchess Maria Theresa (born in 1717), rather than by Joseph’s elder daughter, Maria Josepha.

Empress Maria Theresa, Queen of Bohemia, Hungary, Croatia and Archduchess of Austria

Charles sought the other European powers’ approval. They demanded significant terms, among which were that Austria close the Ostend Company. In total, Great Britain, France, Saxony-Poland, the Dutch Republic, Spain, Venice, States of the Church, Prussia, Russia, Denmark, Savoy-Sardinia, Bavaria, and the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire recognised the sanction. France, Spain, Saxony-Poland, Bavaria and Prussia later reneged.

Since the hereditary Habsburg lands were under a Semi-Salic Law which excluded women from the inheritance until all male members of the Imperial House became extinct, this agreement required approval by the various Habsburg territories and the Imperial Diet.

The main reason for Saxony-Poland and Bavaria did not support the Pragmatic Sanction and instead still supported the Mutual Pact of Succession was due to the fact that the daughters of Emperor Joseph I, Archduchess Maria Josepha of Austria, married August III, King of Poland and Elector of Saxony (Friedrich August II) and
Archduchess Maria Amalia of Austria, married Elector Charles Albrecht of Bavaria, future Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor.

Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor

Prior to their respective marriages to Friedrich August II of Saxony (August III of Poland) and Charles Albrecht of Bavaria in 1719, both women were obliged to formally renounce their rights to the inheritance. Charles assumed the rivalry between Saxony and Bavaria would secure his daughter’s rights to the throne, since neither would be prepared to allow the other to inherit, but instead he gave his two greatest rivals a legitimate claim to the Habsburg lands.

Charles died in 1740, sparking the War of the Austrian Succession, which plagued his successor, Maria Theresa, for eight years.

The immediate cause of the war of the Austrian Succession was the death in 1740 of Emperor Charles VI (1685–1740) and the inheritance of the Habsburg Monarchy, often collectively referred to as Austria, by the Emperor’s daughter Archduchess Maria Theresa of Austria who became Queen Regnant of Hungary, Bohemia Croatia and Archduchess of Austria.

Marriage

The question of Maria Theresa’s marriage was raised early in her childhood. Leopold Clement of Lorraine was first considered to be the appropriate suitor, and he was supposed to visit Vienna and meet the Archduchess in 1723. These plans were forestalled by his death from smallpox that year.

Leopold Clement’s younger brother, François Étienne; (French, German: Franz Stefan) was invited to Vienna. Even though François Étienne was his favourite candidate for Maria Theresa’s hand, the Emperor Charles VI considered other possibilities.

Religious differences prevented him from arranging his daughter’s marriage to the Protestant Prince Friedrich of Prussia (future King Friedrich II of Prussia). In 1725, he betrothed her to Infante Carlos of Spain (future King Carlos III) and her sister, Infanta Maria Anna, to Infante Felipe of Spain and Duke of Parma. Other European powers compelled him to renounce the pact he had made with the Queen of Spain, Elisabeth Farnese. Maria Theresa, who had become close to François Étienne was relieved.

Franz Stefan, Holy Roman Emperor and Grand Duke of Tuscany

François Étienne remained at the imperial court until 1729, when he ascended the throne of Lorraine, but was not formally promised Maria Theresa’s hand until January 31, 1736, during the War of the Polish Succession.

King Louis XV of France and Navarre demanded that Maria Theresa’s fiancé surrender his ancestral Duchy of Lorraine to accommodate his father-in-law, Stanislaus I, who had been deposed as King of Poland.

In this arrangement François Étienne was to receive the Grand Duchy of Tuscany upon the death of childless Grand Duke Gian Gastone de’ Medici. The couple were married on February 12, 1736.

After her accession to the Habsburg hereditary domains Queen Maria Theresa dismissed the possibility that other countries might try to seize her territories and immediately started ensuring the imperial dignity for herself; since a woman could not be elected Holy Roman Empress, Maria Theresa wanted to secure the imperial office for her husband, but François Étienne did not possess enough land or rank within the Holy Roman Empire.

In order to make him eligible for the imperial throne and to enable him to vote in the imperial elections as elector of Bohemia (which she could not do because of her sex), Maria Theresa made François Étienne co-ruler of the Austrian and Bohemian lands on November 21, 1740.

It took more than a year for the Diet of Hungary to accept François Étienne as co-ruler, since they asserted that the sovereignty of Hungary could not be shared. Despite her love for him and his position as co-ruler, Maria Theresa never allowed her husband to decide matters of state and often dismissed him from council meetings when they disagreed.

During the War of the Austrian Succession, Charles Albrecht of Bavaria invaded Upper Austria in 1741 and planned to conquer Vienna, but his allied French troops under the Duc de Belle-Isle were instead redirected to Bohemia, and Prague was conquered in November 1741.

That meant that Charles Albrecht was crowned King of Bohemia in Prague on December 19, 1741, when the Habsburgs had not yet been defeated. He was unanimously elected “King of the Romans” on January 24, 1742 and became Holy Roman Emperor upon his coronation on 12 February 1742.

