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George V of Bengal and Bihar
King
George V[1]
of Bengal (and Bihar), originally titled “Duke of York and Albany”, he was known before his enthronement mostly as a charming playboy infamous for his fondness for luxury[2] and hedonism[3] as much as for his stormy relationship with his wife[4], the latter of them something that would get only stormier with George’s “harem” of mistresses[5].
A liberal man for all his trappings of an autocratic monarch[6], during his reign George V introduced a parliament to Bengal[7] and extended the freedoms and rights of his subjects[8], helped steer the Bengali economy[9] and supported de development of local cultures and the arts[10]. Deeply affected by Hinduism after being introduced to it by one of his mistresses[11], although he never converted, by the time of his death George was almost openly a practicing Hindu-Anglican[12] and even had himself cremated upon his death[13].
A lover of animals[14], George became known for establishing the Royal Zoo of Bengal[15] in the 1890s after years already becoming famous for his large menagerie.
[1] As by the laws established by the Statute of Westminster, 1878, the line of kings of any and all imperial kingdoms is to consider as if all British monarchs that came before then had ruled over the region
[2] During his reign George V’s court at Victoria Palace (originally the residence of the Governor General of Bengal, having been built in 1803. OTL it housed the Viceroy fo India until 1911 and is nowadays the residence of the governor of West Bengal) was known for its lavish banquets and balls (as well as for its large renovation project, which would only be completely paid by George’s great-grandson), with some going as far as comparing it to the Romanov’s opulence in Saint Petersburg (interestingly one are were he wasn’t known for his spending was in his mistresses, as instead of taking from his privy purse he traditionally provided them with sources of money, like, for example, helping their husband’s find good jobs or granting them lands or shares in companies)
[3] One of the great gossips of the 19th century was the fact that George V was such a common sight on high class brothels on Albion and France that he was considered special clientele by them, with one going as far as, in his later years, ordering a chair for him so he could have an easier time with the workers
[4] The Princess Dagmar of Denmark (and Tsesarevna Dowager of Russia), the two of them married in 1868 after she moved in with her sister in Albion to forget about her deceased first husband (her daughter, the Grand Duchess Ekatherina, also coming with her and, later on, marrying her first-cousin, Kirill I of Bulgaria) and although the two most certainly liked each other, they constantly butted heads and were constantly at odds due to George’s infidelities, which Dagmar took years to become somewhat accepting of. They nonetheless were devoted to each other, and, when he died, Dagmar took 8 days to permit people to take his body out of their rooms
[5] Although many of the tales spread over said “harem” were exaggerated and made to get people’s attention, it was true that George, over the course of his life, had over 22 mistresses, and, from 1880 to 1910, had a total of 15 of them, many at the same time, coming from various backgrounds (many of his later mistresses being Anglo-Indians or even Indian princesses and noblewomen). With them, he had a total of 11 illegitimate children, 9 of them after 1880. Granted the name of “FitzRoy-Windsor” by George in 1903, they were:
- Lavinia Marie LeBreton,
Countess consort of Rangat (b.1876:d.1902)
- George Albert LeBreton,
Viscount of Bishmuri (b.1879:d.1890)
- Christopher FitzRoy-Windsor,
1st Maharaja of Madaripur (b.1883:d.1919)
- Margaret FitzRoy-Windsor,
Begum of Murshidabad (b.1885:d.1972)
- Elizabeth FitzRoy-Windsor,
Duchess of Buccleuch and Queensberry (b.1887:d.1921)
- Anne FitzRoy-Windsor,
Maharani of Manipur (b.1889:d.1940)
- Henry FitzRoy-Windsor,
1st Duke Kipling of Madaripur (b.1891:d.1966)
- Lord Reginald FitzRoy-Windsor (b.1893:d.1899)
- Katherine FitzRoy-Windsor,
Countess consort of Fife (b.1895:d.1937)
- Arthur FitzRoy-Windsor,
1st Rajah of Patna (b.1895:d.1940)
- Mary Evangeline FitzRoy-Windsor (b.1899:d.2005)
