History of the Kingdom of Greece

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Duke of Nemours, Kingdom of Greece, Kingdom of the Hellenes, London Protocol of 1831, Prince Charles Theodore of Bavaria, Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Prince Louis of Orléans, Prince Otto of Bavaria, The Great Powers

The Kingdom of Greece was established in 1832 and was the successor state to the First Hellenic Republic. It was internationally recognised by the Treaty of Constantinople, where Greece also secured its full independence from the Ottoman Empire after nearly four centuries of Ottoman rule.

Background

The Greek-speaking Eastern Roman Empire, also known as Byzantine Empire, which ruled most of the Eastern Mediterranean region for over 1100 years, had been fatally weakened since the sacking of Constantinople by the Latin Crusaders in 1204.

The Ottomans captured Constantinople with ease in 1453 and advanced southwards into the Balkan peninsula capturing Athens in 1458. The Greeks held out in the Peloponnese until 1460, and the Venetians and Genoese clung to some of the islands, but by 1500 most of the plains and islands of Greece were in Ottoman hands. While in contrast, the mountains and highlands of Greece were largely untouched, and were a refuge for Greeks to flee foreign rule and engage in guerrilla warfare.

Preparation of the Greek War of Independence

In the context of ardent desire for independence from Turkish occupation, and with the explicit influence of similar secret societies elsewhere in Europe, three Greeks came together in 1814 in Odessa to decide the constitution for a secret organization in freemasonic fashion. Its purpose was to unite all Greeks in an armed organization to overthrow Turkish rule.

The three founders were Nikolaos Skoufas from the Arta province, Emmanuil Xanthos from Patmos and Athanasios Tsakalov from Ioannina. Soon after they initiated a fourth member, Panagiotis Anagnostopoulos from Andritsaina.

Prince Louis d’Orléans, Duke of Nemours

Many revolts were planned across the Greek region and the first of them was launched on March 6, 1821, in the Danubian principalities. It was put down by the Ottomans, but the torch had been lit and by the end of the same month the Peloponnese was in open revolt.

Greek War of Independence

In 1821, the Greek-speaking populations of Peloponnesus revolted against the Ottoman Empire. Following a region-wide struggle that lasted several months, the Greek War of Independence led to the establishment of the first autonomous Greek State since the mid-15th century.

In January 1822, the First National Assembly of Epidaurus passed the Greek Declaration of Independence (part of the country’s First Constitution), which affirmed the sovereignty of Greece. However, the new Greek State was politically unstable and lacked the resources to preserve its territoriality in the long-term. Most importantly, the country lacked international recognition and had no robust alliances in the Western world.

Prince Frederick of the Netherlands

Following the recapture of the Greek territories by the Ottoman Empire, the Great Powers of that time (the British Empire, the Russian Empire and the Kingdom of France) saw the Greek counter-offensive as an opportunity to weaken the Ottoman Empire further and in essence increase their influence in the Eastern Mediterranean.

The Great Powers supported Greece to regain its independence and following a decisive battle in the Navarino Bay a cease fire was agreed in London (see Treaty of London (1827)). The autonomy of Greece was ultimately recognised by the London Protocol of 1828 and its full independence from the Ottoman Empire by the Protocol of London of 1830.

Prince Charles Theodor of Bavaria

In 1831, the assassination of the first Governor of Greece, Count Ioannis Kapodistrias, created political and social instability that endangered the country’s relationship with its allies.

At the end of Greek War of Independence, the three Great Powers formulated the London Protocol of 1829, which established an autonomous Greek state under the rule of a “Hereditary Christian Prince.” To avoid escalation and in order to strengthen Greece’s ties with the Great Powers, Greece agreed to become a Kingdom in 1832 (see Treaty of London (1832)).

Numerous candidates were considered for the vacant Greek throne.

As early as 1825, while revolutionaries were still engaged in the Greek War of Independence, attempting to establish a Kingdom of Greece, Prince Louis, Duke of Nemours, the second son of King Louis-Philippe I of France, and his wife Maria Amalia of Naples and Sicily, was mentioned as a possible candidate as the first modern King of Greece.

Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

In 1829 Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, Prince of Orange-Nassau, was the second son of King Willem I of the Netherlands and his wife, Wilhelmine of Prussia, was a candidate for the Greek throne, but he declined because he did not want to be king of a country whose language and traditions were foreign to him.

