Morganatic marriage

Morganatic marriage, sometimes called a left-handed marriage, is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which in the context of royalty or other inherited title prevents the principal's position or privileges being passed to the spouse, or any children born of the marriage. The concept is most prevalent in German-speaking territories and countries most influenced by the customs of the German-speaking realms.

Generally, this is a marriage between a man of high birth (such as from a reigning, deposed or mediatised dynasty) and a woman of lesser status (such as a daughter of a low-ranked noble family or a commoner).Webster's Online Dictionary
. Retrieved 2008-07-10. Diesbach, Ghislain de. ''Secrets of the Gotha'' (translated from the French by Margaret Crosland). Chapman & Hall, Ltd., London, 1967. pp. 18, 25–26, 35, 179–182, 186–187. Usually, neither the bride nor any children of the marriage have a claim on the bridegroom's succession rights, titles, precedence, or entailed property. The children are considered legitimate for all other purposes and the prohibition against bigamy applies." Hugh Chisholm, editor. Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition. Volume 18. ''Morganatic Marriage''. University Press, 1911, p. 835. In some countries, a woman could also marry a man of lower rank morganatically. As a result of the above, a king deciding to enter into a morganatic marriage who does not have children from a previous marriage thereby gives up the chance of being succeeded by his own children and accepts that succession would pass to his other relatives.

German background

After World War I, the heads of both ruling and formerly reigning German dynasties initially continued the practice of rejecting dynastic titles and/or rights for descendants of "morganatic" unions, but gradually allowed them, sometimes retroactively, effectively de-morganatizing the wives and children. This was accommodated by Perthes' '' Almanach de Gotha'' (which categorised German princely families by rank until it ceased publication after 1944) by inserting the offspring of such marriages in a third section of the almanac under entries denoted by a symbol (a dot within a circle) that "signifies some princely houses which, possessing no specific princely patent, have passed from the first part, A, or from the second part into the third part in virtue of special agreements."'' Almanach de Gotha'' (Gotha: Justus Perthes, 1944), pages 43, 363–364, 529. French The '' Fürstliche Häuser'' ("Princely Houses") series of the ''Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels'' ("Genealogical Manual of the Nobility") has followed this lead, likewise enrolling some issue of unapproved marriages in its third section, "III B", with a similar explanation: "Families in this section, although verified, received no specific decree, but have been included by special agreement in the 1st and 2nd sections".''«Die in dieser Abteilung nachgewiesenen Familien besitzen kein besonderes Diplom, sondern sind nach besonderer Übereinkunft aus der 1. und 2. Abteilung übernommen worden.»'' ''Genealogisches Handbuch des Adels, Fürstliche Häuser'' XIV. C.A. Starke Verlag, 1991, p. 565. .

Variations of morganatic marriage were also practised by non-European dynasties, such as the Royal Family of Thailand, the polygamous Mongols as to their non-principal wives, and other families of Africa and Asia.

Etymology

''Morganatic'', already in use in English by 1727 (according to the ''Oxford English Dictionary''), is derived from the medieval Latin ''morganaticus'' from the Late Latin phrase ''matrimonium ad morganaticam'' and refers to the gift given by the groom to the bride on the morning after the wedding, the morning gift, i.e., dower. The Latin term, applied to a Germanic custom, was adopted from the Old High German term ''*morgangeba'' (modern German ''Morgengabe''), corresponding to Early English ''morgengifu''. The literal meaning is explained in a 16th-century passage quoted by Du Cange as, "a marriage by which the wife and the children that may be born are entitled to no share in the husband's possessions beyond the 'morning-gift'". Philological Society. A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles. ''Morganatic''. Clarendon Press, 1908. p. 663.

The ''morning gift'' has been a customary property arrangement for marriage found first in early medieval German cultures (such as the Lombards) and also among ancient Germanic tribes, and the church drove its adoption into other countries in order to improve the wife's security by this ''additional'' benefit. The bride received property from the bridegroom's clan. It was intended to ensure her livelihood in widowhood, and it was to be kept separate as the wife's discrete possession. However, when a marriage contract is made wherein the bride and the children of the marriage will not receive anything else (other than the dower) from the bridegroom or from his inheritance or clan, that sort of marriage was dubbed as "marriage with only the dower and no other inheritance", i.e., ''matrimonium morganaticum''.

