House of Mecklenburg
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The Grand Ducal House of Mecklenburg, the more common name for the House of Nikloting, was a North German dynasty that ruled until 1918.
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[edit] Origins
Lords of the Vend tribe Obotrites. When the Holy Roman Empire expanded eastwards, notably to the coast of Baltic in 13th century, a portion of Obotrite lords allied with German leaders, and strengthened their own position in consequence. The mightiest of them were those who became first Lords of Mecklenburg (name derives from their main castle, Mikla Burg, big fortress). The main branch of the house was elevated in 1347 to ducal rank. They gradually became outwardly more German, preserving their ruling position.
[edit] Claims to Swedish throne
The Dukes of Mecklenburg pursued from 14th century a claim to inheritance in Sweden: The Duke of Mecklenburg was a descendant and the heir of two women whom legends tied to Swedish royal houses as daughters of kings.
- Duke Henry II of Mecklenburg's paternal great-grandmother, a Scandinavian noblewoman named Christina, who was the wife of Henry Borwin II of Mecklenburg (d 1226), was claimed at least by later tradition to have been a daughter of King Sverker II of Sweden. (However, Swedish sources attest that king Sverker II had a son, John, and one daughter, Helena, who married a Swedish nobleman. No further children seem to be attested in sources close to Sweden of that time.) Christina was the mother of John I of Mecklenburg, whose son was Henry I of Mecklenburg.
- Duke Henry II of Mecklenburg's maternal grandmother, a Scandinavian noblewoman named Marianna, who was the first wife of Duke Barnim I of Pomerania (d 1278), lord of Wolgast, was claimed to have been a daughter of King Eric X of Sweden and his wife Richeza of Denmark. (However, sources of the time are scarce, and there is not much attestation of marriages, fates and precise names of those slighted daughters of Eric X.) Marianna had given birth to an only surviving child, daughter named Anastasia of Pomerania, who then became the wife of Henry I of Mecklenburg (d 1302) and mother of Henry II.
The Sverker dynasty had long been extinct, having lost the throne ultimately to Eric XI. The male dynasty of Eric X was also now extinct, and his other daughters had been sidestepped by Birger Jarl, the husband of his (possibly youngest) daughter, Ingeborg, who took care to secure the kingship to his own sons. Dukes of Mecklenburg helped the said legends of their foremothers' Swedish royalty to embellish and spread, and used them as pretexts for the royal aspirations.
Claim became reality for a brief reign: Henry's son Duke Albert II (1318-79) married a kinswoman, a Scandinavian heiress Euphemia of Sweden and Norway (born 1317 and died 1370). Albert III deposed his uncle from the Swedish throne, and ascended as King Albert of Sweden.
[edit] Claims to Norway
This country, the Hereditary Kingdom of Norway, has been the only medieval Scandinavian realm whose kingship was hereditary, not elective. Already when Olav IV of Norway was little and his mother Margaret was regent, the Dukes of Mecklenburg advanced their claims.
The right is based on their descent from Euphemia of Sweden, granddaughter of Haakon V of Norway.
When Olav IV died in 1387, Norway was without a monarch, under the government of the regentess Margaret. She soon chose a heir, Eric of Pomerania, whose mother Maria of Mecklenburg had been Eufemia's eldest granddaughter. Maria's uncle, Margaret's old opponent was left without.
When Eric's nephew king Christopher died (before the death of the deposed Eric III of Norway), after some hiatus another magnate, Christian VIII of Oldenburg, of a female descent from Eufemia and the Mecklenburg (Eufemia's daughter's great-grandson), was in 1450 chosen as king of Norway, this time surpassing his cousin and male-line rival, Duke Henry the Fat of Mecklenburg.
The Dukes of Mecklenburg continued to regard themselves as rightful heirs of Norway, however they were unable to gain the kingdom from the Oldenburgs.
[edit] Modern states in Mecklenburg
In c 1711, a treaty was made between Dukes of Mecklenburg and the Elector of Brandenburg, through which the elector was recognized as the next heir of Mecklenburg after the male lines of the genealogical house of Mecklenburg. Whereby the electors, later kings of Prussia, regarded themselves as having become members of the House of Mecklenburg and started to use its titles, e.g Duke of Mecklenburg, among their own titulary.
The legality of that treaty concession has been and is under discussion, because not each of the then agnates of the House participated in the deed, and at least one of them was then underage.
In 17th and 18th centuries, the duchy was divided several times between agnates of the ducal house. Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Gustrow, Mecklenburg-Grabow and Mecklenburg-Strelitz were typical partition principalities. Until the late 18th century, most parts had returned to the senior branch (Schwerin), after which the patrimony was divided in two states until the very end of monarchy in Germany:
These were elevated to grand duchies by recognition of the Congress of Vienna. In 1918, less than a year before the elimination of monarchy, the main line of Strelitz went extinct and the then Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin stepped in as regent, but succession unclarities (there was a junior Strelitz branch yet living in Russia) were not solved until the small monarchies both were dissolved to republics.
[edit] Slavic heritage
The house of Mecklenburg was originally a tribal chieftain dynasty of Slavic Obotrites, who gradually became Germanized. In the beginning of 20th century, its Slavic roots were remembered for example by king Nicholas I of Montenegro who chose Jutta of Mecklenburg as the wife of his heir-apparent, Danilo, Crown Prince of Montenegro, stating the Slavic ethnicity of the Mecklenburg as sufficient.
