William and Kate returning to Buckingham Palace in the 1902 State Landau

The Letters Patent read as follows: “The Queen has been pleased by Letters Patent under the Great Seal of the Realm dated 31 December 2012 to declare that all the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales should have and enjoy the style, title and attribute of Royal Highness with the titular dignity of Prince or Princess prefixed to their Christian names or with such other titles of honour.” This decree updates the Letters Patent issued by George V in 1917, which limited the use of Royal Highness to the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales, as well as to children of any sovereign and children of sons of any sovereign. Under the terms of the 1917 Letters Patent, only William and Kate’s eldest son born during the present reign would be entitled to be a Prince while younger sons and all daughters would be styled as children of a Duke, with the prefix Lord or Lady and no HRH. They would become Princes and Princesses once Charles (or William) succeeded the Queen. Thanks to the Letters Patent issued last December, all William and Kate’s children will be Princes and Princesses from birth.

This development has been expected ever since the move toward equal primogeniture (see this blog for details) started to become a reality, with legislation in the works in all the countries where the Queen is Head of State. Since William and Kate’s firstborn child will become Head of State one day regardless of gender, it follows that the firstborn child should be a Prince or Princess in keeping with his or her future role. It wouldn’t make sense, if the eldest child was a daughter and heir to the throne, for her to be known as Lady while her brother was HRH and a Prince. This is just one of many details that will have to be addressed, along with the inheritance of the Cornwall dukedom (currently only able to be inherited by a male but intended for the heir to the throne, who now has an evens chance of being female) and the usage of the Wales title by a female heir. At some point in the future, new Letters Patent will need to be issued to extend the wording from “all the children of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales” to “all the children of the eldest child of the Prince of Wales” when the eldest child of the Prince of Wales is a daughter who will follow her father on the throne. It’ll be interesting to see if a female heir will be styled as Princess of Wales in her own right (which may be confusing since that title is used by the wife of the Prince of Wales) and, if so, how Letters Patent in the (fairly far distant) future will address the titles of children of children of a Princess of Wales. When ministers and civil servants warned that introducing equal primogeniture would have all sorts of complicated effects, they weren’t kidding! It’s being reported in the press that Prince Charles is unhappy about possible unintended consequences of the new succession law, and there will no doubt be many more details to be worked out so that the law can go into effect without causing problems.

The Letters Patent don’t apply to Prince Harry’s children born during the present reign, who would be Lord or Lady (assuming Harry was given a dukedom on his marriage) until Prince Charles succeeded to the throne. A potentially interesting situation would occur if Charles predeceased the Queen and William succeeded her, because Harry’s children would not be covered by the 1917 Letters Patent since they wouldn’t be children or grandchildren of any sovereign. William would then have to decide whether to issue Letters Patent to confer HRHs on Harry’s children or let them remain styled as children of a duke. This decision might depend to an extent on public opinion about the optimal size of the royal family; the decision to style the children of the Earl of Wessex as children of an earl (Viscount Severn and Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor) rather than grandchildren of a sovereign (HRH Prince James and Princess Louise of Wessex) came at a time when the size and expense of the royal family were being openly questioned in the press.

The terms of the 1917 Letters Patent reflected the situation at the time and did not seek to cover all possible future eventualities such as the introduction of equal primogeniture or even the accession of a Queen Regnant. In 1948, with Princess Elizabeth expecting her first child, George VI issued Letters Patent to ensure that his new grandchild (and younger siblings) would be entitled to royal status and would be known as Prince or Princess. The 1917 Letters Patent granted royal status to children of sons of sovereigns but not children of daughters of sovereigns. Hence Princess Margaret’s and Princess Anne’s children are not Royal Highnesses. However, Princess Elizabeth’s eldest son would be second in line to the throne and would, in time, be expected to succeed his mother. Without the 1948 Letters Patent, he would have been styled as the son of the Duke of Edinburgh and would have taken the Duke’s subsidiary title, Earl of Merioneth, as a courtesy title; he would not have become HRH Prince Charles until his mother’s accession. The Letters Patent issued by George VI allowed Charles and Anne to become HRH from birth.

Four generations: Queen Victoria and the future Edward VII, George V, and Edward VIII

The 1917 Letters Patent were also intended to streamline the royal family, which had become unprecedentedly large as Queen Victoria’s grandchildren started having children of their own. The size of the family fluctuated from generation to generation, but there were always complaints about expense and value for money at times when the royal family was large and the monarch was asking for more financial support from the government. This had been an ongoing problem as the many children of George III grew to adulthood and became extravagant spenders; it was also a problem when the widowed and reclusive Queen Victoria wanted the government to provide incomes for her children as they grew up and got married, while declining to come out of seclusion herself and be seen to be earning her keep.  And it was an obvious problem by 1917 with the combination of another generation of royal births at a time of war-driven austerity. The same problem also reared its head in the late 20th century as the royal family went through an unpopular phase due to the perceived ill-treatment of Diana, Princess of Wales, and the antics of the Duchess of York and some of the other younger royals. All of a sudden the extended family (Princess Margaret, the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke and Duchess of Kent, Prince and Princess Michael, and Princess Alexandra) were being dismissed as freeloaders and hangers-on who weren’t worth the money the taxpayers were shelling out for them, and there were calls for a drastically slimmed-down monarchy.

This situation is correcting itself to an extent as the Gloucesters and Kents reach their seventies and start to wind down their royal activities and profiles. Princess Margaret’s children and Princess Anne’s children are private citizens who perform no royal duties. Prince Edward’s children, as mentioned above, are styled as children of an earl rather than grandchildren of a sovereign, which may indicate that they will also grow up to be private citizens. It’s not yet clear whether Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie of York will become working royals after completing their education. So the royal family is shrinking again and becoming concentrated around Prince Charles and his children and grandchildren, who will carry most of the weight of royal duties and responsibilities in the future. By issuing the recent Letters Patent conferring royal status on all Prince William’s children from birth, the Queen is confirming the importance of Prince William and his family for the future of the monarchy.

George V delivering his Christmas message in 1934

The first broadcast was so successful that it was decided to make the King’s Christmas broadcast an annual event, and George V made live broadcasts in 1933, 1934, and 1935. He died in January 1936, a month after the 1935 broadcast. His successor, Edward VIII, abdicated in early December of that year; the upheaval meant that neither he nor his younger brother George VI made a broadcast that year.

George VI was a shy man who had suffered from a speech impediment as a boy and young man. Although this problem was largely cured by the time of his accession, he was never an enthusiastic public speaker. He was reluctant to revive the Christmas broadcast because of the stress of having to perform live and because he felt the Christmas broadcast was his father’s tradition and he shouldn’t intrude on it. However, the broacasts had become so popular that he received large numbers of requests for him to revive the tradition for 1937, his coronation year. In his 1937 broadcast he said that he was not intending for it to become an annual tradition, and indeed in 1938 there was no Christmas broadcast.

Then war broke out. Armed forces from all over the Empire were ready to help Britain in the struggle against Germany, and George VI realised that he would need to broadcast regularly to his people in this time of uncertainty and sacrifice, so the Christmas broadcasts were revived. His 1939 Christmas broadcast was famous for the inclusion of the poem “God Knows” by Minnie Louise Haskins:

I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year
‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’And he replied,
‘Go into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way!’

The King finished with, “May that Almighty hand guide and uphold us all.” The poem had been suggested to him by Queen Elizabeth, on whom it had made a great impact. It was recited again at her funeral in 2002.

With the nation at war, it was expected that the King would give his Christmas broadcast every year, and so it became an annual tradition for him. Once the war was over, he continued with the Christmas broadcasts every year, even though he complained that the prospect of having to give a live broadcast ruined his Christmas. Nevertheless, he made live broadcasts until the last one in 1951, when he was so ill that he recorded the message in sections to be spliced together for delivery. Despite the publicity photos of him sitting at his desk to deliver the speech, his speech therapist Lionel Logue revealed that he always gave his Christmas broadcasts, and other radio speeches, while standing.

The Queen continued the Christmas broadcast tradition from the beginning of her reign. The only year without a broadcast was 1969, when the television documentary The Royal Family, first shown earlier in the year, was rebroadcast over Christmas; however, after Buckingham Palace received feedback that people were unhappy about the omission, the Queen issued a written Christmas message. The broadcasts resumed in 1970 and have continued ever since. The texts of all the Queen’s Christmas messages can be found at the Royal Family website here.

