More 19th Century Members of the Order of the Elephant

This next selection of armorial plaques of members of the Order of the Elephant in Frederiksborg Castle brings us a wider variety of nationalities.

As ever, and especially for any plaques which may be dark and harder to see, please click on an image to go to a larger, more detailed (and often more visible) photograph.

First, we have the armorial plaque of Karl Robert Reichsgraf von Nesselrode-Ehreshoven, more commonly known as Charles de Nesselrode (1780- 1862) (created a member of the Order in 1819). He was a Russian German diplomat. For forty years (1816-1856) Nesselrode as Foreign Minister guided Russian policy; he was a leading European conservative statesman of the Holy Alliance.

Here, on the left we have the arms of Ludwig I or Louis I (1786-1868), king of Bavaria from 1825 until the 1848 revolutions in the German states. (He was created a member of the Order in 1825.)

On the right, we see the arms of Ferdinand Charles (Ferdinando Carlo), Crown Prince of Naples and Sicily ("the Two Sicilies"), created a member of the Order in 1829. He later ruled as Ferdinand II, King of the Two Sicilies.

Next, we have the arms of Ferdinand I (1793-1875), the Emperor of Austria from March 1835 until his abdication in December 1848. As ruler of Austria, he was also President of the German Confederation, King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia (as Ferdinand V), King of Lombardy–Venetia and holder of many other lesser titles. (created a member of the Order in 1831)

Then we come to the arms of Albert Edward, Prince of Great Britain (1841-1910), later King Edward VII, King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India from 1901 until his death in 1910. (He was created a member of the Order in 1863.)

Next we we find Prince Alexander Mikhailovich Gorchakov (1798-1883), a Russian diplomat and statesman from the Gorchakov princely family. He has an enduring reputation as one of the most influential and respected diplomats of the mid-19th century. As Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire, he was preceded by Karl Nesselrode, above. (He was created a member of the Order of the Elephant in 1857).

And finally (well, for today, anyway), we have the quarterly arms of Édouard Drouyn de Lhuys (1805-1881), a French diplomat. (He was created a member of the Order in 1856.) An ambassador to the Netherlands and Spain, he served four times as Minister of Foreign Affairs (1848–1849, 1851, 1852–1855, and 1862–1866). He was the first Foreign Minister of the (French) Second Empire.

Nobody Expects the ... Austrian Archdukes?

(My apologies to anyone who doesn't quite understand the title of this post; it's a take-off of a line from an old Monty Python skit, where the main line is: "Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!")

The next armorial stained glass window in the Cathedral of Our Lady, Anterwerp, that we're going to look at contains some more "foreign" heraldry that I hadn't expected to see.

I mean, really, when you look at the history and the individuals being commemorated, it makes perfect sense, but I'm just an amateur herald from Texas, so what do I know? I have to look these things up to more fully understand what I'm looking at.

Anyway, the window is entitled the Archdukes Albert and Isabella in Adoration of the Cross by Cornelis Cussers and Jan Baptist van der Veken, and is dated 1616.

As you can see, there is clearly a lot going on in this window. At the very peak of the window, we have symbols of the Order of the Golden Fleece: firesteels, sparks, and a golden fleece.

Below that, on the right we see the arms of Albert VII as Sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands, and on the left those of Isabella Clara Eugenia as Sovereign of the Habsburg Netherlands.

Their full title was: Albert and Isabella Clara Eugenia, Infanta of Spain, by the grace of God Archdukes of Austria, Dukes of Burgundy, Lothier, Brabant, Limburg, Luxembourg and Guelders, Counts of Habsburg, Flanders, Artois, Burgundy, Tyrol, Palatines in Hainaut, Holland, Zeeland, Namur and Zutphen, Margraves of the Holy Roman Empire, Lord and Lady of Frisia, Salins, Mechlin, the City, Towns and Lands of Utrecht, Overijssel and Groningen.

Near the bottom of the window we find the Archdukes Isabella (on the left) and Albert (on the right), each with their coat of arms in front of them, hers on a lozenge, and his on a standard heraldic heater shield. (Again, you may click on any of the images here to see a larger version,and with this much detail, I recommend doing so.)

Further (heraldically speaking), Archduke Albert is wearing a tabard of his arms under his cloak.

Isabella is accompanied here by her patron saint Elizabeth of Thuringen, bearing a crown, and Albert is accompanied by his patron saint Albert the Great holding a mitre.

In the very lower left-hand corner is the arms of the Margraviate of Antwerp, which we have seen before here and there in the city of Antwerp. In the very lower right corner is the seal of the Chapter of the Cathedral of Our Lady.

Fun With Heraldry

I ran across a post last week (February 10, 2016) over on The Brothers Brick, a blog about all the wild and wonderful stuff people build using LEGOs. This particular post had an heraldic theme; one of their contributors, "kofi," created a display of the arms of all nine Bundesländer, or States, of Austria.

And to give you an idea of how close he came to each of them, here are depictions of the states' arms from the website Heraldry of the World (http://www.ngw.nl/):

Burgenland

Kärnten

Niederösterreich

Oberösterreich

Salzburg

Steiermark

Tirol

Vorarlberg

Wien

Like I said: Fun With Heraldry!