Examples

Royal men who married morganatically:
* Genghis Khan followed the contemporary tradition by taking several morganatic wives in addition to his principal wife, whose property passed to their youngest son, also following tradition.
* King Erik XIV of Sweden married the servant Karin Månsdotter twice - once morganatically in 1567, and again although not morganatically in 1568.
* Ludwig Wilhelm, Duke in Bavaria and actress Henriette Mendel. She was created Baroness von Wallersee, and their daughter, Marie Louise, Countess Larisch von Moennich, was a confidante of Empress Elisabeth ("Sissi") of Austria.
* Archduke Ferdinand II of Austria, ruler of the Tirol, first married Philippine Welser, a bourgeoise of a wealthy family in 1557. Their children were given the title Margrave von Burgau, the issue of Ferdinand's second (and equal) marriage being of archducal rank and preferred for purposes of inheritance.
* Victor Emmanuel II of Italy in 1869 married morganatically his principal mistress Rosa Teresa Vercellana Guerrieri. Popularly known in Piedmontese as "Bela Rosin" (Little Rosa the Beautiful), she was born a commoner but made Countess di Mirafiori e Fontanafredda in 1858.
* Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine in 1851 married morganatically Countess Julia von Hauke. Instead of being part of the House of Hesse-Darmstadt to which their father belonged, their patrilinear descendants were created Princes of Battenberg, whose branch living in Britain later became House of Mountbatten.
* Late in his life, the widowed ex-king Fernando II of Portugal married the opera singer Elise Hensler, who was created Countess von Edla.
* In 1917, the grandson of Fernando II of Portugal, Afonso, Duke of Porto, the last Prince Royal of Portugal, married the twice-divorced American socialite Nevada Stoody Hayes.
* A list of morganatic branches of the Russian Imperial Family
* The 1900 marriage of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, whose subsequent assassination triggered World War I, to Countess Sophie Chotek von Wognin was morganatic at the insistence of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I.
* Danish astronomer and nobleman Tycho Brahe married Kirsten Jørgensdatter morganatically in 1572. He was allowed to do so because he was close friends with King Frederick II. The king was sympathetic, as he was unable to marry his love due to class differences.

Royal women who married morganatically:
* Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma (by birth an archduchess of the Imperial House of Habsburg, and by her first marriage a French empress) married morganatically twice after the death of her husband, the emperor Napoleon I. Her second husband was Count Adam Albert von Neipperg. After his death, she married Count Charles-René de Bombelles, her chamberlain, in 1834.
* Queen Maria Christina of Bourbon-Two Sicilies, regent of Spain after her husband's ( Ferdinand VII) death while their daughter, Isabella II, was a minor. She married Agustín Fernando Muñoz y Sánchez, 1st Duke of Riánsares, who was one of her guards in a secret marriage.
* Princess Stéphanie of Belgium, the widow of Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, married Count Elemér Lónyay de Nagy-Lónya et Vásáros-Namény after the death of her first husband. In 1917, Emperor Charles I of Austria conferred upon Lónyay a non-dynastic title of Prince ('' Fürst'').

History

Denmark

Succession to the Danish throne followed the specifications of the '' Lex Regia'' until the Danish Act of Succession was passed in 1953. Prominent morganatic marriages include the 1615 marriage of King Christian IV of Denmark to noblewoman Kirsten Munk. Kirsten was titled "Countess of Schleswig-Holstein" and bore the King 12 children, all styled "Count/Countess of Schleswig-Holstein". King Frederick VII married the ballerina Louise Rasmussen, who was raised to the rank of "Countess Danner" in 1850. There were no children of this marriage. When Christian IX of Denmark's brother, Prince Julius of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg married Elisabeth von Ziegesar in 1883, the king granted her the title "Countess af Røst".

Until 1971, Danish princes who married women who did not belong to a royal or noble family were refused the sovereign's authorization, renouncing their right of succession to the throne and royal title ( Prince Aage of Denmark morganatically eloped with Matilda Calvi, daughter of Count Carlo Giorgio di Bergolo, in January 1914 but renounced his dynastic rights and titles subsequently). They were granted the non-royal prefix of "Prince" and their descendants bear the title Count af Rosenborg in the Danish nobility.