[6] Besides his lavish spending and the way his court worked, the act that created the Bengali Parliament explicitly says that it was created and remains by the grace and gentleness of the king, and George’s powers would more frankly be on the level of those held by the Tudors than even his own mother
[7] Established in 1895, the Parliament of Bengal is the highest legislative house of the kingdom. Following the Westminster System, the organ is made of the Commons (originally made of 670 MPs, nowadays it has nearly two thousand) and the Lords (originally comprehending 244 noblemen, mostly taken from the Zamindars and Bengal’s large Anglo-Indian population, nowadays it has 418 members, and has the trait of using more native titles than European ones)
[8] He granted the right of suffrage to nearly 80% of the population, expanded the rights for religion and minority languages on the government and education, besides, even if only slightly, he also diminished the power of the nobility through the establishment of the Parliament
[9] George believed that the wisest way to enrich Bengal was to return the region’s lost textile industry, and by the time of his death while the countryside was a breadbasket Calcutta and it’s metropolitan area were already in route to becoming the “London of the East” (as an Albish journalist once said), even though it would also result on high levels of pollution on the western Ganges delta, which would take decades to be solved
[10] A lover of the culture, besides the already mentioned textile industry, George invested on government subsidies, scholarships and awards to incentivize Bengal’s literature and arts, which would reach a golden age in the early 20th century
[11] The Princess Deeptimayee Singh of Gidhaur, his mistress from 1884 to 1910 (considered almost like his secondary wife), a fervently devout Hindu who was also extremely convincing, she ended up partially converting both George, his wife, and a chunk of his court that was of European origin
[12] One of the reasons believed to be behind George never converting and very rarely openly showing his Hindu leanings was the royal family’s belief that remaining Christian served as a middle ground between the kingdom’s two main religions, and although they have over time absorbed traits from both, the main branch of the Windsors of Bengal remains Anglican
[13] Although he originally wished to be cremated at Manikarnika Ghat, he was convinced on his later years against it, and in the end his funeral pyre drifted down the Hooghly River, which was what occurred
[14] He was vegetarian since the age of 17 and forbade hunting on his presence
[15] One of the largest zoos in the world (being the third largest in total area), the Royal Zoo of Bengal (located on the open lands north of Calcutta where the old Royal Ranch was located) is home to over 300 different animal species, including about a third of the world’s population of the Quagga and some of the last living specimens of the Algerian Red Gazelle, the Lesser Mascarene Flying Fox, the Falkland Islands Wolf and three different lion subspecies (the Cape, Mesopotamian and Iranian groups, which while existing in other zoological parks, have most of their surviving population in Bengal)
Victor I of Bombay and Kafiristan
King Victor I of Bombay (and Lord of Kafiristan). Originally titled as the “Duke of Connaught and Strathearn” before his enthronement over Bombay, he was one of the three sons of Empress Victoria to serve on the military, entering the Army when he was 16 and having a career of 14 years on it, during which he was majorly deployed to India[1], where he headed the Bombay Army[2] and served on the Second Anglo-Afghan War[3]. Although mostly remembered with his royal title over Bombay, he was also the first child of an Albish monarch to become by himself the ruler of another country[4] since Richard, King of the Romans.
An extremely serious and no-nonsense person[5], who when not on the presence of his family spent almost all of his time either on work or in some sort of public event[6], Victor’s rule over Bombay was one marked by a level of autocracy not dissimilar from those of Louis XIV[7] through most of its run, and it was only in 1928 that he gave Bombay a Parliament[8], abdicating from his thrones in 1932 in the name of his grandson[9].
