Unknowns Who Claim the Thrones of the World

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 122, 19 November 1932, Page 18

Unknowns Who Claim the Thrones of the World

■ There has never' been" any- lack of ■obliging people who are" ready .to fill any; thrones that may happen, to empty at,the moment. Of lato jfears there have been three claimants to the' of the British Empire. One of these lives in the United States and calls himself by the name of "George of Windsor." At intervals he issues

proclamations to his neglectful subjects, beginning, as proclamations should, with • the royal "we." Up to the present the exile has not succeeded in having his claims recognised, nor has he made any very vigorous attempts to press them. Every now a^nd again some enterprising/reporter rediscovers the pretender and; his arguments for his right to the British Throne furnish some amusing "copy." Since the war nothing has' been heard • of the Stuart descendant who was re- . cognised by fervent Jacobites as ' "Queen' Mary 111 of Great Britain and ■Ireland," although she- was a member of the. Bavarian. Royal Family, says a London paper. . .< The devoted adherents of the House of Stuart refuse to , recognise' the "Divine right" of the present monarch, and at their gatherings the "rightful heir" to the throne is toasted with all appropriate ceremony, and as long as it "pleases them it certainly does nfc hurt anybody else, for all that the adherents of "Queen Mary III" do is to dress in picturesque raiment and make speeches. Perhaps the third claimant mentioned las passed away from these scones, for she has not been heard of for many years, and even if alive must be a very aged woman. For a long time she haunted lawyers? offices with her claiqi to be descended from the Duke of Cum-. berland and to have a better right to the throne of these realms than.Queen Victoria.' Many prominent people examined her documents, which were voluminous and interesting, , but few seemed to believe her claims to be unassailable. At last she disappeared from the public eye, but whether she was an impudent impostor or a genuine ■believer in her own claims has never been settled.

There is living in Twickenham, in Middlesex, which is a favourite ha"unt of exiled royalty, a middle-aged man 'who has been heard to say-that he is in the direct succession to the throne of France. The Orleans branch are the present "royal family," but this Twickenham - dweller claims precedence, as the direct descendant of the other branch, the Capets.

Students of history will remember that Louis XVI and his Queen, Marie Antoinette, were guillotined during the French Revolution. Imprisoned with them in the Temple was their only son, the Dauphin. The lad was supposed to have succumbed to the rigours of his imprisonment, buf this may not be so. According to the Twickenham resident, the Dauphin was rescued by some devoted Boyalists and conveyed se'eretly_ to' the coast. There he and his friends went aboard a' fishing vessel, which bore them to the shores of Essex. The heir to the French, throne is supposed to have been married to the daughter of an Essex farmer and to have founded a family. He died a supposed Englishman, having shortened his name to «' Cappa.'' This is the story told by the claimant at Twickenham,/who is undoubtedly the great-grandson of the man who was called Cappa. But whether this said Cappa wasactually Louis Capet, legitimate King of France, is the point which has to be cleared up. In France there still lives a bearded man who lays claim, to the throne of Spain, and looks upon ex-King Alfonso as an upstart.

Thousands of loyal Hungarians are longing.for the enthronement of the young Archduke Otto, hope of the. Haps-bui-gs. At present he lives with his" widowed mother, the ex-Empress Zita, in the Castle of Steenackerzl, in Belgium. '' \ .. But perhaps the oldest claim of all is that of a London resident to the throne of Monaco. This tiny principality is only eight miles square in extent, and has a native population of 23,000. But its reigning family is of incredible antiquity.