May 23, 1533: The Marriage of King Henry VIII and Infanta Catherine of Aragon is declared annulled

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Anne Boleyn, Archbishop of Canterbury, Cardinal Wolsey, Carlos I of Spain, Catherine of Aragon, Emperor Charles V, King Francis I of France, King Henry VIII of England and Ireland, Pope Clement VII, Thomas Cranmer

During his marriage to Catherine of Aragon, King Henry VIII conducted an affair with Mary Boleyn, Catherine’s lady-in-waiting. There has been speculation that Mary’s two children, Henry Carey and Catherine Carey, were fathered by Henry, but this has never been proved, and the king never acknowledged them as he did in the case of Henry FitzRoy. In 1525, as Henry grew more impatient with Catherine’s inability to produce the male heir he desired, he became enamoured of Mary Boleyn’s sister, Anne Boleyn, then a charismatic young woman of 25 in the queen’s entourage. Anne, however, resisted his attempts to seduce her, and refused to become his mistress as her sister had.

It was in this context that Henry considered his three options for finding a dynastic successor and hence resolving what came to be described at court as the king’s “great matter”. These options were legitimising Henry FitzRoy, which would need the involvement of the Pope Clement VII and would be open to challenge; marrying off Mary, his daughter with Catherine, as soon as possible and hoping for a grandson to inherit directly, but Mary was considered unlikely to conceive before Henry’s death, or somehow rejecting Catherine and marrying someone else of child-bearing age. Probably seeing the possibility of marrying Anne, the third was ultimately the most attractive possibility to the 34-year-old Henry, and it soon became the king’s absorbing desire to annul his marriage to the now 40-year-old Catherine.

Henry’s precise motivations and intentions over the coming years are not widely agreed on. Henry himself, at least in the early part of his reign, was a devout and well-informed Catholic to the extent that his 1521 publication Assertio Septem Sacramentorum (“Defence of the Seven Sacraments”) earned him the title of Fidei Defensor (Defender of the Faith) from Pope Leo X. The work represented a staunch defence of papal supremacy, albeit one couched in somewhat contingent terms.

It is not clear exactly when Henry changed his mind on the issue as he grew more intent on a second marriage. Certainly, by 1527, he had convinced himself that Catherine had produced no male heir because their union was “blighted in the eyes of God”. Indeed, in marrying Catherine, his brother’s wife, he had acted contrary to Leviticus 20:21, a justification Thomas Cranmer used to declare the marriage null. Martin Luther, on the other hand, had initially argued against the annulment, stating that Henry VIII could take a second wife in accordance with his teaching that the Bible allowed for polygamy but not divorce.

Henry now believed the Pope had lacked the authority to grant a dispensation from this impediment. It was this argument Henry took to Pope Clement VII in 1527 in the hope of having his marriage to Catherine annulled, forgoing at least one less openly defiant line of attack. In going public, all hope of tempting Catherine to retire to a nunnery or otherwise stay quiet was lost. Henry sent his secretary, William Knight, to appeal directly to the Holy See by way of a deceptively worded draft papal bull. Knight was unsuccessful; the Pope could not be misled so easily.

Other missions concentrated on arranging an ecclesiastical court to meet in England, with a representative from Clement VII. Although Clement agreed to the creation of such a court, he never had any intention of empowering his legate, Lorenzo Campeggio, to decide in Henry’s favour. This bias was perhaps the result of pressure from Emperor Charles V, Catherine’s nephew, but it is not clear how far this influenced either Campeggio or the Pope.

After less than two months of hearing evidence, Clement called the case back to Rome in July 1529, from which it was clear that it would never re-emerge. With the chance for an annulment lost, Cardinal Wolsey bore the blame. He was charged with praemunire in October 1529, and his fall from grace was “sudden and total”. Briefly reconciled with Henry (and officially pardoned) in the first half of 1530, he was charged once more in November 1530, this time for treason, but died while awaiting trial.

After a short period in which Henry took government upon his own shoulders, Sir Thomas More took on the role of Lord Chancellor and chief minister. Intelligent and able, but a devout Catholic and opponent of the annulment, More initially cooperated with the king’s new policy, denouncing Wolsey in Parliament.

A year later, Catherine was banished from court, and her rooms were given to Anne Boleyn. Anne was an unusually educated and intellectual woman for her time and was keenly absorbed and engaged with the ideas of the Protestant Reformers, but the extent to which she herself was a committed Protestant is much debated. When Archbishop of Canterbury William Warham died, Anne’s influence and the need to find a trustworthy supporter of the annulment had Thomas Cranmer appointed to the vacant position. This was approved by the Pope, unaware of the king’s nascent plans for the Church.

In the winter of 1532, Henry met with King François I of France at Calais and enlisted the support of the French king for his new marriage. Immediately upon returning to Dover in England, Henry, now 41, and Anne went through a secret wedding service. She soon became pregnant, and there was a second wedding service in London on January 25, 1533. On May 23, 1533, Cranmer, sitting in judgment at a special court convened at Dunstable Priory to rule on the validity of the king’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon, declared the marriage of Henry and Catherine null and void.

Five days later, on May 28, 1533, Cranmer declared the marriage of Henry and Anne to be valid. Catherine was formally stripped of her title as queen, becoming instead “princess dowager” as the widow of Arthur. In her place, Anne was crowned queen on June 1, 1533. The queen gave birth to a daughter slightly prematurely on September 7, 1533. The child was christened Elizabeth, in honour of Henry’s mother, Elizabeth of York.