Prince Otto of Bavaria’s uncle, Prince Charles Theodor of Bavaria, the second son of King Maximilian I of Bavaria and his first wife Princess Augusta Wilhelmine of Hesse-Darmstadt, was also considered for the Greek throne.

Even an Irishman named Nicholas Macdonald Sarsfield Cod’d put himself forward, claiming descent from the Byzantine Palaiologos dynasty.

Ultimately, they settled on Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who was the widowed husband of Princess Charlotte of Wales, the only daughter of King George IV of the United Kingdom and in the amended London Protocol of 1830 made Greece into a fully independent Kingdom under his rule.

Although initially enthusiastic, Leopold was discouraged by the gloomy picture of the country’s stability painted by Ioannis Kapodistrias, Greece’s governor, and so rejected the crown, concerns that would prove well-founded when Kapodistrias was assassinated a year later.

In 1832 British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston convened the London conference. The convention offered the throne offered the crown to the teenage Prince Otto of Bavaria which he happily accepted.

They also established the line of succession which would pass the crown to Otto’s descendants, or his younger brothers should he have no issue. It was also decided that in no case would there be a personal union of the crowns of Greece and Bavaria.

Prince Otto of Bavaria, King of Greece

Otto was born as Prince Otto Friedrich Ludwig of Bavaria at Schloss Mirabell in Salzburg (when it briefly belonged to the Kingdom of Bavaria), as the second son of future King Ludwig I of Bavaria and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen. His father served there as the Bavarian governor-general.

Through his ancestor, the Bavarian Duke Johann II, Otto was a descendant of the Byzantine imperial dynasties of Komnenos and Laskaris. His father was a prominent Philhellene, and provided significant financial aid to the Greek cause during the War of Independence.

The Bavarian House of Wittelsbach had no connections to ruling dynasties of any of the Great Powers, and so was a neutral choice with which they were all satisfied. The Greeks were not consulted, but Greece was in chaos and no group or individual could claim to represent it anyway.

Otto arrived at the provisional capital, Nafplion, in 1833 aboard a British warship.

Happy 98th birthday to HRH The Duke of Edinburgh!

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Christian IX of Denmark, Happy Birthday, House of Battenberg, Kingdom of Denmark, Kingdom of Greece, Kingdom of the Hellenes, London Protocol 1852, Prince Philip, Prince Philip Duke of Edinburgh, Princess Alice of Battenberg, Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Victoria, The Duke of Edinburgh

In honor of the 98th birthday of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh I thought I would give some genealogical and biographical information on him.

Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark was born in Mon Repos on the Greek island of Corfu on June 10, 1921. He was the only son and fifth and final child of Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg. Prince Philip had four elder sisters, Margarita (1905-1981), Theodora (1906-1969), Cecilie (1911-1937) and Sophie (1914-2001).

Prince Philip’s Father:

Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark (January 20 – 1882 – December 3, 1944) of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, was the seventh child and fourth son of King George I of Greece and Olga Constantinovna of Russia. He was a grandson of Christian IX of Denmark and Prince Louise of Hesse-Cassel.

Prince Andrew (left), with his older brothers, the Crown Prince Constantine and Prince Nicholas.

Paternal Grandfather:

George I of the Hellenes was born December 24, 1845 at the Yellow Palace, an 18th-century town house at 18 Amaliegade, right next to the Amalienborg Palace complex in Copenhagen. He was the second son and third child of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg and Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel. Until his accession in Greece, he was known as Prince Vilhelm, the namesake of his grandfathers Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Cassel.

King George I of the Hellenes

Paternal Grandmother:

Olga Constantinovna of Russia was born on August 22, 1851 the daughter of Grand Duke Constantine Nikolaievich and his wife, Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg. Olga’s father was Grand Duke Constantine Nikolayevich of Russia (September 21, 1827 – January 25, 1892) was the second son of Czar Nicholas I of Russia and younger brother of Czar Alexander II. This gives the Duke of Edinburgh strong familial ties to the Imperial Russian royal family.

