Grand Cross Collar for Crown Princess

At a Christmas reception for the royal household at the Royal Palace yesterday, the King invested the Crown Princess with the Collar of the Grand Cross of the Order of St Olav for her services to Norway. This makes Crown Princess Mette-Marit the fifth Norwegian woman to receive the highest degree of Norway's highest order.
The first woman to receive the Grand Cross with Collar was Crown Princess Märtha, who was given it by her father-in-law King Haakon VII in 1942 in recognition of her important work in the USA during the Second World War. When Crown Princess Märtha died in 1954, her daughter Princess Astrid succeeded her as First Lady and was rewarded with the Grand Cross with Collar by her grandfather two years later. The then Crown Princess Sonja received the Grand Cross with Collar from her father-in-law King Olav V in 1972, four years after her marriage. Princes usually received the Grand Cross with Collar on coming of age, and in anticipation of the introduction of gender-neutral succession the following year, King Olav gave his granddaughter Princess Märtha Louise the Grand Cross with Collar on her eighteenth birthday in 1989.
Crown Princess Mette-Marit received the Grand Cross (without Collar) on her wedding day in 2001, while Princess Ragnhild received the Grand Cross on the occasion of her father's silver jubilee in 1982. Queen Maud, like Queen Sophie, Queen Louise, Queen Josephine, Dowager Queen Desideria and other royal ladies before her, never received the Order of St Olav at all.
The King and Crown Prince wear the Collar for state occasions such as the State Opening of Parliament, but for women there are fewer occasions to do so, the so far last being the King and Queen's solemn blessing in Nidaros Cathedral on 23 June 1991.

Seraphim honours for Prince Johann Georg

At noon today, the funeral of Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern, who died on 2 March, took place in the Church of Our Saviour at the Hedingen Monastery in Sigmaringen, his family sepulchre. King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia of Sweden were among the mourners at their brother-in-law’s funeral. Among the guests were also Prince Carl Philip, Princess Désirée and Baron Niclas Silfverschiöld, Princess Christina, Prince Georg Friedrich of Prussia, Margrave Maxmilian and Margravine Valerie of Baden, and Prince Andreas of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
As I happen to be in Stockholm, I had the chance to watch the ceremonial observed on the day of the funeral of a Knight of the Order of the Seraphim, Sweden’s highest honour. At 11.55 a.m., his Seraphim coat of arms was carried from the Royal Palace to the former royal burial church at Riddarholmen, escorted by grenadiers.
In the former church, the coat of arm was placed on a table at the entrance to the chancel together with two candles, a bouquet of flowers and a photo of the late Prince. An official of the Order Chancellery gave a short speech (in German) recording the vita of Prince Johann Georg, two pieces of music were performed by an army band and the bells tolled for an hour.
Prince Johann Georg was made a Knight of the Seraphim by King Gustaf VI Adolf on 23 May 1961, two days before his civil marriage to the King’s granddaughter, Princess Birgitta. Although the princely branch of the House of Hohenzollern had not been sovereign since 1849, King Gustaf Adolf chose to treat his granddaughter’s marriage on the same level as if she had married a prince of a reigning house, i.e. making the groom and his nearest male relatives Knights of the Seraphim.
After the order was founded in 1748, there were for a long time very few Swedish princesses. Princess Sophia Albertina, the daughter of King Adolf Fredrik, and Princess Eugénie, the daughter of King Oscar I, remained unmarried, and it was indeed only in 1869 that a princess married, namely Lovisa, the daughter of King Carl XV.
Lovisa married Crown Prince Frederik (VIII) of Denmark, who had already received the Order of the Seraphim in 1862. His father, King Christian IX, was also already a knight since 1848 and his younger brother, King Georgios I of the Hellenes, since the previous year, but King Carl gave the order to his uncle, Prince Hans of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg.
The next Swedish Princess to marry was Margaretha, who wed Prince Axel of Denmark in May 1919. The groom received the order on the occasion of the engagement, while his father Prince Valdemar had received it in 1875 and his elder brother Prince Aage in 1913.
When Margaretha’s youngest sister, Princess Astrid, became engaged to Prince Léopold, the heir to the Belgian throne in September 1926, he received the Seraphim, while his brother Prince Charles received it two days before the civil wedding on 4 November 1926. Their father, King Albert I of the Belgians, had been made a knight in 1910, but received the collar two days before the civil wedding.
When Princess Märtha married Crown Prince Olav of Norway in March 1929, there was however no presentation of orders. The groom himself had received it when attending the wedding of Princess Astrid and Prince Léopold, while his father, King Haakon VII, had received it back in 1893, when he was still Prince Carl of Denmark and called on his great-uncle Oscar II.
Crown Prince Frederik (IX) of Denmark, who married Princess Ingrid in 1935, was also already a knight (since 1917), while his father had received the Seraphim in 1888 and his younger brother Knud also as a guest at the 1926 wedding. The groom’s maternal uncle, ex-Grand Duke Friedrich Franz IV of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, was however made a Knight of the Seraphim three days before the wedding.
When Prince Johann Georg married Princess Birgitta, King Gustaf VI Adolf gave the Seraphim not only to him but also to his older brother, Hereditary Prince Friedrich Wilhelm. Their father, Prince (Fürst) Friedrich, had received the Order in 1936, but was given the collar on the same days as his two eldest sons were made knights.s