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.

Was He A Usurper? King Richard III. Part III

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Bishop of Bath, Bishop of Bath and Wells, Bishop Robert Stillington, Eleanor Butler, Elizabeth Woodville, King Edward V of England, King Richard III of England, Lady Eleanor Talbot, Lord Protector of England, Titulus Regis

Shortly after the death of King Edward IV, Bishop Robert Stillington, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, is said to have informed Richard that Edward IV’s marriage to Elizabeth Woodville was invalid because of Edward’s earlier union with Eleanor Butler, making Edward V and his siblings illegitimate.

Bishop Stillington asserted Eleanor Butler had had a legal precontract of marriage to Edward, which invalidated the king’s later marriage to Elizabeth Woodville. According to Richard Duke of Gloucester, this meant that he, rather than Edward’s sons, was the true heir to the throne.

A precontract is a legal contract that precedes another; in particular it can refer to an existing promise of marriage with another. Such a precontract would legally nullify any later marriages into which either party entered. The practice was common in the Middle Ages, and the allegation of a precontract was the most common means of dissolving a marriage by the medieval ecclesiastical courts.

The identity of Stillington was known only through the memoirs of French diplomat Philippe de Commines. On June 22, a sermon was preached outside Old St. Paul’s Cathedral by Ralph Shaa, declaring Edward IV’s children bastards and Richard the rightful king. Shortly after, the citizens of London, both nobles and commons, convened and drew up a petition asking Richard to assume the throne.

Richard accepted the throne on June 26 and was crowned at Westminster Abbey on July 6. Richard then persuaded Parliament to pass an act, Titulus Regius, which debarred Edward V from the throne and proclaimed him as King Richard III. The Titulus Regius was confirmed by Parliament in January. Also at a meeting held on January 23, 1484 the former king’s marriage was declared illegal.

The princes, who were still lodged in the royal residence of the Tower of London at the time of Richard’s coronation, disappeared from sight after the summer of 1483. Although after his death Richard III was accused of having Edward and his brother killed, notably by More and in Shakespeare’s play, the facts surrounding their disappearance remain unknown. Other culprits have been suggested, including Buckingham and even Henry VII, although Richard remains a suspect.

After the coronation ceremony, Richard and Anne set out on a royal progress to meet their subjects. During this journey through the country, the king and queen endowed King’s College and Queens’ College at Cambridge University, and made grants to the church. Still feeling a strong bond with his northern estates, Richard later planned the establishment of a large chantry chapel in York Minster with over 100 priests. He also founded the College of Arms.

The Life of Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg. Conclusion.

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Emperor Alexander III of Russia, Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna of Russia, Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich of Russia, Pavlovsk Palace, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg

From The Emperor’s Desk: I got a new Tablet a few days earlier than expected!

Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark

In June 1889, Alexandra’s 18-year-old granddaughter, Princess Alexandra of Greece and Denmark, returned to Russia to marry Grand Duke Paul, who was the younger brother of Emperor Alexander III. Towards the end of the wedding celebrations, Constantine suffered a stroke. This was followed in August 1889 by a severe stroke, which left him unable to walk or speak.

Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna of Russia

For the remaining three years of his life Constantine lived with his wife in her favourite palace Pavlovsk, having a wing of the building to himself. He was confined to a bath chair, and Alexandra saw to it that Constantine was denied contact with his mistress and illegitimate offspring.

Alexandra’s grandson, Christopher of Greece, wrote in his memoirs that Constantine became so frustrated with being under Alexandra’s control that he one day grabbed her by the hair and beat her with his stick. Seeing as Christopher would have only been four years old at the time of Constantine’s death, it is difficult to know the full truth of this story.

Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna of Russia

Despite his illness, Constantine tried to amuse himself as best he could. His grand-nephew Cyril Vladimirovich remembered skating parties at Pavlovsk, where Constantine would watch from his sledge, and how he always “smelt of cigars”. Cyril found Alexandra a formidable woman, with her “high pitched voice….driving about in an open carriage with a kind of awning over it, which could be opened and closed like an umbrella.

“I have never seen anything quite the same anywhere else, and think that she was the only person in the world who had such an ingenious cover to her carriage”.

Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna of Russia in old age

When Constantine died, in January 1892, Alexandra arranged for his mistress Anna to visit Pavlovsk and pray at Constantine’s bedside.

Eleven years later, Alexandra herself suffered a stroke in 1903, eight years before she died and she lived out her days at the Marble Palace in Saint Petersburg. She died on July 6, 1911.

The Life of Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg. Part II.

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Emperor Alexander II of Russia, Grand Duchess Alexandra Iosifovna of Russia, Grand Duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, Grand Duke Constantine of Russia, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg, Queen Olga of the Hellenes

In 1867, Alexandra’s eldest daughter, Olga, married King George I of the Hellenes. She was only sixteen, and her father Grand Duke Constantine was initially reluctant for her to marry so young. In July 1868, Olga’s first child was born and was named Constantine after his grandfather. The beginning of their daughter’s family coincided with the start of the breakdown of Alexandra and Constantine’s marriage.

Although he was only forty, Constantine’s struggles and travails of the previous decade— naval and judiciary reforms, the freeing of the serfs—had prematurely aged him. As his brother Emperor Alexander II turned away from the reform that had marked his first decade on the throne, Constantine’s influence began to wane and he began to focus more on his personal life.

Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg

After twenty years of marriage he had drifted away from his wife. Constantine’s heavy workload, and the couple’s divergent political views and interests had over the years slowly torn away at their relationship. Alexandra was as conservative as her husband was liberal, and she had learned to concern herself with her own society and mysticism. Soon, Constantine turned elsewhere for sexual intimacy.

At the end of the 1860s, Constantine embarked on an affair and conceived an illegitimate daughter, Marie Condousso. In the 1880s, Marie was sent to Greece, later serving as lady in waiting to her half sister, Queen Olga. Marie eventually married a Greek banker.

Soon after the birth of Marie, Constantine began a new liaison. Around 1868, he began to pursue Anna Vasilyevna Kuznetsova, a young dancer from the St Petersburg Conservatoire. She was the illegitimate daughter of ballerina Tatyana Markyanovna Kuznetsova and actor Vasily Andreyevich Karatygin. Anna was twenty years younger than Constantine and in 1873 she gave birth to their first child. Four more would follow.

Princess Alexandra’s daughter, Queen Olga of the Hellenes

Constantine bought his mistress a large, comfortable dacha on his estate at Pavlovsk; thereby lodging his second family in close proximity to his wife Alexandra, whom he now referred to as his “government–issue wife”.

By this act Constantine gave ammunition to his political enemies, with Russian society reacting to the scandal by siding with his suffering wife, Alexandra, who tried to bear his infidelity with dignity.

In 1874, a fresh scandal erupted when it was discovered that Alexandra and Constantine’s eldest son, Grand Duke Nicholas Konstantinovich, who had lived a dissipated life and had revolutionary ideas, had stolen three valuable diamonds from an icon in Alexandra’s private bedroom, aided by his mistress, an American courtesan.

Alexandra’s twenty-four-year-old son was found guilty, declared insane, and banished for life to Central Asia. Alexandra suffered another bitter blow when in 1879, her youngest son, Vyacheslav, died unexpectedly from a brain haemorrhage.

February 15, 1710: Birth of King Louis XV of France and Navarre

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Duke of Orleans, King Louis XV of France and Navarre, Loui Henri, Louis XIV of France and Navarre, Madame de Pompadour, Marie Leszczyńska, Palace of Versailles, Philippe II, Prince of Conde, Regent or France

Louis XV (February 15, 1710 – May 10, 1774), known as Louis the Beloved was King of France and Navarre from September 1, 1715 until his death in 1774.

Louis XV was the great-grandson of Louis XIV and the third son of Prince Louis, Duke of Burgundy (1682–1712), and his wife and cousin, Marie Adélaïde of Savoy, who was the eldest daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy, and Princess Anne Marie d’Orléans.

Princess Anne Marie d’Orléans was the daughter of Philippe I, Duke of Orléans, younger brother of Louis XIV, and Henrietta of England, the youngest daughter of Charles I of England and Henrietta Marie de Bourbon of France and the daughter of Louis XV ‘s great-great-great grandfather King Henri IV of France and Navarre.

Prince Louis, Duke of Burgundy

The future King Louis XV was born in the Palace of Versailles on February 15, 1710 and was immediately styled the Duke of Anjou.

At the time of his birth the possibility that the infant Prince Louis, Duke of Anjou, of ever becoming the next king seemed rather remote as Louis XIV’s eldest son and heir, and the Duke of Anjou’s paternal grandfather Louis, Le Grand Dauphin, was expected to assume the throne upon the old king’s death.

King Louis XV of France and Navarre

Next in line to the throne behind the Grand Dauphin was his eldest son Prince Louis, known as Le Petit Dauphin, and the Duke of Anjou’s father.

Prince Louis, Duke of Anjou had an elder brother, named Louis, Duke of Brittany ahead of him in the line of succession. An even older brother, also named Louis, Duke of Brittany (25 June 1704 – 13 April 1705) died of convulsions.

Disease, however, steered the line of succession forward three generations and sideways: on April 14, 1711 the Grand Dauphin, died of smallpox , and less than a year later, on February 12, 1712 the future king’s mother, Marie Adélaïde of Savoy, who had been stricken with measles, died, followed six days later by Louis’s father, Le Petit Dauphin, her devoted husband who would not leave her side during her illness.

With the death of both the Grand and Petit dauphins, Louis’s elder brother immediately became Dauphin of France, but just over two weeks further still, on March 7, it was found that both the elder Louis and the younger Louis had also had the measles.

King Louis XV of France and Navarre

The two brothers were treated in the traditional way, with bloodletting. On the night of 8–9 March, the new Dauphin, age five, died from the combination of the disease and the treatment. The governess of Louis, Madame de Ventadour, forbade the doctors to bleed the two year old Duke of Anjou by hiding him in a palace closet where she cared for him alone; where he survived despite being very ill.

When Louis XIV himself finally died on September 1, 1715, Louis, at the age of five, trembling and crying and against all probability, inherited the throne as King Louis XV.

Until the King reached maturity (then defined as his 13th birthday) on February 15, 1723, the kingdom was ruled by his grand-uncle Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, as Regent of France. Cardinal Fleury was chief minister from 1726 until his death in 1743, at which time the king took sole control of the kingdom.

On October 25, 1722 King Louis XV was crowned King at the Cathedral of Reims. On February 15, 1723, the king’s majority was declared by the Parlement of Paris, officially ending the regency. Philippe continued to manage the government, and took the title of Prime Minister in August 1723, but while visiting his mistress, far from the court and medical care, he died in December of the same year.

