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Flickerings of Life in Athens: The New King of Greece, 1862-1864
While dramatic changes had occurred within Europe's central heartlands, the small and often forgotten Balkan region, provided further evidence of the great changes sweeping the continent. The Greeks, after three decades of inertia overthrew the Bavarian monarch Otto in the Christmas of 1862, with the possibility that his brother Luitpold succession to the throne vetoed by both the Greek parliament and the Great Powers, initiating a continent wide search for a monarch that would be acceptable to the Great Powers and Greeks. While the Greeks strongly desired the Duke of Edinburgh, Queen Victoria's second son such a possibility was vetoed by the British. Having been rejected by Prince Albert's brother [1] and rejecting both the suggestions of the French and Russians [2], the Great Powers decided upon the thirty-one year old Swedish Prince August, Duke of Dalarna as the most neutral candidate of the several proposed. [3] August, following a meeting with a deputation of Greek parliamentarians accepted the crown in early July 1863 and was crowned in October of that year as King Nicholas I of Greece. Unlike his predecessor he made an effort to learn Greek and committed himself to the model of constitutional government of that of his brother Charles XV of Sweden. The king also began negotiations with the British over the Ionian Islands. [4] It was during the period of negotiations that Nicholas met Princess Helena, the fifth child of Queen Victoria, and the two were married in April 1864. [5] The marriage was popular within Greece and with the British royal family, who viewed Nicholas as a calm and steady influence. The king, with the support of the Greek liberals also sought to resolve the vexed question of the country's consitutional order, settling on a system based on the constitutions of Belgium, Denmark and Sweden, with the monarch's role significantly reduced in contrast to the previous constitution. The consititution repealed the previous article which declared that ministers were solely appointed by and responsible to the king, and introduced an article which obliged the king to appoint the cabinet in conformity with the will of the parliament. [6]


King Nicholas I of Greece

After thirty years of veering between absolution and constitutionalism, "crowned democracy" it seemed had finally taken hold in the Hellenic Kingdom, with the promulgation of one of the most liberal constitutions in continental Europe at the time.

BRIEF NOTES

[1] Ernst II of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was originally the main candidate approached, but his desire to retain his duchies as well as the Greek throne was rejected by the Great Powers out of hand.
[2] Henri, Duke of Amicale and a Russian prince were rejected for the same reasons as the Duke of Edinburgh.
[3] The list was eventually narrowed to candidates from Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Italy, with the Swedish Prince August eventually chosen due to his age and willingness to accept the throne. (He had also won the most votes of the suggested candidates in the constitutional referedum with 17.) The other candidates had included Amadeus of Italy, William of Denmark and the Count of Flanders.
[4] The Ionian Islands had long desired union with Greece, but had been a British protectorate since the Napoleonic Wars. The islands were eventually gifted to the Greeks in 1864 as a gift to the king and his British bride.
[5] Despite the age gap between the two (Nicholas was fifteen years older than his bride), the two were well suited to each other, with international observers noting they're close public and private relationship.
[6] This provision also reformed the parliament's composition with the senate (previously seen as a conservative break upon the more liberal lower house) reformed. The new senate
was composed of 120 members elected for a nine-year term, but its synthesis was renewed every three years by 1/3. At least 9/12 of the senators were elected by the people, 1/12 by the Parliament and the Senate in a common session at the onset of each Parliamentary term, whereas the remaining 2/12 were appointed by the king on the basis of a principle of representation of the professions. In the event of disagreement between the two chambers in the voting of a law, the Constitution established the supremacy of the Parliament's vote.

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