Bytor

Monthly Donor
This is part of the "research" process for new TL that I am developing based on a different outcome to Great Northern War. Because it has a successful and surviving Charles XII of Sweden and possibly also Charles III of Austria as King of Spain, I've decided to call it "Charles in Charge". (Bonus points for those who get the joke without looking it up.)

In 1700 after decisively defeating Peter the Great at Narva in Swedish Ingria, Charles XII of Sweden decides to wait until summer and break the siege by Augustus II of Saxony at Riga, continues to focus on the Saxons and control of Poland-Lithuania. Russia was able to rest up and rearm and, after a few more but not as bad losses, their manpower let them win with the title turning at Poltava in 1709.

But there are accounts saying that some of Charles' generals urged him to take out Peter the Great in 1700 since they were utterly devastated after the first Narva confrontation, losing all their canons and military supplies to the Swedes. So imagine if this happens:
  • Peter the Great had left a couple of days before the battle, claiming responsibilities in Moscow
  • 30 November 1700, Charles XII defeats the Russian army, capturing their equipment, and the Russians beak and run
  • It's a blustery winter but the Swedes both before and after this show the ability to carry out and win winter wars against forces twice as large, so Charles XII has his army follow the Russians
  • Peter the Great has only made it to Novogorod and the Swedes catch him there forcing a battle on 7 December 1700
  • In the ensuing massacre, Peter the Great is killed by one of his own cannons while trying to escape to Tver
  • The Boyar Duma of Russia sets up a hasty regency for 10 year old Tsarevich Alexei Petreyevich and sign a treaty repudiating the alliance with Saxony and are forced to give up Pskov
  • The Boyars immediately set to squabbling, about the only thing they can agree on is reversing many of Peter the Great's unpopular modernisatons and increasing their own fiefs powers at the expense of the Tsardom
  • Charles XII turns back towards Poland and crosses the Düna then June 1701
  • The Polish-Lithuanian campaign goes pretty much as it did OTL, but perhaps slightly quicker without Russian help
  • Charles XII gets Stanislaw I placed on the throne, forces the Saxon surrender with the Treaty of Altranstädt in 1706
  • In late 1706, a Boyar faction attacks Pskov, trying to get more power in advance of Tsarevich Alexei reaching his majority next year, and they manage to get help from the remnants of the Sandomierz Confederation that had been on the Saxon side
  • Charles XII thrashes Novgorod, takes Tver and advances on Moscow in the spring of 1707 while Stanislaw I attacks the Cossacks in the south
  • Ivan Mazepa breaks from the Russians because the Boyars refuse help support the Cossack lands so he switches sides and the Cossack host marches nor with the Polish-Lithuanian army to support the siege of Moscow
  • Tsarevich Alexei, realizing that he will not live long if the wrong Boyar faction come out on top after war with Sweden and Poland-Lithuania, tries to flee to Siberia but is captured by Swedish troops
  • Tsarevich Alexei is sent to Stockholm as a hostage
  • With a final attack in the summer of 1707, Charles XII, Stanislaw I and Ivan break Moscow's defenses and force the Boyars to surrender
  • Sweden annexes Novgorod, nullifies the Cossack Russian treaties and the Boyars fall into civil war when the occupying forces leave
  • Charles XII helps Stanislaw I clean it the last of the Sandomierz and the force through the Sejm the reforms that Stanislaw I wrote about in his OTL exile in France

It's now late 1707, Poland-Lithuania is stable with reforms in government and is remaking it's army along Swedish lines. Sweden is stable and slightly enlarged with Pskov and Veliky Novgorod. Cossack Land (Ukraine OTL) is getting Polonised rathe rthan Russified. Russia collapses in a civil war, is cut off from the west and fractures into principalities and is a neutered backwater for a generation or more.

What does Charles XII do from now on? To make this doubly "Charles in charge", can his Anglo-Dutch supporters from the Humbelbæk get him and Poland-Lithuania to intervene in the Spanish War of Succession and end up with the Habsburg Charles III on the Spanish throne instead of Philip V?

Also, if Charles III becomes King of Spain, who takes his place as the Austrian head honcho and Holy Roman Emperor? Presumably that person has a male heir so there's no War of Austrian Succession, nor, with Stanislaw I stably on the throne of Poland, is there a Polish succession crisis in the 1730s.

Where do we go from here?
 

