June 13th

Events - 

1625 - King Charles I of England married Princess Henrietta Maria of France, daughter of the late King Henry IV of France and Maria de' Medici, in Canterbury.  The couple had already been married by proxy on May 11th before Charles' first Parliament - he had just ascended the throne in March - could meet and forbid the marriage.  Many in England were against the marriage because Henriette Maria was Catholic, and they feared that Charles would move away from the Church of England and back to the old religion.  When Charles was crowned in February of the following year, Henrietta Maria was unable to be crowned due to the controversy over her religion.  Although the marriage did not start out well - Henrietta Maria was an extremely devote Catholic which made her unpopular in England and Charles forcibly removed most of the French entourage she had brought to England with her - Henrietta Maria eventually became Charles' closest advisor.  The couple had nine children, four sons and five daughters.  Two of their children were stillborn and two died in childhood.  Of the remaining five, two were future kings of England (Charles II and James II), one daughter was the mother of a future king (Mary, Princess Royal married William II of Orange and was the mother of William III of England), and another daughter (Henrietta) was the great-grandmother of Louis XV of France.  In addition to William III, the couple had two other grandchildren who would become queens of England - Mary II and Anne.

Born on this date - 

823 - Charles, youngest son of Emperor Louis I (Holy Roman Emperor and King of the Franks, son of Charlemagne) and Judith of Bavaria.  By the time of his birth, Charles' older brothers were all adults and had been assigned their own subkingdoms.  Louis attempted to provide his youngest son his own kingdom, but several attempts were unsuccessful.  Eventually, Louis made Charles heir to the land that would eventually become France.  When Louis insisted that the nobles honor Charles as their heir, Louis' older sons rebelled against their father.  After Louis' death in 840, the sons went to war with each other, with Charles aligning himself with his brother Ludwig of Bavaria against Lothair I, the new Holy Roman Emperor, and Pepin II of Aquitaine (son of Pepin I of Aquitaine and nephew of Charles, Ludwig and Lothair).  The war ended in 843 with the Treaty of Verdun, which gave Charles the kingdom of the West Franks, which roughly corresponds to present-day France.  Charles became Holy Roman Emperor in 875 after the death of his nephew Louis II (son of Lothair).  Ludwig, angered at being passed over for the imperial crown, then invaded France, but died the following year.  Charles reigned as emperor for only two years before dying of an illness on October 6, 877.  By his two wives, Ermentrude of Orléans and Richilde of Provence, he had 14 children, including his heir as King of the West Franks Louis, King of Aquitaine Charles, and Judith, who married two kings of Wessex and the first count of Flanders.

839 - Charles, youngest son of Ludwig of Bavaria and Emma.  In 865, Ludwig divided his lands among his heirs, with Charles receiving Alemannia (the German duchy of Swabia, the two names being used interchangeably) and a share of Lotharingia.  Charles later received Italy in 879 when his oldest brother Carloman had a stroke.  After the Papal States were invaded in 880, Pope John VIII appealed to Charles for help, crowning him emperor on February 12, 881.  In 882, he inherited East Francia when his brother Louis died, and was invited to be king of West Francia on the death of Carloman II in 884.  Charles proved to be an inept king and was deposed in 887.  He died six weeks later on January 13, 888. leaving no legitimate heirs, although he tried twice without success to make his illegitimate son Bernard his heir.

1673 - Anna Maria Franziska of Saxe-Lauenburg, oldest surviving daughter of Duke Julius Franz of Saxe-Lauenburg and Maria Hedwig of the Palatinate-Sulzbach.  On her father's death in 1689, she was the legal heir to the duchy of Saxe-Lauenburg since the male line had died out and Salic Law did not apply.  Her cousin Georg Ludwig of Branschweig-Lüneburg conquered the duchy the same year, while several other monarchs tried to stake their claims as well.  The resulting war ended in 1693 with Anna Maria and her sister being dispossessed from their claims.  By her second husband, Gian Gastone de' Medici, she became Grand Duchess consort of Tuscany in 1723.  She died October 15, 1741 at the age of 69.

1965 - Cristina Federica Victoria Antonia de la Santísima Trinidad de Borbón y de Grecia, younger daughter of the future King Juan Carlos of Spain and Sofia of Greece.  She was named Duchess of Palma de Mallorca by her father when she married team handball player Iñaki Urdangarín Liebaert in 1997, with whom she has four children.