Neither of the children of Queen Margrethe II has married a person of either royal birth or of the titled aristocracy. Members of the Royal Family may still lose their place in the line of succession for themselves and their descendants if they marry without the monarch's permission.

France

Morganatic marriage was not recognized as a concept in French law.de Montjouvent, Philippe. Le comte de Paris et sa descendance. ''Introduction sur la Maison royale de France''. Du Chaney Eds, Paris, 1998, p. 11. French. . Since the law did not distinguish, for marital purposes, between ruler and subjects, marriages between royalty and the noble heiresses to great fiefs became the norm through the 16th century, helping to aggrandize the House of Capet while gradually diminishing the number of large domains held in theoretical vassalage by nobles who were, in practice, virtually independent of the French crown: by the marriage of Catherine de' Medici to the future King Henry II in 1533, the last of these provinces, the county of Auvergne, came to the crown of France.

Antiquity of nobility in the legitimate male line, not noble quarterings, was the main criterion of rank in the ''ancien régime''.de la Roque, Gilles-Andre. Traite de la Noblesse.
Du Gentilhomme de nom et d'armes
'. Etienne Michalet, Paris, 1678, pp. 5, 8-10. Unlike the status of a British peer's wife and descendants (yet typical of the nobility of every continental European country), the legitimate children and male-line descendants of any French nobleman (whether titled or not, whether possessing a French peerage or not) were also legally noble ''ad infinitum''. Rank was not based on hereditary titles, which were often assumed or acquired by purchase of a noble estate rather than granted by the Crown. Rather, the main determinant of relative rank among the French nobility was how far back the nobility of a family's male line could be verifiably traced. Other factors influencing rank included the family's history of military command, high-ranking offices held at court and marriages into other high-ranking families. A specific exception was made for bearers of the title of duke who, regardless of their origin, outranked all other nobles. But the ducal title in post-medieval France (even when embellished with the still higher status of "peer") ranked its holder and his family among France's nobility and not, as in Germany and Scandinavia (and, occasionally, Italy, viz. Savoy, Medici, Este, della Rovere, Farnese and Cybo-Malaspina) among Europe's reigning dynasties which habitually intermarried with one another.

Once the Bourbons inherited the throne of France from the House of Valois in 1589, their dynasts married daughters of even the oldest ducal families of France — let alone noblewomen of lower rank — quite rarely (viz., Anne de Montafié in 1601, Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency in 1609 and, in exile from revolutionary France, Maria Caterina Brignole in 1798). Exceptions were made for equal royal intermarriage with the '' princes étrangers'' and, by royal command, with the so-called '' princes légitimés'' (i.e., out-of-wedlock but legitimised descendants of Henry IV and Louis XIV), as well as with the nieces of Cardinal-prime ministers (i.e., Richelieu, Mazarin). Just as the French king could authorize a royal marriage that would otherwise have been deemed unsuitable, by 1635 it had been established by Louis XIII that the king could also legally void the canonically valid, equal marriage of a French dynast to which he had not given consent (e.g., Marguerite of Lorraine, Duchess of Orléans).Blet, Pierre. Le Clergé de France et la Monarchie, Etude sur les Assemblées Générales du Clergé de 1615 à 1666. Université Grégorienne, Rome, 1959, pp. 399-439.Degert, (Abbé). "Le mariage de Gaston d'Orléans et de Marguerite de Lorraine," ''Revue Historique'' 143:161-80, 144:1-57. French.

Moreover, there was a French practice, legally distinct from morganatic marriage but used in similar situations of inequality in status between a member of the royal family and a spouse of lower rank: an "openly secret" marriage. French kings authorized such marriages only when the bride was past child-bearing or the marrying prince already had dynastic heirs by a previous spouse of royal descent. The marriage ceremony took place without banns, in private (with only a priest, the bride and groom, and a few legal witnesses present), and the marriage was never officially acknowledged (although sometimes widely known). Thus, the wife never publicly shared in her husband's titles, rank, or coat of arms.Pothier, Robert. Traité des successions, Chapitre I, section I, article 3, § 4. French. The lower-ranked spouse, male or female, could only receive from the royal spouse what property the king allowed.