Marie Leszczyńska

Following the advice of his preceptor Fleury, Louis XV appointed his cousin Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon, to replace the late Duke of Orléans as prime minister.

Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon was the second child and eldest son of Louis III, Prince of Condé, and Louise Françoise de Bourbon, the eldest daughter of King Louis XIV and his mistress Madame de Montespan.

One of the first priorities of the Duke of Bourbon was to find a bride for the King, to assure the continuity of the monarchy, and especially to prevent the succession to the throne of the Orléans branch of the family, the rivals of his branch.

A list of 99 princesses was prepared, among them being Princess Anne of Great Britain, Infanta Barbara of Portugal, Princess Charlotte Amalie of Denmark, Elisabeth Therese of Lorraine, Enrichetta d’Este and Louis Henri, Duke of Bourbon’s own sisters Henriette Louise de Bourbon and Élisabeth Alexandrine de Bourbon were considered.

In the end, the 21-year-old Marie Leszczyńska, daughter of Stanislaus I, the deposed king of Poland, was chosen.

Marie Leszczyńska, was the second daughter of King Stanislaus I Leszczyński of Poland and his wife, Countess Catherine Opalińska.

The marriage was celebrated in September 1725 when the king was 15 and Marie was 22. Louis was said to have fallen in love with Marie instantly, and consummated his marriage to her seven times on their wedding night.

Though the King loved his wife he still had many Mistresses, most notably, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour (December 29, 1721 – April 15, 1764), commonly known as Madame de Pompadour. She was the official chief mistress of King Louis XV from 1745 to 1751, and remained influential as court favourite until her death.

Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour

Madame de Pompadour took charge of the king’s schedule and was a valued aide and advisor, despite her frail health and many political enemies. She secured titles of nobility for herself and her relatives, and built a network of clients and supporters. She was particularly careful not to alienate the Queen, Marie Leszczyńska.

On February 8, 1756, the Marquise de Pompadour was named as the thirteenth lady-in-waiting to the queen, a position considered the most prestigious at the court, which accorded her with honors.

Reign

The reign of King Louis XV was 59 years (from 1715 to 1774) and was the second longest in the history of France, exceeded only by his predecessor, Louis XIV, who had ruled for 72 years (from 1643 to 1715).

In 1748, Louis returned the Austrian Netherlands, won at the Battle of Fontenoy of 1745. He ceded New France in North America to Great Britain and Spain at the conclusion of the disastrous Seven Years’ War in 1763.

He incorporated the territories of the Duchy of Lorraine and the Corsican Republic into the Kingdom of France. Historians generally criticize his reign, citing how reports of his corruption embarrassed the monarchy, while his wars drained the treasury and produced little gain.

King Louis XV in 1773 the year before he died.

A minority of scholars dispute this view, arguing that it is the result of revolutionary propaganda. His grandson and successor Louis XVI would inherit a kingdom in need of financial and political reform which would ultimately lead to the French Revolution of 1789.

King Louis XV Louis died at 3:15 in the morning on May 10, 1774. His son and heir, Prince Louis, La Dauphin died in 1765 and he was succeeded by his eldest surviving grandson Louis Augusté who became King Louis XVI. The new King’s consort was Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria.

January 13, 1865: Birth of Princess Marie of Orléans, Princess of Denmark

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Bernstorff, King Christian IX of Denmark, King George I of Greece, King Louis Philippe of the French, Prince George of Greece and Denmark, Prince Waldemar of Denmark, Princess Marie Bonaparte, Princess Marie of Orléans

Princess Marie of Orléans (January 13, 1865 – December 4, 1909) was a French princess by birth and a Danish princess by marriage to Prince Waldemar. She was politically active by the standards of her day.

Background

Marie was the eldest child of Prince Robert, Duke of Chartres, and his wife, and first cousin, Princess Françoise d’Orléans. Her father was the second son of Prince Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans, and Duchess Helena of Mecklenburg-Schwerin.

Princess Marie of Orléans

Prince Ferdinand Philippe, Duke of Orléans (1810 – 1842) was the eldest son of King Louis Philippe I of the French and Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily.

Princess Françoise of Orléans was the daughter of Prince François d’Orléans, Prince de Joinville, and Princess Francisca of Brazil.

Princess François d’Orléans, Prince de Joinville (1818 – 1900) was the third son of King Louis Philippe I of the French, and his wife Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily

Born during the reign in France of her family’s rival, Emperor Napoléon III, she grew up in England, where her family had moved in 1848. She moved to France with her family after the fall of Napoleon in 1871.

Marriage

After obtaining papal consent from Pope Leo XIII, Marie married Prince Waldemar of Denmark, the youngest son of King Christian IX of Denmark and Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel, on October 20, 1885 in a civil ceremony in Paris.

They had a religious ceremony on 22 October 1885 at the Château d’Eu, the residence of Prince Philippe, Count of Paris. The wedding was believed by one source to have been politically arranged, and in France, it was believed that the Prince Philippe of Orléans, Count of Paris (the bride’s uncle) was personally responsible for the match. However, the same source claimed that “there was every reason to believe that [it was] a genuine love match”.

They were third cousins, once-removed.

Prince Waldemar of Denmark

She remained a Roman Catholic, he a Lutheran. They adhered to the dynastic arrangement usually stipulated in the marriage contract in such circumstances: sons were to be raised in the faith of their father, daughters in that of their mother.