Prince Johann Georg to be buried on Saturday

According to an announcement appearing in today's edition of Süddeutsche Zeitung, the requiem mass and funeral of the art historian Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern will take place in the Church of Our Saviour at the Hedingen Monastery on the outskirts of his hometown Sigmaringen at noon on Saturday. The church is the family sepulchre of the princely House of Hohenzollern.
Prince Johann Georg was married to Princess Birgitta of Sweden, and the Swedish royal court has announced that King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia, Princess Désirée and Baron Niclas Silfverschiöld, and Princess Christina will attend their brother-in-law's funeral. Princess Margaretha, who is unable to attend, will be represented by her daughter, Baroness Sybilla von Dincklage.
On the occasion of their wedding in 1961, Prince Johann Georg was made a Knight of the Order of the Seraphim, Sweden's highest honour, by King Gustaf VI Adolf. As tradition dictates, the funeral of a Knight of the Seraphim will be observed in Stockholm by the tolling of the bells of the Riddarholmen Church between noon and 1 p.m. At 11.55 a.m., his Seraphim coat of arms will be carried from the Royal Palace to the church.

Seraphim Order for Princess Sofia

On Friday night, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia of Sweden attended an award ceremony and banquet at the Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences, where Princess Sofia wore the Order of the Seraphim for the first time. Unlike her brother-in-law Prince Daniel, Princess Sofia did not receive this order, which is Sweden's highest, at her wedding and it has until now not been known if she had received it. The date on which she received the Order is so far not known.

Prince Nicolas of Sweden christened

At noon today, Prince Nicolas of Sweden, the son of Princess Madeleine and Chris O'Neill, was christened in the chapel of Drottningholm Palace outside Stockholm. This intimate chapel was also the venue for the christening of his elder sister, Princess Leonore, in June last year.
The sponsors were his maternal uncle, Prince Carl Philip; his father's maternal half-sister, Countess Natascha Abensperg und Traun; his mother's first cousin Gustaf Magnuson (son of Princess Christina); his paternal uncle by marriage Henry d'Abo (whose mother, Lady Ursula d'Abo, who will be 99 next month, is the daughter of the 9th Duke of Rutland and was a maid of honour at the coronation of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of Britain in 1937); his mother's friend Katarina von Horn; and his father's friend Marco Wajselfisz.
Prince Nicolas wore the christening robe that was made for the baptism of his great-grandfather, Prince Gustaf Adolf, in 1906 and which has been worn by many royal children since then. He was baptised by the Archbishop, Antje Jackelén (who last year became Sweden's first female Archbishop). At the end of the ceremony, he was invested as a Knight of the Order of the Seraphim by his grandfather, King Carl XVI Gustaf. His royal rank was, in keeping with a tradition instituted in 1778, symbolised by a princely crown on a pedestal next to the altar. Until now, one crown has usually been assigned to each prince and princess, but the fact that the royal title now descends through both the male and the female line means that there are not enough crowns to go around, and Prince Nicolas has thus been assigned the same crown as his mother, that of Princess (later Queen) Hedvig Elisabeth Charlotta (the distinction between crowns for princes and princesses had already been broken in 2012, when Oscar II's princely crown was assigned to Princess Estelle).
As the chapel at Drottningholm is rather small, the christening was attended by a rather select gathering of family, friends, officials and courtiers. Apart from Prince Nicolas, his parents and his sisters, the members of the extended royal family present were King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia; Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel; Princess Estelle; Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia; Princess Margaretha; Princess Christina's husband Tord Magnuson, their three sons Oscar, Gustaf and Victor Magnuson, Gustaf's wife Vicky Magnuson, Victor's partner Frida Bergström and their infant son Sigvard, who was born on 25 August; Countess Marianne Bernadotte af Wisborg, who is the widow of the King's late uncle, the former Prince Sigvard; and Dagmar von Arbin, a great-granddaughter of King Oscar II, who will celebrate her 100th birthday in April. The only foreign royal present was Prince Andreas of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, a first cousin of King Carl Gustaf who is also one of Princess Madeleine's sponsors.
Also present were Chris O'Neill's mother, Eva Maria O'Neill; two of his three paternal half-sisters, Annalisa O'Neill and Karen O'Neill, and his nephew Oliver MacNeely; his maternal half-sister Tatjana d'Abo with her husband Henry and their children Anouska, Celina and Jasper; his maternal half-sister Countess Natascha Abensperg und Traun and her daughters Milana and Chiara; and a man by the name of Wolfgang Seybold, who is apparently in a relationship with Eva Maria O'Neill.
Queen Silvia's brother Walther L. Sommerlath is on the guest list, but was as far as I could tell not present in church. On the other hand two of her nephews were there: Thomas de Toledo Sommerlath and Patrick Sommerlath, the latter with his wife Maline, his son Leopold Lundén Sommerlath and their daughters Anaïs and Chloé Sommerlath.

