Pretender

A Pretender is a claimant to an abolished or already occupied throne. Deposed monarchs are not seen as pretenders, as the term only applies to those who have never occupied the throne.

French Pretenders

Following the death of the childless legitimist pretender 'Henry V', Comte de Chambord, grandson of King Charles X of France in the 1880s, the majority of Legitimists accepted the Comte's selection as heir, the Orleanist pretender, the Comte de Paris, grandson of King Louis-Philippe as the Legitimist pretender to the French throne. A small minority refused to accept this designation, and chose instead a very distant Spanish-based descendant of an earlier monarch. Hence there are in effect two legitimist pretenders, though the Orleanist pretender, the modern Comte de Paris, is generally accepted by most French monarchs as the pretender, as the list below shows.

Some modern pretenders

State	Pretender	Link to Past Monarchy
Austria	Crown Prince Otto	Son of the last Emperor-King, Karl I of Austria
Albania	Crown Prince Leka I[?]	Son of the last king, Zog of Albania
France	Comte de Paris (Orleanist-Legitimist*: generally accepted)	descendant of Louis-Philippe of France
France	Duke of Anjou[?] (Legitimist: minority support)	descendant of Louis XVI of France
Hungary	Crown Prince Otto von Habsburg	Son of the last King-Emperor, Charles IV of Hungary
Italy	Crown Prince Victorio Emanuele	Son of the last king, Humbert II of Italy
Ireland	The O'Conor Don[?]	Ireland's senior gaelic peer & descendant of the last Irish High King Rory O'Connor
Portugal	The Duke of Bragança	distant relative of the last king Manuel II