The couple took up residence at Bernstorff Palace outside Copenhagen, in which Waldemar had been born. Since 1883, he had lived there with his nephew and ward Prince George of Greece, a younger son of Waldemar’s elder brother Wilhelm, who had become King of the Hellenes in 1863 as George I. The king had taken the boy to Denmark to enlist him in the Danish navy and consigned him to the care of his brother Waldemar, who was an admiral in the Danish fleet.

Feeling abandoned by his father on this occasion, George would later describe to his fiancée, Princess Marie Bonaparte, the profound attachment he developed for his uncle Waldemar from that day forward.

Prince George of Greece and Denmark

Prince George of Greece and Denmark, was the second of the five sons of King George I of the Hellenes and was introduced to Marie Bonaparte on July 19, 1907 at the Bonapartes’ home in Paris. Although homosexual, he courted her for twenty-eight days, confiding that from 1883, he’d lived not at his father’s Greek court in Athens, but at Bernstorff Palace near Copenhagen with Prince Waldemar of Denmark, his father’s youngest brother.

It was into this household and relationship that Marie came to live. In 1907, when George brought his bride to Bernstorff for the first family visit, Marie d’Orléans was at pains to explain to Marie Bonaparte the intimacy which united uncle and nephew, so deep that at the end of each of George’s several yearly visits to Bernstorff, he would weep, Waldemar would feel ill, and the women learned to be patient and not intrude upon their husbands’ private moments.

On this and subsequent visits, the Bonaparte princess found herself a great admirer of the Orléans princess, concluding that she was the only member of her husband’s large family in Denmark and Greece endowed with brains, pluck, or character.

During the first of these visits, Waldemar and Marie Bonaparte found themselves engaging in the kind of passionate intimacies she had looked forward to with her husband George who, however, only seemed to enjoy them vicariously, sitting or lying beside his wife and uncle.

Princess Marie Bonaparte

On a later visit, George’s wife carried on a passionate flirtation with Prince Aage, Waldemar eldest son. In neither case does it appear that Marie objected, or felt obliged to give the matter any attention.

George criticized Marie to his wife, alleging that she was having an affair with his uncle’s stablemaster. He also contended that she drank too much alcohol and could not conceal the effects. But Marie Bonaparte found no fault with Marie d’Orléans; rather she admired her forbearance and independence under circumstances which caused her bewilderment and estrangement from her own husband.

Prince George of Greece and Denmark with his wife Princess Marie Bonaparte

Life and influence

Marie was described as impulsive, witty, and energetic, and introduced a more relaxed style to the stiff Danish court. She never fully learned to speak Danish. The marriage was friendly. She gave her children a free upbringing, and her artistic taste and Bohemian habits dominated her household.

She was informal, not snobbish, believed in social equality, expressed her own opinions, and performed her ceremonial duties in an unconventional manner. In 1896, she wrote to Herman Bang: “I believe that a person, regardless of her position, should be herself”. She liked both to ride and to drive and was known for her elegance.

Princess Marie of Orléans and Denmark with her tattoo

She was the official protector of the fire brigade and let herself be photographed in a fire brigade uniform, which was caricatured, and as a support to her spouse’s career as a marine, she had an anchor tattooed on her upper arm. She once said regarding complaints about her unconventional manners: “Let them complain, I am just as happy nevertheless”.

She had asked the permission of the court to leave the house without a lady-in-waiting, and she had mainly spent her time with artists. She painted and photographed and was a student of Otto Bache and Frants Henningsen. She participated in the exhibitions at Charlottenborg in 1889, 1901 and 1902 and was a member of the Danish Arts Academy.

She refused to obey the expectation on royal women to stay away from politics. In 1886, Waldemar declined the throne of Bulgaria with her consent. She belonged to the political left and participated in convincing the king to agree to the reforms of 1901, which led to an appointment of a Venstre government, and the de facto introduction of parliamentarism.

In 1902 she rejected the idea of offering the Danish West Indies to the United States. She also saw to the interests of France: she was credited by the French press with having influenced the Franco-Russian alliance in 1894 and the peace in the French-German Colonial conflict over Morocco in 1905. She assisted her friend H.N. Andersen, the founder of the East Asiatic Company, with contacts in his affairs in Thailand. She was a popular person in Denmark.

Marie’s husband and three sons were in India en route to Siam when they received word that she had died at Bernstorff.

December 26, 1800: Death of Mary Robinson

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Actress, Banastre Tarleton, Celebrity, Feminist, HRH The Prince of Wales, King George IV of the United Kingdom and King of Hanover, Mary Darby, Mary Robinson, Novelist, Poet

Mary Robinson (née Darby; November 27, 1757 – December 26, 1800) was an English actress, poet, dramatist, novelist, and celebrity figure. She lived in England, in the cities of Bristol and London; she also lived in France and Germany for a time. She enjoyed poetry from the age of seven and started working, first as a teacher and then as actress, from the age of fourteen. She wrote many plays, poems and novels. She was a celebrity, gossiped about in newspapers, famous for her acting and writing. She was the first public mistress of King George IV while he was still Prince of Wales.

Mary Robinson was born in Bristol, England to Nicholas Darby, a naval captain, and his wife Hester (née Vanacott) who had married at Donyatt, Somerset, in 1749, and was baptised ‘Polle(y)’ (“Spelt ‘Polle’ in the official register and ‘Polly’ in the Bishop’s Transcript”) at St Augustine’s Church, Bristol, July 19, 1758, the entry noting that she was born November 27, 1756.

