Read Assassination: The Royal Family's 1000-Year Curse Online
Authors: David Maislish
Tags: #Europe, #Biography & Autobiography, #Royalty, #Great Britain, #History
Maria Theresa married Prince Ludwig of Bavaria, who became King Ludwig III in 1913. He was deposed in 1918. When ex-Queen Maria Theresa of Bavaria died in 1919, she was succeeded by her first son, Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria
– a German Field Marshall in the First World War. Rupprecht became the ninth Pretender.
Having fallen out with the Nazis, Rupprecht went to live in Italy. His son, Albrecht, was an anti-Nazi. Albrecht took his mother and the rest of the family to his estate in Hungary. But Hungary joined the Nazis, and before long Albrecht, his mother (Rupprecht’s wife) and the rest of the family were arrested and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp and then to Dachau. They survived the war, although Rupprecht’s wife never recovered, and she refused to return to Germany, dying several years later in Switzerland.
Rupprecht died in 1955, and was succeeded by his son, Duke Albrecht of Bavaria, who became the tenth Pretender. Duke Albrecht died in 1996, and he was succeeded by his son, Duke Franz of Bavaria, great-grandson of the last king of Bavaria and claimant to its throne.
Duke Franz (the eleventh Pretender) lives in an apartment in the Nymphenburg Palace in Munich, the former summer residence of the kings of Bavaria. But for the Catholic exclusion, Duke Franz would today be King of the United Kingdom. He is the present Jacobite Pretender, the eleventh cousin of Queen Elizabeth II.
Duke Franz has never married. His heir is his brother, Max Duke in Bavaria. Max married the Swedish Countess Elisabeth Douglas, a descendant of Robert Douglas, a Scotsman who became a senior officer in the Swedish Army (his grandfather was one of Riccio’s murderers – see Elizabeth I). They have five daughters, and Max’s heir is the oldest daughter, Sophie, who married Alois the Hereditary Prince of Liechtenstein, the present regent and heir to the princedom of Liechtenstein; his father, multi-billionaire Prince Hans-Adam
58
, is Europe’s wealthiest monarch.
Their first son, Prince Joseph Wenzel Maximilian Maria of Liechtenstein is therefore the ultimate heir to the throne of Liechtenstein and (but for the exclusion) to the throne of the United Kingdom. Conveniently, if he succeeds to both thrones, only one national anthem would have to be played.
58 Prince Hans-Adam’s full name is Johannes Adam Ferdinand Alois Josef Maria Marco d’Aviano Pius von und zu Liechtenstein; so he is named after the alleged inventor of the capuccino (see page 300).
Prince Joseph Wenzel was born in 1995 at the Portland Hospital in London (also the birthplace of Queen Elizabeth II’s granddaughters Beatrice and Eugenie), and presently attends Malvern College in Worcestershire
59
. He will be the first pretender to be born in England since James II fled the country in 1688.
59 The school was formerly attended by Prince Ernest Augustus, the heir of the House of Hanover, the House that took the throne from the House of Stuart of which Prince Joseph Wenzel is the heir.
Charles IV Victor I
King of King of Sardinia Sardinia GEORGE III
Mary III
Duchess of
Modena GEORGE IV WILLIAM IV Duke of Kent
Principal attende es at the funeral of King Edward VII
– and what became of them
[relationship to Edward VII]
Kaiser Wilhelm I…………………………........abdicated and exiled [nephew]
son of Edward’s sister Victoria
Prince Arthur Duke of Connaught……….…entitled to become [brother] Duke of Saxe- Coburg and Gotha on the death of his elder brother Prince Alfred, he renounced his rights in favour of his nephew, Charles, son of Prince Leopold
King George I of Greece……………….….….assassinated [brother-in-law]
brother of Queen Alexandra
King Alfonso XIII of Spain……….…………..abdicated and exiled [nephew-in-law]
husband of the daughter of Edward’s
sister Beatrice
King Haakon VII of Norway…………..……..temporarily exiled [son-in-law]
husband and cousin of Edward’s
daughter Maud
King Frederick VIII of Denmark……….……..found dead on a park [brother-in law] bench in Hamburg
brother of Queen Alexandra
King Manuel II of Portugal …………….…..…exiled and monarchy [second cousin twice removed]
2 x great-grandson of Queen Victoria’s maternal uncle
abolished; died
suddenly in England in suspicious
circumstances
Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria……………….…abdicated and exiled [second cousin]
grandson of Queen Victoria’s maternal uncle
King Albert I of the Belgians……...……….….died while [second cousin] mountaineering on
grandson of Queen Victoria’s maternal uncle
his own
Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovitch…….….murdered of Russia
[nephew-in-law]
son of Queen Alexandra’s sister
Prince Emanuele Duke of Aosta……..…..…...lost his rights as heir [seventh cousin once removed]
6 x great-grandson of King George I’s uncle John Frederick