Seraphim honours for Mandela in Stockholm

While Nelson Mandela was laid to rest in Qunu in South Africa yesterday, I happened to be in Stockholm, where I got the chance to observe the ceremonial which accompanies the death of a Knight of the Royal Seraphim Order, Sweden’s highest order, which nowadays is only awarded to royals and heads of state.
While a knight of the order is alive, his or her armorial shield is kept at the Royal Palace, where a selection is displayed in the Seraphim Hall next to the Hall of State. After the death of a knight, the shield is hung in the former royal burial church at Riddarholmen.
At 11.15 a.m. yesterday, Nelson Mandela’s shield was carried from the Royal Palace to the Riddarholmen Church, accompanied by a guard of honour made up of four grenadiers, while the soldiers guarding the Royal Palace paraded in the Outer Courtyard.
In the Riddarholmen Church, the shield was displayed on an easel at the entrance to the chancel, next to a table with a photo of Mandela, two white candles and a bouquet of flowers, guarded by two grenadiers. The bells of the church tolled from noon to 1 p.m.
The so-called Seraphim tolling is done on the day of the funeral of a knight of the order, as long as the Swedish court is aware of the knight’s passing and the date of his or her funeral (it has happened that the tolling has not taken place because the court has not received news of the death of a knight).
As the bells fell silent at the end of the Seraphim tolling, the easel with Mandela’s shield was carried to the northern side nave of the church and placed in front of the wall where it will be hung with the shields of other late knights.
Nelson Mandela received the Seraphim Order when he, as president, hosted King Carl Gustaf’s and Queen Silvia’s state visit to South Africa in 1997. Crown Princess Victoria represented the Swedish royal family (and Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt the government) at the memorial service held in Johannesburg on 10 December, while no Swedish representative was present at the actual funeral yesterday.

Prince Daniel and Prince Carl Philip awarded Order of the Polar Star

The President of Portugal, Aníbal Cavaco Silva, and his wife Maria yesterday began a state visit to Sweden and at the state banquet at the Royal Palace in Stockholm last night Prince Daniel and Prince Carl Philip wore what appears to be the neck-bagde of the Order of the Polar Star, which I am almost sure they have never worn before.
The royal website does not say anything about when they were awarded this second highest order, but what makes it all more peculiar is that the two princes wore it from the black riband that was exchanged for a blue one with yellow edges (like the Swedish flag) at the time of the order reform in 1975.
King Carl Gustaf habitually wears the Polar Star in its black riband when in civilian dress (and the now defunct Sword Order when in uniform), but this is because he was awarded the order before 1975. Christopher O’Neill, on the other hand, who was given the order on 6 June this year, two days before he married Princess Madeleine, wears it in the modern blue and yellow riband.
The only possible explanation I can think of for why the two princes have been given the old version must be that King Carl Gustaf has decided that members of the royal house (who are, since 1995, excluded from the rule which prohibits the award of Swedish orders to Swedish citizens) shall wear the old version. But if so, that is a new invention, given that the late Princess Lilian always wore the modern version of the grand cross from 1976 until she was given the higher Seraphim Order in 1995. (On the other hand, Princess Lilian received it just before the wedding when she was still a British subject).

