My latest articles: Theodore Roosevelt at court & the last Queen of Bavaria

In the February issue of Majesty (Vol. 40, No. 2), which is out in Britain today, I continue my series on Theodore Roosevelt and the royals. In this second of three article, the former US President visits the courts of Brussels, The Hague, Copenhagen, Oslo and Stockholm, where he takes a strong dislike to one monarch, forms a lasting friendship with another and is smitten with an unhappy princess.
In the same magazine I also write about the life of Marie Therese, the last Queen of Bavaria (and Jacobite claimant to the British throne), who died 100 years ago in February 1919 while fleeing the revolution in Munich that had brought down the ancient Wittelsbach dynasty.

My latest article: 200 years of Bernadottes & the last King of Bavaria

On 5 February the Bernadottes have sat on the Swedish throne for 200 years, so in the February issue of Majesty (Vol. 39, No. 2), which was published in Britain a while ago and will be on sale in Norway tomorrow, I recount the history of this dynasty, which originated in revoltuionary and Napoleonic France, and how it has survived against the odds, including some of the occasions when it might have fallen.
In the same issue I write about a monarch who did fall: King Ludwig III of Bavaria, the cousin of the more famous "mad" King Ludwig II, who seized the crown from another mad cousin, King Otto, in 1913. Although the Bavarians were traditionally attached to their dynasty, Ludwig III was the first monarch to fall when a wave of revolutions swept across Germany in 1918, bringing to an end the 738-year rule of the House of Wittelsbach.
In the same issue there are also articles by other writers on, among other topics, the Duchess of Cambridge's jewels, the gradual transition from Queen Elizabeth of Britain to Prince Charles, the funeral of ex-King Mihai of Romania and the Royal Academy of Arts's new exhibition "Charles I: King and Collector".

My latest article: Schleissheim Palace

I have forgotten to mention that the March issue of Majesty (Vol. 38, No. 3) is now on sale. In this issue I continue my occasional series on European palaces and this time I write about Schleissheim just outside Munich, which is the site of three palaces. The largest of them is a splendid baroque palace that Elector Maximilian II Emanuel of Bavaria built to glorify the House of Wittelsbach, who held great ambitions at the time, and to commemorate his own military prowess as a commander in the wars against the Ottomans. However, his involvement in the War of the Spanish Succession not only almost cost him Bavaria as he was driven into exile, but also meant that work on the palace stood still for many years. Nevertheless the result is arguably one of Germany's most splendid palaces, which would probably have been known as "the Bavarian Versailles" were it not for the fact that "mad" King Ludwig II built a replica of Versailles further south.

My latest articles: Princess Esmeralda on her grandparents, Queen Charlotte and Ludwig II's bride

I used to post updates here about articles I write, but in the final months of work on my new book there was no time for that, but now that the book is done I will try to resume that habit, starting with the October issue of Majesty, which went on sale in Britain last Thursday and will soon reach other countries too.
In this issue (Vol. 36, No. 10, October 2015) you will find the first part of an interview I recently did with the author and climate change activist Princess Esmeralda of Belgium, the youngest daughter of King Léopold III. This time she speaks about her grandparents, King Albert I and Queen Elisabeth, who are the topic of a book she and Christophe Vachaudez co-authored last year. In the second part of the interview, which will appear in the November issue, Princess Esmeralda will talk about her father, his downfall and how he built a new life for himself after his abdication, and in the third and final part, in the December issue, she will share her memories of her controversial mother, Princess Lilian. All three parts will include several unusual photos.
In the October issue I have also written an article on Queen Charlotte of Britain, the long-suffering consort of "mad" King George III, who was often severely tested by misfortune, but who, in spite of everything, managed to maintain her sanity.
I have written no less than three articles in this issue, and the last of them deals with Duchess Sophie in Bavaria, the younger sister of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, who was engaged to the legendary, eccentric King Ludwig II of Bavaria, fell in love with a photographer, married a French Prince, was locked away in a mental asylum when she fell in love with her doctor and died a horrible death. Hers was surely one of the most dramatic and tragic of royal life stories.

