Royal Exiles in Britain
How Britain became a safe haven, or prison, for deposed monarchs and those ruling in exile
If Britain is famous for one thing, it is its monarchy, which has existed pretty much intact for over a thousand years. Indeed, this notoriety and security has also lead multiple foreign kings and queens to call Britain their home after being forced from their own country. From French kings fleeing revolution to European monarchs escaping Nazi invasion and even an Indian maharaja forced to live there, here is just a small selection of the many monarchs who have found themselves making a home in Britain.
Louis XVIII, King of France: 1808–1814
Born the Count of Provence, Louis was the brother of King Louis XVI of France. Following the French Revolution and the march on Versailles, Louis and his family fled to the Netherlands in June 1791, the same time as his brother’s ill-fated attempt to flee with his family to Varennes. But whilst King Louis and his family were captured, Louis safely made it to the Netherlands.
After the execution of Louis XVI in 1793 and the death of his son, Louis XVII, in 1795, Louis became head of the House of Bourbon and took the title of Louis XVIII. He remained a guest of the Tsars of Russia, staying in numerous palaces, until 1807, when Tsar Alexander I could no longer ensure his safety after Russia’s defeat to Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz. He was eventually offered asylum by King George III in Britain.
In November 1807, Louis and his family arrived in Great Yarmouth and stayed in Gosfield Hall, leased to him by the Marquess of Buckingham. The following year, the royal family and 100 courtiers moved to Hartwell House in Buckinghamshire. George III paid £500 a year in rent for them to stay and his son, the Prince Regent, granted them enormous allowances and permanent right of asylum. It was at Hartwell in 1813 that Louis produced the famous Declaration of Hartwell, which stated all those who had supported the Republic and Napoleon would not be punished under a Bourbon restoration.
In May 1814, after Napoleon’s disastrous retreat from Russia and abdication, Louis XVIII left Hartwell to retake the French throne at the invitation of the French Senate.
Louis Phillipe I, King of the French: 1848–1850
Louis Phillipe came to power after the abdication of his fifth-cousin (and Louis XVIII’s successor) Charles X after the July Revolution of 1830. Known as ‘the Citizen King’, Louis Phillipe was a popular monarch, selected by deputies after his support of the July Revolution and he accordingly took the name ‘King of the French’ rather than ‘of France’.
But the economic reforms Louis Phillipe created mostly supported the bourgeoisie and industrialists and the income gap only widened more. An economic and agricultural depression that began in 1846 led to the Revolution of 1848 that created the Second French Republic and forced Louis Phillipe to abdicate on 24 February. Unlike Louis XVI, who tried to flee Paris in a huge golden carriage in 1791, Louis Phillipe fled France in an ordinary taxi under the name ‘Monsieur Smith’.
Upon arrival in Britain in March 1848, Louis Phillipe and his wife took the incognito titles of the Comte and Comtesse de Neuilly and made a home at Claremont, an estate in Surrey offered to them by Queen Victoria. He struck up a friendship with the Marquess of Bristol and often stayed in his houses st Bury St Edmunds and Brighton, and was sometimes a guest of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Louis Phillipe I died at Claremont on 26 August 1850.
Napoleon III, Emperor of the French: 1871–1873
The nephew of Napoleon, Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte was elected President of the Second French Republic in February 1848 after the abdication of Louis Phillipe. But he would only go to suffer the same fate.
In 1852, Louis-Napoleon declared the Second French Empire, and named himself Emperor Napoleon III. Another popular monarch, Napoleon ruled mostly through referendums and undertook huge projects such as the redesigning of Paris. He also led France to victory in the Crimean War and oversaw huge colonial expansion.
But in 1870, Napoleon reluctantly declared war on Prussia, whose chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, had secretly been counting on as a way to complete his unification of the German states into one nation. The French were completely outnumbered and outmanoeuvred and Emperor Napoleon himself was captured at the Battle of Sedan on 2 September. The following day, a group of republican deputies in Paris declared a Third French Republic.
On 1 March 1871, after an embarrassing capitulation to Prussia, the French Assembly blamed France’s defeat solely on Napoleon III, who was currently imprisoned in Germany, and abolished the French monarchy once and for all.
On 20 March, Napoleon journeyed to England after being released by Bismarck; with no power or money, he was forced to sell his properties and jewels to to pay for his new life in exile. He settled in Camden Place, a large house in Chislehurst, Kent, with his wife, son, and entourage. He was often visited by Queen Victoria and spent much of his time, bizarrely, designing an energy-efficient stove.
After years of suffering from ill health (he could barely talk or sit up in the end) Napoleon III died after gallstone surgery in January 1873. Originally buried in the Catholic church in Chislehurst (where his lavish imperial tomb looked ridiculous), Napoleon’s remains were moved with those of his son (who’d died in the Anglo-Zulu War) to the Imperial Crypt at St Michael’s Abbey in Farnborough, Lincolnshire.
