Musings on Monarchs
This Fifteenth Century miniature by Jean Fouquet shows
King Charles VII ("the Well-Served"} of France
presiding at a lit de justice, at which the duc
d'Alençon
was tried for conspiring with the English.
The original is part of Des Cas des Nobles Hommes et
Femmes,
Boccaccio, Cod. Gall. 6, fol. 2v.
_______
MUSINGS
- To think of royalty is to think of
coronations; yet nowadays except in Great
Britain, there no longer are coronations for new monarchs, but
just formal oath-taking inaugurations in
which the new monarch swears to uphold his country's constitution
and laws. In this century, only four kings on the continent of
Europe (Peter I of Serbia in 1904, Haakon VII of Norway in 1906,
Karl IV of Hungary in 1916, and Ferdinand I of Romania in 1922)
had coronations following their accessions. In all the other
European kingdoms, i.e., in Sweden, Denmark, Portugal,
Spain, Italy, Bulgaria, Greece, Albania, Montenegro, Yugoslavia,
Prussia, Saxony, Bavaria, Württemberg, Belgium, and The
Netherlands, every new monarch in this century had just a
swearing-in ceremony. In some cases, e.g., Spain and
Bulgaria, coronations had been abandoned centuries ago. In some
others, e.g., Belgium and Greece, they never existed. In
most cases, though, the decision not to have a coronation was made
only in this century and was taken by the governments involved in
order to make their monarchies appear more modern.
- The first 20th Century coronation occurred on September 19,
1904, when newly installed King Peter I Karageorgevic of Serbia
was crowned (alone, because by then he was a widower) in a Serbian
Orthodox ceremony at the Cathedral of the Host of Holy Archangels
in Belgrade. Photograph. He
was later, on October 7, 1904, annointed at the Church of the Holy
Redeemer in the historic Zhicha Monastery. His two successors,
King Alexander I and KIng Peter II, however, were neither crowned
nor annointed.
- The second coronation of this century occurred on June 22,
1906, when newly elected King Haakon VII of Norway and his wife
Queen Maud were crowned in a Lutheran ceremony at the Nidaros
Cathedral of St. Olav in Trøndheim.
Photograph. Haakon VII's two
successors, King Olav V and King Harald V, however, had only
swearing-in and, later, consecration ceremonies.
Comment.
- The third coronation was on December 20, 1916, when Emperor
Karl I of Austria and his wife Empress Zita were crowned as King
Karl IV and Queen Zita of Hungary in a Roman Catholic ceremony at
the Matthias Cathedral of Our Lady in Budapest.
Photograph. Karl was deposed
in 1918 and was the last Emperor of Austria and King of
Hungary.
- The fourth and last coronation to occur in this century was
that of King Ferdinand I of Romania and his wife Queen Marie in a
non-denominational ceremony on October 15, 1922, in the public
square in front of the newly-built Coronation Cathedral of the
Reunification in Alba Iulia, a major city in the new Romanian
province of Transylvania.
Photograph. King Ferdinand's
two successors, King Carol II and King Mihai I, however, just had
swearing-in ceremonies.
- To think of royalty is also to think of dynasty, and that -
by definition - involves families, including marriages and wedding
ceremonies. In this century there have been many spectacular (and
some not so spectacular) weddings of reigning monarchs and of
their children. There have, of course, also been many weddings
within the dispossessed royal houses of Europe.
Listed here are this century's royal
weddings.
- Every reign has a beginning. I am collecting photographs of
the swearings-in of all those European monarchs who were not
crowned. Listed here are these royal accessions..
- James
VI, King of Scots, in 1603 became King James I of England, the
first of the Stuart Dynasty. He was the son and successor of
Mary
Stewart, Queen of Scots, by her second husband
Henry
Stuart, Duke of Albany (Lord Darnley). Mary and Henry were
each others' very distant cousins, both being direct descendants,
in the male line, of
Alexander,
the fourth High Steward of Scotland, the source of each of their
surnames. See especially the excellent web site
Early
Kings of Scotland.