Grand Duchess Olga, Queen of the Hellenes

Prince Philip’s mother:

Alice of Battenberg was born on February 25, 1885 in the Tapestry Room at Windsor Castle in Berkshire in the presence of her great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. She was the eldest child of Prince Louis of Battenberg (after 1917: Louis Alexander Mountbatten, 1st Marquess of Milford Haven) and his wife Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. Her mother was the eldest daughter of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and Princess Alice of the United Kingdom, the Queen’s second daughter.

Princess Alice of Battenberg

Prince and Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark

Royal House

The Duke of Edinburgh is a member of the Royal House of Glücksburg (also spelled Glücksborg), shortened from House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and is a Danish-German branch of the House of Oldenburg, whose members have reigned at various times in Denmark, Norway, Greece and several northern German states.

In 1460, Glücksburg came, as part of the conjoined Danish-German duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, to Count Christian VII of Oldenburg whom, in 1448, the Danes had elected their king as Christian I, the Norwegians likewise taking him as their hereditary king in 1450.

In 1564, Christian I’s great-grandson, King Frederik II, in re-distributing Schleswig and Holstein’s fiefs, allocated Glücksburg to his brother Duke Johann the Younger (1545-1622), along with Sonderburg, in appanage. Johann’s heirs further sub-divided their share and created, among other branches, a line of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg at Beck (an estate near Minden bought by the family in 1605), who remained vassals of Denmark’s kings.

The Danish line of Oldenburg kings died out in 1863 with the death of King Frederik VII of Denmark. Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, the fourth son of Duke Friedrich of Glücksburg, was recognized in the London Protocol of 1852 as successor to the childless King Frederick VII of Denmark. He became King of Denmark as Christian IX as king of Denmark on November 15, 1863.

A few months prior to becoming King of Denmark, Christian IX’s second son, Prince Vilhelm, was elected King of the Hellenes on March 30, 1863, succeeding the ousted Wittelsbach Otto of Greece and reigning under the name George I. As stated above, the seventh child and fourth son of King George I of Greece was Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, the father of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.

Highlights of the life the Duke of Edinburgh:

After being educated in France, Germany and the United Kingdom, he joined the British Royal Navy in 1939, aged 18. In 1939, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth toured the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth. During the visit, the Queen and Louis Mountbatten asked Philip to escort the King’s two daughters, Elizabeth and Margaret, who were Philip’s third cousinsthrough Queen Victoria, and second cousins once removed through King Christian IX of Denmark.

Elizabeth fell in love with Philip and they began to exchange letters when she was thirteen. Eventually, in the summer of 1946, Philip asked the King for his daughter’s hand in marriage. The King granted his request, provided that any formal engagement be delayed until Elizabeth’s twenty-first birthday the following April. By March 1947, Philip had abandoned his Greek and Danish royal titles, had adopted the surname Mountbatten from his mother’s family, and had become a naturalised British subject. However, this was unnecessary as Philip was a descendent of Sofia of Hanover and due to this he already was a British subject.

The day preceding his wedding, King George VI bestowed the style of Royal Highness on Philip and, on the morning of the wedding, November 20, 1947, he was made the Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Merioneth, and Baron Greenwich of Greenwich in the County of London. Philip and Elizabeth were married in a ceremony at Westminster Abbey, recorded and broadcast by BBC radio to 200 million people around the world. However, in post-war Britain, it was not acceptable for any of the Duke of Edinburgh’s German relations to be invited to the wedding, including Philip’s three surviving sisters, all of whom had married German princes. After their marriage, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh took up residence at Clarence House.

On February 25, 1957, the Queen granted her husband the style and title of a Prince of the United Kingdom by Letters Patent, and it was gazetted that he was to be known as “His Royal Highness The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh”.

New name of the Royal House?:

The accession of Elizabeth II to the throne brought up the question of the name of the royal house, as Elizabeth would typically have taken Philip’s last name on marriage. The Duke’s uncle, Earl Mountbatten of Burma, advocated the name House of Mountbatten. Philip suggested House of Edinburgh, after his ducal title. When Queen Mary, Elizabeth’s grandmother, heard of this, she informed the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who himself later advised the Queen to issue a royal proclamation declaring that the royal house was to remain known as the House of Windsor. Prince Philip privately complained, “I am nothing but a bloody amoeba. I am the only man in the country not allowed to give his name to his own children.”