Duleep Singh, Maharaja of the Sikh Empire: 1853–1893
Duleep Singh was the last Maharaja of the Sikh Empire, succeeding to the throne in 1844 aged just five. Following the Second Anglo-Sikh War, however, the British formally annexed the Punjab and Duleep was dethroned in 1849. For five years he stayed at ‘The Castle’ in Landour in the Himilayan foothills, not permitted to meet any other Indians, except his servants, and where he converted (most likely forcibly) to Christianity.
In May 1854, Duleep was permanently exiled to Britain. Upon arrival, he was introduced to the royal court and was ‘befriended’ by Queen Victoria. He initially stayed at Claridge’s Hotel in London before the East India Company bought a house in Roehampton for him. He often visited the royal family at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight, where Prince Albert photographed him playing with the royal children.
In 1855, having turned 16, Duleep was given an annual pension of £25,000 (£2.5 million today) and moved to Castle Menzies in Scotland. There he lived in lavish luxury, holding parties and great hunting expeditions that earned him the name ‘the Black Prince of Perthshire’. It was here that he brought his mother, having finally being allowed to reunite with her in 1861 after the British ruled her blindness and infirmity no longer posed a threat.
After the death of his mother in 1863, Duleep moved to Elveden, his great estate in Norfolk. Here he created one of the greatest hunting reserves in England and became known as the third best shot in the country.
In 1886, having regretted his exile and conversion to Christianity for decades, Duleep decided to travel to India to reconvert to Sikhism. But he was intercepted and arrested at Aden (in modern-day Yemen) and forced to return to England. Whilst he did in fact reconvert to Sikhism in Aden, it was not nearly as extravagant or victorious an occasion as was planned for him in India.
Duleep spent another seven years depressed and trapped in England before dying in Paris in 1893, aged just 55. Despite wanting to be buried in India and reconverting to Sikhism, the British government decided against it and Duleep Singh was buried with Christian rights in Elveden Church.
Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia: 1936–1941
Haile Selassie had been Emperor of Ethiopia since 1930. Benito Mussolini, the Fascist dictator of Italy, was keen to avenge Italy’s defeat to Ethiopia in the First Italo-Ethiopian War in 1896, when the former attempted to create an Italian Protectorate over the country.
In October 1935, Italian troops invaded Ethiopia at Welwel and the Ethiopian army was immediately mobilised on the 18th. The Ethiopian army was underprepared and outgunned and at the Battle of Maychew the following March was overwhelmed and dispersed.
In May 1936, Haile Selassie ran into exile, heading first to Jerusalem and then the League of Nations in Geneva, whilst King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy was declared Ethiopia’s new emperor. On 12 May, Haile Selassie addressed the League of Nations, giving one of the most powerful speeches of the twentieth century, pleading they assist Ethiopia and warning them ‘God and history will remember your judgement’. Regardless, only six countries refused to recognise Italy’s occupation. It was later discovered that, through the Hoare-Laval Pact, Britain and France were always willing to sacrifice Ethiopia to appease Italy.
In June, Haile Selassie and his family arrived in England. He stayed first at Warne’s Hotel in Worthing before staying briefly at Parkside in Wimbledon. He then moved to the Abbey Hotel in Malvern, Worcestershire, where his granddaughters were educated at Clarendon School for Girls.
The Emperor continued to plea for the League of Nations to condemn Ethiopia’s occupation and countering Italian propaganda, which earned him many admirers across the globe. In 1937, he gave a radio broadcast to his African American supporters despite fracturing his knee in a car accident on the way there.
He finally settled in Bath, buying the fourteen-roomed Fairfield House. Haile spent his days walking in the garden, reading diplomatic history, and writing a 90,000-word autobiography.
In June 1940, Italy entered World War II in support of Nazi Germany. The British and Allies finally agreed to end the Italian occupation of Ethiopia as part of the East African Campaign. Haile Selassie joined them in January 1941 as the crossed into Ethiopia and was restored to the throne the following May. He ruled for a further 33 years until he was deposed by a military coup in 1974. Fairfield House was donated by him to the City of Bath in 1958 as an old peoples’ home.
Zog I, King of Albania: 1939–1946
Ahmet Zogu was made President of Albania in January 1925 when he returned from exile with the support of Yugoslav and White Russian troops. Three years later, on 1 September 1928, he was declared King Zog I of the new Kingdom of Albania.
Mussolini had been a close supporter of Zog since his Presidency began, and, over the next decade, Italian influence in Albania increased exponentially. After the Great Depression hit Albania in 1930, the country became almost entirely dependent on Italy for finance and investment. Knowing this, Mussolini imposed the mandatory teaching of Italian in Albanian schools and demanded ownership of Albania’s telegraph, sugar, and electricity monopolies.
