Parliament votes in favour of monarchy

Norway remains a monarchy. That is the outcome of today's parliamentary vote on a proposal to amend the Constitution to introduce a republic.
The amendment of several articles of the Constitution, subject to approval by a referendum, which had been suggested by Hallgeir H. Langeland and Snorre Serigstad Valen of the Socialist Left Party and Eirin Sund, Truls Wickholm, Marianne Marthinsen and Jette F. Christensen of the Labour Party, received only 26 votes, while 137 MPs voted against it.
Among the 26 republicans, six belong to the Socialist Left Party, three to the Liberal Party, one to the Conservative Party and sixteen to the Labour Party. Most prominent among the latter was Hadia Tajik, the party's deputy leader.

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.

My latest articles: Royal Trieste & Princess Ashraf

I have written two articles in the March issue of Majesty (Vol. 37, No. 3), which went on sale in Britain last week. The first one deals with the Italian city of Trieste, once the Habsburg Empire's thriving, cosmopolitian port on the Adriatic but now something of a backwater.
The article focuses on the many royals who made Trieste their home, more often than not as exiles, among them two of Louis XV's daughters who escaped the Revolution, Napoléon I's youngest brother ex-King Jérôme of Westphalia, Queen Maria Carolina of Naples and Sicily and the Carlist pretenders to the Spanish throne, several of whom are buried in Trieste's Cathedral. On the other hand, two princes - Archduke Maximilian of Austria and Prince Amedeo of Savoy, Duke of Aosta - spent their happiest years in Trieste, where they resided at Miramare Palace, but both these princes would die in captivity on another continent.
The second article is about Princess Ashraf of Iran, the last Shah's powerful twin sister, who died in January at the age of 96.

HRH Prince Oscar Carl Olof of Sweden, Duke of Scania

In a State Council at the Royal Palace in Stockholm today, King Carl XVI Gustaf informed the government that the son Crown Princess Victoria gave birth to last night will be named Oscar Carl Olof and that his dukedom will be that of Scania (Skåne). The King also notified the government of the death of his brother-in-law, Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern, which also occurred yesterday.
In keeping with tradition, the newborn was "inspected" by the Speaker of Parliament, Urban Ahlin, the Prime Minister, Urban Ahlin, the Marshal of the Realm, Svante Lindqvist, and the Mistress of the Robes, Kristine von Blixen-Finecke (who succeeded Countess Alice Trolle-Wachtmeister in that position in November). The Prince's birth was marked by a 21-gun salute and a service of thanksgivings in the Palace Church, which was attended by, among others, King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia, Prince Daniel, Princess Estelle, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Sofia, Princess Madeleine and Chris O'Neill, Princess Christina and Tord Magnuson, the King's aunt by marriage Countess Marianne Bernadotte and two of his father's second cousins, Count Bertil Bernadotte af Wisborg and Dagmar von Arbin (who will celebrate her 100th birthday next month) and Prince Daniel's parents, sister and brother-in-law.
The dukedom of Scania was last held by the future King Gustaf VI Adolf from his birth in 1882 to his accession in 1950, and before that by the future King Carl XV from his birth in 1826 to his accession in 1859.
The name Oscar arrived in Sweden with Oscar Bernadotte, the only child of the imperial French Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who was elected Crown Prince in 1810. While Jean-Baptiste changed his name to Carl Johan, Oscar kept his foreign name also after he ascended the thrones of Sweden and Norway in 1844 (although his wife wanted him to reign under his two other names, Frans Joseph). His third son was given the same name and eventually came to the thrones in 1872 as Oscar II. Oscar II's second son was another Oscar, while Carl XV's only son, who died in infancy, was named Carl Oscar. It has also been among the names of Kings Gustaf V and Gustaf VI Adolf and of Princes Gustaf Adolf, Sigvard, Bertil, Carl, and Carl Junior. It has, however, not been used in the royal family since 1912, but these days it is one of the most popular boys' names in Sweden.
Unlike his elder sister, Princess Estelle Silvia Ewa Mary, Prince Oscar has thus received a name firmly anchored in Swedish royal history - indeed three names firmly anchored in Swedish royal history. The name Carl is of course borne by his grandfather King Carl XVI Gustaf and his uncle Prince Carl Philip, and has been borne by ten Swedish kings: Karl Sverkersson, Karl II Knutsson, Carl IX, Carl X Gustaf, Carl XI, Carl XII, Carl XIII, Carl XIV Johan, Carl XV and Carl XVI Gustaf. (Some may wonder why the list jumps from Karl II to Carl IX; the answer is that the six first Karls were invented in the sixteenth century). There have also been almost countless Swedish princes named Carl, among them the third son of Oscar II.
Olof is the first name of the newborn's father (Olof Daniel) and of the first Christian Swedish king, known as Olof Skötkonung, who reigned from about 995 to 1022. It is also the Swedish name of the perhaps most popular saint in medieval Sweden, the martyred Norwegian king Olav Haraldsson, who died in the Battle of Stiklestad in or around 1030 and was declared a saint a year later and whose cult was as great in Sweden as in Norway.

