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THE ROYAL DYNASTY.
WHENCE KING GEORGE DESCENDS.
(By A. C. Fox-Davies, of Lincoln's Inn.)
Barrister-at-law. Editor .,f Armorial Fam
ilies;" Author of "The Complete Guide to
Heraldry," "Their Majesties' Court," 1tc.,
Etc.
The flight of King Manoel from Portugal
and the assassination of his father, the ab
dication of King Milan, and the murder of
the late King and Queen of Servia, the Em
press of Austria, and many another Euro
pean ruler, all only indicate the peril of a
throne. All justify the ancient tag, ' Unsesy
lies the head that wears a crown."
Once in the execution of Charles I., has
this country seen "red" and stained its hanas
in blood, but the exclusion of James II. and!
the Stuart line has left us, like most other
States with a pretender, the Princess Mary cf
Bavaria, who, fortunately for our internal
peace, strenuously declines to pretend.
In this country we start our history with
a knowledge of William the Conqueror, who
wrested the throne from King Harold, the
only elected king we ever had. Some of us
have heard of Alfred the Great, though it is
to be feared that if he had never burnt those
cakes his fame would have been less. Ma
tilda, the wife of the Conqueror, was a des
cendant, though not the heir of Alfred, but
the Plantagenet kings were more nearly the
representatives of the Anglo-Saxon dynasty
through the marriage of Henry I. with Ma
tilda, daughter of Malcolm Canmore and
Margaret, sister and heir of Edgar Atheling.
If Robert Bruce were the senior amongst
the surviving co-heirs when he succeeded to
the throne of Scotland, the Stuarts really
were the right heirs not only of the ancient
kings of Scotland, but also of the Saxon
kings of England, as well as of the Plantag
enets and 'the Tudors.
William Rufus, slain in the New Forest,
the murder of Prince Arthur, Edward II.
murdered in Berkeley Castle, Richard II.
murdered at Pontefract, Henry II. murder
ed in the Tower of London, Edward V.
murdered with his brother in the Tower,
Richard III. killed at the battle of Bos
worth, and Charles I. beheaded in Whitehall,
are our own list of tragedies in the contest
for the Crown, and yet Charles I. had
united in his person the heirships of the dy
nasties which had preceded him. But the
story goes that James I. was not a Stuart
at all, but a changeling, and that the infant
child of Mary Queen of Scots and Darnley
died, and was buried at the foot of a stair
case in Holyrood Palace. The skeleton of
a child was found there, but there are un
romantic antiquaries who cynically point
olt that no reference to any such tradition
can be traced until after the finding of the
skeleton.
The alliances, matrimonial and otherwise,
of Charles II. open a wide field of romance,
for there is more than can be dismissed
lightly in the suggestion that the Duke ot
Monmouth may have been a legitimate son
of Charles II.
And there is a weird legend of the mar
riage of Queen Elizabeth and Leicester, and
the birth of a son-Bacon. There are cryp
tograms in Shakespeare to prove it, aid only
within the last few weeks a book has been
published to prove that Queen Elizabeth was
really a man.
But for good or ill this country made an
end of Divine Right when James II left us,
and Dutch William was put upon the throne,
and the Georges rule us by virtue of the Act
of Settlement, an Act passed in the Com
mons by a majority of one-and that one a
drunken Welsh Member, who voted in the
wrong lobby by mistake.
When Culledon had finally shattered the
hopes of the Stuarts, dynastic troubles in
this country came to an end, and the last
of the direct line of the Stuarts. Cardinal
York bequeathed such of the regalia as re
mained in his handsto King George II. The
Legitimist claim, which cites Princess Mary
of Bavaria as the trueheir, is merely a mat
ter of interesting antiquarian research.
With the death of Queen Victoria, the dy
nasty of Guelph or Brunswick-whichever
may be its more correct description--came to
an end, and with King Edward VII. be
gan the dynasty of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
through which house King George traces his
real male pedigree.
As a male descent the King of England
shares it in common with the kings of Sax
ony, Belgium and Portugal, all of whom are
closely related to him, and that pedigree
running back as it does to the remotest his
torical antiquity, is probably the finest and
most authentic continuous male descent now
known.
The pedigrees of the Emperor of Japan
and the Negus of Abyssinia are asserted to
be of far greater length, but it is doubtful
how far Oriental authentication can be
compared with European.
Wittekind the Great, the first Duke of
Saxony, died in the year 807. He fought
with Charlemagne, and one wonders whether
it ever dawned on either of those two antag
onists that their blood would mingle in the
future, and that a time would come when
their descendants would sit on every Christ
ian throne in Europe. Did Charlemagne when
he finally conquered Wittekind, ever think
that his own line would be overthrown,
whilst the line of his vanquished foe would
rule the greatest Empire the world has ever
knosln?
From Wittekind I. descended Theodoric II.
Count of Wettin and Landsberg, who died
1034, having married Matilda, daughter of
the Margrave of Meissen, by whpm he had a
son, Thomo, whose son Conrad, married I nt
gardis, sister of the Emperor Conrad HI.
e was invested with the dignity of MIar
grave of Meissen by the Emperor Lothair.
who also gave him the Margraves of Low
er Lusatia in 1136.
To Conrad "the Great" succeeded his son
Otho "the rich," and grandson Albert "the
proud," who was poinoned by one of his ser
vants in 1195, being succeeded by his brother
Theodore who in his turn was poisoned in
1222. Theodore, who was also Count of
Weissenfels married the beiress of "hurin
gia, Judith, daughter of Herman the Land
grave, a direct descendant of Charlemagne.