to the Spanish throne when his father
abdicated
Duke of Sparta…………………….……...….…abdicated, recovered the later King Constantine I of Greece [nephew-in-law]
son of Queen Alexandra’s brother
throne, abdicated again and exiled
Crown Prince of Romania……….…….…..….succeeded by his later King Ferdinand grandson who abdicated [nephew-in-law]
husband of Marie, the daughter of
Edward’s brother Alfred
Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria…...…….exiled [eighth cousin once removed]
the Jacobite pretender
both he and Edward were descendants of
King James I; Rupprecht a 9 x great-grandson, Edward an 8 x great-grandson
Duke Albrecht of Wurttemberg…………..…..heir to the throne of [second cousin once removed]
great-grandson of Queen Victoria’s maternal aunt
Wurttemberg, but
following his cousin the king’s deposition and abdication, the kingship was abolished
Prince Hendrik of the Netherlands…….….…his wife abdicated in [fifth cousin once removed] favour of their
consort of Queen Wilhelmina
daughter
and descendant of George I’s daughter
Grand Duke Ernest of Hesse……….….…..….deposed [nephew]
son of Edward’s sister Alice
Grand Duke Adolphus………………….…….succeeded by his son, of Mecklenburg-Strelitz
[second cousin]
he and Edward both being great-grandsons of George III
who committed suicide
Prince Heinrich of Prussia………..…………...two sons died as a result [nephew] of haemophilia (Heinrich
son of Edward’s sister Victoria
having married his
cousin Irene, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria), the third son settled in Costa Rica
Duke Charles of Saxe-Coburg……..…...…….deprived of his English and Gotha titles in WW1 and [nephew] deprived of his German
son of Edward’s brother Leopold
ducal title a year later, he
Prince George of Saxony…………...…....……died without issue [second cousin once removed]
great-grandson of Queen Victoria’s
maternal uncle
Prince Carl of Sweden………….…..…….……expected to become the [third cousin twice removed] king of Norway on its
3 x great-grandson of George III’s sister
independence from
Sweden, he was overlooked when a Danish prince was preferred
Prince Friedrich of Waldeck…………..…..….deposed and Pyrmont
[fourth cousin once removed]
descendant of George III’s sister
Prince Mohammed Ali of Egypt……..….…....exiled Prince Arthur of Connaught……………….....succeeded by his son, [nephew] who whilst in Canada
son of Edward’s brother Arthur
fell out of a window one
night when drunk, and died of hypothermia, leaving no issue
Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein…..…forced to abandon the name [brother-in-law] Schleswig-Holstein in
husband of Edward’s sister Helena
1917, he died three
months later without replacing it, and was succeeded by his son who died without issue
Prince Alexander of Battenberg….………...... forced to abandon the name [nephew] Battenberg in 1917, he
son of Edward’s sister Beatrice
became Lord Carisbrooke;
Duke of Fife………………………….…………after being shipwrecked [son-in-law] and later rescued, he
husband of Edward’s daughter Louise;
died of pleurisy in Egypt
also a great-grandson of William IV
and Dorothea Jordan, and therefore second
cousin once removed of Edward, both being
descendants of George III
Duke Adolphus of Teck………………….……forced to abandon the name [second cousin]
like Edward, a great-grandson of George III; also a brother of Edward’s daughter-in-law Queen Mary
Teck in 1917, he became Marquess of Cambridge; succeeded by his son on whose death the
peerage became extinct Prince Francis of Teck………………………....he died without issue [second cousin]
like Edward, a great-grandson of George III; also a brother of Edward’s daughter–in-law Queen Mary
Prince Alexander of Teck………….…….…….became Earl of Athlone; [second cousin] died without issue
like Edward, a great-grandson of George III;
also a brother of Edward’s daughter-in-law
Queen Mary; he married Alice, daughter of
Edward’s brother Leopold, and was therefore
also Edward’s nephew-in-law
Prince Andrew of Greece……………………..father of Prince Philip; [fifth cousin twice removed] exiled
descendant of George II’s sister
Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich….……....banished from Russia of Russia for life for making [fifth cousin once removed] an unsuitable and
descendant of George II’s sister
illegal marriage
(he married Countess Sophie of Merenberg the granddaughter of Pushkin, through whom she had one 3 x great-grandparent who was a former African slave given to Peter the Great and brought up by him as a son); the banishment saved him from the Bolsheviks
Prince Maximilian of Baden…………….….…heir to his cousin who [fifth cousin twice removed] abdicated, but the
descendant of George II’s sister
duchy was abolished
Prince Christopher of Greece…………….…..declined the thrones of [fifth cousin twice removed] Portugal, Lithuania
descendant of George II’s sister
and Albania to marry
an American millionairess, his son lost all rights to the Greek throne for his descendants on making a morganatic marriage