Ancient European dynasty. Monarchs of Europe: the fate of dynasties

DYNASTY OF EUROPE by 1789

The beginning of the oldest existing European dynasties dates back to the 9th-11th centuries. - the time when, after the collapse of the great Carolingian Empire, new state formations and feudal estates arose, headed by the descendants of Carolinian counts and barons, warriors of Germanic origin *.
Since this book will deal mainly with the events of the 18th-20th centuries, it seems necessary to preface it with a chapter on the previous history of dynasties. To avoid unnecessary details, we will not talk about dynasties that had already died out by the end of the 18th century, no matter how important the role they played in the past. For the convenience of readers and clarity of presentation, it is best to present the dynastic map of Europe as it looked at one specific historical moment - 1789, the year the Great French Revolution began.
The significance of such a chronological cut is clear. The French Revolution ushered in a century and a half of decisive transformation for the European monarchs, during which they had to transform themselves from persons of a sacred character, from masters and autocrats of their countries into heads of constitutional states - where monarchies will remain in general. It was on the example of the tragic end of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette that the kings first realized the commonality of their destinies. “The cause of the French king is the cause of all European sovereigns,” wrote the Russian Empress Catherine II, who had no reason to fear for her throne and was not related by family ties to the executed royal couple. The events in Paris were perceived even more sharply at courts that were repeatedly related to the French dynasty - in Vienna, Madrid, Naples, Turin.

* Only one old dynasty of Slavic origin has survived to this day - the Mecklenburg house, dating back to the prince of Obodrites Niklot (mid-12th century), who defended his land from German conquerors; his descendants quickly became Germanic.

Marriages between dynasties of geographically and culturally close countries were a tradition; these kindred unions were renewed from generation to generation. The dynasties intertwined with such connections constituted, as it were, a single dynastic system. At the start of our review, we should note that in Europe in the 15th-3rd century. two dynastic systems are clearly distinguished - Catholic and Protestant.
Although the religious factor ceased to be a determining factor in European foreign policy after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, the inertia of the split of the crowned families into Catholic and Protestant created by the Reformation was fully preserved. This division became even clearer due to changes in the dynastic politics of England. If the kings from the Stuart dynasty could, while remaining in the bosom of the Anglican Church, marry Catholic women (Charles 1 was married to a French princess. Charles II - to a Portuguese one), then after the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, which overthrew the Catholic King James II, similar marriage became impossible for English monarchs, and England entered the whole Protestant system of dynastic unions. When in the middle of the XVIII century. to replace the traditional enmity between the two great Catholic dynasties. Bourbons and Habsburgs, the Franco-Austrian alliance came, then the Catholic-Protestant dualism was in general corresponding to the border between the two foreign policy blocs, a reflection of the rivalry between Catholic France and Protestant England, Catholic Austria and Protestant Prussia. Three Protestant states - England, Prussia and Holland - also found themselves in close alliance with each other. True, the correspondence between confessional differences and foreign policy blocs was far from complete (Catholic Portugal had long played the role of an English vassal, the influence of England was felt in Naples), but still, in general terms, we can talk about the coincidence of religious and political preferences, and, of course, he himself in itself, the confessional moment (unlike the situation of the 16th-17th centuries) had no causal significance. The entry of Russia into the Protestant dynastic system also had a political correspondence with the fact that the main antagonist Russian Empire in Europe throughout most of the 18th century. was France, a traditional ally of Sweden, Poland and Turkey - Russia's neighbors *.
Some Protestant dynasties returned to Catholicism after the Peace of Westphalia (Palatinate branches of the House of Wittelsbach, Saxon electors from the Albertine line of the House of Wettin, etc.). At the same time, they immediately entered the system of Catholic marriage unions and began to use the opportunity to “place” their younger sons in prestigious archiepiscopal and episcopal sees (an opportunity that the Protestant dynasties did not have due to the much lower social status of the Protestant clergy).
So, let's move on to the description of the dynastic map of Europe for 1789, starting with the Catholic dynasties.

* For more details, see: Popov N.V. The Romanov dynasty in the family of European monarchs // New and recent history. 1994. N 2.

Bourbon branch of the Caletiago family

Representatives of the Bourbon dynasty ruled in France in 1789 (Louis XVI; 1774-1792 *). Spain (Charles IV; 1788-1808), Naples (Ferdinand IV, 1759-1825) and Parma (Duke Ferdinand; 1765-1802).
The Bourbons were the younger offshoot of the Capetian family, who finally replaced the Carolingians on the French throne back in 987. At that time they were called Robertins, according to the first known ancestor Robert the Strong, Count of Paris, Anjou of Blois, who died in the war with the Normans in 866. The origin of himself in French literature is considered unknown, although in German since the 1930s. the version was established that he was a native of the banks of the Rhine, the youngest son in the family of the counts of the Upper Rhine and Wormsgau, whose founder Rupert I was first mentioned in 733. ** One way or another, the Capetians were the oldest royal dynasty in Europe. They got their name from the nickname "Kanet", given to the great-grandson of Robert the Strong King Hugo I (987-996) by descendants; the meaning of nicknames a is not exactly clear ***. When the French revolutionaries, having overthrown Louis XVI, judge him as a simple citizen, they will give him the name Capet.
Having come to power as a result of a coup, the Robertins were not in a relationship with their predecessors; it can be said with certainty that the blood of Charlemagne began to flow in the veins of the kings of the Capetian dynasty only starting from Philip II Augustus (1180 -1223) thanks to his great-great-grandmother, a princess from the old House of Flanders. But the extravagant step of King Henry I (1031-1060), who took the Kievan princess Anna Yaroslavna as his wife from the other end of Europe, led to the fact that all subsequent French kings became direct descendants of Yaroslav the Wise, and among the German royal names for the first time appeared and then the Greek name Philip became common.
The clan branched out, allocating dynasties for other French lands, and then for foreign states. The Burgundian Duchy of Robertina was in possession as early as the 10th century. thanks to a marriage alliance with a broken local house. The younger brother of Henry I, Robert, founded in 1032 the first Burgundian dynasty of Capetian origin, which ended in 1361; it was replaced by the second dynasty (1363-1477), founded by the French prince Philip the Bold, son of King John II, and giving Burgundy its most brilliant dukes, who took over all the rich lands of the Netherlands with the help of successful marriage alliances. In the duchy of Brittany, also from 1213 to 1488, dukes of Capetian origin ruled, descendants of the son of Louis VI the Fat (1108-1137) Robert, Count of Dreux. From another son of Louis a VI, Pierre, the house of Courtenay went, which in 1217-1261. gave the Latin Empire created by the crusaders three emperors of Constantinople - it was not for nothing that the most active participants in the crusades were precisely the French knights.

* In this chapter, the dates after the name of the ruler indicate the years of the reign.
** In fact, we rely primarily on the authoritative genealogical guide "Europaische Stammtafeln" (Bd. 1-2. Marburg, 1960).
*** It is assumed that it comes from the word "kappa" (monastic cloak), as a hint that the father of the founder of the dynasty was listed as an abbot - the patron of many monasteries.

special international importance gave the Capetian family the activity of its Angevin branch, founded by the son of Louis VIII, Charles of Anjou. Having taken possession of the Kingdom of Naples as a result of a successful conquest in 1265, he founded a dynasty that had the Neapolitan throne until 1435. The son of Charles I, Charles II, married the Hungarian princess Mary, and in 1308 the Anjou-Capetingians were replaced by the Hungarian the throne of the extinct national dynasty of the Arpads. In 1370, King Lajos (Louis) I of Hungary, as the son of the sister of the last Polish king from the Piast dynasty, Casimir III, unites the Hungarian and Polish kingdoms in a dynastic union. But the union did not last long; after the death in 1382 of Louis, who had no sons, the daughters transferred their thrones to their husbands: the heiress of Hungary, Maria, to Sigismund Luxembourg, the future emperor, the heiress of Poland, Jadwiga, to the Lithuanian Grand Duke Jogaila from the Gediminovich family. Finally, the Spanish kingdom of Navarre, neighboring France, was under the rule of the Capetians from 1284 due to the marriage of the Navarrese queen Joan to the French king Philip IV the Handsome (1285-1314). After the death of Philip and all his sons, the Kingdom of Navarre passed to the offspring of the brother of the "Iron King", Louis, Count of Evreux, whose son Philip d "Evreux married the granddaughter of Philip IV, heiress of Navarre. The house of Evreux ruled in Navarre from 1328 to 1441. Then The Capetians will reappear on the throne of the Kingdom of Navarre (by that time it had lost most of its lands seized in 1512 by Spain) already in 1555, when Prince Antoine Bourbon shares this throne with his wife, Queen of Navarre Jeanne d "Albret. Under the Bourbon kings, the words "King of France and Navarre" become an inseparable part of the title of French monarchs.
The centuries-old rule of the Capetians in pre-revolutionary France is usually divided into periods of three dynasties: the older Capetians (987-1328), the Valois (1328-1589) * and the Bourbons (1589-1792). The joints between these periods were marked by major dynastic crises.
The transfer of the crown in 1328, perhaps, would not have been perceived as the beginning of a new dynasty (the new king was the cousin of the deceased), if it had not been connected with the solution of the fundamental question whether it is permissible to transfer the throne through women. The daughter of Philip IV, Isabella, was the Queen of England, the mother of King Edward III, and it was to him, in his house of Plantagenet, that the French crown should have passed if this question had been answered in the affirmative. Anglo-French disagreements resulted in the Hundred Years War of 1337-1453. It was under Valois that French dynastic law crystallized, strictly regulating the rules of succession to the throne. First of all, it is characterized by the so-called "Salic principle" - the absolute exclusion of women from the number of possible heirs. This important feature distinguished the Capetians from other major European dynasties, it guaranteed France from the transfer of the throne to dynasties of foreign origin. In France, there could be neither ruling queens with prince consorts, nor transfers and crowns through women - sons-in-law, grandchildren, nephews. The inheritance of the throne by illegitimate children or their offspring was just as categorically excluded (which was allowed, for example, in all the Pyrenean states). Even the mighty Louis XIV could not shake this rule in favor of his bastards. The throne was transferred to the rightful direct heirs (son, grandson, great-grandson), in the absence of such, to the brother next in seniority or his heirs; finally, with the extinction of the whole branch - the senior representative of the Capetian branch next in proximity to the main trunk of the genus. Finally, the king could not hasten the accession to the throne of his successor - abdication was not allowed.

* This period is sometimes also subdivided into three parts: the older Valois (1328-1498), the House of Valois-Orléans (1498-1515) and the House of Valois-Angoulême (1515-1589).

The "salic principle" was subjected to new tests in the 16th century. in the unforeseen circumstances created by the Reformation. The heir to the throne in 1589, in view of the suppression of all the older branches of the family, was the Huguenot Henry of Bourbon, King of Navarre. But could the French king be a heretic? This was strongly opposed by the Catholic League. Bypassing Henry, they tried to pass Presto to the next senior candidate, his uncle, Cardinal Charles of Bourbon (who became known as Carp X), but his uncle was captured by his nephew and soon died. Meanwhile, the all-European defender of Catholicism, the Spanish king Philip II, proposed to his French allies to abandon the "Salic principle" altogether, passing the throne to his daughter from her marriage to a French princess. This intricate knot was once knitted by Henry of Navarre himself, having converted to Catholicism in 1593, and after that he was recognized by all his subjects by King Henry IV (1589-1610), the first king of Bourbon.
The Bourbon branch separated from the main trunk of the family back in the 13th century. Its ancestor was the youngest son of King Louis IX Saint (1226-1270) Robert, Count of Clermont. This was the last branch that had the right to inherit: the opinion was established that the king of France should be a direct descendant of Saint Louis, the heavenly patron of the dynasty, and the descendants of the Capetian branches that had separated earlier (for example, Courtenay) were not considered princes of the blood.
In Spain, the Bourbons established themselves in 1700, when, after the suppression of the House of Habsburg there, Louis XIV, who was married to a Spanish princess, succeeded in placing his youngest grandson under the name Philip V (1700-1746) on the vacant throne. The consequence of this action was a difficult war for the Spanish Succession between the allied France and Spain and a coalition of European powers that supported the pretender from the Austrian branch of the Habsburgs. Ultimately, according to the Peace of Utrecht in 1713, Philip was recognized as the Spanish king (his rival by that time had become Emperor Carp VI), but for this he had to renounce the right to inherit the French throne for himself and all his descendants. Such a prospect was then quite real: the son and eldest grandson of Louis XIV died, his three-year-old great-grandson was the heir to the throne, and in the event of his death in childhood, the throne should have gone to the second grandson of the aged monarch, i.e. the Spanish king. To avoid a Franco-Spanish union unacceptable to Europe. The Bourbons had to sacrifice their dynastic principles, which did not allow the abdication of the monarch or the heir to the throne. However, this clause of the treaty did not have to be put into effect: the young prince grew up, became King Louis XV (1715-1774) and continued the French dynasty.
The Spanish Bourbon family grew rapidly. Thanks to its active Italian policy and the help of France, Spain managed to secure the thrones in Italy for the two younger sons of Philip V. As a result of the new European war of 1733-1735. Emperor Charles VI renounced Naples, which he inherited after the War of the Spanish Succession, and Sicily, acquired thereafter; The state sovereignty of the Kingdom of Naples was restored after a two-hundred-year break, and the Spanish Infante Charles, formerly the Duke of Parma (he was the son of the Parma princess Isabella Farnese, the second wife of Philip V), became its king. Parma was given as compensation to Austria, but in 1748, after new war, returned under the rule of the Bourbons, the younger brother of Charles of Naples and the son-in-law of Louis XV Infante Philip, the founder of the Parma branch of the Bourbons, entered the ducal throne. In 1759, after the death of a childless older brother, Ferdinand VI (son of Philip V from his first wife). Charles passed from Naples to the Spanish throne, becoming King Carp III (1759-1788); in Spain, as before in Naples, he carried out reforms in the spirit of "enlightened absolutism." The Neapolitan crown was assigned to his younger son Ferdinand I V, and the eldest son Charles went with his father to Madrid, where he succeeded him under the name of Charles IV. So from the Spanish branch of the Bourbons, after the Parma, the Neapolitan also separated.
After the abdication of the Spanish Bourbons from the rights to the French throne, the closest Bourbon branch, whose representative could become the king of France in the event of the suppression of the offspring of Louis XV (which, however, seemed very unlikely in 1789), turned out to be the Bourbon Orleans line, ascending to the younger brother Louis XIV to Philip, Duke of Orléans. His son Philip in 1715-1723. was regent of the kingdom under the minor Louis XV.
Concerned about the fate of his bastards, Louis XIV "humiliated" his nephew by forcing him to marry his natural daughter Francoise Marie*. The Duke of Lune Philippe, the great-grandson of the regent, who headed the House of Orleans in 1789, continues this tradition: he is married to Louise Marie Adelaide de Penthièvre, granddaughter of the illegitimate son of the "Sun King" **. The duke flirts with the liberal opposition, and the logic of this role will take him far: after the overthrow of the monarchy in 1792, he, divorcing his wife, will take the surname "Egalite" ("Equality") and, becoming a member of the Convention, will vote for the execution of the former king. This will not help him: nine months after Louis, he, too, will end his life under the knife of the guillotine. At that time, no one could have said that the son of the unlucky "citizen Egalite" would nevertheless become King Philip I of Lun, and not by dynastic right, but as a result of a new one. July Revolution of 1830
Another side line of the Bourbon house, which stood out as early as the 16th century. (she descended from Henry IV's uncle Louis Conde) was the Conde-Conti line, which split into these two branches in the middle of the 17th century. The last prince of Copti will die without legitimate offspring in 1814. The three princes of Condé - grandfather, father and grandson (Lun Joseph, Loon Henri Joseph and Loon Antoine Joseph) - immediately after the capture of the Bastille will leave France and will fight against the revolution

* Duke Philip II of Orleans was married to Mademoiselle de Blois, daughter of the King by Madame de Montespan. Note. comp.
** Louise Marie Adelaide is the daughter of the Duke de Penthièvre. Note. comp.

Tsii in the army of noble emigrants they created. Their house will be doomed to extinction when, on the orders of Napoleon in 1804, the younger Conde, Duke Louis Antoine of Enghien, is captured and then shot. In 1830, after the tragic death of the father of the executed duke (he will be found hanged), the Bourbon-Condé branch will be cut short *.
Louis XVI - Charles IV - Ferdinand IV ... They are very similar to each other, these three kings of Bourbon, both mentally and even physically. Tall, massive, very strong (the children of two sisters, Saxon princesses, they are great-grandchildren of the Elector King Augustus the Strong, who bore such a nickname not without reason), they love mechanical crafts and rough entertainment. The two brothers and their French cousin look "simple" in front of their refined and educated predecessors: Louis XVI before his grandfather, Louis XV, Charles and Ferdinand before their father Charles III. People of the same generation, born in the middle of the century, they already instinctively feel the danger of enlightenment ideas, are prone to conservatism and piety. They are virtuous in family life, do not keep mistresses (a psychologically understandable reaction to the frivolous lifestyle of an enlightened and free-thinking aristocracy), love their wives and let them dispose of themselves. Unfortunately, all three got very capricious and narrow-minded spouses (Louis and Ferdinage on their sisters, the Austrian princesses Marie Antoinette and Maria Carolina, Charles on his cousin Maria Louise of Parma). Unable and weak-willed, who did not like mental work, the three kings could not offer their countries any clear program of action. -

* The Conde family was doomed to degeneration after the marriage of Prince Louis II de Bourbon, nicknamed the "Great Conde", to Claire Clemence de Meillet-Brese, daughter of Marshal Meillet-Brese and Nickel da) Plessis, niece of Cardinal Richelieu. The eldest son of the "Great Conde" was mentally handicapped, the grandson suffered from epilepsy and congenital deformity, and the great-grandson had a mental illness. Note. comp.

Portuguese dynasty

The Portuguese dynasty Also belongs to the House of Capet, to its first Burgundian branch. The first count of Portugal, Henry (Enrique), who won his county in battles with the Moors in 1095, was the younger brother of the Duke of Burgundy and the grandson of the founder of this branch, Robert. However, the Capetian origin of the Portuguese kings was not a widely known fact**.
In the history of the Portuguese ruling house after the formation of the Kingdom of Portugal in 1139, three periods are distinguished: the first dynasty (1139-1383), the Avis dynasty (1385-1580) and the Braganza dynasty (1640-1853), with each new dynasty being a bastard offshoot previous and transitions of power were accompanied by acute dynastic crises. As for the French Capetians, the question arose of the admissibility of the transfer of the throne to a foreign dynasty through women. In 1383-1385. this would mean the transfer of the crown to the Castilian king, the son-in-law of the last Portuguese king, Fernando I. However, after the war with Castile, the Portuguese were able to avoid a union with a strong neighbor by enthroning Fernando's illegitimate brother, Joan I (1385-1433).

** Back in the 16th century. the national poet of Portugal, Luis li Camões, did not know anything about this and, without much certainty, cited the version that Henry of Portugal was allegedly the offspring of the Hungarian Arpad dynasty.

Two hundred years later, in 1580, the situation repeated itself, but now Portugal had to deal not with Castile alone, but with a united mighty Spain. The Portuguese proclaimed Antennus I, the illegitimate son of one of the princes of the extinct Avis dynasty, as king, but Philip II of Spain, the son of Emperor Charles V from the Portuguese princess Isabella, having introduced an army into Portugal, by force resolved the dispute in his favor, establishing the Spanish-Portuguese dynastic system that lasted 60 years union. When, in 1640, a national coup in Lisbon restored the independence of Portugal, its king Greedy IV (1640-1656) became the Duke of Braganza, a descendant in the eighth generation of the illegitimate son of the founder of the House of Avis, Zhban I.
During the Braganza dynasty in 1777, a precedent was first created for the transition of the throne to women: after the death of José I (1750-1777), his daughter Maria I (1777-1816) became queen; True, she was the wife of the natural heir in the male line, her own uncle, Pedro I (1777-1786), but continued to be considered the ruling empress even after the death of her husband. Both spouses were very ordinary people, who marked their reign only by the rejection of the reformist course of the all-strong minister under José I, the Marquis of Pombal. Soon after the death of Pedro, Maria lost her mind, and their son, the future king Joan VI, became the regent of the kingdom.
The Portuguese house was part of the Catholic dynastic system due to its constant marriage alliances with the Spanish dynasty: by mother, Mary I was the granddaughter of Philip V and cousin of Charles IV, her aunt was the Spanish queen (wife of Ferdinand VI), her son and daughter also found spouses in the royal family Spain.

