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Michael I, Tsar of All Russia, the first ruler of the House of Romanov; Credit – Wikipedia
July 12, 1122 – Death of Sybilla of Normandy, Queen of Scots, illegitimate daughter of King Henry I of England, wife of Alexander I, King of Scots, on the Isle of Loch Tay, north of Kenmore, in Perthshire in the Highlands of Scotland; buried at the priory on the Isle of Loch Tay
July 12, 1472 – Wedding of King Richard III of England and Anne Neville, daughter of Richard Neville, Earl of Warwick (date uncertain, no source for the place)
Richard married Anne Neville. Anne’s father, Richard Neville, 16th Earl of Warwick, the Kingmaker, had switched his allegiance from the House of York to the House of Lancaster during the Wars of the Roses, and he had arranged for Anne to marry King Henry VI’s only child, Edward of Westminster, Prince of Wales to seal his allegiance with the Lancasters. Edward died at the Battle of Tewkesbury on May 4, 1471, and Warwick died at the Battle of Barnet on April 14, 1471. Anne’s elder sister Isabella had married Richard’s brother George, Duke of Clarence three years earlier. These marriages caused a rift between the two brothers because George wanted all of Warwick’s estate for himself. Richard and Anne had one child, Edward of Middleham, born about December 1473 at Middleham Castle. Edward was a sickly child and spent most of his time at Middleham Castle and died when he was ten years old.
Unofficial Royalty: King Richard III of England
Unofficial Royalty: Anne Neville, Queen of England
July 12, 1543 – Wedding of King Henry VIII of England and Catherine Parr, his sixth wife, at Hampton Court Palace in Richmond, England
Catherine used her friendship with the late Catherine of Aragon to renew her friendship with Catherine’s daughter Mary (later Queen Mary I), and obtained a place in Mary’s household. A widow for the second time, 31-year-old Catherine fell in love with Thomas Seymour, brother of Henry VIII’s late third wife Jane Seymour, and the two hoped to marry. However, Henry VIII began to show an interest in Catherine and she felt it was her duty to choose Henry’s proposal of marriage over Thomas Seymour’s. Seymour was appointed an ambassador to the Netherlands to get him out of England. After Henry’s death, Catherine finally married Thomas Seymour. However, their marriage lasted only one year. In August 1548, Catherine and Seymour had a daughter, but tragically Catherine died of puerperal fever (childbed fever). Her daughter Mary Seymour appears to have died young.
Unofficial Royalty: Catherine Parr, Queen of England
Unofficial Royalty: King Henry VIII of England
July 12, 1596 – Birth of Michael I, Tsar of All Russia, the first ruler of the House of Romanov, in Moscow, Russia
In 1613, 16-year-old Michael became the first ruler of the House of Romanov when he was elected Tsar of All Russia by the Russian nobility. The nobles had rejected several other candidates, and Michael then became the consensus candidate. His ties to his great-aunt Tsaritsa Anastasia, first wife of Tsar Ivan IV (the Terrible, and his grandfather Nikita Romanovich, a general, statesman, and courtier, made him popular with the Russian people and he had no ties to the noble families whose feuds had caused many problems. On July 22, 1613, in the Assumption Cathedral at the Moscow Kremlin, Michael’s coronation was held and the new ruling Romanov dynasty was founded.
Unofficial Royalty: Michael I, Tsar of All Russia
July 12, 1645 – Death of Michael I, Tsar of All Russia in Moscow, Russia; buried at Archangel Cathedral at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia
Michael had a horse accident when he was younger and the results of that injury plagued him for the rest of his life. By the time he was 30 years old, he was often carried around in an armchair. Michael I, Tsar of All Russia died at the age of 49 and was buried in the Archangel Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin where many of the earlier rulers of Russia were buried. His wife Eudoxia Lukyanovna Streshneva survived him by only a few weeks, dying on August 18, 1645.
Unofficial Royalty: Michael I, Tsar of All Russia
July 12, 1651 – Birth of Margarita Teresa of Spain, Holy Roman Empress, the first of the three wives of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor, at the Royal Alcazar in Madrid, Spain
Margarita Teresa was both first cousin and niece of her husband Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. Margarita Teresa and Leopold had four children but only one survived to adulthood. Weakened from six pregnancies in six years (four living childbirths and two miscarriages), and four months into her seventh pregnancy, Margarita Teresa died on March 12, 1673, at the age of 21, and was buried in the Imperial Crypt at the Capuchin Church in Vienna.