A Hindu-Anglican[10] like his brother[11], his own wife[12] and some others of his relatives, Victor is greatly remembered both of his realms for his support of religious freedom as well as for his investment on education, establishing compulsory schooling in 1903[13]
[1] Ever since the Imperial Tour Victor had become infatuated with the subcontinent and of all his time in the military only his first year was served outside of it (being, instead, on Canada)
[2] Although the position was mostly nominal, he was made the commander of the Bombay Army in 1878, and would hold the position until 1880 when the division was changed into the Royal Army of Bombay, to which, as the kingdom’s ruler, Victor was automatically its commander-in-chief
[3] During it Victor ended up serving as a member of the Albish embassy to Kabul in August of 1880 for the Early Treaty of Gandamak, and, on September 3rd of that year, he nearly died when the Afghan forces attacked the Albish residency, only surviving due to a similar-looking officer dying on his place and being confused for him. Deeply injured (his leg was gored by a bullet during the siege), he somehow managed to escape through Kafiristan, where he was brought back to health (although in the process his leg was amputated and he placed a hard iron prosthetic on its place) and through a series of events united the Kafiristani clans into a small army, which he commanded as a ragtag army until the war’s end in 1882
[4] During the Treaty of Gandamak, Victor strongly advocated for Kafiristani independence (which would end up leading to the British safeguarding the independence of most of the northeastern states of the region) and in the end was given the title of “Lord of Kafiristan” by a council made of his main lieutenants and the leaders of most of the region’s settlements and clans. He traditionally spent his summers on the region
[5] An enemy of small talk whose main hobbies where piano and dactylography, Victor’s nickname on the press and even among his court as “the Cold One” due to his tendency to lack any visible emotion (the only time he is recorded smiling was at his youngest daughter’s wedding, and it was such a garish grin that the groom’s mother fainted)
[6] He once nonchalantly pulled out a stack of papers at his son’s 15th birthday and started doing late paperwork, which resulted on his wife nearly caving his head in with a candelabra
[7] During most of Victor’s time as a monarch (at least in Bombay, as his rule on Kafiristan was more of a mediator and military protector than a direct ruler) he was basically the center of all bureaucracy and the government was known for being made of the fewest possibly, but extremely overworked, civil servants
[8] Similar to other parliaments on the subcontinent, many believe that Victor only agreed to it due to a mix of being tired after decades of overworking and the death of his wife, who most agree took something out of him that left him incapable of continuing with his old ways
[9] King Albert Edward of Bombay (later of Maharashtra) (b.1916:d.1969), his son’s only son (Crown Prince Arthur having died on a car accident in Monte Carlo in the 1920s), he was markedly more liberal than his grandfather
[10] Although his beliefs also absorbed traits from his Kafir subjects’ faith
[11] The two of them had only their rough beliefs as a similarity, as Victor personally though George was a foolhardy spender, calling his investments on the arts as “frivolities” when, in a letter to his sister Beatrice, he said their brother ought to use his money on something other than them
[12] The Princess Louise of Prussia, she openly stated to praying both to God and a myriad of Hindu deities and asked to be cremated after her death, Victor was of a similar leaning to her, and their urns are together within the Royal Catacombs of Bombay
[13] With all children between the ages of 7 to 14 being obligated to go to school (under the threat of a hefty fine for their parents) between the hours of 9 AM and 3 PM. This would be changed in the 40s when the age and hours would be expanded (nowadays it is all children between 13 and 18, from 7 to 5
Cedric I of Portugal and the Algarve
King Cedric I of Portugal and the Algarve[1], he was the only one among his siblings to enter the Royal Navy[2] and was the only son of Empress Victoria to marry a catholic as well as the only one to marry twice[3].
A lover of the sea and water since childhood[4], during his youth Cedric spent most of his time in the Mediterranean as a sailor[5] while being, sometimes without knowing, considered a contender for a variety of thrones, firstly as a jure uxoris monarch of Greece[6], then as the heir to Saxe-Coburg and Gotha[7], and finally as a jure uxoris monarch of Portugal[8], which would be the one to occur.
Although originally a monarch in name only[9], focusing his time as a developer of the Portuguese Navy[10] and as the unofficial middleman between his home country and his country by marriage[11], this when not getting involved with Portugal’s colonial empire[12], his involvement with governance would permanently change in 1909 with the Lisbon Regicide[13], which, besides taking his wife and eldest son, forced him to enact what was basically an internal coup[14], dealing not only the fallout of the assassinations but also having to fight a series of republican uprisings[15] and failed coups[16] while as a regent for his grandson[17].