In secret marriage, Louis XIV wed his second wife, Madame de Maintenon, in 1683 (she was nearly 50, so no children were likely); Louis the Grand Dauphin wed Marie Émilie de Joly de Choin in 1695; Anne Marie d'Orléans ('' La Grande Mademoiselle'') wed Antoine, Duke de Lauzun in 1682; and Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans wed the Marquise de Montesson in 1773. The mechanism of the "secret marriage" rendered it unnecessary for France to legislate the morganatic marriage ''per se''. Within post-monarchical dynasties, until the end of the 20th century the heads of the Spanish and Italian Bourbon branches, the Orléans of both France and Brazil, and the Imperial Bonapartes have, in exile, exercised claimed authority to exclude from their dynasty descendants born of unapproved marriages — albeit without calling these marriages "morganatic".

German-speaking Europe

The practice of morganatic marriage was most common in the German-speaking parts of Europe, where equality of birth (''Ebenbürtigkeit'') between the spouses was considered an important principle among the reigning houses and high nobility. The German name was ''Ehe zur linken Hand'' ("marriage by the left hand") and the husband gave his left hand during the wedding ceremony instead of the right.

Perhaps the most famous example in modern times was the 1900 marriage of the heir to the throne of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand, and Bohemian aristocrat Countess Sophie Chotek von Chotkowa. The marriage was initially resisted by Emperor Franz Joseph I, but after pressure from family members and other European rulers, he relented in 1899 (but did not attend the wedding himself). The bride was made Princess (later Duchess) of Hohenberg, their children took their mother's new name and rank, but were excluded from the imperial succession. The Sarajevo assassination in 1914, killing both the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie, triggered the First World War.

Although the issue of morganatic marriages were ineligible to succeed to their families' respective thrones, children of morganatic marriages have gone on to achieve dynastic success elsewhere in Europe. Descendants of the 1851 marriage of Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine to the German-Polish noblewoman Countess Julia von Hauke (created Princess of Battenberg) include Alexander, sovereign prince of Bulgaria, queen-consorts of Spain ( Victoria Eugenie of Battenberg) and of Sweden ( Louise Mountbatten), and, in the female line, Charles III (through his paternal grandmother, Alice of Battenberg).

Likewise, from the morganatic marriage of Duke Alexander of Württemberg and Countess Claudine Rhédey von Kis-Rhéde (created Countess von Hohenstein) descends Mary of Teck, who became Britain's queen in 1911 as the consort of King George V.

Occasionally, children of morganatic marriages have overcome their non-dynastic origins and succeeded to their family's realms. Margrave Leopold inherited the throne of Baden, despite being born of a morganatic marriage, after all dynastic males of the House of Zähringen died out. The son of Charles Frederick, Grand Duke of Baden, by his second wife Louise Caroline Geyer von Geyersberg, who belonged to the minor nobility, Leopold became a prince in 1817, at the age of 27, as the result of a new law of succession. Baden's grand-ducal family faced extinction, so Leopold was enfranchised by international treaty and married to a princess, ascending the throne in 1830. His descendants ruled the grand duchy until the abolition of the monarchy in 1918.

Other reigning German families adopted similar approaches when facing a lack of male heirs. In 1896 the Princely House of Schwarzburg, with the Sondershausen branch numbering two elderly childless princes and Rudolstadt just one childless prince, recognised Prince Sizzo von Leutenberg, morganatic son of Friedrich Günther, Prince of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, as a Prince of Schwarzburg and heir to the two principalities.

The senior line of the dynasty ruling the Principality of Lippe was bordering on extinction as the 20th century approached, prompting a succession dispute between the Lippe-Biesterfeld and Schaumburg-Lippe branches of the dynasty which evoked international intervention and troop movements. It centered on whether some ancestresses of the Biesterfeld branch had been legally dynastic; if so, that line stood next to inherit the princely crown according to primogeniture. If not, the Biesterfelds would be deemed morganatic and the Schaumburg-Lippes would inherit the throne. Lippe's Parliament was blocked from voting on the matter by the German Empire's '' Reichstag'', which instead created a panel of jurists selected by the King of Saxony to evaluate the evidence concerning the historical marital rules of the House of Lippe and render a decision in the matter, all parties agreeing to abide by their judgment. In 1897 and 1905 panels ruled in favour of the dynasticity of the challenged ancestresses and their descendants, largely because, although neither had been of dynastic rank, the Lippes had historically accepted such marriages for the junior lines when approved by the Head of House." Hugh Chisholm, editor. Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition. Volume 16. ''Lippe''. University Press, 1911, pp. 740-741.Velde, Francois. Heraldica.org.
The 1895-1905 Succession Dispute
'' 2 December 2005. Retrieved 2012/5/2.