Unofficial Royalty: Margarita Teresa of Spain, Holy Roman Empress (article coming soon)
July 12, 1663 – Birth of James Stuart, Duke of Cambridge, son of King James II of England, at St. James Palace in London, England
James, the second son of James, Duke of York (later James II) and his first wife Anne Hyde. Little James fell ill in April 1667 and died on June 20, 1667. He was buried in Westminster Abbey.
Unofficial Royalty: James Stuart, Duke of Cambridge
July 12, 1692 – Birth of Princess Maria Gabriele of Liechtenstein, the third cousin and first of the four wives of Josef Johann Adam, Prince of Liechtenstein, in Vienna, Archduchy of Austria, now in Austria
Maria Gabriele was the daughter of Hans-Adam I, the sovereign Prince of Liechtenstein who reigned 1684 – 1712. On December 1, 1712, in Vienna, twenty-year-old Maria Gabriele married twenty-two-year-old Josef Johann Adam, who became the sovereign Prince of Liechtenstein in 1721, after Maria Gabriele’s death. Sadly, after only eleven months of marriage, Maria Gabriele, aged twenty-one, died due to childbirth complications on November 7, 1713, while giving birth to her only child Prince Karl Anton of Liechtenstein who died in 1715.
Unofficial Royalty: The Four Wives of Josef Johann Adam, Prince of Liechtenstein (coming soon)
July 12, 1856 – Birth of Archduchess Gisela of Austria, daughter of Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria, in Laxenburg, Lower Austria, Austrian Empire, the summer retreat of the Habsburgs
Full name: Gisela Louise Marie
In April 1873, Gisela married her second cousin Prince Leopold of Bavaria, son of Prince Regent Luitpold of Bavaria and Archduchess Augusta of Austria. On September 10, 1898, Gisela’s mother Empress Elisabeth was assassinated when she was stabbed in the heart by the Italian anarchist Luigi Lucheni in Geneva, Switzerland. After her mother’s death, Gisela received 40% of her mother’s monetary assets and Achilleion Palace which her mother had built on the Greek island of Corfu to escape life at court
Unofficial Royalty: Archduchess Gisela of Austria, Princess of Bavaria
July 12, 1870 – Birth of Louis II, Prince of Monaco, at the home of his widowed maternal grandmother, born Princess Marie Amelie of Baden, in Baden-Baden, Grand Duchy of Baden, now in Baden-Württemberg, Germany
Full name: Louis Honoré Charles Antoine
Louis was the only child of Prince Albert I of Monaco and Lady Mary Victoria Hamilton, daughter of William Hamilton, 11th Duke of Hamilton and Princess Marie of Baden. Shortly after his birth, his mother left her husband and took Louis to the Grand Duchy of Baden where he was raised until the age of 11. At that point, he returned to Monaco to begin preparing for his future royal role. Prince Louis was the grandfather of Prince Rainier III, who succeeded him.
Unofficial Royalty: Louis II, Prince of Monaco
July 12, 1905 – Birth of Prince John of the United Kingdom, youngest son of King George V of the United Kingdom, at York Cottage on the Sandringham Estate in Sandringham, England
Full name: John Charles Francis
For the first four years of his life, John appeared healthy, but at the age of four he suffered his first epileptic seizure, and his condition gradually worsened. Besides epilepsy, it is quite possible that John also had a mild form of autism. A household was set up for John at Wood Farm on the Sandringham Estate and John lived there under the care of his nanny Charlotte Bill who was called Lala, and several other staff members. A young girl named Winifred Thomas, who suffered from asthma and had been sent to the country to live with her aunt and uncle, was John’s companion. Winifred visited John nearly every day and the two went on walks and took care of the garden. Later in life, Winifred recounted John’s excitement at watching zeppelins passing over Sandringham in 1916 and his pleasure in meeting ‘a real, live soldier’, her father Sergeant Frederick Thomas who visited that same year. She also remembered his mother Queen Mary as a loving and interested parent who spent a lot of time with her son. John’s grandmother Queen Alexandra also visited him often.
Unofficial Royalty: Prince John of the United Kingdom
July 12, 1959 – Birth of King Tupou VI of Tonga at the Royal Palace in Nukuʻalofa, Tonga
King Tupou VI of Tonga is the current King of Tonga. He became king upon the death of his elder brother King George Tupou V on March 18, 2012. King Tupou VI and his wife Queen Nanasipau’u were crowned in a ceremony conducted at Centenary Church in Nuku’alofa, Tonga on July 4, 2015. Many international guests attended and an estimated 15,000 people lined the roads.
Unofficial Royalty: King Tupou VI of Tonga
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