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Jeanne of France, Queen of France, Saint Joan of Valois; Credit – Wikipedia

February 4, 1505 – Death of Jeanne of France, Queen of France, Saint Joan of Valois, in Bourges, Duchy of Berry, now in France; buried in the chapel of the convent she founded in Bourges. Her tomb was desecrated and her remains were burned by the Huguenots during the sacking of the city of Bourges.
Jeanne was the daughter of King Louis XI of France. In 1476, Jeanne married Louis of Orléans, the future King Louis XII of France. She was the first of the three wives of King Louis XII of France. The marriage was unhappy, the couple lived apart, and there were no children. Louis succeeded as King of France after the unexpected death of his cousin King Charles VIII in 1498. Jeanne and Louis XII’s childless marriage was annulled because Louis XII wanted to marry Charles VII’s widow Anne, Duchess of Brittany in her own right to gain control of Anne of Brittany’s funds and territories. After her marriage was annulled, Jeanne founded the monastic Order of the Sisters of the Annunciation of Mary and died in 1505 at the age of 40. She was canonized as a saint in 1950.  
Unofficial Royalty: Jeanne of France, Queen of France, Saint Joan of Valois

February 4, 1694 – Death of Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina, Tsaritsa of All Russia, second wife of Alexei, Tsar of All Russia, mother of Peter I the Great, Emperor of All Russia, at the Moscow Kremlin; first buried at the Ascension Convent, a Russian Orthodox nunnery in the Moscow Kremlin, in 1929 moved to the crypt of the Archangel Cathedral in the Moscow Kremlin
In 1671, Natalya married Alexei, Tsar of All Russia as his second wife. The couple had three children including Peter I (the Great), Emperor of All Russia. Natalya had been brought up in the Moscow home of her distant relative, the Western-influenced statesman, diplomat, and reformer Artamon Sergeyevich Matveev. Mateev married a Western woman, Eudoxie Hamilton from Scotland. Because of Mateev’s influence, Natalya Kirillovna’s upbringing was freer and more Western than that of other Russian women of that time period and it certainly had an influence on her son Peter the Great who was greatly influenced by Western advisers and implemented major reforms to modernize Russia. Natalya Kirillovna died from heart disease at the age of 42 on February 4, 1694.
Unofficial Royalty: Natalia Kirillovna Naryshkina, Tsaritsa of All Russia

February 4, 1761 – Birth of Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen in the Imperial Free City of Frankfurt, now in Hesse, Germany
Full name: Georg Frederick Karl
Georg became Duke of Saxe-Meiningen in July 1782, upon the death of his childless brother Karl Wilhelm. Four months later, he married Princess Luise Eleonore of Hohenlohe-Langenburg. The couple had three children including Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen who married King William IV of the United Kingdom. One of the first things Georg did upon becoming Duke was to open the Ducal library and art collections to the public. He also oversaw the design of the new English Garden in Meiningen on the site of the former municipal cemetery and began to transform Meiningen into a prestigious royal city. Having always been in poor health, Georg I died at the age of 42, after developing a fever.
Unofficial Royalty: Georg I, Duke of Saxe-Meiningen

February 4, 2002 – Death of Sigvard Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg in Stockholm, Sweden;  buried in the Royal Cemetery in Haga Park in Solna, Sweden
Sigvard was the second son of King Gustav VI Adolf of Sweden and his first wife Princess Margaret of Connaught. He lost his style His Royal Highness and his title Prince of Sweden when he married a commoner. In 1951, Grand Duchess Charlotte of Luxembourg conferred on him the title of Count of Wisborg. Sigvard died in 2002, in Stockholm, Sweden. He was 94 years old, and for the last eight years of his life, he had been the eldest living great-grandchild of Queen Victoria, as well as her longest-lived descendant.
Unofficial Royalty: Sigvard Bernadotte, Count of Wisborg

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John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster; Credit – Wikipedia

