He was a King for just 20 minutes

He had one of the shortest reigns as monarch in the world and he still holds the record of  holding that dubious feat.  He was forced to abdicate as did his father.

Both he and his father left the country of their native and settled abroad and both became victims of the July Revolution or the second French revolution.

The first victim of the July Revolution was Charles, the tenth, Emperor of  France. The French were enraged at the aristocratic behavior of the King and mass uprisings broke out. The uprisings were spontaneous and on August 2, 1830, Charles reluctantly signed the document of abdication.

The same day and almost soon after his abdication, Charles’s son,  Louis Antoine and his wife became king and queen of France. However, their ascension was not recognized by either the people or Parliament of France.

The people stormed the palace of the King at Tuileries and forced the new King, Louis Antoine, to sing the deed of abdication. Even as the people rallied for his resignation, the unfortunate  Louis Antoine, now called King Louis XIX spent the next twenty minutes listening to the entreaties of his wife not to sign, while the former King, Charles, and his father, sat forlon and  weeping.

Unfortunately, the current against the aristocracy was so strong that it swept away both father and son not only from Kingship but from their country as well.

The gathering then asked the new King Louise to abdicate in favour of his nephew, the Duke of Bordeaux, the future Henry the fifth. Thus, this Louis even today holds the unfortunate record of having the shortest shot at monarchy. His one and only act as a king was to abdicate the throne.

Both father and son left France soon after. The son, while in exile, came to be known as the “Count of Marnes”. He never returned to France.

After Charles died in 1836, Louis came to be known as the Legitimate Pretended to the French and Navarre Throne.

Another European, Luis Filipe, was also the King of Portugal for 20 minutes after his father, the King Dom Carlos, the first, his younger brother and he himself were shot by revolutionaries in Portugal on February 1, 1908 while they were returning to Lisbon. Though Dom Carlos I was himself fatally wounded in the attack, Filipe survived his father by 20 minutes.

Apart from these two, other monarchs who were kings for less than a day. King Modi of the Jurchen dynasty ruled the country of  Jin (Manchuria) for just 16 hours. He was coronated while the Mongols assaulted the country on February 9, 1234. He died soon after his coronation.

Another King, Tsar Michael, the second, of the Romanov dynasty of  Russia, ruled for 16 hours. Though he deferred acceptance of the Kingship on March 15, 1917, he was killed during the Russian revolution.