A son for Crown Princess Victoria

At a press conference at the Caroline Hospital in Solna, Prince Daniel of Sweden has just announced that Crown Princess Victoria has given birth to a son at 8.28 p.m. The baby is 52 centimetres long and weighs 3,655 grams. The name and dukedom of the newborn prince, who is third in line to the Swedish throne, will be announced by King Carl Gustaf in a state council, which will be held tomorrow.

At the road's end: Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern (1932-2016), art historian

The Swedish royal court today announced that Prince Johann Georg of Hohenzollern, the husband of King Carl Gustaf's second oldest sister, Princess Birgitta, died in a hospital in Munich today. Prince Johann Georg, who was himself a renowned art historian, was 83 and had apparently been suffering from cancer for some years.
Born on 31 July 1932, Johann Georg Carl Leopold Eitel-Friedrich Meinrad Maria Hubertus Michael Prinz von Hohenzollern was the sixth child of Prince (Fürst) Friedrich of Hohenzollern and Princess Margarete of Saxony, a daughter of that country's last King. Prince Johann Georg, who was known as "Hansi", studied art history and gained a doctorate on a dissertation on the royal galleries on the facades of French cathedrals in 1964.
From 1986 to 1991 he served as director general of the Bavarian National Museum before becoming head of the Bavarian State Collection of Paintings, a post he held until his retirement in 1998.
On 25 May 1961, Prince Johann Georg married Princess Birgitta of Sweden in a civil ceremony at the Royal Palace in Stockholm. A religious blessing took place in his hometown Sigmaringen five days later. The Vatican had opposed a Protestant ceremony in Stockholm and the bride had to sign a promise to raise the children as Catholics, which she has never ceased resenting.
Three children were born of the marriage - Carl Christian in 1962, Désirée in 1963 and Hubertus in 1966, but when the children moved out, the parents realised they had little in common, and in 1990 Princess Birgitta moved to Majorca, while Prince Johann Georg remained in Munich. However, the couple never formally separated and the Princess used to visit her husband in Munich once a month and vented his anger in public when he appeared in the press with another partner.

Regent appoints female Chief Justice

In the weekly Council of State at the Royal Palace on Friday, the Crown Prince Regent appointed Toril Marie Øie Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. She will take up the post on 1 March, succeeding Tore Schei, who turned seventy on Friday.
Toril M. Øie will be the first female Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, meaning that women will now have presided over all three estates. Gro Harlem Brundtland became the first female Prime Minister, while Kirsti Kolle Grøndahl became the first female Speaker of Parliament in 1993.