Habsburg-Lorraine House

Guntram the Rich, mentioned in 938, who owned lands in the Swiss regions of Aargau and Thurgau, is considered the first reliable ancestor of the Habsburg family. In Switzerland, the county of Habsburg, which gave the name to the family, is located. The dynasty became royal in 1273, when Count Rudolf of Habsburg was elected King of Germany (1273-1291) after a long "royalty". He managed to move the center of his possessions to the east, having acquired in the 1280s. Austrian and Styrian duchies.
The first Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned was Frederick III (1440-1493). Since that time, the imperial crown remained in the Habsburg family.
The ability of the Habsburgs to successfully marry has become proverbial. The son of Frederick III, Maximilian I, thanks to his marriage in 1477 with the only heiress of the Duchy of Burgundy, Mary, became the owner of the Netherlands and the claimant to the entire "Burgundian inheritance", which gave rise to a century-old dispute between the Habsburgs and the French dynasty. The son of Maximilian and Mary, thanks to his marriage to Infanta Juana, was in 1504-1506. King of Castile (Philip 1); their eldest son Charles inherited the Spanish throne in 1516 (Charles I), and in 1519, after the death of his grandfather Maximilian, he was elected emperor under the name of Charles V (1519-1556), combining imperial authority with the resources of the huge Spanish colonial power. Karl's brother Ferdinand was married to the sister of Louis II Jagiellon, king of Hungary and Bohemia, and, after his childless brother-in-law fell in the battle with the Turks at Mohacs in 1526, he occupied both thrones.
In 1556, Charles V abdicated and divided his possessions. Spain, together with the Netherlands, Franche-Cost and lands in Italy, went to his son Philip II, and brother Ferdinand, king of Hungary and the Czech Republic, received the imperial dignity with the family duchies of Austria; thus, for the first time, the contours of the future Austro-Hungarian monarchy were outlined. From here came the division of the Habsburgs into two branches - the Spanish and the Austrian, which were among themselves in the closest political and dynastic union, claiming political hegemony in Europe as the defenders of Catholicism.
The Spanish branch of the Habsburgs died out in 1700, giving way to the Bourbons. And 40 years later, after the death of Emperor Charles VI in 1740, his daughter Maria Theresa was the only heiress of the Austrian branch. The rights of the latter were disputed by her cousin, the Bavarian Elector of the Wittelsbach family, the husband of another Austrian princess. A pan-European war for the Austrian succession began, during which the Elector was crowned Emperor Charles VII in 1742, but after his death in 1745, Maria Theresa and her husband Franz I, Grand Duke of Tuscany and former Duke of Lorraine took the imperial crown.
With the death of Maria Theresa in 1780, the Habsburg family died out, but the descendants of her and Franz, representatives of the House of Lorraine, took the name of the vanished dynasty (for accuracy, their house is called Habsburg-Lorraine). The House of Lorraine dates back to Gerhard, Count of Alsatia, who in 1048 became the Duke of Upper Lorraine (the modern French province of Lorraine). The family held this duchy until 1431, when Lorraine passed to the son-in-law of the deceased Duke Charles I, the prince from the side line of the house of Valois Repe I the Good, Duke of Anjou and Count of Provence, who, by virtue of his unfulfilled dynastic claims, bore the title of King of Sicily, Naples and Jerusalem. However, thanks to the marriage of the daughter of the "good king Repe" Iolanta with a representative of the younger branch of the House of Lorraine, Count Friedrich Vaudemont (the plot of L. I. Tchaikovsky's opera "Iolanthe"), the duchy in 1473 returned under the rule of the old family.
In the XVI century. from the ducal house of Lorraine, a junior branch stood out, whose members were in the service of France. This was the famous family of Guise in French history, the basis of which was the Treasure, the grandson of Friedrich Vaudemont and Iolanthe, the youngest son of Duke Repe II (1473-1508). The older branch of the Guises, descended from the eldest son of Hoard, Duke François Guise and his son, the leader of the Catholic League, Henry, who was killed in 1588 by order of the king, was cut short in 1675. The younger branch, which still existed at the time of the revolution (it would die out in 1825 .), were the counts of Harcourt-Armagnac.
Neighborhood with a growing France became more and more burdensome for Lorraine. In 1670 the army of Louis XIV occupied the duchy, expelling its rightful owner, the old duke Charles IV (1624-1670). His nephew Charles, who married one of the sisters of Emperor Leopold, entered the Austrian service and commanded the imperial troops in the victorious battle with the Turks near Vienna in 1683. The restoration of the independence of Lorraine became one of the conditions for the Peace of Ryswick in 1697 between France and a coalition of its opponents ; the throne was received by the son of the winner near Vienna, Duke Leopold Joseph Karl (1697-1729), who secured the return by marriage with the niece of the French king. Their son was the already mentioned Emperor Franz I, under whose ducal rule, in 1737, the Lorraine question was finally resolved. Franz, then the husband of Maria Theresa, ceded his shaky Lorraine throne to the father-in-law of Louis XV, the former Polish king Stanislav Leshchinsky, after whose death in 1766 Lorraine became part of France. In exchange, Franz received the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, where just then the famous Florentine family of the Medici dukes died out.
In 1789, Emperor Joseph II (1765-1790) reigns in Vienna, an imperious and stubborn reformer of his state, which he rules alone since 1780, after the death of his mother and co-ruler Maria Theresa, who somewhat moderated his reformist zeal. An all-pervading monarch of a military-bureaucratic warehouse, he steadily puts into practice his progressive educational program, eradicating in "administrative delight" prejudices harmful to the state and ancient privileges. The emperor is widowed and childless, his strength is undermined by the struggle against ever-increasing resistance, he will not live to be 50 years old. His brother and heir Leopold (the future Emperor Leopold II), a more flexible reformer and enlightener, since 1765 - Grand Duke of Tuscany, married to the daughter of the Spanish King Charles T. The third brother - Ferdinand - is waiting in line for the ducal throne of Melena as a son-in-law the last duke of the Este dynasty: like the Spanish Bourbons, the House of Habsburg-Lorraine seats its offspring on vacant thrones in Italy. The fourth brother of the Kaiser - Maximilian Franz - is the Elector Archbishop of Cologne (1784-1801); this is an extra vote in the imperial college of eight electors, the second vote belongs to the head of the Austrian house himself as hereditary king of Bohemia. The three sisters of Joseph II strengthen the dynastic ties of the Austrian house with the Bourbons: the eldest is married to the Duke of Parma, the middle one is the Queen of Naples, the youngest is Marie Antoinette, the Queen of France.

savoy house

The ancestor of the dynasty was Humbort White Hand, Count of Savoy since 1027, who had a residence in a castle on the shores of Lake Bourget (modern Lebourge-du-Lac) *; from 1295 Chambéry became the capital of the county. Gradually uniting the Savoy lands, the descendants of Humbert expand their possessions in the northern (to the shores of Lake Geneva) and in the eastern, Italian direction. Already the son of Humbert, Odin, is established in Turin (Piedmont), and since then the House of Savoy, the dynasty of "Alpine gatekeepers", owns lands on both slopes of the Alps, controlling the passes leading from France to Italy.
Among the counts of Savoy, Amedee VIII (1391-1434) stands out. He first assumed the title of duke, reunited the temporarily divergent Savoy and Piedmontese branches of the dynasty, and designated his claims to Geneva by taking the title of Count of Geneva (albeit with a residence in Annecy, since Geneva itself was then owned by its bishops). Having abdicated the throne, Amedeus VIII began to lead the life of a hermit, and five years later the oppositional Council of Basel elected him pope under the name Felix V (1439-1449), in church tradition he is considered an antipope who opposed the legitimate pope Eugene IV. The House of Savoy has long maintained close dynastic ties with the Capetians. Still at the beginning. 12th century Count Humbert's great-granddaughter, Adelaide of Savoy, became Queen of France. Louise, the mother of King Francis I, was also a Savoy princess; taking advantage of this, the French monarch presented his claims to the ducal throne to his mother's half-brother Duke Charles III (1504-1553), and in 1538 French troops occupied Savoy and almost all of Piedmont. The French firmly settled in the conquered lands and only in 1559, according to the Treaty of Cambresia, were they forced to return them to Charles III's son Emmanuel Philibert (1553-1580).

* The years of the life of Humbert the White Hand are 980-1054, but, according to other sources, he died in 1048. Humbert is the ancestor of 17 counts, 13 dukes and 11 kings. Note. comp.

Under this duke, the capital of the Savoy possessions was transferred from Chambéry to Turin, and the dynasty began to gradually become Italianized. At the same time, the main relic of the family, a shroud with an imprint of the body of Jesus Christ, acquired by the Duke of Savoy in 1453, was transported to Turin from Chambéry.
Deftly maneuvering between France and its opponents, Duke (since 1675) Victor Amedeus II (d. 1732) received the royal title in 1713, first as king of Sicily, and from 1720 as king of Sardinia, for which he was exchanged Sicily. The vast but poor island gave him only a prestigious title, the political center of the state still remained in Piedmont.
In 1789, the throne in Turin was taken by the old Victor Amedeus III (1773-1796), a moderate reformer who paid Special attention strengthening his army according to Prussian models. The Savoy house under him establishes particularly close ties with the French royal family: two daughters of the king were married to the brothers of Louis XVI, the future Louis XVIII and Charles X, the eldest son and heir, Charles Emmanuel, is married to the younger sister of the French monarch.
At the beginning of the XVII century. from the main line of the House of Savoy branched off the junior line of the dukes of Caripiano. The representative of the younger branch of the Carignan line was the great commander Prince Eugene of Savoy (b. 1663 - d. 1736); raised in France (his mother was the niece of Cardinal Mazarin), he became famous in the service of the Austrian Habsburgs. The older branch will give Italy in the 19th century. its Unifier King Victor Emmanuel II.

Wittelsbach

The ancient Bavarian family of Wittelsbach originates from Margrave Liutpold mentioned in 895. Among his first descendants were the dukes of Bavaria (until 947), Carinthia, Swabia. One of the branches of the family - the Babenbergs - owned Austria for a long time (976-1246), first as margraves, then (since 1156) as dukes; a well-known historian of the 12th century belonged to it. Ottai Freyzin Gensky. On the throne of Bavaria, the dynasty finally established itself in 1180, when Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, having taken this duchy from his main opponent Henry the Lion, gave it to one of the Wittelsbachs - Otto I (d. 1183).
At the beginning of the XIV century. the Bavarian Wittels-Bajas split into two main lines, coming from two brothers. The descendants of the eldest of them, Rudolph, began to own both lands in northern Bavaria (Upper Palatinate) and the Rhine region of Lower Palatinate; according to this possession, in 1329 they received the elector's dignity. But even more brilliant was the beginning of the younger, actually Bavarian line: its ancestor, Rudolf's younger brother, Ludwig, became Emperor Ludwig IV of Bavaria (1314-1347) and led an energetic anti-papal policy. The opposition of the papal kurni did not allow his descendants to establish themselves on the imperial throne; they remained dukes of Bavaria, and also were for some time the first electors of Brandenburg (1324-1373) and counts of Holland (1353-1417).
The Palatinate line was divided into many branches that succeeded each other as elector dynasties: the senior branch (until 1559), Simmern (1559-1685), Neuburgokai (1685-1742), Sulzbach (1742-1799) branches. In the era of the Reformation, Bavaria and the Palatinate found themselves in opposite camps. The dukes of Bavaria remained zealous Catholics, organizers of Catholic leagues in Germany; the younger sons in their family for five generations (1583-1761) passed on to each other, from uncle to nephew, the rank of elector of the Jurst-Archbishop of Cologne. The electors of the Palatinate from the Simmern line became Calvinists, warriors for the Protestant cause. One of them, Frederick V, who was married to the daughter of the English King James I, Elizabeth, was proclaimed king of Bohemia in 1619 by the Czech estates who rebelled against the Habsburgs. In Prague, he did not stay long, which is why he received the nickname "One-Winter King". Driven from the Czech Republic after the Battle of Belogorsk in 1620, he then lost both the Palatinate and the elector's dignity, transferred by the emperor in 1623 to Duke Maximilian I of Bavaria. .
Back in 1440-1448. one of the Palatinate Wittelsbachs, Christopher, the son of a Danish princess, happened to be the king of Denmark, Sweden and Norway united by the union. In 1654, the second Palatinate of Wittelsbach Carl Gustev from the younger, Zweibrücken branch of the house, who was the mother's cousin of the Swedish Queen Christina, who abdicated from the throne, entered the Swedish throne under the name of Charles X. Loving war, this monarch, as it were, passed on his passion for long-distance campaigns to his grandson, the famous Charles XII (1697-1718), the last of the three kings of the Palatinate dynasty in Sweden.
We have already mentioned how the Bavarian Elector Karl Albrecht, who was proclaimed Emperor Charles VII, challenged the throne from Maria Terezna. With the death of his son in 1777, the Bavarian line of the Wittelsbachs came to an end. The attempts of Joseph II to annex Bavaria to the imperial possessions met with successful opposition from the German sovereigns, led by the King of Prussia, and the Elector of the Palatinate Karl Theodor (1742-1799) became the Bavarian Elector; from 1685 the Electors of the Palatinate were already Catholics.
A man indifferent to government and extravagant, old Karl Theodor has no legitimate children. He is the last in his branch of the family, the heir to both elector thrones is the Duke of Zweibrücken Charles, and after his death (1795) the brother of the latter Maximilian from the youngest, Birkenfeld branch of the Palatinate, also recently catalicized.

Wettins

Dedi, Count of Hassegau (on the Franconian-Thuringian border), mentioned in 949, is considered to be the ancestor of the Saxon elector of the Wettin family. The clan advanced during the German expansion into the Slavic lands of the Lusatian Serbs, thanks to which already in the 11th century. in his possession were two margraviates: Niederlausitz and Meissen. In 1249 the Margrave of Meissen, Henry the Most Serene, became at the same time Landgrave of Thuringia.
After the Wittenberg branch of the House of Ascany was cut short in 1422, which gave the first Electors of Saxony, the Electoral dignity passed to the Wettins, whose capital remained Wittenberg, but since that time the geographical concept of Saxony has been transferred from its old area (the modern land of Lower Saxony) to hereditary the Wettin lands with the center in Dresden.
In the second half of the XV century. the genus was divided into two lines, Ernestine) and Albertine, named after their founders. The eldest descended from Elector Ernst (1464-1486) and was at first an elector, the youngest - from his brother Albrecht, who became the Duke of Saxony and owned Dresden. Ernst's son was Elector Frederick III the Wise (1486-1525), patron of Martin Luther, thanks to whom Wittenberg became the spiritual center of the emerging Protestantism.
The electorate was transferred in 1547 from the Ernestine line to the Albertine line in the dramatic setting of Charles V's war with the German Protestants. The victorious emperor, capturing Elector Johann Friedrich (1532-1547), head of the Protestant League, defrocked him, with which he rewarded his ally Duke Marin of Saxony, who opposed his second cousin, although he himself was also a Protestant. Five years later, in 1552, "Judas Moritz" atoned for his guilt before Protestant public opinion: he suddenly invaded the emperor's possessions, almost captured him, secured the release of Johann Friedrich from imprisonment, but still did not return him the electorate.
The Albertine Wettin line returned to Catholicism in 1697, when Elector Frederick Augustus I (1694-1733) was elected King of Poland (known as Augustus II the Strong in this capacity); the Polish sovereign, of course, could not be a Protestant. Ally of Peter I in the Northern War. Augustus II waged a hard struggle for the Polish crown with the henchman of Charles XII Stanislav Leshchinsky, lost the throne and returned it after the Battle of Poltava. With Russian help, his son Friedrich August II (1733-1763; in Poland - August III) also became the king of Poland. The Saxon kings were popular among the Polish gentry, but there was no third king, Wettin, in Poland: after the death of August III, Catherine II chose to place her former lover Stanisław Poniatowski on the Polish throne.
In 1789, the great-grandson of August the Strong, Elector Friedrich August III (1763-1806, in 1806-1827 - King Friedrich August 1), a conscientious ruler without special talents, rules in Dresden. His dynasty managed to closely intermarry with the main Catholic houses. Both of his grandmothers were sisters, daughters of the Habsburg Emperor Joseph I, Maria Theresa's uncle; his maternal grandfather was the Bavarian Elector, Emperor Charles VII. Thanks to his two aunts, he becomes a cousin to the kings of France, Spain and Naples, the third aunt - since 1777, the dowager Elector of Bavaria. One of the uncles, Albrecht of Saxe-Teschen, is the Austrian governor in Belgium, the second, Clement, is the Elector-Archbishop of Trier. Friedrich August himself is married to Maria Amalia, sister of Duke Karl of Zweibrücken, heir to Bavaria and the Palatinate (and the duke to his sister). Brother Anton is married to the niece of Joseph II, Princess Maria Theresa of Tuscany.
The Ernestine line, which remained faithful to Protestantism, divided into several branches, owns small duchies, mainly in Thuringia. Among the dukes, Karl August of Weimar (1758-1828), a friend of Goethe, who turned his Weimar into a brilliant Cultural Center German Enlightenment. There are also the Dukes of Coburg-Gotha, Meiningen, Hildburghausen, Saalfeld. Their dynastic ties with the English royal house are already being established: the Coburg-Goth princess Augusta was the wife of the heir to the English throne, Frederick Lewis, and the mother of King George III. Almost imperceptible is the youngest, the Saalfeld branch, whose representative, the Austrian general Friedrich Josiah, just in 1789, together with A. V. Suvorov, beats the Turks at Focsani and Rymnik; one cannot yet foresee its brilliant future in the 19th-20th centuries, when it will give the monarchs of England, Belgium, Portugal and Bulgaria.

Braunschweig-Este

The legendary family tree of the ferrara dukes sung by Ariosto was erected to the paladin of Charlemagne Ruggiero, whose son allegedly received from the emperor the Margraviate of Este in Northern Italy. Modern genealogy believes that the genus dates back to the beginning of the 10th century. and is of Lombard origin.
Already in the XI century. he was divided into two lines, subsequently lost sight of each other: German and Italian. Margrave Este Alberta Azzo II was married to the heiress of the famous South German Welf family Kunigunde, and their son Welf IV, who became Duke B of the accident, took for himself and his descendants the name of his mother's family; from him came the Brunswick (Welph) dynasty. The founder of the Italian Este line was the son of Albert Azzo II from his second marriage.
The Welsh house reached its highest power in the 12th century. under Henry the Lion, who concentrated in his hands in 1142-1180. dominion over the two largest and German duchies, Saxony (modern Lower Saxony) and Bavaria, the most formidable rival of his Swabian cousin Emperor Frederick Barbarossa; after his dynasty, opponents of the emperors in Italy began to call themselves Guelphs. Having been defeated, Henry lost both duchies, but his son also competed for power with the son of Barbarossa and became Emperor Otto IV (1209-1218).
The descendants of Henry the Lion retained their possessions in part of the Lower Saxon lands, becoming the Dukes of Brunswick. In the XVIII century. The Brunswick house was represented by two branches that diverged in the 16th century: Brunswick-Wolfen Buttel and Lüneburg-Hanover; the latter from 1714 occupied the English throne.
In the older branch of Braunschweig of the Wolfenbüttel branch (which ceased in 1735) and found in 1711 a bride for his son Alexei Peter I. Princess Charlotte's grandfather, the old Duke of Brunswick Anton Ulrich, had converted to Catholicism a year before, and her older sister Elizabeth Christina was already married to Emperor Carp VI; the prince who fled from Russia sought refuge from his father's wrath precisely from his brother-in-law, the emperor.
The second Russian-Brunswick marriage took place in 1739, when Empress Anna Ioannovna married her niece Anna Leopoldovna to Anton Ulrich, younger brother of the Duke of Brunswick Charles I; on his mother's side, he was a natural nephew of the wife of Tsarevich Alexei and a cousin of Emperor Peter II. A year later, their newborn son John Antonovich was declared emperor (John III *; 1740-1741). But only a year Braunsh veigek dynasty owned the Russian throne: overthrown by Elizabeth Petrovna, the former emperor was imprisoned for 23 years and was killed when the conspirators tried to free him.

