Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 71, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 March 1914 — Most Ancient Royal Family. [ARTICLE]

Most Ancient Royal Family.

Were all the rulers of the world to meet on neutral ground—say Switzerland—and tpbe marshaled in precedence. the veteran Emperor Franz Josef of Austria would take rank before all the crowned heads, according to the London Chronicle. Not merely On account of his age or because his reign of sixty-five years is longer than those of other living monarchs,, but because he Is the head of the oldest reigning house in Christendom. More than half a century before the Norman conquest the counts of Habichtsburg (“Hawks castle”) held their fortress, which overhung the Aar, and were a power in what is now Switzerland. Election to the purple and diadem of the holy Roman , empire came a century or so later, and in unbroken succession the Emperor Franz Josef traces his descent back to those simple Swiss counts.