My latest articles: Georg and Anne of Denmark & the Mexican empire

I have forgotten to mention that the February issue of Majesty has been on sale since 21 January, this time containing two articles by me. The first one deals with Prince Georg and Princess Anne of Denmark. A career diplomat, Prince Georg was the eldest son of Prince Axel and Princess Margaretha of Denmark and as such closely related to the royal houses of Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg and Sweden, while his wife, née Anne Bowes-Lyon, was a first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II of Britain. Their close relationships with many royal houses made them stalwarts of royal events, but since their early deaths they have been mostly forgotten. Their story is, however, well worth telling.
The second article is about Maximilian of Austria and Charlotte of Belgium and their short-lived Mexican Empire, which ended in death and madness. It will be followed up by an article on Trieste's royal exiles in the March issue, which will be out on 25 February.

My latest articles: Coronations and solemn blessings

My new book on the role of coronations in Norwegian history, Norges krone - Kroninger, signinger og maktkamper fra sagatid til nåtid, is of course of some relevance to the King's Silver Jubilee, and in connection with the jubilee I have had several related articles published.
In this year's first issue of the history magazine Aftenposten Historie, which is on sale from today, I have an eight-page article on the origins of the rites of coronation and anointing. The last Norwegian coronation was that of Haakon VII in 1906, but his son, Olav V, instituted a new tradition to replace coronations, namely a solemn blessing, making Norway the only European monarchy besides Britain that still marks the accession of a new monarch with a solemn religious ritual. On Saturday, I had an article in the newspaper Vårt Land about the transition from coronations to solemn blessings and its significance to King Olav, which is now also available online (external link). On the same day, I also wrote a piece in the newspaper VG on King Olav's struggle to introduce this new ritual, looking in particular at how he clashed with Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen, who wanted at most a much simpler service. This is also available online (external link), but only to subscribers, I am afraid.

King Harald's silver jubilee celebrated today

Thousands of people came out on a freezing cold day in Oslo today to help celebrate the silver jubilee of King Harald's accession to the throne on 17 January 1991, thereby fulfilling the King and Queen's wish to celebrate the jubilee with their people. The extended royal family were joined by the Queen of Denmark and the King and Queen of Sweden for the celebrations.
The day started with a service of thanksgivings and commemoration in the Palace Chapel. Bishop Helga Haugland Byfuglien, Primate of the Church of Norway, preached the sermon, while the lessons were read by Princess Märtha Louise, Princess Astrid's grandson Sebastian Ferner Johansen and the late Princess Ragnhild's granddaughter Sophia Anne Lorentzen.
Later, the royal family took part in a very well-attended winter sports event in the Palace Square, and later walked downhill to the University, where the government hosted a gala performance in its great hall. This evening there is a private, black-tie dinner at the Palace. Outside, hundreds of candles burn in the snow, just as they did on the dark winter night 25 years ago when King Olav died.
To mark the jubilee, the King has struck a new medal, King Harald V's Jubilee Medal 1991-2016, which has been given to the Queen and the other members of the royal family, the foreign royal guests, courtiers, equerries and bodyguards, former courtiers, representatives of the authorities and former prime ministers.
This weekend's events were only the first part of the jubilee celebrations, which will continue in June, when the King and Queen embark on an 11-day-long journey along the coast onboard the Royal Yacht, which will include visits to six major towns and a service of thanksgivings in Nidaros Cathedral on 23 June, the 25th anniversary of their solemn blessing. There will also be another large event in Oslo in late August or early September.