A de facto absolute monarch[18] from 1909 to 1923, he finally abdicated that year as Pedro VI reached his majority[19], dying the following year from tuberculosis[20] and leaving behind the world’s largest collection of glass and ceramic objects[21].
[1] The laws of Portugal specify that the husband of a reigning queen is to become a
jure uxoris “King of Portugal and the Algarve” upon the birth of their first child, with Cedric (which although being the only Portuguese monarch of that name still is counted as being a “first”) being beforehand the “Prince Consort” only
[2] Cedric would serve for nearly 20 years on it, reaching the rank of Vice-Admiral and, at the time of his marriage, holding the command over the Channel Fleet
[3] Married in 1874 to the Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia (the only surviving daughter of Alexander II, she was his sister’s sister-in-law already. The two of them would be married to a total of 5 years and had 4 daughters together before Maria’s untimely death from eclampsia after giving birth to a stillborn son
[4] He seems to have been enraptured by the sea during the Imperial Tour as a child, being remembered for deciding to swim with dolphins during its stop in Hawaii, and from there he didn’t change much
[5] Most of his daughters with his first wife were born in Malta, and the only one who didn’t, Beatrice, was born during a short stay in Athens
[6] During the early 1860s the most eligible bachelorette of Europe was probably Irene (born in 1848), Queen of the Hellenes, whose father, King Otto of the Hellenes, died under mysterious circumstances in 1863. Although in the end she would marry a Danish prince (who in OTL became King George I of the Hellenes), Irene and Alfred became friends in the 1870s during a visit to Greece, with his youngest daughter by his first marriage being born during one of his visits
[7] His paternal uncle, Duke Ernest II of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, was childless until the age of 66 and, as his older brother’s either got separate thrones or declined to inherit his, Cedric ended up as the heir presumptive to the duchy. It was only in 1884 that Ernest would have his first and only son and child, as after the death of his first wife, Alexandrine of Baden, in a carriage accident in 1883 he remarried to Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna of Russia (niece of Alexander II and OTL wife of George I of the Hellene)
[8] Following the death of Pedro V in 1865, his two young daughter, Carlotta and Maria Amalia, became the queen and heiress presumptive of Portugal (their eldest uncle, the Duke of Porto, serving as regent), and, like Irene of the Hellenes, were some of the most sought-after bachelorettes of the continent, and Empress Victoria was especially keen on the idea of seeing a marriage between the royal houses of Albion and Portugal
[9] The title of King was purely ceremonial for him (as it had been for the two previous kings consort of Portugal)
[10] Given command of the Portuguese Navy in 1887 following the birth of Luis, Prince Royal, Cedric worked tirelessly to bring it up to par with the Royal Navy he had been accustomed to
[11] Being, for example, responsible for the “Pink Map Compromise”, which saw the Albish recognizing Portugal’s right to the region as a connection between its main African colonies (as well as its overlordship of the Chokwe and Lozi states) while the Portuguese recognized Albion’s already existing control over the region, with the Zambezi being made a condominium of the two countries together with Germany
[12] Cedric is credited with saving the existence of the Kingdom of Kongo (even if it lost some ancient territories to the North to the Congo Free State), which had its suzerainty and independence guaranteed by Portugal in the 1890s and even had, later on, a royal marriage with the Braganzas
[13] Occurring on February 1st, 1909, the Regicide happened when, during their return from a country retreat, the royal family was attacked by two assailants, Manuel Buíça and Alfredo Luís da Costa, who shot and threw a grenade at them, killing both Queen Carlotta and the Prince Royal (who survived in a coma for some hours after his mother’s death and was posthumously recognized as “King Luís I of Portugal”). Outside of them, the Duke of Barcelos was shot in the shoulder, permanently damaging his nerves on the right arm, while the infantas Alexandra, Beatrice and Maria suffered various injuries from the explosion, the first losing a chunk of her left leg. In the aftermath, Cedric ordered the assassin’s bodies (the two having died in the crossfire) cremated and their ashes used as litter for his wife’s cats, in a posthumous punishment
