WA pretender is someone who claims to be the rightful ruler of a country although not recognized as such by the current government. The term is often used to suggest that a claim is not legitimate. The word may refer to a former monarch or a descendant of a deposed monarchy, although this type of claimant is also referred to as a head of a house.
WAn anti-king, anti king or antiking is a would-be king who, due to succession disputes or simple political opposition, declares himself king in opposition to a reigning monarch. The term is usually used in a European historical context where it relates to elective monarchies rather than hereditary ones. In hereditary monarchies such figures are more frequently referred to as pretenders or claimants.
WPrincess Alicia of Bourbon-Parma was a Spanish infanta. A member of the House of Bourbon-Parma, she became Duchess of Calabria through her marriage to Infante Alfonso, Duke of Calabria. She occasionally undertook official duties on behalf of the Spanish monarchy. Through marriage, she was the maternal half-aunt of King Juan Carlos I of Spain. She was the longest-lived Infanta of Spain.
WAnwyl of Tywyn are a Welsh family who claim a patrilinear descent from Owain Gwynedd, King of Gwynedd from 1137 to 1170 and a scion of the royal House of Aberffraw. The family motto is: Eryr eryrod Eryri, which translates as "The Eagle of the Eagles of Snowdonia." The family lives in Gwynedd and speak Welsh.
WGustave-Achille Laviarde was from 1882 to his death, pretender to the Kingdom of Araucania and Patagonia under the name of "Achille I king of Araucanie".
WAntoine-Hippolyte Cros was a French surgeon and pretender to the throne of the defunct Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia.
WFrédéric Rodriguez-Luz, also known as Frédéric Luz, is a French writer and heraldist. He is also the current pretender to the "throne" of the Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia, "an ephemeral 19th-century state." This has also been described as a "non-existent kingdom not recognized by any State" currently represented by a French non-profit organization dedicated to international campaigning on behalf of the Mapuche people.
WJacques Antoine Bernard was a French writer and editor of the Mercure de France, an important literary journal. He was also a pretender to the throne of the defunct Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia.
WJean-Michel Parasiliti di Para was the pretender to the throne of the Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia under the name of Antoine IV from 9 January 2014 to 16 December 2017. The kingdom has been described as "an ephemeral 19th-century state" and as a "strange symbolic monarchy".
WLaure-Therese Cros was a pretender to the throne of Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia.
WOrélie-Antoine de Tounens was a French lawyer and adventurer who proclaimed by two decrees on November 17, 1860 and November 20, 1860 that Araucanía and Patagonia did not depend of any other states and that he himself was King of Araucania and Patagonia. On January 5, 1862, he was arrested by the Chilean army and imprisoned. He was declared insane by the court of Santiago on September 2, 1862, and expelled to France on 28 October 28, 1862. He tried three further times to come back to Araucanía to regain his "kingdom", but without success, and he died in poverty on 17 September, 1878, in Tourtoirac, France.
WPhilippe Paul Alexandre Henri Boiry was a journalist and a pretender to the throne of the Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia from October 26, 1952 to January 5, 2014.
WMuhammad Al-Badr was the last king and Zaidi Imam of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of Yemen and leader of the monarchist regions during the North Yemen Civil War (1962–1970). His full name was Al-Mansur Bi'llah Muhammad Al-Badr bin Al-Nasir-li-dinu'llah Ahmad, Imam and Commander of the Faithful and King of the Mutawakkilite Kingdom of the Yemen.
WPeter von Biron was the last Duke of Courland and Semigallia, from 1769 to 1795.
WAnthony Walter Dayrell Brooke was appointed the Rajah Muda of Sarawak on 25 August 1937, by his uncle, Rajah Vyner of Sarawak the third and last of the ruling White Rajahs.
WJason Desmond Anthony Brooke FRAS is the grandson of the last ruling Rajah Muda of Sarawak, Anthony Walter Dayrell Brooke, and a prominent representative of the Brooke Dynasty in Sarawak.
