Editing Morganatic marriage (section)

=== Russia ===
[[Paul I of Russia]] promulgated a strict new [[house law]] for Russia in 1797, eliminating the sovereign's right to designate the heir to the throne, but requiring that dynasts be born of authorized marriages.{{CN|date=June 2024}} In 1820 a new law also stipulated that only children of Romanovs born of marriages with persons of equal status, i.e., members of a "royal or sovereign family", could transmit succession rights and titles to descendants.{{CN|date=December 2024}} Alexander III forbade Romanov morganatic marriages altogether by issuance of ''[[ukase]]'' #5868 on 24 March 1889 amending article #63 of the Statute on the Imperial Family in the [[Pauline laws]]. By ''ukase'' #35731, dated 11 August 1911, Nicholas II amended the amendment, reducing application of this restriction from all members of the Imperial Family to grand dukes and grand duchesses only. This decree allowed marriages of the [[prince du sang|princes and princesses of the Blood Imperial]] with non-royal spouses, on the [[Pauline laws#Dynastic marriage|conditions]] that the emperor's consent be obtained, that the dynast renounce his or her personal succession rights, and that the Pauline laws restricting succession rights to those born of equal marriages continue in force.{{CN|date=June 2024}}

An early victim of the Pauline laws was [[Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia|Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich]], grandson of [[Catherine the Great]], and viceroy of Poland. On 20 March 1820 his marriage to Princess [[Juliane of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld]] was annulled to allow him to morganatically wed his longtime mistress, [[Joanna Grudzińska|Countess Joanna Grudna-Grudzińska]], in Warsaw on 24 May 1820, who was elevated to the title "Princess Łowicza" upon marriage, which produced no children.<ref name="enache">Enache, Nicolas. ''La Descendance de Pierre le Grand, Tsar de Russie''. Sedopols, Paris, 1983. pp.43, 127. French. {{ISBN|2-904177-01-9}}</ref>

[[File:Tsar Alexander II 1881.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Tsar Alexander II]]

[[File:Princess Catherine Dolgorukov.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Princess Catherine Dolgorukova]]

One emperor, [[Alexander II of Russia|Alexander II]], married morganatically in 1880. Princess [[Ekaterina Mihailovna Dolgorukova]], Alexander's second bride, had previously been his long-term mistress and the mother of his three [[legitimation|legitimised]] children, the [[Catherine Dolgorukov#Children|princes and princesses Yurievsky]].<ref name="willis">Willis, Daniel. The Descendants of King George I of Great Britain. Clearfield, Baltimore, 2002. pp. 114, 580, 601, 607, 717. {{ISBN|0-8063-5172-1}}.</ref>

Beginning a novel tradition, one of that couple's daughters, Princess Olga Aleksandrovna Yurievskaya (1873–1925), in 1895 married the child of an 1868 morganatic marriage in the [[House of Nassau]], [[Count of Merenberg|George, Count von Merenberg]] (1871–1965).<ref name="willis"/> His mother was a daughter of renowned author [[Alexander Pushkin]] but, despite being of noble birth, she could not in 1868 dynastically marry the [[Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau|younger brother]] of a then-exiled [[Adolphe, Grand Duke of Luxembourg|Duke of Nassau]].<ref name="willis"/> The count filed a futile suit to establish that his morganatic status in Germany should not exclude him from succession to the [[Line of succession to the throne of Luxembourg|throne of Luxembourg]] after the last male of the [[House of Orange]], King [[William III of the Netherlands]], died in 1890 and it became apparent that the House of Nassau faced the imminent extinction of its male members, as well, upon the eventual death of [[William IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg|Grand Duke William IV]].{{CN|date=June 2024}} Olga's brother, [[Prince George Alexandrovich Yuryevsky|Prince George Aleksandrovich Yurievsky]] (1872–1913), in 1900 wed Countess Alexandra von Zarnekau (1883–1957), daughter of the morganatic marriage of the Russo-German [[Duke Constantine Petrovich of Oldenburg]] with Agrafena [[Japaridze (noble family)|Djaparidize]].<ref name="willis"/> Merenberg's sister, [[Sophie of Merenberg|Sophia]] (1868–1927), likewise contracted a morganatic marriage in 1891, with [[Grand Duke Michael Mihailovich of Russia|Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia]], whose cousin, [[Nicholas II of Russia|Emperor Nicholas II]] banished them to England, unwittingly saving the couple from the maelstrom of the [[Russian Revolution]] which proved fatal to so many [[House of Romanov|Romanovs]].<ref name="crawf">Crawford, Rosemary and Donald. "Michael and Natasha". Scribner, New York, 1997. pp. 111, 131, 147, 182, 204, 228, 389. {{ISBN|0-684-83430-8}}.</ref> She and her children were made ''counts de Torby'', her younger daughter, [[Nadejda Mountbatten, Marchioness of Milford Haven|Countess Nada]] (1896–1963) marrying, in 1916 [[George Mountbatten, 2nd Marquess of Milford Haven|Prince George of Battenberg]], future [[Marquess of Milford Haven]] and scion of the [[Battenberg family|House of Battenberg]], a morganatic branch of the grandducal [[House of Hesse]] which had settled in England and inter-married with descendants of [[Queen Victoria]].<ref name="willis"/>