* John Antonovich is called either John III, if they count from the first Tsar Ivan the Terrible, or John VI - when counting from Ivan Kalita. Note. comp.

The Duke of Braunschweig Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand (1780-1806), ruling in 1789, was the maternal nephew of Frederick II of Prussia and the husband of the sister of the English King George III. Like many North German dynasties, his house is drawn into the orbit of Prussian influence. The duke himself in 1792 will lead the Prussian troops to Paris. It is he, the cousin of the unfortunate Ivan Antonovich, who will issue the well-known, very awkward manifesto, threatening terrible punishments for the French revolutionaries if they encroach on the life of their legitimate monarchs. He will not survive the defeat of Prussia by Napoleon in 1806, he will fall at the battle of Auerstedt.
The Lüneburg-Hanoverian branch received the right to inherit the English throne thanks to the marriage in 1658 of one of its dukes, Ernst August, with Sophia of the Palatinate, granddaughter of James I Stuart, daughter of the "One-Winter King" and Elizabeth Stuart. In 1692 the Duke acquired the title of Elector of Hanover. His son Elector Georg Ludwig (1692-1727) in 1714 became King George I of England, the founder of the English Hanover dynasty (1714-1901). However, both he and his son George were much less interested in England than in their German possessions, which was very beneficial to the English parliament. Only George III (1760-J820) changed this situation, trying to consolidate his power in England, as far as it was possible under the conditions of a parliamentary monarchy. Having failed in the war against the American colonists, he was forced to hand over the power of prime minister to the Whig leader he disliked, William Pitt the Younger, who in the 1780s. quickly restores England's foreign policy prestige.
The dynastic policy of the House of Hanover was especially characterized by permanent marriage alliances with the dynasties of Denmark and Prussia, neighboring Hanover. Another sister of Ernst August was the Queen of Denmark, the wife of the founder of Danish absolutism, Frederick III (1648-1670). In the XVIII century. Two more Hanoverian princesses became Danish queens: the aunt of George III and his sister. The sister and daughter of George I were queens of Prussia, the latter, Sophia Dorothea, became the mother of Frederick II. Relations are also established with other Protestant dynasties: Nassau-Oran, Mecklenburg (wife of George III), Ernestine line of Vettino (his mother).
Italian margraves of Este from the 13th century. became lords of Ferrara and Melena, and in the 15th century. took the title of duke of these two cities. Their main residence was Ferrara, which turned under them into a brilliant center of Renaissance culture, the capital of Italian Renaissance poetry, where Ariosto and Tasso worked.
In 1598, the pope, as the supreme overlord of Ferrara, took it away after the death of the childless Duke Alfonso II from his cousin Cesare, who was considered a representative of the bastard branch of the family. Melena remained in the possession of his descendants. By the end of the XVIII century. this branch of the family is also dying out: after the death in 1803 of Duke Ercole III, Rinaldo Melena will pass to his son-in-law Ferdinand, prince of the Austrian house, brother of Emperors Joseph II and Leopold II.

Hohenzollerns

The family of Prussian kings originates from the South German land of Swabia, where in the middle of the XI century. their direct ancestor Burkhard von Tsolorin (Zollern) is known. His great-grandson in 1192 became burg-count of wealthy Nuremberg. Already in the next generation, in the 13th century, the house was divided into two lines: one left behind its ancestral lands in Swabia, the other (Franconian) was entrenched in Nuremberg. This last one had a great future ahead of it.
The Hohenzollerns were relatively inconspicuous until the beginning of the 15th century, when Frederick VI, Burgrave of Nuremberg, bought the Electorate of Brandenburg from Emperor Sigismund and became Elector Frederick I (1415-1440). In Franconia, around Nuremberg, there remained the lands of the Hohenzollerns - the margraviates of Ansbach and Bayreuth, which were transferred to the possession of the younger branches of the family.
In December 1510 the young Albrecht Hohenzollern, cousin of the Elector, was elected Grand Master of the Teutonic Order*. After 15 years, the Reformation won in the lands of the order. Having adopted Lutheranism, Albrecht announced the secularization of the order's possessions and their transformation into a secular state. Thus, in 1525, the Duchy of Prussia arose with its center in Königsberg under the hereditary rule of the Hohenzollerns. After the death in 1618 of his son Albrecht, who had no male offspring, Prussia was inherited by the Elector of Brandenburg, Johann Sigismund (1608-1619), as the head of the family and, moreover, the son-in-law of the late duke.

*Grand Master of the Teutonic Order Albrecht, son of Margrave Friedrich of Ansbach and Bayreth, and Sophia Jagiellonchik, took office on February 13, 1511, entered Königsberg in November 1512. Note. comp.

The Electors of Brandenburg became kings in 1701, when the Elector Frederick III received the crown of Prussia from Emperor Leopold I, who needed his military assistance; the former duchy was thereby elevated to the rank of a kingdom. The political center of the state remained in Brandenburg, but it is significant that Frederick (from now on he became known as King Frederick I) took the royal dignity on his Prussian possessions, which were not part of the Holy Roman Empire - this emphasized his independence. The name Prussia became the common name of the country, and the Prussian lands proper are now increasingly referred to as East Prussia.
Just three years before the French Revolution, King Frederick II the Great died and was succeeded on the throne by his nephew, Frederick William II (1786-1797)*, who cannot be compared to his highly gifted uncle. Physically and mentally, this narrow-minded, obese giant resembles the Bourbon monarchs of his day - with the difference that piety and sentimentality do not prevent him from being a bigamist, although he enters into morganatic marriages with maids of honor with the consent of the queen and with the indispensable approval of the Lutheran consistory. In reaction to the behavior of Frederick II, the new king cannot stand French culture and enlightenment skepticism.
We have already mentioned the close dynastic ties between the Hohenzollerns and the English House of Hanover. Marriage alliances with the Danish Oldenburgs are even more traditional: they date back to the 15th century: the Brandenburg princess Deret was the wife of the first Danish king from the Oldenburg family. Let us also note the connections with the Swedish dynasties (Maria Eleonora, the wife of the famous King Gustav Adolf, and the sister of Frederick II Louise Ulrika was also a Swedish queen came from the Hohenzollern family) and with the House of Orange of the Dutch Stadtholders (the "Great Elector" Friedrich Wilhelm was married in the 17th century on the princess of the Iranian house, and the sister of King Frederick William II was married to the stadtholder William V).

*Friedrich Wilhelm II was the son of Prince August Wilhelm of Prussia, brother of Frederick II, and Louise Amalia, nee Princess of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Note. comp.

At the same level and in the same circle, the princesses of the lateral branches of the house, Bayreuth and Ansbach conclude their marriage unions: the first in the 18th century. gave the Queen of Denmark (wife of Christian VI), the second - the Queen of England (wife of George II). Since 1769, after the suppression of the Bayreuth branch, both margraviates were united by a union, and already in 1791 the margrave would renounce power, transferring his possessions to Prussia, which for the first time would acquire a foothold in southern Germany.
An inconspicuous existence in the ancestral lands of the Hohenzollerns is led by princes from the Swabian family line. At the end of the XVIII century. there are two branches of this line, Ehingen and Sigmaringen. From the last in the XIX century. the royal dynasty of Romania will emerge.

nassau house

The genus has been known since the beginning of the 12th century. His original lands lay in the valley of the river. Lai, the right tributary of the Rhine, where the county of Nassau, which belonged to the Ibo dynasty, was located. In the XIII century. two large lines of the genus stood out: Weilburg and Dillenburg.
The eldest, Weilburg line, from 1422 owned the Saar region, separated from the center of the Nassau possessions by the lands of the Palatinate Wittelsbach. In 1789, there were two branches: the Usingen-Saar (it will stop in 1816) and the Weilburg proper, to which at the end of the 19th century. passes the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.
Much more significant was the fate of the Dillenburg (Oran) line, which turned its eyes to the Dutch northwest. In 1403, one of the princes of Nassau, Engelbert, became lord of Breda and other lands in northern Brabant by marriage. His descendants advanced in the service of the Burgundian dukes who owned the Netherlands and the Spanish kings who replaced them, became the richest Dutch landowners, hereditary governors (stathouders) of the main northern Dutch provinces. From the beginning of the XVI century. their family, also thanks to marriage, belonged to the southern French principality of Orange - an ancient city on the banks of the Rana, which gave the name to the dynasty.
Under this name, William (Bill) I of Orange became famous, a tireless fighter for the liberation of the Netherlands and the first stadtholder of the new independent state. Republic of the United Provinces (1578-1584), founder of the Dutch stathouder house.
After the death of William I, who was the victim of an assassination attempt, the title of stadtholder was inherited by his sons: first, Moritz, son from his second wife, daughter of the hero of German Protestantism Elector Marina of Saxony, and after his death, Friedrich Heinrich (Frederick Hendrik) (1625-1647), son of Wilhelm I from fourth wife, Louise Coligny, daughter of the no less famous Admiral Gaspard Coligny, leader of the French Huguenots *.
In the 17th century dynastic ties were established between the House of Orange and the English dynasty of the Stuarts: Friedrich Henry's son William (Billem) II (1647-1650) was married to the daughter of Charles I, and their son William III (1672-1702) was married to his English cousin, the daughter of Jacob II Mary. Thanks to this marriage, William III took the English throne, overthrowing his father-in-law in 1688, as a result of the Glorious Revolution.

* It can also be recalled that the famous French commander Marshal Turenne, the son of his daughter from the third marriage concluded by William with a French princess from the younger Bourbon branch, was the grandson of William I.

After the death in 1702 of the childless king-stadtholder, the direct male offspring of William I was cut short and in Holland, as before in 1650-1672, the republicans again triumphed. The abolished post of stathouder was, however, restored in 1748, under the influence of the intensified French threat. The new head of state was Wilhelm (Billem) IV, a representative of the Dillenburg-Dietz branch, a descendant of Wilhelm's younger brother *. He also held the title of Prince of Orange (although the Principality of Orange itself was confiscated and annexed to France by Louis XIV).
His son Wilhelm (Billem) V (1751-1802), like a real sovereign, became a statholder at the age of three. By mother, he is the grandson of the English king George II and cousin of George III, his wife is the sister of the Prussian king Frederick William II. These connections were very useful to him during his acute conflict with the states of the province of Holland: the troops of the Prussian brother-in-law, who invaded the country in 1787, with the diplomatic support of England, restored the power of the stadtholder in full.

oldenburgs

The first known ancestor of all the Oldenburgs (including the last Russian tsars, starting from Peter III and Paul I) was Egilmar, Count of Leritau, mentioned in 1091 (in the northwestern corner of Germany, in the Friesland lands). Already his son became the count of the neighboring Oldenburg, who since then did not leave the family and gave him a name. In 1789 the senior line of the Oldenburgs holds the crown of Denmark and Norway; the younger, the Holstein-Gottorp line, rules in Sweden and, in the person of the heir to the throne, Pavel Petrovich, is preparing to take the Russian throne.
The Counts of Oldenburg came to the forefront of European politics in 1448, when Count Christian was elected King of Denmark and Norway, Christian I (1448-1481). In 1460, he received the Danish duchy of Schleswig as an inheritance from his mother, and then, in 1474, the duchy of Holstein (Holstein), which was part of the Holy Roman Empire. Christian passed the county of Oldenburg to his brother, from whom an independent dynasty came to an end in 1667, after which Oldenburg came under the rule of Denmark.
Christian I himself, his son and grandson were at constant war with Sweden; winning victories, they were crowned with the Swedish crown and restored the Danish-Swedish union, which was finally broken only in 1523 as a result of the Swedish national uprising.
The older line of the Oldenburgs ruled Denmark for more than four hundred years (1448-1863), and Norway until its separation in 1814. In 1789, the insane Christian VII (1766-1808), maternal grandson of the English king George II, occupies the throne. His marriage to the English cousin Caroline Matilda, sister of George III, ended sadly: the young queen betrayed her depraved and extravagant husband, carried away by the reform minister Johann Friedrich Struensee. After the overthrow of Struensee and his execution, organized by the stepmother of the king and his half-brother, the royal marriage ended in a scandalous divorce in 1772, the exiled queen soon died.
Nevertheless, it was this marriage that gave Denmark its most outstanding reformer king, who showed better than all his European counterparts the possibilities of the policy of "enlightened absolutism." This was Prince Regent Frederick, the future King Frederick VI (1808-1839). Already in 1784. The 16-year-old prince claimed for himself the rights of regent from his father and began to carry out radical transformations that modernized the Danish countryside.
The middle Oldenburg line separated from the older one in the second half of the 16th century. She was called Holstein-Sonderburg after her residence (modern Sønderborg on the Danish island of Als off the coast of southern Jutland). At the end of the XVIII century. this line is represented by two branches: Augustenburg and Beck. Both of them will play their role after the suppression of the senior line in 1863: the first will receive Schleswig-Holstein, who has left the union with Denmark, the second - the Danish, and then the Greek and Norwegian crowns.
The ancestor of the younger, Holstein-Gottorp line was Duke Adolf, son of the Danish king Frederick I (1523-1533); the center of her possessions was Kiel. Constantly in conflict with Denmark, the Gottorp dukes were traditionally in political and dynastic alliance with the Swedish dynasties: the Gottorp princesses were the mother of Gustav Adolf and the wife of Charles X Gustav. But after the defeat of Sweden in the Northern War, Duke Karl Friedrich of Holstein-Gottorp (1702-1739), himself a nephew of Charles XII by his mother and a pretender to the Swedish throne, decided to enlist new support. In 1725 He entered into marriage with the daughter of Emperor Peter I, Tsarina Anna Petrovna.
Their only son, Karl Peter Ulrich, after the accession to the throne in 1741 of his aunt Elizaveta Petrovna, was transferred to Russia, converted to Orthodoxy and declared heir to the throne under the name of Peter Fedorovich. Having become Emperor Peter III (1761-1762), this narrow-minded and eccentric man almost drew Russia into an unnecessary war with Denmark for Holstein interests. Having reigned for half a year, in the summer of 1762 he was overthrown by his wife Catherine II and soon killed. There remained a son, Pavel Petrovich, removed from the throne by his mother and passionately hating her. After his accession to the throne in November 1796, the Holstein-Gottorp dynasty will finally establish itself on the Russian throne, taking the name of the Russian national Romanov dynasty and using the authority of its direct ancestor, the first emperor Peter the Great *.
From the Gottorp line of the Oldenburgs at the beginning of the 18th century. a younger branch stood out, the founder of which was the uncle of Duke Karl Friedrich Christian August. His daughter Johanna, married to an Anhalt-Zerbst prince, became the mother of Catherine II. In this way. Christian August was not only the great-uncle of Peter III, but also the grandfather of Catherine. When in 1743 the question arose of who would be the heir to the Swedish throne, Russia supported a candidate from the Gottorp dynasty under her patronage, placing on the throne the son of Christian August, Catherine's uncle Adolf Friedrich (1751-1771).
His son Gustav III (1771-1792), who restored absolutism in Sweden, is the maternal nephew of Frederick II of Prussia and cousin of Catherine II. Brought up in the spirit of French Enlightenment culture, surrounded by writers and a writer himself, like his St. Petersburg cousin, this is a talented and energetic person to the point of adventurism, combining the despotism of an enlightened reformer with the romance of the obsolete idea of ​​the Swedish military great power. He is married to a Danish princess, sister of Christian VII; marriages between the dynasties of Denmark and Sweden, neighboring powers of equal rank and the same religion, were naturally a traditional phenomenon.

* Let us briefly recall the genealogy of the Romanov dynasty. It was a Moscow boyar family, known since the 14th century: its ancestor was the boyar of the Grand Duke of Moscow and Vladimir Simeon the Proud Andrei Ivanovich Kobyla. The genealogical legend considers him to be the son of a native of Lithuania, and his unpretentious Russian nickname is a distortion of the real name Kambila. From the same root came a number of old Russian surnames - Sheremetevs, Kolychevs, Sukhovo-Kobylitsy, Yakovlevs (ancestors of A. I. Herzen), etc. The Romanovs adopted their name in the 16th century. from one of the descendants of Kobyla, Roman Yuryevich Zakharyin, whose daughter Anastasia Romanovna in 1547 became the first, beloved wife of Tsar Ivan IV the Terrible, the mother of his children Dmitry, Ivan and Fedor. The dynastic rights of the Romanovs were based on this property with the old Rurik dynasty, the first tsar of their kind, Mikhail Fedorovich, was the great-nephew of Tsarina Anastasia Romanovna.
**King of Sweden Adolf Fredrik.

Russia also took care of the fate of Catherine's second uncle from the Gottorp house. Having ascended the throne, the queen settled the Gottorp issue, which was sore for Russian-Danish relations. She renounced the Duchy of Gottorp, giving it to Denmark. In exchange, Denmark transferred in 1773 the county of Oldenburg that belonged to it (since 1777 it became a duchy) to Friedrich August of Holstein-Gottorp, the younger brother of the Swedish king Adolf Fredrik. He himself, his son, and then the descendants of his younger brother Georg Ludwig will make up the ducal dynasty of Oldenburg, which is under the constant patronage of the Russian emperors. From 1829, the Dukes of Oldenburg will be called Grand Dukes.

Ascanian house

Catherine II herself, who, thanks to her great intelligence and tact, managed to become the "mother sovereign" for the Russian nobility, had no rights to the Russian throne, except for those that her eliminated husband possessed and which she usurped from her son. I was born Princess Sophia Frederica Augusta of Anhalt-Zerbst, she came from an old Askanian house.
The family nest of this well-known from the middle of the XI century. dynasty (her name comes from a castle near modern Aschersleben) were Anhalt lands on the left bank of the Elbe, which then divided the German and Slavic territories. Like the Wettins, the Askanias advanced in the course of the German "onslaught on the East". The most famous of their early ancestors was Albrecht the Bear, the first Margrave of Brandenburg (1136-1170). It was he who, having crossed the Elbe frontier, began to expand his possessions with fire and sword, energetically colonizing the lands of the Luticians.
From the eldest son of Albrecht the Bear, Otto I, the dynasty of the Brandenburg margraves went, pushing the boundaries of Brandenburg to the Oder and beyond the Oder, and founded its future capital Berlin. She died in 1320.
The youngest son of the conqueror, Bernhard, in 1180, after the fall of Henry the Lion, received the vast Duchy of Saxony in possession. In the next generation, his offspring divided into two lines: the older Anhalt and the younger Saxon. This latter is already in the XIII century. gave two branches: Saxe-Lauenburg, which owned lands in the lower reaches of the Elbe (it stopped in 1689), and Saxe-Wittenberg, to which, until it also stopped, the first Saxon electors (1370-1422) belonged.
By the 18th century the former power of the clan is already far in the past. Only one of his Anhalt lines remained, modestly sitting on the original ancestral lands. It split into several branches with residences in neighboring Anhalt cities: in Dessau, Bernburg, Köthen, Zerbst, and others. The Zerbst branch, to which Catherine belonged, was the youngest. The princes of Anhalt were in the military service of Prussia, among them was the father of the empress. Perhaps the choice of her as the wife of the heir to the Russian throne was facilitated by the fact that marriages between the Zerbst and Gottorp dynasties were a tradition; we have already noted that Catherine's mother was a princess of Gottorp, so that she herself was a second cousin to her husband. Zerbst is ruled by Catherine's younger brother Friedrich August. Despite his sister's power, he is very modestly married to a princess from a neighboring branch of the House of Anhalt. There are no children, and his death in 1793, together with the death of Catherine in 1796, will mark the end of the Zerbst branch. From other Anhalt dynasties until the 20th century. only Dessauskaya will remain.

