Welcome to the Official Website
of The Almanach de Saxe Gotha,
A Register of The Reigning and
Formerly Reigning Imperial and
Royal Sovereign Houses and The
Non-Sovereign Princely & Ducal
Houses of Europe, Together with
The Complete Listing of The Imperial
Nobility of The Holy Roman Empire 

 

A Brief History of The
Almanach de Gotha

The Gotha Book entered the language in its own right with the phrase 'all the Gotha

was there'.  Historically the Gotha has charted the Ruling Royal and Princely Houses

of Europe; only coming to an end with the Soviet occupation of the former Saxon Duchy

The Almanach de Gotha made its debut in Saxe-Coburg in 1763, the Court which during
the 1760's under Duke Friedrich III and later under Duke Ernest II attracted the likes
of Voltaire and which in the mid 1800's produced Prince Albert as consort for Queen
Victoria. The Gotha's own familiar crown was stamped on the cover of what was to become
the ultimate power register of the ruling classes. Unmoved by government decrees or
bribes, those not included in its pages found themselves thwarted, Pretenders claims
left in ruins, by the publisher who would not compromise itself for either inclusion
- or exclusion. Napoleon's reaction was typical. On 20 October 1807 the Emperor wrote
to his Foreign Minister, de Champagny :'Monsieur de Champagny, this year's Almanach de
Gotha is badly done. I protest. There should be more of the French Nobility I have
created and less of the German Princes who are no longer sovereign. Furthermore, the
Imperial Family of Bonaparte should appear before all other royal dynasties, and let it
be clear that we and not the Bourbons are the House of France. Summon the Minister of
the Interior of Gotha at once so that I personally may order these changes'.

Unmoved, the Almanach de Gotha simply produced two editions the following year, the first
the extremely rare "Edition for France - at His Imperial Majesty's Request" and the other
"The Gotha - Correct in All Detail" Historically the Gotha was the determining instrument
when it came to matters of protocol. Not only were orders of precedence easily checked,
but marriages between parties not listed in the same Gotha section were often considered
unequal at some courts, participants thereby loosing dynastic privileges and sometimes
title and rank. The term morganatic applied to the marriage; it derived from the High German
morgangeba, a gift by a groom to his bride on the morning following their wedding. It indicated
that this was the full and only entitlement that the wife could expect from her new husband.
Morganatic marriages were often called 'left hand marriages' due to the fact that inequality in
 rank required the groom to use his left hand instead or the right during the wedding ceremony.

 

Some dynastic house laws in existence today continue to exclude members who marry a
spouse from outside the Gotha Part One or Part Two families. Dynasts loose all rights
and refrain from the adoption of ancestral titles. In some German families this can
still mean forfeiture of estates and property. However in a number of recent cases,
marriages have been contracted which clearly fall well beyond the scope of what could
be described as equal, but the head of the family at the time has been able to rely
on obscure sub-clauses of family law which allows discretionary permission for such
marriages to take place within the set family house law concerned. 

Listings are now in genealogical order and the issue of morganatic marriages and the
marriages themselves are now listed in the main body of the family entry from which
they derive. There are sensible reasons for this. Previously when many more families
were reigning new titles were created and a listing under a new line, in Part Three,
placed the new generation according to rank. It was decided, however, after careful
deliberation, that the Gotha should now retain family entries intact where they continue
using the same name. However where an individual has renounced his rights or becomes
a non-dynast as a result, we have marked this fact against the entry where it is the
wish of the head of the family that we do so. In this way dynastic breaches are still
clearly distinguished. Historically there has been a divergence of opinion on the
question of morganatic marriages. Whilst some families believed the matter to be an
issue of sacred proportions, others, such as Queen Victoria regarded it as ridiculous.

Only on one occasion in Britain did the question arise, uniquely the letters patent
issued on the creation of the Dukedom of Windsor provided for the rank and style of
Royal Highness for the Duke alone and not his wife or any subsequent issue. But that
itself followed the earlier constitutional ruling by Prime Minister Baldwin, on the
advice of lawyers, who was clear that the wife of a King was the Queen. It is
understandable why, previously a sustained and concerted effort has been made by a
caste to preserve and enhance its own status by means of a highly complex an obscure
set of rules. This did of course occasionally lead to confusion. 