Starting in 1957 the broadcasts have been televised (the 1957 broadcast can be seen here); they are recorded several days ahead of time and sometimes interleaved with footage of events relevant to the topic of the broadcast. The broadcasts have been posted on the Internet via the Royal Family’s YouTube channel since 1998.  Since 1997 the broadcasts have alternated between BBC and ITV (previously they were the exclusive province of the BBC, but then the fateful Diana Panorama interview occurred…), and the 2011 broacast was produced by Sky News. The 2003 broadcast, from Combermere Barracks at Windsor, was the first one to be shot entirely on location, and the 2006 message was the first to be available as a podcast.  Continuing the use of new technology, this year’s message will be broadcast in 3D.  The Queen chooses the topic of each broadcast herself, so her Christmas broadcasts really are an opportunity for her to speak directly to her people in her own words. Her messages usually touch on topics that have affected the nation or the world during that year, as well as events and anniversaries in the royal family.

From the first broadcast in 1932, the Christmas broadcasts always air at 3 pm on Christmas Day. The time was chosen to allow the maximum number of people throughout the Commonwealth to listen since the broadcasts went out live. Nowadays the practice of recording the broadcasts ahead of time means that they can be shown at more convenient local times in the different countries. It also means that the broadcasts can be a little out of date – in 2011 the broadcast was recorded during the first half of December and so didn’t mention the Duke of Edinburgh’s hospitalisation for a blocked coronary artery, which took place over Christmas.

Britain isn’t the only country with a televised message from the monarch to the people over the winter holiday. For an overview of royal Christmas and New Year broadcasts from the monarch to the people, please see this blog.

Photo credit
George V delivering his 1934 Christmas message, public domain.

Four generations: Queen Victoria and the future Edward VII, George V, and Edward VIII

When the baby is born, he or she will be the great-grandchild of the reigning sovereign. Although the Queen already has two great-grandchildren (Savannah and Isla Phillips, the two daughters of Princess Anne’s son, Peter Phillips), the Cambridge baby will be in the direct line of succession as the eldest child of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales. It’s very unusual for four generations of monarchs and future monarchs to be alive at the same time; the only other time this happened was with the birth in 1894 of Prince Edward of York (the future Edward VIII and Duke of Windsor), the first child of Queen Victoria’s grandson George, Duke of York (later George V). It nearly happened in 1817 when Princess Charlotte of Wales, granddaughter of George III, gave birth, but unfortunately the child was stillborn. Other long-lived monarchs (Henry I, Edward III, Elizabeth I) either had no children or did not live to see their heirs have grandchildren.

As a great-grandchild of Queen Victoria, the future Edward VIII had a royal title at birth; however, in Queen Victoria’s day, as her grandchildren married and had children of their own, there was a proliferation of Royal Highnesses, Serene Highnesses, and Highnesses. George V tried to do something about rationalising all this by issuing the Letters Patent of 1917, limiting the use of Royal Highness to children and male-line grandchildren of monarchs and the eldest living son of the eldest son of the Prince of Wales (but not any other great-grandchildren). So if the new Cambridge baby is a boy, he’ll be a Royal Highness, but a girl would be out of luck in the Royal Highness stakes, as will all younger siblings. A similarly anomalous situation occurred in 1948 when Princess Elizabeth was pregnant, since the 1917 Letters Patent granted the style of Royal Highness to children of sons (not daughters) of the sovereign, meaning that Princess Elizabeth’s children would not be Royal Highnesses but would be styled as the children of the Duke of Edinburgh; the eldest son would take the courtesy title Earl of Merioneth, and other children would become Lord or Lady. To rectify this anomaly, George VI issued Letters Patent in 1948 to extend the use of Royal Highness and the prefix Prince and Princess to the children of Princess Elizabeth (although not to the children of his younger daughter, Princess Margaret). Presumably the Queen will do likewise at some point before the baby is born, so that all William and Kate’s children born during the present reign will be Royal Highnesses.

William and Catherine leaving the Abbey

At the time of William and Kate’s wedding, discussions were raging in the press about whether this would finally be a good time to change the succession laws to allow their first-born child to inherit the throne regardless of gender. At present the British succession favours boys over their sisters, a system that was in use in many European monarchies but has gradually given way to gender-neutral succession. These changes started in Sweden in 1980, when baby Crown Prince Carl Philip was demoted in favour of his older sister Victoria, who is now Crown Princess; so far Belgium, The Netherlands, Denmark, Norway, and Luxembourg have followed suit, leaving only the United Kingdom, Monaco, and Spain with male-preference primogeniture and Liechtenstein with male-only primogeniture. The British government has ducked this issue time and again, claiming that it’s too complicated to deal with and that there are more important things for the government to be doing. However, the royal wedding last year seems to have provided the motivation for the new coalition government to address the royal succession laws.

The Queen at the CHOGM opening ceremony, October 2011

At last year’s Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Australia, British Prime Minister David Cameron announced that the royal succession laws would be changed to allow girls to succeed to the throne on the same basis as boys, and also that the anti-Catholic provisions of the 1701 Act of Settlement regarding royal spouses would be discarded. The Queen was also present at the meeting, presumably to lend support to this proposal. Under the terms of the Statute of Westminster of 1931, changes to the royal succession have to be agreed by all Commonwealth countries where the British monarch is Head of State (currently 15 countries apart from the United Kingdom). All these countries indicated that they were in favour of the changes, and over the past year they have been working toward a mutually acceptable law. The day after the announcement of the Duchess’s pregnancy, the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, announced that this process had been concluded successfully and that legislation to change the succession laws would be introduced in Parliament very soon. The scope of the changes was stated as follows: “The legislation will end the principle of male primogeniture, so that men will no longer take precedence over women in line to the throne, and end the bar on anyone in the line of succession marrying a Roman Catholic.”

The law is expected to apply only to the descendants of the Prince of Wales, so that no retrospective changes in the line of succession will occur; Princess Anne and her children will still follow the Earl of Wessex and his children, she won’t leapfrog over her younger brothers. If this also applies to the Catholic question, it means that the members of the royal family currently excluded for marrying Catholics (the Earl of St Andrews, Lord Nicholas Windsor, and Prince Michael of Kent) will remain excluded; however, considering how far down the line of succession they are, it won’t make any difference in practice. Obviously the government isn’t prepared to go as far as removing the provision in the Act of Settlement banning Catholics from succeeding to the throne (perfectly understandable in a country with an Established Church) since Mr Clegg referred only to ending the ban on people in the line of succession marrying Catholics. However, if the Act of Settlement is repealed and replaced by the new act, it’ll be interesting to see if the line of succession continues to include all eligible descendants of Electress Sophia of Hanover or whether it’ll be trimmed to a manageable size like those of many other European monarchies. At present, under the terms of the 1917 Letters Patent, the style of Royal Highness only extends (with a few exceptions mentioned above) to grandchildren of reigning sovereigns, and it would make sense to limit the line of succession similarly (as well as the number of people affected by the Royal Marriages Act, but that’s for another blog).

Princess Elizabeth with her grandmother Queen Mary and her sister Princess Margaret

The prospect of gender-neutral primogeniture has highlighted some complications in the current system of royal titles and finances. At present a male heir to the throne, whether a son of the sovereign or other relation (such as nephew or grandson), is entitled to be created Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester, but these titles are reserved for males. Also, the eldest son of the sovereign automatically becomes Duke of Cornwall and is financed by the proceeds of the Duchy of Cornwall, not from the Civil List. The situation is complicated enough when the sovereign has no sons since there’s no provision for the eldest girl to become Duchess of Cornwall in her own right. Hence, the Queen was known as Princess Elizabeth during George VI’s lifetime, not Duchess of Cornwall (or Princess of Wales), and she had no access to Duchy of Cornwall funds, which reverted to the Crown. In the future, without changes to the 1337 charter establishing the Duchy of Cornwall, we could see an absurd situation where a firstborn daughter would be heir to the throne but her younger brother would be Duke of Cornwall and have access to the funds meant for the heir. So, as well as introducing a new law establishing equal primogeniture and replacing some of the provisions of the Act of Settlement, the government will have to update the scope of the charters establishing the Prince of Wales and Duke of Cornwall titles. This raises the question of the title of the husband of a Duchess of Cornwall and Princess of Wales, since men marrying into the royal family don’t take their wives’ rank but will need a title of some sort. It’ll be interesting to see how the new law addresses these issues.

In the meantime, we’re in for several months of royal baby saturation coverage in the tabloid press, if the period between the engagement and wedding last year is any guide. Hopefully things won’t get too intrusive or inane, but after the debacle of the topless photos a few weeks ago, that might be too much to ask.

