Pretender

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This page is about the word Pretender as it applies to a monarchy. For other meanings, see Pretender (disambiguation).

A Pretender is a claimant to an abolished or already occupied throne<ref> Note that the French word prétend, a source of the English word "pretend", simply means "claim", with no implication of falsity, and that for the present purpose the English word retains the sense of the French word and not the modern English definition. In the context of the modern languages, they are, therefore, false friends, because the two words have noticeably different meanings in the two languages despite being almost identical (except for the acute accent in the former, bearing in mind that French has adopted the use of diacritical marks only since the French Revolution). Therefore a pretender, whether to a throne or anything, as the phrase meant in the past, is simply a claimant. Indeed in the cases of pretenders to a throne, they would not be a serious problem if there were no hint of validity to the claim. Contrariwise, persons with a potential claim to a throne automatically become pretenders, whether they press their claim or not, and this has led such persons to take extraordinary measures, such as emigrating to a foreign country under an assumed name, to preserve their safety against threats from other claimants or their allies.</ref>.. Deposed monarchs are not seen as pretenders, as the term only applies to those who have never occupied the throne. The papal equivalent is the antipope.

1 Modern pretenders
2 Pretenders in the Roman Empire
3 Cypriot Pretenders
4 French Pretenders
5 Russian Pretenders
6 English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and British Pretenders
7 Ottoman Pretenders
8 Iraqi Pretenders
9 Fake pretenders
10 Notes