[14] Using his power over the navy and knowing of the republican presence on government, he took power from the prime-minister (who remained nominally in power but was
de facto deposed) and established martial law on Portugal’s major cities
[15] Although there would be many small uprisings and plots during Cedric’s time in power, the main one occurred in May of 1909 when republican elements on the government and political class, emboldened by the regicide, tried to overthrow the monarchy. A brutal affair that saw fighting on the streets of Portugal’s major cities and on parliament, the uprising ended with the defeat of the republicans, which suffered harsh crackdowns on the following years
[16] The July Coup of 1913 being the most infamous, as, supported by the French, an underground republican faction tried to depose Cedric I. It ended with the houses of parliament in flames and the death of over a hundred people
[17] Officially Cedric’s co-monarch (but
de facto his heir), Pedro VI was only 3 at the time of his father’s death in 1909, having been born as Luís illegitimate son with his mistress, Joana Amelia dos Santos Marrocos, and only becoming legitimate in 1908 when his grandparents discovered of his existence, forcing his parents’ to marry and having the church legitimize him in the same way that the Grimaldi Dynasty did with their illegitimate offspring
[18] As mentioned above, he held control of the military and, following the uprisings and coups, had completely crippled much of the country’s political class, where he focused much of his anger and distrust
[19] He had already been groomed by his grandfather for years by that point, and his short reign would mark the return of Portugal to some sense of democracy
[20] He had been fighting the disease for years at that time, and it had, by the time of his death, spread to his bones
[21] Cedric made collecting bibelots, vases and china his way to cope with his position, and by the time of his death it amounted to over thirty thousand artifacts totaling millions of pounds in total value
Leopold of the Carnatic
King Leopold of the Carnatic, the last of Empress Victoria’s sons’ to gain a kingdom[1] as well as one of the most colorful characters of the era, he was never a man greatly interested in politics or the military like most of his siblings, and, instead, was deeply interested in the arts[2] and the bohemian lifestyle, being infamous on high society as a “hooligan”[3] and “hedonist”[4] who openly had lovers of both sexes[5] and shocked even the more liberal members of the nobility, although in a way his children managed to outshine him on said matter[6].
Made king almost out of spite[7] and married to Empress Victoria’s only Bharati daughter-in-law[8], his time ruling over the Carnatic was marked by his frequent lack of involvement, with the government being often delegated to his private secretary[9] and parliament while the king, highly popular among his subjects[10] spent his time either in public events, his private life, or in traveling through the subcontinent and southeast Asia[11], which served as a great source of inspiration for his paintings[12].
Surprisingly religious, in his later years Leopold became known for his open conversion to Hinduism, being cremated at Manikarnika Ghat upon his death[13].
[1] Although he was the fourth oldest, he was the sixth among his brothers to gain his own crown (Arthur was already set to inherit the Albish throne, while of the others only Henry wouldn’t be made a king)
[2] A talented painter, he had a style extremely similar to his friend and lover, the American émigré, John Singer Sargent
[3] Compared to his older sister, he loved pranks and mischief, and had the gall of frequently going under disguise to the East End and get involved in street fights and pub brawls
[4] His residence, Clarence House, was called a “den of vice and sin” by the Marquess of Shrewsbury, and it was said that although he never held a single ball on its halls, he had guests coming in every night that only left the following day
