ROME - Fra Andrew Bertie, a descendant of Britain's royal Stuart family who was grand master of the Knights of Malta, has died, the ancient lay Roman Catholic order said Friday. He was 78.
Bertie, who was the 78th grand master of the 900-year-old charitable order, died Thursday in a Rome clinic, the group said in a statement. No information on the cause of death was given.
Bertie was elected to lead the order in a secret conclave in 1988. He is credited with modernizing the group's humanitarian programs, increasing membership as well as boosting diplomatic relations and extending its reach in troubled and far-flung regions, the statement said.
Source: AP
Comment: The Requiem Mass for HHEmH fra Andrew Bertie, 78th Prince & Grand Master of the Order of Malta, was celebrated in the Basilica of Sts Boniface and Alessio on the Aventine. The President of the Republic of Italy, the Grand Duke Jean of Luxemburg, the Prince of Liechtenstein and the Co-Regents of San Marino attended. The senior royal attending was HRH Infante don Carlos, Duke of Calabria, who was invited as Grand Master of the Constantinian Order and was seated next to Prince Charles of Bourbon and the latter's wife Camilla, the Duke of Braganza, the Duke of Parma, Louis-Alphonse de Bourbon, Duke of Anjou, the Archduke Georg, and Princess Michael of Kent were among those present, along with 14 Cardinals. Cardinal Laghi was the celebrant and Cardinal Sodsano the homilist; addresses were also given by the former President of the Republic of Malta and Ambassador John Bellingham who read a tribute by Prince Rupert zu Loewenstein.
Editor: Guy Stair Sainty Deputy Editor: Rafal Heydel-Mankoo ISBN: 0971196672 Size: 295mm x 230mm 2 volume set No of Pages: approx. 2,100 Full Colour Publication Date: August, 2006
Orders of Knighthood are the most exclusive and prestigious institutions in the world. Originally the preserve of royalty and aristocracy, Orders now count amongst their membership business tycoons, powerful leaders and noteworthy private individuals.
With contributions from many of the world's leading authorities and articles on American honours, World Orders of Knighthood & Merit is one of the most important works ever produced on the subject and will remain the definitive guide for many years to come.
This full-colour publication will be of great interest to academics, historians, collectors and those who are members of any of the numerous international, noble and state Orders.
150 years after Sir Bernard Burke published his famed history of the leading Orders of knighthood, Burke's Peerage and Gentry is proud to announce the publication of a major new study of the extant Orders of knighthood and merit of every state.
This eagerly anticipated publication is the result of the collaboration of many of the world's leading specialist scholars and is edited by Guy Stair Sainty (editor) and Rafal Heydel-Mankoo (deputy editor), both of whom have written extensively on Orders.
Classified in a novel and thought-provoking manner, the Orders are grouped into various sections. The first section commences with detailed histories of the surviving confraternal Orders, beginning with the famous Order of Malta and including studies of the Alliance Orders of Saint John, the Spanish Military Orders of Santiago, Calatrava, Alcántara and Montesa, the Order of the Holy Sepulchre and the Constantinian Order of Saint George. The second section includes histories of all the great European single class Collar Orders, by date of foundation, beginning with the Order of the Garter (England) and including the Orders of the Golden Fleece (Austria/Spain), Annunziata (Savoy), Elephant (Denmark), Seraphim (Sweden), Saint Hubert (Bavaria), White Eagle (Poland) and Thistle (Scotland). The third includes histories of the most prestigious Orders of Chivalry, notably the Orders of the Bath and Saint Michael & Saint George (Great Britain), Charles III and Isabella the Catholic (Spain), the Legion of Honour (France), the Dannebrog (Denmark), the Tower and Sword and of Christ (Portugal), and Chrysanthemum (Japan). The remaining sections include one devoted to royal dynastic Orders, another to ladies' Orders, and the largest section: State Merit Orders. The main portion of the work ends with a section on institutions of Chivalric character, such as the Spanish Maestranzas, the surviving Italian noble confraternities, the Society of the Cincinnati (the USA and France), and European provincial knightly bodies.
Each Order's foundation date, purpose, structure, investiture details, officers and membership requirements will be listed along with precise descriptions of the insignia. This lavishly illustrated full-colour publication will also contain colour illustrations of the uniforms, robes and insignia as well as many photographs and paintings of Order-related places and people, diplomas, armorial bearings and ceremonies of investiture.