In her memoirs, Robinson gives her birth in 1758, but the year 1757 seems more likely according to recently published research. Her father deserted her mother and took a mistress when Robinson was still a child.

Mary Robinson

The family hoped for a reconciliation, but Captain Darby made it clear that this was not going to happen. Without the support of her husband, Hester Darby supported herself and the five children born of the marriage by starting a school for young girls in Little Chelsea, London, (where Robinson taught by her 14th birthday).

However, during one of his brief returns to the family, Captain Darby had the school closed (which he was entitled to do by English law). Darby died in the Russian naval service in 1785. Robinson, who at one point attended a school run by the social reformer Hannah More, came to the attention of actor David Garrick.

Marriage

Hester Darby encouraged her daughter to accept the proposal of an articled clerk, Thomas Robinson, who claimed to have an inheritance. Mary was against this idea; however, after falling ill and watching him take care of her and her younger brother, she felt that she owed him, and she did not want to disappoint her mother who was pushing for the engagement.

After the early marriage, Robinson discovered her husband did not have an inheritance. He continued to live an elaborate lifestyle, however, and made no effort to hide multiple affairs. Subsequently, Mary supported their family. After her husband squandered their money, the couple fled to Talgarth, Breconshire (where Robinson’s only daughter, Mary Elizabeth, was born in November).

Here they lived in a fairly large estate, called Tregunter Park. Eventually her husband was imprisoned for debt in the Fleet Prison where she lived with him for many months. While it was common for the wives of prisoners to live with their husbands while indebted, children were usually sent to live with relatives to keep them away from the dangers of prison.

HRH Prince George, The Prince of Wales

However, Robinson was deeply devoted to her daughter Maria, and when her husband was imprisoned, Robinson brought the 6-month-old baby with her.

It was in the Fleet Prison that Robinson’s literary career really began, as she found that she could publish poetry to earn money, and to give her an escape from the harsh reality that had become her life. Her first book, Poems By Mrs. Robinson, was published in 1775 by C. Parker.

Additionally, Robinson’s husband was offered work in the form of copying legal documents so he could try to pay back some of his debts, but he refused to do anything. Robinson, in an effort to keep the family together and to get back to normal life outside of prison, took the job instead, collecting the pay that her husband neglected to earn.

During this time, Mary Robinson found a patron in Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire, who sponsored the publication of Robinson’s second volume of poems, Captivity.

Theatre

After her husband obtained his release from prison, Robinson decided to return to the theatre. She launched her acting career and took to the stage playing Juliet at Drury Lane Theatre in December 1776. Robinson was best known for her facility with the ‘breeches parts’, and her performances as Viola in William Shakespeare’sTwelfth Night and Rosalind in As You Like It won her extensive praise.

But she gained popularity with playing in Florizel and Perdita, an adaptation of Shakespeare, with the role of Perdita (heroine of The Winter’s Tale) in 1779. It was during this performance that she attracted the notice of the young Prince of Wales, later King George IV of the United Kingdom. He offered her twenty thousand pounds to become his mistress. During this time, the very young Emma, Lady Hamilton sometimes worked as her maid and dresser at the theatre.

George IV, King of the United Kingdom and King of Hanover

She was the first public mistress of George, then Prince of Wales, and was catapulted into the stratosphere of celebrity, becoming even more popular and trend-setting. Sadly their affair ended in 1781, and Mary went on to become distinguished for her poetry.

Mary Robinson, who now lived separately from her husband, went on to have several love affairs, most notably with Banastre Tarleton, a soldier who had recently distinguished himself fighting in the American War of Independence. Prior to their relationship, Robinson had been having an affair with a man named Lord Malden.

According to one account, Malden and Tarleton were betting men, and Malden was so confident in Robinson’s loyalty to him, and believed that no man could ever take her from him. As such, he made a bet of a thousand guineas that none of the men in his circle could seduce her. Unfortunately for Malden, Tarleton accepted the bet and swooped in to not only seduce Robinson, but establish a relationship that would last the next 15 years.

Banastre Tarleton

This relationship, though rumoured to have started on a bet, saw Tarleton’s rise in military rank and his concomitant political successes, Mary’s own various illnesses, financial vicissitudes and the efforts of Tarleton’s own family to end the relationship. They had no children, although Robinson had a miscarriage.

However, in the end, Tarleton married Susan Bertie, an heiress and an illegitimate daughter of the young 4th Duke of Ancaster, and niece of his sisters Lady Willoughby de Eresby and Lady Cholmondeley. In 1783, Robinson suffered a mysterious illness that left her partially paralysed.

Mary Robinson

Lastly, in 1800, after years of failing health and decline into financial ruin, Robinson wrote her last piece of literature during her lifetime: a series of poems titled the Lyrical Tales, published by Longman & Rees, in London. This poetry collection explored themes of domestic violence, misogyny, violence against destitute characters, and political oppression.

Mary Robinson died on December 26, 1800.

Mary Robinson was one of the first female celebrities of the modern era. She was dubbed as scandalous, but on the other hand educated and able to be partially independent from her husband. She was one of the first women to enter the sphere of writing, and to be successful there. Scholars often argue that she used her celebrity status only in her own advantage, but it is to be noted how much she contributed to the awareness of early feminism.

