Re: Kings of Poland

["John S. Quarterman" <jsq@quarterman.org>]

>> >St Clairs are not the deposed Polish Royal family.  Swedish super sleuth Th
>e
>> >enchanting Lena A Löfström  has kindly supplied me with the following
>> >information.
>>
>> What were her sources for this information?
>
>My source was a paper Niven sent me a long time ago and at the top it says:
>"C.E.D.K or R. E. No. 35, September 1988.
>
>//Lena

Lena confirms that it was this paper:
 http://sinclair.quarterman.org/pictures/poland/

Actually, it isn't about descendants of the last reigning king of Poland.
It's about descendants of a cousin, allegedly the succeeding pretender,
Stanislas Count Potocki, possibly this fellow:

 http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=it&u=http://www.artonline.it/eng/opera.asp%3FIDOpera%3D1241&prev=/search%3Fq%3DStanislas%2BPotocki%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF8%26oe%3DUTF8%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DG

The paper is in French.  It says Stanislas III Felix count Potocki,
titular King of Poland from 1795 to 1805. Born in 1751.

It indicates two children:
 Felix I George, 1780-1810, titular King of Poland from 1805 to 1810

 Louise I, 1775-1810, titular Queen of Poland from 1810 to 1850
 husband Joseph-Dominic count Korwin-Kossakowski 1771-1840

(Ignoring the king and queen titles, this much matches a genealogy
of this family at Paul Theroff's Online Genealogy Site:
 http://pages.prodigy.net/ptheroff/gotha/potocki.html

Look for Line II, Ct Stanislaw Feliks Potocki.
Note the other siblings, one of whom is named Pelagie,
and who is possibly the person depicted in this painting:
 http://www.batguano.com/Vigeeart147.html

This Pelagie would be the aunt of the next Pelagie mentioned below.)

The C.E.D.K document indicates that Louise and Joseph had a daughter
 Pelagie I, 1798-1881, titular Queen of Poland from 1850 to 1881
 "x 1833 Alexander de Saint-Clair, comte de Roslin 1800-1880"

Comte de Roslin transliterates as Count of Roslin, or, in the current
style, Earl of Rosslyn.

However, Alexander first Earl of Rosslyn died in 1805,

his nephew (not son) James second Earl of Rosslyn married
Henrietta Elizabeth BOUVERIE in 1790 and he died in 1837,

his son James Alexander third Earl of Rosslyn married Francis WEMYSS in 1826
and he died in 1866.

his son Robert was the fourth Earl.

So there was no single Earl of Rosslyn during the years 1800-1880;
during most of that time the Earl's name was not Alexander;
in 1833 the Earl's name was James; and that James married somebody else.
If an Alexander was married in 1833, it couldn't have been Alexander
Wedderburn, first Earl of Rosslyn, because he was long dead.
Besides, the document doesn't mention the name Wedderburn.

Sources: Burke's, and the Rosslyn Family Tree:
 http://sinclair.quarterman.org/pictures/rosslyn/

Maybe there was a Pelagie who married some other Alexander St. Clair
who was somehow confused with the Rosslyn line.

Meanwhile, as far as the claims that various people listed in the C.E.D.K.
document were even titular kings or queens of Poland, the only source
I've happened to run across is ``Notes on Polish royal succession,''
© December 1997 by Rafal T. Prinke:

 http://hum.amu.edu.pl/~rafalp/GEN/sukc_pl.htm

Among a list of several kinds of pretenders to the Polish throne, he includes:

``* reinterpretation of the royal succession laws in Poland (this is always
 possible - and that is why I wrote the present essay)

    * Hanna Jadwiga "II" Woycicka (b. 1945 in France), who claims that her
 ancestor Stanislaus Felix Potocki, the leader of the Targowica confederation,
 succeeded the last king of Poland after his abdication in 1795, and then
 the rights to the throne were passed via a strange mixture of female and
 junior line descents''

John S. Quarterman <jsq@quarterman.org>

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