Other dynasties

It only remains for us, for the sake of completeness, to mention briefly other old sovereign houses which, in 1789, did not own kingdoms or electors, but possessed sufficient international prestige to constantly participate in matrimonial combinations at the highest level.
Mecklenburg ducal house (from the 12th century). We have already written about his Slavic origin (see p. 7). In the XIV century. this house was involved in the dynastic struggle around the Scandinavian thrones: from it came King Albrecht of Mecklenburg (1363-1389), whose niece Maria became the mother of the Danish-Swedish-Norwegian king Eric of Pomerania. The dynasty maintains traditional links with the Danish house, having produced several queens of Denmark. Princess of Mecklenburg is also Queen Sophia Charlotte of England, wife of George III. Finally, the daughter of Karl Leopold of Mecklenburg from his marriage to Catherine Ivanovna, the elder sister of Empress Anna, was Anna Leopoldovna, ruler of the Russian Empire under her son John III in 1740-1741.
Hessian landgrave's house. Known since the middle of the 13th century. Gained great prestige among Protestant dynasties from the 16th century. Thanks to Landgrave Philip of Hesse, the organizer of the anti-Habsburg Protestant coalitions, as well as an active participant in the suppression of the Great Peasants' War. Under his sons William IV (1567-1592) and George I (1567-1596), the house was divided into two branches: Kassel and Darmstadt. Of the Hesse-Kassel landgraves, Friedrich and (1760-1785) received particular fame. Having fallen into debt, he sold 17 thousand people of his army to England for the war with the American colonists for 21 thousand thalers. Like the House of Mecklenburg, the dynasty of the Hesse-Kassel landgraves is connected by long-standing family ties with the Danish Oldenburgs. King Fredrik I of Sweden (1720-1751), husband of Charles XII's sister Ulrika Eleonora, belonged to the same branch (son of Landgrave Charles I). From the Hesse-Darmstadt branch comes Queen Frederick Louise of Prussia, the second wife of Friedrich Wilhelm and, while her younger sister Wilhelmina (in Russia - Natalia Alekseevna) was the first wife of Tsarevich Pavel Petrovich, who died early. This was the beginning of the tradition of Russian-Hessian dynastic marriages; two Hesse-Darmstadt princesses would become Russian empresses: Maria Alexandrovna (wife of Alexander II) and Alexandra Feodorovna (wife of Nicholas II). In 1789, in Hesse-Kassel, the throne was occupied by Wilhelm IX (1785-1821), who fought in America, who received the title of elector in 1803, and in Hesse-Darmstadt, from 1790, Ludwig X (1790-1830), who took over 1806 title of Grand Duke under the name of Ludwig I*.
Württemberg ducal house. Known since the middle of the 13th century. (the ancestor of Ebergard, Count of Württemberg in 1236-1241), seized the ducal dignity in 1496. The marriage in 1776 of the Württemberg princess Sophia (in Russia, Empress Maria Feodorovna) with the widowed Pavel laid a solid foundation for future Russian-Württemberg family ties. In 1805, the dynasty will become royal, the first king of Vgortemberg will be Frederick I, brother of the then dowager Russian empress, uncle of Emperor Alexander I. Maria Feodorovna's daughter Ekaterina Pavlovna and her granddaughter Olga Nikolaevna will be Württemberg queens, her son Grand Duke Mikhail Pavlovich will marry a Württemberg queen Princess, who became Grand Duchess Elena Pavlovna of Russia. Baden margravial house. A very old dynasty, dating back to the beginning of the 11th century, when its ancestor Berchtold, Count Ortenau is mentioned. In the traditions of the House of Baden there were matrimonial unions with the Wittelsbachs, the Hohenpollerns, the House of Hesse, the Gottorp line of the Oldenburgs. Princess Albertina of Bohlen-Durlach, who married Christian August of Holstein-Gottorpeky, became the grandmother of Catherine II and the mother of the first Swedish king of the Gottorp dynasty, Adolf Fredrik. The continuation of Russian-Baden family ties will be in 1793 the marriage of the future Emperor Alexander I with Louise of Baden (Empress Elizaveta Alekseevna). From 1806 the sovereigns of Baden would assume the title of Grand Dukes of Baden.

*In 1866, Hesse-Kassel was annexed to Prussia. In the same year, Hesse-Darmstadt was renamed the Grand Duchy of Hesse, which lasted until 1918.

Kings at all times lived in luxury and wealth, surrounded by an army of servants and courtiers. It is impossible to imagine a king without a majestic palace, the walls of which are painted with gold, decorated with unique paintings, and the rooms are furnished with expensive furniture. Modern royal dynasties no longer build palaces and castles for themselves, they inherited their residences from great ancestors in the past.

Buckingham Palace. Stephen B Whatley. 1999

Of course, each palace is unique and has its own unique history. We decided to find out who owns the largest and richest palace, so we made a rating of the royal residences of Europe, in which representatives of the current royal dynasties now live. In total, we offer seven palaces to your attention.

Royal Palace in Oslo - Norway

The Royal Palace in Oslo is located on a hill, Bellevue, which allows it to stand out from the surrounding landscape.

Initially, the palace was conceived as the summer residence of the Swedish king Karl XIV Johan. The construction began in 1825, Karl himself laid the first stone in the foundation of the future residence. However, when the construction was completed after 24 years, the king had already died and could not see him. The first monarch to settle in the castle was the Danish prince Karl, who in 1905 was proclaimed king of independent Norway by Haakon VII.

The palace was built in the classicism style typical of the first half of the 19th century. The design of the palace belongs to the Danish architect Hans Ditlev Franciscus Linstow. The building looks underlined strictly, but elegantly. The interior is decorated with various works of art. The decoration is dominated by beige-golden tones, while there is no pathos and unnecessary splendor. From the outside, the palace is surrounded by a beautiful park.

The park has a specially arranged cozy recreation area and small lakes. Locals come here to relax with their children.

Currently, the hall of the State Council and the parish church are located on the first floor of the palace. Harold V receives leaders of other countries in his residence and holds important state events. The entrance to the palace is closed, tourists and residents of the city are allowed only in the royal park, as well as on the palace square.

The Norwegian Royal Palace is noticeably inferior to other residences of European monarchs both in richness of decoration and in size (which is why it ranks last in our rating). Its dimensions are quite modest: the main facade is 100 meters long and 24 meters wide. The building has 173 rooms, and the entire palace complex, together with the park, occupies just over 17.5 hectares.

Royal Palace of Brussels and Laeken Palace - Belgium

We gave the sixth place to the palaces of the Belgian King Albert II.

The official royal residence is the palace in Brussels. This monumental building is located in a respectable area on the Coudenberg hill, which was called the "Royal Quarter".

The palace cannot be called luxurious, however, it makes the Belgians feel proud and emphasizes the greatness of the royal family. The Belgians are a reserved nation, which is probably why the royal residence has an emphatically severe form.

The Royal Palace in Brussels is a monumental building with a gray-brown façade.

Once upon a time, on the site of the modern royal castle, there was a fortified castle Coudenberg, which belonged to the Duke of Brabant. In 1731 the building burned down and was restored only by 1775. A lot of valuable relics perished in that fire.

Since 1830, after the Belgian Revolution, King Leopold of Saxe-Coburg settled in the palace, and since then it has become a royal residence.

Despite the fact that the Royal Palace is the official residence of the Belgian monarch, he and his family mostly live in the Laeken Palace, using the residence to receive dignitaries and hold important state events.

The Laeken Palace was built in 1785 in the north of the capital in the Laeken area for Albert of Saxe-Teschin Stadtholder of the Austrian Netherlands, designed by the architect Charles de Wailly. The furniture for this palace was made by the famous cabinetmaker Jean-Joseph Chapuis. The building changed owners several times, until in 1830, after the revolution, the state gave Laeken to King Leopold I. Already under Leopold II, at the end of the 19th century, the castle was noticeably expanded and rebuilt.

Despite the fact that the palace cannot boast of a luxurious interior and rich appearance, Laeken is famous all over the world for its greenhouse, which is still visited by millions of tourists every year to admire exotic plants.

The collection of unique plants growing in the greenhouse is of incredible value: some specimens have been preserved since the time of Leopold II, while others are very rare and are found almost nowhere else. In addition, the garden has a lake, a golf course, and unique pavilions that are not typical of Belgian architecture: the Japanese Tower and the Chinese Pavilion. The park complex, together with the greenhouse, occupies more than 25 square meters. km.

Opposite the park is the Neo-Gothic Church of Our Lady of Laeken. The church crypt houses the family burial place of the Belgian royal family.

Amalienborg Palace - Denmark

One of the famous sights of Copenhagen is the royal residence - Amalienborg Palace. It is he who occupies the fifth place in our ranking.

The palace was built in the eighteenth century. However, Sophia Amalienborg Palace was originally in its place, which completely burned down in 1689. As a result, from 1750 to 1754. a new one was erected in its place. Niels Eigtved became the chief architect and project manager. Amalienborg became the royal residence in 1794, when the previous residence, Christiansborg Castle, burned down. King Christian VII, who ruled in those years, immediately acquired 4 buildings, which now make up the main complex of Amalienborg Palace.

The Amalienborg architectural complex consists of four identical buildings, made in the Rococo style and forming a regular octagon together with the outbuildings. These are: the Moltke Palace, later called the Palace of Christian VII, the Palace of Christian Frederic Levetsau, later renamed the Palace of Christian VIII, the Palace of Frederick VIII and the Palace of Christian IX.

Since all the buildings were built in the Rococo style, it is not surprising that the facade and interior halls are decorated with stucco, cupids, intricate carvings, etc. Such an interior cannot be boring and dull; it emphasizes the wealth and grandeur of the Habsburg royal dynasty.

One of the most luxurious apartments in the Danish royal residence is the Knight's or Great Hall in the palace of Christian VII. It has, perhaps, the most extravagant interior, made in the best traditions of Rococo.

A few years ago, the royal family held large-scale reconstruction Palace of Frederick VIII, on which 130 million Danish kroner (approximately $22 million) was spent. The general public was able to see the renovated halls in 2010. During the five years that the renovation lasted, a lot has been done: the ceiling painted with frescoes was reconstructed, the wallpaper and wooden decor elements on the walls were completely replaced, the marble stairs and mosaics on the floors were refreshed. New paintings appeared on the walls, painted by contemporary artists especially for the royal palace, in which Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark currently lives with his wife Princess Mary and children.

It should be said that of all four palaces, only one is completely closed to the public - this is the palace of Christian IX, which is home to the current Queen of Denmark Margrethe II and Prince Henrik. In the rest of the buildings, visitors are allowed at certain times of the year.

Amalienborg is slightly inferior to the residence of the English royal family in terms of the luxury of interior decoration and area. The complex occupies a relatively small area: the length of Amalienborg from north to south is 203 meters, and from east to west 195 meters, but most of this territory is occupied by the area, the palaces themselves are not very large compared to those considered earlier.

Royal Palace in Amsterdam - Netherlands

On the fourth position, we have the Royal Palace in Amsterdam - the residence of the Queen of Holland, Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard.

This is an amazing example of neoclassical architecture. The palace was originally built in the 17th century as a city hall, which was the epitome of the grandeur and significance of the Netherlands. The town hall became the royal palace in 1808, after the coronation of Louis Bonaparte, Napoleon's brother.

The walls of the palace are still adorned by world-famous artists such as Jan Lievens, Govert Flink, Ferdinand Bol, Jacob Jorden, Rembrandt. An incredible amount of expensive antique furniture has been collected here. It is here that the world's largest and well-preserved collection of ampil style furniture, as well as objects of arts and crafts (more than 2,000 exhibits) is currently located. Most of the collection was collected during the reign of Louis Bonaparte.

The interior decoration of the palace is dominated by marble and gilding. The facade is decorated with a huge statue of Atlas, who holds the globe on his shoulders.

It is noteworthy that at one time the Amsterdam City Hall, along with many other architectural masterpieces, claimed the honorary title of the Eighth Wonder of the World.

The Royal Palace is adorned with an imposing dome, on the top of which there is a weather vane in the shape of a medieval cogg ship. It is the cogg that is the symbol of Amsterdam. Under the dome are windows from which the departure and arrival of ships in the harbor were previously observed.

As for the size of the palace itself, the length of the facade is 80 meters, which is not very much, therefore, despite the luxurious decoration, this palace did not enter the top three.

The central hall of the Amsterdam Royal Palace has impressive dimensions: 18.3 meters wide and 36.6 meters long, the ceiling height is 27.4 meters. On the marble floor you can see two maps of the world (western and eastern hemispheres) and the celestial sphere. The map shows in some detail the areas of colonial influence of the Dutch Empire. The maps are dated to the middle of the 18th century. It is in this hall that the most important ceremonies and receptions take place, for example, the presentation of state awards and the royal reception in honor of the new year.

Oriental Royal Palace and Zarzuela Palace - Spain

In third place, perhaps, you can put the palaces of the Spanish royal house. Currently, King Juan Carlos I lives in the Zarzuela Palace, but the official residence is the Oriental Palace in Madrid, used exclusively for ceremonial events.

The Eastern Palace was built in the 18th century. In the Middle Ages, in its place was a Moorish fortress, and later the Alcazar of the Habsburgs, destroyed in a fire in 1734. After that, Philip V, the first representative of the Bourbon dynasty, who ascended the Spanish throne, wanted to build a luxurious palace in Madrid.

Two Italian architects worked on the project: Filippo Juvarra and Giovanni Battista Sacchetti, who created a luxurious building in the Italian Baroque style. For the construction of the palace, granite was used, mined in the Guadarrama mountains.

The interior of the Royal Palace in Madrid is considered one of the most beautiful in Europe. The walls are decorated with magnificent frescoes by famous Italian and Spanish artists: Diego Velasquez, Corrado Giaquinto, Luca Giordano, Francisco Bayeu, Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, Caravaggio, Francisco Goya, Vicente Lopez and Mariano Salvador Maella.

Among the apartments, the most beautiful is the throne room. Under the ceiling, painted by the Venetian master Tiepolo, crystal chandeliers sparkle. The walls are upholstered in red damascus. Along the perimeter of the hall there are statues that depict all the main human virtues. The palace covers an area of ​​about 19.5 hectares.

Currently, it is open to the public and anyone can see this magnificence for a small price.

As for the Zarzuela Palace, where the royal family lives, it is located outside the city north of Madrid. It was originally built as a hunting lodge and country residence. And only in 1962 the royal family settled in it. Of course, in splendor and luxury, it is inferior to the Eastern Palace. Here reigns a warmer, more comfortable homely atmosphere. The palace is closed to visitors so as not to disturb the measured life of the Spanish monarchs.

The building was built in a restrained early baroque style by architects Gomez de Mora and Carbonello. During the civil war, the building was badly damaged and was restored only by 1960. Later, two more buildings were added to it. Currently, the Zarzuela palace complex includes the main palace and two additional houses on the sides, one of which is now inhabited by members of the royal family. The rooms are decorated with tapestries, paintings and other works of art that emphasize the status and grandeur of their owners.

Despite the fact that this residence is not very large, it has its own garden, sports grounds, a chapel, a heliport, as well as round-the-clock security - the monarchs are guarded by a regiment of guards.

Royal Palace in Stockholm - Sweden

In second place is the official residence of the Swedish King Gustav XVI - the Royal Palace in Stockholm. This is an impressive building with 600 rooms, including ceremonial halls and royal apartments. The length of the facade is 120 meters.

The palace is located in the center of Stockholm on the front embankment of Stadholmen Island. It is built on the foundations of the medieval castle Tre Kronor (Three Crowns), destroyed in 1697 by fire. The remains of that castle can still be seen in the Three Crowns Palace Museum. The construction of the new royal palace took 57 years and was completed by 1754. At that time, it became the largest building project in Europe. The halls of the palace are made in a variety of architectural styles: rococo, baroque and neoclassicism. The best artists of that time were invited for decoration.

Each of the four facades of the Royal Palace is symbolic. The main ones - east and west, respectively, the "facade of the Queen" and the "facade of the King", lead to the royal apartments and symbolize the power of the monarchy. I would like to note that on the western side, two curved galleries form a courdoner (small square), where in summer the daily solemn ceremony of changing the royal guard takes place.

On the north side of the palace is the entrance to the cabinet of ministers and the meeting room of the Swedish parliament, the Riksdag. This façade symbolizes parliamentary power.

The southern facade, facing the palace descent, is the most luxurious and solemn. There is a huge monumental arch here, on opposite sides of which are the State Hall and the Royal Chapel: the throne and the altar are the main symbols of statehood. This façade is also decorated with six Corinthian columns and imposing sculptures.

Part of the palace, despite the fact that the king permanently resides in his residence, is open to the public. Of greatest interest and admiration among tourists are the luxurious royal apartments, the chambers of the Order of the Knights, the banquet hall, the Charles XI Gallery, the Treasury, the Arsenal, as well as the Three Crowns Palace Museum and the antique museum of Gustav III.

This castle can be called an amazing example of architecture, because it perfectly combines rigor and grandeur, restraint and nobility.

Buckingham Palace - UK

As you know, the English Queen Elizabeth II, who has been leading the country for more than 60 years, lives with her family in Buckingham Palace.

For many years, this majestic and incredibly beautiful building has been the main palace of Great Britain and the central headquarters of the ruling Windsor dynasty. It is here that official receptions and other important events of national importance are held.

It should be noted that Buckingham Palace received the status of the official royal residence more than 250 years ago. In 1837, having ascended the throne, Queen Victoria chose him.

Initially, the building was not as luxurious as you can see it now. Once the mansion belonged to the Duke of Buckingham, a friend of Queen Anne. George III bought the house for £28,000 in 1762 and renamed it Buckingham House. And only after almost 60 years, in 1820, King George IV rebuilt the mansion and turned it into a luxurious palace. The reconstruction cost more than 150 thousand pounds (at that time a lot of money).

Work on the reconstruction and expansion of the palace lasted for almost 75 years under the direction of architects John Nash (John Nash) and Edward Blor (Edward Blor), who built three new wings, forming a large courtyard. The interior decoration was completely changed and the facade was updated.

Later, already during the reign of Queen Victoria, in 1853 a huge ballroom with a total area of ​​​​800 square meters was built. m, which is still actively used today for large state events, receptions and concerts.

Most of the rooms at Buckingham Palace have remained unchanged since then, including the grand dining room, the white drawing room, and, of course, the Golden Throne Room, which now hosts receptions and formal photo shoots with members of the royal family. Until now, the walls are decorated with paintings from the time of Hero IV, and in many rooms, samples of unique rare furniture have been preserved.

However, during the reign of King Edward VII (1894-1972), some rooms were remodeled in the Belle Epoque style (translated from French as “beautiful era”). Cream and gold tones began to predominate in the decoration.

Currently, Buckingham Palace covers an area of ​​more than 20 hectares. The castle has more than 600 rooms, including 52 royal bedrooms and 188 staff and guest bedrooms, as well as 78 bathrooms. In addition, the territory is decorated with a huge garden, which occupies almost 17 hectares, in which exotic trees and flowers grow. This is the largest private garden in the UK. In the center it is decorated with an artificial pond.

The royal residence is guarded around the clock by the court division, which consists of the royal horse guards regiment and the infantry guards regiment.

Today, Buckingham Palace is a real city in the center of London. It has its own police station, a hospital, two post offices, clubs, bars, a cinema and a swimming pool. More than 700 service personnel work in the palace.

The Queen lives in the palace most of the year and only leaves it for two months (August and September). At this time, the residence opens its doors to visitors and everyone can see the luxurious royal apartments and state rooms of the palace with their own eyes.

By the way, for a fee, you can feel like a king and live in Buckingham Palace. About 200 rooms in the palace this year for the period of the 2012 Summer Olympics will be given over to the hotel. Of course, everyone who wants to take an apartment will not be allowed. In order to ensure the safety of the Queen and her family, before booking the rooms, each applicant will be very carefully checked by the staff of Scotland Yard.

Having made a short tour of the European royal palaces, it immediately becomes clear that the descendants of the great dynasties cherish their heritage. Many palaces have been reconstructed, unique, priceless works of art have been preserved.

The construction of all the considered palaces dates back to the end of the 18th - the first half of the 19th centuries. It was at this time in Europe that the flowering of such architectural styles as baroque, rococo, classicism and a little later neoclassicism was observed. All these styles are reflected in the design of royal palaces.