Photo credits

Four generations of monarchs and Princess Elizabeth with her grandmother and sister, public domain.
Photo of the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, by Flickr member Defence Images, used under Creative Commons licence.
The Queen at the CHOGM opening ceremony in October 2011, by Flickr member ComSec and used under Creative Commons licence.

Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume and Countess Stéphanie de Lannoy were married in a civil ceremony on 19 October 2012, and a religious ceremony on 20 October 2012.

On 19 October, the festivities started with a reception for the Luxembourg young people: representatives of several youth associations, people born or getting married on the same day as the couple, people who were in the same class as Guillaume,… were invited. The reception was held at the Grand Théâtre in Luxembourg, at 11 am.

The Hereditary Grand Duke made a speech in Luxembourgish at the event, in which he said he was very happy to be getting married in a few hours, and he thanked everyone who would be participating in the celebrations.

Morning reception with youth associations

Around 4 pm that day, the couple walked from the Grand Ducal Palace to the City Hall, where the civil ceremony was performed by mayor Xavier Bettel of Luxembourg in Luxembourgish and French. The civil ceremony was intimate, only attended by members of the Luxembourg royal family and the de Lannoy family.

Civil wedding of Guillaume of Luxembourg and Stéphandie de Lannoy

They walked in cortège back to the Grand Ducal Palace, and took ample time to talk to the many people who lined the streets to cheer them on.

Stéphanie, now Princess of Luxembourg, was dressed in a stylish Chanel suit. She waved, shook hands, kissed the children and accepted the small gifts and drawings like a professional. The Luxembourg royal ladies were all dressed in shades of gold.

The evening of 19 October was reserved for the gala dinner in honour of the bride and groom. The dinner was held at the palace in Luxembourg City, the Chamber of Deputies building next door and the Cerle Cité in Place d’Armes. It was attended by many royals from around the world. A glittering tiara event, in which Princess Stéphanie wore the larger floral tiara from the Luxembourg vaults.

Other remarkable tiaras were the Aquamarine Circlet tiara worn by Princess Sibilla of Luxembourg, aunt of the groom, which belonged once to Spanish Queen Victoria Eugenia, great-grandmother of  Sibilla. And there was the tiara of Swedish Crown Princess Victoria, which hasn’t been identified yet. Surprise guest was Queen Fabiola of the Belgians, who had previously been thought to remain in Belgium, as her health hasn’t been very good lately. But she attended, in wheelchair, nonetheless.

The Grand Duke gave a moving speech at the gala dinner.

When we see you, there is absolutely no doubt that you are made for each other, ready to share joyful moments, but also the downside of life with each other, and to be there in the service of your family as well as in the service of the country, over which you will one day prevail.

Grand Duke Henri and Stéphanie at the gala dinner

20 October 2012 was the day of the lavish religious ceremony at the Luxembourg cathedral. All were, of course, waiting for the dress and the tiara that Stéphanie had chosen. And what a lovely surprise it was! The dress was designed by Elie Saab. It took 3,200 hours of embroidery, and 700 hours of sewing. The dress contained some 40 metres of Calais lace, 30 metres of satin organza and 70 metres of tulle. It has a 2.5 metre train. A second train covers the first and measures 4.5 metres. The dress is lined in silk-crèpe. 15 metres of silk tulle were used for the veil which measures 5 metres. The dress contained some 50,000 pearls and 10,000 metres of silver thread.

The tiara was the Lannoy family tiara, a dainty piece with a history going back to the late 1800s. The tiara was made by Altenloh in Brussels. Ernest Altenloh, son of a silversmith, created the company in 1878.  The tiara is composed of 270 old-cut brilliants set in platinum, with a diamond in an inverted pear shape superimposed in the centre. A dozen larger brilliants stand out owing to their closed sets, appearing like buttons along the patterns of leafed scrolls. The contours of the tiara, traced by the arrangements of the stones, are underlined by a thin line of platinum gilded pearls. This is the tiara that was also worn by Stéphanie’s sisters and sisters-in-law at their weddings.

The wedding bouquet of trailing white flowers was created by Maison Lachaume, Parisian Master florists since 1845. The bouquet will be placed at the feet of the statue of the Virgin Mary, Consoler of the Afflicted. This statue was adorned with the wedding veil of Countess Alix de Lannoy, the mother of the bride, another touch to show that she is remembered on this happy day. Her make-up was taken care of by Bouzouk, and her hair had been styled into a chignon by famous Parisian hairdresser Tom Marcineau of the Maison Carita.

The bridesmaids, Princess Alexandra of Luxembourg and Miss Antonia Hamilton were dressed by Belgian designer Edouard Vermeulen of Natan. The pages and flower girls, all nephews and nieces of the couple, were outfitted in blue and orange, the colours of the House of Nassau.

Stéphanie was taken into the Cathedral by her eldest brother, Jehan de Lannoy, who took the place of her father, who is bound ot a wheelchair. However, when the bride had arrived at the altar, the Count was standing there, supported by one of his sons, to greet his daughter. He spoke a few words to her, Guillaume joined them, and after some smiles and a kiss, Guillaume took the arm of his bride and guided her back to the altar.

The wedding ceremony started at 11 am, the Archbishop greeted the guests in Luxembourgish, French and English, and then asked for a minute silence in memory of the deceased mother of the bride, Countess Alix de la Faille de Leverghem, who passed away only last August. After that, the Mass took its usual course, and by 11.45 the couple exchanged the rings and their vows, after which they read a prayer they had written themselves, asking God for a happy marriage. During the first half of the ceremony, Stéphanie seemed rather tense, but once the rings were exchanged, her face broke into the smile we know so well by now. The intercessions were read in several languages, among which English, Portuguese and Dutch.

Guillaume and Stéphanie in the Cathedral

The Nuncio read a papal message from Benedict XVI for the couple, and then blessed the couple in the name of the Pope. After the final blessings and the singing of the National Anthem, the registry was signed by the married couple and their witnesses. Guillaume’s witnesses were Prince Félix, his brother, and Lawrence Frankopan, a very good friend. Stéphanie’s witnesses were Baroness Blanche von und zu Bodman, née Princess de Mérode, and Princess Louise of Stolberg-Stolberg, two very close friends.

As the couple left the Cathedral and went to the Grand Ducal Palace, 101 cannon volleys were launched.

After the Church ceremony, the couple made a balcony appearance and treated the cheering crowds to not just one but three kisses.

The festivities in the city continue all day, with street entertainment, fireworks and a concert by the Belgian singer-songwriter Selah Sue and the group Funky P.

Photo credits:
Morning reception: © Grand-Ducal Court/SIP/Charles Caratini/All rights reserved
Civil wedding photo: © Grand-Ducal Court/Christian Aschman/All rights reserved
Gala dinner photo: © Grand-Ducal Court/Guy Wolff/All rights reserved
Religious wedding photo: © Grand-Ducal Court/Guy Wolff/All rights reserved

Emperor Akihito in Canada, 2009

When Akihito followed his father, wartime Emperor Hirohito, on the Chrysanthemum throne in 1989, it soon became clear that the new emperor had two main goals: first, he wanted to make the monarchy (which had once been a powerful instrument in the hands of Japanese militarists, whose policy of aggression finally led to World War II) a symbol of peace and democracy; second, he sought to promote reconciliation and friendship with Japan’s Asian neighbors and to make amends to them by speaking openly of the suffering inflicted by Japanese troops before and during World War II.

In April 1989, only three months after the death of his father, Akihito addressed the Chinese people, expressing his remorse for the suffering that had been caused by the Japanese occupation of their country. Further statements to the same effect on his trips to Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia followed. He also remarked that he felt a kinship with Korea (which had for some time been a Japanese colony) and explained that the mother of the Japanese Emperor Kammu (736-806) was a descendant of Muryeong, the 25th king of Baekje (one of the Three Kingdoms of Korea). Accompanied by Empress Michiko, Emperor Akihito has also visited numerous war-linked places, including Hiroshima, Nagasaki and Okinawa, expressing thereby his deep desire to promote national and international reconciliation.

Although the Emperor’s initiatives for peace and understanding were very popular with most Japanese, there were still some who thought that it hurt Japanese dignity to express regrets for the past and who did not choose to stay silent. Japanese nationalists usually try to interpret the emperor´s words and deeds in a way that suggests that, in remembering the war, the emperor was mainly concerned about the war victims among the Japanese themselves. But Emperor Akihito has, on many occasions, proven that he is well aware that World War II left a very deep scar not only on the Japanese psyche but on the psyche of all nations concerned.

Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko in Saipan, June 2005

For example, when Emperor Akihito visited Saipan in 2005, he emphasized that he and the empress were mourning all those who lost their lives there, not just Japanese nationals. Saipan had been taken over by Japan after World War I and was considered key to Japan’s defense. A large number of Japanese civilians lived there. During the war, the United States erected a civilian prisoner encampment where conditions seemed rather luxurious compared to that of the starving population. Obviously, there was a risk that the people of Saipan would surrender to the U.S. troops and maybe undermine the fighting spirit of the Japanese nation by informing their countrymen via radio broadcasts that the U.S. troops were treating them rather generously. Accordingly, Emperor Hirohito sent out an imperial order encouraging the civilians of Saipan to commit suicide. One thousand Japanese civilians committed suicide in the last days of the battle, some jumping from “Suicide Cliff” and “Banzai Cliff”. In all, about 12,000 to 22,000 civilians died.

This story is complicated even further by the fact that not all the people subsumed as “Japanese” were actually Japanese. First, there were the natives of Saipan, the Chamorros, then there were a lot of people from Okinawa, and finally there were about 1,000 Koreans who were brought to Saipan before the war as conscripts in the Japanese military and as forced laborers. (Juan B. Blanco, a Chamorro who was educated in a Japanese school, told The Times, “We were taught that the Emperor was descended from the Sun Goddess and that we have to treat him like a god. We were learning how to become Japanese.”)

When Emperor Akihito visited Saipan in 2005, he said that his heart “ached” at the suffering experienced on Saipan: “This time on soil beyond our shores, we will once again mourn and pay tribute to all those who lost their lives in the war, and we will remember the difficult path that bereaved families had to follow, and we wish to pray for world peace.” By the emperor’s actions, it became clear that he was speaking about all the people who suffered there, not just Japanese nationals. Originally, the emperor and the empress were scheduled to visit two war memorials. The first was the Monument of the War Dead in the Mid-Pacific, which contains victims’ belongings and was built in 1974 by the Japanese government and the local government. Second, at the American Memorial Park, the imperial couple laid flowers at monuments built in memory of islanders and American soldiers who lost their lives. Besides, they also visited the two cliffs from which hundreds of Japanese soldiers and civilians jumped to their deaths after refusing to surrender. But after complaints from the Korean Association of Saipan, who asked them to acknowledge the thousands of Koreans who died during the war, the emperor and empress changed their schedule last minute to also stop briefly at the Korean war dead memorial. (It was the first time the emperor has paid tribute at a monument specifically dedicated to Koreans killed in World War II.) During the same stop, Akihito and Michiko also spontaneously visited the Okinawan memorial to pay tribute to the Okinawan people who died on Saipan during the war.

Emperor Hirohito and Crown Prince Akihito playing Shogi while Empress Nagako looks on, 1955

At the time of the imperial couple’s visit to Saipan, there was growing anger in China and the Koreas over what many there saw as Japan’s failure to make amends and over repeated visits by then-Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to Yasukuni Shrine (a powerful symbol of Japan’s pre-1945 militarism). The peace offer from the emperor certainly had a soothing effect. However, both political tendencies are still significant today. On the one hand, many Japanese want to live in peace with their neighbours. For example, until this summer, there have been no pilgrimages to the controversial Yasukuni shrine by any government ministers since the centre-left Democratic Party of Japan came to power in 2009. On the other hand, quite a few popular politicians in today’s Japan take a very populist anti-foreigner stance and promote revisionist interpretations of Japan’s history. It seems that the idea that, far from being a perpetrator, Japan was an innocent victim in the war and benevolent toward those it ruled, has been gaining in popularity since the mid-1990s. Earlier this year, the mayor of Nagoya, Takashi Kawamura, maintained that the Rape of Nanjing (a mass murder and war rape that occurred during the six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanjing) never happened, and Tokyo’s governor Shintaro Ishihara backed him. It is true that government spokesman Osamu Fujimura said that the Japanese government did not share these views. But still, the mayor of Nagoya and the governor of Tokyo are not just anybody.

Besides, times are getting harder for those Japanese who refuse to support the nationalist “new line.” In June 2011, the Osaka prefectural assembly approved an ordinance that obliges teachers and school staff to stand and sing the national anthem Kimigayo “to develop a spirit of patriotism among students.” For many Japanese, though, the Kimigayo symbolizes Japan’s past imperialism and militarism because of its text and because of its use during wartime. In February of this year, a 61-year-old male teacher refused to stand up during the singing of the Kimigayo at a graduation ceremony at an Osaka prefectural high school. The man had been rehired by the school after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 60 and was highly evaluated by the school principal, who gave him the second highest competence rating. Still, after the incident, the teacher was notified that his services were no longer required.

There cannot be any doubt where the emperor’s sympathies lie in this matter. Once, a Tokyo Metropolitan District (TMD) official boasted in front of the emperor that all the employees of the TMD now sang the Kimigayo. Akihito’s dry retort — “Yes, and wouldn’t it have been nice if they had not been coerced to do so?” — left that official completely speechless… But, obviously, the emperor´s range of influence is very limited. He may succeed in having an impact by small gestures, by his decision to use or avoid certain expressions, by taking a certain attitude continually over many years. But he does not have the right to openly and directly address critical issues.

Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo

Unfortunately, it lately seems that the respect, trust and peace that the emperor has attempted to build up by much patience, care and diligence through the many years of his reign could easily be destroyed by hasty and ill-advised actions of some politicians, Japanese and others, in just a few weeks or months. On August 14, South Korean President Lee Myung Bak said that Emperor Akihito must apologize for Japan’s colonial rule of the Korean Peninsula if he wants to visit South Korea. “I have said (the Emperor) may come here if he is willing to apologize from his heart to those who died fighting for independence,” Lee said in a meeting with teachers in North Chungcheong Province. In a related development, South Korea demanded that two Japanese Cabinet ministers should drop their plans to visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine where 14 Japanese wartime leaders convicted as war criminals by an Allied tribunal are honored. (Visits to the shrine by government leaders usually trigger sharp protests in Asian countries.) Still, and in spite of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s asking members of his Cabinet to stay away, on August 15, the anniversary of Tokyo’s World War II surrender, two Japanese cabinet ministers and dozens of national lawmakers visited Yasukuni Shrine. The pilgrimages to Yasukuni were the first on the sensitive anniversary by any government minister since the centre-left Democratic Party of Japan came to power in 2009. Not surprisingly, the news was received with sharp protests by South Korea and China.

The mayor of Osaka, Toru Hashimoto (who was, incidentally, the one who initiated the ordinance that obliges teachers and school staff to stand and sing the Kimigayo anthem), chose to make matters even worse. On August 21, Hashimoto commented that South Korea had yet to show proof that its women were forced to serve as sexual slaves (“comfort women”) to the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II. This issue has been at the heart of the tensions between the two countries ever since Japan’s occupation of Korea ended after WWII, with much of the population still demanding apologies to this day.

The visit of the two Japanese ministers to Yasukuni is very ill-timed (to say the least) in more than just one respect. Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Qin Gang from China said that Japan should reflect upon why such visits upset the rest of Asia: “The issue of the Yasukuni Shrine is about whether Japan can correctly understand and deal with its history of militarist aggression and whether it can respect the feelings of people in China and other victimized countries in Asia.” Japanese relations with China, where memories of Japan’s occupation of large parts of the country in the 1930s and 1940s still linger, have also lately been very strained by renewed bickering over uninhabited islands in the East China Sea that are near potentially huge oil and gas resources. The big question for everyone in the region is whether the conflict could escalate further and finally get out of hand. The outlook of veteran Japan watcher Mark Selden, senior research associate in the East Asia programme at Cornell University, does not give reason for much optimism: “My view is that the possibility of a clash, including a military clash, is real. The issues have deep historical roots and the US left them unresolved.”

Empress Nagako and Crown Prince Akihito

The life of Japan’s royals is notoriously stressful. The late Prince Tomohito of Mikasa once famously said, “As long as I can remember, the imperial family’s been like one big ball of stress.” The life of Akihito himself has been all but easy. He was the last heir to the Japanese throne who had submit himself to the tradition that required him to be raised separated from his family. When he was three years old, he was taken away from his mother and lived, from that time, in a palace by himself, surrounded by servants. When he was eleven, Japan suffered complete defeat. His father Hirohito could have easily been put to trial as a war criminal. On Akihito’s fifteenth birthday, seven Japanese were executed as war criminals by the Allied Powers. The birthday ceremonies were cancelled.

