Page "Dukes of Holstein-Gottorp" Paragraph 40

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.