Search Queries CW 32 Wednesday, Aug 18 2010

No internet over the weekend and thesis stress makes for belated queries post. This is just the stuff from last week (and it’ll be enough already, believe me).

Nominally, it’s Hereditary Grand Duke, not “Crown Prince” or “Hereditary Crown prince”, mostly a matter of semantics and tradition and language. Though admittedly, the sound of it in German is somewhat different and easily jumbled with the Austrian archdukes (“erb” vs. “erz”). Certainly makes for entertaining miscommunication.

Generally speaking you’re right, of course, Guillaume also is a prince, since children of dukes are always princes and princesses, that’s the nature of the whole thing. Which is why so many members of the British royal family are princes and princesses while some with the same pedigree aren’t. Example: Princess Beatrice of York is the daughter of the Duke of York, Prince Andrew. Zara Philipps is the daughter of Princess Anne, but Anne’s first husband declined the dukedom Queen Elizabeth II offered him, hence Zara is no princess. She could still get the title via letters patent, but I don’t think she wants it. More trouble than it’s worth. Same for Prince Edward’s children, btw, Edward declined the dukedom, so his children are ‘only’ Ladies and Viscounts. That said, A prince or a princess do not get a “His/Her Royal/Serene/whatever Highness” attached to their name, that depends very much on the family and dynastic complications.

Ruth, Countess of Rosenborg, was the wife of Prince Flemming, later Count Flemming Valdemar of Rosenborg. Prince Flemming married 1949 morganatically (i.e. beneath his own standing, as Ruth Nielsen was a commoner), and renounced his rights to the Danish throne. Hence, the Counts of Rosenborg are the morganatic line of the Danish royal family, simply speaking. Countess Ruth died on July 25th of this year.

Okay, whatever do you mean with princess maxima eating food? As Máxima is alive and kicking (potentially kicking ass, too), I suppose she eats, more or less regularly depending on her schedule.

As I said before, I have my doubts that Madeleine and Guillaume will become a couple. It would be quite interesting, but I think the Swedes would get into a bit of manpower trouble. These days, Madde at least works with Childhood, if she ceased to be a part of the Swedish royal family, there would be one less person to do work. And considering Vikkan will hopefully be pregnant soon and have a decreased workload…oops. Otherwise, I admit that would be an interesting match. With the only problem that she’d have Guillaume for breakfast but…I suppose they’d have an interesting sex life, at least.

As the court has not released anything, I have my doubts that Princess Máxima is pregnant. They have three adorable girls, she’s almost 40, I seriously doubt they’ll have another round of kids. Then again, everyone thought Mary and Frederik were done, so I really can’t say. She didn’t strike me as pregnant the last time I saw pictures of her, though. (We wouldn’t know before the third trimester is over anyway, no one in their right mind would announce that.)
In that vein, no Tatiana still isn’t pregnant to the best of my knowledge.

Princess Sophie I take it the one from Liechtenstein? At which wedding, Victoria’s? I know nothing about Sophie’s own wedding to Hereditary Prince Alois of Liechtenstein, sorry, not the time when I was interested in royalty. Sophie herself is the heiress (at least would be heiress if they didn’t operate under Salic law) of the family of Wittelsbach. She is the heiress to the Jacobite claim to the throne of Britain, i.e. if the Brits didn’t have the Act of Settlement, and everyone would still have married the people they did despite that, Sophie would now be Queen of Britain. Anyway, at Vikkan’s wedding her dinner date was Crown prince Philippe of Belgium and she had a good time chatting with Guillaume and Mette-Marit.

As Queen Anne-Marie is Prince Frederik’s aunt, and all her children did so, yes she attended that wedding six years ago. I don’t currently have pictures of that but I think Ella over at the Hattery did a wedding bash on that, you can probably head over and look for it.

Prince Sébastien of Luxembourg is the youngest son of Grand Duke Henri and María-Teresa, youngest brother of Guillaume. He’s barely of age, he’s not doing royal duties yet, except showing up at family weddings and the National Day celebrations.