Henri IV of France and Navarre, His Wives and Mistresses. Conclusion

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Catherine-Henriette de Balzac d'Entragues, Charlotte Marguerite of Montmorency, François Ravaillac, Henri de Bourbon Prince of Condé, King Henri IV of France and Navarre, Marie de Medici of Florence, Queen of France and Navarre, Royal Mistress

Henriette d’Entragues never reconciled herself to Henri’s marriage, and she drove Marie to tears by calling her his “fat banker”, claiming her own children were Henri’s legitimate heirs and branding the dauphin a bastard. Henri’s devotion to d’Entragues was tested during the revolt of Marshal Biron in 1602, in which her half-brother, Charles, Count of Auvergne, was implicated and she was compromised.

Though Marshal Biron was executed, Henri released Charles, Count of Auvergne to please Henriette. In 1604, she was at the heart of a Spanish-backed plot to install her son by the king as heir to the throne. Her father, the sieur d’Entragues, was involved in this plot, along with, again, her half-brother.

Henriette d’Entragues was sentenced to confinement in a convent, but Henri was moved to spare her even that and allowed her to retire to her estate at Verneuil. Despite the king’s clemency, Henriette d’Entragues may have continued to plot further against him.

According to a government report of 1616, a former companion of d’Entragues, Mlle d’Escoman, had claimed in 1611 that d’Entragues had met François Ravaillac, Henri’s assassin of 1610. However, this evidence is compromised by the fact that, at the time she made this accusation, Mlle d’Escoman was in prison on another charge.

The dauphin, Louis, turned out to be a difficult and temperamental child, and some historians have blamed this on his parents and the circumstances of his upbringing. He was raised just outside Paris at the château of Saint-Germain-en-Laye, not only alongside Marie’s other children by Henri but, as Henri insisted, with several children of Henry’s mistresses.

Henri always seemed to get his mistresses pregnant at the same time as Marie. Just as Marie was in constant competition with Henri’s mistresses, so her children were forced to compete with their children for his affection.

The fact that Henri’s three children by Gabrielle d’Estrées were older than the heir to the throne caused particular problems of rivalry. César and Alexandre were later to rebel against Louis when he was king. He did not hesitate to throw them into prison.

Louis shared his father’s stubbornness, but he may have inherited his temper tantrums from his mother, who often gave Henri tongue-lashings in public.

Although Queen Marie has been accused of lacking affection for her children, a study of her letters reveals the contrary, though she was a stern disciplinarian. She wrote to the dauphin’s governess, for example, asking her to avoid whippings when the weather was hot and to beat Louis only “with such caution that the anger he might feel would not cause any illness”.

On another occasion, she reprimanded her middle daughter, Christine, for being ill, accusing her of not following the advice of her doctors. Marie personally educated the children in practical matters, such as etiquette. After Henri’s assassination in 1610, she became regent of France and retained influence over Louis XIII until he finally rejected her in 1617.

Catherine Henriette de Balzac d’Entragues, Marquise de Verneuil

Henri’s last passion was for Charlotte Marguerite of Montmorency, the fifteen-year-old wife of Henri, Prince of Condé, First Prince of the Blood. The king had arranged Charlotte’s marriage to Condé for his own convenience, in order to sleep with her himself when he pleased.

To escape from this predicament, the couple fled to Brussels. The king was enraged and threatened to march into Flanders with an army unless the Habsburg governors returned Condé and his wife at once.

At the time, he was also threatening war with the Habsburgs over the succession to the United Duchies of Jülich-Cleves-Berg, so historians are unsure how crucial in itself Charlotte’s return was as a reason for war. Condé continued to provoke Henri from Flanders. When asked to drink to the Queen of France, he replied that there seemed to be more than one queen of France, maybe as many as four or five.

King Henri IV was the target of at least 12 assassination attempts, including one by Pierre Barrière in August 1593, and another by Jean Châtel in December 1594. Some of these assassination attempts were carried out against Henri because he was considered a usurper by some Catholics and a traitor by some Protestants.

Charlotte Marguerite of Montmorency

Henri was killed in Paris on May 14, 1610 by François Ravaillac, a Catholic zealot who stabbed him in the Rue de la Ferronnerie. Henri’s coach was stopped by traffic congestion associated with the Queen’s coronation ceremony.

Hercule de Rohan, duc de Montbazon, was with him when he was killed; Montbazon was wounded, but survived. Ravaillac was immediately captured, and executed days later. Henry was buried at the Saint Denis Basilica.

His widow, Marie de’ Medici, served as regent for their nine-year-old son, Louis XIII, until 1617.

Henri IV of France and Navarre, His Wives and Mistresses. Part IV.

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Archduchess Joanna of Austria, Charlotte des Essarts, Francesco I de' Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Henriette d'Entragues, Jacqueline de Bueil, King Felipe I of Castile, King Henri IV of France and Navarre, Marie de Medici of Florence, Queen Joanna of Castile, Queen of France and Navarre

By early 1599, Henri’s marriage to Margaret of Valois looked likely to be annulled at last. And so, at the age of forty-six and still without a legitimate heir, Henri felt free to propose to Gabrielle d’Estrées. On Mardi Gras, Henri placed on her finger the ring with which he had “married” France at his coronation in 1593.

During Holy Week, however, Gabrielle, who was pregnant at the time, fell ill; by Holy Saturday, to the relief of many in France, she was dead. Rumours flew that she had been poisoned, but in fact she died from eclampsia and a premature birth of a stillborn son.

