Roman Empire Ancient Rome Ancient Rome knew many pretenders to the offices making up the title of
Roman emperor, especially during the
Crisis of the Third Century. These are customarily referred to as the
Thirty Tyrants, which was an allusion to the
Thirty Tyrants of
Athens some five hundred years earlier; although the comparison is questionable, and the Romans were separate aspirants, not (as the Athenians were) a Committee of Public Safety. The
Loeb translation of the appropriate chapter of the
Augustan History therefore represents the Latin
triginta tyranni by "Thirty Pretenders" to avoid this artificial and confusing parallel. Not all of them were afterwards considered
pretenders; several were actually successful in becoming emperor at least in part of the empire for a brief period.
Byzantine Empire Successions to the
Roman Empire long continued at
Constantinople. Most seriously, after the fall of Constantinople to the
Fourth Crusade in 1204, and its eventual recovery by
Michael VIII Palaiologos, there came to be three Byzantine successor states, each of which claimed to be the Roman Empire, and several Latin claimants (including the
Republic of Venice and the houses of
Montferrat and
Courtenay) to the
Latin Empire the Crusaders had set up in its place. At times, some of these states and titles were subjected to multiple claims.
Greek throne Cypriot throne Following the defeat and death of King
James III King of Cyprus in 1474, his younger and illegitimate brother, Eugène Matteo de Lusignan, also styled ''d'Arménie'' (died 1523) removed to
Sicily, then to
Malta. He was acknowledged as rightful heir to the thrones of
Cyprus,
Armenia,
Jerusalem, and
Antioch, although he never made serious efforts to pursue the claims. The title of "Barone de Baccari" was created in 1508 for Jacques Matteo (sives Eugene Matteo) d'Armenia with the remainder to his descendants in perpetuity. Eugene, illegitimate son of King Jacques II of Cyprus, had, when his family were exiled, first gone to Naples, then Sicily, then settled on Malta, marrying a Sicilian heiress,
Donna Paola Mazzara (a descendant of the Royal House of Aragon of Sicily and Aragon), with issue.
Modern Greece The claimant to the throne of the last Greek kingdom is
Pavlos, Crown Prince of Greece. He belongs to the
House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, the senior branch of the
House of Oldenburg. His designated heir is his son
Prince Constantine Alexios of Greece and Denmark.
French throne The establishment of the
First Republic and the execution of
Louis XVI in 1793 led to the king's son becoming pretender to the abolished throne, styled as
Louis XVII. As Louis XVII was a child and imprisoned in Paris by the revolutionaries, his uncle, the Comte de Provence, proclaimed himself regent in his nephew's name. After Louis XVII died in 1795, the Comte de Provence became pretender himself, as
Louis XVIII. Louis XVIII was restored to the throne in 1814, and was succeeded by his brother
Charles X in 1824. Charles X was, however, forced into exile by the
July Revolution. Charles X and his son,
Louis-Antoine, Duke of Angoulême, abdicated their claims in favor of Charles's grandson,
Henri, Count of Chambord; however, their cousin the Duke of Orléans, a descendant of Louis XIV's younger brother, mounted the throne as
Louis Philippe I, King of the French. For most of the July Monarchy, the
legitimists, as supporters of the exiled senior line came to be known, were uncertain of whom to support. Some believed the abdication of Charles and his son legal, and recognized the young Chambord as king, while others maintained that abdication was unconstitutional in France of the
ancien régime, and continued to recognize first Charles X and then Louis-Antoine, until the latter's death in 1844. On his uncle's death, Chambord claimed the crown, but lived in exile and upon his death in 1883, the direct male-line of Louis XV became extinct. In 1848, Louis Philippe was himself overthrown by the
February Revolution, and abdicated the throne in favor of his young grandson,
Philippe, Comte de Paris. However, a republic was proclaimed, leaving Paris, like his cousin Chambord, merely a pretender to a no longer existing crown.
Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna is considered by some to be the legitimate heir. She is the only child of
Grand Duke Vladimir who died in 1992, a great-grandson of
Tsar Alexander II, whom some considered the last male
dynast of the
House of Romanov. Some of her opponents believe she is ineligible to claim the throne because she was born of a marriage that would have been deemed
morganatic under Russia's monarchy, which was abolished in 1917. being a descendant of Emperor
Nicholas I and the elected president of the
Romanov Family Association, which consists of most living male-line descendants of the Romanov emperors. Neither he nor his younger brother,
Prince Dimitri Romanov, had sons and since their deaths no new claims have been advanced by this branch.