VVD0D95

Banned
I imagine this could lead to Joseph I having a surviving male heir thus negating the need for anyone outside the habsburgs familt to take the empire
 

Bytor

Monthly Donor
OK, so skipping the details about the Spanish War of Succession with Swedish and Polish input for now, let's just say the following happens:

During the War of Spanish Succession, Charles XII begins to hear hear stories filtered through his generals of the British and Dutch ship captains' trade with the New World and the East Indies and he becomes convinced that Sweden needed to expand its navy beyond the Baltic Sea.

To this end, he marries princess Sophia Hedwig of Denmark in the hopes of reducing or nullifying the Sound Toll for Swedish product going through the Øresund on non-Swedish ships but the Danes are intractable. Thus Gothenburg, started by Gustavus Adlophus a hundred years before, becomes his goal. Nominally Swedish ships built in Gothenburg from local timber but paid for and by crewed by Dutch and Scottish companies start exporting products from Livonia, Ingria, Pskov, Finland and Novgorod, plus importing in the reverse direction. Being nominally Swedish they use Sweden's exemption from the Danish Sound Tax under the Copenhagen Treaty of 1660 whenever they cannot stay close to the Swedish Coast and away from the Danish fort of Helsingør and its guns. Even though Sweden collects their own tolls, they are less than the Danish tolls so Dutch and British commerce begins to preferentially use the convenience of the Swedish flag.

This angers the Danish crown, who depend upon the tolls paid by the Dutch and British ships for much of their income. When Denmark announces that as of January 1st, 1718 they are rescinding Sweden's exemption from the Sound Toll, Charles XII declares this an abrogation of the Treaty of Travendal in 1700 which committed Denmark to upholding all previous Dano-Swedish treaties and demands that the exmption be reinstated. The Dutch- and British-owned ships flying under the Swedish flag continue to stick close to the Swedish coast to avoid the toll. On March 7th a Scottish-crewed ship is sunk by the Danish at Helsingør but some crew make it to Helsingborg in Sweden and on the 9th Charles XII declares war and requests the Travendal guarantors swift action in support. First the Swedish Navy, which has been built up over the last decade and trained by Dutch and British captains, only ferries troops into northern Jutland as well as backing up their Holstein-Gottop allies who attack from the south, but on November the 1st the bombardment of Copenhagen begins after all Holstein and much of Jutland and Schleswig were under Swedish control. It, however is just a distraction as Charles XII shows once again his military brilliance by sailing from Gothenburg up the Frederikssund and disgorging his army in Roskilde on November the 2nd. Because the Danes are expecting the Swedish attack to come from across the Øresund from behind the bombardment, Charles XII's "attack from behind" is a near complete surprise resulting in the collapse of the Danish forces.

Frederick IV of Denmark and his family escape in the confusion past the Swedish troops and attempt to make it to Iceland by sea. The ship's rigging is damaged by a lucky cannon shot at night but still manages to escape to the North Sea. There, they encounter a British Naval vessel which offers to help guide them to Edinburgh after they claim they are a Swedish trade ship beset upon by Danes. Several of the British sailors, though, had worked on merchant ships run out of Gothenburg and knew the difference between Danish and Swedish accents and alerted their officers. The British, as guarantors of Travendal, had been looking for something like this once it had become apparent that the Danish royal family had disappeared. The ship is escorted to Edinburgh, supposedly as teh British ship was heading there themselves for resupply and would be more than happy to make sure the Swedish ship with its damaged rigging would get their since they had though their were closing in on London. When the two ships arrived at Edinburgh, the royal family was confronted and placed "under diplomatic protection" before eventually ending up in the Tower of London palace.

Meanwhile, Charles XII clais the throne of Denmark through his mother, Ulrike Eleonara, who was the daughter of Frederick III of Denmark and aunt to Frederick IV. When the diplomatic arrest of the Danish royal family is made known a month later, Charles demands that the Travendal guarantors uphold his claim to the Danish throne as the closest male relative after Frederick's brother, the withdrawn bachelor Prince Charles, who escaped with his brother's household.

The United Provinces upholds Charles XII's claim to the Danish throne for commercial reasons and George I of Great Britain follows suit after Charles XII promises a stipend for Frederick IV's family if they renounce all claims to the Danish throne. Frederick IV holds out hope for return into 1720 as sporadic fighting continues to erupt across Jutland but the peace slowly returns after Charles XII extends the taxation and legal reforms he implemented in Sweden to Denmark and Norway, which are well received.