February 3, 1014 – Death of Sweyn Forkbeard, King of Denmark, Norway, and England, in Gainsborough, Lincolnshire, England; buried at Roskilde Cathedral in Roskilde, Denmark
Sweyn Forkbeard was the son of Harald Bluetooth, King of Denmark and Norway, the inspiration for the name of the wireless technology company Bluetooth. In 1002 Æthelred II, King of the English was told that the Danish men in England “would faithlessly take his life, and then all his councilors, and possess his kingdom afterward.” In response, Æthelred “ordered slain all the Danish men who were in England.” St. Brice’s Day Massacre occurred on November 13, 1002, the feast day of St. Brice, fifth-century Bishop of Tours. There was a significant loss of life including Gunhilde, the sister of Sweyn Forkbeard. In retaliation, Sweyn attacked England during 1003 – 1004, burning Norwich but famine in 1005 caused him to retreat. The Danish invaders returned and within a few years, all of England came under Danish rule. On Christmas Day in 1013, Sweyn was formally proclaimed King of England. Æthelred had fled to the Isle of Wight and then to Normandy. However, Sweyn’s reign was short-lived as he suddenly died on February 3, 1014, at around the age of 54. Although there are reports that Sweyn died after a fall from his horse, a 2015 study speculated that he may have died from Brugada Syndrome, a genetic disorder in which the electrical activity in the heart is abnormal. It increases the risk of abnormal heart rhythms and sudden cardiac death. The study showed that perhaps up to fourteen Danish kings who suddenly died at a relatively young age without being ill possibly died of Brugada Syndrome.
Unofficial Royalty: Sweyn I Forkbeard, King of Denmark, Norway, and England

February 3, 1399 – Death of John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, son of King Edward III of England, at Leicester Castle in Leicester, England; buried at Old St. Paul’s Cathedral in London, England (tomb destroyed in the Great Fire of London)
A younger son of King Edward III of England, John of Gaunt was a military leader and statesman and the father of King Henry IV of England. Due to his royal birth and marriages, he was one of the richest men of his time and was very influential during the reigns of his father King Edward III and his nephew King Richard II. As Duke of Lancaster, he was the founder of the House of Lancaster, whose members would become Kings of England after his death. All monarchs of England, Great Britain, and the United Kingdom since King Henry IV are descended from John of Gaunt. In fact, most European monarchies are descended from John. The Houses of Lancaster, York, and Tudor were all descended from John of Gaunt’s children.
Unofficial Royalty: John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster

February 3, 1874 – Death of Lunalilo, King of the Hawaiian Islands at Haimoeipo, his private residence in Honolulu, Oahu, Kingdom of the Hawaiian Islands, now in the state of Hawaii; buried in the Lunalilo Mausoleum on the grounds of Kawaiahaʻo Church in Honolulu

Unofficial Royalty: Lunalilo, King of the Hawaiian Islands

February 3, 1919 – Death of Maria Theresia of Austria-Este, Queen of Bavaria, wife of Ludwig III, the last King of Bavaria, at Schloss Wildenwart in Wildenwart Germany; initially buried in the chapel at Schloss Wildenwart, her remains were moved to the Frauenkirche in Munich, Bavaria, Germany upon the death of her husband in 1921
In 1868, Maria Theresia married the future King Ludwig III of Bavaria and the couple had thirteen children. In 1875, after the death of her childless uncle Francesco V, Duke of Modena, Maria Theresia became the Jacobite claimant to the British throne. In 1912, Maria Theresia’s father-in-law Prince Regent Luitpold died and her husband Ludwig became the Prince Regent for his first cousin King Otto. On November 4, 1913, the Bavarian constitution was changed to allow the Prince Regent to become King if the incapacitation of a king had lasted for ten years and there was no reasonable expectation that the incapacitated king would ever reign. On November 5, 1913, King Otto was deposed by Prince Regent Ludwig who assumed the title King Ludwig III. At the end of World War I, Ludwig was the first of the monarchs in the German Empire to be deposed. After briefly living in Austria Maria Theresia and her husband lived at Schloss Wildenwart in the village of Wildenwart about 80 kilometers southeast of Munich, where she died at the age of 69.
Unofficial Royalty: Maria Theresia of Austria-Este, Queen of Bavaria
Unofficial Royalty: The Jacobite Succession – Pretenders to the British Throne

