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Holstein-Gottorp or Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp was a duchy consisting of areas within Schleswig and Holstein, in present-day Denmark and Germany. From 1544, when it was ceded to Adolf, the brother of King Christian III of Denmark, the Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp shared the rule of Schleswig and Holstein with the Kings of Denmark. As such, they were often the clients of the Swedes, the great enemies to the Danes, and Duke Friedrich IV married the daughter of King Charles XI of Sweden. Following the defeat of Holstein-Gottorp in the Great Northern War in which the duchy had sided with Sweden, the peace settlement of 1721 forced the dukes to surrender all territorial claims in Schleswig to the king of Denmark. Duke Karl Friedrich, however, fled to the court of Peter the Great of Russia, and for some time the Russians intrigued to restore Karl Friedrich to his lands in Schleswig. Karl Friedrich himself was married to Grand Duchess Anna, Peter's daughter. Although Peter's successors abandoned his policy of backing the pretensions of the Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, from this marriage was born Karl Peter Ulrich, who succeeded to Holstein-Gottorp in 1739, and became heir to the Russian throne upon the accession of his aunt Elisabeth in 1741.

Karl Peter Ulrich, who acceded the Russian throne as Peter III in 1762, was determined to conquering Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark. When he became tsar in 1762, he immediately signed a generous peace with Prussia (which was on its knees and virtually destroyed) and withdrew Russia from the Seven Years' War in order to concentrate fully on an attack upon Denmark. This move angered Russian opinion, who considered it a betrayal of Russia's sacrifices in the war, as well as placing national interests in jeopardy. At the same time, the Danish army had hastily moved across the border into Mecklenburg, to avoid an invasion of Holstein, and assumed battle positions. The two armies stood less than 30 kilometres from each other when news from Saint Petersburg suddenly reached the Russian army than the mad tsar had been overthrown by his wife, who had now acceded the throne as Catherine II of Russia. One of her first actions was to call off the war against Denmark and restore normal relations.

Peter III's son, Paul, the new Duke of Holstein-Gottorp, was under the regency of his mother Catherine the Great, who in 1773 agreed with the Danes for her son's abdication of his rights in Schleswig-Holstein in favor of the Prince-Bishop of Lübeck, representative of a younger branch, and to a trade which would allow the Danes to take over the Holstein-Gottorp lands, giving the Prince-Bishop the County of Oldenburg in exchange.

The dynastic policy of the Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp resulted in cadet branches of the House of Holstein-Gottorp ruling Sweden from 1751 until 1818 and Oldenburg from 1773 to 1918, while the senior branch ruled Russia briefly in 1762 and then again from 1796 until 1917. The senior branch has devolved to a morganatic branch of the Russian Imperial House.

Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp

In 1773, the remaining lands of the duchy were ceded to the king of Denmark, against Paul receiving the lands of Oldenburg and Delmenhorst (which he transferred to a kinsman). The dukes kept just the title, so their actual rule ended, and was never resumed.

Titular Dukes

The usual understanding is the heir being the morganatic son of Grand Duke Dimitri, only son of Grand Duke Paul, himself the youngest brother of Alexander III. This heir is morganatic in Russian sense, but the House of Oldenburg had no full limitations against unequal marriages. These heirs live in USA.

In the case of Grand Duke Dmitri's marriage with Audrey Emery being unacceptable to Holstein tituar succession, then there opens the full quagmire of various Romanov marriages and which of them are not acceptable in succession of Holstein etc. Presumably, marriages with countesses and princesses are at least acceptable, and thus male-line heirs exist. However, if all marriages deemed morganatic by Russian standards are unacceptable in Holstein succession, then next heir is to be found in the person of Anton Gunther, Duke of Oldenburg, who is the current head of the branch descending from Christian August, Prince of Holstein-Eutin, younger brother of Duke Frederick IV, and holds claim to Grand Duchy of Oldenburg.

Schleswig-Holstein

Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorf | ホルシュタイン・ゴットルプ家 | Holstein-Gottorp

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Holstein-Gottorp".

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