It’s interesting that the question of the name of the Royal House was raised. The name of the dynasty remains the same during the reign of a Queen Regnant. For example, Queen Mary I 1553-1558, remained a Tudor despite being married to a Habsburg. Queen Anne remained a Stuart despite being married to a Danish prince of the House of Oldenburg. The same with Queen Victoria, the name of the Royal House did not change from Hanover to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha until the accession of her son. King Edward VII, in 1901.

In times past this would not have been an issue and the name of the royal house would automatically change once the Crown passed through the female line to reflect the patrilineal line. I believe that Lord Mountbatten was eager to elevate the status of his family name.

On February 8, 1960, several years after the death of Queen Mary and the resignation of Churchill, the Queen issued an Order in Council declaring that Mountbatten-Windsor would be the surname of her and her husband’s male-line descendants who are not styled as Royal Highness or titled as Prince or Princess. The son of the Duke of Sussex, Archie Mountbatten-Windsor, is the first descendant of the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh that this order applies to.

Service as Consort to Her Majesty the Queen.

The Duke of Edinburgh has been an excellent support to Her Majesty the queen. However, he has not been without controversy. The prince is no wall flower and often speaks his mind. Sometimes he would make and off-the-cuff remark or joke that would be taken either out of context or was not meant to be offensive but people would at times be offended but what he has said.

The princes has always been a very active man. He played polo until 1971 and then took up the sport of carriage driving. I worked at a historical house and have seen competitive carriage driving myself. I really enjoyed watching that and was happy that the prince took up that sport. Philip was also a skilled yachtsman and pilot.

Philip is patron of some 800 organisations, particularly focused on the environment, industry, sport, and education. His first solo engagement as Duke of Edinburgh was in March 1948, presenting prizes at the boxing finals of the London Federation of Boys’ Clubs at the Royal Albert Hall. He was President of the National Playing Fields Association (now known as Fields in Trust) for 64 years, from 1947 until his grandson Prince William took over the role in 2013.

He served as UK President of the World Wildlife Fund from 1961 to 1982, International President from 1981, and President Emeritus from 1996. In 1952, he became patron of The Industrial Society (since renamed The Work Foundation). He was President of the International Equestrian Federation from 1964 to 1986, and has served as Chancellor of the Universities of Cambridge, Edinburgh, Salford, and Wales.

In 2017, the British Heart Foundation thanked Prince Philip for being its patron for 55 years, during which time, in addition to organising fundraisers, he “supported the creation of nine BHF-funded centres of excellence”. He is an Honorary Fellow of St Edmund’s College, Cambridge.

Prince Philip retired from his royal duties on 2 August 2017, meeting Royal Marines in his final solo public engagement, aged 96. Since 1952 he had completed 22,219 solo engagements. Prime Minister Theresa May thanked him for “a remarkable lifetime of service”. On November 20, 2017, he celebrated his 70th wedding anniversary with the Queen, which made her the first British monarch to celebrate a platinum wedding anniversary.

The Duke of Edinburgh is the longest-lived descendant of both Queen Victoria and King Christian IX of Denmark, he is the longest serving British royal consort and his marriage to HM The Queen is the longest in British royal history.

On this Date in History: Assassination of King George I of the Hellenes.

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Alexandros Schinas, Assassination, Christian IX of Denmark, George I of Greece, King George I of the Hellenes, Kingdom of Greece, Kingdom of the Hellenes, Otto of Greece, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

George I of Greece (1863-1913) was originally a Danish prince, the second son and third child of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (future King Christian IX of Denmark) and Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel. George was born on December 24, 1845 at the Yellow Palace, an 18th-century town house at 18 Amaliegade, right next to the Amalienborg Palace complex in Copenhagen.

King George I of the Hellenes

Until his accession in Greece, he was known as Prince Wilhelm, the namesake of his grandfathers Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel. George was destined for a career in the Royal Danish Navy. He was only 17 years old when he was elected king by the Greek National Assembly, which had deposed the unpopular former king Otto (second son of King Ludwig I of Bavaria and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghause).

Otto, King of Greece

His nomination was both suggested and supported by the Great Powers: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the Second French Empire and the Russian Empire. He married the Russian grand duchess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, and became the first monarch of a new Greek dynasty.

