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A fact from Royal intermarriage appeared on Wikipedia's
Main Page in the Did you know column on 22 July 2014 (
check views). The text of the entry was as follows:
There are subtopics within articles on inbreeding that mention royalty. All another article would really be good for is citing examples (which would be inexhaustive and include all royals). I have edited it, but I do not think it is necessary.
Charles17:09, 30 April 2006 (UTC)reply
It is only referenced in other articles and did form the basis for a great deal of international politics. It would be helpful if that could be built up.
Yanksta x12:23, 8 May 2006 (UTC)reply
I've tweeked the section a little, based on the input from
Llywrch, added a few more links, and expanded it a little based on my own (very quick) research. What do you think of it?
Sotakeit (
talk)
10:47, 9 June 2014 (UTC)reply
Lists of examples
I've tried to strip down some of the longer example lists to just give examples that illustrate the point. Overly long lists aren't useful to the article and they make it look a little messy.
Sotakeit (
talk)
08:18, 26 June 2014 (UTC)reply
I've restored some of the European examples: those involving living royalty or members of still-reigning dynasties. There are only 10 monarchies left in Europe and only one realm's monarch, Elizabeth II, is currently "royally intermarried". There are extremely few living royals who are now married to other royals and their number continues to dwindle -- yet finding out who is in such a marriage is a substantial reason for readers to look up this topic. Given that there are only a handful of such couples left, there's no reason to prevent readers from accessing that information here merely to prevent the article from looking "a little messy" (for instance, the 1964 marriage of
Princess Irene of the Netherlands to the
Carlist pretender,
Prince Carlos-Hugo de Borbón, Duke of Parma nearly provoked a constitutional crisis in Holland and
affected politics in
Franco's Spain. And Princess Barbara of Liechtenstein is married to a sometime Serbian pretender whose previous wife was a daughter of
Umberto II of Italy, but because she's only a 2nd cousin of the reigning Prince of Liechtenstein, it's very difficult to find these facts out anywhere except in specialized literature -- or right here in this article). Citations substantiating "royal intermarriage couple" status were added but the couples were removed anyway (squandering the effort and time taken to source and then convert to the citation format newly imposed on this article despite
CITEVAR).
FactStraight (
talk)
21:34, 26 June 2014 (UTC)reply
Point taken, and well explained. In regards to the reference style, when I first started editing the article, the references didn't have a consistent style. Since then, I've been the only major contributor so I thought the recent style change would be the covered by 'defer to the style used by the first major contributor'; I agree, perhaps I should have sought some consensus on such a major change though.
Sotakeit (
talk)
23:22, 26 June 2014 (UTC)reply
Interim comment while I read the text: if you click the "disambig links" option in the toolbox on the right you will find details of several links that go to disambiguation pages rather than to the article you intend; the "external links" option shows one cited website that is no longer accessible. Tim riley talk 09:28, 27 June 2014 (UTC) Later: I've fixed the broken external link, but I'll leave you to tidy up the internal disambiguation links. Tim riley talk09:41, 27 June 2014 (UTC)reply
I much enjoyed this article, and most of my comments below are minor drafting points. But my comments on the referencing, I am sorry to say, are not minor. The references are a mess and don't in my view come up to GA standard.
Lead
"initiate, re-enforce or guarantee" – I wonder about "re-enforce": it is a reasonable construction, but it is possibly a typo for "reinforce"? DoneSotakeit (
talk)
08:14, 30 June 2014 (UTC)reply
"neighboring" (both paras) – this is the first American spelling I've spotted. You have "neighbour" earlier in the text DoneSotakeit (
talk)
08:14, 30 June 2014 (UTC)reply
Notes 6 and 9: Why the italics? I've italicised them as they're direct quotes from the referenced sources. Should I undo this and have them in standard type, or should I explain that they're quotes 'So and so says in such and such...' ?
I'd definitely do the latter, but I don't think the present version though not as approved by the MoS would disqualify the article from promotion to GA.
References
These need work to get them up to an acceptable standard:
Some references are too vague to match to the listed sources: I can't match up refs 35, 49 and 51 to the sources below. That isn't to say they aren't there but the somewhat impenetrable method of citation makes it hard for the reader. I went for
WP:SFN as the formatting was becoming a bit overloaded with text. Source 35 matche: '
"Queen Anne Marie". The Greek Monarchy. n.d. Retrieved 5 June 2014.' ; Source 49 matches: 'Alexander, Harriet (31 August 2013).
"Andrea Casiraghi, second in line to Monaco's throne, weds Colombian heiress".
The Telegraph. Retrieved 4 June 2014.' ; and Source 51 matches: '
"Princess Astrid". The Belgian Monarchy. n.d. Retrieved 4 July 2014.' . The three of them are news articles with no listed author, so I've had to list them by the article title and not the author name.
Sotakeit (
talk)
08:39, 30 June 2014 (UTC)reply
The system of referencing is inconsistent within itself: why, for instance, give the Kobo page number twice – once in the References and once in the Sources? Done - removed page numbers from list of sources, as per
WP:SFNSotakeit (
talk)
08:31, 30 June 2014 (UTC)reply
Some of the books are given day and month of publication (e.g. Stengs) and others are not. It is unusual to give day and month: the year suffices. DoneSotakeit (
talk)
08:31, 30 June 2014 (UTC)reply
The question of the references is serious enough to necessitate putting the review on hold to give you time to address the problem. Once that is done, the article will be ready for GA. Tim riley talk09:27, 29 June 2014 (UTC)reply
I've largely tackled the referencing issues you've pointed out. The only one I'm unsure about is 'Some of your press references have the title in single rather than the approved double quotes' - can you point out which ones they are? I've used the {{cite web}}/{{cite book}} tags etc so they should be automatically generated.