On this date: King Carl Gustaf and Prince Daniel celebrate fortieth anniversaries

Today is the fortieth anniversary of the accession to the Swedish throne of King Carl XVI Gustaf. The then 27-year-old Crown Prince became King the moment his grandfather, King Gustaf VI Adolf, died at Helsingborg Hospital at 8.35 p.m. on 15 September 1973. Incidentially, 15 September 1973 was also the day his future son-in-law, now Prince Daniel, was born. (In the September issue of Majesty I write about the accession and Carl XVI Gustaf’s difficult way to the throne).
King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia have earlier this year visited all 21 counties to mark the jubilee and this weekend the main festivities take place in Stockholm. Yesterday the government hosted a dinner at the Nordic Museum, while Parliament hosted a concert in Stockholm’s Concert House. Today there was a service of thanksgiving in the Palace Church, followed by a balcony appearance and a sort of street party with dancing in the Inner Courtyard at the Palace, hosted by the City of Stockholm.
All the members of the Swedish royal family took part in today’s events: King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia, Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel, Princess Estelle, Prince Carl Philip, Princess Madeleine and Christopher O’Neill, Princess Birgitta of Hohenzollern, Princess Margaretha, Princess Désirée and Baron Niclas Silfverschiöld, Princess Christina and Tord Magnuson, Countess Marianne Bernadotte af Wisborg (widow of the late former Prince Sigvard), Countess Gunnila Bernadotte af Wisborg (widow of the late former Prince Carl Johan) and Princess Kristine Bernadotte (widow of the late former Prince Carl Jr).
They were joined by the heads of state from the other Nordic countries and their spouses: Queen Margrethe II and Prince Consort Henrik of Denmark, King Harald V and Queen Sonja of Norway, President Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson of Iceland and Dorrit Moussaieff, and President Sauli Niinistö of Finland and Jenni Haukio.
Also several relatives of the King had been invited to the service in the Palace Church. Among those I believe I can recognise in photos are two of Princess Christina’s sons, Gustaf and Oscar Magnuson, with their wives Emma and Vicky, Countess Bettina Bernadotte af Wisborg (daughter of the late former Prince Lennart) with her husband Philipp Haug, Dagmar von Arbin (granddaughter of the late former Prince Oscar), her brother, Count Oscar Bernadotte af Wisborg, with his partner Margot Ekelund, their sister, Catharina Nilert, and their half-brother, Count Claes Bernadotte af Wisborg, with his wife Birgitta, and their two cousins, Counts Folke and Bertil Bernadotte af Wisborg with their wives Christine and Jill, as well as Madeleine Kogevinas, the daughter of the late former Prince Carl Jr.
The guests attending the jubilee have received a medal struck to commemorate the occasion. This is the third commemorative medal issued in the reign of Carl XVI Gustaf, following those struck for his fiftieth birthday in 1996 and the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel in 2010.

Order of the Polar Star for Christopher O’Neill

Surely it will not be necessary for me to write an account of the wedding of Princess Madeleine and Christopher O’Neill tonight, but one aspect which might be worth commenting on is that the groom was made a Commander of the Order of the Polar Star (second class) by King Carl Gustaf on 6 June.
The Vasa Order and the Sword Order are now dormant, meaning that the Order of the Polar Star is now the second highest ranking Swedish order. Since the introduction of the new Constitution in 1975 the King has been forbidden to give orders to Swedish citizens, while orders may still be given to foreigners.
That meant that King Carl Gustaf in 1976 gave the Order of the Seraphim to his fiancée Silvia Sommerlath before the wedding, when she was still a German citizen, and likewise gave the Grand Cross of the Order of the Polar Star to Lilian Craig before she married Prince Bertil and thereby relinquished her British citizenship.
It was only in 1995 that an exception was made for members of the royal house, making it possible for the King to invest his three children with the Order of the Seraphim on their eighteenth birthdays in 1995, 1997 and 2000 and to give it to Princess Lilian on her eightieth birthday in 1995.
This exception also meant that it was only on his way out of the Cathedral after having married Crown Princess Victoria and thus become a prince and a member of the royal house that Prince Daniel was given the Order of the Seraphim.
As Christopher O’Neill did not become a member of the royal house and is a foreign citizen no such restrictions applied in his case. But the fact that he did not become a member of the royal house obviously also made it more natural to give him the Order of the Polar Star rather than the highest-ranking order.
This also has a precedence, as three of King Carl Gustaf’s brothers-in-law - John Ambler, Baron Niclas Silfverschiöld and Tord Magnuson - were made Commanders of the Vasa Order when they married princesses Margaretha, Désirée and Christina in, respectively, 1964, 1964 and 1974.
On the other hand, Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern was, apparently much to his own surprise, given the Order of the Seraphim by King Gustaf VI Adolf when he married Princess Birgitta in 1961. At the same time the Order of the Seraphim was also awarded to his elder brother, Friedrich Wilhelm, while their father, who had been given the Seraphim as early as 1936, received the collar of the order. The reason for this was obviously that Princess Birgitta, unlike her sisters, married a prince and thus herself remained a Royal Highness and a member of the royal house.

