Nth in line to The Throne

Factual Questions
61

Why thank you, DRY!

No, I’m not Hispanic, nor Russian. I’m a total mutt-Irish/German on my dad’s side; Polish/Slovak/Hungarian on my mom’s side.
Okay, here’s the short of it:
“Grand Duchess” Marie’s father was Prince Vladimir Kyrilovich of Russia. Vladimir’s parents were Grand Duke Kyril Alexandrovich and Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna. Grand Duke Kyril was third in line to the throne, after the Tsar’s son and the Tsar’s brother.
The problems:
Kyril’s mother did not convert to Orthodox at her marriage-in fact, not until her husband died in 1909. Because Kyril was not the product of an Orthodox marriage, there was one strike against him.
Then, Kyril’s wife was Grand Duchess Victoria Feodorovna, nee Princess Victoria Melita of Coburg, nee Grand Duchess Victoria Melita of Hesse-Dharmstadt.
Victoria, or Ducky, as she was called in the family, was the daughter of Queen Victoria’s son Alfred and Tsar Alexander II’s daughter Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna. As Kyril’s father, Grand Duke Vladimir, was Maria’s sister, that made Ducky and Kyril first cousins-a no no marriage in the Russian church. (Considered incest and grounds for excommunication). Also, more importantly, Kyril was NOT Ducky’s first husband. Her first husband was Grand Duke Ernst Ludwig of Hesse-Dharmstadt, her first cousin on her father’s side and Tsarina Alexandra’s brother. So, she divorced Alix’s brother to marry her cousin-a BIG no-no in royalty. Plus, Ducky was NOT Orthodox at the time of her marriage, and Nicholas forbid Kyril to marry her. He did anyway, and Nicky kicked him and Ducky out of the country, stripping them of their titles. In 1908, at the death of an uncle, Nicky relented and allowed Kyril and Ducky back into the country, granting Ducky the title of Grand Duchess. A year later, Ducky converted.

Whew! Confused yet?
Okay, the worst thing: during the March Revolution in 1917, Kyril broke his oath of allegiance to Nicholas and marched with the revolutionaries, tying a red armband around his tunic, and led his regiment with him. That was a VERY serious offence. Then, after Nicholas, his wife, daughters and heir were killed, and the technical last Tsar, Mikhail, Nicky’s brother was killed, Kyril and Ducky fled the country with their children, as did most of the Romanovs who weren’t under arrest.

When Nicholas abdicated, he did so in favor of his brother, Mikhail. Misha, as he was called, also gave up the crown to the Provisional Government, then under Alexander Kerensky (a pretty decent guy, IMHO). Technically, Misha never abdicated, he only said that he would ONLY take the crown back if called to do so by the Russian people. In short: the choice of the next Tsar is up to the people of Russia.
Also, technically, Misha had a son, but because his wife was a twice-divorced commoner, his son could not inherit the throne. (Misha’s marriage, however was fully recognized by the church, as divorce was not really an issue in the Russian church)

Well, the real head of the family was the Dowager Empress, Maria Feodorovna, Nicky’s and Misha’s mother. She was in her native Denmark, and refused to accept the news of the death of her sons, grandchildren and daughter-in-law. Most of the family concurred with her, and out of respect for her, because she was very loved, would not put forth or suggest a claim to the throne. And those who did have an idea wanted Grand Duke Nicholas, a grandson of TSar NIcholas I.
Well, in 1924, Kyril pissed off everyone by declaring himself Tsar-in-Exile, which he REALLY was NOT supposed to do. In fact, the World Court and the Royal committees that decided and knew about the laws and everything would not accept Kyril. Kyril gave his children the title of Grand Duchesses and Grand Duke, which they weren’t entitled to, as only the children or the paternal grandchildren of a Tsar could claim. Since Kyril’s grandfather was Tsar Alexander II, he could not pass the titles to his children.
Well, Vladimir was a real shady character, married a woman who a was, well, a piece of trash-a divorced woman from Georgia (not OUR Georgia, but the Caucasus Georgia, where Stalin is from), called Leonida Kirby. He had to flee to Spain, where his aunt lived to do this, and boy, was his aunt PISSED. Everyone was. Also, Leonida had NO royal claim whatsoever, only a small descent back to the Georgian royals, which was too long ago to matter. Leonida was also pushy, arrogant, and older than Vladimir.

