Welcome to a whirlwind tour of 10 wild adventures undertaken by former royals who chose the road less regal. From Arctic expeditions to courtroom dramas, these ex‑monarchs proved that a royal title does not limit a life of intrigue and daring.
10 wild adventures – Prince Henri d’Orleans (1867–1901)
Henri, a great‑grandson of France’s last king Louis‑Philippe, was born in Ham, England. A 1886 French decree barred him and all other ex‑royals from the elite St. Cyr military academy, prompting him to embark on a globe‑spanning odyssey.
In 1889 he linked up with explorer Gabriel Bonvalot for a 17‑month trek across Asia, traversing Siberia, Turkestan and Tibet, and covering a thousand miles of previously uncharted terrain. The journey earned him a gold medal from the French Geographic Society and another from the British Royal Geographical Society, placing him alongside legends like Stanley and Livingstone, as well as a Legion of Honor cross.
After additional voyages through French colonies, Henri returned to Asia, discovering the source of the Irrawaddy River and charting new routes along the Red River and through Yunnan in southern China. He later penned a book rich with cultural, linguistic, and ethnographic insights.
His final dramatic episode saw him duel Italian Prince Vittorio Emmanuel after accusing Italian troops of cowardice during the Abyssinian campaign. Henri succumbed to illness at 34, leaving a legacy of daring exploration.
9 wild adventures – Charles Joseph Bonaparte (1851–1921)
Charles, a grandson of Napoleon’s younger brother Jérôme and his American wife Elizabeth Patterson, grew up after Napoleon dissolved their marriage and made Jérôme king of Westphalia.
A brilliant scholar, he earned degrees from Harvard and Cambridge before meeting Theodore Roosevelt at a Baltimore civil‑service reform meeting. Later, under Roosevelt’s administration, Charles briefly served as Secretary of the Navy before becoming Attorney General in 1906.
In that role he tackled corruption, land and timber fraud, peonage, and treasury violations, and argued numerous antitrust cases before the Supreme Court, leading to the breakup of the American Tobacco Company. His most lasting contribution was founding a dedicated Bureau of Investigation, which evolved into today’s FBI.
8 wild adventures – Charles Roehenstart (1784–1854)
Charles, a bastard grandson of Bonnie Prince Charlie, was the last realistic Jacobite pretender. His mother, Charlotte, Duchess of Albany, was a daughter of the Prince, and his father was Archbishop Ferdinand de Rohan, making his lineage a tangled web.
After a turbulent childhood—his mother left soon after his birth and died before returning, and the French Revolution sent him to Germany for schooling—Charles entered the Russian army, rising to lieutenant colonel and serving under Duke Alexander of Württemberg. He impressed the Tsarina but fell out of favor when he declined an heiress’s hand.
Financial woes led to a brief imprisonment orchestrated by the British government. Upon release he spent years in the Austrian army, eventually fading into obscurity.
Later life brought twin humiliations: being turned away from the Duke of Württemberg’s residence and witnessing two Stuart impostors emerge before dying quietly in Dunkeld, Scotland.
7 wild adventures – Princess Xenia of IKEA (1986– )
No, IKEA hasn’t crowned itself a kingdom—yet. Its cheeky campaign promises that its beds let you “sleep like a princess,” and to prove it they hired an actual princess.
Xenia claims descent from Friedrich Augustus III, the last king of Saxony, but the Royal House of Wettin rebuffs her, citing her recent ancestors— a farmer and a four‑times‑married hairdresser—and morganatic marriages as disqualifying.
The Wettin head, then 85, denounced her as “a nothing,” insisting she cannot publish a biography and that her self‑styled title is a faux pas against a thousand‑year‑old dynasty.
Undeterred, Xenia leveraged her royal claim for IKEA ads, authored an autobiography, appeared on BBC’s Undercover Princesses and Germany’s The Castle, and even fronted a rock band.
6 wild adventures – Pierre Bonaparte (1815–1881)
Pierre, son of Napoleon’s brother Lucien, earned a reputation as the Bonaparte family’s black sheep. After joining insurrectionist bands in Romagna in 1830, he spent a brief stint with his uncle Joseph in the United States before plunging into Colombia’s civil war in 1832, where, still a teenager, he rose to colonel.
Back in Italy, a clash with the Pope led him to fight papal police—killing an officer—followed by imprisonment at Fort St. Angelo. After release he offered his services to numerous foreign powers, eventually settling into a hunting lifestyle, even confronting Albanian bandits.
The 1848 revolution saw him rush to Paris, win a seat in the National Assembly, sit on the far left, and vote with socialists, loudly proclaiming republicanism. His marriage to a commoner further alienated him from cousin Napoleon III.
After two decades of hunting and debauchery, Pierre resurfaced in 1870, dueling journalist Victor Noir after a dispute with Paschel Grousset. He shot and killed Noir; his acquittal fueled republican sentiment that eventually toppled Napoleon III.
5 wild adventures – Duke Philippe of Orléans (1869–1926)
Another great‑grandson of King Louis‑Philippe, Philippe served as the Orleanist pretender from 1894 to 1926. Like cousin Prince Henri, he was barred from St. Cyr, so he attended Sandhurst and served with the Royal Fusiliers and King’s Royal Rifle Corps in India.