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Modern pretenders

State	Pretender	Link to Past Monarchy
Albania	Crown Prince Leka Zogu	son of the last king, Zog of Albania
Albania	Giorgio Castriota Scanderbeg	Descendant of Scanderbeg
Austria-Hungary	Archduke Otto, Crown Prince of Austria & Hungary	Otto is the eldest son of Karl, last Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary. Otto "renounced" his claim in order to pass freely into Austria, however, he continues to act (and is supported) as Head of the House of Habsburg. Some royalists maintain that his renunciation had no validity and that the republican government in Austria is an illegitimate successor to the empire.
Bavaria	Franz, Duke of Bavaria	head of the Wittelsbach family; great-grandson of Bavaria's last King Ludwig III
Brazil	Prince Dom Luiz of Orleans-Braganza	head of the Vassouras branch of the last Brazilian Emperor Pedro II
Burma	Crown Prince Shwebomin	claims distant descent from the Bagan line of emperors of the first Burmese empire through Sinbyushin
Burma (Shan State)	Sao Pan Thee	great grandson of Sao Shwe Thaik , Saopha of Yaunghwe
China	Yuyan	cousin of Puyi
Ethiopia	Zera Yacob Amha Selassie of Ethiopia	grandson of Emperor Haile Selassie
France	Henri, Comte de Paris, Duc de France (Orleanist: majority support)	descendant of Louis-Philippe of France
France	Louis-Alphonse, Duc d'Anjou (Legitimist: minority support)	descendant of Louis XIV of France
France	Charles Bonaparte (Bonapartist)	descendant of Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte
Germany and Prussia	Georg Friedrich, Prince of Prussia	descendant of the last Emperor, Wilhelm II
Georgia	Giorgi Bagrationi	head of the Bagrationi-Mukhraneli line which branched off from the senior line in the 16th century but still claims the Georgian crown
Great Britain and Ireland	Statutory monarchy and republic.	See discussion below.
Hanover and Brunswick-Lunenburg	Ernst August, Prince of Hanover	Head of the House of Hanover which ruled Hanover as Kings until 1886, and Brunswick-Lunenburg as Dukes until 1918
Hyderabad State	Barkat Ali Khan Mukarram Jah	grandson of the last Nizam Osman Ali Khan, Asif Jah VII
Hawai'i	Quentin Kawananakoa	senior of the remaining relatives of Queen Liliuokalani
Iran	Crown Prince Reza Pahlavi II	son of the last Shah, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi
Iran	Ali Mirza Qajar	Head of the Qajar dynasty which ruled Iran from 1781 to 1925. He does not press his claim to the Peacock throne.
Iraq	Sharif Ali Bin al-Hussein	cousin of the last king, Faisal II
Italy	Crown Prince Victorio Emanuele	son of the last king, Umberto II of Italy
Korea	Seok, Prince of Korea	son of Prince Gang of Korea
Korea	Won, Prince of Korea	Prince Gu's adopted son from one of the descendant of Prince Gang of Korea
Laos	Sauryavong Savang	son of Savang Vatthana, the last king of Laos
Libya	Sayyid Muhammad as-Sanussi	son of Sayyid Hasan ar-Rida al-Mahdi as-Sanussi
Maldives	Prince Muhammad Nur ud-din	son of Sultan Hassan Nooraddeen Iskandar II who ruled from 1935 till 1943.
Manchukuo	Puren	only surviving brother of Puyi
Mexico	Maximilian von Götzen-Iturbide	descendant of Prince Salvador de Iturbide who was the grandson of Emperor Agustín of Mexico and the adopted son of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico
Montenegro	Nikola, Prince of Montenegro	descendant of the last king, Nikola I of Montenegro
Miskito	Norton Cuthbert Clarence	since 1978 Pretender to the Miskito Kingdom and hereditary chief of the Miskito Nation
Ottoman Empire	Ertugrul Osman V	grandson of Abd-ul-Hamid II Sultan from 1876 to 1909.
Portugal	Duarte Pio, Duke of Bragança	great grandson of king Miguel I and 3th-grandson of Pedro IV through is mother Maria Francisca de Orléans e Bragança, the widely recognised would-be King of Portugal
Portugal	Rosario Poidimani, aka Rosario Saxe Coburg Gotha Bragança, claimant Duke of Bragança	heir of Hilda Toledano/Maria Pia de Saxe Coburg Braganza, claimed non-marital descendant of King Carlos of Portugal.
Romania	Prince Paul of Romania	grandson of former King Carol II
Russia	Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia	descendant of the former Emperor Alexander II
Russia	Prince Nicholas Romanovitch of Russia	descendant of the former Emperor Nicholas I
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha	Prince Andreas of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha	grandson of last reigning duke, Carl Eduard
Saxony	Maria Emanuel, Margrave of Meissen	Grandson of the last King of Saxony, Frederick Augustus III
Serbia and Yugoslavia	Alexander, Crown Prince of Yugoslavia	son of the last king, Peter II
Sikkim	Wangchuk Namgyal	son of the last Chogyal, Palden Thondup Namgyal
Vatican City	many	The Catholic Church has experienced over 25 antipopes in 2000 years, the oddest circumstance being the so-called "Great Schism" (1378-1417) when up to three men simultaneously claimed to be pope with sizeable portions of clergy and laity supporting each of them. Since the Second Vatican Council in 1965, a few Catholics believe that Popes could not have allowed such changes in the Church and reject post-Vatican II popes, considering them illegitimate. Among these many sedevacantists, a few have gone so far as to take it upon themselves to elect one.
Vietnam	Crown Prince Bao Long	son of the last emperor of the Nguyễn Dynasty, Bao Dai
Yemen	Ageel bin Muhammad al-Badr	son of the last King Muhammad al-Badr

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Pretenders in the Roman Empire

Ancient Rome knew many pretenders to the office of Roman Emperor.

Especially during the Crisis of the Third Century, the number of pretenders and/or usurpers ran exceptionally thick.

A sample of these can be found, for example, in the book called "TYRANNI TRIGINTA" of the Augustan History. The title of that book is usually translated in English as the "Thirty Pretenders" (e.g. Loeb's translation), but that translation was rather chosen in order not to confuse with Athens' "Thirty Tyrants": not all "Tyranni Triginita" were afterwards considered pretenders, some were actually successful in becoming Emperor, most of them slain after holding the office for a brief period.

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Cypriot Pretenders

Following the defeat and death of King Jacques III of Cyprus in 1474, his younger and illegitimate brother, Eugene Matteo de Armenia (c1485-1523) had moved to Sicily, then Malta. He was acknowledged as Heir to Cyprus, Armenia, Jerusalem and Antioch, though never took it seriously. From a genealogical point, Eugene Matteo (de Lusignan) de Armenia was created a Sicilian title and worked as a Jurat in Malta and in Sicily.

