Let’s hope one of those crazy kids can see their dreams come true, yeah?
We’re never going to get a viable breeding population as long as shit like this goes down.
Wow, that was a fast promotion…
Current European monarchs by length of reign:
Margarethe II of Denmark, 50 years (since 14 Jan 1972)
Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, 49 years (15 Sept 1973)
Hans-Adam II of Liechtenstein, 32 years (13 Nov 1989)
Harald V of Norway, 31 years (17 Jan 1991)
Henri of Luxembourg, 21 years (7 Oct 2000)
Albert II of Monaco, 17 years, (6 April 2005)
Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands, 9 years (30 Apr 2013)
Philippe of the Belgians, 9 years (21 July 2013)
Felipe VI of Span, 8 years (19 June 2014)
Charles III of the UK, 20 days (8 Sept 2022)
The current longest-ruling monarch in the world is the Sultan of Brunei, Hassanal Bolkiah, who is coming up on 55 years (5 Oct 1967), and there are several rulers in the United Arab Emirates in the 40+ year category. The UAE also provides the ruler with the reign next longer than Charles: Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan has been formally the ruler of Abu Dhabi since his brother’s death this past May, so four and a half months (although he was de facto in control since 2014).
¡Hola! Magazine was always a heap of fun ever since discovering it in dentists’ waiting rooms in my youth, for the fawning coverage of “queens” and “princes” of dynasties that referred to thrones that I knew no longer existed and that furthermore their home countries had told them in no uncertain terms to scoot (hi there, House of Greece).
But as someone else has mentioned it, it’s interesting that the current generation of monarchs and heirs that are pretty confident of where they sit have tended to just marry who they fancy regardless of nobility status or not. Meanwhile it’s the ones trying to make a point that “but we ARE still Lords of something!” while everyone else says “yeah, right, please” that tend to be especially hung up on ensuring “proper” consorts lest the line go extinct. But hey I am the sort of person who hears “I am a Romanov Grand Du(ke/chess) of Russia” or “I am a prince(ss) of Saxe-Fahrvegnugen-Pez” and has a hard time not rolling my eyes.
Part of the problem here is that in Britain, there were social rules about who was a “suitable” bride for a prince, but in some places on the continent these were actual laws. For example, well into the 20th century, a Swedish prince who married “a private man’s daughter” (i.e., someone not royal) automatically and by operation of law lost his place in the line of succession and his title as Prince of Sweden; these rules were not completely removed until 1980 (but they are still required to obtain the consent of the government). Several of the present king’s uncles forfeited their title and place for marrying non-royal women; Prince Bertil famously shacked up with a Welsh commoner for decades because he might have been required to serve as regent and he legally couldn’t do that married to her.
In Sweden, Parliament eventually got around to changing the law. In some other countries that have abolished the monarchy, it’s not always clear even who has the authority to change the rules, and people who think they still have a chance at a restored throne don’t want to throw away that chance for not playing by the rules.
In Germany, some of the old family rules about equal marriage still have the force of law in matters such as inheritance. For example, Prince Gustav of Sayn-Wittgenstein-Berleburg inherited a castle and extensive lands in North Rhine-Westphalia, but a clause in his grandfather’s will removes his inheritance if he were to marry someone who was not noble, Protestant, and Aryan (guess when that will was written?); Gustav and his Catholic, Mexican- and Swedish-American, decidedly non-noble girlfriend spent more than fifteen years trying to get the German courts to overturn that will, finally succeeding only in 2020. Similarly, the current Hohenzollern heir and some of his uncles had a long-running dispute over who was entitled to inherit from the trust set up for the estate of Wilhelm II, with the Federal Constitutional Court being asked to decide lower court rulings on whether their loss of inheritance rights due to their choice of spouse was against German law. (Nephew eventually was declared the principal heir but had to share a little bit with his uncles.)
There are or at least were some pretty strict laws in the UK about whom a royal could marry as well.
Until a few years back, a marriage had to be approved by the monarch - or that person would lose his/her place in the succession, along with all of his/her descendants. Since 2013 or so, only the first 6 in line are bound by that. Which leads to the somewhat interesting question, what if one of William’s cousins (no longer in the top 6) marries someone “unsuitable”, then something awful happens to William and his entire family. Suddenly, that cousin is now in the top 6. Is the rule applied retroactively. The Wikipedia article suggests it would not be…
Royals are no longer prohibited from marrying Catholics, either - though if their kids are brought up Catholic, the kids cannot inherit.
That’s still (since 2013) necessary for the top six in the line of succession. Here is the Queen’s consent to the marriage of Harry and Meghan in 2016.