Crown Prince Akihito, 1945

Later, in 1958, Akihito was shocked to hear that King Faisal II of Iraq had been deposed and killed. It is clear that Akihito suspected that something similiar might happen to himself: all of a sudden, he started to spend a lot of his time and energy on type-writing. His friend Akira Hashimoto asked him for the reason of this exercise. Akihito answered in a serious tone: “If anything should go wrong, I will be able to work as a typist.” This, however, turned out to be unnecessary. Akihito ascended the throne in 1989. But the stress of royal life obviously took its toll: the emperor had to undergo treatment for prostate cancer in 2003. He also suffered stomach bleeding and other problems in 2008, believed to have been caused by stress. Last November, he was hospitalized for over two weeks for bronchial pneumonia, and he had heart bypass surgery on 18 February 2012. But a week after he had been discharged from hospital, he gave a speech at the main memorial service for the massive earthquake and tsunami of March 2011 in Tokyo at the National Theatre. He was still so frail at the time that a senior Imperial Household Agency official warned the 77-year-old empress beforehand that she should keep herself prepared because, if the emperor were to fall, there was “no choice but for the person closest to him to support him.”

It can only be hoped that Emperor Akihito, after all the efforts of his long life, is not doomed to witness, at the very end of it, his values of peace and reconciliation being held in contempt and his life’s work shattered.

Photo credits
Emperor Akihito in Canada, 2009, by Wikimedia Commons member Shawnc, used under Creative Commons licence.
Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko in Saipan, June 2005, by United States Navy, public domain.
Emperor Hirohito and his son Crown Prince Akihito playing Shogi while Empress Nagako looks on, 1955;  Empress Nagako and Crown Prince Akihito; and Crown Prince Akihito, 1945: public domain.
Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo by Wikimedia Commons member Wiiii, used under Creative Commons licence.

On 1 July 2012, the republics of Rwanda and Burundi both celebrate the 50th anniversary of their independence – of each other as well as of the Belgian government. The Berlin conference of 1884 had assigned the territory – then known as Ruanda-Urundi – to the German Empire. After World War I, the area came under Belgian rule. Although both Rwanda and Burundi were European colonies, each country kept its monarchy throughout their colonial history. 

The last Mwami of Rwanda: Kigeli V and Mutara III (back L - R). Queen Rosalie Gicanda and Mwami Mutara III (front L - R)

The Kingdom of Rwanda was founded in 14th century, according to oral history. The royal line is divided up in three dynasties, the first dynasty ruling from about 1350 until 1506, the second dynasty from 1506 until 1600 and the third – and last – dynasty ruling between 1600 and 1961. The last two Mwami (monarchs) of Rwanda were Mutara III (b. 1912 (?) – d. 1959) and his younger brother, Kigeli V (b. 1936). Mutara III was the first Catholic Mwami of the country, and he embraced the colonisation and western way of life. Mutara III died under suspicious circumstances in 1959, and was succeeded by his younger brother Kigeli.

Kigeli faced a country in turmoil, with different ethnic groups constantly on the verge of war while the country itself was preparing its independence. Kigeli V had to abdicate after a coup d’etat in 1961 and a referendum in which the majority of the population voted against the monarchy. The coup had been supported by the Belgian government, who at the time were still in charge. Kigeli V is still alive, currently living in the USA. He still tries to play some sort of role in his country through the Kigeli V Foundation, which promotes humanitarian initiatives for Rwandese refugees.

Unfortunately, the turmoil in Rwanda didn’t end with the abdication and exile of Kigeli V. The ethnic tensions culminated in the 1994 Rwandan Genocide. Among the many thousands killed was also the Dowager Queen Rosalie Gicanda, wife of Mutara III, who had remained in Rwanda after the monarchy was abolished.

The Kingdom of Burundi was founded in the late 16th century. The names of the Mwami followed a cycle: Ntare (meaning ‘lion’), Mwezi (meaning ‘moon’), Mutaga, and Mwambutsa. According to the oral history, there have been 4 complete cycles, and the fifth had only just begun when the monarchy was abolished.

Like Rwanda, the colonial forces allowed the traditional monarchy to continue, although the Mwami didn’t have much political power any more under colonial rule. First part of German East Africa, then the Belgian mandate Ruanda-Urundi, the country finally started moving towards independence in the 1950s. The Kingdom of Burundi became independent on 1 July 1962, so unlike Rwanda, Burundi did have a ruling monarchy after its independence – even if only for a short time.

The history of the last two Mwami of Burundi reads like a Shakespearean play. Mwambutsa IV, born in 1912, succeeded his father in 1915 – when he was barely 3 years old. For the first few years of his reign there was a regency, first taken up by his mother, later by a regency council. When in 1919 the country came under Belgian rule, nothing much changed for him, in that the Belgians didn’t abolish the monarchy although the local government didn’t have much power. He reached majority in 1931 and was officially crowned as Mwami of Burundi.

The last two Mwami of Burundi, Mwambutsa IV and Ntare V

Mwambutsa IV had two sons who play a significant role in this history: crown prince Louis Rwagasore (1932-1961) and prince Charles Ndizeye (1947-1972), his younger brother. Crown prince Louis Rwagasore was politically active, despite his father’s opposition. He had anti-colonialist sympathies and was one of the founders of the Union for National Progress (UPRONA). He called for civil disobedience in the last years of the Belgian rule, and at the same time constantly tried to promote understanding and peace between the different ethnic groups in the country. When UPRONA won the 1960 elections with 80%, crown prince Louis Rwagasore was appointed Prime Minister. His rule, however, was very short. He was assasinated on 28 September 1961, only 16 days after he became Prime Minister. Although there is little evidence, it has often been suggested that the assassin had been hired by some Belgians who didn’t like his political ideas. With the death of crown prince Louis Rwagasore, Burundi lost a great politician. Next in line was prince Charles Ndizeye, who was about 15 at the time. He became the next crown prince, but was not quite as popular as his brother.

When Burundi became an independent Kingdom in 1962, the Mwami chose to follow a liberal course, constantly promoting peace among the different ethnic groups and creating a constitutional monarchy. The ethnic tensions, however, caused great turmoil, and for the few years that Mwambutsa IV ruled his country independently, he saw no fewer than three Prime Ministers assassinated.

In July 1966, Mwambutsa IV was deposed by his 19-year-old son, crown prince Charles Ndizeye, who at that time was already ruling by way of regency since March of that same year. Mwambutsa went into exile to Switzerland, where he remained until his death in 1977.

Charles Ndizeye took on the name of Ntare V, and ruled until November 1966. While he was visiting the neighbouring Congo, he was deposed following a military coup. Burundi was proclaimed a republic, and Ntare V went into exile in West Germany. In march of 1972, however, he was captured during a visit to Uganda and then extradited to Burundi. He was put under house arrest at the former royal palace, and on 29 April 1972 he was murdered there.

His body, however, was buried in an anonymous grave, and nobody knew where it was hidden – until two years ago. Suddenly, a witness came forward, claiming he was the one who dug the grave. The half-sister of Ntare V, princess Rose-Paula, asked a team of world renowned geneticists to go to Burundi and find the body. The Burundian government agreed to the plan and even supported it. They hoped to find the body of the last King by the time the 50th anniversary of the Burundian independence came along, so they could give him an official re-burial and celebrate him as the symbol of unity which he has now become. The research was – at present – all in vain, and the Burundian independence has to be celebrated without Ntare V. The search for his body, however should continue.

Picture credits: collages by Kelly Lacroix and used with permission.

On Saturday 16 June 2012 the Saudi state television announced that Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz, aged 79, had died. Reuters reported that he had died in a hospital in Geneva, Switzerland. The Crown Prince had been suffering from diabetes mellitus and osteoporosis for years. He was buried last Sunday, according to Muslim traditions, at the Al Adl cemetery in Mecca.

On May 26, Crown Prince Nayef had left the country for medical tests abroad, but he would never return. Only two weeks ago, one of the local newspapers reported to have overheard one of his brothers stating that the Crown Prince was in good health and would soon return, so the news of his death came as a shock to the desert Kingdom.

Crown Prince Nayef bin Abdulaziz (b. 1933) was the 23d son of King Adbulaziz, and one of the eleven children he had with Hassa bint Ahmad al Sudairi, one of King Abdulaziz’ favourite wives. He was a younger brother of King Fadh, the fifth King of Saudi Arabia (1982 – 2005). Prince Nayef was involved in the government of the country from an early age. He served as Vice Governor, and later also Governor, of the Riyad Province in the early 1950s. King Faisal (3d King of Saudi Arabia from 1964 to 1975) appointed him as Deputy Minister of the Interior – which made him deputy to his elder brother Prince Fadh, future fifth King of Saudi Arabia) and Minister of State for Internal Affairs in 1975.

