May 24, 1819: Birth of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom and Empress of India

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Duke of Clarence, Duke of Kent, Empress of India, Kensington Palace, King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, King George III of the United Kingdom, King George IV of the United Kingdom, King William IV of the United Kingdom, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Edward, Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, The Prince Regent, Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld

Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; May 24, 1819 – January 22, 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from June 20, 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days is known as the Victorian Era and was longer than any of her predecessors. She is the second longest reigning British Monarch. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.

Victoria’s father was Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III of the United Kingdom and Charlotte of see Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Until 1817, King George’s only legitimate grandchild was Edward’s niece Princess Charlotte of Wales, the daughter of George, Prince Regent (who would become George IV).

Charlotte’s death in 1817 precipitated a succession crisis that brought pressure on the Duke of Kent and his unmarried brothers to marry and have children. In 1818, the Duke of Kent married Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a widowed German princess with two children—Carl (1804–1856) and Feodora (1807–1872)—by her first marriage to Emich Carl, 2nd Prince of Leiningen. Her brother Leopold was Princess Charlotte’s widower and later the first King of Belgium. The Duke and Duchess of Kent’s only child, Victoria, was born at 4:15 a.m. on May 24, 1819 at Kensington Palace in London.

Victoria was christened privately by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, on June 24, 1819 in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace. She was baptised Alexandrina after one of her godparents, Emperor Alexander I of Russia, and Victoria, after her mother. Additional names proposed by her parents—Georgina (or Georgiana), Charlotte, and Augusta—were dropped on the instructions of Kent’s eldest brother, the Prince Regent.

At birth, Victoria was fifth in the line of succession after the four eldest sons of George III: George, Prince Regent (later George IV); Frederick, Duke of York; William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV); and Victoria’s father, Edward, Duke of Kent. Prince George had no surviving children, and Prince Frederick had no children; further, both were estranged from their wives, who were both past child-bearing age, so the two eldest brothers were unlikely to have any further legitimate children.

William and Edward married on the same day in 1818, but both of William’s legitimate daughters died as infants. The first of these was Princess Charlotte, who was born and died on March 27, 1819, two months before Victoria was born. Victoria’s father died in January 1820, when Victoria was less than a year old. A week later her grandfather, King George III, died and was succeeded by his eldest son as George IV. Victoria was then third in line to the throne after Frederick and William. She was fourth in line while William’s second daughter, Princess Elizabeth, lived, from December 10, 1820 to March 4, 1821.

After the deaths of her father and grandfather in 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father’s three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue. Victoria, a constitutional monarch, attempted privately to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.

Victoria married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840. Their children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria the sobriquet “the grandmother of Europe” and spreading haemophilia in European royalty. After Albert’s death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, British republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond jubilees were times of public celebration. Victoria died in 1901 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, at the age of 81. The last British monarch of the House of Hanover, she was succeeded by her son King Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

May 24, 919: Heinrich I the Fowler, Duke of Saxony is elected King of East Francia

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Battle of Lenzen, Battle of Riade, Conrad I of Germany, Duke of Franconia, Duke of Saxony, Henry the Fowler, Hugh Capet, King Rudolph of the Franks, Kingdom of East Francia, Kingdom of Germany, Liudolfing, Matilda of Ringelheim, Pope Leo VII, Stem Duchies

Heinrich I the Fowler (c. 876 – 2 July 936) was the Duke of Saxony from 912 and the King of East Francia from 919 until his death in 936. As the first non-Frankish king of East Francia, he established the Ottonian dynasty of kings and emperors, and he is generally considered to be the founder of the medieval German state, known until then as East Francia. An avid hunter, he obtained the epithet “the Fowler” because he was allegedly fixing his birding nets when messengers arrived to inform him that he was to be king.

Heinrich was born into the Liudolfing line of Saxon dukes in Memleben, what is now Saxony-Anhalt, Heinrich was the son of Otto the Illustrious, Duke of Saxony, and his wife Hedwiga, who was probably the daughter of Heinrich of Franconia.

In 906 he married Hatheburg of Merseburg, daughter of the Saxon count Erwin. She had previously been a nun. The marriage was annulled in 909 because her vows as a nun were deemed by the church to remain valid. She had already given birth to Heinrich’s son Thankmar. The annulment placed a question mark over Thankmar’s legitimacy.

Later that year he married Matilda, daughter of Dietrich of Ringelheim, Count in Westphalia. Matilda bore him three sons and two daughters, Hedwige and Gerberga, and founded many religious institutions, including the Quedlinburg Abbey where Heinrich and Matilda are buried. She was later canonized.

His father Duke Otto I of Saxony died in 912 and was succeeded by Heinrich. The new duke launched a rebellion against the King of East Francia, Duke 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.