Henry, their son, succeeded his featherr as
Margeace of leissen and his mother as
Landgrave of Thuringia, was surnamed "the
Illustrious" and married a daughter of the
Duke of Austria. Albert -the froward,"
their son, had trouble with his wife, a
daughter of the Emperor Frederick II. She
preferred flight to assassination, and one
of her ladies, Cunigund son Eisenberg, took
her place. Albert died in 1314, and was
succeeded by his son Frederick I., his grand
son Krederick "the grave," and great grand
son Frederick "the valiant," whose wife
brought him Coburg. lie died in 1380.
His son Frederick "the warlike" reigned
jointly with his brothers as Margrace of
Meissen, and with them purchased Saal
feld. In 1422 the Duchy of Upper Saxony,
together with thie dignities of Elector, and
Arch-Marshal of the Roman Empire, which
were attached to the Duchy devolved on
this Frederick, who married a daughter
of the Duke of Brunswick, and died in
1428.
His son Frederick "the gentle" married a
daughter of Ernest, Archduke of Austria,
and had two sons, Ernest and Albert, mrom
whom are traced the two great divisions of
the House of Saxony, which are still nmown
as the Ernestine and 'lbertine lines.. In
the division between them, after reigning
jointly for twenty years, I'rnest took Thur
ingia with the electoral dignity, and it is
with him that we are' cncerned. Albert
became Margrave of Meissen, and from him
the King of Saxony descends.
Ernest, by his wife, Elizabeth, daughter
of the Duke of Bavaria, had two sons, the
elder being Frederick 'the Wise," who
founded the University of Vl ittenberg, and
was the protector of Martin Luther. He
died unmarried, and was succeeded oy his
brother John "the Constant," whose first
wife was Sophia, daughter of the Duke of
Mecklenburg.
Their son, John Frederick "the Magnani
mous," taken prisoner at the- battle of Mul
berg, in 1547, was deprived of the Elector
ate. He married Sybilla, the sister of that
Anne of Cleves, who for the brief space
of some six months held the unhappy post
of wife to our own King Henry VIII.
They had two sons, John Frederick, Duke
and founder of the line of Saxe ,.otha,
which became extinct in 1638, and John Wil
liam, the founder of the house of Saxe
Weimar. He is, in this country. chiefly not
able for his proposal to Queen Elizabeth.
She having flatly refused, a substitute was
found in Dorothy, daughter of the Elector
Palatine. Their younger son, John, Duke
of Weimar, had a ninth son, Ernest "the
Pious," founder of the modern house of
Saxe-Gotha, who was the father of seven
sons, Frederick of Saxe-Gotha, Albert of
Saxe-Coburg, Bernard cf Sax?-Meiningen,
Henry of Saxe-Romhild, Christian of Saxe
Eisenberg, Ernest of Saxe-Hildburghausen,
and John Ernest of Saxe-Saalfeld.
Of these seven, the 1-nes of Frederi-k,
Albert Henry, and Christian, are all now
extinct, and Ernest was the sncestor of the
present Saxe-Altenburg line.
The younger son of ,.oam Ernesi. is. his
second wife. was Francis Josia?. Dute of
Saxe-Saalfeld anl Cobure. who was stccecc
ed in turn by his son Ernest Frederick and
his grandson Francis Frederick. who. hr his
wife. a daughter of Count Henry XXIV. of
Reuss, had three sonEs and two daughters.
'the eldest son. Ernes'. F ederick. succeed
ed as Duke of saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. but
the second son. Ferdinand, was the father
of Ferdinand. who married Maria da ;loria.
Queen of Portugal. and was auccst.,r of
King Manuel.
The third son. Leopold, married the Prin
cess Charlotte of Wales, only child of
George IV. He was elected King cf the
Belgians in 1831. and for his second wife
marrile a daughter of Louis Philippe.
Of the two daughter? above referracd to,
one marner! a PlRussian Grand Duke. hoit the
other, Mary Louisa Victoria, marrined fst
the Prince of Leiningen, and. secondly,
the Duke of Kent, by whom s~he was the
mother of Queen Victoria. It is in this
way that the Gleichen family, who descend
from the first marriage cf the Duchess of
Kent, are so closely related to our own
Royal family.
Ernest Frederick, Duke of Saxe-Coburg
Saalfeld, had two sons, mrnest, who suc
ceeded his father as reigning Duke of Saxe
Coburg and Gotha, and Albert, the late
Prince Consort, vwho married his first cou
sin, Queen Victoria, and pre-deceased his
brother. At the death of Duke Ernest,
King Edward, then Prince of Wales, re
notinced for himself and I is issue the suc
cession to the Duchy, which then passed to
the late Duke of Edinburgh. His only son,
Prince Alfred, died in the lifetime cf the
Duke, so that at fhe Duke of Edinburgh's,
death an heir had agadih to be sought. Both
the Duke of Connaught and his sol, Prince
Arthur. renounced their r.ght of succession,
and the Duchy then I ased to the rc.ung
Duke of Albany. who is now the :eigning
Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
All the descendants of the Prince Consort
have borne over the Royal arms of ,'reat
Britain and Jreland an inesculcheon of the
arms of Saxony, the crown of rue in oend
vcrt upon the barry field ,-f gold and Llack,
but King Edward and i ing George both,
on succeeding to the (c wn, dropped it.
All the other members cf the Royal ±amily,
who are descendants of Queen Victoria, con
tinuc its use, and are Dukes and Duchesses
of Saxony, and Princes and Priifcesses of
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
Her Majesty the Queen, daughter cf the
late Duke of Teck, is in her cwn right en
titled to quarter the .rmus of England
through her mother, who, in her issue, be
came at the death of the late Duke of
Cambridge an heiress of the Cambridge line.
But these are the old George III. Foyal
Arms, with the inescutcheon of Hanover.
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