King awards Grand Cross to last Private Secretary

The King has been pleased to award the rare honour that is the Grand Cross of the Order of St Olav to his outgoing Private Secretary, Berit Tversland, making her only the third non-royal Norwegian woman to receive this honour. An era comes to an end at the Norwegian royal court when Tversland now retires as the King’s Private Secretary, a position which was created by King Haakon VII in 1905 and now ceases to exist.
Berit Tversland has been employed by the royal court since 1977, first as governess to the then Prince Haakon and Princess Märtha Louise and later as their secretary. In 2000 she succeeded Magne Hagen as Private Secretary, becoming the first woman to hold that position.
The position as Private Secretary is now abolished, and its office merges with the office of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess into a new entity which will be known as the Royal Secretariat. It will be led by Gry Mølleskog, with the title Chief of Staff. Mølleskog was also head of the office of the Crown Prince and Crown Princess from 2003 to 2006.
The first Norwegian woman to receive the Grand Cross of St Olav was Crown Princess Märtha, who was awarded it with its collar in 1942. The Grand Cross was subsequently given to the author and Nobel laureate Sigrid Undset and the actress Johanne Dybwad in 1947, to Princess Astrid (with collar) in 1956, to Crown Princess Sonja (with collar) in 1972, to Princess Ragnhild in 1982, to Princess Märtha Louise (with collar) in 1989 and to Crown Princess Mette-Marit in 2001.

Oscar II’s princely crown and Order of Seraphim for Princess Estelle

In little over an hour the christening of Princess Estelle of Sweden will take place in the Palace Church in Stockholm. Already in place next to the magnificent silver baptismal font is the crown which symbolises the Princess’s royal rank, a tradition which goes back to the christening of the future King Gustaf IV Adolf in 1778.
Very unusually, Sweden has crown not only for the King and Queen, but also for the Crown Prince and for princes and princesses. The first princely crowns were made for the 1772 coronation of Gustaf III, but as the royal family grew, new crowns had to be acquired up until 1902. Princess Estelle is direct heir to the throne, but not first in line, so the crown used today is not the crown princely crown, as when the then Crown Prince Carl Philip was baptised in 1979, but Oscar II’s princely crown. This crown was made by court jeweller Marc Giron for the then Prince Oscar to be worn at the coronation of his parents, King Oscar I and Queen Josephina, in 1844. At the time Prince Oscar was Duke of Ostrogothia, the same dukedom which was bestowed on Princess Estelle the day after her birth.
Also placed on a blue velvet cushion next to the font is the Order of Seraphim, which Princess Estelle will be given today. This signifies a return to the tradition whereby princes in the line of succession were given the royal orders at their christening.
However, when the new Constitution was introduced in 1974, the award of orders to Swedish citizens, including the royal family, was banned. This remained in force until 1995, when an exception were made for members of the royal family, and meant that no orders were given at the christenings of King Carl Gustaf’s children.

Annual report shows royals getting busier

A kind soul at the Royal Palace has sent me the royal court’s annual report for 2011, which was released two days ago. The report as usual contains a wealth of information about what the royals and the court have been up to during the previous year and the calendar of the public engagements carried out by members of the royal family reveals that most of them keep getting busier.
For 2011 the King is listed with 204 engagements, which may be compared to 169 in 2010 and 159 in 2009. The Queen carried out 99 engagements, compared to 69 in 2010 and 60 in 2009.
The Crown Prince had 194 engagements, which is almost twice as many as the 102 he carried out in 2009 (with 122 in 2010). However, the Crown Princess had a less crowded schedule, carrying out 59 engagements in 2011, compared to 74 in 2010 and 67 in 2009.
Princess Ingrid Alexandra is listed as having been present for five engagements (compared to eight in 2010 and four in 2009) and Prince Sverre Magnus at four engagements (the same as in 2010, but four times as many as in 2009). However, the calendar curiously fails to mention the children’s presence at several events at which they were actually present, meaning that the numbers for them are incomplete.
Princess Märtha Louise was present for 24 functions, which is a significant increase from seven in 2010 and thirteen in 2009 (the increase is mostly due to her having been present for several events during the World Ski Championship).
Princess Astrid, the oldest active royal, carried out 36 engagements in 2011, compared to seven in 2010 and ten in 2009. For her, too, much of the increase is due to her presence during the World Ski Championship.
Members of the royal family carried out engagements in Norway, Switzerland, Ghana, Mali, Britain, Germany, Slovenia, Croatia, Brazil, Italy, Azerbaijan, USA, Monaco, South Sudan, China, France, Finland, Sweden and Poland.
The report also reveals a decline in the number of visitors to the palaces. During the summer season of 2011 (23 June-13 August) the Royal Palace had 22,994 visitors (compared to 27,165 the previous year), while Oscarshall Palace was visited by 9,969 persons between 1 May and 25 September, compared to 19,359 in 2010.
In 2011 the King awarded one Grand Cross of the Order of St Olav and one Grand Cross Collar. No one was made a Commander with Star, while six men became Commanders. 22 people were made a Knight of the First Class.
Fifteen Grand Crosses of the Order of Merit were given out and eleven people became Commanders with Star. Thirty persons were made Commanders of this order, while 55 became Knights of the First Class and twelve were made Knights.