As for the OP’s question, aristocrats still intermarry, although they don’t do it exclusively, of course. My impression is that it’s more common among the second tier of European aristocracy than the first. An example would be the current Prince Regent of Liechtenstein, who is married to a Bavarian duchess.
Alois’s brother, by contrast, is married to the former Angela Brown, an Afro-Panamanian fashion designer and the first woman of primarily recent African descent to marry into European royalty. Meanwhile the extended Liechtenstein family includes a sister of the Grand Duke of Luxembourg and a Turkish woman (Princess Tılsım) who is distantly related to the former Egyptian royal house.
Not really. The monarch had to approve the marriage, but what was “good enough” was ENTIRELY within the discretion of the monarch. Moreover, Brits weren’t prohibited from marrying Catholics, either; the late Queen gave her consent to Prince Michael marrying the Catholic Marie-Christine von Reibnitz in 1978, for example. Michael lost his place in the succession (restored in 2015 under the Succession to the Crown Act 2013), but he remained Prince Michael, he kept his “His Royal Highness” style and his wife was accorded the same, he still represented the Queen occasionally, the couple live at Kensington Palace, and their children raised in the Church of England always had succession rights.
Under the Swedish law, for example, a prince who married outside the rules lost his succession rights for himself AND his descendants, he wasn’t a prince anymore, and he had no place in the Royal House, a situation that would apply even if the king personally approved of the union. For example, Prince Oscar of Sweden married a Swedish noblewoman; the king consented to the marriage and gave them a royal ball at the palace prior to announcing their engagement, and members of the family attended the wedding, but he and his descendants were out of the firm (although they eventually received noble titles in Luxembourg from his uncle the Grand Duke there; one of his sons was Count Folke Bernadotte). Similarly, HRH Prince Sigvard of Sweden married a commoner and became plain Mr. Sigvard Bernadotte as far as the Swedish authorities were concerned. (He also acquired a Luxembourgish title of nobility and had a successful career as an industrial designer, but was estranged from the royal family.)
Well, true: the laws did not prohibit “unsuitable” marriages, but not complying meant you gave up your spot in the succession. Maybe in other countries, the laws mean that the marriage is not legally recognized at all.
Something that occurred to me last night after I posted: the new act t(and its predecessor) explicitly excludes Catholics. One argument is that the monarch is the head of the Church of England, and you don’t want someone of a different religion heading up yours. Who’s gonna be the first Baptist pope? The real underlying reason, IMO, is based on long-standing anti-Catholic prejudice.
But as far as I can tell, OTHER religions are not excluded at all. Could Charles convert to Judaism and still keep his job?
(and if he converted to Catholicism at this point, is Will out of a job too?).
I’m not surprised that there would be a fair number of royals marrying other royals because they would run in the same circles and have a lot of friends in common. That’s just who they are meeting.
It’s actually the reverse: a marriage in contravention of the Royal Marriages Act 1772 is legally null and void in Britain. The person themselves retains their place in the line of succession, but any offspring are out of wedlock and hence out of the succession. (This happened, for example, to the last Duke of Sussex; he remained in the succession until his death, but his kids were considered illegitimate.) Meanwhile, a marriage in Sweden in contravention of the Act of Succession there was real and binding, but the person forfeited their place in the succession for themselves and their descendants.
It’s not really clear what would happen if Charles converted at this point; the existing legislation covers heirs to the throne. The coronation oath requires the monarch to maintain “the true profession of the Gospel and the Protestant reformed religion,” so a Jewish convert probably would be in violation of that oath.
If William converts to Catholicism at any point, he’s out. He’s also out if at the time of his accession he does not join in communion with the Church of England. (Act of Settlement Section 3)
So, more pertinently, if William became a Papist, would his son still be in the line of succession (assuming Kate kept him from contaminating the kids with his heathen views)?
I guess if Charles converted now, he’d simply lose the throne, and it would go to the next in line (which would be William? or again, if William is cut out of succession, so would Harry, and I guess one of Andrew’s kids would be next up).
I speculate that William would get the job, since one of the articles I read said that basically a Catholic is considered dead. So it’d be as if Chuck simply died.
In the British system, the exclusion for Catholicism applies only to the individual person; William’s kids who are themselves in communion with the C of E would still be in the succession and eligible to inherit.
I don’t know about other Asian royal families, but this would be very unlikely for the Japanese imperial family.
The American occupation GHQ had the Japanese reform the laws governing the imperial household and strictly reduced the number of people eligible, including daughters who married people who were not members of the Japanese imperial family. As there are no male candidate who are not brothers or cousins, then essentially all daughters who marry become commoners.
As such, there are only a few people in line for succession. There is only one unmarried male, the third in line after his father (the younger brother of the Emperor) and it would create an uproar if he married a foreigner.