February 3, 2010 – Death of Regina von Habsburg, wife of Otto von Habsburg, the last Crown Prince of Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and Croatia, at her home in Pöcking, Germany; temporarily interred in the crypt at Veste Heldburg, the Saxe-Meinigen’s family ancestral castle, and was reburied in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna, Austria when Otto died in 2011
Regina was the daughter of Prince Georg of Saxe-Meiningen and Countess Klara Marie von Korff genannt Schmising-Kerssenbrock. Her father was Head of the House of Saxe-Meiningen from 1941 until he died in 1946. In 1951, Regina married Otto von Habsburg, the last Crown Prince of Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, and Croatia, the son of Karl I, the last Emperor of Austria and Princess Zita of Bourbon-Parma. After her marriage, she was known as Regina von Habsburg. For their entire married life, the couple lived at Villa Austria in Pöcking on Lake Starnberg in Bavaria, (West) Germany. Regina and Otto had seven children. Regina died at her home in Pöcking, Germany on February 3, 2010, at the age of 85.
Unofficial Royalty: Regina von Habsburg, born Regina of Saxe-Meiningen

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Prince Andreas of Greece and Denmark; Credit – Wikipedia

February 2, 1455 – Birth of King Hans of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden at Aalborg Castle in Denmark
King Hans held four royal titles: King of Denmark (1481 – 1513), King of Norway (1483 – 1513), King of Sweden (1497 – 1501), and Duke of Holstein and Schleswig (1482–1513 jointly with his younger brother, the future King Frederik I). In 1478, Hans married Christina of Saxony and they had six children. In 1501, Hans began a long-term affair with Edel Jernskjæg, one of Christina’s ladies-in-waiting. The affair caused a scandal and a de facto termination of their marriage. From that time on, the marriage of Hans and Christina was one in name only.
Unofficial Royalty: King Hans of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden

February 2, 1650 – Birth of Nell Gwyn, actress and mistress of King Charles II of England, in London, England
Nell was an orange girl in the theater, selling fruit and sweetmeats within the theater. She later became an actress. The affair between Nell and King Charles II began in April 1668 when Nell was attending a performance at Lincoln’s Inn Fields Theater. Charles II was in the next box and was more interested in flirting with Nell than watching the play. Charles II invited Nell and her escort to supper, along with his brother the Duke of York. Charles and Nell had one surviving son, Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans. The descendants of Nell and King Charles II have continued the line of the Dukes of St. Albans through the centuries. Nell remained one of Charles II’s mistresses until his death in 1685.
Unofficial Royalty: Nell Gwyn, mistress of King Charles II of England

February 2, 1660 – Death of Gaston of France, Duke of Orléans, son of King Henri IV of France, at the Château de Blois, France; buried at the Basilica of St. Denis near Paris
Gaston, Duke of Orléans could be considered the black sheep of his family. Twice he had to leave France for conspiring against the government of his brother King Louis XIII. When his brother refused to grant permission for Gaston to marry Marguerite of Lorraine after the death of his first wife, Gaston married her anyway and kept the marriage secret. Because of his participation against the government in a series of civil wars, Gaston was exiled to one of his homes, the Château de Blois, for the last seven years of his life. There he died at the age of 51.
Unofficial Royalty: Gaston of France, Duke of Orléans

February 2, 1783 – Birth of Karl Friedrich, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, in Weimar in the Duchy of Saxe-Weimar, now in Thuringia, Germany
After finishing his education, Karl Friedrich embarked on a Grand Tour of Europe. While visiting St. Petersburg in July 1803, Karl Friedrich met his future wife, Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna of Russia. She was the daughter of Paul I, Emperor of All Russia and his second wife Sophia Dorothea of Württemberg. They married in St. Petersburg, Russia on August 3, 1804, and had four children including Princess Augusta who married Wilhelm I, King of Prussia, German Emperor.
Unofficial Royalty: Karl Friedrich, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach

February 2, 1792 – Death of Elizaveta Romanovna Vorontsova, mistress of Peter III, Emperor of All Russia, in St. Petersburg Russia; buried at the Lazarevskoe Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg, Russia
Elizaveta’s father, Count Roman Illarionovich Vorontsov, took part in the 1741 coup that brought Elizabeth Petrovna, the only surviving child of Peter I (the Great), Emperor of All Russia, to the throne as Elizabeth, Empress of All Russia. Empress Elizabeth never married and her sister’s son Karl Peter Ulrich of Holstein-Gottorp, whose name was changed to Grand Duke Peter Feodorovich (the future Peter III, Emperor of All Russia), was her heir. Elizaveta was assigned to the court of Grand Duke Peter where she was to serve Peter’s wife Grand Duchess Catherine Alexeievna (the future Catherine II the Great, Empress of All Russia). Peter took Elizaveta Romanovna Vorontsova as his mistress and Catherine had affairs. After the death of his aunt Empress Elizabeth, Peter succeeded to the throne as Peter III, Emperor of Russia but he was soon deposed by his wife who reigned as Catherine II (the Great), and then murdered. Catherine arranged for Elizaveta to marry a middle-aged army colonel of a humble background who was eighteen years older than Elizaveta. In Russian society, the marriage was seen as a mockery of Empress Catherine’s former rival. Elizaveta died on February 2, 1792, at the age of 52.
Unofficial Royalty: Elizaveta Romanovna Vorontsova