On May 24, 919 the nobles of Franconia and Saxony elect Heinrich I the Fowler at the Imperial Diet in Fritzlar as King of the East Francia. He went on to defeat the rebellious dukes of Bavaria and Swabia, consolidating his rule. Through successful warfare and a dynastic marriage, Heinrich acquired Lotharingia as a vassal in 925. Unlike his Carolingian predecessors, Heinrich did not seek to create a centralized monarchy, ruling through federated autonomous stem duchies instead.

Heinrich built an extensive system of fortifications and mobile heavy cavalry across the Kingdom of East Francia to neutralize the Magyar threat and in 933 routed them at the Battle of Riade, ending Magyar attacks for the next 21 years and giving rise to a sense of German nationhood.

Heinrich greatly expanded German hegemony in Europe with his defeat of the Slavs in 929 at the Battle of Lenzen along the Elbe river, by compelling the submission of Duke Wenceslaus I of Bohemia through an invasion of the Duchy of Bohemia the same year and by conquering Danish realms in Schleswig in 934.

Heinrich’s hegemonic status north of the Alps was acknowledged by King Rudolph of West Francia and King Rudolph II of Upper Burgundy, who both accepted a place of subordination as allies in 935. Heinrich planned an expedition to Rome to be crowned Emperor by Pope Leo VII but the design was thwarted by his death. Heinrich prevented a collapse of royal power, as had happened in West Francia, and left a much stronger kingdom to his successor Otto I. He was buried at Quedlinburg Abbey, established by his wife Matilda in his honour.

His son Otto I, traditionally known as Otto the Great, continued his father’s work of unifying all German tribes into a single kingdom and greatly expanded the king’s powers. He installed members of his family in the kingdom’s most important duchies, subjected the clergy to his personal control, defeated the Magyars and conquered the Kingdom of Italy and was crowned Emperor by Pope John XII in 962.

King Heinrich’s daughter, Hedwige of Saxony (c. 910 – after 958), was Duchess consort of the Franks by her marriage to the Robertian Duke Hugh the Great of the Franks. Upon her husband’s death in 956, she acted as a regent during the minority of their son Hugh Capét, the founder of the senior line of the House of Capét who became King of West Francia and a forerunner of the Kingdom of France.

May 22, 1581: Birth of Archduchess Gregoria Maximiliana of Austria

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Archduchess Anna of Austria, Archduchess Gregoria Maximiliana of Austria, Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria, Emperor Ferdinand I, House of Habsburg, King Philip III of Spain, King Sigismund III Vasa of Poland, Prince of Asturias, Princess Maria Anna of Bavaria

Archduchess Gregoria Maximiliana of Austria (May 22, 1581 – September 20, 1597) was a member of the House of Habsburg.

She was the daughter of Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria and his wife/niece, Princess Maria Anna of Bavaria.

Her father was Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria was the son of Emperor Ferdinand I (1503–1564) from his marriage with the Jagiellonian princess Anna of Bohemia and Hungary (1503–1547).

Her mother was Princess Maria Anna of Bavaria daughter of Albrecht V, Duke of Bavaria and Archduchess Anna of Austria. Archduchess Anna of Austria was one of the fifteen children of Emperor Ferdinand I and Princess Anna of Bohemia and Hungary. As mentioned, Princess Maria Anna of Bavaria and her husband, Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria, were uncle and niece.

Archduchess Anna of Austria’s paternal grandparents were King Felipe I of Castile (Archduke Philipp of Austria, Duke of Burgundy) and his wife Queen Joanna of Castile. Her maternal grandparents were King Vladislaus II of Bohemia and Hungary and his third wife Anne of Foix-Candale.

Archduchess Gregoria Maximiliana’s elder brother, Archduke Ferdinand, succeeded as Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand II in 1619.

Life

Archduchess Gregoria Maximiliana of Austria was born in Graz, her godparents were Pope Gregory XIII and her maternal aunt, Princess Maximiliana Maria of Bavaria. Named after both godparents, Archduchess Gregoria Maximiliana was described as an extremely pious Princess that had the closest relationship to her mother among her siblings.

Amongst her siblings was the aforementioned Emperor Ferdinand II, Archduchess Margaret and Archduchess Anna and Archduchess Constance, who through their subsequent marriages to King Sigismund III Vasa of Poland, became Queens of Poland.

In addition to the Habsburg inferior lip, Gregoria Maximiliana suffered from a deformed shoulder and a scarred face.

In 1596, the Admiral of Aragon arrived to Graz and had deliver to the Spanish court portraits of Gregoria Maximiliana and her two younger sisters in marriageable age, Archduchess Eleanor and Archduchess Margaret.