Maximilian III Joseph, Elector of Bavaria

Suffering severely from gout, Charles VII died at Nymphenburg Palace in January 1745. His brother Clemens August then again leaned towards Austria. After the decisive defeat in the Battle of Pfaffenhofen on April 15, Elector Maximilian III Joseph, son and heir of Emperor Charles VII (former Elector Charles Albrecht of Bavaria) quickly abandoned his imperial pretenses and made peace with Maria Theresa in the Treaty of Füssen, in which he agreed to support her husband, Grand Duke François Érienne of Tuscany, in the upcoming imperial election.

With the Treaty of Füssen, Austria recognized the legitimacy of Charles VII’s previous election as Holy Roman Emperor.

Also according to the Treaty of Füssen, Maria Theresa secured her husband’s election as Emperor, which took place on 13 September 1745. He succeeded Charles VII as Emperor Franz I Sefan.

Though Emperor Franz Stefan was well content to leave the wielding of power to his able wife, she was expected to cede power to her husband and later her eldest son, Emperor Joseph II, who were officially her co-rulers in Austria and Bohemia, Hungary and Croatia.

Empress Maria Theresa was the absolute sovereign who ruled with the counsel of her advisers. Maria Theresa promulgated institutional, financial, medical and educational reforms, with the assistance of Wenzel Anton of Kaunitz-Rietberg, Friedrich Wilhelm von Haugwitz and Gerard van Swieten.

The Mutual Pact of Succession. Part I.

Tags

Emperor Charles VI, Emperor Joseph I, Emperor Leopold I, House of Habsburg, King Carlos II of Spain, King Felipe V of Spain, The Mutual Pact of Succession, War of the Spanish Succession

Joseph I (July 26, 1678 – April 17, 1711) was Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Austrian Habsburg monarchy from 1705 until his death in 1711. He was the eldest son of Emperor Leopold I from his third wife, Eleonor Magdalene of Neuburg. Joseph was crowned King of Hungary at the age of nine in 1687 and was elected King of the Romans at the age of eleven in 1690. He succeeded to the thrones of Bohemia and the Holy Roman Empire when his father died.

Marriage and lack of heirs

Holy Roman Emperor Joseph I, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia and Archduke of Austria

On February 24, 1699, he married Wilhelmine Amalia of Brunswick-Lüneburg in Vienna. Wilhelmine Amalia was the youngest daughter of Johann Friedrich, Duke of Brunswick-Calenberg, and Princess Benedicta Henrietta of the Palatinate of the Rhine.

They had three children and their only son, Archduke Leopold Joseph, died of hydrocephalus before his first birthday. Joseph had a passion for love affairs (none of which resulted in illegitimate children) and he caught a sexually transmittable disease, probably syphilis, which he passed on to his wife while they were trying to produce a new heir. This incident rendered her sterile.

The Mutual Pact of Succession was devised by Emperor Leopold I, on the occasion of Archduke Charles’s departure for Spain. It stipulated that the claim to the Spanish realms was to be assumed by Archduke Charles, while the right of succession to the rest of the Habsburg hereditary dominions would rest with his elder brother Archduke Joseph, thereby again dividing the House of Habsburg into two lines.

The Pact also specified the succession to the brothers: they would both be succeeded by their respective heirs male but should one of them fail to have a son, the other one would succeed him in all his realms.

Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, King of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia and Archduke of Austria

However, should both brothers die leaving no sons, the daughters of the elder brother (Joseph) would have absolute precedence over the daughters of the younger brother (Charles) and the eldest daughter of Joseph would ascend all the Habsburg thrones.

The Mutual Pact of Succession was secretly signed by archdukes Joseph and Charles of Austria, the future emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, in 1703.

In 1700 the senior line of the House of Habsburg became extinct with the death of King Carlos II of Spain. The War of the Spanish Succession ensued, with Louis XIV of France and Navarre claiming the throne of Spain for his grandson Philippe, Duke of Anjou and Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I claiming them for his son Archduke Charles.

The Kingdom of Portugal, Kingdom of England, Scotland, Ireland and the majority of the Holy Roman Empire endorsed Archduke Charles’s candidature for the Spanish throne.

King Felipe V of Spain

Archduke Charles, as King Carlos III, as he was known, disembarked for his kingdom in 1705, and stayed there for six years, only being able to exercise his rule in Catalonia.

During the smallpox epidemic of 1711, which killed Louis, le Grand Dauphin and three siblings of the future Holy Roman Emperor Franz I, Emperor Joseph became infected. He died on April 17 in the Hofburg Palace. He had previously promised his wife to stop having affairs, should he survive.

At this point Archduke Charles “Carlos III of Spain” returned to Vienna to assume the imperial crown where he was elected as Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI.

Not wanting to see Austria and Spain in personal union again, the new Kingdom of Great Britain withdrew its support from the Austrian coalition, and the War of the Spanish Succession culminated with the Treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt three years later. The former, ratified in 1713, recognised Philippe, Duke of Anjou as King Felipe V of Spain.

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.