On finally receiving word of Frederick IV's capitulation in June of 1720, Charles XII is crowned as "King of Sweden, Denmark and Norway, Grand Prince of Finland, Duke of Ingria, Estonia, Livonia, Schleswig, Holstein and Pomerania, Duke of Bremen and Verden, Prince Duke of Pskov and Novgorod" on July 1st, 1720, in Stockholm, and over the next six months in the local capitals of each of those realms.
 
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Bytor

Monthly Donor
I'm thinking I might retcon the Danish conquest into just a defeat because the Maritime Powers are a bit wary of the Baltic turning into a Swedish lake and forbidding Charles XII from crowning himself king of Denmark. Danish conquest isn't essential to the future of the ATL, but it does make some things easier if the Swedes are getting a decent amount of money from the Sound Tolls.

Any thoughts on a balance between the Danes and the Swedes that gets the Swedes out from under the Sound Tolls but in away that reduces any unease the Maritime Powers may have?
 

Bytor

Monthly Donor
After significant delay, for which I apologize, I have come up with "Charles In Charge - The Southern Theatre" detailing the in the War of the Spanish Succession after Charles XII and Sweden win the Great Northern War.

But first, i will recap the Northern Theatre in prose rather than point form.
 

Bytor

Monthly Donor
Charles In Charge

The Northern Theatre


In early March, 1700, Frederick IV, King of Denmark, Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland, and Tsar Peter of Russia decide that it was time to carry out their secret treaty to partition the Swedish empire amongst themselves. Because Sweden's king, Charles XII, was only 17 they expect no major problems to stand in their way.


Denmark lays siege to Tönning in Holstein-Gottorp, and ally of the Swedes while simultaneously a Saxon army marches through Poland and lays siege to Riga in Swedish Livonia. To the surprise of Frederick IV, Charles XII deploys his army directly to Copenhagen and with the help of the British and Dutch fleets bombards the city for 6 days in late July. This surprise attack pushes the Danes out of the anti-Sweden entente with Saxony and Russia as they are made to repudiate the agreement in a treaty signed at Traventhal.


Charles XII then rushes an army to the other side of the Baltic Sea to deal with Augustus II, but by the time he has sufficient forces in the area the Saxe-Polish army has gone to winter quarters south of the Düna river and the Russian Army, about to lay siege to the city of Narva farther east, is the more immediate threat. As a blizzard envelopes the area, Charles XII executes a daring pincer attack on the Russian army which outnumbers his own by four to one. The poorly trained Russian recruits are demoralised by the attack and the chaotic stampede in retreat results in more losses for the Russian army than actual combat. The Swedish troops capture all of the enemy cannons as well as the bulk of their supplies leaving the remaining Russian army virtually defenseless without equipment.


Charles XII learns that Tsar Peter had only left the siege a day or two previously to head back to Moscow, and he now faces a choice. Does he forgo the retreating Russians in order to deal with Saxe-Polish threat to Riga? Or, as his generals advocate, does he push after Peter in order to remove him as a threat entirely?


Charles XII, never one to give up easily, chooses to take his general’s advice and follows Peter’s severely weakened army into Russia. Swedish troops catch up with the Russians and Peter twelve days later at Veliky Novgorod. The battle does not go well for Peter and he is killed trying to escape to Tver. The court of the Russian nobility, known as the Duma of the Boyars, hastily sets up a regency for the 10 year old Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich. The regency is forced, under threat of an invasion of Moscow, to turn over the Principality of Pskov to Sweden, pay an indemnity for attacking Narva, and to repudiate any alliance with Saxony and withdraw Russian forces from the siege of Riga where Peter had been helping Augustus II of Saxony.


With the Russian threat neutralised, Charles turns his attention to Saxony and lifts the Siege of Riga in July 1701 with a brilliantly executed attack on Saxon forces across the Duna River. Augustus II had been prosecuting the war against Sweden from his position as Elector of Saxony and Poland-Lithuania was formally neutral, but Charles XII decided to pursue his opponent into Poland just as he had given chase to Peter the Great into Russia. After numerous successful battles over the next few years against the Saxons, Charles XII is able to force the Polish-Lithuanian Sejm to remove Augustus II as King and Grand Duke and install his puppet, Stanisław Leszczyński, in October of 1704.