February 2, 1799 – Birth of Maria Antonovna Naryshkina, mistress of Alexander I, Emperor of All Russia, born Princess Maria Czetwertyński-Światopełk in Warsaw, Poland
Maria, her mother, and her siblings were brought to Russia by Catherine II (the Great), Empress of All Russia after Maria’s father was hanged by an angry mob in Poland for his support of Russia. Maria was made a maid of honor at the Russian court and Catherine the Great arranged a marriage for her. Maria was known for her dazzling beauty and she attracted the attention of Tsesarevich Alexander Pavlovich, the future Alexander I, Emperor of All Russia. Maria and Alexander’s affair lasted for nearly nineteen years. In 1815, Maria accompanied Alexander I, Emperor of All Russia to the Congress of Vienna, which caused a scandal. Eventually, Maria began to worry about her position and the gossip that surrounded her and Alexander began to have pangs of guilt about the long-term affair. In 1818, the affair ended and Alexander went back to his wife but he continued to talk about Maria as his family.
Unofficial Royalty: Maria Antonovna Naryshkina

February 2, 1882 – Birth of Prince Andreas (Andrew) of Greece and Denmark, son of King George I of Greece and father of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, in Athens, Greece
The father of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Andreas was the son of King George I of Greece (born a Prince of Denmark) and Grand Duchess Olga Konstantinovna of Russia. In 1903, he married Princess Alice of Battenberg, daughter of Prince Louis of Battenberg and Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine. The couple had four daughters and one son. Andreas’ life was often interrupted by the political turmoil in Greece. By the early 1930s, Andreas had less and less contact with his family. His wife suffered a nervous breakdown and was institutionalized, his four daughters had all married into former German royal families, and his son was attending school first in Germany and then in the United Kingdom. Somewhat at a loss, having been forced into a life of retirement, Andreas moved to the French Riviera. The onset of World War II brought an end to the little contact Andreas had with his wife and children. His wife had returned to Greece, his daughters were all behind German lines, and his son was fighting for the British forces. Prince Andreas died at the Metropole Hotel in Monte Carlo on December 3, 1944, at the age of 62.
Unofficial Royalty: Prince Andreas of Greece

February 2, 1896 – Death of Elisabeth of Saxe-Altenburg, Grand Duchess of Oldenburg, wife of Peter II, Grand Duke of Oldenburg, in Oldenburg, Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, now in Lower Saxony, Germany; buried in the Ducal Mausoleum in Saint Gertrude’s Cemetery in Oldenburg
In 1852, Elisabeth married the future Peter II, Grand Duke of Oldenburg and they had two sons. As Grand Duchess, Elisabeth oversaw the establishment of the Elisabeth Children’s Hospital and served as patron of numerous charities and organizations focused on the well-being of children and the less fortunate. Much of this was done through her Elisabeth Foundation, established at the time of her marriage using funds from her father. Elisabeth died on February 2, 1896, at the age of 70.
Unofficial Royalty: Elisabeth of Saxe-Altenburg, Grand Duchess of Oldenburg

February 2, 2002 – Wedding of King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti; civil ceremony at Beurs van Berlage in Amsterdam, Netherlands, religious ceremony at Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam, Netherlands
In April 1999, Willem-Alexander met his future wife Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti in Seville, Spain during the Seville Spring Fair. He did not introduce himself as a Prince and at a later time when he told Máxima who he was, she thought he was joking. They met again a few weeks later in New York and their romance blossomed. Willem-Alexander proposed to Máxima on January 19, 2001, at Huis ten Bosch Palace in The Hague, the Netherlands. The couple had been rollerblading and Willem-Alexander lured Máxima to a pond where he had hidden roses and champagne. By the side of the pond, Willem-Alexander proposed in English, so he could be sure Máxima would understand him, and she immediately said yes.
Unofficial Royalty: Wedding of King Willem-Alexander and Máxima Zorreguieta Cerruti

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