[5] Involved for some year in a threesome with his friends, John Singer Sargent and Albert de Belleroche (whom he met in Paris in the early 1880s), that ended amicably around 1891; Leopold’s most famous lovers were Lillie Le Breton (1853-1929), previously his brother’s lover, with whom he had a 14-years-long affair lasting from 1880 to 1894, and Julio Pastrana (1860-1918), a Mexican-American performer whose mother (another famous performer due to her hypertrichosis, which he inherited), Julia, was a member of the court of Leopold’s mother, the two of them had an affair lasting from 1875, when Julio was 15, all the way to Leopold’s death in 1914
[6] While Elizabeth managed to cause a scandal by sleeping with her first cousin at his brother’s wedding (and later marrying him), Rajna married two congenital twins that had been washerwomen before meeting him, Vincent married at the age of 5 (as part of the peace treaty that ended the Third Anglo-Burmese War he married the country’s new queen, whose father had started the conflict and lost badly on it), Indira slept more with her sister-in-law than with her own husband and Frederick took from his father and had a literal harem on his court, where many believe he probably slept with even his ministers if the tales are correct
[7] Known for his rivalry with his twin brother, Cedric. Following the latter’s acclamation in 1888 Leonard was filled to the brim with envy, and, in a move that his mother had planned for (Victoria was looking to make him the ruler of the Carnatic for years, to which he had until then declined), he asked her to finally accept the offer of a kingship, being made “King of the Carnatic” less than two weeks after Cedric’s acclamation
[8] The eldest daughter and child of Queen Victoria I of Coorg (whose father had been deposed by the East India Company, she was a goddaughter of Empress Victoria, who, during the Imperial Tour, basically returned Coorg to her as a sort-of-present as much as it was a political move to attract the goodwill of the subcontinent’s elites), she and Leopold had met in 1870s when their mothers started pushing them to be together in a match that was luckily successful. Accepting of Leopold’s affairs, Charlotte herself had many lovers over the years, the most famous of them being writer Violet Paget
[9] To this day the Private Secretary to the Sovereign of the Carnatic has powers akin to those of pre-1878 Albish prime ministers
[10] Although much of his personal life was scandalous for the era and for many should have destroyed his image, Leopold was one charming bastard who regularly saw a high level of respect and approval among his subjects
[11] Of his 26 years on the throne of the Carnatic, about a tenth of it was spent traveling
[12] A lover of painting views instead of people (although some of his most known paintings are portraits), of his over 800 works (mostly housed on the Royal Museum of Madras) nearly 80% of them were of either views and buildings of his travels or of random people he met during them
[13] A particularly devout follower of Shiva and Khali, when he felt death was coming Leopold abdicated in the name of his son and moved to a small (if comfortable) residence in Varanasi, and spent his last months going from it to the temples to meditate with his wife (who committed Sati in his funeral pyre)
Michael of Oregon
King Michael I of Oregon and Columbia, he was the first child of Empress Victoria to perish[1], having been born prematurely during the Imperial Tour[2] and being, of her sons, the only one who actually suffered from hemophilia[3].
Known as “the baby” among his relatives due to his frail health and body[4] as well as his naivete during his youth[5], Michael was an incredibly intelligent man, who, before becoming a monarch, became known as a dedicated student and intellectual, which left Oxford with an honorary doctorate in civil law[5].
Made king of Oregon and Columbia[6] in 1881 after a year spent convincing his mother to go through it[7] and moving to Victoria[8] following his marriage[9], Michael’s reign, marked by his popularity among both the peasantry[10] and the nobility[11], was a successful one, being marked by both the growth of population[12] and the growth of local industries[13], although, unlike his brothers, he remained an “absolute” monarch through it all[14].
Dying of his disease in 1891 while visiting the Prince of Desmond[15], although he remains a highly commemorated and remembered figure in Oregon as the father of the nation, his children have undoubtedly outshined him[16].