The crowning of Stanisław I leads to civil war in Poland-Lithuiania with the nobility dividing into the Sandomierz Confederation supporting Augustus II and the Warsaw Confederacy supporting Swedish-backed Stanisław I. The decisive victory of Charles XII and Stanisław I over Augustus II comes at the Battle of Fraustadt in February of 1706. When the Treaty of Altranstädt is signed that October, Augustus II gives up all claim to the Polish-Lithuanian crown, repudiates his alliance the Sandomierz Confederation, and formally recognises Stanisław I as King and Grand Duke.


The same month that treaty is signed, however, Russian Boyars from Veliky Novgorod attack Swedish Pskov and eastern Poland-Lithuania with help from the remnants of the Sandomierz Confederation and Cossacks from the south. The Tsarevich Alexei was now 16 and the infighting amongst the Russian Boyars that had commenced with his father’s death was now taking a violent turn. The Novgorod Boyars were attempting to increase the power of their faction in the Russian Duma.


The Novgorodians are repelled from the city of Pskov by Swedish forces from Narva and Riga, and when Charles XII arrives from Altranstädt in November he pursues them to Smolensk where he meets Polish forces under Stanisław I who are chasing the Sandomierz rebels. Before the combined Polish and Swedish forces manage to sync up and envelope Smolensk, the army of the Novgorodian Boyars makes a break for Veliky Novgorod. Charles XII pursues them, leaving Stanisław I to take care of the Polish rebels. When Veliky Novgorod falls to a Swedish siege and the Boyar leaders escape under the cover of winter yet again, Charles XII returns to Smolensk to help Stanisław I end the siege there, after which both armies push on to Tver which is easily captured. However, because Moscow is better defended, Charles XII decides to wait out the winter putting an end to the final Sandomierz militia remnants once and for all.


In March of 1707, before the Boyars can fully resupply their armies but after three months of steady deliveries from Warsaw and Stockholm, Charles XII’s fully equipped army starts its march on Moscow. After a month long siege, Tsarevich Alexei, feeling that he has become merely a pawn in the machinations of the Boyars and attempts to flee with his retinue to Siberia in the middle of the night through the city sewers back alleys and escape via the Moskva river. During the siege, Ivan Mazepa, leader of the Cossack Hetmanate is convinced to abandon the Russian side and join the Poles and Swedes. Mazepa, who has long chafed against the Russian requirements that the Cossacks fight in Russian wars and for the defense of the tsars without any promises to help the Cossacks defend their own lands against the Poles and Tatars, is heartened by the promise autonomy and mutual defense pacts offered by Charles XII and Stanisław I. It is Cossack soldiers who discover the fleeing Tsarevich and bring him to the Swedish command site. Alexei Petrovich is sent to Riga and eventually Stockholm under arrest, and and five weeks later the Cossack forces assist in breaking the siege of Moscow and ravaging the city.


The Boyar Duma, already weakened after eight years of infighting since the death of peter the Great are out-classed, out-fought, and facing a rebellion of their own people from starvation. They are forced to sign a treaty nominally on behalf of Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich’s regency wherein they are required to give up any claim to Cossack lands to the south, to nullify any treaties with those people, and to recognize the Cossack Hetmanate as a sovereign nation. The Russian Tsardom is also required cede the area around Veliky Novgorod, the title of the prince of Novgorod, and the territories of Russian Karelia and the Kola peninsula to Sweden, as well as return Smolensk and associated territories taken from Poland Lithuania by the Treaty of Andrusovno. As part of the deal, Sweden also cedes to Poland-Lithuania parts of southern Pskov that had also been part of the Andrusovno agreement.


With victory assured, Charles XII returns through Riga to Stockholm after eight years away. When news reaches Stockholm early the next year of the full extent civil war that had erupted in Russia after the retreat of the occupying forces, Tsarevich Alexei Petrovich feels vincated in his fear that he would not have survived very long in Moscow if the wrong faction had gained the upper hand. Even though he is no longer under house arrest, the Tsarevich petitions Charles XII to be allowed stay in Stockholm and is granted a pension by the monarch on the condition that he formally abdicate.
 
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Bytor

Monthly Donor
Charles In Charge
The Southern Theatre


When Joseph, Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Habsburg lands, heard of Augustus II of Saxony’s surrender to Charles XII of Sweden at Altranstädt, he realised this meant that Charles was now free to meddle in the affairs of the Silesian Lutherans as he had been threatening for several years.