Shortly after, Archduchess Gregoria Maximiliana was betrothed to the Prince of Asturias, future King Felipe III of Spain. Although the Prince, after seeing the portraits, preferred her sister Archduchess Margaret, his father King Felipe II of Spain chose Archduchess Gregoria Maximiliana as his bride, mainly because she was the older sister.

On September 17, 1597, the Prince of Asturias made a visit to the Imperial court in Graz. At this time, Archduchess Gregoria Maximiliana was seriously ill and she compared her suffering to the prisoners of the Turkish sultan. Three days later, she died aged sixteen, and was in buried in Seckau Abbey. Archduchess Gregoria Maximiliana’s fiancé (future King Felipe III of Spain) married her sister Archduchess Margaret, and his first choice, in 1599.

May 19, 1051: Marriage of King Henri I of the Franks and Anne of Kiev

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Anne of Kiev, Consanguineous, Grand Prince of Kiev, Henry I of France, House of Capet, Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden, Matilda of Frisia, Philip of France, Robert II of France, Yaroslavl the Wise

Henri I (May 4, 1008 – August 4, 1060) was King of the Franks from 1031 to 1060. The royal demesne of France reached its smallest size during his reign, and for this reason he is often seen as emblematic of the weakness of the early Capetians. This is not entirely agreed upon, however, as other historians regard him as a strong but realistic king, who was forced to conduct a policy mindful of the limitations of the French monarchy.

A member of the House of Capét, Henri was born in Reims, the son of King Robért II (972–1031) and Constance of Arles (986–1034) Constance was the daughter of Guillaume I, Count of Provence and Adelaide-Blanche of Anjou, daughter of Fulk II of Anjou.

In the early-Capetian tradition, Henri was crowned King of Franks at the Cathedral of Reims on May 14, 1027, while his father still lived. He had little influence and power until he became sole ruler on his father’s death four years later.

The reign of Henri I, like those of his predecessors, was marked by territorial struggles. Initially, he joined his younger brother Robért, with the support of their mother, in a revolt against his father (1025). His mother, however, supported Robert as heir to the old king, on whose death Henry was left to deal with his rebel sibling. In 1032, he placated his brother by giving him the duchy of Burgundy which his father had given him in 1016.

Henri I was betrothed to Matilda, the daughter of Conrad II, Holy Roman Emperor, but she died prematurely in 1034. Henri then married Matilda of Frisia, but she died in 1044.

The negotiations for Anne of Kiev’s marriage to the 18-years-older King Henri took place in the late 1040s, after the death of Henri’s first wife, Matilda of Frisia, and their only child. Due to the pressing need for an heir, and the Church’s growing disapproval of consanguineous marriages, it became necessary for Henri to seek an unrelated bride. Anne was a daughter of Yaroslav the Wise, Grand Prince of Kiev and Prince of Novgorod, and his second wife Ingegerd Olofsdotter of Sweden.

The Kievan Rus’ was not unknown to the French. Yaroslav had married several of his children to Western rulers in an attempt to avoid the influence of the Byzantine Empire

Henri married Anne on May 19, 1051, during the feast of Pentecost. Their wedding followed the installation of Lietbert as bishop of Cambrai, and Anne was crowned immediately following the marriage ceremony, making her the first French Queen to celebrate her coronation in Reims Cathedral.

Anne and Henri were married for nine years and had three sons: Philippe, Robért (who died young), and Hugh. Anne is often credited with introducing the Greek name “Philip” to royal families of Western Europe, as she bestowed it on her first son; she might have imported this Greek name from her Eastern Orthodox culture. There may also have been a daughter, Emma, perhaps born in 1055; it is unknown if she married or when she died. Henri and Anne of Kiev are additionally said to have been the parents of the beatified figure Edigna.

The Life of Prince Friedrich Heinrich of Prussia (1874 – 1940)

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Evangelical Church of the Holy Cross, German Emperor Friedrich III, German Emperor Wilhelm II, Homosexuality, House of Hohenzollern, King Frederick William III of Prussia, Prince Albert of Prussia, Prince Frederick Henry of Prussia, Prince Friedrich Heinrich of Prussia

Prince Friedrich Heinrich of Prussia (April 15, 1874 – November 30, 1940) was a Prussian officer, member of the house of Hohenzollern, and a great-grandson of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia. He was persecuted for being homosexual.

Prince Friedrich Heinrich was the oldest son of Prince Albrecht of Prussia (1837–1906) and his wife Princess Marie of Saxe-Altenburg (1854–1898), the only surviving child of Ernst I, Duke of Saxe-Altenburg and his wife Princess Agnes of Anhalt-Dessau. Prince Friedrich Heinrich he stood over six feet tall.