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French Pretenders

Following the death of the childless legitimist pretender 'Henry V', Comte de Chambord, grandson of King Charles X of France in the 1880s, the majority of French monarchists accepted the Comte's selection as heir, his distant relative, the Orleanist pretender, the Comte de Paris, grandson of King Louis-Philippe (they descend from king Louis XIII) as the pretender to the French throne. A small minority refused to accept this designation, and chose instead a descendant of Louis XIV through the Spanish line, regarding Philip V of Spain's renunciation invalid. Of course, the Comte de Paris was more distant genealogically from comte de Chambord than the Spanish heir. Hence there are in effect two pretenders to the French throne, though the Orleanist pretender, the modern Comte de Paris, is generally accepted by most French monarchists as the pretender, as the list above shows.

There is also a pretender to the imperial throne of France, in the person of Charles Bonaparte, descendant of the Prince Napoléon.

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Russian Pretenders

There is much debate over who is the legitimate heir to the Russian throne. George of Russia, son of Maria Vladimirovna of Russia, is considered by some to be the legitimate heir, being the grandson of a cousin of Czar Nicholas II of Russia. Unequal marriages have made tracking a legitimate heir to the Russian throne very difficult, and some believe there is no legitimate heir at all. Nicholas Romanov, the president of Romanov Family Association, a junior male descendant of the imperial family, is regarded by some as the head of the family, but he is born of a morganatic marriage and therefore not entitled to inherit the throne under strict Russian succession law. Those who impersonated the murdered daughters of Nicholas II were not pretenders to the throne, as women could not succeed to the Russian throne while a male dynast was alive. The last male dynast, Grand Duke Vladimir, did not die until 1992.

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English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and British Pretenders

Pretenders to the thrones of the United Kingdom and its predecessor realms, as well as the other historical jurisdictions that are modernly England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, were essentially taken care of by making the Irish and English (and subsequently, British) monarchies purely statutory institutions. Ireland further precluded any and all possible pretenders by declaring itself a republic in 1949.

This change was first effected in England following the accession of Henry VII, after a long series of strife and civil wars that began when Henry IV deposed Richard II. Attempts to disrupt the statutory nature of the monarchy in England were made by some of the Stuart monarchs, who had not experienced the English checks on royal power when they were up north in Scotland. The Act of Settlement 1701 took care of that problem, and the Act of Union 1707 essentially extended the Act of Settlement to Scotland. The Act of Union 1800 subsequently extended the Act of Settlement to Ireland, but the Irish monarchy had already been made a statutory institution when Prince Henry, Lord of Ireland (Henry VIII of England) was named King of Ireland by the Irish Parliament in 1542.

Nevertheless, there have been some great pretenders over the centuries. A few famous ones are noted here, and a few passive claims are still made.

James Francis Edward Stuart was the Roman Catholic son of the deposed King James VII and II, forever eclipsed in the succession to the throne by the Act of Settlement 1701. Notwithstanding the Act of Union 1707, he claimed the separate thrones of Scotland, as James VIII, and of England and Ireland, as James III, until his death in 1766.

James's sons carried on their own claims. The would-be Charles III, still famously known as "Bonie Prince Charlie" (there is only one 'n' in 'bonie' because he's male; 'bonnie' would make him female; the Scots word 'bonie/bonnie' being a translation of the French 'bon/bonne'), died in 1788. He is unquestionably the most famous pretender in British history, if not world history.

His younger brother, Henry, took up the mantle after his death, if only symbolically, as the would-be Henry IX of England. He died in 1807.

James VIII & III was commonly called "the King over the water," because he was resident in France (across the Channel) and is also known as The Old Pretender. (As no Jacobite monarch since has resided in Britain, Jacobites ever since have toasted 'the King/Queen over the water'.) Bonie Prince Charlie is also called The Young Pretender. See Jacobitism and the related category for more information including the current Jacobite "pretender".

Owain Glyndŵr (1349-1416) is probably the best-known Welsh pretender, though whether he was pretender or Prince of Wales depends upon your source of information. Officially, Llywelyn ap Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, who died in 1282, was the last native and arguably greatest Prince of Wales. Since 1301, the Prince of Wales has been the eldest living son of the King or Queen Regnant of England (subsequently of Great Britain, 1707, and of United Kingdom, 1801). The word "living" is important. Upon the death of Prince Arthur, the Prince of Wales, Henry VII invested his second son, the future Henry VIII, with the title. The title is not automatic, however, but merges into the Crown when a prince dies or accedes to the throne, and has to be re-created by the sovereign.