During WWII, Vladimir helped out Nazi Germany, against his own country. There were a good number of White Russians who did, but most ignored the current regime and stayed patriotic to their own country. As did the rest of the ex-Imperials.
Vladimir had only one child, a DAUGHTEr. Under the Pauline Law, from Emperor Paul I, only a MALE can inherit the throne, and only through the male line. Vladimir illegally gave Maria the title of Grand Duchess and Curiatrix of the Russian Throne. Maria married a member of the Ex-German imperial family, a Hohenzollern. And the Romanovs had a BIG grudge against that family, for starting WWI, with good reason. WEll, Maria and her husband had ONE child, a boy, named Prince Michael of Hohenzollern. Prince Michael had NO RIGHT to the name Romanov. Vladimir ignored that and named the boy Grand Duke Georgi, later Tsarevich Georgi. (Maria and her husband later divorced).

Vladimir died in 1992, but his widow, daughter and grandson are still alive and are rather nasty, arrogant and pushy, because they’re all buddy-buddy with the Holy Patriarch, Alexei II. Marie uses titles she’s not allowed to use, Georgi is said to be a total spoiled brat, and they all alienate the rest of the family.

Well, the rest doesn’t have a better chance, as most of them are descendents of Nicky’s two sisters and other remote cousins EXCEPT for Paul Ilyinski, who is the mayor Palm Beach in Florida. HIS father, as I mentioned, was Grand Duke Dmitry, conspirator in Rasputin’s demise. Dmitry married an American Heiress, though they later divorced, and was a favorite of the family. He died of TB when he was only 51. But Paul isn’t interested in the throne. Dmitry was also a grandson of TSar Alexander II, and was supposed to marry Nicky’s oldest daughter, but didn’t for some reason.
Prince Nicholas of Russia, the one everyone supports, is a Grandson of Grand Duke Peter Nicholaievich, who was the younger brother of the aformentioned Grand Duke NIcholas (Nikolasha-commander of the Army during WWI until Nicky took over.) Nicholas isn’t really interested in restoring the monarchy, but he DOES preserve the memory of the family through various organizations and charities.

How did I become interested? I saw the movie, Anastasia (the cartoon), and I loved it, so I researched the history behind it. It snowballed from there!

I’m SO glad to see a fellow Romanov enthusiast! E-mail me sometime sutter@stargate.net if you want to talk about it.
(NO, it’s not the mail I have listed, I didn’t have this e-mail when I signed up for SDMB.)

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Maybe someone already addressed this and I missed it, but Henry VII did NOT marry a queen. He married a princess, Edward IV’s eldest daughter. And, he married her after he had already killed Richard III. He had NO valid claim to the crown, IMHO, as even with Richard gone there were heirs who should have inherited long before he should have been considered.

He became king by force, and because England was sick and tired of all of the bloodshed and decided to just accept him and get on with the business of living.

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This is all quite true, except that it can be argued that Henry DID have a valid claim to the crown (though it was inferior to MANY others–essentially the entire House of York, including the woman he married).

Henry VII had a neat little trick–he tried to seize the estates of the men who fought against them by accusing him of treason–by dating his reign as starting the day BEFORE Bosworth.

Didn’t work.

Guinastasia–I did drop you a line. Did you get it?

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I haven’t checked my e-mail yet, so when I do, I’ll write ya back!
Cheers@!

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APB, I agree that the idea of primogeniture gradually evolved, but I don’t know about the idea of the “most suitable male relative.” My understanding (and I’m certainly open to correction), is that at this point in Norman fuedalism, the possessions of the monarch were treated much like his personal property, and he could designate who would inherit. By custom, the eldest son would inherit the honours that his father had himself inherited, but younger sons might inherit honours that the father had acquired during his lifetime. Thus, William the Conqueror’s eldest son, Robert, becaame Duke of Normandy, while his second son, William, became King of England.