George and his family, 1862: (back row left to right) Crown Prince Frederick, Christian IX, George; (front row left to right) Dagmar, Valdemar, Queen Louise, Thyra, Alexandra

The death of Britain’s Queen Victoria on January 22, 1901 left King George as the second-longest-reigning monarch in Europe. His always cordial relations with his brother-in-law, the new King Edward VII, continued to tie Greece to Britain. This was abundantly important in Britain’s support of King George’s second son Prince George as Governor-General of Crete. Nevertheless, Prince George resigned in 1906 after a leader in the Cretan Assembly, Eleftherios Venizelos, campaigned to have him removed.

As a response to the Young Turk Revolution of 1908, Venizelos’s power base was further strengthened, and on October 8, 1908 the Cretan Assembly passed a resolution in favor of union despite both the reservations of the Athens government under Georgios Theotokis and the objections of the Great Power. The muted reaction of the Athens Government to the news from Crete led to an unsettled state of affairs on the mainland.

King George I of the Hellenes

In August 1909, a group of army officers that had formed a military league, Stratiotikos Syndesmos, demanded, among other things, that the royal family be stripped of their military commissions. To save the King the embarrassment of removing his sons from their commissions, they resigned them. The military league attempted a coup d’état, and the King insisted on supporting the duly elected Hellenic Parliament in response. Eventually, the military league joined forces with Venizelos in calling for a National Assembly to revise the constitution. King George gave way, and new elections to the revising assembly were held in August 1910. After some political maneuvering, Venizelos became prime minister of a minority government. Just a month later, Venizelos called new elections for December 11, 1910, at which he won an overwhelming majority after most of the opposition parties declined to take part.

Venizelos and the King were united in their belief that the nation required a strong army to repair the damage of the humiliating defeat of 1897. Crown Prince Constantine was reinstated as Inspector-General of the Army, and later Commander-in-Chief. Under his and Venizelos’s close supervision the military was retrained and equipped with French and British help, and new ships were ordered for the Hellenic Navy. Meanwhile, through diplomatic means, Venizelos had united the Christian countries of the Balkans in opposition to the ailing Ottoman Empire.

When the Kingdom of Montenegro declared war on Turkey on October 8, 1912, it was joined quickly by Serbia, Bulgaria, and Greece in what is known as the First Balkan War. George was on vacation in Denmark, so he immediately returned to Greece via Vienna, arriving in Athens to be met by a large and enthusiastic crowd on the evening of 9 October. The results of this campaign differed radically from the Greek experience at the hands of the Turks in 1897. The well-trained Greek forces, 200,000 strong, won victory after victory. On November 9, 1912, Greek forces commanded by Crown Prince Constantine rode into Thessaloniki, just a few hours ahead of a Bulgarian division. Three days later King George rode in triumph through the streets of Thessaloniki, the second-largest Greek city, accompanied by the Crown Prince and Venizelos.

Assassination of George I by Alexandros Schinas as depicted in a contemporary lithograph

As he approached the fiftieth anniversary of his accession, the King made plans to abdicate in favor of his son Constantine immediately after the celebration of his golden jubilee in October 1913. Just as he did in Athens, George went about Thessaloniki without any meaningful protection force. While out on an afternoon walk near the White Tower on March 18, 1913, he was shot at close range in the back by Alexandros Schinas, who was “said to belong to a Socialist organization” and “declared when arrested that he had killed the King because he refused to give him money.” George died instantly, the bullet having penetrated his heart. The Greek government denied any political motive for the assassination, saying that Schinas was an alcoholic vagrant. Schinas was tortured in prison and six weeks later fell to his death from a police station window.

The King’s body was taken to Athens on the Amphitrite, escorted by a flotilla of naval vessels. For three days the coffin of the King, draped in the Danish and Greek flags, lay in the Metropolitan Cathedral in Athens before his body was committed to a tomb at his palace in Tatoi. Crown Prince Constantine succeeded his father as the new king of the Hellenes.

Election of the King of the Hellenes.

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Alfred Duke of Edinburgh, Christian IX, Christian IX of Denmark, Election, Ernest II Duke of Save-Coburg-Gotha, George I of Greece, King George I of the Hellenes, Kingdom of Greece, Kingdom of the Hellenes, Ludwig I of Bavaria, Otto of Greece, Plebiscite, Queen Victoria

On this date in History: March 30, 1863. Prince Wilhelm of Denmark was elected as King of the Hellenes (Greece).

