Pretender
A Pretender is a claimant to an abolished or already occupied throne. Deposed monarchs are not seen as pretenders, as the term only applies to those who have never occupied the throne.
French Pretenders
Following the death of the childless legitimist pretender 'Henry V', Comte de Chambord, grandson of King Charles X of France in the 1880s, the majority of Legitimists accepted the Comte's selection as heir, the Orleanist pretender, the Comte de Paris, grandson of King Louis-Philippe as the Legitimist pretender to the French throne. A small minority refused to accept this designation, and chose instead a very distant Spanish-based descendant of an earlier monarch. Hence there are in effect two legitimist pretenders, though the Orleanist pretender, the modern Comte de Paris, is generally accepted by most French monarchs as the pretender, as the list below shows.
Fake pretenders
Some well-known impostors who claimed to be a genuine pretender include:
- The fake Count Baldwin IX of Flanders, whose real name probably was Bertrand of Rais
- Perkin Warbeck, who claimed to be Richard, Duke of York
- The three false Dimitris of Russia
- Karl Wilhelm Naundorff, who claimed to be Louis XVII of France
- Michel Lafosse, a.k.a. Prince Michael of Albany, who claims to be the jacobite heir to the Scottish throne
Some genuine modern pretenders
| State | Pretender | Link to Past Monarchy |
|---|---|---|
| Austria | Crown Prince Otto | Son of the last Emperor-King, Karl I of Austria |
| Albania | Crown Prince Leka I | Son of the last king, Zog of Albania |
| France | Comte de Paris (Orleanist-Legitimist*: generally accepted) | descendant of Louis-Philippe of France |
| France | Duke of Anjou (Legitimist: minority support) | descendant of Louis XIV of France |
| Hungary | Crown Prince Otto von Habsburg | Son of the last King-Emperor, Charles IV of Hungary |
| Italy | Crown Prince Victorio Emanuele | Son of the last king, Humbert II of Italy |
| Ireland | The O'Conor Don | Ireland's senior gaelic peer & descendant of the last Irish High King Rory O'Connor |
| Portugal | The Duke of Bragança | distant relative of the last king Manuel II |