The war over the succession of the Spanish crown, started by his father, Leopold, had not been going well. While the Habsburgs had been able to gain superiority in Italy, with Joseph’s brother, another Charles and the contestant for the throne of Spain, being named King of Naples, the fighting in Spain had not been going well. The Bourbon armies under the Duke of Orléans released by the end of fighting in the Italian peninsula had gone to the Iberian peninsula where they combined with the forces of the Duke of Berwick. In a few short months they had managed to undo the gains of the British, Dutch and Portuguese armies which had been making significant gains against Philip of Anjou, currently king of Spain.

Recognising that the only way to win in Spain was to get the armies of Berwick and Orléans to leave, Joseph knew he finally had to commit to the Maritime Power’s desire to launch a major attack in southern France. To do that, however, he needed to make sure that Charles XII would not expand his interest beyond Silesia and also decide to help the Hungarian rebels, many of whom were Protestants. Joseph decided to play on Austria and Poland’s mutual enmity with the Ottoman Empire and proposed mutual defense pact when the Turks decided to try and regain their lost territories. In return, Sweden and Poland would help with the renewed assault on France. Stanisław of Poland, seeing war with the Ottomans as imminent due to conflict between the Crimean Khanate and the Cossack Hetmanate, urged Charles XII to accept this offer.

Charles XII, however, had been away at war for almost eight years now and was eager to return home after taking care of Russia and start the process of integrating his new dominions into the Swedish Empire. Because Dutch designs on the Spanish Netherlands conflicted with British and Habsburg economic and strategic interests, Joseph was able to convince the Maritime Powers that trade to the Baltic through Sweden would allow them to evade the Danish Sound Tolls. The lesser tolls would still be welcomed by the Swedish treasury, and the Dutch would not need as many economic concessions in the Spanish Netherlands.

By October of 1707, Polish and Cossack cavalry have joined Savoyard and Austrian armies in an attack on southern France. The Duchy of Savoy and Nice are regained from French control and the summer’s failed attack on Toulon is repeated, this time successfully, and the armies advance steadily toward the Rhône. The Duke of Orléans and his armies are also called back from Spain to counter this new offensive and this allows British, Dutch and new Austrian troops to once again retake the Aragonese territories they had lost to the Duke of Orléans.

The Duke of Berwick, whose armies had been recalled from the Iberian peninsula to help the Elector of Bavaria fight along the Rhine after the initial defeat of Allied forces in Aragon, end up fighting in Flanders under the Duke of Vendôme as more and more Swedish regiments were showing up to help the British and Dutch armies. The tactical and strategic lessons learned from defeating the numerically superior Russians and Saxons even in the harsh northern winters are put to good use by the Swedish commander in the Low Countries, Georg Lydecker. In spite of uprisings in Ghent and Bruges which tried to switch sides, the whole of the Spanish Netherlands are under Allied control by December of 1708 and new attempts to invade France directly via the Moselle and from the Rhine were bearing fruit, especially when joined by Austrian, Polish and Cossack forces marching from the Duchy of Savoy up the Rhône.

In March of 1709, Louis XIV sends Pierre Rouillé to negotiate with the Alliance at Moerdijk, and offers up a partition of Spanish lands. While the Dutch are willing to accept the offer, Habsburg dynastic intransigence and British support dooms any deal and the talks collapse with no result at the end of April. France had suffered a particularly harsh winter with widespread crop failures and famines exacerbated by the British naval blockade of grain imports, so in May, Louis XIV sends his foreign minister the Marquis of Torcy to the negotiators in The Hague, hoping to reduce the demands given to Rouillé. On the 27th of May, the Allies presented Torcy with 41 demands which included an entire transfer of the Spanish realms from Philip V to Charles, the brother of the Holy Roman Emperor, who would be crowned Charles III. Louis XIV was willing to accede to all of the demands except for those regarding Philip and Spain so he publicly rejected the demands. What the allies do not realize is that Louis XIV no longer holds and control over his grandson and would not have been able to induce him into giving up the Spanish throne in any case.

Believing that Louis XIV is merely stalling for time, the British command prepares for renewed activity on all French fronts to try and bring them back to the negotiating table. Due to the harshness of the previous winter and the scarcity of stores and provisions, Marlborough had initially recoiled from a full-scale invasion of France in preference to a conservative policy of siege warfare, but the outstanding success of the Swedish tactics in Flanders and Alsace had convinced him otherwise. In short order the Allied force takes Tournai, Ypres, Mons and Lille in the north of France and Strasbourg in Alsace. On September the 11th, the Allied armies attack the main French army at Malplaquet, believing that it’s destruction will force Louis XIV to surrender. Villars has been given a freehand to do what he wants and the French defense is vigorous and losses were significant on both sides but the combination of the new Swedish tactics and the addition of a second army that had been ravaging the French Southeast for a year meant that the French could only lose.