Nevertheless, it is Glyndŵr whom many remember as the last native Prince of Wales. He was indeed proclaimed Prince of Wales by his supporters on 16 September 1400, and his revolt in quest of Welsh independence was not quashed by Henry IV until 1409. Later, however, one of Glyndŵr's cousins, Owain Tudor, would marry the widow of Henry V, and their grandson would become Henry VII, from whom the current British monarch is descended (through his daughter Margaret Tudor, who was married off to James IV of Scotland). So, in a way, Glyndŵr might be said to have had the last laugh.

The business of Irish pretenders is rather more complicated because of the nature of kingship in Ireland before the Norman take-over of 1171. In both Ireland and Scotland, succession to kingship was elective, often (if not usually) by contest, according to matrilineal descent. That is, the head of state of any kingdom, sub-kingdom, high kingdom, etc., was always a king, but the king always inherited the crown through his mother, as a ranking princess royal, not through his father. (See, e.g., The Lion in the North: A Personal View of Scotland's History, by John Prebble ISBN 0140036520 ; among other works.)

Thus, you, as king, would not be succeeded by your own son but would normally be succeeded by your mother's other sons; then by your sisters' sons; then, your maternal aunt's sons; and so on, traveling through the female line of the royal house. This combination of male succession through matrilineal descent produced a cumbersome system under which the throne passed cyclically from brother to brother, then uncle to nephew, and then cousin to cousin, before starting over as brother to brother, uncle to nephew, etc. {See, e.g., The Lion in the North: A Personal View of Scotland's History, by John Prebble; among other works.} In Ireland, however, the high king from the time of Maelsheachlainn I (died 862) exercised a measure of control over the country. He belonged to the Ui Neill dynasty and under the Brehon laws, succession was open to any kinsman up to and including second cousin. His dynasty is today represented by the O'Neill family who would regard their head as the pretender. The O Conor dynasty provided two high kings and the head of the family, the O Conor Don, would also be considered a pretender to the Irish throne. The descendants of Brian Boroimhe are represented by Lord Inchiquin, who is also regarded as a claimant. In addition, pretenders or claimants exist to the localised kingdoms of Breifne, Fermanagh, Tyrconnel and Leinster. The O'Neills would also be regarded as claimants to the throne of Aileach and Lord Inchiquin to the throne of Thomond.

In Scotland, Malcolm II tried to get around this system and by killing off all of the heirs between himself and his grandson, Duncan; except for Prince Lulach of Moray, who was just five years old at the time and - more importantly - was successfully rumoured to be half-witted (thus, he survived). Duncan I did become king, but Lulach's step-father, Maelbeth -rendered "Macbeth" in English - successfully claimed the throne in his own right and on Lulach's behalf.

Duncan I's son, Malcolm III Canmore, ultimately returned from exile in England and took the throne from Maelbeth and Lulach (the latter reigning 1057-1058, after the death of Maelbeth in battle against Malcolm). Malcolm was succeeded by his brother, as Duncan II, but then by four of his own sons - one of whom, Edgar (1097-1107), changed the official language of Scotland from Gàidhlig (then, still a Scottish dialect of Old Irish) to Scots (then, a language similar to English but missing the Saxon element that has always been part of standard English). Gaelic dominance of Scotland ended during the reign of Alexander I (1107-1124), and the old Celtic system of matrilineal kingship finally ended and was replaced by a system of primogeniture.

Such a transition never happened in Ireland, but civil war and the imposition of Anglo-Norman rule intervened. Although Ireland had been culturally unified for centuries, it was not politically unified, even as a tribal nation. The Romans having ignored the big green island west of Britain, the Gaels themselves were the last people to successfully invade Ireland and, notwithstanding 750 years of English rule, it is very arguable whether the Norman English ever truly conquered Ireland. (They controlled Ireland, certainly, but that is not all there is to conquest.) So, even serious coastal encroachments by the Vikings a millennium after their arrival did not prompt the Gaels of Ireland to see a need for political unity even to build a concerted national defence. When a people believe they and their country are immune from invasion, it takes a while for them to realise how vulnerable they actually are.

