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.

I think the Belgian & Dutch crown princesses are good friends too. I remember seeing them together at the 18th birthday party of the Crown Prince of Denmark and they looked as though they would lend each other their lip gloss!

I do think one of the worst things about being royal must be being sent off to sit at a wedding, funeral or other event where you’re going to be sat for an hour (or more) totally unable to understand anything that’s being said.

You'd probably get the gist.

Also, Catherina-Amalia of the Netherlands spent a year in Madrid because of threats to her at home, so I'd assume she is at the very least acquainted with Leonor and Sofia.

They do look like they get on well.

I think one of the two younger Dutch princesses was in the same year group at the school in Wales lots of them like as Leonor as well. I remember the pics of Felipe and Willenhall-Alexander at the graduation ceremony.

I totally agree. I watched the funeral of King Olav last night on YouTube as I was interested to find out what King Harald's funeral may entail.

There were loads of dignitaries thumbing through the programme looking flummoxed ~ Norwegian must be a difficult language for those outside of Scandinavia

You would, but sometimes very long ceremonies can be boring even when you know exactly what’s going on let alone when you’re trying to remember basic word cues you’ve been prepped on so you sit/stand at the right moments.

I'm just having another opportunity to find out as the new King is just giving a televised address to the nation. I can understand "Tak" for thankyou but not much else!

All part of the job

I saw bits of that last night and it’ll be very interesting to see any differences in Harald’s funeral.

I can’t imagine we’ll see the royal ladies in full length black dresses and full veils this time round, but I may be wrong.

No, I think that's from a different era, similar to when Royal ladies wore floor length gowns to Royal Weddings

Crown Princess Ingrid Alexandra wore a black trouser suit when she accompanied her father to meet some dignitaries yesterday ~ I think if King Harald had died in January as his father did, we may have seen that sort of style at his funeral as it was quite snowy. Although it's been quite rainy in Oslo during the past two days, I would imagine the ladies will wear black day dresses

I don't think all the Royal ladies will walk behind the coffin though as it's quite a distance from the Palace to the Cathedral.. Queen Sonja is in her 80's and the new Queen has just had a lung transplant so I think they will travel by car

Leonor's sister has this in her wikipaedia.
Infanta Sofía was born on 29 April 2007 at 16:50 (CET) at the Ruber International Hospital in Madrid by means of a caesarean section, two days after due date.[2] Like her elder sister, her birth was announced by the royal family to the press via SMS.[3] It was announced that her umbilical cord stem cells would be sent to a European private bank in Belgium and to a Spanish public one.[4][5] The parents, then the Prince and Princess of Asturias, did the same with Leonor's cells: they were taken to a private centre in Arizona, which caused controversy in Spain.[6]

I notice in the clips from the memorial service for Harald V today the royal family walked into the church in their new rank order, it seems very strange to me that Sonja would walk in to her husband’s memorial service behind both Haakon and Ingrid-Alexandra.

You would think she could be with Haakon, especially as Mette-Marit wasn’t attending.

Yes, that was a bit odd and apparently she's no longer a Majesty either. But it could just be the way things are done there, plus it's all a bit new as she's the first dowager queen an independent Norway has had in centuries. Queen Maud predeceased her husband and King Olav's wife died before he became king.

I think that Carl Gustav, when he was still heir to the Swedish throne, was one of the possible husbands the press talked about as a match for Princess Anne as she approached her late teens/twenties.

That would've been an interesting match! I'm trying to think who the last British Princess to become a queen consort might've been and I don't think there's anyone more recent than Maud of Wales in Norway.

There was Lady Louise Mountbatten (Prince Philip's aunt) who became queen consort of Sweden in 1950. She was at one time a princess, but not a princess of the UK as Maud was. As a princess of Battenberg, she had to change name and title along with all the other British holders of German titles in 1914.

When she became engaged to the King of Sweden, there was a bit of a kerfluffle in Sweden about whether it was an unequal marriage because she was technically a commoner. But the powers to be decided that she was eligible as a member of a royal house.

Totting up the number of Queen Victoria's grandchildren who became monarchs is quite dizzying. Kaiser Wilhelm II, Empress Alexandra of Russia, Marie of Romania, Ena of Spain, just off the top of my head.

She certainly was the Grandmother of Europe.

Indeed, and Christian IX of Denmark was the grandfather. I think it's just the Dutch, Lichtenstein and Monaco ruling families who don't descend from at least one of them.

And Lady Louise married Gustav VI after the death of his first wife (the current King’s grandmother) Margaret, who was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria.

The Scandi monarchs are very long-lived so Victoria of Sweden may be waiting a while to reign. Her father was born in the reign of his great-grandfather! His own father died young but that was in a plane crash.

Children of a morganatic marriage are morganauts

That's brilliant.

I wish they would do a series like Downton about Victoria’s children and grandchildren and further descendents