If we talk about the richest palaces, then the top three rightfully included the residences of the English, Swedish and Spanish royal families. It is these palaces that are the largest and richest. This is due to the fact that they were built during the heyday of these states, when the kings had both the desire and the opportunity to build such majestic and luxurious buildings.

Anna Belova rmnt.ru

Despite the fact that we live in a world where there is more and more talk about democracy and electoral systems, dynastic traditions are still strong in many countries. All the dynasties of Europe are similar to each other. Moreover, each dynasty is special in its own way.

Windsors (Great Britain), since 1917

The youngest

British monarchs are genealogically representatives of the Hanoverian and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty, and more widely - the Wettins, who had estates in Hanover and Saxony.

During the First World War, King George V decided that it was wrong to be called in German and in 1917 a proclamation was issued according to which the descendants of Queen Victoria, representing the Hanoverian dynasty, and Prince Albert in the male line, British subjects, were declared members of the new House of Windsor, and in 1952, Elizabeth II improved the document in her favor, declaring members of the house and her descendants who are not descendants of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the male line. That is, de facto, from the point of view of a normal monarchical genealogy, Prince Charles and his descendants are not Windsors, the dynasty is interrupted by Elizabeth II, and they belong to the Glücksburg branch of the Oldenburg house, which rules in Denmark and Norway, because Elizabeth's husband Prince Philip is from there. By the way, the Russian Emperor Peter III and all his offspring in the male line, too - from the Oldenburg house by blood.

Bernadotte (Sweden), from 1810

The most revolutionary

The son of a lawyer from Gascony, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte chose a military career and became a general during the French Revolution. Relations with Napoleon did not work out from the very beginning, the ambitious Gascon considered himself better than Bonaparte, but he fought very successfully for the emperor. In 1810, the Swedes offered him to become the adopted son of a childless king, and, after he accepted Lutheranism, they approved him as crown prince, and soon as regent and de facto ruler of Sweden. He entered into an alliance with Russia and fought against the French in 1813-1814, personally led the troops. So the current ruler Carl XVI Gustav is very similar to the Gascon nose.

Glucksburgs (Denmark, Norway), since 1825

The most Russian

The full name of the dynasty is Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg aya. And they themselves are a branch of the Oldenburg house, the interweaving of the descendants of which is extremely complex, they ruled in Denmark, and in Norway, and in Greece, and in the Baltic states, and even under the name of the Romanovs - in Russia. The fact is that Peter III and his descendants, according to all dynastic rules, are just Glücksburg. In Denmark, the Glücksburgs are now represented by Margrethe II, and in Norway by Harald V.

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, from 1826

The most accommodating

The family of the dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha originates from the ancient German house of Wettin. As was customary in the 18th-19th centuries, the descendants of various German offshoots of the ancient ruling houses were actively used in dynastic marriages. And so the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas did not spare their offspring for the common cause. This tradition was first laid by Catherine II, who married her grandson Konstantin Pavlovich Duchess Juliana (in Russia - Anna).

Then Anna married her relative Leopold to the British Princess Charlotte, and his sister Victoria, married to Edward of Kent, gave birth to a daughter, Victoria, who would become the most famous British queen. And her son Prince Alfred (1844-1900), Duke of Edinburgh, married Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, sister of Alexander III. In 1893, the prince inherited the title of Duke of Coburg and it turned out that an Englishman and a Russian were at the head of the German family. Their granddaughter Princess Alix became the wife of Nicholas II. The Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty is genealogically now on the British throne and completely without any reservations - in Belgian in the person of Philippe Leopold Louis Marie.

Orange dynasty (Netherlands), from 1815

The most power-hungry

The descendants of the glorious Williams of Orange regained their influence in the Netherlands only after the final defeat of Napoleon, when the Congress of Vienna established monarchical rule there. The wife of the second king of the Netherlands, Willem II, was the sister of Alexander I and the daughter of Paul I, Anna Pavlovna, so the current king, Willem Alexander, is the great-great-great-great-grandson of Paul I. In addition, the modern royal family, although it continues to classify itself as part of the Orange dynasty, is actually the grandmother of Willem Alexander Juliana belongs to the House of Mecklenburg, and Queen Beatrix to the Westphalian princely house of Lippe. This dynasty can be called powerless because the three previous queens abdicated in favor of their descendants.

Parma Bourbons (Luxembourg), since 1964

The most seedy

On the whole, the Parma line of the Bourbons was in its time a rather famous and ambitious Italian dynasty, but it fell into almost complete decline with the loss of its fiefdoms at the end of the 19th century. So she would have vegetated, being a more or less successful aristocratic family, but one of the offspring Felix married the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg Charlotte of Orange. So the Parma Bourbons became the ruling dynasty of the dwarf state of Luxembourg and lead a modest life, raising children, protecting wildlife and preserving the Luxembourgish language. The status of an offshore zone and 200 banks per microcountry allows them not to think about their daily bread.

Liechtensteins (Liechtenstein), from 1607

most noble

For all the time of its richest history - the house has been known since the XII century - they did not get into big politics, perhaps because at the very beginning they realized that you can quickly part with everything. They acted slowly, prudently, helped strong of the world this - far-sightedly put on the Habsburgs, created successful alliances, easily changed religion, now leading the Lutherans, then returning to Catholicism. Having received the status of imperial princes, the Liechtensteins did not seek to intermarry with alien surnames, they strengthened their dynastic ties within the Holy Roman Empire.

Actually, Liechtenstein was at first a secondary possession for them, which they acquired, since the emperor was their de jure overlord in order to enter the Reichstag and increase their political importance. Then they intermarried with the Habsburgs, who confirmed their homogeneity, and until now the Liechtensteins are distinguished by great attention to dynastic ties, marrying only with pillar nobles. It is worth adding to what has been said with the fact that GDP per capita in Liechtenstein is the second in the world after Qatar - 141,000 dollars a year. This is not least due to the fact that the tiny state is a tax haven, where different companies can hide from the taxes of their countries, but not only. Liechtenstein has a thriving high-tech industry.

Grimaldi (Monaco), from 1659

The most rootless

Grimaldi - one of the four clans that ruled the Republic of Genoa. Since there were constant skirmishes between the supporters of the pope's power, the Ghibellines, and the emperor, the Guelphs, in the 12th-14th centuries, Grimaldi had to periodically run around nearby Europe. So they found Monaco for themselves. In 1659, the owners of Monaco took the title of prince and received from Louis XIII the title of Dukes de Valentinois. They spent most of their time at the French court. But this is all in the past, and in 1733 the lineage in the male tribe ceased, and those that are now Grimaldi actually descend from the Duke of Estuteville, who, according to the marriage contract, was obliged by the rulers of Monaco to take his last name. The current Prince Albert with his sisters comes from the marriage of the Count of Polignac with the illegitimate daughter of Prince Louis II, who ruled in the principality in 1922-1949. But the lack of nobility Albert more than compensates for the publicity working for the principality.

Princes of Andorra - Bishops of Urgell, from the 6th century

The most ancient

Since 1278, Andorra has had two prince-rulers - the Bishop of Urgell and someone from France, first the Comte de Foix, then the King of Navarre, and now the President of the Republic. Episcopal rule is a historical throwback to the secular dominion of the Catholic Church. The diocese of Urgell, or rather, the Urgell diocese, was founded in the 6th century, and since then the bishops have traced their genealogy. The current prince is Bishop Joan Enric Vives y Sicilia, a theologian, practicing priest and public figure. But for us, of particular interest in the history of Andorra and the Bishops of Urgell is 1934, when they were removed from the throne by the Russian adventurer Boris Skosyrev. He came to Andorra, proclaimed himself king, and either the General Council of the country, either persuaded or bribed, supported him. The new king issued a mass of liberal documents, but when he decided to make a gambling zone there, the previously loyal bishop rebelled. And although King Boris I declared war on him, he still won, calling reinforcements from Spain from five national guardsmen.

Spanish Bourbons (since 1713)

The most branched

Everyone knows that the Spanish Bourbons have recently been the most disgraced, but they are also the most branched of the Bourbons historically. They have as many as six lateral branches, including the most significant - Carlist - from the Infante Don Carlos the Elder. At the beginning of the 19th century, he was the clearest contender for the Spanish throne, but due to the pragmatic sanction of Ferdinand VII in 1830, who transferred the throne to his daughter Isabella, he remained out of work. A strong party formed behind Carlos, he unleashed two wars, called Carlist wars (his grandson Carlos the Younger already participated in the third). The Carlist movement in Spain was significant until the 1970s, formally exists now, but does not matter in politics, although they have their own contender for the throne - Carlos Hugo.

The most famous royal dynasties of Europe

Habsburgs-The first reliable ancestor of the Habsburg family is considered to be Guntram the Rich, mentioned in 938, who owned lands in the Swiss regions of Aargau and Thurgau. In Switzerland, the county of Habsburg, which gave the name to the family, is located. The dynasty became royal in 1273, when Count Rudolf of Habsburg was elected King of Germany (1273-1291) after a long "royalty". He managed to move the center of his possessions to the east, acquiring in the 1280s. Austrian and Styrian duchies.

The first Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor to be crowned was Frederick III (1440-1493). Since that time, the imperial crown remained in the Habsburg family.

The ability of the Habsburgs to successfully marry has become proverbial. The son of Frederick III, Maximilian I, thanks to his marriage in 1477 with the only heiress of the Duchy of Burgundy, Mary, became the owner of the Netherlands and the claimant to the entire "Burgundian inheritance", which gave rise to a century-old dispute between the Habsburgs and the French dynasty.

The son of Maximilian and Mary, thanks to his marriage to Infanta Juana, was in the years 1504-1506 the king of Castile (Philip I); their eldest son Charles inherited the Spanish throne in 1516 (Charles I), and in 1519, after the death of his grandfather Maximilian, he was elected emperor under the name of Charles V (1519-1556), combining imperial authority with the resources of the huge Spanish colonial power.

Karl's brother Ferdinand was married to the sister of Louis II Jagiellon, king of Hungary and Bohemia, and after his childless brother-in-law fell in the battle with the Turks at Mohacs in 1526, he occupied both thrones.

In 1556, Charles V abdicated and divided his possessions. Spain, together with the Netherlands, Franche-Comte and lands in Italy, went to his son Philip II, and brother Ferdinand, king of Hungary and the Czech Republic, received the imperial dignity with the family duchies of Austria; thus, for the first time, the contours of the future Austro-Hungarian monarchy were outlined. From here came the division of the Habsburgs into two branches - the Spanish and the Austrian, which were among themselves in the closest political and dynastic union, claiming political hegemony in Europe as the defenders of Catholicism.

The Spanish branch of the Habsburgs died out in 1700, giving way to the Bourbons. And 40 years later, after the death of Emperor Charles VI in 1740, his daughter Maria Theresa was the only heiress of the Austrian branch. The rights of the latter were disputed by her cousin, the Bavarian Elector of the Wittelsbach family, the husband of another Austrian princess. The All-European War of the Austrian Succession began, during which the Elector was crowned Emperor Charles VII in 1742, but after his death in 1745 Maria Theresa and her husband Franz I, Grand Duke of Tuscany and former Duke of Lorraine took over the imperial crown.

With the death of Maria Theresa in 1780, the Habsburg family died out, but the descendants of her and Franz, representatives of the House of Lorraine, took the name of the vanished dynasty (for accuracy, their house is called Habsburg-Lorraine.

Plantagenets(Plantagenets) (Angevin dynasty), a royal dynasty in England in 1154-1399. The most famous representatives: Henry II, Richard I the Lionheart, John Landless, Henry III, Edward I, Edward II, Edward III, Richard II. Lateral branches of the Plantagenets are Lancasters and Yorkies.

Wittelsbach- (Wittelsbacher), a South German princely family that ruled in 1180-1918 in Bavaria. It got its name from the burg (castle) Wittelsbach, located on the Paar River in Upper Bavaria. The Wittelsbachs are first mentioned in 1115. In 1180, Count Otto VI Wittelsbach (d. 1183), an ally of Emperor Frederick I Staufen, received the Duchy of Bavaria from him after Heinrich the Lion was deprived of his possessions.

In 1208 Wittelsbach Castle was destroyed. A church and an obelisk now stand in its place. In 1214 Otto II of Wittelsbach acquired the rights to the Rhine Palatinate by marriage. In 1329, the Wittelsbachs were divided into two lines: the older one, established in the Rhine and Upper Palatinate (since 1356 - electors), and the younger one (in the Duchy of Bavaria), to which in 1623, after the defeat of Frederick V of the Palatinate at the White Mountain (during the Thirty Years' War ), passed the title of elector.

The allotments of the representatives of the surname repeatedly changed sizes. With the termination of the Bavarian Wittelsbach family (1777), the Palatinate Wittelsbachs united Bavaria and the Palatinate in 1779 after the War of the Bavarian Succession. In 1806-1918 they are the kings of Bavaria. Three representatives of the House of Wittelsbach were German and Swedish kings and Holy Roman Emperors: Louis IV of Bavaria, Ruprecht of the Palatinate (reigned 1400-1410, was not crowned), and Charles VII (reigned 1742-1745). Representatives of one of the branches of the Wittelsbachs also claimed Spanish crown.

Grimaldi(Grimaldi), the ruling dynasty in the Principality of Monaco, the oldest among the sovereign houses of Europe. The Grimaldi family has been known since the 12th century. and comes from Genoa, where he was once one of the most powerful in the Guelph party. The Principality of Monaco has been under the control of the Grimaldi family since the end of the 13th century, with short breaks. Since 1949, Prince Rainier III has been at the head of the principality.

Hohenzollerns- The family of Prussian kings originates from the South German land of Swabia, where their direct ancestor Burkhard von Tsolorin (Zollern) is known in the middle of the 11th century. His great-grandson in 1192 became Burgrave of the wealthy Nuremberg. Already in the next generation, in the XIII century, the house was divided into two lines: one left behind its ancestral lands in Swabia, the other (Franconian) was entrenched in Nuremberg. This last one had a great future ahead of it.

The Hohenzollerns were relatively inconspicuous until the beginning of the 15th century, when Frederick VI, Burgrave of Nuremberg, bought the Electorate of Brandenburg from Emperor Sigismund and became Elector Frederick I (1415-1440). In Franconia, around Nuremberg, there remained the lands of the Hohenzollerns - the margraviates of Ansbach and Bayreuth, which were transferred to the possession of the younger branches of the family. In December 1510, the young Albrecht of Hohenzollern, cousin of the Elector, was elected Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. After 15 years, the Reformation won in the lands of the order. Having adopted Lutheranism, Albrecht announced the secularization of the order's possessions and their transformation into a secular state. Thus, in 1525, the Duchy of Prussia, with its center in Koenigsberg, arose under the hereditary rule of the Hohenzollerns.

After the death in 1618 of Albrecht's son Albrecht, who had no male offspring, Prussia was inherited by the Elector of Brandenburg Johann Sigismund (1608-1619) as the head of the family and, moreover, the son-in-law of the late duke.

The Electors of Brandenburg became kings in 1701, when the Elector Frederick III received the crown of Prussia from Emperor Leopold I, who needed his military assistance; the former duchy was thereby elevated to the rank of a kingdom.

The political center of the state remained in Brandenburg, but it is significant that Frederick (from now on he became known as King Frederick I) took the royal dignity in his Prussian possessions, which were not part of the Holy Roman Empire - this emphasized his independence. The name Prussia became the common name of the country, and the Prussian lands proper are now increasingly referred to as East Prussia. Just three years before the French Revolution, King Frederick II the Great died and was succeeded on the throne by his nephew, Frederick William II (1786-1797), who cannot be compared to his highly gifted uncle. Physically and mentally, this narrow-minded, obese giant resembles the Bourbon monarchs of his day - with the difference that piety and sentimentality do not prevent him from being a bigamist, although he enters into morganatic marriages with maids of honor with the consent of the queen and with the indispensable approval of the Lutheran consistory. In reaction to the behavior of Frederick II, the new king cannot stand French culture and enlightenment skepticism.

We have already mentioned the close dynastic ties between the Hohenzollerns and the English House of Hanover. Marriage alliances with the Danish Oldenburgs are even more traditional: they date back to the 15th century: the Brandenburg princess Dorothea was the wife of the first Danish king from the Oldenburg family. Let us also note the connections with the Swedish dynasties (Maria Eleonora, the wife of the famous King Gustav Adolf, came from the Hohenzollern family, and the sister of Frederick II Louise Ulrika was also the Swedish queen) and with the House of Orange of the Dutch Stadthouders (the "Great Elector" Friedrich Wilhelm in the 17th century was married to Princess of the House of Orange, and the sister of King Frederick William II was married to Stadtholder William V). At the same level and in the same circle, the princesses of the side branches of the house, Bayreuth and Ansbach conclude their marriage unions: the first in the 18th century gave the queen of Denmark (wife of Christian VI), the second - the queen of England (wife of George II). Since 1769, after the suppression of the Bayreuth branch, both margraviates were united by a union, and already in 1791 the margrave would renounce power, transferring his possessions to Prussia, which for the first time would acquire a foothold in southern Germany.

An inconspicuous existence in the ancestral lands of the Hohenzollerns is led by princes from the Swabian family line. At the end of the 18th century, there were two branches of this line, Ehingen and Sigmaringen. The royal dynasty of Romania will emerge from the latter in the 19th century.

bourbons- (Bourbon) - an old French family, which, due to its relationship with the royal house of Capet, occupied for a long time the French and other thrones. Its name comes from the castle of B. in the former province of Bourbonnais. The first lord of this kind, mentioned in history, was Ademar, who founded in 921 the priory of Suvigny, in Bourbonnais. His fourth successor, Archambault I, changed the name of the family castle, adding his own name to it, as a result of which Bourbon l "Archambault turned out. Under his heirs, B.'s possessions increased significantly so that Archambault VII could already receive the hand of Agnes of Savoy, which made him brother-in-law of Louis Tolstoy His son Archambault VIII had only one daughter, Magot, and his possessions, therefore, passed after a long dispute in 1197 to Guy de Dampieppy, her second husband.

Their son, Archambault IX, was so powerful that the Countess Blanca of Champagne made him protector of her county for life, and King Philip Augustus elevated him to the constable of Auvergne. -- Archambault X left two daughters, Magot and Agnes, who both married members of the House of Burgundy. Only the second of them left an heiress in the person of Beatrice, who in 1272 married Robert, the sixth son of Saint Louis, King of France. Having thus united by ties of kinship with the royal house of Capet, the Bourbons, as a side branch of this family, acquired, after the death of the last male descendant of the other branch, the Valois, legal rights to the French throne. The son of Beatrice and Robert, Louis I the Lame, inherited from his father the county of Clermont. Charles the Handsome in 1327 made him a duke. His eldest son, Peter I, the second Duke of Bourbon, was killed at the Battle of Poitiers, where he covered with his own body and thereby saved King John. His son and heir, Louis II, called the Good, was to follow as a hostage with the captive king to England and returned to France only after the peace concluded at Brétigny in 1360. After the death of Charles V (1380), Louis, along with 3 other royal princes, was elected guardian of the young Charles VI. In 1391, he undertook a naval expedition on 80 ships against the robber states on the North African coast. John I, the fourth Duke of B., distinguished by his chivalrous refinement, was captured at the Battle of Agincourt and taken to England, where he died.

Charles I, Duke of B., took an active part in the conclusion of the Arras Peace, then rebelled against Charles VII several times. John II, Duke of B., nicknamed the Good, who fought the English in 1450 at Formigny and in 1453 at Castiglion, died childless; he was succeeded by his brother Charles II, cardinal and archbishop of Lyon, who died a year later, after which all the property and possessions of the main branch of B. passed to the side line of Bourbon-Beaujeu (B.-Beaujeu), namely, to Peter, Count of God. The latter, a favorite and personal friend of Louis XI, married his daughter Anna, and during the infancy of Charles VIII was one of the regents of France. He was the eighth Duke of the Bourbons, although he is better known as the sire de Beaujeu. The rights of his daughter Susanna to the inheritance, however, began to be challenged by Charles Bourbon, the famous constable. Wanting to reconcile both sides, Louis XII united them by marriage, after which Charles became the ninth duke of B. Because he entered into an alliance with Emperor Charles V against France, the independence of the duchy of B. was destroyed in 1523, and it was included in the states.