Louis XIV is forced to recognise the Habsburg Archduke Charles as King Charles II, legitimate rule of the Spanish territories and calls for Philip to step down and return to France by Christmas. Philip, of course, refuses to do so in spite of his increasingly dire situation. The Dutch insist that Louis XIV take responsibility for driving Philp from Spain, but that is flatly refused. Louis XIV had already recalled much of his army from Spain to promote the peace process, and he was even willing to pay a large subsidy to assist the Allied campaign in the peninsula. But he would not send French troops to depose his grandson while his enemies watched from afar.

Without French military support over the last year and a half, British, Dutch, Austrian and Portuguese armies have gotten ever closer to Madrid, and Charles III enters the city on the 20th of December, 1709 and is officially crowned on Christmas Day..
 

Bytor

Monthly Donor
What would be great is if i could get comments on the disposition of territories after this. Do you think Charles would be allowed to keep Naples, Sicily, Sardinia and the Spanish Netherlands? Does Portugal get Galicia and parts of Extremadura as promised in 1703? What are the final dispositions of Liège, Cologne and Bavaria? Does France lose Alsace because of the Allied eastern gains with Swedish help in the final year of the war?
 
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Not quite sure about territory but I expect there would be negotiations for the Dutch to gain Spanish Netherlands and the British will want to secure basing rights in the Med.
I also suspect that Knyaz will be translated as Duke in regards to Pskov and Novgorod since it is traditionally above Prince (Minor) in rank and fits in with western royal traditions as a title for royal offspring (who are automatically prince minors anyway).
 

Bytor

Monthly Donor
I also suspect that Knyaz will be translated as Duke in regards to Pskov and Novgorod since it is traditionally above Prince (Minor) in rank and fits in with western royal traditions as a title for royal offspring (who are automatically prince minors anyway).

In OTL history books it gets translated as "prince" in English. Maybe it might get "Herzog" in German ("hertig" in Swedish), I don't know, but the level of the title seems more in line with the Anglo-French usage of higher status than German "Fürsten" (though not as the sons of the monarch as the Prince Of Wales title became), which usually gets translated as "prince" and was a comparatively minor title. The title "Prince of Novgorod" was retained as one of the titles of the Tsar until OTL 1917.
 
In OTL history books it gets translated as "prince" in English. Maybe it might get "Herzog" in German ("hertig" in Swedish), I don't know, but the level of the title seems more in line with the Anglo-French usage of higher status than German "Fürsten" (though not as the sons of the monarch as the Prince Of Wales title became), which usually gets translated as "prince" and was a comparatively minor title. The title "Prince of Novgorod" was retained as one of the titles of the Tsar until OTL 1917.
Confusingly the Prince of Wales is a Prince Major, what was once also called a regulus or petty king, essentially a sovereign prince.
Prince Majors outranked Dukes who outranked Prince Minors (the Fürsten).
The problem arises from when duke became an inherited title rather than the appointed rank of general and was placed above that of all the "Count upgrades" including Prince (Minor).
The AngloFrench usage of automatically awarding prince rank to royal family was to raise them above counts. Royal Princes therefore are Prince Minors.
Interestingly the Iberians used descendants of Latin Superanus, which became Sovereign in Norman English, for Prince Majors and Infantus for royal offspring. It'd be so much easier if we'd done the same.

In the east the language variants of Knyaz -a word borrowed from Germanic Kuningaz (King) - were variously translated into Mediaeval Latin as Comes or Princeps depending on whether they were fully sovereign or not. It didn't help that the title covered all the ranks depending on the power of the prince in question. This is why the highest ruler of the Kievan Rus called themselves Veliky Knyaz, the Great Prince, because they were a Prince of Princes.

So, how you use Knyaz will depend on what type of rank it is: Countly Rank, Royal Family Rank, Royal Family Award, or (mostly) Sovereign Rank.
 

Bytor

Monthly Donor
Central-Europe-Preliminary-1.png

Preliminary map of Swedish domains and Poland-Lithuania.
 
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