Grand Cross for Duchess of Cornwall

Buckingham Palace today announced (external link) that Queen Elizabeth II of Britain has given her daughter-in-law the Duchess of Cornwall the Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order (GCVO) on the seventh anniversary of her wedding to the Prince of Wales.
The Royal Victorian Order was, as the name suggests, founded by Queen Victoria in 1896. It is in the personal gift of the monarch, meaning that appointments are not made on ministerial recommendation, and is mostly used to reward people who have served the monarch or the royal family in a personal way. The order has five grades in addition to a medal (while the Royal Victorian Chain counts as an order on its own).
According to Wikipedia there are currently 54 holders of the Grand Cross of the Royal Victorian Order, including nine members of the British royal family: The Duke of Kent (1960), Princess Alexandra (1960), the Princess Royal (1974), the Duek of Gloucester (1974), the Duchess of Kent (1977), the Duchess of Gloucester (1989), Prince Michael (2003), the Countess of Wessex (2010), the Duke of York (2011), the Earl of Wessex (2011) and the Duchess of Cornwall (2012).
Unlike some of her predecessors and some of her foreign contemporaries, Elizabeth II has been quite strict in awarding orders to her family members. They are generally not given upon coming of age or marriage, but have to be earned through years of service. It is worth noting that until the award of the GCVO to the Countess of Wessex on her 45th birthday in 2010, no daughter-in-law of Queen Elizabeth had been given any British royal order (except for the private family order, which was given to the late Princess of Wales).

Queen Elizabeth II knights son-in-law

According to the Court Circular Queen Elizabeth II of Britain yesterday received Vice Admiral Timothy Laurence at Windsor Castle, “when Her Majesty invested him with the Insignia of a Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order”, an order which is in the monarch’s gift and used to reward services rendered to the royal family. Thus the Vice Admiral is now Sir Timothy Laurence.
Laurence was equerry to Queen Elizabeth from 1986 to 1989 and was made a Member of the Royal Victorian Order upon his retirement from that position. Since 2004 he is a personal aide-de-camp to the Queen, whose son-in-law he has been since marrying her only daughter Anne in 1992.
Whereas Princess Alexandra after her late husband, the Hon. Angus Ogilvy, was knighted in 1988 has been styled “Princess Alexandra, the Hon. Lady Ogilvy”, Princess Anne will not be styled “the Princess Anne, Lady Laurence” as her official title is “the Princess Royal”, a title which can only be given to the monarch’s only daughter. On the other hand she was known as “the Princess Anne, Mrs Mark Phillips” from the time of her first marriage to Captain Mark Phillips in 1973 until she was accorded the title Princess Royal in 1987.