Sotakeit (
talk)
08:47, 30 June 2014 (UTC)reply
Can we get a better translation of the Habsburg marriage motto, please? (Bella gerant alii; tu felix Austria nube.)
The one given is awful; the Latin just does not say 'Let wars be led by others' - there's no verb 'to lead' in there, and no passive. The literal translation would be "Let others wage war; you, fortunate/happy Austria, marry". If you don't need a source for translations, go ahead and use mine. I know a translation could be sourced to Wheatcroft's The Habsburgs: Embodying Empire, but I don't have my copy to hand right now.
AlexTiefling (
talk)
21:26, 30 June 2014 (UTC)reply
I agree. I'm not sure where this translation came from, or who added. Although I can't comment on the actual accuracy of the translation, your version seems the most idiomatic at least. I think it's just a case here of being bold and going for it. I'll change it now.
Sotakeit (
talk)
08:10, 1 July 2014 (UTC)reply
Thanks! Now it's bugging me that 'bella' is plural and we have 'war' singular; but 'wage war' is more idiomatic in English. Thoughts?
AlexTiefling (
talk)
09:22, 1 July 2014 (UTC)reply
I think I'd go with 'war' over 'wars'. A quick Google search confirms that 'war' seems to be the most common translation, and only 1 of the first 10 Google book results for the latin phrase gives the translation 'wars' over 'war' (
[1]).
Sotakeit (
talk)
09:29, 1 July 2014 (UTC)reply
And if it makes you feel any better, I think in the phrase 'Let others wage war', 'war' would be considered a mass noun.
Sotakeit (
talk)
09:30, 1 July 2014 (UTC)reply
I added the quote and quite agree that
AlexTiefling's translation is both better and more usual -- although translations need not be literal and I don't consider this one distortionate. The reason I included it is because I also couldn't lay hands immediately on a source which provides the better translation and felt that I should not include the cite while altering its version of the quote. I'll look for a source with the preferred translation.
FactStraight (
talk)
00:30, 2 July 2014 (UTC)reply
Western Europe bias
"Medieval and Early Modern Europe" section is biased towards Western Europe, from which virtually all examples are taken. Russia (Romanovs) are mentioned once, Poland. Bohemia/Czech, Hungary and other Slavic lands are not mentioned at all. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus|
reply here12:14, 1 July 2014 (UTC)reply
There doesn't seem to be any bias. Both the Romanovs (much of Poland, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania etc.) and Habsburgs (Hungary) ruled over several parts of the area you've mentioned. Though, perhaps an example or two from independent Slavic/Eastern European states would be useful. Any suggestions? Maybe a marriage of a ruler and a non-royal (like the Edward the Confessor and Edith of Wessex example) or perhaps a counter example to religious policies (marrying outside of the nation's religion - Catholic/Protestant match? Maybe even a Christian/non-Christian with a Mongol match?).
Sotakeit (
talk)
12:51, 1 July 2014 (UTC)reply
Elizabeth the Cuman was probably baptised in infancy but was born to a father who was until then a practising Tengrist/pagan; she married the Hungarian crown prince and eventually became Queen Regent. Does that fit the bill?
AlexTiefling (
talk)
13:16, 1 July 2014 (UTC)reply
Maybe not quite right. The section discusses matches having to be between people f the same religion, and the examples are of people who have had to specifically converted for marriage. Perhaps an example of a king marrying a non-royal noble would be that of
Władysław II Jagiełło and
Elizabeth Granowska, her being the daughter of a voivode of Sandomierz and the daughter of a Polish Noble?
Sotakeit (
talk)
13:54, 1 July 2014 (UTC)reply
I don't see how that meets the definition of "royal intermarriage"? In modern Europe, nobles are not royalty, and in the medieval world where the distinction is more vague, the point of this article would be to include inter-dynastic marriages -- not inter-class marriages.
FactStraight (
talk)
00:54, 2 July 2014 (UTC)reply
Apologies. The example was to compliment/replace the example of Edward the Confessor and his noble-born wife Edith of Wessex in this paragraph: Marriages among ruling dynasties and their subjects have at times been common, with marriages such as that of Edward the Confessor, King of England and Edith of Wessex being far from unheard of in medieval Europe. However, as dynasties approached absolutism and sought to preserve loyalty among competing members of the nobility, most eventually distanced themselves from kinship ties to local nobles by marrying abroad..
Sotakeit (
talk)
08:06, 2 July 2014 (UTC)reply
Thank you for looking into this. Here are few suggestions. In Polish history, the marriage of Jagiełło (Lithuania) and
Anna Jagiellonka (Poland) is probably the most famous, followed by
Bona Sforza (Italy) and
Sigismund I the Old (Poland). The first one is also interesting from the perspective of two dynasties merging (Jagiellinka being the last of the
Piast dynasty and Jagiełło to first of the
Jagiellonian dynasty, creating the
Polish-Lithuanian union, and the fact that Jagiełło converted from paganism to Christianity for that marriage. Regarding conversions, the first Polish royal intermarriage, in which
Mieszko I, first king of Poland, converted from paganism to Christianity due to his wife
Dobrawa of Poland, may be worth mentioning, too (Dobrawa's bio has an entire section on the importance of her marriage). Adding this would add a mention of pre-Habsburgs Bohemia to this article. Finally, I wonder if the case of marriages from the era of
elective monarchy in Poland may be of some interest. In my GA on
Władysław IV Waza I wrote an entire section about his marriages, IIRC. --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus|
reply here10:30, 2 July 2014 (UTC)reply
Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria and Duchess Marie Gabrielle in Bavaria