Tags
Berengaria of Navarre, Empress Maria-Theresa of Austria, French Wars of Religion, Heinrich XI of Reuss-Greiz, Henry of Guise, Huguenots, King George VI of the United Kingdom, King Henry III of France, King Richard I of England, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, Queen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Wilhelmina
1191 – Richard I of England marries Berengaria of Navarre in Cyprus; she is crowned Queen consort of England the same day.
Tomb of Berengaria of Navarre
Berengaria of Navarre (c. 1165–1170 – December 23, 1230) was Queen of England as the wife of Richard I of England. She was the eldest daughter of Sancho VI, King of Navarre and Sancha of Castile. As is the case with many of the medieval English queens, relatively little is known of her life. Berengaria never visited England during King Richard’s lifetime; during the entirety of their marriage, Richard spent less than six months in England. There is evidence, however, that she may have done so in the years following his death.
1588 – French Wars of Religion: Henri III of France flees Paris after Henri I, Duke of Guise, enters the city and a spontaneous uprising occurs. The French Wars of Religion were a prolonged period of war and popular unrest between Catholics and Huguenots (Reformed/Calvinist Protestants) in the Kingdom of France between 1562 and 1598. It is estimated that three million people perished in this period from violence, famine, or disease in what is considered the second deadliest religious war in European history (surpassed only by the Thirty Years’ War, which took eight million lives).
Henri III, King of France
On May 12, 1588, when Henri, Duke of Guise entered Paris, an apparently spontaneous Day of the Barricades erupted in favor of the Catholic champion. HenrI III fled the city.
Following the defeat of the Spanish Armada that summer, the king’s fear of Spanish support for the Catholic League apparently waned. Accordingly, on December 23, 1588, at the Château de Blois, Henri III invited the Duke of Guise to the council chamber where the duke’s brother, Louis II, Cardinal of Guise, already waited. The duke was told that the king wished to see him in the private room adjoining the royal bedroom. There, royal guardsmen murdered both the Duke of Guise, then the Cardinal of Guise. To make certain that no contender for the French throne was free to act against him, the King Henri III had the duke’s son, Charles, imprisoned.
The Duke of Guise had been very popular in France, and the citizenry turned against Henry for the murders. The Parlement instituted criminal charges against the king, and he was compelled to join forces with his heir, the Protestant Henry of Navarre, by setting up the Parliament of Tours.
1743 – Maria-Theresa of Austria is crowned Queen of Bohemia after defeating her rival, Charles VII, Holy Roman Emperor.
Maria-Theresa of Austria, Holy Roman Empress, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, Archduchess of Austria.
On 26 October, the Charles-Albert, Elector of Bavaria captured Prague and declared himself King of Bohemia. Maria Theresa, then in Hungary, wept on learning of the loss of Bohemia. Charles-Albert was was unanimously elected Holy Roman Emperor as Charles VII, on January 24, 1742, which made him the only non-Habsburg to be in that position since 1440.
The Treaty of Breslau of June 1742 ended hostilities between Austria and Prussia. With the First Silesian War at an end, Maria-Theresa, also Queen of Hungary and Archduchess of Austria soon made the recovery of Bohemia her priority. French troops fled Bohemia in the winter of the same year. On May 12, 1743, Maria-Theresa had herself crowned Queen of Bohemia in St. Vitus Cathedral.
1778 – Heinrich XI, count of the Principality of Reuss-Greiz, is elevated to Prince by Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor.
Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor. (Son of Empress Maria-Theresa of Austria above)
Heinrich XI was born at Greiz, Reuss, youngest child of Count Heinrich II Reuss-Obergreiz (1696–1722), (son of Heinrich VI, Count Reuss-Greiz and Baroness Henriette-Amalie von Friesen) and his wife, Countess Sophie-Charlotte von Bothmer (1697–1748), (daughter of Count Johann-Kaspar von Bothmer and Gisela Erdmuth von Hoym).
Heinrich succeeded his brother Henry IX as Count of Reuss-Obergreiz in 1723. After the death of Count Henry III Reuss-Untergreiz, in 1768, including the city of Untergreiz passed to the domains of the Heinrich XI and he was able to gather these possessions and guaranteed the line of succession.
Prince Reuss of Greiz
On 12 May 1778 Heinrich was elevated to Prince (German: Fürst) by the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. He received the Order of Saint Stephen of Hungary as well.
Note: all male members of the house of Reuss are named Heinrich and is given an regal number.
1937 – The former Duke and Duchess of York who succeeded to the throne December 11, 1937 upon the abdication of King Edward VIII, are crowned as King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Westminster Abbey.
King George VI of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
1948 – Wilhelmina, Queen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, secedes the throne.
Around the same time, Queen Wilhelmina’s health started failing, forcing her to cede her monarchial duties to Princess Juliana temporarily towards the end of 1947 (October 14, through December, 1). She considered abdication, but her daughter pressed her to stay on for the stability of the nation. Wilhelmina had every intention of doing so, but exhaustion forced her to relinquish monarchial duties to Juliana again on May 12, 1948.
Wilhelmina, Queen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands
Increasingly beset by poor health after the war, she abdicated in favour of her daughter Juliana on September 1948 and retired to Het Loo Palace, where she died in 1962.
Births
* 1325 – Rupert II, Elector Palatine (d. 1398)
* 1479 – Pompeo Colonna, Catholic cardinal (d. 1532)
* 1496 – Gustaf I, King of Sweden (d. 1560)
* 1590 – Cosimo II de’ Medici, Grand Duke of Tuscany (d. 1621)
* 1670 – Augustus II the Strong, King of Poland (d. 1733)
* 1725 – Louis-Philippe I, Duke of Orléans (d. 1785)
Deaths
* 1182 – Valdemar I, King of Denmark (b. 1131)
* 1382 – Joanna I, Queen of Naples (b. 1328)
* 1490 – Joanna, Portuguese princess and regent (b. 1452)
* 1708 – Adolph-Friedrich II, Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (b. 1658)
European Royal History 