George I (born Prince Wilhelm of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg; 24 December 24, 1845 – March 18, 1913) was King of the Hellenes (Greece) from 1863 until his assassination in 1913.

George was born at the Yellow Palace, an 18th-century town house at 18 Amaliegade, right next to the Amalienborg Palace complex in Copenhagen. He was the second son of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (Christian IX of Denmark) and Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel. Although his full name was Prince Christian Wilhelm Ferdinand Adolf Georg of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, until his accession in Greece, he was known as Prince Wilhelm the namesake of his paternal and maternal grandfathers, Wilhelm, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Cassel.

Although he was of royal blood, his family was relatively obscure and lived a comparatively normal life by royal standards. In 1853, however, George’s father was designated the heir presumptive to the childless King Frederik VII of Denmark, and the family became princes and princesses of Denmark. George’s siblings were Frederik (who succeeded their father as King of Denmark), Alexandra (who became wife of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom and the mother of King George V), Dagmar (who, as Empress Maria Feodorovna, was consort of Emperor Alexander III of Russiaand the mother of Emperor Nicholas II), Thyra (who married Prince Ernest Augustus, 3rd Duke of Cumberland and Teviotdale) and Valdemar.

King of the Hellenes

Following the overthrow of the Bavarian-born King Otto of Greece (son of King Ludwig I of Bavaria and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen) in October 1862, the Greek people had rejected Otto’s brother and designated successor Leopold, although they still favored a monarchy rather than a republic. Many Greeks, seeking closer ties to the pre-eminent world power, Great Britain, rallied around Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, second son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. British prime minister Lord Palmerston believed that the Greeks were “panting for increase in territory”, hoping for a gift of the Ionian Islands, which were then a British protectorate.

The London Conference of 1832, however, prohibited any of the Great Powers’ ruling families from accepting the crown, and in any event, Queen Victoria was adamantly opposed to the idea. The Greeks nevertheless insisted on holding a plebiscite in which Prince Alfred received over 95% of the 240,000 votes. There were 93 votes for a Republic and 6 for a Greek.King Otto received one vote. Prince Alfred was also the designated heir to his uncle, Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha should the Duke remain childless.

With Prince Alfred’s exclusion, the search began for an alternative candidate. The French favored Henri d’Orléans, duc d’Aumale, while the British proposed Queen Victoria’s brother-in-law Ernst II, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, her nephew Prince Leiningen, and Archduke Maximilian of Austria, among others. Eventually, the Greeks and Great Powers winnowed their choice to Prince William of Denmark, who had received 6 votes in the plebiscite.

Aged only 17, he was elected King of the Hellenes on March 30, 1863 by the Greek National Assembly under the regnal name of George I. Paradoxically, he ascended a royal throne before his father, who became King Christian IX of Denmark on November 15 of the same year. There were two significant differences between George’s elevation and that of his predecessor, Otto. First, he was acclaimed unanimously by the Greek Assembly, rather than imposed on the people by foreign powers. Second, he was proclaimed “King of the Hellenes” instead of “King of Greece”, which had been Otto’s style.

His ceremonial enthronement in Copenhagen on 6 June was attended by a delegation of Greeks led by First Admiral and Prime Minister Constantine Kanaris. Frederick VII awarded George the Order of the Elephant, and it was announced that the British government would cede the Ionian Islands to Greece in honor of the new monarch.

King George I is the paternal grandfather of HRH The Duke of Edinburgh, husband of HM Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom and born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark.

February 5…1649, 1685, 1952 & 1981.

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Charles II, Charles II of England and Scotland, English Civil War, February 5 1952, Frederica of Greece, James VII King of Scots, King George VI of the United Kingdom, King James II of England, King James II-VII of England and Scotland, Kingdom of the Hellenes, Lord Protector, Oliver Cromwell, Queen Elizabeth II, Scotland

On this Date in History. February 5. This date has some significant events throughout European Royal History.

1. On the morning of February 6, 1952 King George VI of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was found dead in bed at Sandringham House in Norfolk. He had died from a coronary thrombosis in his sleep at the age of 56. His eldest daughter succeeds as Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.

Her Majesty The Queen has been on the British throne for 66 years. This is a day she does not celebrate.