When King Zog refused this last demand, Mussolini’s forces invaded Albania on 7 April 1939. The Italian army met little resistance and Zog, Queen Geraldine, and the rest of the royal family fled to Greece with a large amount of gold from the National Bank. They made their way through Europe and thought to settle in Paris. But after the Nazis invaded France in June 1940, the royal family were forced to flee to Britain. Their escape from France was assisted by Naval Intelligence Commander Ian Fleming, who would later write the James Bond series.
Upon arrival, Zog stayed at The Ritz Hotel in London before moving to Forest Ridge in South Ascot in 1941.
The same year, the royal family moved permanently to Parmoor House, near Frieth in Buckinghamshire. Their hoard of gold coins were kept in chests in the hall and Zog reportedly smoked 200 cigarettes a day. The family were subject to wartime rationing, and letters exist that show their annoyance at petrol and clothing coupons. Bizarrely, they also kept a goat inside Parmoor, that would roam about the house and one time even walked in during dinner and ate the tablecloth.
In 1946, following the liberation of Albania, Zog discovered that he would not be permitted to return to Albania by its new Communist government. He moved to Egypt and then Paris, where he died in 1961.
Haakon VII, King of Norway: 1940–1945
Haakon VII became the first monarch of independent Norway for 500 years in 1905, following the dissolution of the United Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway and a public referendum that voted him with a 79% majority. He proved a popular monarch, ruling with benevolence and without political bias.
On 9 April 1940, Norway was invaded by Nazi Germany. Haakon, his son, Crown Prince Olav, and the Storting (Norwegian Parliament) fled Oslo to Elverum. Unlike his brother, King Christian X of Denmark, when Hitler sent his ambassador to discuss terms the following day, Haakon refused to surrender and become a puppet monarch. In a speech to the Storting at the tiny village of Nybergsund, he declared, ‘I cannot accept the German demands. It would conflict with all that I have considered to be my duty as King of Norway’. The government agreed and later broadcast a speech that Norway would resist German occupation.
The following morning, the Luftwaffe bombed Nybergsund; Haakon, Olav and the cabinet took refuge in the surrounding forest. Refused entry into Sweden (which Haakon never forgot), the king and government met up with British forces at Tromsø.
As the British were forced out of Norway, the royal family and Norwegian government boarded HMS Devonshire on 7 June and sailed to exile in Britain. The royal family were originally guests at Buckingham Palace before the Blitz began in September 1940, when they moved to Bowdown House in Berkshire. In March 1942, they moved again to Foliejon Park near Windsor, where they stayed for the rest of the war.
The Norwegian government-in-exile was established at 10 Palace Green, Kensington, London. Haakon attended weekly cabinet meetings here and gave speeches to the Norwegian people through the BBC World Service. Haakon’s defiance inspired the vast majority of Norwegians to join the resistance movement and made him a key symbol of nationalism and resistance. The Storting persistently refused to abolish the monarchy at Hitler’s insistence and Norwegians would wear and graffitti Haakon’s ‘H7’ monogram as an act of resistance.
After victory in Europe, Haakon VII and the royal family left Foliejon Park and returned to Norway on HMS Norfolk, arriving to cheering crowds in Olso on 7 June 1945.
Wilhelmina, Queen of the Netherlands: 1940–1945
Wilhelmina became Queen of the Netherlands at the age of just 10 in 1890. She was one of the first women billionaires through her business ventures and, in a period that saw the collapse of numerous royal houses, Wilhelmina ensured the survival of the Dutch monarchy by remaining neutral in World War I. She even offered Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany asylum after the war, where he remained until his death in 1941.
On 10 May 1940, Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands; with no mountains or natural barriers to stage an effective resistance, the country fell in five days. Despite her hostility towards Britain after they blockaded the Netherlands as well as Germany in WW1, Wilhelmina and the royal family boarded HMS Hereward on 13 May and journeyed to exile in Britain.
She made her home in The Grange, a house near South Mimms in Hertfordshire, where she led the Dutch government-in-exile. Her relations with the government were tense, especially when her Prime Minister, Dirk Van de Geer, intended to open negotiations with Hitler since he did not believe the Allies could win. Naturally, she had him removed from office.
Like King Haakon, Wilhelmina broadcasted some 48 speeches to the Netherlands through the BBC’s Radio Oranje , strengthening the country’s resolve and calling Hitler ‘the arch-enemy of mankind’. She was described by Winston Churchill as ‘the only real man amongst the governments-in-exile’.
On 20 February 1944, the Queen was almost killed after a German air attack on South Mimms caused a bomb to be dropped on the Grange, though the blast did kill two of her guards. After this, she decided to move to Reading.
Following the liberation of the Netherlands in March 1945, Queen Wilhelmina returned to The Hague. She reigned for a further three years until her abdication in 1948
