Princess Palace

23 February 2012

Two Female Heirs

The Royal Court, Sweden, photo: Kate Gabor

With the birth of a daughter to Crown Princess Victoria earlier today, Sweden is now the only country in the world with two female direct heirs to the throne. Sweden was one of the first countries to adopt gender-blind succession when Victoria was a young girl; a move that made her heiress over her younger brother, Prince Carl Philipp.

Historically, Sweden has had three previous Queens Regnant: Margaret, Christina and Ulrika Eleonore. It will be interesting to see if the new princess will bear any of these names in tribute to them. [UPDATE: Her name is Estelle Ewa Silvia Mary.]

The most recent nation to have multigenerational female heirs is The Netherlands, where Queen Wilhelmina was succeeded by her daughter Queen Juliana who was followed by her own daughter, the Queen Beatrix.

Although Victoria is the only female heir in her generation of royals, there are several future queens among her daughter's generation, including Ingrid Alexandra of Norway, Elisabeth of Belgium, Catharina Amalia of The Netherlands, and Leonor of Spain. The succession laws in all of these countries except Spain allow for girls to succeed even if they have brothers; Leonor is number two in line for the Spanish throne only because she has no brothers. Another potential monarch is Princess Aiko in Japan, however, any talk of changing succession laws there to even include women, was halted when her male cousin was born a few years ago.

Interestingly in Britain, where many wait daily for the announcement that William and Catherine are expecting, changes to the male-preference succession were only agreed upon a few months ago and, when they are enacted, they will only apply to descendants of William's father--therefore, there will be no impact on any of the current members of the royal family.

Crown Princess Victoria and her husband Prince Daniel were married in June 2010.

28 January 2012

New French Princess

Three centuries after it lost its most famous Antoinette (the alternately maligned and celebrated Marie Antoinette) to Madame Guillotine, the French royals welcomed a new Princess Antoinette on January 28, 2012. The new baby is the daughter of Jean Duke of Vendome, whom Orleanists recognize as the Dauphin, and his Viennese-born wife, Philomena. The couple married in 2009, eight years after Jean was forced to call off his engagement to Protestant Duchess Tatjana of Oldenburg so as not to jeopardize his family's claim to the long-defunct throne of France. Even if the French monarchy were restored again, it has been recreated so many times that there are also claimants from the Bourbons and Bonapartes. Perhaps there is potential for a French reality series, "Who Wants to Be King of France?"

Jean and Philomena also have a two-year-old son, Gaston.

24 January 2012

A New Princess in Denmark

Princess Marie, wife of Prince Joachim of Denmark, gave birth to a daughter on the morning of January 24 in Copenhagen. This is the couple's first daughter. They have one son together and Joachim has two older boys by his first wife, Alexandra.

The prince says his little girl looks like her mother.

By Danish royal tradition, the baby's name will not be announced until her christening several weeks from now. Like her brothers and first cousins, she will undoubtedly receive four names and it is a fairly safe bet that one of those will be Margarethe after her maternal grandmother who is this year celebrating her fortieth anniversary as Queen of Denmark. (A quirkier possibility could be Ruby for the Ruby Jubilee.) Based on her brothers' names, don't be surprised to see her names include that of her mother Marie and her maternal grandmother Francoise.

May 20, 2012 UPDATE: And the name is Athena Marguerite Francoise Marie, which includes the names of the baby's mother and grandmothers. The first name, however, was a bit unexpected.