[1] He died at the age of 32 less than two years before the Empress of the French after tripping on his own feet and bashing his head on a table, dying of expressive brain hemorrhage a day later
[2] The HMS Britannia had left Japan some three days before Michael’s birth
[3] The disease was discovered shortly after the tour left Australia, during the remainder of the trip his crib was held by a contraption of cables and pulleys made so he would never have the danger of smashing into something (it was also basically a padded box)
[4] Born with weak lungs due to his premature deliver, Michael lived with asthma and nearly died dozens of times during his lifetime, including 15 serious colds, three of which resulted on survived pneumonias
[5] He was also known for being a heavy drinker in Oxford, once challenging one of his professors to a drunken battle of limericks revolving on the laws of England
[6] Acquired on its totality by the British in the Oregon Treaty of 1846 (after they completely overwhelmed the American pioneers on the region by helping the migration of over 50.000 Irishmen to the region during the Great Famine), the colony was originally known only as Columbia on official texts (only American loyalists, much of whom were expelled
en masse following the Willamette, called the region “Oregon” for much of its early history), the name of Oregon (or “Orejon”) started to gain a following the 1870s, and when the empire was established in 1878 the colony was renamed to “Oregon & Columbia”, which remains the country’s official name even if “Oregon” is colloquially used for it on its entirety (Columbia is mostly used nowadays to refer to the northern lands of the kingdom)
[7] Victoria originally didn’t plan on actually having Michael become a king in light of his health problems, and it was only through his insistence and buttering her up that the empress finally relented to it, using the excuse that the region would be good for his health to convince herself (during the Imperial Tour’s stop on the colony Michael’s health was, surprisingly, decidedly better)
[8] Although Oregon has no official capital, Victoria (not exactly the ITTL one, as it’s center is in San Juan Island) has been, over the years, its political center and second-largest city, housing both Parliament, the Houses of Justice and the royal family, whose main residence is located where the old Fort Victoria (ITTL military building made on the 1840s around Ten Mile Point) was. In general the whole area of the Salish Sea is considered the heart of the country with it’s housing of both Victoria, Musqueam (OTL Vancouver) and Rupert (OTL Seattle)
[9] The Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont, who later served as one of their daughter’s regents, her sister, Emma, married his nephew three years later, the two having met during Michael’s marriage
[10] A charming couple of philanthropes, Michael and Helena became known for their social works, like the establishment of the Royal Food Banks and the Impoverished Workers Program, which directed the unemployed and the homeless to large government farms (although in the latter was also a genius move to supply cheap workers for the government in light of the state’s semi-feudal (if not outright feudal) administration
[11] Michael’s influence over the nobility was especially necessary due to Oregon’s unique nature, as (unlike his brother’s domains were the nobility was mostly defanged and administration was already centralized) due to the crown’s own lack of oversights for much of its rule in the region much of the state had, by the time of Michael’s coming, developed into something akin to Medieval France as for decades settlers, native peoples and the Tokugawa had established a patchwork of fiefdoms and states across much of the territory. During his reign one of Michael’s jobs was, in fact, bringing all those powers (the Tokugawa being the only ones that had already been
de jure recognized by Victoria due to their land grant) into the fold of the royal administration, recognizing various petty republics and noble fiefs (over 1500 letters of nobility were granted by him between 1882 and 1891) across much of the territory, as overall only the lands around the Salish Sea and the Willamette were really under direct royal control.
[12] Although much of it was due to natural growth (in special after the 1870s and 1880s inoculation campaigns), another reason for the growth was immigration, as while Oregon was already a multiethnic region (besides the Irish, Japanese and First Nations there were also Anglo-Scottish settlers and even some Spanish from old missions in Oregon and Vancouver Island, as well as the remnants of the American pioneers) during Michael’s reign (as well as the early period of his daughter’s) the region saw a massive number of immigrants come in both from Europe (mostly in the way of Eastern Slavs and Jews, with Michael’s court painter being, in fact, Polish by birth) and from Oregon’s southern/eastern neighbor, as the United States’ expulsion of much of its Native American and Latino populations from the west (mostly as a “side-effect” of the “naturalist” turn the country had been seeing since their civil war) meant that while some of them went to Mexico (in special those on the southwest, which ITTL included Baja California, Sonora and Chihuahua) and Canada, the bulk moved to Oregon, rising by a fourth and a third the country’s population
[13] During Michael’s reign Oregon entered the industrial revolution, with the great development of its textile, canning, mining and armament industries
[14] Although his power wasn’t absolute by any means (seeing as much of Oregon’s land was under a system of suzerainty and vassalage), Michael
de jure held all powers of government during his time on the throne, being even responsible for serving as judge on tribunals involving members of the high nobility. Oregon would only gain a Parliament during the reign of his daughter, Emma, who established it in 1924 on a style almost exactly like the one of the Tudors of old
[15] One of the more unique examples of nobility in Oregon, the first Oregonian Prince of Desmond, Samuel, was a member of the Irish MacCarthy Clan (being a nephew of the head of the Srugrena Sept of the clan, which has since 1876 been considered by the Ulster King of Arms as being the seniormost branch of the family) migrated to Oregon in the 1840s and ended up establishing control over much of the region around the lower reaches of the Columbia River Basin. Following the death of his first cousin once removed (and whose daughter was his granddaughter in law), also named Samuel, in 1885, he officially claimed the title, which was recognized by Michael I in 1886 together with the Albish government in London.
