Random royal stories or facts

[JustAnotherWhinger]

A random fact about King Harald of Norway got me think about all the random/interesting/bizarre stories and facts about royals and thought a thread of them could be interesting.

Harald, who died today, was the first monarch to be born in Norway for over 600 years.
His grandfather, Prince Carl of Denmark, was selected to be the new King of Norway in 1905 (he became King Haakon VII.

Another Danish prince, George, was selected to be the King of Greece in 1863 and reigned until he was assassinated in 1914. He was Prince Philip’s grandfather.

If Claire Lademacher had been Zara Philips or Gabriella Windsor and Chris O’Neill had been the Earl of St Andrews or Freddie Windsor we’d have seen more of the ties building again.

It’ll be interesting to see if the links among the royals families who are currently close are still the same in 20/30 years if there are no new marriages to keep the current ones close and links drop down to being great-great and gr-gr-great grandparents.

Who was the last European royal-royal wedding? I can’t think off the top of my head.

I think one of the daughters of Grand-Duke Jean of Luxembourg married one of the Liechtenstein princes? But that would have been several decades ago ~ I can't think of a more recent Royal-Royal wedding

I have been wondering ~ If Crown Prince Christian of Denmark fell in love with one the European Crown Princesses (Ingrid of Norway & Catharina-Amalia of the Netherlands are both protestant so more likely than the catholic crown princesses from Belgium & Spain) how would that work?

Which country would they live in? How would it work? Very hypothetical I know, but interesting to speculate about the logistics!

1982 apparently. Prince Nikolais of Lichtenstein and Princess Margaretha of Luxembourg.

That’s a fair while. The only recent one that kept coming to mind for me was Caroline of Monaco and Ernst-August but he’s not part of a reigning family.

I don’t know how they would work it now. I don’t think any of the countries are ready to accept a monarch that doesn’t live in their country. And then it would create and incredibly difficult situation for their first born child (and then theirs, and then theirs). Definitely interesting to think about!
I have a feeling if a couple like that fell in love and neither wanted to abdicate it might end up like Prince Bertil and Lilian where they just didn’t marry.
Hopefully they wouldn’t get into unhappy marriages just to produce heirs.

Yes, it would be incredibly difficult. Thankfully it's highly unlikely

It's more likely that younger siblings from the Norwegian, Danish & Dutch Royal families could marry each other

Or the Belgians and Spanish ~ I think the younger son of the King Of Belgium is currently studying in Spain? Could be interesting . . . .

I wonder just how many tiaras there would be at a proper royal-marrying-royal wedding!

Back to interesting facts . . .

There are currently 2 Prince Gabriel's in the European Royal Families

The elder son of the King of Belgium and the second son of the King of Sweden's only son

I think the UK royals see themselves as superior to the other royals and avoid mixing to maintain their belief in their superiority. Perhaps b/c lots of foreign royals are distant cousins due to being children/grandchildren of younger brothers and sisters.
Also, UK royals started distancing themselves, especially from German and Russian nobility, for self-preservation pre WW1. Furthermore, the other royal families' power has waned since then so marrying one of them would not be a prestigious coup.
And, of course, marrying foreign royals to secure/maintain alliances and treaties is not really a thing any more: Just imagine if AMW had been married off to Infanta Cristina ... Or Charles married to Princess Irene of Greece ... Or Anne married to Prince Albert.

what did he do ?

Princess Gabriella is somewhat hard done by, or not, being the twin of Jacques, Hereditary Prince of Monaco, Marquis of Baux

in fact Gabriella was born first

Although (royal) brides often wear a tiara on their wedding day, tiaras are properly for evening events.
Plus, for royals, tiaras seem to be mainly for 'work' events (e.g. grand state dinners) and for married women. That's part of why the bride wears one on her wedding day - it shows her status as a wife.
Looking at photos from recent royal brides' evening parties, there might be a lot of bling but there aren't any tiaras. Perhaps because the bride-to-be (and guest of honour) wouldn't be wearing one b/c she's not yet married?

@HoraceCope , same as many similar men: by-blow children with women he never intended to marry, unsuitable girlfriends.

One thing I found interesting since it was mentioned around talk of Harald’s funeral is how many royals have their grandparents as godparents.

Harald had 8 godparents and 4 were his grandparents - Haakon VII & Queen Maud, and Prince Carl & Princess Ingebog of Sweden.

Haakon had his grandfather Olav V as one of his godparents.
Martha Louise had Olav V and their grandmother Dagny Haraldseb as godparents.

Ingrid Alexandra had Harald and Sverre Magnus has Queen Sonja.