My latest article: Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria

The Bavarian royal house of Wittelsbach is in my opinion one of the most interesting dynasties in history, and in the December issue of Majesty (Vol. 35, No. 12), which went on sale in Britain on Thursday, I write about the life of Crown Prince Rupprecht, the eldest son of the last King of Bavaria, who in the words of the historian Golo Mann was more suited to be king than several of his forebears. The revolution of 1918 prevented that, but the life of Rupprecht - a First World War commander who during the Second World War had to go into hiding while his family languished in concentration camps and who might have been not only King of Bavaria, but German Emperor and King of Britain - is nevertheless an interesting one.

Marianne Bernadotte speaks on radio on 90th birthday

Today is the ninetieth birthday of Countess Marianne Bernadotte af Wisborg, philantropist, actress and aunt by marriage to the King of Sweden and the Queen of Denmark. In 1961 she married as her second husband (and his third wife) the industrial designer Count Sigvard Bernadotte af Wisborg, by birth Prince of Sweden, who died in 2002.
At 1 p.m. today Marianne Bernadotte will host a so-called "summer programme" on Swedish radio, which should be available at this external link: http://sverigesradio.se/sida/avsnitt/400121?programid=2071.
It is an annual tradition that a number of more or less interesting people are invited to host such a programme between midsummer and mid-August, where they talk about topics of their own choice and play music selected by themselves.
Princess Birgitta hosted such a "summer talk" in 2009, while this year's list also contains another princess, i.e. the half-Swedish Princess Anna of Bavaria, a political journalist and biographer, who will host a programme on 28 July.

At the road’s end: Princess Irmingard of Bavaria (1923-2010)

Today the memorial service for Princess Irmingard of Bavaria takes place in the sumptuous Theatinerkirche in Munich, where generations of Wittelsbachs have been buried. Princess Irmingard, who died on 23 October aged 87, was the second child born of ex-Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria’s second marriage to Antonia of Luxembourg.
She was thus the granddaughter of the last King of Bavaria, Ludwig III, but was born (on 29 May 1923) five years after the 738-year-long reign of the Wittelsbachs in Bavaria had come to an end.
The Princess was sent to school in England in 1936, but in 1940 settled in Italy with her parents. Her father had decided to leave Germany because of his staunch opposition to Nazism, but Germany’s ally Italy was perhaps not the best choice of alternative abode.
When the Nazis failed in their search for ex-Crown Prince Rupprecht, who had gone into hiding, his daughter Irmingard was arrested in his stead in September 1944. With her mother she was eventually sent to the concentration camps Sachsenhausen, where her three sisters and eldest half-brother with his wife and children were already imprisoned.
With the Soviet army approaching the family was moved to the concentration camp Flossenbürg near Regensburg in February 1945 and from there to Dachau. They were eventually liberated by the Americans on 30 April 1945, the very day that Hitler committed suicide.
Although the family’s principal home in Munich, Palais Leuchtenberg, had been destroyed, ex-Crown Prince Rupprecht returned to his homeland, settling at Leutstetten Palace some 25 kilometres southwest of Munich. His wife, however, never again set foot in Germany and died from the after-effects of the Nazis’ treatment in 1954.
Following stays in Luxembourg and the USA Princess Irmingard eventually returned to Germany. On 22 July 1950 she married her first cousin Prince Ludwig of Bavaria at Nymphenburg Palace in Bavaria.
Following her father’ death in 1955 the couple settled at Leutstetten Palace. A son, Prince Luitpold, was born in 1951, while two daughters, Princesses Maria and Philippa, died on the days they were born in 1953 and 1954, respectively. Prince Ludwig died at the age of 95 in 2008.
As neither Duke Franz of Bavaria nor Duke Max Emanuel in Bavaria, the sons of Princess Irmingard’s elder half-brother Albrecht, has any sons the headship of the former royal house of Bavaria will eventually pass to the descendants of Princess Irmingard and Prince Ludwig.
Princess Irmingard was the author of a book of memoirs, Jugend-Erinnerungen, 1923-1950, which was published in 2000.