Less fortunate among the Romanovs was [[Grand Duke Paul Alexandrovich of Russia|Grand Duke Paul Aleksandrovich]], who went into exile in Paris to marry a commoner, [[Olga Valerianovna Paley|Olga Valerianovna Karnovich]] in 1902.<ref name="crawf"/> Paul returned to serve in the Russian army during the First World War, and Nicholas II rewarded his uncle's loyalty by elevating Olga and her children as Princess and Princes Paley in 1915.<ref name="crawf"/> Paul's patriotism, however, sealed his fate, and he died at the hands of Russia's revolutionaries in 1919. One of his daughters, [[Irina Paley|Princess Irene Pavlovna Paley]] (1903–1990), was married while in exile in 1923, to her cousin, [[Prince Feodor Alexandrovich of Russia|Prince Theodor Aleksandrovich of Russia]], (1898-1968).<ref name="crawf"/>

Nicholas II forbade his brother, [[Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich of Russia]], from marrying twice-divorced [[Russian nobility|noblewoman]] [[Princess Brassova|Natalya Sergeyevna Wulfert]] (''née'' Sheremetevskaya), but the couple eloped abroad in 1911.<ref name="crawf"/> The Tsar refused his brother's request to grant the bride or their son, [[George Mikhailovich, Count Brasov|George Mikhailovich]] (1910–1931) a title, but [[legitimation|legitimated]] George and incorporated him into the [[Russian nobility]] under the surname "Brassov" in 1915: nonetheless he and his mother used the [[count|comital]] title from 1915, only being granted a princely prefix in exile by [[Cyril Vladimirovich, Grand Duke of Russia]] in 1928.<ref name="enache"/><ref name="crawf"/> In the throes of the First World War, Nicholas II allowed his sister [[Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna of Russia]] to end her loveless marriage to her social equal, [[Duke Peter Alexandrovich of Oldenburg]], and quietly marry commoner Colonel [[Nikolai Alexandrovich Kulikovsky]].<ref name="crawf"/> Both Michael's and Olga's descendants from these marriages were excluded from the succession.

After the murder of Nicholas II and his children, the Imperial Family's morganatic marriages restricted the number of possible claimants. [[Cyril Vladimirovich, Grand Duke of Russia|Grand Duke Cyril Vladimirovich]], Nicholas's cousin, proclaimed himself as Emperor in exile.<ref name="crawf"/> Controversy accompanied the marriage of his son [[Vladimir Cyrillovich, Grand Duke of Russia|Grand Duke Vladimir Cyrillovich]] to [[Leonida Georgievna, Grand Duchess of Russia|Princess Leonida Georgievna Bagration-Mukhransky]], a descendant of the deposed Royal House of Georgia.<ref name="massie">{{cite book | title=The Romanovs: The Final Chapter | url=https://archive.org/details/romanovsfinalcha00mass_0 | url-access=limited | publisher=Random House | author=Massie, Robert K. | year=1995 | location=New York | pages=[https://archive.org/details/romanovsfinalcha00mass_0/page/268 268]–270 | isbn=0-394-58048-6| author-link=Robert Massie }}</ref> After the annexation of Georgia in 1801, Leonida's family were deemed ordinary nobility in Imperial Russia rather than royalty, leading to claims that her 1948 marriage to Vladimir (who, however, also belonged to a deposed dynasty by then) was unequal and should be considered morganatic.<ref name="massie"/> As a result, some factions within Russia's monarchist movement did not support the couple's daughter, [[Maria Vladimirovna, Grand Duchess of Russia|Grand Duchess Maria Vladimirovna]], as the rightful heir to the Romanov dynasty.<ref name="massie"/>