Of the various side lines of the same genus, after the expulsion of the constable, the Vendome line acquired particular importance. It originates from Jacob B., Count de la Marche, the second son of Louis the Lame, and through the marriage of Anton B., Duke of Vendome, with Jeanne d "Albret, she first reached the throne of Navarre, and then, after the death of the last representative of the Valois house, she took the French throne, in the person of Henry IV, and finally, through marriage and happy wars, the Spanish and Neapolitan throne.

Other sidelines include Montpensier, Conde, Conti and Soissons. Only individual members of these lines bore the surname B.; such, for example, is Cardinal Charles de B., who, under the name Charles X, was nominated by the Catholic League as a candidate for the throne of France.

The B. dynasty on the French throne begins with Henry IV, son of Anton, Duke of Vendome and King of Navarre, who, after the death in 1589 of Henry III, the last Capet of the House of Valois, became the direct heir to the French throne in accordance with the Salian law of succession to the throne. From his second wife, Marie de Medici, Henry IV had five children, including Louis XIII, who succeeded him in 1610, Gaston, Duke of Orleans, who died without male offspring; of Henry's three daughters, Henrietta Maria married Charles I of England.

Louis XIII, married to Anna of Austria, daughter of Philip III of Spain, left two sons: Louis XIV, and Philip, who received the title of Duke of Orleans and became the founder of the younger Bourbon dynasty. The son of Louis XIV from his marriage to Maria Theresa of Austria, daughter of Philip IV, the dauphin Louis, nicknamed Monsieur, died already in 1711, leaving three sons from his marriage to Maria Anna of Bavaria: 1) Louis, Duke of Burgundy; 2) Philip, Duke of Anjou, later (since 1700) King of Spain, and 3) Charles, Duke of Berry.

Duke Louis of Burgundy died already in 1712; his wife, Marie-Adelaide of Savoy, gave birth to 3 sons, of whom two died in early childhood, and the survivor became in 1715 the heir to Louis XIV, under the name of Louis XV. The latter had from Maria Leshchinskaya, daughter of the deposed Polish king Stanislav, son of the Dauphin Louis, who married Maria Josephine of Saxony and died in 1765, leaving 3 sons: 1) Louis XVI, who succeeded his grandfather, Louis XV in 1774; 2) Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, Count of Provence, who in 1814 occupied the French throne under the name of Louis XVIII Charles-Philippe, Count of Artois, who succeeded the newly named brother under the name of Charles X. From the wife of Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette of Austria, were born: 1) Dauphin Louis, who died in 1789; 2) Louis, called Louis XVII and died in 1795, c 3) Maria - Theresa-Charlotte, called Madame royale, later Duchess of Angoulême, who died in 1851. Louis XVIII had no children, Charles X left two sons: 1) Louis-Antoine, Duke of Angouleme, who was considered Dauphin before the revolution of 1830 and died without issue in 1844, and 2) Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry, who was killed in 1820. Two children remained from the latter: 1) Marie-Louise-Theresa, called Mademoiselle d "Artois, who married the Duke of Parma and died in 1864; 2) Henri-Charles-Ferdinand-Marie Diedonne, Duke of Bordeaux, later Count of Chambord, who became a representative the senior branch of B. Adherents called him Henry V, since his uncle ceded his rights to the throne to him.With his death in 1883, the senior line of the Bourbons died out.

Orleans line, who ascended the French throne in 1830 and deposed in 1848, traces her origins to the second son of Louis XIII and brother of Louis XIV, Duke Philip I of Orleans mind. in 1701, he left from his second marriage with Elisabeth-Charlotte of the Palatinate, Philip II Duke of Orleans, regent of France during the minority of Louis XV. The latter's son, Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orleans, † 1752, left a son. also Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans, who died in 1785. His son Louis-Joseph-Philippe, Duke of Orleans, nicknamed Egalite, died in 1793 on the scaffold.

His eldest son Louis-Philippe, who during his father's lifetime bore the title of Duke of Chartres, and then Duke of Orleans, from 1830 to 1848 was King of France and mind. 1850

Spanish line. Louis XIV installed his grandson Philippe, Duke of Anjou, on the Spanish throne in 1700, and he, under the name of Philip V, laid the foundation for the Spanish Bourbon dynasty. He was succeeded by his son Ferdinand, who died childless; then reigned Charles III, brother of Ferdinand, and Charles IV, son of Charles III, overthrown by Napoleon. The eldest son of Charles IV, after the fall of the empire, entered the Spanish throne under the name of Ferdinand VII; and the second son, Don Carlos, had long been a contender for the Spanish crown. After the death of Ferdinand VII, two daughters remained: 1) Isabella-Maria-Louise, who, having entered the Spanish throne under the name of Isabella II, was forced to abandon it in 1868; her son, Alphonse, took the throne again in 1875, under the name of Alphonse XII; and after his death, which followed in 1885, his now reigning 5-year-old son Alphonse XIII succeeded. 2) Louise Marie Ferdinand, wife of Duke Anton of Montpensier.

Neapolitan line. As a result of the War of the Spanish Succession, the kingdom of the Two Sicilies passed from Philip V of Spain to Emperor Charles VI of Habsburg. After the Peace of Vienna, the youngest son of Philip V, Don Carlos, became King of the Two Sicilies in 1735 under the name of Charles III. When the latter was to succeed his brother Ferdinand VI on the Spanish throne, he granted the crown of Naples and Sicily to his third son, named Ferdinand IV, on the condition that this crown should no longer be united with the crown of Spain. In 1806, Ferdinand IV had to flee from Naples, but after the fall of Napoleon he again became king of the Two Sicilies under the name of Ferdinand and. He was succeeded by his son Francis I, who left the throne to his son Ferdinand II, who was succeeded by his son under the name of Francis II. Francis II in 1860 lost his throne, and his possessions passed to the new Italian kingdom.

The duchies of Parma and Piacenza were given by Austria, according to the Peace of Aachen in 1748, to the youngest son of Philip V, Don Philip, with the condition, however, that, in the absence of male offspring, or if one has the throne of both Sicilies or Spain, both duchies pass back to Austria . Philip was succeeded in 1765 by his son Ferdinand and. The son of the latter, Louis, received in 1802 Tuscany with the title of King of Etruria; he was succeeded by his son Karl-Ludwig-Ferdinand, soon, however, forced to renounce the throne (Etruria passed to France). According to the Congress of Vienna, Parma and Piacenza passed to the wife of Napoleon, Marie-Louise, and the Parma Bourbon line was given in return the Duchy of Lucca. After the death of Marie Louise (1847), Parma and Piacenza reverted to the B. line, which, for its part, returned the Duchy of Lucca to Tuscany even earlier. Her representative at that time was Charles III, who was killed in 1854. From his marriage with the daughter of the Duke of Berry, 4 children remained, of which the eldest, Robert-Karl-Louis-Maria, inherited his father, and the government of the state passed to the regent mother .

Přemyslids, Czech princely and royal dynasty in the 9th-14th centuries. (named after the legendary progenitor of the Czechs - the peasant plowman Przhemysl). The most famous representatives: Wenceslas the Holy, Přemysl I, Přemysl II, Wenceslas II.

Arpads(Arpad), a dynasty of Hungarian princes (889-1000) and kings (1000-1301). Large representatives: Istvan I, Laszlo I, Bela IV.

Saxon dynasty(Ludolfings, Liudolfing), in the Middle Ages a noble Saxon family, later a dynasty of German kings in 919-1024 and emperors of the Holy Roman Empire in 962-1024. Sometimes called the Ottonian dynasty after the three most prominent representatives: Otto I, Otto II, Otto III.

The ancestor of the dynasty, Count Ludolf (d. 866), probably came from Thuringia. Speaking on the side of Charlemagne during the Saxon War, he received a significant part of the confiscated land in the valley of the river Leine (a tributary of the river Aller). The need to protect the lands from Slavic and Hungarian raids, as well as the close relationship of the Liudolfings with the Carolingian house, contributed to their early ducal dignity.

In the middle of the 9th century, Liudolf already had ducal power in Ostphalia, and under his sons, the influence of this family spread throughout Saxony. Liudolf's grandson, the future King Henry I of Saxony, having become engaged to Matilda, became related to the Saxon duke Widukind, thereby establishing his dominance in Westphalia.

In 919 in Fritzlar, Duke Henry was elected king of the East-Frankish kingdom. The details of this event, which is considered to be the beginning of the German kingdom proper, are not known for certain. There is no unequivocal answer even to the question of whether the election took place with the knowledge of Conrad I, the predecessor of Henry I on the royal throne, as Widukind of Corvey tells about it, or whether this is a later legend designed to justify the usurpation of power by the Liudolfings.

Under the Ottons, who relied on the system of the imperial church they created, the German kingdom became the most powerful in Western Europe. Otto I, son of Henry I, achieved the crown of the Holy Roman Empire, which became the basis for the implementation of the plans of missionary work among the Slavs hatched by the Ottos. During the reign of Otto II, a revolt of representatives of the Bavarian branch of the Liudolfings, led by Duke Henry the Bully, plunged the empire into a crisis. The ambition of the latter, which prompted him to start fighting for the royal crown during the early years of Otto III, however, ran into a rebuff from part of the German nobility, led by the Archbishop of Mainz Willigis. The royal power came to the Bavarian Liudolfings in the person of the son of Henry the Bully, Henry II, only in 1002 after the death of Otto III, who left no heirs.

During the almost century-long rule of the Liudolfings in the East-Frankish kingdom, the process of folding the German state was largely completed. It was during the reign of the Ottons that Saxony, which had previously been nothing more than a peripheral region of the Frankish state, finally became culturally an integral part of the Christian West.

The Ottons contributed to the flourishing of the sciences and arts, which coincided with the time of their reign. The brother of Otto I, the Archbishop of Cologne Bruno, engaged in the enlightenment of the clergy, laid the foundation for the "imperial service" of the bishops. On their ancestral lands, Liudolf and his wife Oda founded the Gandersheim Convent, as well as the Quedlinburg Abbey, where the remains of Henry I and Matilda rested.

Strong monarchical power, which ensured Germany not only peace and tranquility, but also political predominance in Europe, contributed to the flourishing of culture. The formation of a specific style characteristic of the Ottonian Renaissance coincided in time with the military successes of Otto I. It manifested itself most clearly in book miniatures, fresco painting and bone carving. The style inherent in the architecture of this period is commonly called proto-Romanesque. The customers of Ottonian art, as well as Carolingian art, under whose noticeable influence it was formed, were emperors and church hierarchs. Images of these high-ranking persons have been preserved in manuscript miniatures; among them, in addition to representatives of the ruling dynasty, are bishops Egbert of Trier, Berward of Hildesheim, Geron (the future archbishop of Cologne); abbots Rembold from the monastery of St. Emmeram and Humbert of Echternach, abbess Hytda from Meschede and Uta from Niedermünster. The largest manuscript workshops of the Otton era were located in Regensburg, Reichenau, Cologne, Echternach, and Fulda. The most luxurious and richly illustrated manuscripts were produced in the monastery scriptoriums, most often in Reichenau or Echternach. From the sculpture of this time, mainly crucifixes and reliquaries have come down to us; the traditions of artistic casting were continued by the creators of the bronze gates of the Hildesheim and Mainz cathedrals.

Carolingians(Karolinger, Carlovingiens, Carolingiens) - members of the dynasty of Charlemagne. Their older generations (before Charlemagne) are sometimes called, by the name of Pepin of Herstal, Pipinides, or, after the name of the ancestor of K., Bishop of Metz, St. Arnulf - Arnulfings. Arnulf (died 631) came from a noble family, probably Frankish. Together with the Austrasian Major Pepin the Elder or Lanzensky (died in 639), he took a prominent part in political life Merovingian kingdom. His son Anzegiz or Anzegizil married Pepin's daughter, Begge. Anzegisil occupied a prominent position at the Austrasian court (according to some reports, he himself was a mayor), but soon after the death of his father he was killed. Anzegisil's son, Major Pepin of Geristal (died 714), united Austrasia and Neustria under his rule, although he did not eliminate the Merovingian kings.

This association was strengthened by the son of Pepin, Charles Martel. After his death (741), power was shared, with the title of majordoms, by his sons Carloman and Pepin the Short, who elevated Childeric III to the Merovingian throne. Upon the death of Carloman and upon imprisonment in the monastery of Childeric, Pepin became king (752 - 768). After his death, his two sons were proclaimed kings - Charlemagne (766 - 814, emperor from 800) and Carloman (died in 771). Of the sons of Charlemagne (Charles, Pepin, Louis), only Emperor Louis the Pious (814-840) survived him. The strife that arose between his sons Lothair, Pepin (died in 838), Louis the German and Charles the Bald ended in 843 with the Treaty of Verdun. The K. dynasty was divided into several branches.

Here are their main representatives: 1) a branch of Lothair, the eldest son of Louis the Pious, who received the title of emperor, Italy, part of Burgundy, Provence, Alsace and present-day Lorraine (died in 855). His sons: a) Louis II, imp. (died in 875), received Italy, died without leaving sons; the son of his daughter Ermengarde -- Louis III the Blind, King of Italy (died 905); b) Lothair II received Lotharingia (from him and took this name; died in 869); after his death, Lorraine was captured by Louis the German and Charles the Bald; c) Charles received the kingdom of Provence. 2) A branch of Louis the German, who received Germany - sons: a) Carloman, King of Bavaria and (since 877) Italian (died in 880); he has an illegitimate son Arnulf, king of Germany (887 - 899); Arnulf has a son, Louis III the Child, King of Germany (900 - 911; the last K. in Germany); Arnulf's daughter, Glysmouth, was married to Conrad, Duke of the Franks; from this marriage, the son of Conrad I, King of Germany (911 - 918); b) Louis II the Young, received Franconia and Saxony, died in 882, without issue; c) Charles III the Fat, king of Allemannia from 876, of Italy from 880, of all Germany after the death of his brothers, from 881 emperor, from 884 and king of France, thus uniting the monarchy again Charlemagne; deprived of power 887, died in 888 3) Branch of Charles the Bald, who received France. His son, Louis II, Louis de Begue, died in 879; he has sons from his 1st marriage: a) Louis III (died 882) and b) Carloman (died 884), who ruled jointly, and from his 2nd marriage c) Charles the Simple (died 929), first bypassed by the French barons in favor of Charles the Tolstoy (see above), elevated to the French kings only in 893, then deprived of power in favor of Rudolph of Burgundy. Charles the Simple has a son, Louis lV of Overseas, cor. from 936, died in 1954; he has sons: a) Lothair 1 fr. (died 986); b) Carl, hertz. Lower Lorraine (died 991). Lothair I has a son, Louis V the Lazy (died 987), the last of the C. who reigned in France. In the female line, K. were related to many German ducal houses, to Italian kings, and to the Capetian house. -- See Warnkoenig et Gerard, "Histoire des Carolingiens" (1862); Bonvel, "Die Anfaenge des Karolingischen Hauses" (1866); Fustel de Coulanges, "Des transformations de la royaute pendant I epoque Carolingienne" (1892); M. Stasyulevich, "History of the Middle Ages in its writers and studies of the latest scientists" (vol. II, 2nd ed. 1886).

Capetians(Capetiens), the third dynasty of French kings, whose direct lineage ruled the kingdom from 987 to 1328

In 987 Hugh Capet, Count of Paris, was elected King of France (987-96). His direct descendants remained on the throne throughout the entire period of the mature Middle Ages: Robert the Pious (996-1031), Henry I (1031-60), Philip I (1060-1108), Louis VI (1108-37), Louis VII (1137-80) , Philip II August (1180-1223), Louis VIII (1223-26), Louis IX the Saint (1226-70), Philip III the Brave (1270-85), Philip IV the Handsome (1285-1314), Louis X (1314- 16), John I (1316), Philip V the Long (1316-22), Charles IV the Handsome (1322-28). Representatives of the Valois and Bourbon dynasties, who successively replaced the Capetians in governing the French state, were the offspring of the younger, lateral lines of this kind.

Merovingians(lat. Merovingi), the first royal dynasty in the Frankish state (late 5th century - 751). It is named after the semi-legendary founder of the family - Merovei, who was considered the son of a sea monster (the motif depicting a serpentine monster is found on the earliest works of art of the Merovingian period). The actual founder of the dynasty was Childeric I (ruled 457-481).

The most famous representative is Clovis I. Having inherited power over the Salian Franks (who lived in the valley of the Meuse River), he subjugated the Ripuarian (Rhine) Franks who inhabited the middle reaches of the Rhine. In 486, at the Battle of Soissons, he defeated the troops of the Roman governor Syagrius, who ruled the remains of the Roman settlements in central Gaul. Clovis conquered the lands from the Loire to the Garonne from the Visigothic kingdom, successfully fought with the Burgundians and Alemanni. In 507, Aquitaine was annexed to his possessions. The Byzantine emperor Anastasius I recognized Clovis' conquests and granted him the official title of consul. In 496, Clovis was baptized according to the Roman rite, along with 3,000 close associates. This momentous event secured him the support of the Roman clergy, since the other barbarian kings at that time were all Arians. Under Clovis, the first written set of Frankish laws was created - "Salic Truth".

After the death of Clovis, the kingdom was divided among his four sons. In the reign of Chlothar I (558-561), the kingdom was briefly united, as Chlothar's brothers died. After the second collapse, Austrasia, Burgundy and Neustria gradually separated from the kingdom, and Aquitaine was considered a disputed territory. The next unification of the Frankish kingdom took place in 613 under Chlothar II (ruled in 584-628, in Neustria until 613). In the 630s. it fell apart again.

Already in the conflict preceding the accession of Chlothar II (the story of Brunnhilde), the increased independent role of the nobility clearly affected. By his edict of 614, Chlothar granted a number of privileges to large and small feudal lords: counts (royal governors in the field) were to be appointed only from among local landowners, and significant tax benefits were provided.

King Dagobert I (reigned 629-638) tried to find a way out in the secularization of church lands, but spoiled relations with the clergy, who turned the people against him.

The heirs of Dagobert received the nickname "lazy kings", since the real power in different parts of the kingdom passed to the mayors. The last Merovingian, King Childeric III, was overthrown with the support of the Pope by Major Pepin the Short. Childeric and his son were forcibly tonsured monks.

The monuments of Merovingian art include mainly the art of the northern and central regions of France. In the monuments of the Merovingian period, late antique traditions, Gallo-Roman and barbarian styles are clearly visible. For architecture, baptistery, crypts, churches of the basilica type are most typical. Often, antique marble columns were used in buildings. The Frankish influence was most pronounced in the works of decorative and applied art. Features of the animal and geometric style merged with late antique motifs. Flat-relief stone carving (sarcophagi), baked clay reliefs for decorating churches, and the manufacture of church utensils and weapons richly decorated with gold and silver inserts and multi-colored precious stones were widespread. Brooches, belt buckles, details of horse harness are characteristic.

Important to Merovingian art was the book miniature. The coloring of the initials and frontispieces was dominated by bright, simple color combinations. The Merovingian cursive was also subordinated to ornamental and decorative tasks. habsburg emperor grimaldi valois

Nemanychi, a dynasty of rulers in Serbia in the 2nd half. 12th c. -- 1371. Founder -- Stefan Nemanja. Major representatives: Stefan Pervovenchanny, Milutin, Stefan Dushan.

Hohenstraufen(STAUFEN) (Staufen, Hohenstaufen), a dynasty of German kings and emperors of the "Holy Roman Empire" in 1138-1254, in 1197-1268 also kings of the Sicilian kingdom.

They first appeared on the historical scene in the second half of the 11th century, when in 1079 Emperor Henry IV transferred the Duchy of Swabia to Frederick I Staufen. At the same time, Frederick's marriage was concluded with the only daughter of Henry IV, Agnes. In 1097, peace was concluded in Mainz, according to which, after a long war with Berthold, the son of Rudolf of Swabia, who claimed the Swabian duchy, and Berthold of Zähringen, Swabia was finally assigned to Frederick. Emperor Henry V confirmed the rights of the eldest son of Frederick I, Frederick the One-Eyed, to Swabia, and the youngest, Conrad, was granted the Duchy of Franconia. With the death of the childless Henry V, his inheritance passed to the Staufens.