Though grief-stricken, Henri grasped that his fiancée’s death had saved him from disaster: his plan to declare his two sons by d’Estrées heirs to the throne would have precipitated a major political crisis.

Henri IV, King of France and Navarre

Henri provided Gabrielle d’Estrées with a grandiose funeral and drowned his sorrows with a sustained spree of womanising. Sir Henry Neville, the English ambassador, reported that Henry was spending time “in secret manner at Zamet’s house”, where “la belle garce Claude” was known to entertain, and that he was fervently courting Henriette d’Entragues, the daughter of Charles IX’s former mistress, Marie Touchet.

Royal accounts record that Henri was soon making large payments to “Mademoiselle d’Entragues”, as well as to “Mademoiselle des Fossez”. D’Entragues quickly replaced d’Estrées as Henry’s principal mistress.

She extracted from him, in Neville’s words, “100,000 crowns in ready money and an yearly pension” as proof of his commitment. At about the same time, Henri began affairs with Marie Babou de la Bourdaisière and with two wives of Paris parlement members, madames Quélin and Potier.

Marie de’ Medici

In October 1599, the parlement of Paris officially petitioned that Henri marry a princess worthy of his dignity. Henri took note and began considering candidates from several foreign states. According to Sully, however, he ruled out a German wife, on the grounds that it would feel like going to bed with a wine-barrel.

Henri IV was keenest on Maria de’ Medici of Florence, the niece of Ferdinando I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany.

Maria was the sixth daughter of Francesco I de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany, and Archduchess Joanna of Austria, the youngest daughter of Ferdinand I, Holy Roman Emperor and Anna of Bohemia and Hungary.

She was a descendant of Lorenzo the Elder –a branch of the Medici family sometimes referred to as the ‘cadet’ branch– through his daughter Lucrezia de’ Medici, and was also a Habsburg through her mother, who was a direct descendant of Queen Joanna of Castile and King Felipe I of Castile.

Although Maria’s ancestry was impressive, what Henri found particularly attractive about Maria was her enormous wealth.

On December 17, 1599, the Archbishop of Arles pronounced the annulment of Henri’s marriage to Margaret of Valois. The Medici marriage contract was signed in April 1600, pledging a huge dowry of 600,000 écus, part of which was subtracted to pay Henry’s debts to Ferdinando.

Henri played his part by proclaiming undying devotion to Maria in a series of letters, though he was sending similar love letters to Henriette d’Entragues, telling her in one that he wanted to kiss her a million times.

Young Marie de’ Medici of Florence

A proxy marriage took place in Florence in October 1600, and then Maria—to be known in France as Marie—sailed in great pomp for Marseille, where she disembarked on November 3. Marie was 26 and King Henri was 47 at the time of thier marriage.

Henri on campaign in Savoy, rode to meet her at Lyon, where he found her at supper. He visited her afterwards in her chamber; according to Ralph Winwood, secretary to English ambassador Sir Henry Neville:

She met him at the door, and offered to kneel down, but he took her in his arms, where he held her embraced a long time … He doth profess to the World the great Contentment he finds in her, how that for her Beauty, her sweet and pleasing carriage, her gracious behaviour, she doth surpass the relation which hath been made of her, and the Expectation which he thereby conceived.

The couple underwent a second marriage ceremony in Lyon; and Marie finally reached Paris on February 7, already pregnant. She found her new home, the Louvre, so shabby that at first she thought Henri was playing a joke.

She gave birth to a son, Louis, at the Palace of Fontainebleau on September 27, 1601, to the delight of Henri IV, who had rushed from military duties to her bedside to serve, he joked, as one of her midwives. The moment Henri was told that the child was a boy, he ushered two hundred courtiers into the chamber to share the euphoria.

The baby was fed a spoonful of wine and handed over to a governess, Baroness Robert de Harlay, baron de Monglat [fr], and to the physician Jean Héroard [fr], an expert on the bone structure of horses. According to Winwood, the baby was a “strong and a goodly prince, and doth promise long life”. The birth of a dauphin, as the first son of a French king was known, inspired rejoicing and bonfires throughout France.

Marie believed that after bearing a son, she “would begin to be a Queen ueen”. However, a few weeks later, Henriette d’Entragues also produced another son (Gaston Henri, Duc de Verneuil) and Henri not only made just as much fuss over this son but declared that he was better-looking, not fat and dark like Louis and the Medici.

In the words of biographer David Buisseret, “the royal couple was well embarked upon nine years of mutual recrimination and misunderstandings, in which the fault plainly lay with the king”.

Marie de’ Medici, Queen of France and Navarre

Henri had made Marie’s position clear to her from the first. When she began by pressing him to accept the decrees of the Council of Trent, he told her to keep her nose out of state business and look after herself. Shortly after Marie’s arrival in Paris, Henri had introduced Henriette d’Entragues to her, reportedly pushing Henriette further towards the ground when her curtsey was not low enough.

He housed his senior mistress close to the Louvre and was seen dining with the queen and d’Entragues together. Marie also had to cope with a second public mistress, La Bourdaisière, as well as with Henry’s continued visits to Zamet’s house for services provided by “la belle garce Claude”.

In the next nine years, Marie bore Henri six children; but he also sired five more by d’Entragues, Jacqueline de Bueil, and Charlotte des Essarts. Nonetheless, Henri often wrote affectionate letters to Marie and in other ways treated her with respect.