New books: The House of Wittelsbach

Of the many German dynasties the Wittelsbachs must count among the most fascinating and attractive. The Wittelsbachs ruled Bavaria as dukes, electors and kings for 738 years and also produced a number of other monarchs, including two emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, three Swedish kings and one queen regnant, a Greek king, 22 Palatine electors and a king of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. The strong and powerful position of this dynasty can also be read out of the fact that at one stage the Wittelsbachs held four out of the nine electoral hats of the Holy Roman Empire.
But it all ended in madness and revolution. Although one of the oldest and generally considered one of the most popular dynasties, the Bavarian monarchy was the first to be swept away in the revolutions which engulfed Germany in the autumn of 1918, an unexpected development which modern historians tend to ascribe to the gradual weakening of the Bavarian monarchy which began with the abdication of Ludwig I in 1848 and continued with the drama surrounding Ludwig II’s mysterious death in 1886 and the disregard for the principles of hereditary monarchy shown by Prince Regent Ludwig when he seized the throne from his insane cousin King Otto in 1913.
This dynasty has now been accorded its own volume in Verlag C. H. Beck’s series of short books on the history of nearly every conceivable subject. Die Wittelsbacher. Vom Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart is written by Hans-Michael Körner, professor of history at the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich.
How to sum up the history of 738 years of rule in little more than a hundred pages? The author chooses to begin with what followed the end, namely the fate of the Wittelsbachs after 1918. Few of the former royal families enjoy such a high standing in the Federal Republic of Germany as the Wittelsbachs, which Körner to a great extent ascribes to the conduct of ex-Crown Prince Rupprecht – the respect enjoyed by this prince was perhaps best symbolised by the Social Democrat Minister President Wilhelm Hoegner arranging for the royal crown of Bavaria to be brought out of the Treasury and placed on the coffin when the former Crown Prince died in 1955.
The family can with certainty be traced to the 11th century, but the real starting point of the story is 16 September 1180. On that date Palatine Count Otto of Wittelsbach was given the Duchy of Bavaria, which was made hereditary in 1208 and to which Duke Ludwig I added the Palatine county by the Rhine in 1214. In 1253 the Wittelsbach lands were divided between Otto II’s two sons (Ludwig II and Heinrich XIII) and throughout the centuries numerous other divisions of territories followed.
This makes the history of the Wittelsbach dynasty fairly complicated and intricate. Thus the author cannot possibly go into great detail as he takes the story through the centuries, but must restrict himself to the major developments and some of the most significant and interesting personalities.
It was only towards the end of the 18th century that all the Wittelsbach lands were again reunited. The death of Elector Max III Joseph in 1777 saw the end of the senior branch, the Ludovician, and transferred the electoral dignity to Karl Theodor of the Neuburg-Sulzbach line of the Rudolfian branch. 22 years later his death at the age of 75, leaving a 23-year-old widow who readily admitted that her late husband was not the father of the child she was expecting, meant that the Birkenfeld-Zweibrücken line was left as the only extant branch of the house of Wittelsbach. In 1806 Napoléon I raised Elector Max IV Joseph to the status of King of Bavaria.
The author seems to have his heart more into it as we approach modern times and this might perhaps be explained by the fact that he is also the author of Geschichte des Königreichs Bayern, which was published when Bavaria celebrated the bicentenary of the kingdom in 2006 (apparently no-one bothered to spoil the party by pointing out that the kingdom came to an end 88 years earlier). From Max I Joseph onwards to Ludwig III the personalities come more alive and we learn more about not only their personalities, but also their politics. Körner sees the end of the monarchy in 1918 in light of “an authority crisis of the system” coupled with the prolonged state of war.
This book will serve both as a summary of the history of the Wittelsbachs, but also as an introduction to one of the most interesting dynasties ever to sit on a throne. Given the limited length of the book, Hans-Michael Körner has succeeded very well in giving an insightful overview of the house that ruled Bavaria for more than seven centuries.