He studied law at Friedrich-Wilhelms University in Bonn. In 1895, he became a member of the fraternity “Corps Borussia Bonn,” and later became an honorary member of the Burschenschaft Vandalia Berlin. He traveled to Italy, Norway, and Sweden.

Military career

After university, he took up a career as a commissioned officer. He began as a major in the 1st Guard Dragoon Regiment “Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland,” and then was called to the command of the German General Staff in 1902.

In 1904, he became the commander of the 1st Brandenburg Dragoon Regiment Number 2; he would rise to colonel on May 21, 1906.

Homosexuality

He was relieved of his post as Commander of the Regiment at the beginning of 1907 and expelled from the Prussian Army because of his homosexuality. He was allowed to reenlist at the beginning of World War I as a private, but was denied promotion.

At the end of 1906, at the wishes of German Emperor Wilhelm II and as the heir of his deceased father, Friedrich Heinrich was voted the Herrenmeister of the Order of Saint John. However, due to increasing knowledge of his homosexuality, Prince Eitel Friedrich became the Herrenmeister instead. Journalist Maximilian Harden published an article on April 27, 1907 that this change in leadership was because the prince “suffers from an inherited version of inverted sex drive.” This is likely a reference to his homosexual ancestor Prince Heinrich of Prussia (1726–1802).

His ancestor, Prince Heinrich of Prussia (1726–1802), was a son of King Friedrich Wilhelm I of Prussia and Princess Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, and the younger brother of King Friedrich II the Great. Prince Heinrich led Prussian armies in the Silesian Wars and the Seven Years’ War, having never lost a battle in the latter. In 1786, he was suggested as a candidate for a monarch for the United States.

In response to this publicity, Prince Friedrich Heinrich left Berlin on the advice of Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg. He spent time in the south of France and Egypt before returning to Germany, where he lived in seclusion on his estates in Silesia.

At the beginning of 1910, he gave up his presidency of the Academy of Charitable Sciences at Erfurt to his brother Prince Friedrich Wilhelm of Prussia (July 12, 1880 – March 9, 1925) .

Later years

His inheritance included the towns of Kamenz and Zawidów in the southeastern area of Province of Lower Silesia; his contributions to the economic development of the area and care for the townsfolk made him locally popular. With his own money, he established the Evangelical Church of the Holy Cross in Wölfelsgrund in 1911 and the Church of the Resurrection in Zawidów in 1913, and brought in deaconesses for local nursing homes. He also promoted local forestry and dispensed honors to locals.

He was never married and died without descendants, ending the paternal line of his grandfather, Prince Albrecht of Prussia (1809–1872) youngest child of King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia and Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. Two of Albrecht’s elder brothers were Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia from 1840 till 1861, and Wilhelm I, King of Prussia from 1861 to 1888 and German Emperor from 1871 until 1888.

Prince Friedrich Heinrich of Prussia died on November 13, 1940 in Zawidów and was buried in the mausoleum there.

After his death, Waldemar, son of Prince Heinrich and the grandson of German Emperor Friedrich III inherited the castle in Kamenz.

What does the term Popular Monarchy mean?

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Alfred the Great, Æthelstan, Clovis I, King of England, King of the English, King of the Franks, King of the Germans, Kingdom of the Belgians, Louis XVI of France, Napoleon, Philip II of France, Popular Monarchy, tribe

Popular monarchy is a term used by Kingsley Martin (1936) for monarchical titles that refer to a people, or a tribe, rather than a territory or a nation state. This manner of titiling a monarch was the norm in classical antiquity and throughout much of the Middle Ages, and such titles were retained in some of the monarchies of 19th- and 20th-century Europe.

For example, Alfred the Great was King of the West Saxons (Wessex) from 871 to 886. In 886, Alfred reoccupied the city of London and set out to make it habitable again. Alfred entrusted the city to the care of his son-in-law Æthelred, ealdorman of Mercia. Soon afterwards, Alfred restyled himself as “King of the Anglo-Saxons.” Alfred remained King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899.

Alfred’s grandson, King Æthelstan (c. 894 – 27 October 939), was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927. By 927 Æthelstan had become the first king of all the Anglo-Saxon peoples, and in effect overlord of Britain. That year he adopted the title King of the English a title to his death in 939.

The title “King of the English” or (Rex Anglorum in Latin), was first used to describe Æthelstan in one of his charters in 928. Modern historians regard Æthelstan as the first King of England and one of the “greatest Anglo-Saxon kings”.

The standard title for monarchs from King Æthelstan until King John (1199 — 1216) was “King of the English”. Canute the Great, a Dane, was the first to call himself “King of England.” In the Norman period “King of the English” remained standard, with occasional use of “King of England” (Rex Anglie). From John’s reign onwards all other titles were eschewed in favour of “King” or “Queen of England”.