That aside, the point here is even under a looser approach to succession, Stephen was pretty far from the throne. At one point or other before he became King, there were half a dozen people who were closer to the previous monarch, and would have been expected to have a better feudal claim to succeed.

William the Conquereor had three sons: Robert, who became Duke of Normandy; William Rufus, who became William II; Henry Beauclerc, who became Henry I. He also had a daughter, Adele, the mother of Stephen.

Robert had a son, William the Clito. Henry I had a son, William, and a daughter, Matilda, who in turn had a son, Henry, who ultimately became Henry II.

Not all of these people were still alive when Stephen became king in 1135. But, if someone were speculating in 1110 whether Stephen would become king some day, odds are they wouldn’t have thought much of his chances.

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The practice of designating an heir was simply to prevent an unseemly scramble once the king had died. Successions between a king and his eldest son were the usual pattern and almost never created any problems. It was only when there was no son (or that son was a minor) that the absence of clear rules for succession became obvious. The rules for the inheritance of land did influence their assumptions on this, but there was also a view that any king ought to be able to command the support of his nobles. The rules for the inheritance of land, particularly with respect to heiresses, would have created problems if invariably applied to the royal succession.

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Guinatasia Have you Peter Kirth[or Kurth]'s book called Anastasia: The Riddle of Anna Anderson? It is the true-life story of a woman who, from the mid-1920s until her death in 1982/3, claimed that she was Anastasia Nicholaevna Romanov. It is a fascinating story, and was made into a TV movie starring Amy Irving in the late 1980s.

A few year ago, mitochondrial DNA matching with Prince Philip (of England) indicated that Anna Anderson was not Anastasia. Or to be precise: that she was not the daughter of the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna; and therefore, by implication, not the daughter of Nicholas II.

Still, hers is an interesting story about the nature of identity.

Hmmm… I’d be careful about using words like “feudalism” and “feudal claim”. The former implies the existence of full-fledged (political) philosophy or agenda, much as we say “Marxism” or even “Catholicism”; these days I believe it is considered more apt to speak of “feudal customs” in reference to medieval practices of lordship, land ownership & inheritance, and military service. The application of customs regarded as “feudal” varied widely in time and place across Western Europe in the central middle ages. I imagine that the people of the time wouldn’t have considered these customs as an “ism” either; it was just the way things had developed over time, and how they were done.

Sorry, but we had this drummed into us in medieval history grad courses: “There is no such thing as feudalism”.

On a note closer to the thread topic: Henry I’s daughter, Matilda (often known as “Maud the Empress”) was recognized as his heiress (to the crown of England) c.1125. By this time, all of Henry’s legitimate children/descendants were dead, and Matilda had recently returned, widowed and childless, from her marriage to the Emperor of Germany. Initially her claims to the crown were not seriously disputed; but by the time King Henry had died in 1135, many of his barons had come to oppose her, because they thought a woman should not rule and/or because they had a serious personal dislike of her. Supposedly Henry changed his mind and, on his deathbed, designated his nephew Stephen as his heir. The idea of a male heir was certainly a more comfortable and familiar one, but the concept of Matilda’s right to the crown was sufficiently strong to mire England in an on-again-off-again civil war which lasted for seventeen years.

Part of the difficulty was that Stephen had been crowned; in this period, kingship was regarded almost as an “eighth sacrament”. Once it was done, it could not be undone. Priesthood and kingship were irrevocable. This created a thorny problem: how to recognize both Matilda’s and Stephen’s rights. The final settlement (in 1152) was that Stephen would rule for the duration of his life; and would be succeeded by Matilda’s son Henry (later Henry II).

Or, at least, this is my understanding of what happened. Feel free to correct me if I am wrong; I don’t have any references handy at the moment!