- The last King of Romania, Mihai I, was forced to abdicate
by the Soviet Union on December 30, 1947, and to leave the country
the following week. He now lives in Switzerland. An interesting
question is who can or will be his successor. Because the Kingdom
of Romania is under Salic Law, only a male member, in the male
line, of the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen Dynasty may succeed to the
Throne. King Mihai and his wife Queen Anne, however, have only
daughters. Since only a Romanian Parliament can change the law of
succession, the pressing question for all Romanian monarchists is
who, then, is the heir presumptive to the Throne? The only living
males in the entire Romanian Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen Family,
other than King Mihai himself, are the two sons of Carol Mircea,
the barely acknowledged older half-brother of King Mihai by his
father King Carol II's secret, and scandalous, first marriage
during World War I on September 14, 1918, in Odessa, Russia, to
the teenage Joana Marie Valentine (Zizi) Lambrino, a daughter of a
then prominent Greek-Romanian family. The elder of Carol Mircea's
two sons, who calls himself
Prince Paul
of Romania, may become a claimant. If it stands that neither a
daughter of King Mihai nor a son of Carol Mircea can succeed, will
the succession simply lapse? Or will the succession go to the
nearest male member of the collateral German Hohenzollern family?
Comments
Received.
- Why is it that in France, in 1824, during the Restoration
that followed the Revolution, the Republic and the Napoleonic
Empire, Prince Charles-Philippe de Bourbon, known as le comte
d'Artois, upon succeeding his brother Louis XVIII as King of
France, took for his regnal name "Charles X" and not "Charles XI"?
After all, France already had had, several centuries before, a
King Charles X. In 1589, when King Henri III ("the King of
Sodom"), the last Valois King of France, was assassinated, the
nearest heirs to the throne were a distant collateral branch of
the Captiens known as the Bourbons. This was because the Kingdom
of France has always been under the Salic Law, meaning that the
heir must be the closest male relative in the male line. In 1589,
under Salic Law, the heir to King Henri III should have been his
distant cousin, King Henri III of Navarre. This Henri de Navarre,
however, was a Protestant and Pope Sixtus V had, a few years
before,proclaimed that Henri de Navarre (and every other
non-Catholic) was ineligible to be King of France. Therefore, when
the last Valois King died, most of Catholic France rejected the
Protestant cousin's claim to the Throne and instead proclaimed as
"King Charles X" of France the next person in line, Charles
Cardinal de Bourbon, an elderly and childless, but clearly Roman
Catholic, uncle of the Protestant King Henri III of Navarre. This
Cardinal was a younger brother of Henri of Navarre's deceased
father, Antoine de Bourbon, King Consort of Navarre, and therefore
the next male, after that Antoine's only son, in the line of
succession for the French Throne. The Cardinal King, however,
lived only a few more months, dying in 1590. Ultimately, of
course, King Henri III of Navarre did gain the French Throne,
becoming King Henri IV and the country's most popular monarch in
history. But that was only in 1593, after he abjured Protestantism
and returned to the Catholicism of his birth. Tho questions
remain, then, who was King of France between 1590 and 1593 and why
did the comte a'Artois, two centuries later, choose to
ignore the short reign of the Cardinal de Bourbon and call himself
Charles X, rather than Charles XI.
Comments Received.
- What ever happened to the so-called "Legitimist" royal
lines of Great Britain, France, Spain and Portugal? In each
country a child, a sibling, or a cousin of the reigning King
succeeded to the Throne against then existing dynastic laws of the
country. In Great Britain, at "the Glorious Revolution of 1688,"
the King James II's daughter Mary and her husband Prince Willem of
The Netherlands sent him and his newborn son into exile and
reigned in his stead. In France, with "the Revolution of 1830" the
King Charles X's cousin Louis Philippe d'Orleans sent him and his
heir presumptive grandson into exile and became in his stead the
first "King of the French.". In Spain and Portugal in the
mid-Nineteenth Century, daughters of King Ferdinand VII of Spain
and of King Pedro IV of Portugal succeeded their fathers as Queens
Regnant Isabel II and Maria II, but were opposed in civil wars led
by their fathers' brothers, Prince Carlos of Spain and Prince
Miguel of Portugal, the rightful heirs according to upholders of
the Salic Law and the Foreigners Exclusion Law, respectively. In
all four countries the "Legitimist" pretenders continued (and
still continue) to claim the Thrones as rightfully being theirs.
In the first three cases, however, the actual "Legitimist" lines
ultimately died out, thereby confronting their partisans with the
prospect of having the "usurper" lines being legitimatist after
all. In Portugal, however, it was the "usurper" line that died
out, forcing its partisans into choosing to make peace with the
"Legitimists." In Great Britain, France and Spain, moreover, even
after the legitimate lines had died out, many of the "Legitimists"
refused to accept the "usurper" lines, even though those "usurper"
lines. Instead, these "legitimists" splintered into several
factions supporting various so-called "Legitimist" candidates in
claiming their countries' Thrones.
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