Celebrations of King and Queen's silver jubilee kick off

We have now entered 17 January, the 25th anniversary of King Olav V's death and Harald V's accession to the Norwegian throne. The celebrations began on Friday, when the King and Queen received official deputations at the Palace and continued last night with a dinner for family and foreign guests at Skaugum, the crown princely couple's home in Asker outside Oslo.
The Queen of Denmark and the King and Queen of Sweden joined the Norwegian royal family for the black tie event, which was also attended by all King Olav's living descendants and their partners except for Princess Ragnhild's youngest daughter, Ragnhild Lorentzen Long, and her husband and daughters. Princess Ragnhild's widower, Erling S. Lorentzen, who will be 93 in less than two weeks, brought along his new girlfriend, Ebba Løvenskiold, 25 years his junior and daughter of the late Herman Leopold Løvenskiold, who was head of the former noble family Løvenskiold and owner of Fossum Manor, and of the Swedish Countess Catharina De la Gardie.
The other guests were the Queen's nephews Karl-Otto Haraldsen and Dag Swanstrøm with their wives and her niece Ian Swanstrøm with Carl Christian Dahl, and the Crown Princess's mother Marit Tjessem with her partner Magnar Fjeldvær. The Crown Princess's son, Marius Borg Høiby, was away, apparently attending a school ball.
Tomorrow, or rather later today, the celebrations continue with a service in the Palace Chapel at 11 a.m., followed by a large winter sports event in the Palace Square, a performance in the University's great hall and a private dinner at the Royal Palace.

At the road’s end: Princess Ashraf of Iran (1919-2016)

On Thursday, the funeral of a now mostly forgotten but once highly visible royal took place in Monaco. Princess Ashraf of Iran, who died on 7 January, was the twin sister of the last Shah, is thought to have wielded great influence during his reign, was a prominent advocate of women’s right and made a career at the UN.
Born five hours after her twin brother Mohammed Reza on 26 October 1919, Princess Ashraf considered their bond ‘the strongest sense of family that I would ever know’. The two of them ‘were like faces in a mirror’, she wrote in her autobiography, which was titled just that: Faces in a Mirror: Memoirs from Exile (1980).
When their father, Reza Shah, was forced to abdicate and sent into exile in Johannesburg in 1941, Princess Ashraf was the only family member who stayed behind in Teheran with the new young Shah. The Princess would play an important political role throughout his reign. In 1946, she was sent to Russia to negotiate with Stalin, who allegedly told her that is her brother “had ten like you, he would have no worries at all”. She also played a role in the downfall of one prime minister and the appointment of at least another.
However, she saw an enemy in the charismatic left-wing politician Mohammad Mosaddegh, who ordered her into exile on the very day he became Prime Minister in 1951. Two years later, the Princess was approached by agents of Britain and the USA, who had decided to remove Mosaddegh, and played a key role in convincing her brother to go along with the coup which removed Mosaddegh and restored the Shah’s power.
Princess Ashraf was closely involved in social issues and in particular in women’s rights. She headed the Women’s Organisation of Iran, whose greatest success was a 1975 act which ‘gave Iran’s women the most sweeping civil rights in the Islamic Middle East’. For seven years she headed Iran’s delegation to the UN general assembly and also served on several UN committees, including the preparatory committee for the International Women Year’s Conference in Mexico in 1975.
The Princess’s high profile made her a controversial figure and the subject of many rumours about her financial and romantic affairs. Having been forced by her father at the age of seventeen to marry Ali Qavam, to whom she claimed to have taken an instant dislike, she divorced him after her father’s abdication. They had one son, Shahram. Her second husband was the Egyptian businessman Ahmad Shafiq, with whom she had a son, Shahriar, and a daughter, Azadeh. The marriage was dissolved in 1960, and Princess Ashraf married Mehdi Bushehri. The Princess and her third husband would eventually lead separate lives but it seems they never formally divorced.
In 1977, Princess Ashraf survived an assassination attempt, but the following year the Shah advised her to leave Iran. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Princess Ashraf was included in the Khomeini regime’s death list and her son Shahriar was assassinated while carrying groceries into his sister’s apartment in Paris in December 1979. Her only daughter died from leukemia in 2001.
Princess Ashraf eventually faded from public view, but always remained fiercely protective of her twin brother’s regime and an apologist for its crimes.
A longer obituary by my hand will appear in the March issue of Majesty, which will be on sale in a month.