The Appendix includes essays dealing with the wearing of orders and decorations, and precedence among them; noble proofs as criteria for admission to some ancient Orders, and the conferral of nobility through membership; the use of insignia as heraldic ornaments; a brief examination of Church awards and Patriarchal Orders; along with a detailed study of the “self-styled” Orders.
'World Orders of Knighthood and Merit' is one of the most important guides to national awards ever produced and will serve as an important reference for many years to come. The book will be of considerable use to state protocol officers, diplomats, historians and heraldry enthusiasts and is an essential item for any collector of medals and decorations or student of royal, aristocratic, church or military history.
Should there be an doubt in anyone’s mind I wish to state the following in rebuttal of the defamatory allegations made against me on this web site, on alt.talk.royalty and in various emails. I have singled out the most invidious accusations because I do not want there to be any question that silence on my part means that there is any truth in the allegations made against me.
I have been married twice; my first marriage was annulled following a civil divorce. I remarried in a Catholic ceremony and remain married to the same person. The suggestion I have been married three times is false.
I have never been involved in any way in the “theft” of any stationary of the SMOM. I wrote a letter in 1972 on the stationary of an agency of which I was then secretary of the British Association of the SMOM, which suggested the Constantinian succession dispute could be solved after the death of the late D. Achille Di Lorenzo. As this was not within my responsibilities as officer of this agency, and as Sig. Di Lorenzo was annoyed and was a Grand Cross of the SMOM, I was asked to resign my post, which I did. I exceeded my responsibilities and recognized that I was wrong to have done so. The allegations regarding this incident by snake charmer and his aliases are completely false, however.
I was given the false Order of St George of Carinthia by a Sig. Pellicioni di Poli when I was aged 19; as soon as I found out that this was a self-styled Order I wrote to Sig. Pellicioni and resigned. I met Pellicioni just once and never saw him again. The allegations concerning a purported friendship with this gentleman are completely false. This experience inspired my ubsequent campaign against similar self-styled Orders.
I did not place any advertisement offering false titles or memberships in self-styled Orders in any journal or other medium at any time; the advertisement put in the International Herald Tribune in my name by a third party hoping to discredit me used an address that was almost 20 years out of date. The suggestion that I did so is completely false.
For more than a dozen years I have been a member of the False Orders Committee of the SMOM and Alliance Orders of St John, of which Peregrine Bertie, brother of the Grand Master, is the chairman. For my services on this committee I have received from the grand master the rank of grand officer of the Order of Merito Melitense. The Grand Master has written an introductory text for my book, and has supplied me with images of diplomas that he has received. Thus the allegations regarding my supposed bad relations with the SMOM may be seen to be completely false.
I remain a member of the False Orders Committee; I remain the Vice-Chancellor of the Priory in the US\ of the Order of St John; I continue to be a member of US professional art dealing associations as well as two major European professional organizations. I served for 7 years on the pro-bono Art Advisory Committee of the Commissioner of the US internal Revenue Service.
I was head of the International Patrons of the arts of the Vaticans Museums; I received the Order of St Gregory the Great with the consent of the late cardinal O’Connor and my name was published in the Acta Apostolicae Sedis. There is no truth whatsoever that I was not awarded this honour properly. I am a member of the French Associations des Chevaliers Pontificaux.
I was given the rank of commander of the Savoy Order of Sts Maurice and Lazarus several years before the formation of the American Association of Savoy Orders, of which I was one of the first members. Last year I was promoted to grand officer of this Order. The suggestion that I unsuccessfully sought membership of this order from the American Association of the Savoy Orders is thus completely false.
The arms that I use were granted by the College of Arms to the descendants of my great-grandfather. These arms were subsequently matriculated in Scotland and subsequently confirmed for me in Spain. The Spanish confirmation included the mantle of a knight of St Januarius (not that of a Duke), and the coronet of an untitled noble (by virtue of my membership of the Constantinian Order in the rank of Justice). This coronet was subsequently granted to me and my descendants as a Crest Coronet by the College of Arms. The allegations regarding my arms are completely false. These Arms are matters of public record and these facts easily ascertained.
The author(s) of these posts, while pseudononymous, is certainly guilty of defamation and probably of criminal libel (see the definition at http://www.hamiltons-solicitors.co.uk/archive-docs/awkward-customers2.htm) I have employed a professional investigator to determine the origins of these posts and will be pursuing their author or authors by whatever legal means are available to me. I will also be taking action against the authors of various libellous statements about me published two years ago on this forum and elsewhere whose false and defamatory content have been repeated here by this poster, and for whose invention and dissemination two identified individuals on this forum were responsible. These individuals also promoted the despatch of a defamatory communication addressed to HRH the Duke of Gloucester.
