Morganatic Marriages In European Monarchies

[SirGyamfi1]

If you read my original post, it was about the equal-marriage laws and standards of the Spanish monarchy (before the 1978 constitution). It is a historical fact that Victoria Eugenie, like other royals from reigning families, was counted as equal, and that children of non-royal Spanish nobles (comparable to Fabiola) were not. You may not agree with those rules, but they were what they were.

Because you quoted a post replying to my comment, I assumed you were continuing the discussion of Spanish historical facts, thus my correction. I see now that you are discussing your own personal opinions about what makes a "good match" or what you personally think "makes an equal marriage". You are entitled to your personal beliefs and I have no wish to debate you about them.

Victoria Eugenie was elevated to HRH. She was already an HH from birth.

She was not from a reigning family. The Battenbergs never reigned anywhere. Her mother might have been a Princess of the U.K but her father was no sovereign prince and never reigned.

 

[Tatiana Maria]

She was not from a reigning family.

Victoria Eugenie was a member of the reigning British royal family.

The Battenbergs never reigned anywhere.

Nobody in this conversation has said anything about the Battenbergs reigning or not. Since you bring it up, Alexander of Battenberg was the reigning prince of Bulgaria for several years. But that has nothing to do with Spanish or British royal history.

Her mother might have been a Princess of the U.K but her father was no sovereign prince and never reigned.

Nobody ever claimed that Victoria Eugenie's father was a sovereign prince or reigned.

 

[SirGyamfi1]

Victoria Eugenie was a member of the reigning British royal family.



Nobody in this conversation has said anything about the Battenbergs reigning or not. Since you bring it up, Alexander of Battenberg was the reigning prince of Bulgaria for several years. But that has nothing to do with Spanish or British royal history.



Nobody ever claimed that Victoria Eugenie's father was a sovereign prince or reigned.

When I say she did not come from a reigning family, I’m talking about patrilineal because that is what counts, using her mother’s membership of the British royal house doesn’t change the fact that she was from morganatic ancestry on her father’s line. Morganatic marriages are not just about titles and styles, but also ancestry. Despite Alexander of Battenberg for a short time reigning in Bulgaria, he was still not considered as a good match by the Hohenzollerns because of his morganatic ancestry.

 

[Mbruno]

She was not from a reigning family. The Battenbergs never reigned anywhere. Her mother might have been a Princess of the U.K but her father was no sovereign prince and never reigned.

Her father descended (morganatically) in paternal line from a sovereign family. Her grandfather was Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine, who was the third son of a sovereign, Louis II, Grand Duke of Hesse. And Queen Victoria granted Prince Henry the style of Royal Highness in 1885 so that he could hold an equal rank to his wife, Princess Beatrice.

 

[Tatiana Maria]

When I say she did not come from a reigning family, I’m talking about patrilineal because that is what counts, using her mother’s membership of the British royal house doesn’t change the fact that she was from morganatic ancestry on her father’s line. Morganatic marriages are not just about titles and styles, but also ancestry. Despite Alexander of Battenberg for a short time reigning in Bulgaria, he was still not considered as a good match by the Hohenzollerns because of his morganatic ancestry.

I am perfectly aware that patrilineal ancestry is what counts in your eyes. However, to repeat myself, I was and still am not discussing your opinion, but the history of the Spanish and British royal families. You may dislike it as much as you wish, but it is a historical fact that the British monarchs counted Victoria Eugenie as a member of the British royal family, and it is a historical fact that the Spanish monarch and government counted her as an equal-rank spouse.

"Morganatic ancestry" is not a generally known term. "Morganatic" is normally a descriptor applied to marriages (not ancestors) of royalty or nobility in which neither spouse takes on the rank of the other.

 

[SirGyamfi1]

I am perfectly aware that patrilineal ancestry is what counts in your eyes. However, to repeat myself, I was and still am not discussing your opinion, but the history of the Spanish and British royal families. You may dislike it as much as you wish, but it is a historical fact that the British monarchs counted Victoria Eugenie as a member of the British royal family, and it is a historical fact that the Spanish monarch and government counted her as an equal-rank spouse.

"Morganatic ancestry" is not a generally known term. "Morganatic" is normally a descriptor applied to marriages (not ancestors) of royalty or nobility in which neither spouse takes on the rank of the other.

What do you mean it counts my eyes? It counted in the eyes of many sovereigns prior to WW I. Marriages are considered morganatic not only because of status but ancestry as well. A persons paternal and maternal ancestors are examined not just maternal. There was a reason why apart from diplomatic ones with Russia that the Prussian court did not permit Viktoria of Prussia to marry Alexander of Battenberg.