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MJH (I think; the post is suddenly attributed to no one in my view of it) writes:

It should also be noted that Matilda’s second husband was Geoffrey “Plantagenet” Count of Anjou, who, by virtue of that fact, was pretty much the hereditary enemy of Normandy. A lot of Anglo-Norman barons who may not have cared one way or the other about Matilda didn’t care for the idea of an Angevin succeeding as Duke of Normandy.

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I have this book. I’ve skimmed through it, but have not yet read it cover to cover.

I have read about the DNA tests. Unless you conclude the whole thing was rigged–highly, highly doubtful, it’s pretty conclusive that Anna Anderson was who her detractors said she was–a Polish peasant named Franziska Schanzkowska. (The DNA tests showed a genetic link between her and the Schanzkowska family. They also showed no link between her and the bodies believed to be the Royal Family that were exhumed. Finally, they showed a link between the exhumed bodies I just mentioned and other Romanov relatives --seemingly indicating that the bodies exhumed WERE those of Nicholas II’s family).

It’s a shame–when I read the story I truly wanted to believe that at least one of the Duchesses had survived.

Re Anna Anderson: There were always problems in her story–chiefly, she was never able to give a logical version of how she, if she really were Anastasia, survived.

However, if she really were not Anastasia, she somehow seemed to know things that members outside the Royal Family would not know. One such example is that Anderson alluded to a top secret trip made by one of her relatives to Russia in the middle of World War I–a diplomatic mission to attempt to get Russia to pull out of the war. It doesn’t seem likely that an imposter would know that such a rendevous took place. But it did, and Anderson made reference to it.

I would be really interested in Guinastasia’s take on all of this, of course. She knows far more than I do.

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I wanted to comment on…[um, who are you, anyway?]'s other topic in a separate post, for length reasons.

Henry I, during his lifetime, designated Matilda as his heir. He also forced the nobles to take an oath of fealty to her.

My impression was that there seemed to be some falling out between Henry and his daughter during the latter years of her life. When Henry died, Stephen was at or near his death-bed and laid claim to the crown before Matilda even found out what happened. (As I understand it, there’s no real evidence suggesting that Henry changed his mind. This was a “cover story” planted to assuage consciences and make the usurpation more palatable.)

Many of the nobles supported him in this, because Stephen was popular with the nobles, and Matilda was not, because Matilda was a woman and many nobles were not comfortable with a woman ruling over them, and finally, as Akatsukami points out, that Matilda’s husband was Angevin, and the Anglo-Normans did NOT want a hated Angevin acting as consort to the queen.

The oaths of fealty taken were disregarded as forcedby Henry upon the nobles under duress.

With the exception of a few areas, most of England accepted Stephen as heir, even when Matilda challenged his claim to the crown. It was only Stephen’s ineffectiveness as king, NOT the weakness of his claim, which gave Matilda the opportunity to effectuate her claim, and even dethrone Stephen (briefly), and reign as queen herself. And, in the end, transmit a viable claim to her son Henry, later Henry II.

Again, this is all my understanding as to what happened. I, too, do not have my resources handy and would welcome being corrected if I have made any factual errors above.

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Anna Anderson:
As much as I’d like to believe that someone survived, I don’t think it would be possible.
As far as Anderson is concerned, most of what she knew was coincidental, or could be found out by talking to others.
I know she spoke of the rumor of Grand Duke Ernst of Hesse’s visit (he was Alix’s brother), but it has been repeatedly denied.
However, there is much more against her:
The fact that her aunt, Grand Duchess Olga denied that she was Anastasia. Olga was very close with Nicky’s daughters, especially with Anastasia. In her memoirs, Olga said, “That child, was as dear to me as my own daughter.” She was truly hurt by many phonies in later years running up to her and yelling “Dear Auntie! AT last!” There is NO way Olga would’ve turned her back on Anastasia had she been found, and the reason Olga wrote to Miss Anderson was that she felt sorry for the poor woman.
Pierre Gilliard and Charles Sidney Gibbs, two tutors of the children also denied Mrs. Anderson. They were VERY close to the family and the children, and had seen Anastasia a few months before she died.