[16] Although Albert died at the age of 5 from polio, Emma I is often compared as a mix between Catherine the Great, Cleopatra, Henry VIII and Augustus due to her status as the first woman to serve on the Royal Navy, her command of the nation during the First World War and her massive expansion of the kingdom’s territory; Alice, whose husband was the Shogun of Edo and head of the Tokugawa, is remembered for her command of Fort Briggs and command of the army, holding the line and breaking the charges made by the Americans against the fort during the First World War, before attacking back against them and expanding into Utah and the Great Basin; Mary, finally, was the ace of the skies of Oregon known as one of the world’s first bombers. Of Michael’s illegitimate children (during his later years the king had two affairs, one with a member of the Quileute Tribe and another with Charlotte Suliman, a German chemist and cult leader) the one most memorable was probably Sieglinde, who is known for developing one of the world’s most terrible poisonous gases
Henry, Prince Consort of Madagascar
Henry, Prince Consort of Madagascar (sometimes also known as “Prince Henry, Duke of Kendal”[1]), he was the youngest son of the empress, as well as the only one to not have a throne, although he was the second to marry a queen regnant.
Born in a quite uncommon situation[2], Henry was a terribly melancholic man, known for his introverted nature[3] and for loving dogs more than any human[4], who, in 1892, was unexpectedly married to Queen Ranavalona III of Madagascar[5] in what was her prime-minister’s last desperate bid to save Malagasy independence[6], from then on guaranteed by the Albish[7].
The consort of a figurehead monarch stuck on a loveless marriage, he and Ranavalona rarely interacted with each other following the birth of their twin daughters in 1895[8], spending most of his time alone following it until his death in 1913 from malaria[9]
[1] Although Henry was being married to a queen, his mother believed that he still should have a royal dukedom of his own as a species of dowry, granting him the title of “Duke of Kendal” and an annuity of 10.000 pounds
[2] Not knowing she was pregnant, Empress Victoria was at a ball in Northumberland House when she started having contractions, giving birth on a hastily made bed on the rooms of the Duchess (the story that she gave birth on the ballroom was a wild gossip spread by tabloids). Bought by the Empress in 1866, the house (which is the last of the manorial homes of Trafalgar Square) was inherited by Henry in 1908, becoming the official residence and embassy of the Malagasy monarch in London
[3] Similar to his older sister, Georgiana, suffering of selective mutism and spending his time almost as if in his own little separate world, most modern analysis believe he had a mix of both autism and depression
[4] He shared his mother’s love of Pomeranians
[5] Something that was almost the antithesis of the Malagasy government at the time, as the custom of the era was that the ruling queen of Madagascar would be married to her prime-minister (almost a king on his own right) as a way of cementing the political arrangement that had made the Malagasy government since the aristocratic revolution of 1863
[6] Although Rainilaiarivony (Ranavalona III’s first husband and prime-minister) had for years used his diplomatic skills and political acumen to try and protect the kingdom’s independence, the French were starting to become bolder in the late 1880s and early 18902, and he feared that without a strong backer Madagascar’s days as an independent nation were numbered
[7] Which Albish would need to do shortly after, as when the last Franco-Hova War occurred in 1895 the Royal Navy and the Albish Army had more men than the entire Malagasy Navy
[8] Ranavalona IV being akin to Madagascar’s version of OTL Elizabeth II while her twin sister became the co-monarch of Réunion Island (independent since 1913) with her husband, a morganatic biracial descendant of the House of Bourbon-Condé
[9] Henry’s death was a sad one, as he died with only his youngest daughter by his side while his funeral, while opulent (for one occurring in the middle of the First World War), had the presence of only one of his siblings, Leopold of the Carnatic, who had always been his favorite