The High King of Ireland was essentially a ceremonial, pseudo-federal overlord (where his over-lordship was even recognised), who exercised actual power only within the realm of which he was actually king. In the case of the southern branch of the Uí Niall, this would have been the Kingdom of Meath (modernly the counties of Meath, West Meath and part of County Dublin). High Kings from the northern branch of the family ruled various kingdoms in what eventually became the province of Ulster.

Nevertheless, the Uí Niall were apparently powerful in ceremony if not in politic, so that political unification of Ireland was not aided by the usurpation of the high kingship from Mael Sechnaill II and the southern Uí Niall in 1002 by Briain ‘Boruma’ mac Cennédig, of the Kingdom of Munster. This was the third of the so-called "Three Usurpations of Brian Boru."

Brian Boru was a strong king who could have unified Ireland politically, and there is some suggestion he intended to make himself High King of Scotland as well. But he was killed in the Battle of Contarf in 1014, and twelve years as High King was not long enough to unify the island politically. Mael Sechnaill II was restored to the High Kingship but he died in 1022, too soon to undo the damage done by Brian's "coup." From 1022 through the Norman take-over of 1171, the High Kingship was held by "Kings with Opposition" - that is, whoever was strong enough to overthrow the High King of the day and take the Hill of Tara simply did so. This 150-year period of regnal unrest between families now called O'Brian, O'Conner, McLoughlin/O'Melaghlin, and others, was eventually immortalised in the children's game called "King of the Hill." The game is still popular among American children, who take turns trying to push each other off a low stool, chair, or other make-shift hill while arguing, "I'm king of the hill!" "No! I'm king!"

Because the native Irish high kingship never transitioned to a system of nation-state kingship primogeniture but simply faded into an oblivion of civil war between competing Irish royal families, there are literally as many as a million or more people who can make a claim to the ancient high kingship of Tara that is as equally valid as anybody else's under the old system disrupted by what may be called Brian Boru's "coup de tribe." Indeed, as a reputed descendant of Brian Boru and of the Uí Niall Dynasty both through his late grandmother, the current heir to the statutory throne that includes Northern Ireland, Prince Charles, could be considered a viable pretender to the high kingship of Ireland, especially as he would be making the claim through the female line of his ancestry. {The British Royal Family has publicly claimed descent from Brian Boru through the late Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, and from other ancestors associated with the Ui Niall Dynasty - usually via marriage through the Royal Family's Scottish ancestry; see the history section of the Royal Family's website for bloodlines and timelines.) But see the remarks above regarding existing native dynasties, whose claims are more valid than those of the current British royal family.

Interestingly, there was some talk right after the 1916 Easter Rising in Ireland about inviting the Kaiser's son, Prince Joachim of Prussia, to be King of Ireland. This was obviously anti-English sentiment following the execution of the leaders of the rebellion (except for Eamonn De Valera, who was an American citizen - born in New York City). Paradoxically, Irish public opinion was against the Easter Rising and the leaders were spat upon when they surrendered - but when the government executed them instead of just sending them to prison, public opinion swung completely the other way, against Britain and for independence - except in the northeast, where the majority of people were (still are) an ethnic mix of Scots-Irish, Anglo-Irish, Norse-Irish, and native Irish minorities.

Insomuch as the whole of Ireland was a province of United Kingdom in 1916, Prince Joachim would never have become King of Ireland even if he had wanted the job. But if he had become king, and Ireland still had subsequently become a republic, Joachim's grandson, Franz, would be an Irish pretender; and, afterward, his son, George of Russia, would be an Irish as well as a Russian pretender. But if the Irish could not put up with the constitutional monarchs of Britain, it's highly unlikely they would ever have put up with the absolute monarchs of Germany and Russia.

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Ottoman Pretenders

Eldest son during the reign of his father, Mehmet the Conqueror claimed the Sultanate although he was defeated in battle months later by his eldest brother (by birth) Bayezid II. He fled to Rhodes Island then eventually to the Papal Territories. His descendants claimed Cem rights until Malta defeated the Ottomans in the 16th century.

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