Anna Anderson attempted to prove she was
Grand Duchess Anastasia Nikolaevna of Russia, the lost daughter of
Nicholas II, but
DNA testing on her remains eventually proved her to be an impersonator. Although she did not claim the throne,
per se, as women could not succeed to the Russian throne so long as any male dynast survived, she became more famous than any of the various Romanov claimants to the throne. is the latest pretender to the Russian throne under the name of Prince Nikolai Kirillovich of Leiningen. He is the grandson of
Grand Duchess Maria Cyrillovna of Russia, (sister of Vladimir, and aunt of Maria Vladimirovna), and great-grandson of
Cyril Vladimirovich, Grand Duke of Russia. The
Monarchist Party of Russia supports Prince Nikolai as the heir of the Russian throne, since they are of the opinion that Maria Vladimirovna Romanova and Nicholas Romanov are not dynasts. by granting him a pardon and taking him into the royal household as a servant. Simnel remained a loyal employee of the royal family for the rest of his life, eventually working his way up to holding the prestigious job of a falconer. Warbeck, on the other hand, proved to be a much more persistent and costly threat. He first appeared in 1490 at the court of his "aunt" Margaret of York in Burgundy, claiming that his elder brother
Edward V had been killed in 1483 by Richard III's men but that an unnamed "lord" had taken pity on him since he was only 9 and let him run away under the promise that he wouldn't make himself public until he was an adult. Historians debate whether or not Margaret (who had never met either of her brother's sons) truly believed Warbeck to be her nephew or merely wanted to cause trouble for Henry VII but she nonetheless tutored him in the ways of the English court. Warbeck drifted around to various courts in Europe for several years before unsuccessfully trying to invade England in 1495. After that, he found his way to the Scottish court where he was warmly welcomed by
James IV, who arranged for Warbeck to marry one of his relatives,
Lady Catherine Gordon. Warbeck was caught in Cornwall during a second invasion attempt in September 1497. He was paraded through the streets of London and then sent to prison in the Tower after being captured but was soon let out when he confessed to being an imposter. Henry VII treated Warbeck well after this, allowing him to stay at court but separated from his wife who was put under
Queen Elizabeth's watch. However, it did not last as he was executed in 1499 after being caught trying to escape his captivity with the real Earl of Warwick. Warbeck claimed that he was the son of a municipal official in modern-day Belgium but some historians believe he may have been genuinely related to the York family. His resemblance to Edward IV was said to be uncanny and he was likewise very tall just as Edward IV and several of his siblings were. It has been theorised he could have been a bastard son or nephew of Edward IV's as the York family had ties to that region of the continent and he himself had fled there when he was briefly deposed in 1471, which would match with Warbeck's rough date of conception.
Francis Bacon was an early advocate of the theory that he was one of Edward's many bastards. After the execution by the English Parliament of
Stuart King
Charles I in 1649, his son
Charles II was proclaimed king in Scotland (where he was crowned in 1651) and Ireland; but those two countries were invaded by English forces and annexed to the
Commonwealth of England under
Oliver Cromwell in 1653. Thus, Charles II was pretender to the throne of England from 1649 to the restoration of 1660, and exiled/deposed King of Scots and King of Ireland, 1653 to 1660. He died in 1685 and his brother
James II and VII came to the throne. He had converted to Catholicism but this only became a worry when his second wife bore a son who would precede his two Protestant daughters. James was thus deposed by his elder daughter and his son-in-law (who was also his nephew, son of his sister Mary) during the
Glorious Revolution in December 1688; they were formally offered the English and Scottish thrones by their respective parliaments a month later – which was still 1688 in England (where New Year's Day was 25 March until 1752) but was already 1689 in Scotland (which adopted 1 January as New Year's Day in 1600). James made several attempts to regain the throne before his death in 1701, the most important of which was an effort he made with Irish support – that country having not yet acceded to the succession of
William and Mary – which led to the
Battle of the Boyne and the
Battle of Aughrim, and set the stage for the subsequent
Jacobite risings (or rebellions). These were a series of uprisings or wars between 1688 and 1746 in which supporters of James, his son ("The Old Pretender") and grandson ("The Young Pretender") attempted to restore his direct male line to the throne. •
James Francis Edward Stuart, the Roman Catholic son of the deposed James II and VII, was barred from 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. In
Jacobite terms, Acts of Parliament (of England or Scotland) after 1688 (including the Acts of Union) did not receive the required
royal assent of the legitimate Jacobite monarch and, therefore, were without legal effect. James was responsible for a number of conspiracies and rebellions, particularly in the Highlands of Scotland. The most notable was the
Jacobite rising of 1715–16. •
Charles Edward Stuart (
"Bonnie Prince Charlie"), James Francis' elder son and the would-be Charles III, who led in his father's name the last major Jacobite rebellion, the
Jacobite rising of 1745–46. He died in 1788 without legitimate issue. •
Henry Benedict Stuart (best known as the
Cardinal-Duke of York), the younger brother of Charles Edward and a Roman Catholic
Cardinal, who took up the claim to the throne as the would-be Henry IX of England, though he was the final Jacobite heir to publicly do so. He died unmarried in 1807. After 1807, the line of James VII and II became extinct. The Jacobites had ceased to have much political significance after the failure of the 1745 uprising, and the movement essentially became completely dormant after Henry's death. Genealogically, the next most senior line to the English and Scottish thrones was through James II's youngest sister,
Henriette Anne, whose daughter had married into the
House of Savoy. To the very limited extent that Jacobitism survived the death of Cardinal York, they supported the claims of this line. Its current representative is
Franz, Duke of Bavaria, though he himself does not claim the title, his secretary having announced once that "HRM (
sic) is very content being a Prince of
Bavaria".
