Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp - Dukes of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp

Dukes of Schleswig-Holstein-Gottorp

Dukes of Schleswig and Holstein at Gottorp:

• 1544-1586 : Adolf
• 1586-1587 : Frederick II
• 1587-1590 : Philip
• 1590-1616 : John Adolf
• 1616-1659 : Frederick III
• 1659-1694 : Christian Albert
• 1694-1702 : Frederick IV
• 1702-1720 : Charles Frederick

Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp at Kiel:

• 1720-1739 : Charles Frederick
• 1739-1762 : Karl Peter Ulrich (later Peter III of Russia)
• 1762-1773 : Paul ((Emperor 1796–1801)) 1773 exchanged claim for Duchy of Oldenburg

Titular Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp at St Petersburg:

• 1773-1801 : Paul ((Emperor 1796–1801))
• 1801-1825 : Alexander I of Russia
• 1825-1831 : Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich of Russia
• 1831-1856 : Nicholas I of Russia
• 1856-1881 : Alexander II of Russia
• 1881-1894 : Alexander III of Russia
• 1894-1918 : Nicholas II of Russia
• 1918-1938 : Cyril Vladimirovich, Grand Duke of Russia (After the murder of the Emperor and Tsarevitch in 1918, the title passed to the surviving senior male branch of the Romanov family.)
• 1938-1992 : Vladimir Kirillovich, Grand Duke of Russia (Grand Duke Vladimir died with only female issue, and so the title should pass to the senior male member of the House of Romanov-Holstein-Gottorp. To whom is a contested issue.)

One view is that the heir is the non-dynastic son of Grand Duke Dimitri, only son of Grand Duke Paul, himself the youngest brother of Alexander III. This heir is non-dynastic in the Russian sense, but the Danish branch of the House of Oldenburg had no declared ban against unequal marriages, and Schleswig, where the (once sovereign) Schloss Gottorf is located, was never part of Holy Roman Empire or under its jurisdiction. These heirs live in USA and have not staked a public claim to titles.

• 1992 - 2004: Prince Paul Dimitrievich Romanovsky-Ilyinsky
• 2004 - Present: Prince Dimitri Pavlovich Romanovsky-Ilyinsky (born 1954)

Prince Dimitri Pavlovich Romanovsky-Ilyinsky has no sons. His only male heir, his brother Prince Michael Romanovsky-Ilyinsky, is also without male issue, and there are currently no further male heirs in the Romanovsky-Ilyinsky line to inherit this theroretical claim to the Duchy.

Another view is that by the end of the Holy Roman Empire it was a principle of German princely law that members of all princely families which held Reichsstand status therein were required to contract ebenburtig in order to transmit dynastic rights to their descendants. If descendants of Grand Duke Dmitri's marriage with Audrey Emery are considered ineligible to succeed to the ducal Holstein claim, it is unclear which, if any, of the various male-line branches descended from the Imperial Romanovs remain eligible. If marriages-in-exile with Russian princesses or countesses meet the marital standard, male-line heirs may yet exist. If, however, all marriages deemed morganatic by Russian Imperial standards were also non-dynastic for the Gottorp succession, the genealogically senior Holstein-Gottorp dynast would be Anton-Günther, Duke of Oldenburg, current head of the branch descending from Christian August of Holstein-Gottorp, Prince of Eutin, the younger brother of Duke Frederick IV. He already holds claim to the defunct Oldenburg grandducal title. Either way, the duchy's revenues were parcelled among the cadet Schleswig-Holstein branches of the House of Oldenburg with the king of Denmark exercising sovereignty in the duchies. The claim to Holstein inherited by Emperor Paul I from Peter II was exchanged in 1777 for the Danish kings' county (later grand duchy) of Oldenburg (residual succession rights being retained), the rulers of which lost sovereignty there in 1918. The kings of Denmark lost sovereignty over Schleswig-Holstein in the war of 1853, subsequent to which both duchies were incorporated into the kingdom of Prussia and, after 1918, into the German Republic.