After the assasination of King Faisal, Prince Fadh was appointed Crown Prince and Prince Nayef was created Minister of the Interior, a position he kept until his death and in which he became more and more influential in Saudi politics.

Prince Nayef was appointed Crown Prince upon the death of Crown Prince Sultan, his (full) elder brother, on 27 October 2011. Saudi succession was arranged in a rather singular way: the succession passed down between the sons of King Abdulaziz, founder of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, according to seniority (although occasionally one brother could be skipped in favour of a younger brother). King Abdulaziz reportedly had 37 sons, no fewer than five of whom became King – Abdullah, the current King of Saudi Arabia is his tenth son.

In 2006, however, Abdullah, who must have realised that, like himself, his brothers only got older and at some point there might be no son of Abdulaziz left to take the throne, decided to create the Allegiance Council, a body consisting of the sons and grandsons who represent the different branches of the Al Saud descendants of King Abdulaziz. This Council can choose the future Kings and Crown Princes via vote by secret ballot. Since the death of Crown Prince Sultan, in October 2011, King Abdullah has chosen his successor after consultation with the Council.

Prince Nayef was the first elected Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. He is succeeded by his (full) brother, Prince Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud (b. 1935), who is also Minister of Defence.

King George I

Nobody could have seriously thought that baby George would become King of Great Britain half a century later. Charles II was still young and not yet married, but he had already proved his fertility by producing a few illegitimate children (and would continue to do so); his next brother James, Duke of York, was in the process of trying to marry his pregnant mistress, Lady Anne Hyde; and his youngest brother, the staunchly Protestant Henry, Duke of Gloucester, was just 20. The prospects for lots of Stuart princes and princesses looked very good. And then George’s mother had all those older brothers and sisters. George grew up in Hanover as a thoroughly German prince. In 1698 Ernst August died and George became Elector of Hanover, his inheritance being bolstered by territories that had belonged to various childless uncles and by the recent introduction of primogeniture which meant that he inherited all his father’s territories. He was, by all accounts, quite uninterested in his Scottish and English heritage. That isn’t to say he was uninterested in the unfolding prospect of becoming King of England, but he saw it more in terms of increasing his power and prestige as ruler of Hanover than as something to be desired in its own right. He never bothered to learn to speak English with any degree of fluency, and he made no secret of the fact that, throughout his life, he regarded Hanover as his home.

King Charles II

Meanwhile, back in England the expected new generation of princes and princesses had largely failed to materialise. Charles II’s marriage to the Portuguese princess Catherine of Braganza had produced no living children, although he continued to father healthy bastards with his various mistresses. Henry had contracted a fatal dose of smallpox within months of the Restoration, dying young, unmarried, and childless. James and Anne Hyde (by now the Duchess of York) had two daughters, Princesses Mary and Anne. After the death of the Duchess of York in 1671, James openly converted to Catholicism and married the Catholic princess Mary of Modena. Not only was the royal family short of heirs, it was getting short on popularity too. The powerful nobles hadn’t engineered the Restoration only to see the monarchy slide back into Catholic autocracy.

Princesses Mary and Anne were raised as Protestants on the orders of Charles II, and both of them married Protestant princes, Mary marrying her cousin William of Orange (and moving to The Netherlands) and Anne marrying Prince George of Denmark. The lack of heirs continued – Mary had several miscarriages but no live children, and Anne famously had at least 17 pregnancies but only one child who survived infancy, the sickly William Duke of Gloucester, born in 1689. Charles II died in 1685 and James succeeded him as James II of England and VII of Scotland. He proceeded to make himself even more unpopular by favouring Catholics and trying to overturn anti-Catholic laws. There were fears that he intended to disestablish the Church of England and let the Roman Catholic Church reassert its authority. However, as long as his heirs were his Protestant daughters, his actions could be tolerated as just a temporary setback.

Mary of Modena with her son, James, the Catholic heir

Then in 1688 Mary of Modena gave birth to a son, James Francis Edward, who took precedence over his sisters in the line of succession. The prospect of a Catholic dynasty alarmed the Protestant lords so much that they turned to William of Orange, husband of Princess Mary and grandson of Charles I, and invited him to invade England and take the crown for himself and his wife. James fled to France, leaving the throne vacant, and the reign of William and Mary began. The Protestant succession was laid out in the Bill of Rights of 1689, which stated that the throne would pass to Mary’s children (assuming she had any), then to Anne and her children, and then to children of William by any subsequent marriage. However,  Mary died childless in 1694, and Anne’s young son William died in 1700. William III did not remarry, so there were no prospects of heirs from him. The Bill of Rights had not specified the succession beyond that, other than to say that the monarch must be Protestant. The next in line to the throne after Anne were the descendants of Charles I’s youngest daughter, Henrietta, who had married Philippe, brother of Louis XIV of France. Henrietta’s daughter Anne Marie was married to Victor Amadeus of Savoy, and they had two sons and two daughters, all staunchly Catholic. In the meantime James II and his son James Francis Edward were lurking in France, hoping for an excuse to return to England and take over the throne again. To complicate matters, the Duke of Monmouth, Charles II’s oldest illegitimate son, was getting ready to fight for his claim to the throne in the absence of legitimate Protestant heirs.

Sophia, Electress of Hanover, the Protestant heir to Queen Anne

In the face of this potential disaster, in 1701 Parliament came up with a successor to the Bill of Rights, the Act of Settlement. The search for a Protestant heir had resulted in around 50 potential heirs being set aside, and the succession was settled on Sophia of Hanover as being the most reliably Protestant candidate. Her son George, Elector of Hanover, was now in the direct line of succession to the thrones of England and Scotland. As it happened, Sophia predeceased Queen Anne by a few months in 1714, so on 1 August of that year George became the first British king of the House of Hanover.

Like the Bill of Rights, the Act of Settlement had several provisions but two main aims: to ensure a Protestant succession and to make the monarch work with Parliament, not (as several Stuarts had done) ignore or dismiss it at will. Because the crown was being offered to a family that already ruled Hanover, the Act specified that the monarch may not involve Britain in wars on behalf of other countries without the consent of Parliament, and may not leave Britain without permission from Parliament. These provisions put obstacles in the way of the monarch using the British military as his personal army to fight on behalf of Hanover. Although this hasn’t really been relevant since 1837 when the personal union of the British and Hanoverian thrones ended with the accession of Queen Victoria in Britain and the Duke of Cumberland in Hanover, it was a potential problem while the British monarch also ruled Hanover, and especially for the first two Georges, whose loyalty was at least partly German. Although the prohibition on travel without permission has been repealed, the provision about waging war is still in force and could potentially become relevant again in the future.

There were several other provisions aimed at ensuring the authority and independence of Parliament in the governance of the country. They included a ban on foreigners (including, at the time but since repealed, naturalised citizens) becoming Privy Councillors, Members of Parliament, or other high office holders (another safeguard against a wholesale takeover of influential positions by Hanoverian associates of the new monarch) and a ban on members of the royal household or other people receiving income from the Crown from becoming Members of Parliament. Nowadays we expect Parliament to make the laws and to have the ultimate decisions about going to war without public interference from the sovereign, but at the turn of the 18th century this was a fairly new concept. Charles I had lost his head and James II had lost his throne for their temerity in trying to assert the divine right of kings. Finally with the Act of Settlement, the basis for modern governance had been laid down. The Hanoverian kings generally went along with these provisions fairly amicably, and by the time of George III (the first Hanoverian king born in Britain), who identified himself as British rather than Hanoverian, the safeguards were more theoretical than anything.

One major consequence of the Act was the 1707 union between England and Scotland, something that had been attempted but not accomplished several times since James VI of Scotland became James I of England in 1603. In response to the provision of the Act that the English crown would be settled on the Hanoverians, the Scottish parliament passed a law in 1704 saying that the Scottish crown should be settled on a Protestant descendant of the old Scottish kings. Negotiations between the two countries led to Scotland’s acceptance of the Hanoverian succession in return for trade concessions by England, and the Acts of Union between England and Scotland were passed in 1707, leading to the creation of Great Britain.