He campaigned in Afghanistan as aide to Lord Roberts and joined Henri for tiger‑hunting escapades in Nepal. Hunting became a lifelong passion, later yielding lions, rhinos, and elephants during East African expeditions.
In 1890 he defied exile laws, returned to Paris, and attempted to enlist as a private in the French army, only to be deported. That same year he began an affair with Australian opera star Nellie Melba, prompting a scandal‑driven divorce and his retreat to Africa.
A keen yachtsman, Philippe embarked on four Arctic voyages in the early 1900s, primarily hunting reindeer and polar bears, yet also delivering scientific insights and discovering a new island.
4 wild adventures – Prince Wilhelm of Prussia (1906–1940)
As the eldest son of Crown Prince Wilhelm, Wilhelm was second‑in‑line to the German throne when the monarchy fell after World War I. He stayed in Germany, studying at the University of Bonn, where he fell for fellow student Dorothea von Salviati.
The ex‑Kaiser, lingering in the Netherlands, vehemently opposed the match, decrying the union as producing “mongrels” and insisting on pure “thoroughbred” bloodlines.
Undeterred, Wilhelm renounced his claim to wed Dorothea. Though he remained a beloved soldier—described as upright, sincere, and courageous—he stayed aloof from plots to replace Hitler, instead fighting with the Wehrmacht during World II.
He was mortally wounded in the Battle of France; his funeral drew 50,000 mourners, evidencing lingering sympathy for the Hohenzollerns. Hitler responded by issuing the Prinzenerlass, barring royals from military service.
3 wild adventures – Achille Murat (1801–1847)
Achille, eldest son of Napoleon’s sister Caroline and Marshal Joachim Murat—king of Naples—escaped to America after his father’s execution in 1815. Settling near Tallahassee, Florida, he became a community leader, rising to colonel in the militia, serving as alderman in 1824, mayor in 1825, and postmaster from 1826 to 1838. He married Catherine Willis Gray, a great‑grandniece of George Washington.
His eccentricities were legendary: he refused to drink water, deeming it “for beasts of the field,” and shunned boot‑washing. His culinary experiments included alligator‑tail soup, roasted crows, boiled owls, stewed cows’ ears, and turkey‑buzzard stew, while his slaves were fed cherry‑tree sawdust.
Following the 1830 French Revolution, Achille briefly returned to Europe in a failed bid to reclaim property, earning a colonel’s commission in the Belgian Foreign Legion before returning home.
He died shortly before the 1848 revolution that restored the Bonapartes, leaving behind a colorful legacy of public service and gastronomic daring.
2 wild adventures – Prince Leka of Albania (1939–2011)
Born during the Italian invasion, Leka was whisked away as an infant and spent his youth hopping between Egypt, France, and England before settling in Spain, where he admired General Franco.
He turned arms dealer, a career that led to his 1979 expulsion from Spain after authorities uncovered an arms cache. He later fled to South Africa via Gabon, reportedly frightening local troops by brandishing a bazooka.
In South Africa he married an Australian woman and welcomed a son, Leka II, in 1982—so much so that the newborn’s maternity ward was temporarily declared Albanian territory.
After communism fell, Leka returned twice: the first time he was deported for an invalid passport that listed his occupation as “King of the Albanians.” The second return, amid the 1997 crisis sparked by pyramid scheme collapses, saw him push for a monarchy referendum, which failed. He then accused the socialist government of vote tampering, rallying crowds with grenades and a pistol.
Forced to flee again, he later received a pardon and spent his final decade peacefully in Albania, campaigning for Kosovan Albanians.
1 wild adventures – David Ochterlony Dyce Sombre (1808–1851)
David, step‑great‑grandson and adopted heir of Begum Sumru, ruler of the Indian princely state of Sardhana, saw the British East India Company seize the principality upon her death in 1836. Though he inherited a sizable fortune, his legal battle stalled, and he journeyed to London to contest the seizure.
While his case lingered, David married Mary Anne Jervis, a viscount’s daughter, and became the first person of Asian descent elected to the British Parliament. His election was annulled for “gross, systematic, and extensive bribery,” and his life unraveled quickly.
His mental state deteriorated: he accused his wife of adultery (even with her own father), challenged numerous figures—including the elderly Duke of Wellington—to duels, shaved off his own eyebrows, assaulted his landlady, and engaged in public urination and defecation. He claimed spirits urged him to ritually kill a cat.
These eccentricities, combined with his oriental customs, dark skin, and obesity, alienated him from British society. Mary Anne’s influential family had him declared insane, seizing his wealth. David escaped custody, fled to France, and launched multiple hearings to regain his fortune, even authoring a book refuting his diagnosis.
Each hearing reaffirmed his lunacy, and he sank deeper into alcoholism and opiate addiction. He also contracted venereal disease from frequent prostitution, treated with mercury, and became addicted to betel nuts, whose psychoactive effects worsened his cognitive decline.
His death was ignominious: numbness in his extremities led him to fall asleep with his feet by a fire, causing blisters that turned septic. His will intended to fund a school in Sardhana, but his wife successfully challenged it. In 1873, courts awarded damages for the East India Company’s illegal seizure of his property.
Miserable, lethargic, and mercilessly pessimistic, Tyler writes to whittle away his time on this speck of cosmic dust called Earth. Should you feel the need to spew vitriol at him, you can do so via email or Facebook.