On The Old Days Of Media Quest.

09/16/2011: UPDATE. On his current site, Laurence Gardner is reported to have passed away from an illness on August 12, 2010. Whatever questions I might have had about the authenticity of some of his claims, his Nexus articles were what gave me the inspiration to keep looking for the truth, and I owe him for that. RIP, Laurence Gardner. May your trip over the Rainbow Bridge be a grand one.

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In the year 2000, I discovered that Sir Laurence Gardner actually had a website, at http://mediaquest.co.uk, and its American mirror site at http://www.mediaquestusa.com. The American mirror site has since been taken down, but I have recently found that the original .co.uk site is apparently still up. Laurence Gardner's current site can now be found here.

Right away it was apparent that Gardner was primarily interested in buying and selling this information, which admittedly did not bother me as much then as it does now. At the time, it was the only online link that I had to the information about the Elven/Draconic bloodlines on the internet, beyond a few other related sites that were mostly personal websites that had been created by other interested people like myself.

A Tale Of Two Dragon Courts?

This notice caught my eye quite soon after I had discovered Sir Laurence Gardner's MediaQuest site:

"When publishing my book 'Genesis of the Grail Kings' early in 1999, I asked a certain Nicholas de Vere to write the Foreword to that work on the understanding that he was Magister Templi of the Imperial and Royal Dragon Court in Britain by virtue of a warrant issued by the ducal House of Habsburg-Tuscany.

It subsequently came to my attention, however, that this was not the case and I learned that Nicholas de Vere's said warrant was in no way valid since the House of Habsburg-Tuscany was not at liberty, under any legal right or consideration, to issue such a document.

On behalf of the Grand Protectorate of The Imperial and Royal Dragon Court and Order, I therefore now confirm that, despite his Internet protestations and various messages to all and sundry, Nicholas de Vere is not recognized in any capacity as being attached in any manner, formally or informally, to the Hungarian establishment of Sarkany Rend. Neither is he attached or affiliated to any of its priories in other lands. His name is not recorded in the Court's registration at the High Court of Budapest, nor in any other authentic document of the Court in Britain or any other country.

In November 1999 I was required to publicly sever my association with Nicholas de Vere, while still acknowledging the help he had afforded me with certain matters of research and reimbursing him for these services. In that same month MediaQuest, who had hosted de Vere's Web site on this current page, was similarly obliged to cease all further professional association, terminating the site. At that same time, the Webmaster, Sir Adrian Wagner (Knight of the Swan by grant and ratification of the Royal House of Stewart) duly resigned from all and any de Vere affiliation.

As detailed within the main body of this current site, the Imperial and Royal Dragon Court ceremony held at the Mansion House, York, on 21 March 2000 (with Chev. Dr. Gyorgy von varhegyi Lehr, Count of Oberberg, Chancellor of the Court, in attendance) established the truth of the matter once and for all in Britain. Also present, among various officers of the Court and Order, were Chev. Dr. Andrew von Zsigmond, Baron de Lemheny, of the Hungarian Consulate, Grand Prior of the Order in Britain, and HRH Prince Michael of Albany, the Order's Protector in the English speaking world. The City of York was formally represented by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, while the Sheriff of York attended to represent HM Queen Elizabeth II."

Laurence Gardner
July 2000

Their claims that Nicholas de Vere's warrant was invalid are somewhat ironic, considering the fact that the offices and titles that were said to be held by the aforementioned "Prince Michael Stewart of Albany" were eventually proved to be absolute hoaxes themselves (see below.)

After a little more digging in the Wayback Machine, I found Nicholas de Vere's old Dragon Court website, hosted on MediaQuest-Site-That-Was, before his association with Bill Barckley the creation of the site at http://www.dragoncourt.org.