The best-known provision, however, is the one affecting royal marriage. The Act states that the monarch must be in communion with the Church of England and must not be or marry a Catholic. The main effect of this provision at the time of the Act, apart from barring the Stuarts in perpetuity (assuming they remained Catholic, which they did), was to severely restrict the pool of potential spouses for British royals, since it ruled out marriage, and hence dynastic alliances, with royalty from much of Europe including Austria, Spain, Italy, and France. In practice the Hanoverians had tended to marry other Germans (and occasionally Scandinavians), and this trend continued after they inherited the British throne. However, things became more difficult in the 20th century when Britain and Germany were at war, since marriage of British princes and princesses to German royals would have been intensely unpopular. This is when the trend toward marriage of royals to British (and sometimes foreign) commoners became the rule rather than the exception. And some of these commoners were Catholic.

Prince Michael of Kent

In the 17th and 18th centuries, anti-Catholic discrimination and legislation was widespread, and the anti-Catholic provisions of the Act of Settlement wouldn’t have been seen as anything out of the ordinary. The British people by and large wanted an end to the constant fighting about religion that had dogged the monarchy since Henry VIII broke with Rome, and they resented foreign interference in the form of attempts to overthrow Protestant monarchs and bring Britain under the control of the Pope. However, by the end of the 18th century, when the Protestant monarchy and the status of the Church of England as the Established Church were secure, attitudes and laws started to relax. During the 20th century, as Britain (along with the rest of Europe) has become more multicultural, the specific anti-Catholicism in the Act of Settlement started to be seen as intolerant and discriminatory. While it makes sense for the monarch to be in communion with the Established Church as long as one exists, it makes far less sense to allow the monarch to take a spouse of any other religion (or no religion) but not a Roman Catholic. The Queen’s cousin Prince Michael of Kent lost his position in the line of succession on his marriage to the Catholic Baroness Marie Christine von Reibnitz, as did the Duke of Kent’s son George, Earl of St Andrews, when he married the Catholic Sylvana Palma Tomaselli. However, the Duke of Kent was not obliged to give up his position in the line of succession when the Duchess converted to Catholicism in 1994, showing a major inconsistency in the Act.

Although there have been concerns about the Act of Settlement being a potential problem if a senior royal decides to marry a Catholic in the future, successive governments have declined to do anything about it, usually on the grounds that they have more important things to think about than royal marriage and that amending legislation affecting the succession is complicated. The 1931 Statute of Westminster, establishing legislative independence and equality in all the countries where the British monarch is head of state, requires that legislation affecting succession to the throne must be passed by each country individually. Since the Act of Settlement definitely affects the royal succession, any amendments or repeal would have to be agreed to by all 16 countries where the British monarch is head of state. This has been presented as some sort of insuperable obstacle to changing the Act of Settlement in the past, even though the Statute was in force at the time of Edward VIII’s abdication in 1936 and all the countries concerned (albeit only 6, not 16) were consulted and gave their assent without any apparent problems. Concerns have also been expressed that some of these countries might take the opportunity to widen debate on the Act of Settlement to a debate on the monarchy itself and end up becoming republics.

William and Catherine leaving the Abbey

The Conservative coalition government of David Cameron has finally decided to address the succession. The motivation isn’t so much the religious discrimination of the Act of Settlement as the gender discrimination inherent in the system of male primogeniture that’s been part of the country’s common law since Norman times. The wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton led to a lot of discussion about whether their firstborn child should precede younger siblings in the succession regardless of gender. Almost all the other European monarchies have moved to gender-neutral succession laws, leaving Britain, Spain, and Monaco as the only male-primogeniture monarchies (along with the male-only succession in Liechtenstein), and most of those countries now have girls in the direct line of succession. As long as one discriminatory aspect of the succession laws is being addressed, it makes sense to address all of them. In any case, reading and listening to some news sources, it seems that quite a few royal reporters think that male primogeniture is a provision of the Act of Settlement (in fact it isn’t – the Act of Settlement prohibits succession by illegitimate or adopted children but says nothing about gender).

The Queen at the CHOGM opening ceremony, October 2011

As a preliminary move, Prime Minister Cameron met with leaders of the other countries affected by the Statute of Westminster at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting in Perth, Australia, last autumn, and the 85-year-old Queen made the long trip to Australia to open the meeting (and presumably remind the heads of her other realms that discussion about the royal family isn’t just theoretical but affects the lives of real people).  David Cameron made the following statement about this issue: “Attitudes have changed fundamentally over the centuries and some of the outdated rules — like some of the rules of succession — just don’t make sense to us any more. The idea that a younger son should become monarch instead of an elder daughter simply because he is a man, or that a future monarch can marry someone of any faith except a Catholic — this way of thinking is at odds with the modern countries that we have become.” The other countries are reported to have been in agreement, and a committee was set up, under the chairmanship of New Zealand, to look into the proposed reforms.

The Act of Settlement isn’t the only Act that will need to be changed in order to remove anti-Catholic discrimination from the royal succession. The BBC reported that the following laws are also under review: the Bill of Rights 1689, the Coronation Oath Act 1689, the Act of Union with Scotland 1706, Princess Sophia’s Precedence Act 1711, the Royal Marriages Act 1772, the Union with Ireland Act 1800, the Accession Declaration Act 1910, and the Regency Act 1937. While changes to some of these acts are likely to be minor, the changes to the Act of Settlement will be substantive. And hopefully the iniquitous provisions of the Royal Marriages Act will finally be overturned (more about that in a later blog). Although the government has other important things to deal with, the issue of the royal succession shouldn’t be shoved onto the back burner again. It would be nice to see things falling into place during the present reign now that the Queen has let it be known that she’s in support of the changes.

Photo credits
Portraits of George I, Charles II, Mary of Modena, and Sophia of Hanover, public domain.
Portrait of Prince Michael of Kent by Allan Warren, used under Creative Commons licence.
Photo of the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middleton, by Flickr member Defence Images, used under Creative Commons licence.
The Queen at the CHOGM opening ceremony in October 2011, by Flickr member ComSec and used under Creative Commons licence.

King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia of Spain celebrate their golden wedding anniversary today. Although – celebrate? Maybe that’s not the correct word to use right now. In any case, the couple got married exactly 50 years ago, on 14 May 1962. 

At the time, Juan Carlos, though a (very) royal Prince by blood, was in a politically awkward position. His family had left Spain in exile in the 1930s after the second Spanish Republic was proclaimed. Born in exile but allowed to live in his own country, he had no certainty of ever regaining the throne. General Franco, the Spanish dictator, had promised Juan Carlos that he would be the man to succeed him after his death, but Franco’s loyalties wavered between Juan Carlos and his cousin Alfonso, Duke of Anjou and Cadiz, who had married Franco’s granddaughter. Although Juan Carlos had officially been designated heir and given the title “Prince of Spain,” he could never be sure the General wouldn’t change his mind after all. One could say, then, that Juan Carlos was perhaps not the match with the best prospects for Sofia, a princess of the (then) reigning Greek royal family. Another obstacle was their religion: Juan Carlos was (and is) Catholic, hoping to restore the throne to a Catholic country, and Sofia was an Orthodox Christian.

King Juan Carlos I and Queen Sofia of Spain, 2004.

Still, the couple decided to get married and the match received the approbation of both the Greek King Paul and the Spanish dictator General Franco. They were to marry in Athens, Greece, and Sofia converted to Catholicism. To make sure all were happy, Juan Carlos and Sofia married three times: once in a Catholic ceremony in the Saint Dyonisius Church, an Orthodox ceremony in the Metropolitan Cathedral of the Virgin Mary, and a civil ceremony at the Royal Palace. The day ended in a lavish banquet for the thousands of guests, among which many royals of reigning and non-reigning families.

The couple was soon blessed with two daughters and a son: Infanta Elena (b. 1963), Infanta Cristina (b. 1965) and Felipe, Prince of Asturias (b. 1968). During the early years of their marriage, the shadow of Franco hung over their happiness. In public, Juan Carlos, as designated heir, supported the dictator in all his decisions. In secret, he consulted the opposition and prepared for a more liberal course once he was restored to the Spanish throne.

In 1975, these difficult years ended: upon the death of General Franco, Juan Carlos could finally ascend to the throne and restore the Spanish monarchy, as well as bringing democracy back to his country. In 1981, just six years after he ascended to the throne, Juan Carlos was faced with a military coup. By refusing to support the coup, in front of Parliament and wearing his military uniform, he not only saved his country from another few decades of dictatorship, he also made his way into the hearts of his people and gave the – then still shaky – Spanish monarchy a firmer foundation.

As monarchs, Juan Carlos and Sofia faced turbulent times, but they managed together to give the country and the monarchy the stability they needed.