Prince Consort Henrik to retire

In her New Year's Speech, delivered live from Fredensborg Palace at 6 p.m., Queen Margrethe II announced that her husband, Prince Consort Henrik, has decided to retire. "In the fture, the Prince Consort will therefore only very rarely take part in the official events which through so many years have been a natural part of his life", she said, adding that it was "his decision; I understand it and I respect it". The Queen expressed her gratitude for "all the support, help and inspiration he has given me through all the years" and added that she still looks forward to continue her work and to have his continued support even though in a less visible way.
The Prince Consort's decision to retire comes at the end of a year in which he caused much comments by absenting himself from the celebrations of his wife's 75th birthday, claiming illness but turning up in Venice the next day. He has also on numerous occasions voiced his dissatisfaction with his role, including repeatedly insisting that he ought to be king consort rather than prince consort. However, the Prince Consort's decision may not necessarily have anything to do with this, as he is after all 81 years, but it is of course very rare for a member of a reigning royal family, and particularly for a sitting monarch's consort, to retire from public life.

My latest articles: Norwegian silver jubilee and Waterloo bicentenary

It is still 2015, but the January 2016 issue of Majesty (Vol. 37, No. 1), which contains two articles by me, is now on sale. On 17 January, the King and Queen will celebrate their silver jubilee and in the first article I look back at the events of 1991: the death and funeral of King Olav V, the accession of King Harald V, his and Queen Sonja's solemn blessing and the challenges that faced the new King and Queen. In the second article, I report on this year's bicentenary of the Battle of Waterloo, starting with the death of the 99-year-old 8th Duke of Wellington on the very last day of 2014 and ending with Prince Napoléon receiving the Freedom of the City of London at the end of November.

Celebrations for King Harald's and Queen Sonja's silver jubilee

In a month, 25 years will have passed since King Olav V died and Harald V ascended the throne, and the silver jubilee of the King's accession will naturally be marked in several ways.
The jubilee will be kicked off on 15 January, when the King and Queen will receive congratulatory deputations at the Royal Palace. The following day, the Crown Prince and Crown Princess will host a private dinner at their home Skaugum, at which the Queen of Denmark and the King and Queen of Sweden will join the Norwegian royal family. Some may wonder about the other European royal houses, but the custom for Scandinavian jubilees (as opposed to birthdays and weddings) is that only the Nordic royals and heads of state are invited (this was also the case when King Olav celebrated his silver jubilee in 1982 and when Queen Margrethe and King Carl Gustaf celebrated their silver and ruby jubilees).
On 17 January, accession day, the extended royal family and the foreign guests will attend a service in the Palace Chapel at 11 a.m. On the same day, a large winter sports event for children and youngsters will be held in Palace Square, obviously reflecting the King's great interest in winter sports. The royal family will visit this event between 12.45 and 1.35 p.m. At 1 p.m., a gun salute will be fired from Akershus Castle. At 2 p.m., a private lunch for family and foreign guests will be held at the Palace. Thereafter, the royal family will walk from the Palace downhill to the University, where the government will host a jubilee concert featuring various performers and there will be various activities in University Square (details about those events and the concert are yet to be announced). In the evening, the King and Queen will host a private dinner at the Palace.
In June, the King and Queen will mark the 25th anniversary of their solemn blessing, the ritual instituted by King Olav to replace coronation. Back in 1991, the new King and Queen travelled overland to Trondheim and back along the west and south coast, and between 17 and 28 June this year they will embark on a similar journey by the Royal Yacht, visiting Tromsø, Bodø, Trondheim, Bergen, Stavanger and Kristiansand. On 23 June, the 25th anniversary of the solemn blessing, they will return to Nidaros Cathedral to attend a service of thanksgivings.
To mark the jubilee, NRK will broadcast a new documentary series in seven parts (which I have been a little bit involved with) about the King and Queen and their 25 years on the throne. The first part will be aired on NRK 1 on Wednesday 30 December at 7.45 p.m., with the remaining six parts to follow the next six Wednesday nights.
There will also be a special stamp to mark the silver jubilee, which will be on sale from 11 January.

On this date: Prince Mikasa turns 100!