After Laurence Gardner and MediaQuest severed their relationship with Nicholas de Vere, he soon fired back with a pronouncement that it was the Hungarian Order of the Dragon that was false, and that a group of right-wing Hungarian politicians had assumed the mantle and the sacred heritage of the Dragon Court in order to further their own political aims. So which is the true Dragon Order? Those who ascribe to the "official" accepted view of history would protest that the Hungarian Order is the authentic one, if indeed it does stem back to Sigismund of Luxembourg's semi-chivalric fraternity, which was founded in 1408. But Nicholas de Vere claims that the current Hungarian organization is merely a modern-day imitation of Sigismund's medieval "re-creation" of the true Dragon Court and Order, which he claims can be traced back to the Elven/Draconic Sumerian/Scythian Tribes of the Ubaid Civilization. In order to give Nicholas de Vere "equal time," with Laurence Gardner, I will include an excerpt of his statement below, which originally appeared on the old http://www.dragoncourt.org site.

"It is intended that the Dragon Court will continue to publish individual aspects of its history, along with references to the classical folklore and mythic customs of Europe and Asia which are directly linked to the Dragon tradition.

We trust that visitors to this site will find the given details sufficient to cement the facts pertaining to the Court, facts which positively disassociate this Court from other presumptuous Orders such as the recently formed Roman Catholic, Hungarian Social Club also calling itself "Sarkany Rend".

Trading off the back of the public ignorance of the Sovereign Law into which remit these people place themselves and with great emphasis for the assumed validity of such an action; they publicise the fact that their "association" was registered in a High Court in Budapest, as if this vouchsafed its authenticity, or as if such registration had some form of nobiliary significance or import, but that Social Club - for that is all it is and that is all it is registered as with the judiciary - is not recognised under Hungarian Constitutional Law as a Chivalric Order or Court, because Hungarian Republican Law is constitutionally incapable of recognising the validity of so-called Royal or Noble Courts or Orders re-established within its borders.

Having already been offered this dubious honour - that of being "registered" in the same High Court years ago - the Dragon Court ignored it because Sarkany Rend, as it is ill-named, is not a Hungarian National Order. It isn't even an "Order", so the idea of anyone being 'knighted' into it is ridiculous. We nevertheless received a letter in the mid 1990's from the Secretary of the Prime Minister of Hungary recognising this, the Angevin Dragon Court, as Sarkany Rend and desiring that he be included amongst our number as the Charge d'Affaires of the Dragon Court in Hungary.

In addition to assuming the name Sarkany Rend this Hungarian body, or its new associates or both, have apparently also misappropriated the Name and style of The Imperial and Royal Dragon Court and Order of the Dragon Sovereignty, along with numerous devices and designs which originated from, and are the copyright of this, the original Imperial and Royal Dragon Court. Purely as a legal consideration the copyright was registered in the British Law courts years ago. This dubious piece of egotistical, nationalistic Hungarian fol-de-rol was founded by some Roman-Catholic monseigneur and it has no more Royal, Nobiliary or Chivalric status than a British, Northern Working Mens Club.

Along with all the other silly so-called Royal, Noble or Chivalric Courts or Orders established or patronised throughout history by the Roman Church or its offshoots, pathetic social clubs for pathetic social climbers, both it and they all continue to be illegal by virtue of the fraudulent and consequently spurious Royal and Noble powers assumed by the Roman Church under the auspices of the equally fraudulent and spurious Donation Of Constantine.

However, as defined within the main body of the following text, the Imperial and Royal Dragon Court represented herein, which actually is legitimately recognised as the Sovereign Court of The Sovereign Dragon Nation by the relevant and appropriate Government of a European Member State, is a closed fraternity of individuals, representing those who trace their ancestry and affiliations back to the ancient Grail and Dragon families. It is not in any way a joining club or membership subscription society. Neither is it a commercial, religious, political or charitable institution."

Which Dragon Court will win out remains to be seen. I personally think it would be great if someone were to actually see whether or not the Hungarian organization called the Dragon Court is actually the same Order that Sigismund of Luxembourg established back in the Fifteenth Century, or simply a modern entity operating under the same name. I would also be very interested in finding out if Nicholas de Vere's version of the Dragon Court as he describes it is an actual, extant, functioning body that is truly composed of people who can trace their ancestry back to the Scythian or Mittani peoples (as de Vere has claimed in his book The Dragon Legacy) and if it has been legitimately recognized as such "by the relevant and appropriate Government of a European Member State" as he says in the quoted section above. Indeed, finding out if this last bit can be definitively confirmed or denied once and for all has been my aim for almost five years now.