Died on this date -

1886 - King Ludwig II of Bavaria, aged 40.  He was born on August 25, 1845, the oldest son of then-Crown Prince Maximilian of Bavaria and Marie of Prussia.  He was named after his grandfather Ludwig I of Bavaria, with whom he shared a birthday (August 25th is also the feast day of St. Louis, who is the patron saint of Bavaria).  Ludwig was not close to his parents - his father refused to spend time with him and he called his mother "my predecessor's consort" - and was greatly influenced by his grandfather, who had abdicated in 1848.  Ludwig succeeded as king at age 18 on his father's death.  One of his first acts as king was to become the patron of composer Richard Wagner, an act which probably saved the constantly-in-debt Wagner's career.  Ludwig became engaged to his cousin Sophie in 1867 (younger sister of Empress Elisabeth of Austria), but broke off the relationship later that year.  He never married and fought an internal battle against his homosexual inclinations for most of his life.  Ludwig was also known for the fairy tale castles he had built, particularly Neuschwanstein, which became the model for Disneyland's Sleeping Beauty Castle.  his castles and other projects were paid out of his private funds, but when he demanded his finance ministers seek loans from other monarchs to continue his works, his cabinet acted (before he could dismiss them due to their opposition to his projects) and declared him unfit to rule due to mental illness.  His uncle was declared regent and Ludwig was eventually captured and sent into exile at Castle Berg, on the shore of Lake Starnberg.  The day after his capture, Ludwig invited psychiatrist Dr. Bernhard von Gudden (chief of the Munich asylum) to walk with him along the lake.  That evening, both men's bodies were pulled from the lake.  Ludwig's death was declared suicide by drowning, although an autopsy showed no water in his lungs.  The doctor had received blows to the head and neck and showed signs of being strangled.  Some believed that Ludwig was murdered trying to escape from his captors.

1918 - Grand Duke Mikhail Alexandrovich of Russia, aged 39.  He was the youngest son of then-Tsesarevich Alexander Alexandrovich and Dagmar of Denmark and was born on December 4, 1878.  After the death of his brother George of tuberculosis in 1899, Mikhail became their brother Nicholas II's heir, until the birth of Tsesarevich Alexei in 1904.  After he was forbidden to marry his cousin Beatrice of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, daughter of his aunt Marie (marriage between first cousins being forbidden in the Russian Orthodox Church), he became involved with one of his sister's ladies-in-waiting, a relationship which was forbidden by his mother and brother.  He married in 1912 the ex-wife of a fellow Army officer, Natalia Sergeyevna Wulfert, who had given birth to his illegitimate son George in 1910.  Mikhail, who stood to become heir to the throne again if the hemophilic Alexei died, said that he married Natalia so that he would be removed from the succession.  The couple was banished from Russia, but were allowed back after World War I broke out.  When Nicholas was forced to abdicate in March 1917, it was in favor of Mikhail, due to Alexei's ill health.  Mikhail refused to accept the throne unless approved by the Provisional Government.  Since they did not approve, Mikhail was never officially tsar, although some still consider him to be Mikhail II, last Tsar of Russia.  In August, Mikhail and Natalia were placed under house arrest, along with Mikhail's secretary Nicholas Johnson.  The foreign minister said the Mikhail would be allowed to go into exile in England, but as with Nicholas and his family, England refused to accept him.  His house arrest was lifted and reinstated twice more, before he and his secretary were sent to Perm in Siberia in March 1918.  His wife had their son smuggled out of Russia and joined her husband in Perm in May, although she left a week later due to the advance of the White Army.  The local secret police planned to murder Mikhail, and forced him out of his hotel with a forged transfer order.  Mikhail and his secretary (who insisted on accompanying him) were taken into the woods outside Perm, on the pretext of going to catch a train, and were shot to death.  Mikhail was the first Romanov to be executed by the Soviets.  His body was never found.

1972 - Stephanie Julianne von Hohenlohe, aged 80.  When in her 20s, she had an affair with the son-in-law of Emperor Franz Josef I, Archduke Franz Salvator (husband of Franz Josef's daughter Marie Valerie).  When she became pregnant, she was married off to Prince Friedrich Franz von Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst.  She gave birth to Franz Salvator's son, Franz Josef Rudolf Hans Weriand Max Stefan Anton von Hohenlohe-Waldenburg-Schillingsfürst, on December 5, 1914.  After she and her husband divorced in 1920, she traveled throughout Europe as Princess von Hohenlohe.  Despite being of Jewish descent, she became close friends with several high Nazi officials, including Adolf Hitler.  After moving to London in 1932, she used her developing connections to Britain's elite to spy for the Nazis.  It was she who arranged the visit of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor to Germany in 1937.  She fled to the US after the outbreak of World War II and started an affair with the director of the INS.  After the attack on Pearl Harbor, she was arrested and detained until the end of the war.  She returned to Europe after the war and died in Switzerland.

1982 - King Khalid bin Abdul-Aziz Al Saud of Saudia Arabia, aged 69.  He was born on February 13, 1913, the fifth son of King Abdulaziz and his one of his favorite wives, Al Jawharah bint bin Abdulaziz bin Musaed bin Jalawi.  Khalid was named Crown Prince in 1965 to his older half-brother Faisal, after his full brother Mohammed declined the position.  He became king on March 25, 1975, after the assassination of Faisal by their nephew.  His half-brother Fahd became Crown Prince and, since Khalid was uninterested in politics, took over the running of the government.  After reigning for seven years, King Khalid died of a heart attack and his brother Fahd became king.