Those that did recognize her were the Botkin children. Who greatly exaggerated their relationship with the Imperial family. Botkin’s children were not allowed to come to the palace very often, and only communicated through their father, or through letters.
Plus, Gleb Botkin calling Olga and her sister Xenia as greedy and selfish was bullshit. As was the claims of a Romanov fortune in the bank of England.
Also, the story of Anderson’s escape and later the tale of her and her sisters and mother in Perm was all utter nonsense and totally discredited.

I don’t think Anna was a deliberate fake. I think she TRULY BELIEVE SHE WAS ANASTASIA! And that was sad, because so many took advantage of her…Also, have you read Massie’s The Romanovs: the Final Chapter? It explains anything better than I ever could.
And the missing sister COULD be also Maria or Tatiana as well…
Here’s an EXCELLENT page done by some friends of mine, one of whom is friends with Peter Kurth.
http://homepages.go.com/~lotma/Remains.html

HOWEVER…
as far as survival, there is an interesting claim of an Alexei…and a curious anecdote about the supposed hemophilia…at first I was skeptical, but after reading this, it was very interesting.
http://www.npsnet.com/tsarevich_alexei/
I’m not saying I believe or disbelieve. It’s a very intriguing case.

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DRY and Akatsukami…

Yes, I was the ghost-poster yesterday. Something went wrong with my account (and several others). They’re still trying to work out what, so until then I am re-registered as MJH2.

Re: Anastasia As far as I can recall, DRY’s overview is correct. In light of the DNA evidence which disproves Anna Anderson’s claim to be Anastasia, and supports her connection to the aforementioned Polish family, the questions becomes: “How did she know some of the things she knew?” The secret visit made by Kaiser Wilhelm II to Nicholas II, while their two countries were at war, was one of the more stellar secrets she knew. In fact, it was so secret that Anna Anderson’s insistence that it had happened was dismissed as something she simply misremembered or misunderstood – only to proven right later on. Coincidence, lucky guess? Perhaps, but something that specific requires a better explanation. All of this comes out of Peter Kurth’s book.

Also, as DRY says there is the issue of how she survived the assassinations – if she was Anastasia – something which could never clearly explain. This is not in itself suspicious; you try getting shot and stabbed to death and see how much you remember about what happened soon afterwards! And she could have sustained head injuries which permanently affected her memory. Peter Kurth makes the point that this Anna, whoever she really was, clearly had survived some traumatic experience: she had a scar from a bayonet wound behind one ear (I think), which matched the kind of bayonets that would have been used in the assassination of the imperial family.

I think you are right: there is no evidence that Henry changed his mind about Matilda; it was probably just a cover story. Stephen was conveniently at hand and managed to get himself crowned before Matilda could do much about it.

Henry I himself had done much the same thing. When his brother, William II (William Rufus), died in a hunting accident in the New Forest, Henry was able to get himself crowned king before his older brother, Robert Duke of Normandy, could do anything about it.

All true. Even Matilda was not happy about her marriage to Geoffrey; he was ten years younger than she, and a mere count while she was a king’s daughter and heir by blood and a widowed Empress by marriage. She felt the marriage disparaged her. In my readings of the period, Geoffrey always comes across as a rather inconsequential figure – certainly in England, if not in Anjou/Normandy/Maine.

Hmmm… interesting point of view. I would argue that it was the weakness of Stephen’s claim (i.e. the “cover story” and so on) that allowed Matilda to press her claims. But because Stephen’s coronation could not be undone, supporting Matilda was not an easy decision even for those who might agree that she had the stronger claim. If we make Matilda queen, what do we do with Stephen? It would seem that even Matilda herself balked at doing grevious bodily harm to Stephen, a crowned head, when she had him in custody.

Anyway, I think factually all the information you provide is correct.

