Text Box: Text Box: The history of Ruritania is well known.  From the first writings of Blessed St. Velvil, to the end of the 19th century, it is, like most European histories, a list of dates of when wars were begun or treaties signed, which monarch followed the last, the lives of inventors, artists, and kings.  Then, along came an Englishman who wrote a few little romances based here, and history flew right out the window. They are well written novels and have certainly put a small nation, which might otherwise have been forgotten, in the public eye.  For clarification; the entire plot of “The Prisoner of Zenda” seems to have been suggested by a rather remarkable photograph of Czar Nicholas II and his cousin, King George V. Both men were grandsons of Queen Victoria, who were so struck by their likeness to one another that they exchanged uniforms for the photograph below.  There is some question whether their own mothers would have been able to tell them apart.  Also, it’s the Hapsburgs, not the Elphbergs who have a tendency to red hair.  In 1861 King Stephan III (b. 1830) of Ruritania and Queen Amelia (b. 1843) had a son, who later became Rudolf V.  Queen Amelia died in 1867.  Shortly thereafter, King Stephan married again.  His second, and morganatic, queen, Louisa (b. 1852, d. 1883), was the daughter of a wealthy tradesman and not at all popular with King Stephan’s court.  Their son, Michael, born in 1868, was ineligible for the throne by the conditions of their marriage contract, but was made Duke of Strelsau the following year.  Also in 1869, Grand Duke Rudolf was betrothed to his third cousin, Princess Flavia, born 1867. In 1873 Grand Duke Rudolf was sent to Prussia to continue his education in the Prussian Army and the royal court there. On June 17, 1887, King Rudolf V was crowned in the Cathedral of Strelsau. Although his half-brother, Duke Michael, died in an accident in late August of the same year, Rudolf V married Princess Flavia in Strelsau November 24, 1887. Their marriage was marred not by any discord, but by the king’s recurring illnesses.  According to Queen Flavia’s diaries, King Rudolf V was subject to severe attacks of depression. These could, occasionally, go on for weeks at a time.  He was publicly, however, a very able king and a devoted husband. Rudolf V’s reign was brought to an abrupt halt just three years after it began on May 24, 1890 when in the Strelsau Palace Gardens. He was shot by a man who was believed to be an anarchist, a Swiss national named  Bauer. Queen Flavia, the closest heir to the throne, reigned until their son, Rudolf VI, was born December 14, 1890.  For the next eighteen years, Queen Flavia acted as regent. The coronation of Rudolf VI in 1909 began a period of change in Ruritania.  The young king was not only a great admirer of Voltaire, Thomas Moore and Thomas Jefferson, but was a keen student of history.  He felt that the Peasant Revolt of 1847-48 could have been avoided had Northern Europe been less tied to its feudal past.  He had been raised and schooled entirely in Ruritania. He was far less the Germanic Martinet, so typical of his day, and much more attuned to the people of his small nation.   He worked tirelessly to grant the lower classes more freedoms and to curb abuses and injustices within Ruritania. The young king’s attitude and efforts at reform made him immensely popular with the people of Ruritania, but he was less well loved by the Ruritanian nobility.  He also frequently came under attack from other European rulers fearing the spread of such revolutionary ideas.  On June 14, 1912, the date of Rudolf VI’s marriage to Princess Sophie of Bohemia, these attacks took a more violent form when a bomb was thrown at the royal carriage as it left the cathedral.  The king and new queen were unharmed, but several people in the crowd were killed.  Swiss Anarchists were once more blamed. Grand Duke Rudolf was born February 21, 1914 and on August 1, 1915 twin girls, Grand Duchess Magdalena and Grand Duchess Margareta were born to King Rudolf VI and Queen Sophie, followed by Grand Duke Stephan, born June 2, 1918. Ruritania maintained an uneasy neutrality during the first World War.  The Royal Family, related to both warring factions, felt unable to support either side in the conflict.  This accounted for the unprecedented treatment of Ruritania in the secret accords of the Treaty of Versailles which made the kingdom a de facto protectorate of Switzerland. Text Box: starstar
Text Box: A Modern History Of Ruritania And The House Of Elphberg