Simon Abney-Hastings, 15th Earl of Loudoun, (1974- ) is a modern pretender and
Australian Peer. He is purported by some to be the true king of Britain and the head of the
House of York as the senior descendant of
George Plantagenet, Duke of Clarence, who was Edward IV's brother. This is based on the assertion that Edward IV was illegitimate and that George's descendants take precedent over the descendants of Edward's eldest daughter Elizabeth who have sat on the throne since the early 16th century. He is a member of the
Abney-Hastings family and also known as
King Simon I. Abney-Hastings has rejected these claims but was invited to the coronation of
Charles III by the royal family and keeps in contact with them.
Wales Owain Glyndŵr (1349–1416) is probably the best-known Welsh pretender, though whether he was pretender or Prince of Wales depends upon one's source of information.
Llywelyn ap Gruffydd ap Llywelyn, who died in 1282, was the only Prince of Wales whose status as ruler was formally recognised by the English Crown, though three of the four men who claimed the throne of Gwynedd between the assumption of the title by
Owain Gwynedd in the 1160s and the loss of Welsh independence in 1283 also used the title or similar.
Madog ap Llywelyn also briefly used the title during
his revolt of 1294–95. Since 1301, the title of Prince of Wales has been given to 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
Arthur, 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-conferred 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 married
James IV of Scotland). The various minor kingdoms that came together to form what is today known as the
Principality of Wales each had their own royal dynasty. The most important of these realms were
Gwynedd,
Powys and
Deheubarth. After 878 the ruling dynasties in these kingdoms each claimed descent from the sons of
Rhodri Mawr who had conquered them or otherwise achieved their thrones during his reign.
Merfyn Frych, the father of Rhodri Mawr, had come to power in Gwynedd because the native dynasty, known as the
House of Cunedda had expired. Merfyn was descended from royalty through his own father Gwriad and claimed ancestors from among the rulers of British
Rheged (in particular
Llywarch Hen). It was acknowledged by all of the realms of Wales after the time of Rhodri Mawr that the House of Gwynedd (known as the
House of Aberffraw) was senior and homage should be paid by each of them to the king of Gwynedd. After the reign of
Owain ap Gruffudd of Gwynedd the realm began to merge with the concept of a
Principality of Wales. This was realised by Owain's descendant
Llywelyn ap Gruffudd in 1267. It was not to last and this new Wales was invaded by England and dismantled between 1277 and 1284. All of the descendants of Llywelyn "the last" and his brothers were either imprisoned or killed.
Irish throne 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 early Gaelic Scotland, succession to kingship was elective, often (if not usually) by contest, according to a system known as
Tanistry. The
High King of Ireland (
Ard Rí) was essentially a ceremonial, federal
overlord, who exercised actual power only within the realm which was his
dynastic seat. Because of the laws of succession, there could not be a pretender to this title in the sense it is normally understood. From the 5th century onwards the kingship tended to remain within the dynasty of the
Uí Néill until
Brian Boru of Munster wrested control of much of Ireland from
Máel Sechnaill mac Domnaill in 1002. Following his death in 1014 and that of Máel Sechnaill in 1022, the struggle for dominance resulted in Norman intervention from
Henry II of England in 1171. There were later attempts by Irish rulers fighting against the Normans to revive the High Kingship such as in 1258 when
Brian Ua Néill of Cenel Eoghan was so acknowledged, in 1262 when the crown was offered to
Haakon IV of Norway and in 1315 when an offer was made to the Scottish
Edward Bruce. Effectively, the title fell into
abeyance. Apart from the coronation oath, the title was not even used by the Kings of England, each of whom styled himself
Lord of Ireland. In 1542
Henry VIII, styled himself "King of Ireland". Some Irish rebels discussed offering the Irish throne to
Prince Joachim of Prussia (son of
Kaiser Wilhelm II) before the 1916
Easter Rising. After the failure of the Rising, the royalists were a minority among the rebels, and so the offer was never made. According to
Hugo O'Donnell, 7th Duke of Tetuan,
Éamon de Valera raised the idea of an Irish monarchy with his great-grandfather Juan O'Donnell. == American pretenders ==