The elections held in Mainz deceived the hopes of Frederick the One-Eyed for the throne - Lothair III of Saxony (1125-37), a longtime opponent of Henry V, became the German king. was proclaimed German and Italian king.

In Italy, he was crowned by the Archbishop of Milan, but in the same year Conrad was excommunicated by Pope Honorius II. Faced with resistance in Italy and realizing the weakness of his power in Germany, Conrad was forced to submit to Lothair III. The Staufen brothers with their detachments accompanied the emperor during the next Italian campaign.

After the death of Lothair III in December 1137, Conrad's main competitor in the struggle for the crown was the representative of the powerful house of Welf, Duke Henry the Proud of Bavaria, son-in-law of the late emperor. Despite the fact that in 1138 Konrad Staufen was elected king (under the name of Konrad III, 1138-1152), the Welf family remained for many years the main rival of the Staufen in Germany.

In the policy of the Staufen in the 12th - the first half of the 13th century, two priority areas can be distinguished - military expeditions to Italy and participation in the crusading movement. The nephew of Conrad III, Frederick I Barbarossa (emperor from 1155), to whom the German crown passed due to the infancy of his son Conrad III, made six campaigns in Italy, ruining Milan in 1162, but after the defeat at the Battle of Legnano (1176) was forced to abandon from their claims to Italy. Frederick's son, Henry VI (1191-1197), inherited the Sicilian crown and united the Holy Roman Empire and the Sicilian kingdom under his rule.

In the reign of Henry VI, the Staufen dynasty entered a short period of the heyday of its power. Despite the fact that Henry VI failed to achieve the right to the hereditary transfer of the crown, after his death, his two-year-old son Frederick II was recognized as emperor.

During the infancy of Frederick II, the royal throne was occupied by the younger brother of Henry VI, Duke Philip of Swabia (1198-1208), and after his assassination, the crown passed to the Staufen rival, Otto of Brunswick, supported at that moment by the pope. Upon reaching adulthood, Frederick II (1220-1250), following the policy of his predecessors, tried to bring Italy under his influence. Unlike his father and great-grandfather, who did not achieve significant results in the Crusades, he managed through diplomatic negotiations to achieve the transfer in 1229 of Jerusalem, Bethlehem and Nazareth under the rule of Christians and assert the title of King of Jerusalem.

During Frederick's stay in the East, his son Henry VII, who was given control of Germany, united with Frederick of Austria, rebelled against his father, but after his return he was deposed and exiled to Apulia, where he died at the age of 31.

After the death of Frederick in 1250, the period of extinction of the Staufen dynasty begins. Frederick was succeeded by his younger son Conrad IV (1237-1254), who met with strong resistance to his power in both Germany and Italy. He managed to pacify the rebels, but in 1254 he died without having time to enjoy the fruits of his victory.

The Sicilian kingdom passed into the hands of the eldest of the illegitimate sons of Frederick II - Manfred, governor of Sicily in the reign of Conrad IV. Another illegitimate son of Frederick, Enzio, ruled the kingdom of Sardinia, other sons acted as vicars general in Tuscany, Romagna, the Ancon March and Spoleto. Manfred fell in a battle with Charles of Anjou, who invaded Sicily in 1266 and seized the Sicilian throne after Manfred's death. In 1268, the last legitimate offspring of the Staufen family, the Swabian Duke Konradin, who was barely out of adolescence, tried to recapture the Sicilian kingdom, but was captured and beheaded by order of Charles I of Anjou. The death of Manfred and Conradin was avenged by Peter III of Aragon, married to Manfred's daughter Constance, who conquered Sicily in 1282.

Babenbergs(Babenberger), an ancient Germanic family, from 976 the margraves of the Bavarian Eastern Mark (the so-called lands that later received the name of Austria), in 1156-1246 the dukes of Austria, and in 1192-1246 also Styria. The name was given to the Babenberg family castle, located in Franconia, west of Bamberg.

Valois(Valois) - a small county of medieval France, in the province of Ile-de-France, and now divided between dep. Aisne and Oise. The old counts of V. belonged to the younger line of the Vermandois family. The last heiress of this family married Hugo, son of Henry I of France, and brought him V. and Vermandois as a dowry. From this marriage came the lineage of the Capetian Vermandois, which ceased in the 6th generation, after which the county of V. was annexed by Philip Augustus (1215) to the crown. King Philip III the Brave gave the enlarged county of V., in 1285, to his son Charles. This Charles V., brother of King Philip IV the Handsome, was the founder of the royal family of V. Pope Martin V granted him the kingdom of Arragon in 1280, which he, however, renounced in 1290. The first marriage brought him the counties of Anjou and Maine; on the basis of the rights of his second wife, Catherine de Courtenay, he took the title of Emperor of Constantinople. Charles took an active part in the affairs during the reign of his brother and died in 1325 in Nogent. He left two sons, of whom the youngest, Charles, Count of Alencon, who died in 1346, was the founder of the Valois line of the Alencons. It ceased in 1527, in the person of the constable Charles.

After the three sons of Philip IV the Handsome died without male offspring, in 1328 the eldest son of Charles V., Philip VI, ascended the French throne. as the closest descendant of the Capetians. This rise of the House of W. was the cause of the long wars between England and France. Philip VI had 2 sons: his successor John the Good and Philip; the latter was declared Count of Valois and Duke of Orleans in 1375, but died without issue. John the Good, who reigned from 1350 to 1364, had 4 sons, including his successor, Charles V, and Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy, who became the founder of the younger Burgundian house. Charles V (d. 1380) had two sons, Charles VI and Prince Louis.

Prince Louis received the title and lands of the Duke of Orleans and the Count of Angouleme and V. Under him, V. in 1406 was made a duchy-paria. Louis, known in history as the Duke of Orleans, during the unfortunate reign of his brother Charles VI, argued about power with the Duke of Burgundy and was killed in 1407. His grandson Louis, Duke of V. and Orleans, after the childless death of the last representative of the senior line of V. , Charles VIII (after Charles VI his son reigned, Charles VII, who was succeeded by his son Louis XI, father of Charles VIII), ascended the throne under the name of Louis XII (1498) and thus united gr. V. with a crown. Subsequently, V. was repeatedly granted to the princes of Valois, then the Bourbon house, but always in. connection with the Duchy of Orleans. The house of Orleans lost the ducal title of V. only during the Revolution of 1789, but partly retained the lands connected with the title.

The youngest son of the Duke of Orleans and Valois, who was killed in 1407, John, Count of Angouleme, had a son, Charles, who, in turn, had a son who entered upon. French throne, after the childless death of Louis XII, under the name of Francis I (1515). His son, Henry II, had four sons, of whom three reigned (Francis II, Charles IX, Henry III), and the fourth was the Duke of Alençon; none of them left legitimate offspring, and the French throne passed, after the assassination of Henry III (1589), to Henry IV, a representative of the House of Bourbon, also descended from the Capetians. The sister of the last kings from the house of V., Margarita, the divorced wife of Henry IV, died in 1615, as the last legitimate scion of the house of Valois.

Savoy dynasty, the dynasty of the rulers of Savoy (counts from the 11th century to 1416, dukes in 1416-1720), kings of the Sardinian kingdom (in 1720-1861), kings of the united kingdom of Italy (in 1861-1946).

The first Count of Savoy of whom there is reliable information was Humbert the Whitehand (died between 1042 and 1051). Kings of the Kingdom of Sardinia: Victor Amedeus II (reigned 1720-1730), Charles Emmanuel III (1730-1773), Victor Amedeus III (1773-1796), Charles Emmanuel IV (1796-1802), Victor Emmanuel I (1802-1821) , Charles Felix (in 1821-1831), Charles Albert (1831-1849), Victor Emmanuel II (in 1849-1861, from 1861 king of united Italy). Kings of Italy: Victor Emmanuel II (in 1861-1878), Umberto I (in 1878-1900), Victor Emmanuel III (from 1900 to May 9, 1946), Umberto II (from May 9 to June 13, 1946, from June 5, 1944 to 9 May 1946 Royal Viceroy).

Vases(Vasa; Vasa), the royal dynasty of Sweden and the Commonwealth in 1523-1668.

The founder of the dynasty, Gustav I Vasa, was the Swedish king from 1523-1560. He was succeeded by his sons Eric XIV (1560-1568), Johan III (1568-1592) and grandson Sigismund (1592-1604). In 1604, another son of Gustav I, Charles IX (1604-1611), became king of Sweden. He was succeeded by his son Gustav II Adolf (1611-1632) and granddaughter Christina Augusta (1632-1654).

In 1587, the son of the Swedish king Johan III Vasa and Catherine Jagiellonka, daughter of the Polish king Sigismund I the Old, became king of the Commonwealth under the name of Sigismund III.

In 1592, he also became the king of Sweden, thus uniting the two states under his rule. However, the union actually existed until 1599, and in 1604 a new king was elected in Sweden - Sigismund's uncle - Charles IX. In Poland, Sigismund III was succeeded by Vladislav IV (1632-1648) and Jan Casimir (1687-1668).

Jagiellons (Jagiellonowie), a royal dynasty in Poland in 1386-1572, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1377-1401, 1440-1572, Hungary in 1440-44, 1490-1526, Czech Republic in 1471-1526. Founder - Jagiello.

paleologists(Palaiologoi) - a noble Byzantine family, even before they reached the throne, played a prominent role in the history of Byzantium. Nicephorus P., the governor of Mesopotamia, granted the title of Hypertimos, rendered great services to the imp. Nicephorus Botaniatus, and after the abdication of the latter from the throne - to Alexei Komnenus and died in 1081 under Dyrrachium besieged by the Normans. His son, George P., was an active assistant to Alexei Komnenos during the capture of Constantinople, courageously defended Dyrrhachium, besieged by the Norman duke Robert Guyscard. Another representative of the P. family, Michael (probably the son of George P.), fought victoriously in Lower Italy against King William of Sicily. Of the other representatives of this family are remarkable: a contemporary of the previous one, Georgy P., who performed various diplomatic missions of the imp. Manuel Komnena, Alexei - son-in-law and heir to the imp. Alexei Angelos, who, however, died before his father-in-law, Andronicus, who, like his descendants, took the name of Komnenos and was invested with the rank of Megas Domestikos at the courts of Theodore Laskaris and John Vatatzes. His son Michael Duka Angel Komnenos P. in 1259 ascended the throne as co-ruler of the minor John IV Laskaris, and in 1261 destroyed the Latin empire. He was the ancestor of the last dynasty, the Byzantine emperors. List of emperors who belonged to this dynasty. The niece of the last Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI P. Zoya (Sophia), married Grand Duke John Vasilyevich. According to the will of Margrave John of Montferrat, who died childless in 1305, the Margraviate of Montferrat was inherited by his sister Iolanthe (among the Greeks, Irina), wife of the emperor. Andronika II P., and her son Theodore was the first margrave of the P. family. The last margrave was John Georg Sebastian (1488-1533). Another branch of P. ruled in Morea from 1383 to 1460. When the peninsula was conquered by the Turks, P. retired to Italy; nephew of Constantine XI, Andrew II., ceded his rights to the Byzantine throne to Charles VIII of France, and after the death of the latter to Ferdinand the Catholic and Isabella of Castile (in 1502) The last (male) descendant of P., Prince Giovanni Laskaris P., died in 1874 in Turin.

Piasts(Piasty), 1st dynasty of Polish princes (c. 960-1025) and kings (1025-79, intermittently; 1295-1370). The founder is the legendary peasant-wheeler Piast. Major representatives: Meshko I, Boleslav I the Brave, Boleslav III Krivousty, Casimir I the Restorer, Casimir III the Great.

Macedonian dynasty, a dynasty of Byzantine emperors that ruled (867-1056).

The founder of the dynasty is Basil I the Macedonian (867-86), an Armenian peasant from the theme of Macedonia, who came to power as a result of the assassination of Michael III. In the 10th century to exalt him, genealogies were compiled that traced the genus of Basil to the ancient Armenian and Macedonian kings. Outstanding representatives of the dynasty were the emperors Leo VI the Wise (886-912), Constantine VII (913-59), Basil II the Bulgar Slayer (976-1025). During the reign of these emperors, Byzantium reached its highest power since the time of Justinian (6th century). The last ruler of the state from the descendants of Basil the Macedonian was the daughter of Constantine VIII - Theodora.

Flavii (Flavii), a dynasty of Roman emperors in 69-96; Vespasian, Titus and Domitian belonged to the Flavius. They pursued a policy of broadly granting the rights of Roman and Latin citizenship to the provincials, introducing their noble representatives into the Senate.

Hanover, English royalty in 1714-1901. Replaced the Stuart dynasty on the throne. The ancestor of the Hanoverian dynasty, George I, ruled in 1701-1727. He was succeeded by George II (1727-1760), George III (1760-1820), George IV (1820-1830), William IV (1830-1837), Victoria (1837-1901). The son of Victoria and her husband, Prince Consort Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Edward VII became the first king of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (since 1917 - Windsor) dynasty.

Bernadotte, modern Swedish royalty. The founder of the dynasty, Napoleonic Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, was elected heir to the Swedish throne in 1810 and in 1818 became King of Sweden and Norway, Charles XIV Johan. Until 1905, the Bernadottes were kings of Sweden and Norway, after breaking the union of Sweden and Norway - only Swedish kings.

Tudors(Tudors), royal dynasty in England 1485-1603; succeeded the York dynasty.

The founder of the dynasty - Henry VII Tudor (king in 1485-1509), descended from the father of the Welsh feudal lords, on the mother was a relative of the Lancasters. The Tudor dynasty also includes the English kings Henry VIII (1509-1547), Edward VI (1547-1553), Mary I (1553-1558), Elizabeth I (1558-1603). With the exception of Mary I, all the Tudors supported the Reformation, adhered to a policy of protectionism, patronage of navigation, and the fight against Spain. The power of the Tudors was absolutist; parliament was an obedient instrument of the crown. However, already in last years The reign of Elizabeth I began the struggle of parliament against royal absolutism. This struggle became particularly acute under the next dynasty of English kings - the Stuarts.

Julia-Claudia, the first dynasty of Roman emperors in 14-68, from the descendants of Augustus. The most significant: Tiberius, Claudius, Nero. Under Julius-Claudius, the centralization of power increased. They relied on the army and the bureaucracy, pursued a broad policy of conquest.

Stuarts(Stewarts, Stuarts), an aristocratic Scottish family, a royal dynasty in Scotland (1371-1707) and England (1603-1649, 1660-1714).

The ancestors of the Stuarts have been known since the beginning of the 11th century, when the founder of the family, Alan (999-1055), became seneschal of the County of Dole in Upper Brittany. As was customary in the Middle Ages, the position was inherited by the descendants of Alan from generation to generation. In the middle of the 12th century, Walter (Walter) (1104-1177) - the third son of the fourth Seneschal of Dol - came to Britain and entered the service of the Scottish king David I. Later, he began to serve as court seneschal, and in 1157 under King Malcolm IV (1153-1165) officially approved by the Lord Seneschal of Scotland. The position was hereditary for Walter's descendants for five generations until the first half of the 14th century. From the title of the position (Stewart) the surname of the family originated.

During the years of the interregnum and the struggle for the Scottish throne, the fifth seneschal of the Stuart family, Jacob, and his son Walter (died 1326) invariably took the side of Robert the Bruce and fought the British. The fidelity of the family of the new dynasty was rewarded: in 1315, Walter Stewart became the husband of the eldest daughter of King Robert I the Bruce, Margery. This marriage gave their son Robert Stewart the right to take the Scottish throne after the death of his cousin, the childless King David II Bruce. In 1371, the first representative of the Stuart dynasty was crowned under the name of Robert II. He was on the throne until 1390, and then Robert III Stuart (1390-1406) reigned in Scotland.

Years of internecine struggle for the throne significantly weakened the authority of the central government in Scotland, the local barons felt like independent rulers. The situation was complicated by relations with England, whose kings claimed supreme power over Scotland. The main goals of the first Stuarts were to repulse the claims of the British and limit the liberties of their barons.

But the forces of the first Stuarts (Robert II and Robert III) were still too small and they essentially remained just spectators of the bloody civil strife of the Scottish clans. In addition, Robert III was pushed aside from power by his younger brother Alexander.

Relations between England and Scotland constantly teetered on the brink of war and peace. The English kings had more economic, military and human resources than their northern neighbors, but for many centuries they could not conquer Scotland. In the 15th century England was not in a position to wage active war in the north due to the Hundred Years' War and then the War of the Scarlet and White Roses, but the English kings did not leave formal claims to the Scottish throne. Armed conflicts broke out on the Anglo-Scottish border. Not daring to engage in large-scale aggression, the British supported the rebellious barons and rebellious clans against the Stuarts. In turn, the Scottish kings sought to find allies in the fight against England. France became such an ally - the main enemy of England and her opponent in the Hundred Years War. The union of France and Scotland was repeatedly renewed during the 15th and 16th centuries and was called the "Old Union".

In 1406, immediately after the death of Robert III, his young son James I Stuart (1406-1437) was captured at sea and brought to England. He spent most of his reign (until 1424) in captivity at Windsor Castle. His release was helped only by the marriage between the captive and a relative of the English king Henry VI Lancaster, Joan Befort. After the wedding, the Scottish king was released to his homeland for a large ransom. At home, James I managed to significantly strengthen the authority of royal power. The barons of Albany, Mar, March and the clans of the Isles recognized his unconditional authority over themselves. James I was stabbed to death as a result of a conspiracy of the barons and his son James II Stuart (1437-1460) entered into a fierce struggle with the Douglas clan, which lasted for several decades.

The policy of limiting the self-will of local barons could not but arouse the resistance of the Scottish nobility. The confrontation between the king and the barons was especially acute during the years of the reign of James III Stuart (1460-1488), who, in the opinion of many of his subjects, far from corresponded to the ideal of a knight-king. Unlike his warlike ancestors, he did not personally participate in hostilities, was fond of music and architecture, and was also inclined to rely on advisers of humble origin. In 1488, a rebellion broke out against King James III and in one of the battles he was stabbed to death.

However, the rebels' victory proved to be an accidental success. The reign of the new king James IV Stuart (1488-1513) was a time of further strengthening of royal power. The king successfully continued the policy of pacifying the nobility and achieved the subjugation of the clans of Highland Scotland and the islands, which especially stubbornly resisted the central government. James IV did a lot to streamline the work of the courts and develop an effective state mechanism. He supported the development of Scottish trade, began the construction of the fleet, developed artillery, founded the university in Aberdeen (1495). During his reign, the first printing presses appeared in Scotland (1507).

Meanwhile, the War of the Scarlet and White Roses ended in England, and powerful and enterprising kings from the Tudor dynasty were established on its throne. A real threat of English conquest loomed over Scotland. King James IV managed to conclude a truce with England, and in 1502 he married the English princess Margaret, daughter of the English King Henry VII Tudor. However, the coming to power in England of the militant Henry VIII Tudor, who entered the war with France, put James IV before a choice: remain faithful to the Old Alliance with France or bow to the will of the English king. The Scottish king decided to take the side of France, his army invaded English territory. In 1513, at the Battle of Flodden, the Scottish army was defeated and King James IV was killed.

His heir, the stubborn and energetic James V Stuart (1513-1542), remained faithful to the alliance with France, reinforced by his marriages to the French princesses Madeleine of Valois (1537) and Mary of Guise (1538).

The pro-French policy of the Stuarts led to another war with England: in 1542, the British attempted to invade Scotland, but were defeated. The return campaign of the Scots ended in failure due to the betrayal of the barons, two of the king's sons died. King James V himself soon died. He was succeeded by his minor daughter Mary Stuart (1542-1567).

The suppression of the male line of the Stuart dynasty complicated the political situation in Scotland. From the beginning of the 16th century, two opposing groups emerged at the top of Scottish society, which relied on the support of external forces: England or France. During the minority of Mary Stuart, this confrontation escalated. The English party sought to force the queen to marry the heir to the English throne, Edward Tudor, and thereby unite the two countries. The French party was trying to arrange for Mary's marriage to a French prince and thereby preserve the de facto independence of Scotland. The Francophiles won; France in 1548 provided Scotland with military assistance against England, and the young queen was betrothed to the Dauphin Francis of Valois (future King Francis II) and taken to France, where she was brought up at the French court.