Queen Sofia and King Juan Carlos of Spain, 2005.

Their marriage seemed to be the perfect example of happiness, up until a few years ago, when the facade began to crumble down. Rumours galore were circulating about the King’s extramarital affairs, but out of respect for the man himself, most media refused to publish. When Felipe made his choice to marry Letizia, a divorcee who had worked as a journalist, this too is said to have caused arguments at Zarzuela palace. And let’s not forget a biography about Queen Sofia, published a few years ago, claiming the Queen is the loneliest woman in all of Spain. According to this book, the Queen discovered the first extra-marital affair just a few months after their enthronement, and the couple hasn’t shared a bedroom since then.

Which of course leads us to the past few weeks. King Juan Carlos, once so beloved by his country for almost singlehandedly breaking the coup in 1981, was publicly despised for his trip to Botswana, hunting elephants and, just for good measure, taking his mistress with him. The mistress, German princess Corinna zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, lives near the Zarzuela palace and has been part of his life for many years now. Queen Sofia didn’t return from London, where she was visiting her brother, the exiled King Constantine II of Greece, to support her husband in the hospital.

Whether or not this has had some influence on the decision that there will be no festivities today at the Spanish court, is unknown. The King is still recovering from the injuries he sustained on his Botswana hunting trip, so perhaps that’s the reason. And of course, Spain is going through a huge economic recession, with almost 25% of the population unemployed and austerity measures imposed by the government, so a lavish party might sort of give the wrong idea. More malicious tongues say that Sofia no longer wants to pretend she’s happily married, and is happy to just go to Queen Elizabeth II’s banquet by herself without her cheating husband.

As far as the truth goes, I suppose we’ll never really know. Fact is that this 50th wedding anniversary is overshadowed by the recent scandals, so unforgettable though it will be for Juan Carlos and Sofia, I’m sure they had hoped for different memories of this day.

Picture credits

King Juan Carlos of Spain and Queen Sofía at a visit to the Bush Ranch in Crawford, Texas, November 2004. Picture is in the public domain.

Queen Sofia and King Juan Carlos of Spain, at the Ibero-American summit in Salamanca, Spain, 2005. Used under Creative Commons license.

Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall will be visiting Canada to celebrate Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee from May 20-23, 2012. Their visit coincides with the Victoria Day long weekend, which honours a monarch significant for both the longevity of her reign and her influence over Canadian history. Queen Victoria is the only other monarch to celebrate a Diamond Jubilee, presiding over a parade and thanksgiving service in London, England, in 1897.

In contrast to Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, which is being marked by visits to all the Commonwealth realms by members of the royal family, Queen Victoria’s Jubilee brought the British Empire to London. The Canadian Delegation headed the “Colonial Procession” with the newly knighted Prime Minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier riding in a carriage flanked by the Canadian Cavalry, the Toronto Grenadiers and the Royal Canadian Highlanders (1).

Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne, as Viceregal Consort of Canada

The Canadian people were celebrating a sovereign who had exercised a profound influence over the development of the nation.  When four of Canada’s ten present day provinces, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia achieved confederation as the Dominion of Canada in 1867, they were united by their loyalty to the crown. The first Prime Minister, Sir John A. MacDonald brought together the diverse interests of these regions by reminding them that the Queen wished for them to unite as a self-governing Dominion (2). According to legend, Queen Victoria also selected Ottawa as the capital of this new nation as it is sufficiently inland from the United States, in the event of an invasion. Her son-in-law, the Marquess of Lorne, served as Governor General from 1878-1883, residing there at Rideau Hall with Princess Louise.

The Queen in Toronto, 2010

Ottawa was one of the settings for the most recent royal visits to Canada as Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge celebrated Canada Day there in 2010 and 2011 respectively. The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh also visited Halifax, Winnipeg, and Toronto, while William and Kate included Montreal, Prince Edward Island, Yellowknife, and Calgary in their itinerary.  Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall will be visiting the Gagetown Canadian Forces Base at Gagetown, Oromocto, New Brunswick, Saint John, New Brunswick, Toronto, Ontario, and Regina Saskatchewan, four places that were not included on the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s itinerary. The Diamond Jubilee tour will be the fourth royal visit to Canada in as many years.

This abundance of royal visits is part of the revival of popular interest in Canada’s constitutional monarchy that has occurred in the past few years. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s decision to visit Canada on their first overseas tour as a married couple symbolized the future of the constitutional monarchy in Canada and the wider commonwealth. The newlyweds were acclaimed for their fresh approach to the traditional royal tour, engaging in long, informal conversations with ordinary Canadians and participating in sports such as Dragon Boat racing and street hockey.

Kate in Ottawa for Canada Day 2011

The Duke of Cambridge charmed audiences with his speeches that displayed both admiration for Canada and its institutions and a self-deprecating sense of humour regarding his command of the French language. The Duchess was praised for choosing fashions that ordinary women could imagine themselves wearing and for her warmth toward six year old cancer survivor Diamond Marshall, who presented her with flowers upon the couple’s arrival in Calgary. The large crowds and enthusiasm that greeted the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge at every stop along the tour were reminiscent of the future Edward VIII’s travels in Canada during the 1920s and King George VI’s and Queen Elizabeth’s cross Canadian tour in 1939 rather than the post Second World War royal visits, which received less positive attention.

The political circumstances following the Second World War minimized the popular perception of the royal family’s role in Canada. After the war, Governors General were native-born Canadians rather than members of the British aristocracy who often had direct ties to the royal family, such as the Duke of Argyll. Although the Queen was present for such significant events in twentieth century Canadian history as the opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, and the repatriation of the constitution, these events were largely seen as part of Canada’s coming of age as a nation by the wider public. A growing distance between Canada and its constitutional monarchy appeared to be part of this process.

Resentment of the crown in Quebec during the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s and 1970s as a symbol of the British conquest of French Canada further complicated popular perceptions of the monarchy. In 1964, the Queen faced hostile separatists in Quebec City who turned their backs on the royal procession. When Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau invited the Queen to open the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec Premier René Levesque attempted to dissuade her from accepting this invitation. As recently as 2008, the Queen was not invited to Quebec City’s birthday celebrations out of sensitivity for Quebecois popular opinion. The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s successful visits to Montreal and Quebec City in 2011 did much to improve the popular perception of the royal family in Quebec.

Charles and Camilla at Dundurn Castle, Ontario, in 2009

In recent years, there has been an outpouring of eloquent defenses of the crown by authors who argue that the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge’s popularity on their 2011 tour is part of a wider understanding of the crown’s significance to Canadian history and politics. In The Secret of the Crown: Canada’s Affair with Royalty, journalist John Fraser provides an eloquent defense of both the continuing importance of the crown to Canada and Prince Charles’s suitability to be the future King of Canada. Since Prince Charles will be representing the Queen for the Canadian Diamond Jubilee celebrations, the 2012 publication of this book is well timed to influence the Canadian response to Prince Charles’s visit.

The themes raised in The Secret of the Crown, including the special relationship between the crown and certain groups within Canadian society such as the Armed Forces and the First Nations, the roles of Governors General and Lieutenant Governors, and the significance of royal tours, are expanded upon in the articles included in the Queen’s University School of Policy Studies Volume, The Evolving Canadian Crown, while Nathan Tidridge explains precisely how the constitutional monarchy functions in Canada’s Constitutional Monarchy.

Canada is currently experiencing a revival of popular interest in its constitutional monarchy. The Jubilee tour by Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall will be the fourth royal tour of Canada in the past few years after a long period in which royal visits to Canada received little attention. If the royal couple’s visits to New Brunswick, Ontario and Saskatchewan are well received, the Renaissance of the Canadian crown will continue as a new generation engages with Canada’s constitutional monarchy.

References
1. Diane Peters, “A Celebration of Empire: Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee” (Wilfrid Laurier University Library: 1997), p. 25-29. pi.library.yorku.ca/ojs/index.php/caml/article/download/…/2873
2. Richard Gwyn, John A.: The Man Who Made Us. The Life and Times of John A. MacDonald, Volume One: 1815-1867 (Toronto: Vintage Canada, 2008), p. 370-389.

Photo credits
Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne, as Viceregal Consort of Canada, public domain.
The Queen at Queens Park, Toronto, in 2010 by Wikimedia Commons member Ibagli, public domain.
The Duchess of Cambridge in Ottawa, July 2011, by Flickr member pat00139 and used under Creative Commons licence.
The Prince of Wales and the Duchess of Cornwall at Dundurn Castle, Ontario, in 2009 by Wikimedia Commons member Ibagli, public domain.