 

[Tatiana Maria]

What do you mean it counts my eyes? It counted in the eyes of many sovereigns prior to WW I.

There may indeed have been some sovereigns who would have agreed with you, and no one said there were not.

However, the only sovereigns whom I discussed (and naturally believed you were discussing in your replies to me) in relation to Fabiola and later Victoria Eugenie were the sovereigns of Spain and Britain.

 

[SirGyamfi1]

Well another union considered morganatic was the marriage of Alexander of Castell-Rudenhausen and Baroness Otillie von Faber

 

[Tatiana Maria]

Britain has never recognised the concept of 'unequal' marriages or 'morganatic' marriages. The Europeans were always more 'snobbish' about that while the British always took the view that a wife was automatically raised to the status of the husband on marriage.

I will assume that "the Europeans" means "the non-British Europeans", as British culture is categorically European.

It is not true that Britain has never recognized the concept of morganatic marriages. The British legal view is that a wife is automatically raised to the status of the husband on marriage if the husband's status was higher than that of wife before the marriage. Thus, no morganatic marriage is possible under those circumstances (except when you are Wallis Simpson). However, when the status of the wife is higher than that of the husband, she is not lowered to his status on marriage and he is not raised to hers. (If a baroness marries a male commoner, she is not automatically lowered to commoner and he is not automatically raised to baron.) Such a marriage is factually "morganatic", even though most Britons today would not use such an old-fashioned description.

Neither was Britain the only European country where the law dictated that a lower-status wife was automatically raised to the status of a her husband on marriage. That was also - formerly - the law in Sweden. Princes of the Swedish Royal House sometimes married unequally (a recognized concept in Sweden), but never morganatically. Their unequal wives were raised to whatever rank their husbands were permitted to keep.

It is true that British law has never recognized the concept of unequal marriages, but British society certainly has. It was no accident that the future King George III banned both of his siblings who married non-royals from court, or that the Royal Marriages Act 1772 was enacted to safeguard against similar future marriages.

Any "marriage" which breached the requirement to obtain permission in the terms of the Royal Marriages Act 1772 was not legally recognized in the United Kingdom. This meant that women such as Sarah Louise Fairbrother not only were not raised to the status of their royal "husbands", but were denied even the ordinary legal perks of marriage, since they were not married in the eyes of the law.

Personally, I would say that this British approach of forcing women whose status was too lowly to become royal princesses to remain as illicit lovers was more "snobbish" than allowing them to become morganatic wives would have been.

 

[ronald biver]

Morganatic Marriages

Excuse, but I have a question.

How you concern to morganatic marriages?

I wish to tell to you, that I do not like such marriages.

Why princes and princesses contact marriage with persons of not regal advantage?


1. Turn of absolutely inadmissible and scandalous mismarriages of the beginning of XXI century in royal families of Norway, Denmark, Spain shake bases of their authority. Aspiring as much as possible to democratize the monarchy, they reduce them to a level of usual theatrical properties.

2. The latest news from Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark do not leave doubts that princes have decided to destroy own monarchy. Now in their Kingdoms any child without dependence from its floor can borrow a throne!

3. It is naturally considered as a positive step since keeps within idea of political correctness and emancipation of women. The birth of the daughter at prince of Asturia at once has pushed prime minister Sapatero to declare the beginning of change of the present dynastic legislation of Spain on which the daughter of the successor of the Throne can inherit only after the brother. In opinion of social democrat Sapatero " it breaks the rights of women in royal family ", and that introduction of the Swedish model abolishes the rights of a dynasty since the name and a title pass on a man's line, nobody excites it. And that the future infanta of Spain will marry any football player, the bodyguard or the comedian, it and so it is clear.

4. For example, in the Romanian royal house the same history. After death of Мichael I by the successor its senior daughter who has entered a left-handed marriage with the simple guy by name Rada Duba. Thus, instead of dynasty of Hohenzollern-Sigmarinens in the Romanian royal house to affirm the dynasty of Duba! And it provided that dynasty of Hohenzollern-Sigmarinens safely is well!

5. One question: how to be what daughters of successors of the Scandinavian thrones obviously as well as their fathers will create families on love, instead of with feeling of a duty? How to be what their posterity begins to belong to a new dynasty when it is still alive old - true and lawful?

6. Where there are European monarchy, mixing up with simple people?

Morganatic marriages today in the Netherlands is no problems, already solved by the Dutch Gvernments and the royal house of Orange Nassau years ago,.