However, the dominance of the French party, the power of the Catholic - Queen Regent Mary de Guise, who relied on detachments of French troops stationed in Scotland, gave rise to a strong opposition movement. Beginning in the 1520s, the ideas of the Reformation, brought by Calvinists from the continent, as well as English Protestants, began to spread actively in Scotland. By the 1550s, the Protestants, led by the preacher John Knox, had become the dominant force in the country. In 1560, supporters of the English party and Protestants forced the regent to withdraw French troops from the country. Catholicism was banned in Scotland and the Calvinist Church became the state religion.

In 1561, after the death of her husband, Queen Mary Stuart returned to her homeland. The first time of her personal reign (until 1565) was a period of peaceful coexistence of the Catholic queen with the Protestants and with England, where her cousin Queen Elizabeth I Tudor ruled. Mary's new husband was her distant relative, the Scottish Lord Henry Darnley. But soon ambitious dreams took possession of the queen. A faithful Catholic, she considered it her duty to return Britain to the fold of the Roman Catholic Church. Considering herself the legitimate heir to the English crown, Mary openly challenged the throne from Elizabeth I. The Scottish queen maintained close ties with papal Rome, the Habsburgs, the Catholic League in France, the Irish Catholic clans, and was preparing to restore the dominance of the Roman Church in Scotland. The queen's policy caused discontent within the country, skillfully fueled by England. The Scots had run out of patience with the murder of the queen's husband, Henry Darnley, which she herself blamed, and her hasty remarriage to the Earl of Boswell. The revolt of the barons in 1567 forced Mary Stuart to flee to England, where she was arrested and spent many years in prison. In 1587, she was executed on charges of plotting to assassinate Elizabeth I Tudor.

The new king of Scotland was the son of Mary Stuart and Henry Darnley - James VI Stuart (1567-1625). In the first reigns, the infant king was held hostage by factions of nobles who fought for the title of regent of Scotland.

As an adult, James VI was carried away by the prospect of taking the English throne and gave all his strength to the struggle for the recognition of his successor to the childless Elizabeth I Tudor. His right to the throne was based on the fact that he was the grandson of Margaret Tudor, the eldest daughter of the English King Henry VII Tudor. Jacob skillfully maneuvered between the Catholics, to whom he promised patronage and tolerance, and the Protestants, he tried to maintain good relations both with England and with the Catholic powers.

The diplomatic game of James VI was crowned with success: in 1603, after the death of Queen Elizabeth Tudor, he took the English throne under the name of James I Stuart.

Having received the English crown, James became simultaneously the king of England and Scotland, initiating the unification of the two countries into one state. The problems of Scotland faded into the background for him, and the main task was to strengthen the Stuart dynasty in England. Meanwhile, already in the last years of the reign of Elizabeth I, the influence of the parliamentary opposition expanded. Unlike his predecessor, James I did not have wide support in English society, could not maneuver political forces and manipulate parliament. In addition, he was an ardent supporter of the theory of the divine origin of the monarchy and unlimited royal power. These views came into conflict with the English political tradition, where the role of parliament was exceptionally high. The political claims of James I caused a number of clashes with Parliament. The dissatisfaction of the British caused foreign policy king, his desire for reconciliation with Spain - the "national enemy" of England, attempts to arrange the marriage of the heir to the throne with a Catholic princess. The daughter of James I - Elizabeth Stuart (1592-1662) married Elector Frederick V of the Palatinate. A century later, her descendants occupied the English throne.

Jacob's successor, his son Charles I Stuart (1625-1649), continued his father's unpopular policy. The escalating conflict between the king and Parliament resulted in the English Revolution in the 1640s, which overthrew the monarchy. In 1649, Parliament passed the death sentence on King Charles I, who was executed on January 30, 1649. Following his execution, England was proclaimed a republic. After the death of the king, Scotland broke off relations with parliamentary England and recognized the son of the executed monarch, Charles II Stuart, as their king. Scotland became a Royalist stronghold to continue fighting Parliament. In 1651, the Ryalist troops were defeated by Cromwell's troops, Charles II was forced to leave for the continent, and Scotland was forcibly united into one state with England.

In 1660, as a result of a military coup in England, the monarchy was restored and Charles II took the English and Scottish thrones (1660-1685). His reign was for England a time of economic recovery and stability, but also a time of new political conflict between the monarchy and Parliament. During the Restoration, the Whig and Tory parties were born, which later became the basis of a two-party political system UK.

Charles II had no legitimate children (among the illegitimate ones, the Duke of Monmouth is most famous) and his brother James II Stuart (1685-1688) became his successor, during whose reign the conflict between the monarchy and parliament escalated.

The conflict was facilitated by the religious policy of the king, a fanatical Catholic who sought to equalize his co-religionists in rights with the Protestants. Such attempts were perceived by his subjects - mostly Protestants - as an attempt to return Britain to Catholicism, which was associated with unlimited power monarch. A variety of political groups united against James II and he was overthrown in 1688.

The throne was given to the daughter of James II - Mary II Stuart (1689-1694) and her husband William III of Orange (1689-1702). Maria practically did not interfere in political affairs, and her husband, a smart and far-sighted politician, managed not only to avoid conflicts with parliament, but also to significantly increase the prestige of the monarchy in England. After William III, another daughter of James II, Anne Stuart (1702-1714), became queen. Under Queen Anne, England and Scotland were formally united into one state - Great Britain. Anna died childless and the throne was to go to the son of James II - James III Stuart (years of life 1688-1760), who lived in exile and remained faithful to Catholicism.

But according to the Act of Succession, adopted by the English Parliament in 1701, only a Protestant could be king of Great Britain, and specifically the Hanoverian Duke George (a descendant of the daughter of James I Stuart Elizabeth). Thus the Stuart dynasty lost power in England and Scotland.

In exile, the Stuarts found support in France. After the death of James II, the French king Louis XIV of Bourbon recognized James III as king of Great Britain. The challenger was known as the "Old Chevalier", or "Chevalier de Saint-Georges". He kept in touch with his supporters in the British Isles. In Scotland, which had lost its independence, James III became a symbol of the struggle against England. Supporters of the restoration of the Stuarts to the throne were called Jacobites. With the help of France, Jacobite uprisings were organized in Scotland, in which representatives of the Stuart dynasty also took part. In 1715, James III made an unsuccessful attempt to seize power in Great Britain. The son of James III and Mary Sobesskaya - Charles Edward Stuart (1720-1788), known as the "Junior Chevalier" in 1745 led the detachments of the Scottish highland clans. On April 16, 1745, at the Battle of Culloden, the troops of the rebels were defeated by the British army, which outnumbered them. With severe repression, the British managed to suppress the Jacobite movement in Scotland. After the defeat, until the end of his life, Karl-Eduard lived in Rome. He was supported financially by King George III of England. The Stuart dynasty finally came to an end in 1807, when its last representative died in Rome, Charles Edward's younger brother, Heinrich Benedict Stuart, who bore the rank of Cardinal of York.

Comneni, the dynasty of Byzantine emperors in 1081-1185, founded by Alexei I. In fact, the beginning of the dynasty was laid by Isaac Komnenos, emperor in 1057-59. The descendants of the last Komnenos - Andronicus I - ruled in 1204-1461 in the Empire of Trebizond, taking the name "Great Komnenos".

Windsors, an English royal dynasty, ruling since 1901 (until 1917 it was called Saxe-Coburg-Gotha). Representatives: Edward VII, George V, Edward VIII, George VI, Elizabeth II.

Holstein-Gottrops(Gottorp), German ducal dynasty, junior branch of the Oldenburgs; ruled 1544-1773 in the Duchy of Schleswig-Holstein 1751-1818 on the Swedish royal throne; the descendants of the Gottorps occupied the Russian imperial throne in 1761-1917.

In 1761 Karl Peter Ulrich Holstein-Gottorp, son of Duke Karl Friedrich Holstein-Gottorp and the Russian Grand Duchess Anna Petrovna, became Russian Emperor Peter III Fedorovich. In 1773, his son Grand Duke Pavel Petrovich exchanged his hereditary possessions in Schleswig-Holstein for Oldenburg and Delmenhorst belonging to Denmark.

Lancasters(Lancaster), a royal dynasty in England in 1399-1461, a branch of the Plantagenets.

The House of Lancaster is a junior branch of the Plantagenet dynasty and is descended from John of Gaunt, fourth son of Edward III. In 1362 John of Gaunt married Blanca, daughter of Henry, 1st Duke of Lancaster, after whose death (1362) he succeeded to the title. John of Gaunt was married three times: the second marriage was concluded (1372) with Constance of Castile, daughter of King Pedro I (this marriage allowed Lancaster to claim the crown of Leon and Castile), the third wife of the duke (since 1396) was Catherine Swinford. Numerous descendants of John of Gaunt from all three marriages claimed the English crown, as they were all descended from Edward III.

In 1399, shortly after the death of John of Gaunt, his eldest son, Henry Bolingbroke, assumed the English throne under the name of Henry IV, deposing the last Plantagenet king, Richard II. In 1413, Henry IV was succeeded by his eldest son, Henry V, who in turn passed the throne to his only child, Henry VI, in 1422. For certain reasons, Henry VI could not be a strong sovereign (he inherited bouts of insanity from his maternal grandfather): at his court, two powerful parties fought for power, led by Queen Margaret of Anjou and Richard, Duke of York. The latter had quite legitimate grounds to claim the crown himself. In 1461, the son of Richard York, with the support of Richard Neville, succeeded in seizing the throne. In 1470, the same Richard Neville returned the crown to Henry, which he finally lost eight months later, along with his life. Henry VI's only son, Edward, died at the Battle of Tewkesbury. After the death of King Henry and Prince Edward, the House of Lancaster was headed by Henry Tudor, descended from the son of John of Gaunt and Catherine Swynford. Having won the Battle of Bosworth in 1485, Henry Tudor, crowned as Henry VII, not only finally returned the crown to the Lancastrian house, but also was able to end the civil war by marrying the heiress of the House of York, Princess Elizabeth.

Orleans(Dukes of Orleans), junior branches of the royal dynasties of the Valois and Bourbons. The most famous representatives are the French kings Louis XII (ruled 1498-1515) and Louis Philippe (ruled 1830-48).

yorkie(Yorks), a royal dynasty in England in 1461-85, a side branch of the Plantagenet dynasty. The House of York descended in the male line from Edmund, 1st Duke of York, fifth son of Edward III, and in the female line from Lionel, 1st Duke of Clarence, third son of Edward III. In the 1450s opposition to Henry VI Lancaster was led by Edmund's grandson, Richard York, who announced his claims to the throne. The conflict between the supporters of the Yorks and the Lancasters resulted in a long and bloody civil war, called the War of the Scarlet and the White Rose (there was a white rose on the York coat of arms, and scarlet on the Lancaster coat of arms), during which a significant part of the English aristocracy (several large noble houses) died completely ceased to exist). Richard York died December 30, 1460 at the Battle of Wakefield. And his eldest son, Edward IV, after the battle of Towton became the first king of this dynasty.

Edward reigned until 1483, with an interval of eight months (in 1470-1471), when the rebellious Richard Neville sent him into exile, restoring Henry VI Lancaster to the throne. Edward IV's son, twelve-year-old Edward V, was king in name only: immediately after the death of his father, the young king was sent by his uncle Richard, Duke of Gloucester, to the Tower. Declared illegitimate, he was removed from the throne in favor of the younger brother of Edward IV, Duke of Gloucester, who was crowned Richard III. In 1485, at the Battle of Bosworth, Richard died, and his army was defeated by the army of the new pretender to the English crown, Henry Tudor, the leader of the Lancastrian party.

In 1486, wanting to gain a foothold on the throne, Henry VII married Elizabeth of York, daughter of Edward IV, thus uniting the two houses. The last claimant to the throne from the York dynasty, Edward, Earl of Warwick (son of the Duke of Clarence, another brother of Edward IV, who was executed for treason), was captured by Henry and eventually executed in 1499.

Despite the fact that we live in a world where there is more and more talk about democracy and electoral systems, dynastic traditions are still strong in many countries. All the dynasties of Europe are similar to each other. Moreover, each dynasty is special in its own way.

Windsors (Great Britain), since 1917

The youngest

British monarchs are genealogically representatives of the Hanoverian and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty, and more widely - the Wettins, who had estates in Hanover and Saxony.

During the First World War, King George V decided that it was wrong to be called in German and in 1917 a proclamation was issued according to which the descendants of Queen Victoria, representing the Hanoverian dynasty, and Prince Albert in the male line, British subjects, were declared members of the new House of Windsor, and in 1952, Elizabeth II improved the document in her favor, declaring members of the house and her descendants who are not descendants of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in the male line. That is, de facto, from the point of view of a normal monarchical genealogy, Prince Charles and his descendants are not Windsors, the dynasty is interrupted by Elizabeth II, and they belong to the Glücksburg branch of the Oldenburg house, which rules in Denmark and Norway, because Elizabeth's husband Prince Philip is from there. By the way, the Russian Emperor Peter III and all his offspring in the male line too - from the Oldenburg house by blood.

Bernadotte (Sweden), from 1810

The most revolutionary

The son of a lawyer from Gascony, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte chose a military career and became a general during the French Revolution. Relations with Napoleon did not work out from the very beginning, the ambitious Gascon considered himself better than Bonaparte, but he fought very successfully for the emperor. In 1810, the Swedes offered him to become the adopted son of a childless king, and, after he accepted Lutheranism, they approved him as crown prince, and soon as regent and de facto ruler of Sweden. He entered into an alliance with Russia and fought against the French in 1813-1814, personally led the troops. So the current ruler Carl XVI Gustav is very similar to the Gascon nose.

Glucksburgs (Denmark, Norway), since 1825

The most Russian

The full name of the dynasty is Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg aya. And they themselves are a branch of the Oldenburg house, the interweaving of the descendants of which is extremely complex, they ruled in Denmark, and in Norway, and in Greece, and in the Baltic states, and even under the name of the Romanovs - in Russia. The fact is that Peter III and his descendants, according to all dynastic rules, are just Glücksburg. In Denmark, the Glücksburgs are now represented by Margrethe II, and in Norway by Harald V.

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, from 1826

The most accommodating

The family of the dukes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha originates from the ancient German house of Wettin. As was customary in the 18th-19th centuries, the descendants of various German offshoots of the ancient ruling houses were actively used in dynastic marriages. And so the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas did not spare their offspring for the common cause. This tradition was first laid by Catherine II, who married her grandson Konstantin Pavlovich Duchess Juliana (in Russia - Anna).

Then Anna married her relative Leopold to the British Princess Charlotte, and his sister Victoria, married to Edward of Kent, gave birth to a daughter, Victoria, who would become the most famous British queen. And her son Prince Alfred (1844-1900), Duke of Edinburgh, married Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, sister of Alexander III. In 1893, the prince inherited the title of Duke of Coburg and it turned out that an Englishman and a Russian were at the head of the German family. Their granddaughter Princess Alix became the wife of Nicholas II. The Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty is genealogically now on the British throne and completely without any reservations - in Belgian in the person of Philippe Leopold Louis Marie.

Orange dynasty (Netherlands), from 1815

The most power-hungry

The descendants of the glorious Williams of Orange regained their influence in the Netherlands only after the final defeat of Napoleon, when the Congress of Vienna established monarchical rule there. The wife of the second king of the Netherlands, Willem II, was the sister of Alexander I and the daughter of Paul I, Anna Pavlovna, so the current king, Willem Alexander, is the great-great-great-great-grandson of Paul I. In addition, the modern royal family, although it continues to classify itself as part of the Orange dynasty, is actually the grandmother of Willem Alexander Juliana belongs to the House of Mecklenburg, and Queen Beatrix to the Westphalian princely house of Lippe. This dynasty can be called powerless because the three previous queens abdicated in favor of their descendants.

Parma Bourbons (Luxembourg), since 1964

The most seedy

On the whole, the Parma line of the Bourbons was in its time a rather famous and ambitious Italian dynasty, but it fell into almost complete decline with the loss of its fiefdoms at the end of the 19th century. So she would have vegetated, being a more or less successful aristocratic family, but one of the offspring Felix married the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg Charlotte of Orange. So the Parma Bourbons became the ruling dynasty of the dwarf state of Luxembourg and lead a modest life, raising children, protecting wildlife and preserving the Luxembourgish language. The status of an offshore zone and 200 banks per microcountry allows them not to think about their daily bread.

Liechtensteins (Liechtenstein), from 1607

most noble

For all the time of its richest history - the house has been known since the XII century - they did not get into big politics, perhaps because at the very beginning they realized that you can quickly part with everything. They acted slowly, prudently, helped the powerful of this world - far-sightedly put on the Habsburgs, created successful alliances, easily changed religion, now leading the Lutherans, then returning to Catholicism. Having received the status of imperial princes, the Liechtensteins did not seek to intermarry with alien surnames, they strengthened their dynastic ties within the Holy Roman Empire.

Actually, Liechtenstein was at first a secondary possession for them, which they acquired, since the emperor was their de jure overlord in order to enter the Reichstag and increase their political importance. Then they intermarried with the Habsburgs, who confirmed their homogeneity, and until now the Liechtensteins are distinguished by great attention to dynastic ties, marrying only with pillar nobles. It is worth adding to what has been said with the fact that GDP per capita in Liechtenstein is the second in the world after Qatar - 141,000 dollars a year. This is not least due to the fact that the tiny state is a tax haven, where different companies can hide from the taxes of their countries, but not only. Liechtenstein has a thriving high-tech industry.

Grimaldi (Monaco), from 1659

The most rootless

Grimaldi - one of the four clans that ruled the Republic of Genoa. Since there were constant skirmishes between the supporters of the pope's power, the Ghibellines, and the emperor, the Guelphs, in the 12th-14th centuries, Grimaldi had to periodically run around nearby Europe. So they found Monaco for themselves. In 1659, the owners of Monaco took the title of prince and received from Louis XIII the title of Dukes de Valentinois. They spent most of their time at the French court. But this is all in the past, and in 1733 the lineage in the male tribe ceased, and those that are now Grimaldi actually descend from the Duke of Estuteville, who, according to the marriage contract, was obliged by the rulers of Monaco to take his last name. The current Prince Albert with his sisters comes from the marriage of the Count of Polignac with the illegitimate daughter of Prince Louis II, who ruled in the principality in 1922-1949. But the lack of nobility Albert more than compensates for the publicity working for the principality.

Princes of Andorra - Bishops of Urgell, from the 6th century

The most ancient

Since 1278, Andorra has had two prince-rulers - the Bishop of Urgell and someone from France, first the Comte de Foix, then the King of Navarre, and now the President of the Republic. Episcopal rule is a historical throwback to the secular dominion of the Catholic Church. The diocese of Urgell, or rather, the Urgell diocese, was founded in the 6th century, and since then the bishops have traced their genealogy. The current prince is Bishop Joan Enric Vives y Sicilia, a theologian, practicing priest and public figure. But for us, of particular interest in the history of Andorra and the Bishops of Urgell is 1934, when they were removed from the throne by the Russian adventurer Boris Skosyrev. He came to Andorra, proclaimed himself king, and either the General Council of the country, either persuaded or bribed, supported him. The new king issued a mass of liberal documents, but when he decided to make a gambling zone there, the previously loyal bishop rebelled. And although King Boris I declared war on him, he still won, calling reinforcements from Spain from five national guardsmen.

Spanish Bourbons (since 1713)

The most branched

Everyone knows that the Spanish Bourbons have recently been the most disgraced, but they are also the most branched of the Bourbons historically. They have as many as six lateral branches, including the most significant - Carlist - from the Infante Don Carlos the Elder. At the beginning of the 19th century, he was the clearest contender for the Spanish throne, but due to the pragmatic sanction of Ferdinand VII in 1830, who transferred the throne to his daughter Isabella, he remained out of work. A strong party formed behind Carlos, he unleashed two wars, called Carlist wars (his grandson Carlos the Younger already participated in the third). The Carlist movement in Spain was significant until the 1970s, formally exists now, but does not matter in politics, although they have their own contender for the throne - Carlos Hugo.