The Franks, a Germanic-speaking peoples that invaded the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, were first led by individuals called dukes and reguli. The earliest group of Franks that rose to prominence was the Salian Merovingians, who conquered most of Roman Gaul, as well as the Gaulish territory of the Visigothic Kingdom, in 507 AD.

The sons of Clovis I, the first King of the Franks, conquered the Burgundian and the Alamanni Kingdoms. Clovis was a member of the Merovingian Dynasty. The Merovingians were later replaced by the new Carolingian dynasty in the 8th century. By the late 9th century, the Carolingians themselves had been replaced throughout much of their realm by other dynasties.

As inheritance traditions changed over time, the divisions of Francia (the lands of the Franks) started to become kingdoms that were more permanent. West Francia formed the heart of what was to become the Kingdom of France; East Francia evolved into the Kingdom of the Germans (which later evolved into the Holy Roman Empire); and Middle Francia became the Kingdom of Lotharingia in the north, the Kingdom of Italy in the south, and the Kingdom of Provence in the west. West and East Francia soon divided up the area of Middle Francia, and Germany lost Carolingian control in 911 with the election of Conrad I of Franconia as king.

The idea of a “King of the Franks” (or Rex Francorum) gradually disappeared during the 11th and 12th centuries. All the predecessors on the throne of West Francia had been known as Kings of the Franks, but from 1190 onward, Philip became the first French monarch to style himself “King of France” (Latin: Rex Francie)

The Kingdom of the Franks had long been extinct, but the title “Queen consort of the Franks” continued to be used until 1227. That represented a shift in thinking about the monarchy from that of a popular monarchy, the leader of a people, sometimes without a defined territory to rule, to that of a monarchy tied to a specific territory.

During the French Revolution Louis XVI had to change his title to indicate he was “king of the French” rather than “king of France”, paralleling the title of “king of the Franks” (rex Francorum) used in medieval France.

Even Napoleon called himself Emperor of the French and not Emperor of France.

Currently, Belgium has the only explicit popular monarchy, the formal title of its king being King of the Belgians rather than King of Belgium.

April 14, 1578: Birth of Felipe III, King of Spain, Portugal, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia and Duke of Milan

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Archduchess Margaret of Austria, Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria, Duke of Lerma, Emperor Charles V, Emperor Maximilian II, King Carlos I of Spain, King Felipe III of Spain, King of Portugal

Felipe III (April 14, 1578 – March 31, 1621) was King of Spain. As Felipe II, he was also King of Portugal, Naples, Sicily and Sardinia and Duke of Milan from 1598 until his death in 1621.

A member of the House of Habsburg, Felipe III was born in Madrid to King Felipe II of Spain and his fourth wife and niece Archduchess Anna of Austria the daughter of Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian II and Infanta Maria of Spain, the daughter of Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and King Carlos I of Spain, and Infanta Isabella of Portugal.

Although also known in Spain as Felipe the Pious, Felipe’s political reputation abroad has been largely negative. Historians C. V. Wedgwood, R. Stradling and J. H. Elliott have described him, respectively, as an “undistinguished and insignificant man,” a “miserable monarch,” and a “pallid, anonymous creature, whose only virtue appeared to reside in a total absence of vice.”

In particular, Felipe’s reliance on his corrupt chief minister, the Duke of Lerma, drew much criticism at the time and afterwards. For many, the decline of Spain can be dated to the economic difficulties that set in during the early years of his reign. Nonetheless, as the ruler of the Spanish Empire at its height and as the king who achieved a temporary peace with the Dutch (1609–1621) and brought Spain into the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) through an (initially) extremely successful campaign, Philip’s reign remains a critical period in Spanish history.

Early life

After Felipe III’s older half-brother Don Carlos died insane, their father Felipe II had concluded that one of the causes of Carlos’ condition had been the influence of the warring factions at the Spanish court. He believed that Carlos’ education and upbringing had been badly affected by this, resulting in his lunacy and disobedience, and accordingly he set out to pay much greater attention to arrangements for his later sons.

King Felipe II appointed Juan de Zúñiga, then Infante Diego’s governor, to continue this role for Felipe, and chose García de Loaysa as his tutor. They were joined by Cristóbal de Moura, a close supporter of Felipe II. In combination, Felipe II believed, they would provide a consistent, stable upbringing for Infante Felipe, and ensure that he would avoid the same fate as Carlos.

Felipe III’s education was to follow the model for royal princes laid down by Father Juan de Mariana, focusing on the imposition of restraints and encouragement to form the personality of the individual at an early age, aiming to deliver a king who was neither tyrannical nor excessively under the influence of his courtiers.