The late Princess Alice, Countess of Athlone once recounted that at formal receptions at
the Imperial Court at Berlin, Royal Highnesses were shepherded by the chamberlains into
a room by themselves and were presented to the Kaiser and Kaiserin before the other royals.
Princess Alice recalled that her cousin Princess Pauline of Wurttemberg (Royal Highness,
Part I Princess) was so furious at being separated from her husband the Prince of Wied
(Part II Prince but having only the rank of Durchlaucht, that is a Serene Highness, its
meaning can best be literally described as "not the same") that she never returned to Court.
Princess Alice by contrast, the daughter of one of Queen Victoria's sons, Part I Princess)
but married to Prince Alexander of Teck (Queen Mary's brother but only a Part III Prince)
found the situation hilarious.

At the end of World War Two when the Soviets occupied Gotha they immediately stormed the
factory where the presses were housed and within five days, in a public display of protest,
destroyed, by burning, most of the genealogical and heraldic archives. Since the books
contained detailed references to the Romanov Dynasty, the attempt to obliterate history was
made against these milestones. But the fate of the entire archive still remains a mystery,
what was to the Soviets a classic symbol of a degenerate bourgeois society, was in any
case a substantial archive of Genealogy on European Royalty and Nobility. 

The Officers of The Gotha
1763-2010  

The Honorary Société President
of The Almanach de Saxe Gotha
His Majesty King Juan Carlos I of Spain

 
The Honorary Deputy Chairmen
of The Almanach de Saxe Gotha
Her Imperial Highness
Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna of Russia
de jure Empress and Autocrat of All the Russias

   

   

         

  

   

   

   

   

   

   

   

    

   
The Gotha, Volume XII

   

Carl Eduard reigned until November 18, 1918 when the Workers' and Soldiers' Council
of Gotha deposed him during the German Revolution. The two Duchies, bereft of a
common ruler, became separate states, but ceased to exist shortly thereafter, with
Saxe-Coburg becoming a part of Bavaria, and Saxe-Gotha merging with other small
states to form the new state of Thuringia in 1920 in the Weimar Republic.
The capitals of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha were Coburg and Gotha.

 

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was the only European country to appoint a diplomatic consul to
the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War. The consul was
named Ernst Raven, assigned to a position in the State of Texas. Raven applied to the
Confederate Government for a diplomatic exequatur on July 30 1861 and was accepted.

The House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was formerly the Royal House of several
European monarchies, and branches currently reign in Belgium through the
descendants of Leopold I, and in the United Kingdom and its associated
Commonwealth realms through the descendants of Prince Albert. In the United
Kingdom, King George V changed the name from the House of Wettin to the
House of Windsor in 1917, by Royal Proclamation and Decree.

Other members of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha came to rule in various
other European countries. Ernst's younger brother Léopold became King of the
Belgians in 1831, and his descendants continue to serve as Belgian Head of
State. Léopold's only daughter, Charlotte of Belgium, ruled as Empress Carlota
of Mexico, consort to Maximilian I of Mexico in the 1860's. The short lived
monarchy in Mexico would have had its roots in the House of Saxe-Coburg and
Gotha. Ernst's nephew Ferdinand married Queen Maria II of Portugal and his
descendants continued to rule Portugal until that country became a republic
on the 4th of October, 1910.

Another scion of the family, also named Ferdinand, became Prince, and then Tsar,
of Bulgaria, and his descendants continued to rule there until 1946. The current
head of the House of Bulgaria, the former King Simeon II, goes by the name Simeon
Sakskoburggotski and on 24 July 2001 became Bulgaria's Prime Minister. This marked
the first occasion in history where a former monarch returned to a position of
power via democratic election.

 

According to the House law of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha the full title
of the Duke was: Wir, Ernst, Herzog zu Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha, Jülich, Cleve
und Berg, auch Engern und Westphalen, Landgraf in Thüringen, Markgraf zu Meißen,
gefürsteter Graf zu Henneberg, Graf zu der Mark und Ravensberg, Herr zu Ravenstein
und Tonna . Translation : We, Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Jülich, Cleves and
Berg, also Angria and Westphalia, Landgrave in Thuringia, Margrave of Meissen, Princely
Count of Henneberg, Count of the Mark & Ravensberg, Lord of Ravenstein & Tonna.
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