But Prince Felix's descendants (other than the GDs and HGDs properly) claim to be HRHs because of their Bourbon-Parma family origin, don't they ? Before that, cadet children of a GD were only "His Grand Ducal Highness", I suppose.
Yes, you are correct. The children of Grand Duke Guillaume IV were created "Her Grand Ducal Highness" via Grand-Ducal decrees (
link to an example).
On your point, most people who have read my posts on TRF know my position on this issue. I believe in patrilineal naming of families and stand by it, regardless of whether certain RFs decide to call themselves Orange-Nassau, Windsor, or Nassau. It is just my personal PoV, which doesn't mean I deny their legal family name in Luxembourg is Nassau. Again, you are perfectly right.
Many royal watchers and for that matter many royals don't believe women should have equal rights as men to pass on their names to their children, and I am very much aware of that. But there is a difference between the opinions of royal watchers and the actual decisions royals may make. For instance, the decision of Grand Duke Henri in 2012 to deny any woman who happens to be a descendant of, or married to a descendant of, Grand Duchess Charlotte (with the exceptions of a Grand Duchess or a Hereditary Grand Duchess in her own right) the right to give her name to her own children sent the wrong message by my assessment, but it was his decision to make as the head of the house, and not mine. Accordingly, I recognize that Princess Alexandra's children will not be Nassaus, even though I would prefer them to be.
In any case, it is still strange to me that the Belgian Royal Court considers GD Jean's descendants (or the Moncadas) members of the same family as the Belgian royals when they even use different family names. But, then again, I am quite radical on that subject as I also think Princess Astrid's children technically belong to another family (Habsburg-Lothringen) despite being princes of Belgium themselves. In the past (in the age of agnatic succession), that was the rule which royal houses such as Sweden's followed and family naming was consistent. In fact, even under male-preference cognatic sucession, the Brits used to observe patrilineal naming of dynasties. Now it is a mess.
It is odd that the Belgian Royal Court considers the main line of a foreign royal family to be part of the Belgian Royal Family, but on the other hand, most families in my experience do not define their membership using the strict criterion of family name. As a practical issue, a definition of that kind would imply that Spanish women, who virtually never adopt their husbands' names, do not belong to their husbands' families, and that is surely not the general view of most Spaniards.
In the Dutch situation the surname and titles are no longer hereditary. When Princess Juliana (a Von Mecklenburg), Princess Beatrix (a Zur Lippe-Biesterfeld) and when Prince Willem-Alexander (a Von Amsberg) were born, it was established by Royal Decree that their title and surname is Prince (Princess) of Orange-Nassau. That it is not hereditary was proven with Princess Catharina-Amalia, born from a father with the title and surname Prince of Orange-Nassau: also for her that title and surname were officially established by Royal Decree.
To add to your comment, the Royal Decrees also established "van Mecklenburg/van Lippe-Biesterfeld/van Amsberg" as parts of Juliana, Beatrix, and Willem-Alexander's and their siblings' respective surnames, preceded by the "van Oranje-Nassau". Take for example the text of the Royal Decree in relation to Juliana's children, posted here:
http://www.theroyalforums.com/forum...g-schwerin-1876-1934-a-12861.html#post2040512
Windsor and Bernadotte follow a similar policy. We will see the same with Van België / De Belgique / Von Belgien.
Bernadotte has never been established by decree, it is simply hereditary.
King Philippe of Belgium has followed a different interpretation of the law than his father, and "Van België / De Belgique / Von Belgien" is no longer considered their official family name, even though the Belgian royal family have persisted in its unofficial usage as a surname.
More information in this post:
http://www.theroyalforums.com/forums/f29/titles-of-the-belgian-royal-family-38975-9.html#post1920463
Perhaps we could move the discussion of naming in the Benelux monarchies to the respective titles threads.
I presume, now it's been confirmed there are royal representatives from former monarchies Portugal and France, we'll be getting a lot of non-reigning RFs at the funeral as well as, I presume, current international families. It'll be interesting who will represent Britain.