King Felipe III appears to have been generally liked by his contemporaries: ‘dynamic, good-natured and earnest,’ suitably pious, having a ‘lively body and a peaceful disposition,’ albeit with a relatively weak constitution. The comparison with the memory of the disobedient and ultimately insane Carlos was usually a positive one, although some commented that King Felipe III appeared less intelligent and politically competent than his late brother.

Indeed, although King Felipe III was educated in Latin, French, Portuguese and astronomy, and appears to have been a competent linguist, recent historians suspect that much of his tutors’ focus on Felipe III’s undeniably pleasant, pious and respectful disposition was to avoid reporting that, languages aside, he was not in fact particularly intelligent or academically gifted. Nonetheless, Felipe III does not appear to have been naive—his correspondence to his daughters shows a distinctive cautious streak in his advice on dealing with court intrigue.

Philip married his cousin, Archduchess Margaret of Austria, on April 18, 1599, a year after becoming king. Archduchess Margaret the daughter of Archduke Charles II of Inner Austria and Maria Anna of Bavaria and thus the paternal granddaughter of the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I. Her elder brother was the Archduke Ferdinand, who succeeded as Emperor Ferdinand II in 1619. Two of her sisters, Anna and Constance, through their subsequent marriages to King Sigismund III Vasa, became Queens of Poland.

Queen Margaret would be one of three women at Felipe III’s court who would apply considerable influence over the King. Margaret was considered by contemporaries to be extremely pious—in some cases, excessively pious, and too influenced by the Church—’astute and very skillful’ in her political dealings, although ‘melancholic’ and unhappy over the influence of the Duke of Lerma over her husband at court. Margaret continued to fight an ongoing battle with Lerma for influence up until her death in 1611. King Felipe III had an ‘affectionate, close relationship’ with Margaret, and paid her additional attention after she bore him a son in 1605.

Margaret, alongside Felipe’s grandmother/aunt, Empress Maria—the Austrian representative to the Spanish court—and Margaret of the Cross, Maria’s daughter—formed a powerful, uncompromising Catholic and pro-Austrian voice within Felipe’s life. They were successful, for example, in convincing Felipe to provide financial support to Ferdinand from 1600 onwards.

King Felipe III died in Madrid on March 31, 1621, and was succeeded by his son, Felipe IV, who rapidly completed the process of removing the last elements of the Sandoval family regime from court. The story told in the memoirs of the French ambassador Bassompierre, that he was killed by the heat of a brasero (a pan of hot charcoal), because the proper official to take it away was not at hand, is a humorous exaggeration of the formal etiquette of the court.[citation needed]

King Felipe III has generally left a poor legacy with historians. Three major historians of the period have described an ‘undistinguished and insignificant man’, a ‘miserable monarch’, whose ‘only virtue appeared to reside in a total absence of vice’. More generally, Philip has largely retained the reputation of ‘a weak, dim-witted monarch who preferred hunting and traveling to governing’.

Was He A Usurper? King Richard III. Part IV

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1st Duke of Clarence, Bishop Stillington, George Plantagenet, King Edward IV, King Edward V, King Richard III, Lady Eleanor Butler, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Parliament of England, Philippe de Commines, Titulus Regius, Usurper

From the Emperor’s Desk: As I focus on the issues surrounding Richard III becoming King I will not be addressing the fate of the Princes in the Tower. Although it is a related topic, I view it as a separate issue, for their fate was a result of Richard taking the throne, therefore I will address that in another blog entry in the near future.

King Richard III succeeded to the English throne based on the claims of Titulus Regius. Titulus Regius (“royal title” in Latin) is a statute of the Parliament of England issued in 1484 by which the title of King of England was given to Richard III.

The act ratified the declaration of the Lords and the members of the House of Commons a year earlier that the marriage of King Edward IV of England to Elizabeth Woodville had been invalid and so their children, including King Edward V, Richard and Elizabeth, were illegitimate and thus debarred from the throne.

Richard III had been proclaimed the rightful king. Since the Lords and the Commons had not been officially convened as a parliament, doubts had arisen as to its validity and so when Parliament convened, it enacted the declaration as a law.

Edward’s marriage was invalidated because Bishop Robert Stillington testified that the king had precontracted a marriage to Lady Eleanor Butler. The document also claimed that Elizabeth Woodville and her mother had used witchcraft to get the king to marry her.

Since Richard’s brother George, Duke of Clarence, had been executed and attainted, his descendants forfeited all rights to the throne, leaving Richard the true heir. For good measure, the document also hinted that George and Edward (born in Ireland and Normandy, respectively) were themselves illegitimate and stated Richard, “born within this land” was the “undoubted son and heir of Richard, late Duke of York”.