If anyone has any further information regarding the posters, or any emails attacking me, I would be grateful if they would send them to me (I will preserve their anonymity if they request it.
I was given the names Guy Stair Sainty on my birth certificate and they are also included on my baptism certificate. My birth certificate is of course a matter of public record.
Guy Stair Sainty
http://www.groupsrv.com/hobby/about308628.html
In the commentary from Mr Valle defending his business he has asserted that the practice of gaining nobility through adoption is well-established. No doubt he makes such claims to reassure his clients, should they doubt his assertion thaqt through the service he offers they gain an honoured name and rank.
His claim is without merit, however. Yes of course adoptions were effected in past times, and yes sometimes the adoptees inherited the titles of their adoptive parents and entered the nobility. But this did not happen through the adoption process, but by royal grace, in the form of a decree, patent or diploma. In Italy the best known case is perhaps that of the Giovanellis, where the widow of the last Prince (herself born a Chigi) adopted her late husband's illegitimate sons. But this was not what made them Princes Giovanelli! It was the decision of king Umberto I to create them Prince Giovanelli that ennobled them. Other examples were the adoptions that led to the inheritance of the Aldobrandini, Salviati and (one branch of) the Torlonia names and titles by members of the Princely Borghese family. In each case, however, these successions required royal decrees to effectively pass the titles and names (the Borghese were of course already nobles).
In a recent exchange on this group I was attached for criticising the claim that an Ecclesiastical Tribunal was capable of legitimating the passage of a noble title to an adopted child (and in that case the title had been created by King Umberto II in exile and there was no sound legal basis for the ecclesiastical tribunal to exercise any jurisdiction over this title). I was subject to the typical ad hominem attacks that sometimes invade this group and was old I was surely a bad Catholic! I subsequently inquired of the Secretariat of State of the Holy See and was assured that jurisdiction over noble titles is reserved to the secretariat of state, and that the Papal Brief of Pius IX of 1876 concerning the Papal nobility still applied (and this required natural and legitimate descent). I was also told that the Secretariat of State had never asserted authority on behalf of the Holy See over any foreign titles.
Mr Valle claimed that adoption could legally pass titles in France, which I disputed and he now appears to no longer assert. Italian nobiliary law expressly requires natural and legitimate descent, so that rules out Italy. The succession to Spanish titles depends on a series of laws which are applied by the ministry of Justice; an adoption of an heir would only be successful with royal grace. It has been claimed that in 19th century Germany, adoptive heirs somehow entered the nobility - I challenge Mr Valle to name one example where nobility passed to an adoptive heir without royal confirmation and grant. The feudal system no longer exists and outside Scotland (until very recently) it is impossible to acquire a noble fief in any European state to the offer of the lordship and barony of Roccamora di Edessa is phoney.
Mr Valle does not like his business practices to be criticised. Perhaps if he simply explained that he offers to find a member of a noble family who is prepared to adopt a willing buyer so this person can assume that family name, but then mnore honestly explained that this would not make the adoptee a noble, he could escape the censure he richly deserves for his deceptive web site.
-- Guy Stair Sainty www.chivalricorders.org/index3.htm http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com
A recent court case brought by the Editor of the Libro d'Oro della Nobilta Italiana against the newly republished Annuario della Nobilta Italiana (of which the first edition of the new series was produced in 2000, and a second edition is under way), has ended in disaster for the plaintiff.
Not only was their case rejected, but evidence has been produced which demonstrated that the name Libro d?Oro in fact belonged to the Italian State, as this was the title of original register of the nobility of the old Kingdom and which is maintained in the official state archives. In the 1930s the Italian government ordered that the editor stop using the name, but at the time it was allegedly claimed that the name had separately and earlier been approved by a Cardinal, in the name of the Holy See.
It now appears that this was not in fact the case, and it is alleged that the Cardinal never existed and the claim to this recognition was forged. The editors were told to cease distributing the book and, to make it worse, the Holy See has now also stepped in and allegedly demanded Euros 1 million in compensation. A question remain whether the publication actually belongs to the editors, or to the common society of the Collegio Araldico which is the official publisher.
The final outcome is not yet known but it would seem that this leaves the field free for the Annuario della Nobilta Italiana.
-- Guy Stair Sainty www.chivalricorders.org/index3.htm