On this date: Birth of Prince Carl 150 years ago

150 years ago today, on 27 February 1861, a son was born to the then Duke and Duchess of Ostrogothia, Prince Oscar (II) and Princess Sophia of Sweden and Norway. The child, who was born in the Hereditary Prince’s Mansion in Stockholm, was given the names Oscar Carl Wilhelm and the title Duke of Westrogothia by his uncle, King Carl XV.
As the third son of Prince Oscar, Prince Carl was at the time of his birth fourth in line to the thrones of Sweden and Norway. Thus the succession to the thrones was further secured by his birth, but only seven years earlier the situation had been more critical.
In March 1854 the then Crown Prince Carl lost his only son, the infant Prince Carl Oscar, something which was a double tragedy as his birth had rendered Crown Princess Lovisa unable to have further children. Like all princesses their elder daughter, Princess Lovisa, did not have any rights of successions. Crown Prince Carl deeply mourned not only his son, but also the fact that his line would not be continued. In a poem he compared himself to a tree with broken branches.
As the eldest of the Crown Prince’s four younger brothers, Prince Gustaf, had died in 1852, the next heirs in line were now the third and fourth brothers, Oscar and August, who were both unmarried. In 1857 Prince Oscar married Princess Sophie of Nassau, who the following year gave birth to their first son, Prince Gustaf.
The new-born Prince Gustaf thus embodied the hope of the dynasty and was triumphantly shown off to the assembled dignitaries by his great-grandmother, the Dowager Queen Desideria, and symbolically christened in the Hall of State at Drottningholm Palace, where his grandmother Queen Josephina had let the state portrait of her husband, King Oscar I, be flanked by portraits she had assembled of all the kings and queens of Europe, thus showing how the upstart Bernadottes were now on par with any monarch in Europe.
Oscar I was by then mortally ill and died the next summer. At the time of the birth of the future Gustaf V Crown Prince Carl, who was regent, was generous enough to tell his brother that it did not matter whose son it was that had secured the succession. But apparently it rankled with him that Carl was not among the names given to the newborn. When announcing the names Oscar Gustaf Adolf to the ministers, he pointedly concluded: “...and no further names”.
His brother’s second son, Oscar, born in November 1859, was duly named for his recently deceased grandfather and it was only the third son who was called Carl. Prince Carl was later to write in his memoirs that he always felt that he was his uncle’s favourite, but he could not think of any other reason than the fact that they shared the name Carl.
Carl XV never got over the loss of his own son and heir and when his sister-in-law Sophia gave birth to her third son he acidly asked her when the girl was due. Her reply was to give birth to a fourth son, Prince Eugen, in 1865.
In 1862 a private member’s bill introducing female succession to the throne was scrapped by the Swedish Parliament and various attempts to ship Prince Oscar off to another throne to make way for Princess Lovisa never succeeded. The situation was made worse by the fact that King Carl XV and Prince Oscar were not on good terms, and when Queen Lovisa died in 1871 King Carl saw his last chance to deprive his brother of the thrones.
He entered into marriage negotiations with the Polish Countess Maria Krasinska, who was young enough to bear him a new son and heir. But although the negotiations proceeded well there would never be any Queen Maria of Sweden and Norway, for now King Carl himself fell ill and died in September 1872, aged only 46. His brother thus succeeded to the thrones as King Oscar II.
There is a story that Prince Carl as a child was smacked by his father when he was found drawing the monogram C XVI for King Carl XVI, but as an adult his royal ambitions would be modest. When Norway brought the union of crowns to an end in 1905, the Norwegian throne was offered to a Bernadotte prince, primarily Carl, but he was not much interested, thinking that the King of Norway’s powers were so limited that they were not really worth having and arguing that a Swedish prince on the Norwegian throne would always be suspected of secretly putting Sweden’s interests firsts.
Instead, most of his life after 1905 was devoted to his role as President of the Swedish Red Cross, which turned the once rather bellicose prince into a great humanitarian and earned him several nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize. He retired only in 1945, aged 84, six years before his death.
The photo shows Prince Carl in 1904 or 1905. It might be worth noting that the lower, left-hand order is the star of the Order of the Norwegian Lion, an order which was founded by King Oscar II in 1904 as the Norwegian answer to the Swedish Seraphim, the Danish Elephant or the British Garter. The Lion Order was only awarded to a handful of people in 1904 and 1905; King Haakon VII never neither wore nor awarded it and dissolved it in 1952.

Left wing parties suggest restricting awards of Danish orders to foreign heads of state

Following Queen Margrethe II of Denmark’s official visit to Bahrain recently there has been mounting criticism of the fact that King Hamad was awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Dannebrog. The Socialist People’s Party suggested already during the Egyptian revolution that Queen Margrethe should strip Hosni Mubarak of his Order of the Elephant (as happened to Nicolae Ceausescu at the time of his downfall in 1989), but this idea was rejected by Prime Minister Løkke Rasmussen of the Liberal Party.
Awarding the Grand Cross of Dannebrog to another dicator shortly afterwards did of course not look very pretty. It looked even worse when protests erupted in Bahrain a few days later and the army began shooting and killing protesters.
The main opposition parties - the Social Democrats, the Socialist People’s Party and the Social Liberal Party - demanded that Foreign Minister Lene Espersen (of the Conservative Party) should explain to Parliament the reasoning behind the decision to grant the Grand Cross to the King of Bahrain.
Today the news agency Ritzau reports that the smallest of the opposition parties, the Red-Green Alliance, has proposed that Danish orders should in the future only be awarded to heads of state of countries which are “democratic and respect fundamental human rights” and that Parliament’s committee on foreign relations should be consulted before orders are awarded to foreign heads of state. The Socialist People’s Party has announced that they will support the motion, while the Social Liberal Party calls it “an interesting idea”.
However, Michael Aastrup Jensen, the foreign policy spokesman of the Liberal Party, replies that orders are nothing but “a piece of metal” and “are an old tradition and something one exchanges like presents during state visits”. As the far-right wing Danish People’s Party, which holds the balance in Parliament, has a rather - let’s say flexible - approach to human right issues and only very recently spoke supportingly of Hosni Mubarak it thus seems likely that this motion will pass during the current political situation. Another outcome might of course be possible after this year’s general election, which it seems likely that the current government will lose.
What Michael Aastrup Jensen is right about is of course that it is a tradition to award high orders to foreign heads of state during state and official visits. If one in each case should consider if the visitor/host is worthy of a Danish order one would naturally risk insulting those who are not given any orders. Having a general rule such as the Red-Green Alliance suggest seems a better and more practical solution.
Among earlier despots who have received the Order of the Elephant are Nicolae Ceausescu, Josip Broz Tito and the Shah of Iran, while the Grand Cross of the Order of Dannebrog has also been awarded to Herman Göring and Elena Ceausescu.