As for Princess Mary’s pregnancy, rumours are high it was fertility treatment, especially as the court right out denied it, but I can’t be sure either way. If you ask me, yes she took ovulation stimulating drugs. Do I have proof? No. Would it be good if she said so? Hell yes, women having trouble to conceive can use all the support they can get.

The topic Sofia Hellqvist. Now, I won’t say I’m sick of it, but this is really getting out of hand, people. Two scenarios:

1) She’s actually Carl Philip’s girlfriend. Well, good for her. If she is, she’s acting exactly right, she’s not making public appearances that are in any way untoward, and that’s what I expect of a royal gf. She also isn’t flaunting her relationship, I suppose she’s as sick of the press as anyone in her position sensibly should be. And good for him as well, because he’s looking so much better these days than he still did in spring, and if that’s the effect she has on him, by all means, CP, keep her. Problem is, I don’t know if even the progressive Swedes will accept a princess (even if she’s not the crown princess) who has nude pictures out in public. Can’t tell, but I doubt it. CP could, of course, give up his place in the succession, as so many princes of Sweden before him have done, but then the Swedes are in serious trouble about their workload and I suppose CP has too much family sense to do so.

2) She’s a ruse, a beard or a rebound. In the latter case, good for both of them, as he’s getting laid and no one hassles him about finally getting a new gf (and probably won’t in the future, looking at the press echo), and she’s getting publicity for her future career (and gets laid by a prince, I mean, hello? CP of all people, who would kick that man out of bed for eating crackers? uh…I digress). If she’s a ruse or a beard, well, I suppose they both get something out of it, so why not?

Either way, for the moment everyone will have to deal with her.
Oh, and I know there was an article in a Danish tabloid about him saying to a friend he was very much in love with her *sigh*. It’s the same as all the ‘sources close to the prince’ that the British tabloids are digging up all the time, they’re not worth anything. The friendships of the Swedes are pretty close-knit and no one would go out and blab any such crap to the papers.

That said, yes I know the pictures from the kart race. But I also have to say it’s the very first picture in which CP makes any kind of gentle move toward her, so far any pictures together, they even sat on different couches while having drinks. So uh…not sure *shrug*.

Still not posting her nude pictures.

Austrian princess, which one? For one, if you mean the Habsburgs: they’re not princes and princesses, they’re archdukes. It seems petty, but believe me, it’s not. Titles are quite important there. If you mean someone else: There’s a few noble houses on Austria left, although they’re only princesses by dynastic decree anymore, not even by name. Austria has officially purged any royalty from its society, funnily enough though, Austrians are the most monarchistical people without a monarchy out there.

Princess Mary + prince’s girlfriend? You know more than me there, care to enlighten me? *g*

Hm. What still surprises me is the vast interest in the Belgian royals who are not the crown princely family. What’s this about, is someone researching the Austria-Este family? Because that’s currently how it looks. Maybe it’s time to get a post about current Habsburg-controversies out there, it would fit nicely with the dynastic approach here. Anyone want to tell me what Lorenz did that’s suddenly so interesting?

And now the usual rundown:
Prince Félix of Luxembourg is not gay (wouldn’t know about bisexuality), and has a girlfriend, Claire. HGD Guillaume does not have an official gf, there’s no shots of him with men or women that I have seen, so I can’t tell. Also, no idea if he’s gay or bi or straight, although there’s enough people whose gaydar he’s tingling. Yes, Carl Philip has a girlfriend, as we’ve discussed above. No, no pregnancies that are new and fresh beside Mary’s. Uhm… As for naked Casiraghis, please click on the tags ;-). Prince Amedeo is still in NYC to the best of my knowledge, and no idea about a girlfriend. That has to do with dynastics, once more.

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Babies, babies…. Tuesday, Aug 17 2010

When speaking about royal babies, everyone’s looking at Denmark these days, but wasn’t there a very pregnant Princess Nathalie of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg at Victoria’s wedding?