If Bishop Robert Stillington was correct and King Edward IV had pre-contract with Lady Eleanor Butler (Talbot) then his marriage to Elizabeth Woodville would have been invalid.

After the overthrow and death of King Richard III at the hands of Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, the precontract alleged by Richard was presented as a fiction to justify Richard’s usurpation of power and to cover his murder of the princes. Some historians have agreed with this view. Supporters of Richard, however, have argued that the precontract was real and that it legitimised his accession to the throne.

What do we know of Lady Eleanor Butler (Talbot)?

Lady Eleanor Talbot (c. 1436 – June 1468), also known by her married name Eleanor Butler (or Boteler), was an English noblewoman. She was a daughter of John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury.

In 1449, 13-year-old Eleanor married Sir Thomas Butler (or Boteler), son of Ralph Boteler, Lord Sudeley. Thomas died at an unknown date before Edward IV of England’s overthrow of the House of Lancaster on 4 March 1461. Her father-in-law Lord Sudeley took back one of the two manors he had settled on her and her husband when they married, even though he did not have a license for the transfer. Edward seized both properties after he became king.

Eleanor died in June 1468. She was buried on 30 June in Norwich.

Because author Philippe de Commines does not name the “beautiful young lady”, and the official copy of Titulus Regius in parliament had been destroyed, Tudor historians confused Talbot with Edward’s long-standing mistress Elizabeth Lucy (also known as Elizabeth Wayte). Elizabeth Lucy was probably the mother of Edward IV’s bastard son, Arthur Plantagenet, 1st Viscount Lisle.

Thomas More in his life of Richard III states that Lucy was interrogated at the time of Edward’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville, because Edward’s mother was strongly opposed to the marriage and had suggested that Edward was pre-contracted to Lucy. But Lucy denied that any contract had been made. He says that Richard revived the claim of Lucy after Edward’s death.

This threw further doubt on the case, but later historians correctly identified her. George Buck, who found the only surviving copy of Titulus Regius, was the first to identify Eleanor Talbot as the woman in question. Buck, a defender of Richard, accepted the validity of the precontract. His view has been followed by many defenders of Richard since, including Horace Walpole and Clements Markham.

Later Ricardians have also either accepted it as fact, or argued that Richard sincerely believed it to be true. It is also commonly argued by Ricardians that Stillington was imprisoned by Edward IV in 1478 because he incautiously spoke of the precontract to George, Duke of Clarence.

Part V will come next week.

April 11, 1165: Death of King Stephen IV of Hungary and Croatia

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Byzantine Emperor Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich I, King Géza II of Hungary and Croatia, King Ladislaus II of Hungary and Croatia, King Stephen III of Hungary and Croatia, King Stephen IV of Hungary and Croatia

Stephen IV (1133 – April 11, 1165) was King of Hungary and Croatia, ascending to the throne between 1163 and 1165, when he usurped the crown of his nephew, Stephen III.

Stephen was the third son of King Béla II the Blind and his wife, Helena of Rascia, born about 1133. The earliest recorded event of Stephen’s life occurred during the reign of his oldest brother, Géza II, who succeeded their father on February 13, 1141. King Géza II “granted ducal revenues to his brothers”, Ladislaus and Stephen, according to the Illuminated Chronicle.

While the chronicle does not specify the date of this event, historian Bálint Hóman wrote that it happened in 1146. However, scholars Ferenc Makk and Gyula Kristó claim it was later, in about 1152, at the same time Géza II officially appointed his son, Stephen, as his heir.

Stephen conspired against his brother King Géza II of Hungary and Croatia, and when his conspiracy against his brother failed, he was exiled from Hungary in the summer of 1157. He first sought refuge in the Holy Roman Empire, but received no support from Emperor Friedrich I. Shortly afterwards he moved to the Byzantine Empire, where he married a niece of Emperor Manuel I Komnenos, Maria Komnene, and converted to the Eastern Orthodox Church.

After Géza II died on May 31, 1162, Stephen was crowned King Stephen III of Hungary and Croatia in early June 1162. However, his two uncles, Ladislaus and Stephen, who had joined the court of the Byzantine Empire, challenged his right to the crown. Only six weeks after his coronation, the Byzantine Emperor Manuel I Komnenos launched an expedition against Hungary, forcing the Hungarian lords to accept Ladislaus’ rule and became as King Ladislaus II. The exiled Stephen III sought refuge in Austria, but returned and seized Pressburg (now Bratislava in Slovakia).

Ladislaus II granted the ducatus, or duchy, which included one-third of the kingdom, to Stephen III.