King of Norway honours brother-in-law

It has been announced that the King of Norway on 10 February appointed Johan Martin Ferner a Commander of the Royal Order of St Olav. A retired businessman, 83-year-old Ferner has been married to Princess Astrid for fifty years - on 12 January the couple celebrated their golden wedding anniversary quitely abroad with their family - and has through those years been the very empitome of discretion and loyalty towards the royal family.
During incoming state visits Johan Martin Ferner has been awarded a handful of foreign orders, including the Grand Cross of the French Order of Merit, but this is his first Norwegian order. In 1956 Princess Astrid, at that time First Lady of Norway, became only the second female in history to be awarded the Grand Cross with Collar, the highest grade of the Order of St Olav.

Book news: Knights of the Elephant

The University Press of Southern Denmark has just published a huge book on the Knights of the Elephant, Denmark’s highest-ranking order, which is known since the 15th century. In Riddere af Elefantordenen 1559-2009, Jørgen Pedersen chronicles the more than 900 knights appointed during the last 450 years and also includes a chapter on “dubious knights”, i.e. people who have been referred to as knights, but whose memberships have not been confirmed.

http://www.universitypress.dk/DK/detail.php?token=5479035349598&R=8776744342

A similar book on the Swedish equivalent of the Elephant, the Order of the Seraphim, was published in 1998, while we have to go back to 1947 to find a book on the recipients of the highest Norwegian order, the Order of St Olav.

King awards first War Cross in sixty years

During the State Council held at the Royal Palace earlier today the King of Norway awarded the nation’s highest decoration, the War Cross, posthumously to Captain Eiliv Austlid, who was killed fighting the invading Germans on 15 April 1940. The War Cross was instituted by King Haakon VII on 23 May 1941 and awarded to 273 persons, 147 of them Norwegians, until 1949. It was decided in June that the King would again award the War Cross for military gallantry, both to people who took part in the Second World War (living or dead) but also to soldiers serving in the wars Norway has taken part in during the last decade.

Dagbladet reports on the story of Eiliv Austlid and how his deeds were later smeared by, among others, Foreign Minister Trygve Lie:
http://www.dagbladet.no/2009/10/02/nyheter/innenriks/den_andre_verdenskrig/historie/8384938/

The government’s press release about the decoration of Captain Austlid:
http://www.regjeringen.no/nn/dep/fd/pressesenter/Pressemeldingar/2009/krigskorset-utdeles-for-forste-gang-pa-6.html?id=578776

Prince Joachim to take over as chancellor of Danish orders

The Danish Royal Court yesterday announced that the Prince Consort has asked the Queen to relieve him of his duties as Chancellor of the Royal Orders, a position he has held since 1968, the year following his marriage. In his place Queen Margrethe II has appointed their second and youngest son, Prince Joachim, who will succeed his father in the position from 1 October.
Whereas the monarch is Grand Master of the Royal Orders, the position of Chancellor has traditionally been held by another member of the royal family. Among earlier chancellors are Prince Viggo, a cousin of Christian X; Prince Harald, a brother of Christian X; and Prince Hans, younger brother of Christian IX. The Chancellor is in charge of the administrative work connected to the Order of the Elephant and the Order of Dannebrog (whose Grand Cross is seen in the photo above).

The Royal Court’s press release:
http://kongehuset.dk/publish.php?id=22348

The news agency Ritzau’s article (in Berlingske Tidende):
http://www.berlingske.dk/article/20090911/danmark/909110389/