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In 1110, I’d agree because William Aethling (son of Henry 1) was alive. He did not drown until 1120, in the White Ship Disaster. But Robert’s (son of the Conqueror) line seems to have been of negligible importance; Robert was passed over from the start (William was the Conqueror’s favorite son.) Henry 1 (the youngest brother) didn’t even bother to kill Robert when Robert tried to overthrow him; Henry just imprisoned him William 2 left no heir, and since he seems to have been homosexual, an heir was much less likely (See Richard 1, whose own succession difficulties calls Edward 5 vs Richard 3 to mind.) This brother of Henry 1 was actually on the throne, and died in a very “convenient” hunting accident. And as the poster temporarily known as MJH2 has said, Henry 1 just happened to be in the area at the time to take the throne (much like his nephew Stephen at his own death.) However, William 2 made himself a very hated king; there were probably many people who would have or could have killed him.

So by 1135, the legitimate descendents of William the Conqueror were Robert’s son William (I think – I can’t find when he died,) Henry’s daughter Matilda and Adela’s son Stephen. Not so far from the throne at all.

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Yes, but I think the OP was asking the farthest away someone has been who succeeded, other than in the direct line. As Akatsukami noted, barring dynastic change, the successor is always the first in the line - by the time he succeeds.

To take two examples: when Edward VIII was born, he was third in line, but everyone expected he would become king. He was in the direct line, and could be expected to move up as his forebears died off.

But take the example of William IV - at one point he had dropped from third to fourth in line, and was not expected to succeed. He moved up from 4 to 1, because of the deaths of others, including his young niece, Charlotte.

Hence, the way I phrased it - would someone have predicted early on that this person would have become king/queen some day? In the case of Stephen, not likely.

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Guinastasia–WHAT has been repeatedly denied? That Anderson mentioned the visit, or that the visit actually happened. My understanding was that after the war, the Germans–possibly the Kaiser himself–admitted that the visit DID happen.

I absolutely agree that Anderson thought she was Anastasia. That helped make her more convincing. Yes, I have read the Massie book. That’s where I drew the conclusions I did about the DNA, and who the real Romaonov heirs were.

The links are GREAT! :slight_smile:

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Well, MJH, glad to have you “back”. That was really bizarre!

Certainly your point about Anderson not being able to explain away what really happened is not in itself fatal. But what IS a problem is that her story changed, sometimes dramatically, several times. At least, that’s my recollection.

And Guinastasia is correct in pointing out that it’s actually Ernst, the Grand Duke of Hesse, that made the trip to Russia, not the Kaiser himself.

GOOD point! I had forgotten all about that!
**

If I recall correctly, this is a bit unfair. Geoffrey died relatively young and DID do some campaiging in Normandy against Stephen’s Norman holdings. He was, I believe, pretty successful in said campaigns (though this is partially due to Stephen’s reluctance to leave England).

**

Cause and effect here can be debated–Stephen’s claim was relatively weak because Matilda had powerful backers–her bastard half brother Robert, for one. It IS true that some of her backers did so because they respected Henry’s intentions (ie, that Stephen’s claim was weak). But others rebelled against Stephen because Stephen was not an effective ruler.

I believe that at least part of the reason why Matilda did not do away with Stephen was because he was popular and his claim was regarded by many to be strong.

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Surely the best, and most relevant to the thread, example of this is the renaming of the movie “The Madness of King George”. It’s original title was to be “The Madness of George III”

But of course then people (mainly in the US I have to speculate) would have wanted to know why they couldn’t get George and George II on video

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pothole2,

Yeah, although that’s not so much a matter of making a mistake as of dumbinng down. It’s like the renaming in the U.S. of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone as Harry Potter and the Sorceror’s Stone. In each case, I don’t really think the audience was that stupid. I think the film producers and the book publishers think we’re stupid and aren’t interested in hearing us say otherwise.

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The fact that Ernst visited. That has been denied. Whether it did or did not happen is, I suppose, water under the bridge by now.