While many royals have reached their nineties, few members of reigning royal families have lived to celebrate their 100th birthday, but today the Emperor of Japan's uncle Takahito, Prince Mikasa reaches this milestone.
Born in Tokyo on 2 December 1915, Prince Takahito is the fourth and youngest son of Emperor Yoshihito and thus a brother of Emperor Hirohito. In 1941, he married Yuriko Takagi, who bore him three sons and two daughters. He was given the title Prince Mikasa on his twentieth birthday in 1935, but sadly the Mikasa branch of the imperial house will become extinct upon his death as all his three sons have died before him without leaving any sons. His two daughters are however still alive, although not members of the imperial house since their marriages, and he is also a grandfather of nine and great-grandfather of four.
During the Second World War, Prince Mikasa served with the Japanese army and was posted to China. He later claimed he had not fully understood he crimes committed by Japan, and in 1945 he urged his brother Hirohito to take responsibility by abdicating in favour of Crown Prince Akihito, but the USA insisted on keeping Hirohito on the throne.
After the war, Prince Mikasa studied archaeology, Middle Eastern studies and Semitic languages at the University of Tokyo and became a scholar of ancient Oriental history. Although he had heart surgery three years ago and is now in a wheelchair, the centenarian is said to be in good health for his age. "Nothing will change just because I turn 100 years old", the Prince says in a statement released by the imperial court today. "I'd like to spend my days pleasantly and peacefully while praying for the happiness of people around the world and thanking my wife, Yuriko, who has been supporting me for more than 70 years".

My latest article: Mountbatten in Sweden and Princess Esmeralda on her mother

Today the December issue of Majesty (Vol. 36, No. 12) goes on sale in Britain and this month I have contributed two articles. One of them deals with Lord Mountbatten and Sweden. Much has been written about how he tried to position himself as the power behind the British throne, but I look at how he tried to vield influence on the Swedish monarchy, of which his sister Louise was Queen, including how he tried to make Gustaf VI Adolf abdicate and his attempts at match-making for King Carl Gustaf.
In the same issue is the third and final part of my interview with Princess Esmeralda of Belgium, who this time talks about her mother, Princess Lilian, one of the most controversial royals of the twentieth century, whom her biographer Evrard Raskin has called "the woman who brought down Léopold III". That article also includes some rare photographs, including some from her last years, when Princess Lilian never appeared in public.

My latest article: Kings consort

In a recent interview with the French newspaper Le Figaro, the Prince Consort of Denmark once again stated that in his opinion he ought to be King Consort rather than Prince Consort as the wives of kings are always styled Queen. This is far from the first time he has raised this issue, which he apparently considers a matter of principles and gender equality - by Berlingske's count (external link) it is in fact the eighth time - and it usually subjects him to criticism by the Danish media.
It has been claimed that there is hardly any precedence for the husband of a queen regnant being styled King, but in an article in the newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad today (external link) I point out that until the mid-nineteenth century it was in fact the norm rather than the exception that the husbands of queens regnant became kings. Examples may be found in Navarre, England, Scotland, Spain, Portugal, Naples and Poland, and in many cases these kings by marriage also excercised power. But although the Prince Consort has historical precendence on his side, I also suggest that it might be wise not to keep insisting on a wish he must know that will never be granted.

My latest articles: Princess Esmeralda on her father & Edward VII and Norway

The November issue of Majesty (Vol. 36, No. 11) went on sale in Britain on Thursday and this month I have contributed two articles.
There is the second part of my interview with the writer and climate change activist Princess Esmeralda of Belgium, who this time shares her fond memories of her father, King Léopold III of the Belgians, and talks about how he rebuilt his life after his more or less forced abdication after the Second World War and how she carries on part of his work. While the first part of the interview, which appeared in the October issue, dealt with her grandparents King Albert I and Queen Elisabeth, the third and final part, which will appear in the December issue, will be devoted to her controversial mother, Princess Lilian.
As November marks the 110th anniversary of King Haakon VII's arrival in Norway, my second article investigates the role played by King Edward VII of Britain in securing the Norwegian crown for his daughter and son-in-law.