Indeed. Nathalie is a very successful dressage competitor btw. Anyway, the little boy is born now, his name is Konstantin Gustav Heinrich Richard of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg.

And the proud parents (Princess Nathalie with her husband Alexander Johannsmann).

(See Mary, that’s how a healthy mother looks.)

I don’t know if little Konstantin is a prince, dynastically speaking. While he carries the name “zu Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg”, the House of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg inherits according to Salic Law (meaning strictly agnatic, only to males in the male line). While Nathalie has a brother, currently heir apparent to the headship of the house, he remains unmarried and childless at the age of 41. Should he, as the last agnate, die childless the headship will fall to Bernhard of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Hohenstein, his cousin. Thereby, the line of S-W-B will die out. As Nathalie and her sister can’t inherit the house, I’m not sure they can inherit the titles to their children.

This is speaking strictly in a dynastic context, judicially speaking, titles of nobility in Germany are treated as last names and Konstantin is as much a part of the family as his mother.

It’s high time I do that dynastic power post… Or maybe a whole series of it *sigh*.

But Nathalie isn’t the only new mother.

Hereditary Prince and Princess Maximilian of Bentheim-Tecklenburg had their fourth child only a couple of days ago. The little one’s name is Carl-Emil Maximilian Moritz Casmir of Bentheim-Tecklenburg (no good pictures available, sorry).

The House of Bentheim-Tecklenburg is an old family of counts in the area of Bentheim and Rheda-Wiedenbrück in Germany. They’re counts in their own right, not the morganatic line of some other, higher house. The family has been around since before the 16th century, although it is only known as Bentheim-Tecklenburg since the late 16th century, prior to that it was simply Bentheim. The addition of Tecklenburg stems from what was common practice for the German nobility until the 19th century. While all other areas inherited their name and holdings to the oldest son only (Salic Law, agnatic succession), a lot of the German nobility split their holdings between all their sons, simply adding the name of the ‘new’ area to the old one. That’s also why it is Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg for Nathalie and her family. The holdings of Sayn were split up so much that after a few generations, there were a lot of cadet branches.

This practice changed with primogeniture, first Salic, later semi-Salic, cognatic or male-preference or what have you. When going back through the times, you’re in for a few surprises there, as names have often changed so much that you can’t recognize the original House anymore. That’s how German nobility has given the European royal houses quite a boost over time, as for example the House of Windsor is descended, these days, from two major royal houses of German: Hanover and Wettin. As many will know, Queen Victoria was a princess of the House of Hanover, and she would have inherited the kingdom of Hanover if they didn’t inherit according to Salic law. As the Brits didn’t do that, but simply practised male-preference primogeniture, she was it. Prince Albert on the other hand came from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, which was a cadet branch descended originally from the House of Wettin. As for the Windsors of today, the male agnates carry the last name (when they need a last name) Mountbatton-Windsor or Windsor-Mountbatton, depending on who you ask. Mountbatton is just a translation of the former county of Battenberg, a German holding of the family of Prince Philip’s mother (a morganatic line, in this case).

Windsor is only Windsor because the Brits needed to get rid of their German name after WWI btw.

Now, the lines are dying out, but why can’t the Head of House simply change the rules and inherit to his daughters when he knows there are no sons? That’s the crux of the matter. A couple of centuries back, when Germany of today was only a mass of patches, they managed to get their shit together and created the Holy Roman Empire, with an Emperor and everything. Unfortunately, laws of inheritance were set in stone at that point, and can only be changed when a Holy Roman Emperor witnesses it and gives his okay. The HRR was dissolved though and the current inheritor of the HRE title would, at the same time, be the Austrian Emperor.

So the consequence is, we’ll be seeing a lot of formally noble or even royal Houses die out in the next generation or two, even if their names will be carried on due to German civil law, dynastically speaking, they are nil and void.

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Sweden National Day 2010 Monday, Jun 7 2010

Yesterday was June 6th, which each year marks the National Day in Sweden. This year was especially special, since it marks the 200th year of the rule of the House of Bernadotte.