The most interesting I found was Queen Margarethe of Denmark - she had her grandfather Christian X, her grandfather Gustav VI Adolph (crown prince at the time) and two of her great-grandfathers Gustav V and Prince Arthur Duke of Connaught and Strathearn. Arthur would have been 90 when Margarethe was born and baptised

Have a look at Princess Madeleine's wedding (on Youtube) there are plenty of tiaras! Admittedly when you follow the service, the tiaras are all at the front of the church and mainly on the brides side . . . .

I noticed that Princess Charlene of Monaco isn't wearing one though

I think it entirely depends where the wedding is.

All of the recent(ish) Swedish weddings for Victoria, Carl-Philip and Madeleine the guests were all in their tiaras. Same for Frederik and Mary’s wedding and both of Joachim’s weddings.

I think Felipe and Letizia’s wedding was hats rather than tiaras. Not sure about the Dutch weddings. British royal weddings are always hats.

Sorry, I also meant to add that if you look at the photos of Crown Prince Christian's 18th birthday celebrations, Princess Elisabeth of Belgium, Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway and Princess Catharina-Amalaia of the Netherlands are all wearing tiaras and none of them are married

IIRC The King & Queen of Belgium gave their daughter Elisabeth a tiara for her 18th or 21st birthday

Perhaps the rules about tiaras only being for brides and married women have changed or are different in some European countries?

Didn't Princess Anne wear a tiara even before she was married? And I think I've seen photos of Princess Margaret in her 20s where she's wearing one too.

Princess Elisabeth and Princess Elenore of Belgium both wore tiaras for the state visit of Japan in June. It was the first time Elenore wore the tiara she’d been given by her parents for her 18th birthday.

Victoria and Madeleine of Sweden often wore tiaras before they were married as well.

Interesting facts about tiaras that I didn’t know…
https://www.naturaldiamonds.com/historic-diamonds/tiara-rules/

I do find it interesting how differently different families do tiaras.

It was, as that article says, notable that Camilla was seen wearing Eugenie’s wedding tiara as generally in the British royal family a tiara stays with the wearer. Was the same level of surprise when Sophie wore the Lotus Flower tiara to the Japanese state banquet when it had become known for Kate to wear it.

Whereas the Swedish ladies all seem to take turns with the tiaras they have depending on occasion and outfits.

Grand Duke Jean’s wife, Josephine-Charlotte was the daughter of Princess Astrid of Sweden. Her Aunt was Crown Princess Martha of Norway, King Harald’s mother. Astrid and Martha were the daughters of Frederick VIII of Denmark and his wife was a Swedish princess.

Astrid and Martha were the daughters of Prince Carl of Sweden whose wife was Princess Ingeborg, a Danish princess who was the daughter of Frederick VIII of Denmark.

Those rules have never applied to royal women, who have often worn tiaras usually after their 18th birthday, married or not.

Many thanks to all the eagle eyes who have spotted ranks and ranks of tiaras at non-British royal weddings and other events. And also thanks to those who have spotted unmarried royal ladies wearing tiaras. May I point out that most of these are blood princesses rather than wives.

(Princess Charlene has a v interesting tiara made for her by van Cleef & Arples, which doubles as a necklace and the central element can be used as pin, and a charming aigrette tiara - an all-diamond fascinator really - but sadly she doesn't break them out very often.)

@JustAnotherWhinger , I've always thought the lotus flower tiara comes out for state visits from eastern rulers (e.g. Japan, China) b/c of the lotus flower's symbolism in their cultures. So QEII would depute one of the senior ladies to wear it as compliment to the visitor.

The LF tiara was made from a necklace which was a wedding gift to the queen mother (as she became) from her husband, Bertie (as he was known) and she passed it on to Princess Margaret who wore it and loaned it to Serena.

After her death, PM's children auctioned some of her bling, including the Poltimore tiara, but the lotus flower tiara seems to have gone back to QEII (thus she could loan it to Sophie and Kate). Perhaps she bought it back b/c it had been a wedding gift between her parents.

Maybe the late Queen bought it from David and Sarah AJ.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the Lotus flower tiara was classed as a lifelong gift. Even if it wasn’t originally intended they may have worked it round as that to save it being sold. I think after the Kent’s had to sell a lot of the late Duchesses jewels in the 90s the value of the sovereign to sovereign transfers really became obvious to the royals regarding jewels. Pretty much everything seems to be lifelong loan now.

It wasn’t worn between Margaret’s death and Kate wearing it in 2015 and there were occasions where it would have fitted.

I just wonder if Charles (and Camilla, who will deffo have a day) have a more relaxed attitude to tiaras with Sophie wearing the lotus flower happening under their watch, and Kate wearing the Oriental Circlet tiara which had only ever been worn by Queens before.

The Lotus Flower was indeed a loan to Princess Margaret; it was and is part of the Royal Collection. Margaret bought the Poltimore for herself so it was part of her estate that was sold by her heirs.