In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a few families considered in Germany to be morganatic were considered for crowns elsewhere, constituting unexpected rehabilitation of their status. The first of these was Prince Alexander of Battenberg, who in 1877 was agreed upon by the Great Powers as the best candidate for the new throne of Bulgaria. He was, however, unable to hold onto his crown, and was also unable to obtain the hand in marriage of Princess Viktoria of Prussia despite the efforts of her imperial mother and grandmother.

Wilhelm, Duke of Urach (1864–1928), whose father was the morganatic son of a Württemberg prince, had the distinction of being under consideration for the crowns of five realms at different times: that of the Kingdom of Württemberg in the 1890s, as the senior agnate by primogeniture when it became likely that King William II would die without male descendants, leaving as heir Duke Albrecht of Württemberg, a more distantly related, albeit dynastic, royal kinsman; the Principality of Albania in 1913; the Principality of Monaco at turn of the 20th century, as the next heir by proximity of blood following the Hereditary Prince Louis, until the Monaco succession crisis of 1918 was resolved as the First World War ended; the prospective Grand Duchy of Alsace-Lorraine in 1917; and his abortive election by the '' Taryba'' as King Mindaugas II of Lithuania in July 1918. In the event, Duke Wilhelm obtained none of these thrones.

Relying upon the '' Almanach de Gotha'' to gazette dynastic events, Germany's deposed heads of state continued to notify its editors of changes in family members' status and traditional titles. In 1919 the morganatic wife and children of Prince Oskar of Prussia, the counts and countesses von Ruppin, were upgraded to princes and princesses of Prussia by the exiled Kaiser Wilhelm II. In 1928 Georg, Count von Carlow, morganatic son of Duke George Alexander of Mecklenburg and commoner Natalia Vanljarskaya, became a duke of Mecklenburg and heir to his uncle Duke Charles Michael. In 1949, and again in 1999, various morganatic members of the Bavarian Royal House were recognised as princes and princesses of Bavaria, with the current head of the house, Franz, Duke of Bavaria, being among the beneficiaries of his father's ruling, having been born of a marriage initially deemed morganatic.de Badts de Cugnac, Chantal. Coutant de Saisseval, Guy. ''Le Petit Gotha''. Nouvelle Imprimerie Laballery, Paris 2002, p. 37 (French)

In the former Royal Family of Saxony Maria Emanuel, Margrave of Meissen adopted and designated as his heir his nephew Alexander de Afif, thus bypassing his agnatic cousin's morganatic son, Prince Rüdiger of Saxony, and his three sons.

Luxembourg

When the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg found itself without a male heir at the beginning of the 20th century, the morganatic counts von Merenberg proposed themselves as heirs, being the last legitimate descendants in the male line of the House of Nassau. Grand Duke William IV, however, chose to confirm the law of succession stipulated in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna to allow a female descendant in the Nassau male line to become successor to the throne (his own daughter Marie-Adélaïde) instead.Velde, Francois. Heraldica.org.
Succession in Nassau and Luxemburg
'. 22 June 2011. Retrieved 2012/5/2.

Russia

Paul I of Russia promulgated a strict new house law for Russia in 1797, eliminating the sovereign's right to designate the heir to the throne, but requiring that dynasts be born of authorized marriages.Beeche, Arturo. ''The Grand Dukes.'
Eurohistory.com
, Berkeley, California, 2010. pp. vi-x, 24, 158. . In 1820 a new law also stipulated that only children of Romanovs born of marriages with persons of equal status, i.e., members of a "royal or sovereign family", could transmit succession rights and titles to descendants. Alexander III forbade Romanov morganatic marriages altogether by issuance of '' ukase'' #5868 on 24 March 1889 amending article #63 of the Statute on the Imperial Family in the Pauline laws. By ''ukase'' #35731, dated 11 August 1911, Nicholas II amended the amendment, reducing application of this restriction from al