On Michel Roger Lafosse, AKA HRH Prince Michael Stewart Of Albany.

I soon learned that Gardner's books strongly support the claims of one Michel Lafosse, aka HRH Prince Michael Stewart of Albany, who was claiming to be the legitimate Jacobite heir to the Scottish throne. For those of you who have not read up on Scottish history, the Scots believe that the descendants of King James Stuart VII of Scotland are the rightful Kings and Queens of Scotland (also England and Ireland, but particularly Scotland.) Trouble is, the line is officially said to have died out sometime in 1807 with Henry Benedict Stuart, (Henry IX of Scotland) and the ascendancy has since passed to the Bavarian house of Wittlesbach. Michel Lafosse claims that this was the result of a "Hanoverian Plot" designed to cheat the true Stuart heirs of their rightful throne, but Most modern-day Jacobites hold that Michael Stewart/Michel Lafosse is a fraud, and the true Stuart Heir is Franz, Duke of Bavaria, who is known to the Jacobite Scots as Francis II of Scotland.

Michel Lafosse made his case with his book The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland.

I had actually enjoyed his book and was willing to give his account the benefit of the doubt, until the evidence that his book and his story was a complete fabrication became known to me. In any case, the recent Sunday Mail and Sunday Herald reports regarding the investigations into his forged birth certificate and his fundraising activities appear to have burst his bubble completely.

One would think that if he truly believed his own claims of royalty, Michel Lafosse would have remained in Scotland to fight for his case and his cause despite this new and unsettling revelation. But it seems that the "jig is up," and he has fled back to his native Belgium.

One might be reminded of Emperor Norton in this case...but there are some substantial differences here. Even if Emperor Norton was widely thought to be insane in his time, his charisma was infectious, and he manged to develop quite a loyal following in his adopted home of San Francisco. But Michel Lafosse doesn't come off in quite the same way. Emperor Norton didn't have to prove to anyone that he was the Emperor of the United States...he just knew it, and people either went along with it or they didn't. It seems that people are generally more tolerant of someone whom they consider to be a sincere, well-meaning lunatic than they are of someone whom they perceive to be a forger or a con-artist.

Like Emperor Norton, Michel Lafosse also had a lot of good ideas - but any good that he might have done as "Prince Michael Stewart of Albany" will ultimately be overshadowed by the scandal surrounding the exposure of the forged birth certificate and passport. As his friend and former "Cultural Ambassador" Scott Stewart is reported to have said, "To have no documentation at all would be better than documents of questionable authenticity." And it was ultimately those pesky "documents of questionable authenticity" that ended up blowing the game for Prince Michael.

I can only wonder...what is Laurence Gardner going to do now? How is he going to address this scandal? He was one of Michel Lafosse's most outspoken supporters. How can he go blithely forward with his seminars and book signings as if nothing has happened?

I have been of two minds about Laurence Gardner for a long time now. While he has obviously done a lot to advance public knowledge about the Elven/Draconic Families, I feel that he has also exploited this knowledge for his own personal gain. He has also either knowingly or unknowingly attempted to push a forger and a pretender as the legitimate Monarch of the Throne of Scotland (and since he's supposed to be a professional genealogist, I would think that to do so unknowingly would be even more embarrassing.)

It's all a frustrating, perplexing mess. Anyway, while Laurence Gardner's page supporting Lafosse's fraudulent claims to the Scottish Throne is no longer linked to his main site, it still exists on the web. Odd.

(UPDATE 03/04/2011: That link now redirects to his main site. I guess he's finally gotten around to updating.)

The website of the Hungarian version of the Dragon Court still mentions their affiliation with "HRH Michael Stewart of Albany" as well. One wonders if this is simply due to a lack of recent site updates on their part. (The would-be Prince seemed to be quite proud of his affiliation with them as well, judging from this old page from the now-defunct site at www.royalhouseofstewart.org.uk, which I've linked courtesy of the Wayback Machine. ) I will see if I can find out more by contacting the Hungarian Dragon Court directly. I will post any responses that I might receive.