Actually, Franziska did under go severe trauma that could have caused her distress and scars. She was engaged to a soldier during the Great War, and she worked in a munitions factory, when she received word that her fiance was killed. Shortly thereafter, she was absent minded at work, and allowed a grenade to slip. It went off, and killed a man right in front of her and wounded her terribly in the head.
Thereafter, they said, she was rather not well in the head.
Also, she didn’t LOOK like Anastasia in my opinion-Anastasia and her sister Maria had GREY-BLUE eyes, and Anna Anderson’s were blue-blue.

The idea was that the Anderson DNA was switched at the hospital and with the other specimen-hair follicles found in an envelope in a random box of her husband’s-is rather too far fetched.

The point I gave about the Perm incident was that a book had JUST COME OUT guessing that the Romanovs went to Perm right before she told all of this. Also, it doesn’t make sense that the family would find much luck in Perm, either, as that was where her uncle, Grand Duke Mikhail was assassinated.
The ear print they supposedly used was not considered as good as DNA, also as well, one of the pictures used to match the ears was a picture of Grand Duchess MARIA, not ANASTASIA.
Also, the supposed scar on the finger, that ANASTASIA was supposed to have had from a carriage door-the scar was actually that of MARIA, and it was from a train door! (From Olga Alexandrovna’s memoirs).

Peter Kurth’s book is all well and good, but I still will never believe that she was Anastasia. She had way too much going against her.
There is no way that Grand Duchess Olga would have turned her back on her most beloved niece. Olga was NOT a greedy adventuress, in fact, she preferred a spartan life. If she had indeed believe in Miss Anderson’s claims, and had Mrs. Anderson been indeed Anastasia, Olga would have welcomed her niece with open arms.

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DRY It was good to be back, for a while, but as you can see from this post, I’m not out of the woods yet. Waiting for the techies to figure it out. In the meantime, I stumble along as best I can.

You are right on both counts, of course. Unlike Guinastasia I was convinced by Peter Kurth’s book, which I read long before DNA matching was possible. Also,unlike Guinastasia I thought that Ernst’s visit had been confirmed, though initially AA’s claim on this point was denied because: (a) it was kept secret from other members of the imperial family; and/or (b) understandably those who knew were reluctant to admit it had occurred; and/or © some members of the imperial family had little desire to lend any sort of credence to Anna Anderson’s claim to identity.
Now, on to Matilda. I dug out my copy of Marjorie Chibnall’s The Empress Matilda (Blackwell Publishers, Cambridge MA, 1991) which is the first full treatment of Matilda’s life to appear in English. All of the factual data below is pulled from her work, which is of course based on the primary sources.

After re-reading some of the aforementioned work, I have to withdraw my previous remark about Geoffrey being an inconsequential figure. As you rightly point out, he was successful in his campaigns in Normandy against Stephen. However, it is not the case that the Normans and Angevins were historical rivals and/or bitter enemies prior to the death of Henry I. Chibnall herself notes: “It was only after the brutalities committed by Angevin troops when they invaded Normandy in the early years of Stephen’s reign [the late 1130s] that Norman chroniclers began to write of them with loathing.” So it cannot be said that widespread anti-Angevin sentiment among the Normans made Stephen preferable to Matilda in December 1135/January 1136. Of course, Geoffrey’s activities in Normandy probably did not win Matilda many friends among the Normans whose lands felt the effects of Geoffrey’s endeavors.

Which brings me back to Henry’s intentions for the succession, the marriage to Geoffrey and so on. Matilda returned to England after the death of her first husband (Henry V, Emperor Germany). Since by this time, she was his only surviving legitimate child (as we already know), her childless widowhood offered Henry a solution to the problem of his succession. In January 1127 he recognized her as his heir, and had his barons and magnates swear to serve her loyally in the event that he died without a legitimate son. By the summer of 1128, she was married to Geoffrey of Anjou.
Now, being an astute statesman, Henry would hardly have married her to an Angevin if there was a history of Norman-Angevin animosity. Geoffrey was of respectable lineage but not sufficiently powerful to be a serious threat/rival to the Anglo-Norman nobles in England, and his county adjoined Normandy i.e. in political terms he was a good match for the future queen. Beyond recognizing his daughter and marrying her off, as far as we can tell, Henry did not explain exactly what form he envisioned for the succession. This was probably because there were several possibilities; and as the sinking of the White Ship in 1120 demonstrated, life had a way of dealing unexpected blows, even to royal dynasties. So why carve the succession in stone? Some possibilities were:

(1) Matilda would succeed him and rule alone
(2) Matilda and Geoffrey would succeed and rule jointly
(3) Matilda might bear a son who had grown to young adulthood by Henry’s death, and who could therefore succeed him
(4) Henry himself might yet sire a legitimate son

Given that Henry was 60 years old in 1128, (3) and (4) were unlikely though not impossible. When Henry was on his deathbed in December 1135, Matilda’s oldest son, the future Henry II, was not quite three years old; so this left only (1) and (2), short of rescinding his recognition of Matilda altogether. There are three extant accounts of what transpired at Henry’s deathbed. Orderic Vitalis’ does not mention anything about the succession and so is not helpful. The second, William of Malmesbury’s chronicle, claims that “when [Henry] was asked… about his successor he assigned all of his lands on both sides of the sea [the Channel] to his daughter in lawful and lasting succession, being somewhat angry with her husband because he had vexed the king by not a few threats and insults.” Chibnall establishes elsewhere that it was with Geoffrey, not Matilda, that Henry had a history of personal difficulties. This account clearly support option (1) above. The third account is the Gesta Stephani which, not surprisingly, confirms what we are calling in this thread “the cover story”: namely, that Henry repented of the error he had made in forcing his magnates to take the oath of allegiance to Matilda under duress. Chibnall does not say whether the Gesta explains in what way this duress was brought to bear.

John, Bishop of Salisbury, expanded on the Gesta to say that Henry absolved his nobles from any obligation to keep the oath. But later John is also credited with claiming that the oaths had originally been given on the condition that Henry would not marry his daughter to someone outside England without first consulting the barons; thus by marrying her to Geoffrey, Henry had violated the terms of the agreement. There is an implicit contradiction in John’s accounts: was the oath forced or merely conditional? If the latter, why were objections not made in 1128, instead of 7+ years later? This is, in part, why the “cover story” for Stephen’s claim was suspect.

I agree that Matilda was successful largely because she had nobles who backed her for various reasons – not the least of which was Stephen was not an effective ruler – and that she hesitated to do him harm because, effective or not, it would not reflect well on her to order the death of a king. My point was that Stephen’s weak claim was strengthened by the irrevocable fact that he was an anointed, crowned king. This might seem a rather minor point to us today, but to the medieval mind it was of no small consequence.

Anyway, DRY, I think you and I would agree that the succession (at any time) was determined by a combination of “right” (by the late king’s will and/or established precedents of succession, etc.) and practical “might” (military and political) provided by those who will back the claimant for whatever reason. Cause-and-effect flows both ways between right and might. Henry IV and especially Henry VII are good examples of this. Richard III did a pretty good job of creating right through might himself.

To me, Matilda’s story is an important chapter in the development of the concept of the English succession, and illustrates the accompanying “growing pains”. If Matilda had been less steadfast and persistent in pressing the rights granted by her father, if she had gathered less “might” to herself or been perceived as less “rightful”, the English succession might have developed quite differently. Her efforts set a precedent for the right of royal inheritance through a woman, if not rule by a woman. So that in Richard II’s reign, his acknowledged heir (at least until 1398) was Roger Mortimer, grandson of Lionel of Antwerp (second son of Edward III) through Lionel’s daughter Philippa. The Yorkist claim to the crown was based on this and a second matrilineal descent from Lionel. Henry VII bolstered his claims by marrying the Yorkist heiress, Elizabeth. I could go on, but you see what I’m getting at.

Thanks for the interesting discussion. I recommened Chibnall’s book to you; it is well-done and does not come across as an overly sentimental or romanticized account of Matilda’s life, nor is Matilda painted as some kind of heroine.

I’m gonna send this now, while I still have an account!