WEmmanuel Bushayija is the titular King of Rwanda. He was proclaimed the ceremonial successor to the royal title (Mwami) on 9 January 2017 under the reign name Yuhi VI. He succeeded his late uncle King Kigeli V of Rwanda and is a grandson of Yuhi V. In 1961. Although Rwanda is now a Republic, the Royal Family still retain all their titles and the right to grant honours to people who are instrumental in improving the lives of the people and the Rwandan environment.
WFrederic, Count of Luna, was a contender for the crown of Aragon.
WFuad II, is a member of the Egyptian Muhammad Ali dynasty. He formally reigned as the last King of Egypt and the Sudan from July 1952 to June 1953, when he was deposed.
WFatehsinghrao Prataprao Gaekwad II was an Indian politician, cricketer, and titular Maharaja of Baroda from 1951 until 1988. In the 26th amendment to the Constitution of India promulgated in 1971, the Government of India abolished all official symbols of princely India, including titles, privileges, and remuneration.
WDevlet I Giray was a Crimean Khan. His long and eventful reign saw many highly significant historical events: the fall of Kazan to Russia in 1552, the fall of the Astrakhan Khanate to Russia in 1556, the burning of Moscow at the hands of the Crimean Tatars in 1571 and the defeat of the Crimeans near Moscow in 1572. During Devlet's reign there were a number of Cossack raids on Crimea.
WEmperor Go-Komatsu was the 100th emperor of Japan, according to the traditional order of succession, and the sixth and final Emperor of the Northern Court.
WGuðrøðr Magnússon, also known as Godred Magnusson, was an illegitimate son of Magnús Óláfsson, King of Mann and the Isles. In 1275, whilst Mann was under Scottish overlordship, Guðrøðr led an unsuccessful revolt on the island. According to a near contemporary source, over five hundred people lost their lives in the subsequent Scottish invasion and suppression of the Manx. It is not certain whether Guðrøðr escaped the decisive defeat of the rebels at Battle of Ronaldsway with his life or if he was among the slain.
WGyanendra Shah reigned as the King of Nepal from 2001 to 2008. As a child, he was briefly king from 1950 to 1951, when his grandfather, Tribhuvan, went into exile in India with the rest of his family. His second reign began after the 2001 Nepalese royal massacre. He was deposed by the first session of the Constituent Assembly on 28 May 2008, thereby declaring the nation as the Federal Democratic Republic of Nepal and abolishing the 240-year reign of the Shah Dynasty.
WHerman(n) of Salm, also known as Herman(n) of Luxembourg, the progenitor of the House of Salm, was Count of Salm and elected German anti-king from 1081 until his death.
WHrizea of Bogdănei, also rendered as Hrizică, sometimes Hrizea-Vodă, was a Wallachian boyar and rebel leader, who proclaimed himself reigning prince in 1655. After rising to high office under his relative, Prince Matei Basarab, he was reconfirmed by Constantin Șerban. He alternated the offices of Spatharios, in charge of the Wallachian military forces, and Paharnic, before being won over by the rebellious Seimeni mercenaries. He issued a claim to the throne in Târgoviște, but controlled only part of the country, and had his seat at Gherghița. In summer 1655, his army was defeated, at Șoplea, by Wallachian loyalist troops, supported by Transylvanians and Moldavians.
WAlbert Kalonji Ditunga was a Congolese politician best known as the leader of the short-lived secessionist state of South Kasai (Sud-Kasaï) during the Congo Crisis.
WKumazawa Hiromichi , also known as the "Kumazawa emperor," was a Japanese businessman and Buddhist priest from Nagoya who publicly disputed the legitimacy of Emperor Hirohito's bloodline in the period shortly after the end of the Second World War. He claimed to be the 19th direct descendant of Emperor Go-Kameyama.
WPrince Leka of Albania is the only child of the first Leka, Crown Prince of Albania, and Susan Cullen-Ward. Prince Leka was an official at the Albanian Ministry of Interior and in the past has served as an adviser at the Albanian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Presidency. On 30 November 2011, he succeeded as head of the House of Zogu, titular King of the Albanians upon the death of his father. The prince is also known as Crown Prince Leka II after his father, who was referred to as Leka I.