2. On this date February 5, 1649, the the Covenanter Parliament of Scotland proclaimed Charles II “King of Great Britain, France and Ireland” at the Mercat Cross, Edinburgh, but the Scottish Parliament also refused to allow Charles to enter Scotland unless he accepted the imposition of Presbyterianism throughout Britain and Ireland. This event occurred a week after his father, King Charles I, was beheaded for treason by the English Parliament at the end of the Civil War.

At this time England, Scotland and Ireland were not politically united (the title of “King of Great Britain” was not recognized even when the monarchy was extant) and though the monarchy had been abolished in England it had not been abolished in Scotland. The Scots had a difficult relationship with their potential king and in spite being independent from England, in spirit only, England fought against Charles II mounting the Scottish throne. This conflict culminated with the Instrument of Government passed by Parliament, December 1653, where Oliver Cromwell, as Head of State, was appointed The Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland, effectively placing the British Isles under military rule. The creation of Cromwell as Lord Protector replaced the First Council of State which held executive power. Charles II was exiled to the Netherlands.

3. On May 29, 1660 Charles II was formally restored to the thrones of England, Scotland and Ireland. Charles II passed away on February 5, 1685 at the age of 54 after a reign of 24 years, 253 days. Charles suffered a sudden apoplectic fit on the morning of February 2, 1685, and died aged 54 at 11:45 am four days later at Whitehall Palace. The suddenness of his illness and death led to suspicion of poison in the minds of many, including one of the royal doctors; however, a more modern medical analysis has held that the symptoms of his final illness are similar to those of uraemia (a clinical syndrome due to kidney dysfunction). In the days between his collapse and his death, Charles endured a variety of torturous treatments including bloodletting, purging and cupping in hopes of effecting a recovery.

On his deathbed Charles asked his brother, James, to look after his mistresses: “be well to Portsmouth, and let not poor Nelly starve”. He told his courtiers, “I am sorry, gentlemen, for being such a time a-dying”, and expressed regret at his treatment of his wife. On the last evening of his life he was received into the Catholic Church, though the extent to which he was fully conscious or committed, and with whom the idea originated, is unclear. He was buried in Westminster Abbey “without any manner of pomp” on 14 February. Charles II did not have any legitimate issue with his wife, the Portuguese Princess Catherine of Braganza and there for Charles was succeeded by his brother, who became James II of England and reland and James VII of Scotland.

4. February 5, 1981. The death of Queen Frederica of the Hellenes age 63. She was the wife of King Pavlos of the Hellenes (1901-1964).

Born Her Royal Highness Princess Frederica of Hanover, of Great Britain and Ireland, and of Brunswick-Lüneburg on April 18, 1917 in Blankenburg am Harz, in the German Duchy of Brunswick, she was the only daughter of Ernest Augustus, then reigning Duke of Brunswick, and his wife Princess Viktoria Luise of Prussia, herself the only daughter of the German Emperor Wilhelm II, King of Prussia. Both her father and maternal grandfather would abdicate their crowns in November 1918 following Germany’s defeat in World War I, and her paternal grandfather would be stripped of his British royal dukedom the following year. As a descendant of Queen Victoria, she was, at birth, 34th in the line of succession to the British throne.

Marriage

Prince Pavlos of Greece, her mother’s paternal first cousin, proposed to her during the summer of 1936, while he was in Berlin attending the 1936 Summer Olympics. Pavlos was a son of King Constantine I and Frederica’s grand-aunt Sophia. Their engagement was announced officially on September 28, 1937, and Britain’s King George VI gave his consent pursuant to the Royal Marriages Act 1772 on December 26, 1937. They married in Athens on January 9, 1938. Frederica became Hereditary Princess of Greece, her husband being heir presumptive to his childless elder brother, King George II.

Frederica died on February 6, 1981 in exile in Madrid during ophthalmic surgery. In its obituary of the former Queen, The New York Times reported that she died during “eyelid surgery,” which led to frequent but unsubstantiated rumours that she died while undergoing cosmetic surgery. Other sources state that her cause of death was a heart attack while undergoing the removal of cataracts. She was interred at Tatoi (the Royal family’s palace and burial ground in Greece). Her son, exiled King Constantine II of the Hellenes, and his family were allowed to attend the service but had to leave immediately afterwards. Queen Frederica was also the mother of Queen Sofia of Spain wife of King Juan-Carlos and mother of Spain’s current king, Felipe VI.