King Ladislaus II died only a few months later on January 14, 1163, and Stephen succeeded him as King Stephen IV of Hungary and Croatia. Lucas, Archbishop of Esztergom, who remained a staunch supporter of the expelled young Stephen III, refused to crown him and excommunicated him.

King Stephen IV remained unpopular among the Hungarian lords, enabling his nephew to muster an army. In the decisive battle, which was fought at Székesfehérvár on June 19, 1163, the younger Stephen routed his uncle, forcing him once again to flee Hungary.

Stephen IV attempted to regain his throne with the assistance of Byzantine Emperor Manuel I and Holy Roman Emperor Friedrich I, but both emperors abandoned him. Stephen agreed to send his younger brother, Béla, to Constantinople and to allow the Byzantines to seize Béla’s duchy, which included Croatia, Dalmatia and Sirmium. In an attempt to recapture these territories, Stephen III waged wars against the Byzantine Empire between 1164 and 1167, but could not defeat the Byzantines.

Emperor Manuel settled Stephen IV in Syrmium, a province acquired from Hungary. King Stephen IV died of poisoning by his nephew’s partisans during the siege of Zimony (now Zemun in Serbia).

Stephen’s wife, Maria, was the daughter of sebastocrator Isaac Komnenos, who was Emperor Manuel I’s youngest brother. Her mother was Isaac Komnenos’s first wife, Theodora, whose family is unknown. Their marriage did not produce any children whose birth was recorded.

April 7, 1498: Death of King Charles VIII of France

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Anne of Brittany, Charlotte of Savoy, Emperor Maximilian I, Francis II of Brittany, King Charles VIII of France, King Louis XI of France, King Louis XII of France

Charles VIII, called the Affable (June 30, 1470 – April 7, 1498), was King of France from 1483 to his death in 1498.

Charles was born at the Château d’Amboise in France, the only surviving son of King Louis XI of France by his second wife Charlotte of Savoy. She was a daughter of Louis, Duke of Savoy and Anne of Cyprus. She was one of 19 children, 14 of whom survived infancy.

His godparents were Charles II, Duke of Bourbon (the godchild’s namesake), Joan of Valois, Duchess of Bourbon, and the teenage Edward of Westminster, the son of Henry VI of England who had been living in France since the deposition of his father by Edward IV.

He succeeded his father Louis XI at the age of 13. His elder sister Anne acted as regent jointly with her husband Pierre II, Duke of Bourbon until 1491 when the young king turned 21 years of age. During Anne’s regency, the great lords rebelled against royal centralisation efforts in a conflict known as the Mad War (1485–1488), which resulted in a victory for the royal government.

Charles was betrothed on July 22, 1483 to the 3-year-old Archduchess Margaret of Austria, daughter of the Archduke Maximilian of Austria (later Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I) and Mary, Duchess of Burgundy. The marriage was arranged by Louis XI, Maximilian, and the Estates of the Low Countries as part of the 1482 Peace of Arras between France and the Duchy of Burgundy. Margaret brought the counties of Artois and Burgundy to France as her dowry, and she was raised in the French court as a prospective queen.

In 1488, however, François II, Duke of Brittany, died in a riding accident, leaving his 11-year-old daughter Anne as his heir. Anne, who feared for the independence of her duchy against the ambitions of France, arranged a marriage in 1490 between herself and the widower Maximilian. The regent Anne of France and her husband Peter refused to countenance such a marriage, however, since it would place Maximilian and his family, the Habsburgs, on two French borders.

The French army invaded Brittany, taking advantage of the preoccupation of Maximilian and his father, Emperor Friedrich III, with the disputed succession to Mathias Corvinus, King of Hungary. Anne of Brittany was forced to renounce Maximilian (whom she had only married by proxy) and agreed to be married to Charles VIII instead.

Preoccupied by the problematic succession in the Kingdom of Hungary, Maximilian failed to press his claim. Upon his marriage, Charles became administrator of Brittany and established a personal union that enabled France to avoid total encirclement by Habsburg territories.

To secure his rights to the Neapolitan throne that René of Anjou had left to his father, Charles made a series of concessions to neighbouring monarchs and conquered the Italian peninsula without much opposition. A coalition formed against the French invasion of 1494–98 attempted to stop Charles’ army at Fornovo, but failed and Charles marched his army back to France.

King Charles VIII died in 1498 after accidentally striking his head on the lintel of a door at the Château d’Amboise, his place of birth. Since he had no male heir, he was succeeded by his second cousin once removed and brother-in-law at the time, Louis, Duke of Orléans, the son of Charles, Duke of Orléans, and Maria of Cleves from the Orléans cadet branch of the House of Valois. He became King Louis XII of France.