WMaria Stella Wynn, Lady Newborough was an Italian-born memoirist, the self-styled legitimate daughter of Louis Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. She was the second wife of the Welsh peer Thomas Wynn, 1st Baron Newborough, after whose death she married the Estonian Baron Heinrich George Eduard von Ungern-Sternberg.
WLucien Charles Joseph Napoléon, Prince Français, Prince of Naples, 2nd Prince de Pontecorvo, 3rd Prince Murat was a French politician, and the sovereign Prince of Pontecorvo between 1812 and May 1815.
WNina Daniela Menegatto is a German-Seborgan businesswoman who currently reigns as the head of state of the Principality of Seborga, a micronation encompassing the Italian city of Seborga, from 10 November 2019. She is the first woman to hold this position, and the ex-wife of former head of state Marcello Menegatto.
WJoshua Abraham Norton, known as Emperor Norton, was a resident of San Francisco, California, who in 1859 proclaimed himself "Norton I., Emperor of the United States". In 1863, after Napoleon III invaded Mexico, he took the secondary title of "Protector of Mexico". Because he had no formal political power whatsoever, throughout his “21-Year Reign”, all of his orders were ignored and his decrees were never considered.
WRoger O'Connor (1762-1834) was an Irish nationalist and writer, known for the controversies surrounding his life and writings, notably his fanciful history of the Irish people, the Chronicles of Eri. He was the brother of Arthur O'Connor and the father of Feargus O'Connor and Francisco Burdett O'Connor.
WPrince Boun Oum was the son of King Ratsadanay, and was the hereditary prince of Champassak and also Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Laos from March 1949 to February 1950 and again from December 1960 to June 1962.
WMaharao Pragmulji III of Kutch was the titular head of the Jadeja dynasty of the former Kutch State.
WPrincess Marie-Louise Razafinkeriefo of Madagascar was the last heir apparent and pretender to the throne of the Kingdom of Madagascar. She was a grandniece, and the adoptive daughter, of Ranavalona III. During World War II, she worked as a nurse and was awarded the Legion of Honour by the French government for her medical service.
WMamoru Shō is an ethnic Ryukyuan, and the current head of the Shō family, the former Ryūkyūan royal family. He is the great-great-grandson of Shō Tai, the last king of the Ryukyu Kingdom, and is the king's most senior direct descendant. Unlike other heads of the Shō family since the abolition of the Ryukyu Kingdom, who have mostly resided in Tokyo, he resides in both Tokyo and Naha, the capital of the Okinawa Prefecture and the historical Ryukyu Kingdom.
WAmarinder Singh, known publicly as Captain Amarinder Singh, is an Indian politician, military historian, author, former royal and former veteran who served as the 15th Chief Minister of Punjab. An elected Member of the Legislative Assembly from Patiala, he was also the president of Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee, the state division of the Indian National Congress. He has also previously served as the Chief Minister of Punjab from 2002 to 2007. He is currently the oldest chief minister by age, serving any state in India. His father was the last Maharaja of the princely state of Patiala. He has also served in the Indian Army from 1963 to 1966. In 1980, he won a seat in the Lok Sabha for the first time. As of February 2021, Singh also serves as the chairman of the Punjab Urdu Academy. Captain Singh resigned as the Chief Minister of Punjab on 18 September 2021.
WBoris Mikhailovich Skossyreff was a Russian adventurer, international swindler and pretender who attempted to seize the monarchy of the Principality of Andorra during the early 1930s, styling himself Boris I of Andorra.
WSince its fall, the issue of succession to the Byzantine Empire has been a major point of contention both geopolitically, with different states laying claim to the legacy and inheritance of the Byzantine Empire, and among the surviving members of the Byzantine nobility and their descendants. Historically, the most prominent claims have been those of the Ottoman Empire, which conquered Byzantium in 1453 and ruled from its former capital, Constantinople, the Russian Empire, as the most powerful state practicing Orthodox Christianity, and various nobles and figues in Western Europe of increasingly spurious and questionable imperial descent.
WNicolás Zúñiga y Miranda was a Mexican eccentric who was famous for being a perennial candidate in his country's presidential elections. Although he never won a significant share of the votes, he considered himself to be the victor every time.