And also, Daniel Westling was allowed to participate for the first time in official capacity as the man at Victoria’s side. As Princess Madeleine is still in the US, they were one woman short to accompany Prince Carl Philip, who so far has been tasked with escorting his sisters during official outings.

Mind, CP and Daniel are actually wearing the same tie. Which is one of the few times that CP is wearing an acceptable tie at all.

Now, Sweden conducts its National Day in quite a nice way usually, as they are opening the doors of the Royal Palace of Stockholm to celebrate with the people. With strawberry shortcake *g* There’s usually a show in the evening that the royal family attends as well. I watched the coverage of it for about an hour last night and…well, was amused.

Victoria and Daniel during the show, which involved speeches by King Carl XVI Gustaf (he does the hurra much better than his son btw), the national anthem of course, but also celebration by other artists. Vikkan with her manic grin was delightful.

Now as for her brother *sigh* he’s obviously fallen back into his Antonio Banderas phase and I really, really had hoped he’d grown out of that one a couple of years ago. But no, we’re right back there.

CP with his paternal aunt Princess Christina, Mrs. Magnuson. I’m not sure who the blonde on his other side is though, maybe another relation, maybe some politician, I really have no idea. Anyone else any more knowledgeable? Anyway, what you can see pretty well here is that he still hasn’t learned to lay off the gel. Actually, it’s even worse than it has been the last few times we saw him in official capacity. *sigh*

I get that he has unruly hair, I do too, but that’s just too much. Really. It’s like he doesn’t only plaster it back, but he starts defining every single strand even. It’s….gah. He lays off the gel (and the razor) during racing weekends, probably since he figured out that gel beneath the helmet and fireproof mask is not doing a lot of good one way or other, but he really needs to do this differently. It wasn’t as bad when he had it shorter, maybe he needs to go back there. I’m loathe to think of what we’ll see in two weeks, elsewise.

History lesson for those of you who have no idea of the Bernadottes:

Sweden was in political turmoil during the late 18th and early 19th century, not only also but also due to the Russo-Swedish War, which finally led to Karl XIII being appointed regent of Sweden and finally being elected as king. Karl XIII was the last reigning King of the House of Holstein-Gottorp, whose Swedish line ended with him. He had married his first cousin Hedwig Elisabeth Charlotte (of Holstein-Gottorp) but their two children died in infancy and his illegitimate son could not inherit his throne. As Karl XIII was elderly and in bad health already, people started to look around for an heir, who was to be adopted into the family before the death of the current king to prevent the political turmoil escalating once more.

Eventually the choice fell on Jean Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, a general of Napoleon, who had worked himself from being a commoner to enjoying the trust of the French Emperor. This did not come without a price though, as that was a shaky trust, mostly still intact due to the fact that Desirée Clary, Jean Baptiste’s wife, was the former fiancée of Napoleon, whom she had an ongoing affair with (as is rumoured at least). To illustrate though: General Bernadotte can be seen on the painting depicting Napoleon’s crowning.

After the death of the former Swedish crown prince, Bernadotte was made the offer in 1810 (200 years ago this day) to the Swedish throne. Napoleon, at first, wasn’t in favour but let his general go nonetheless. Jean Baptiste took the name Karl XIV Johan and pretty much reigned from the day of his arrival, as Karl XIII was ailing badly already. Karl XVI Johan became popular rather quickly, as he also had his only son Oscar (who would later become Oscar I) educated in Sweden and in Swedish manner from the beginning. This won him favours with the people and the Barons.

Since then, Swedish Kings and princes have only married foreign princes, never within Sweden’s own nobility (part of the house law), the tradition only broken by Carl XVI Gustaf when he married Silvia Sommerlath from Germany, who he had met during the Olympic Games in 1972. She also was the first commoner to marry a Swedish King.

Which takes us to the present: 200 years of Bernadotte rule in Sweden, when in 1976 people thought the monarchy was dead as the royal family only consisted of two people anymore. Let’s hope for another 200 years.

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