Marriage Between Royalty And Commoners

[NotHRH]

Originally Posted by Pranter

There's never been any difference between royal houses and the peasants other than power in it's various forms. There's no special bloodline or 'aura' to someone who is designated 'royal'.



LaRae

Exactly - the aura only CAME from their finances enabling them to live only as peasants could admire. Finally, people began to realize their self-worth, began loathing royals/nobles/aristocrats, and took action [think the French Revolution]. I enjoy reading about royals, but realize there is no such thing as "royal" or "blue" blood, nor do I hold any high esteem for any of them. Nothing makes any royal deserving of a curtsy from me; they are after all only people. 👑

[Pranter]

I don't mind the bow/curtsey ...now it's just a sign of respect or acknowledgement of a position. It's just a tradition. I don't think any of the modern royal houses require it but many people still do it.



LaRae

[NotHRH]

Originally Posted by Pranter

I don't mind the bow/curtsey ...now it's just a sign of respect or acknowledgement of a position. It's just a tradition. I don't think any of the modern royal houses require it but many people still do it.



LaRae

I would only curtsy to the Pope, any Eastern Orthodox priest/bishop/archbishop of high-ranking, or any other religious representative, such as Rabbi, that is also considered high-ranking in their religious sect.💒⛪

[GömdNatt]

Originally Posted by NotHRH

I would only curtsy to the Pope, any Eastern Orthodox priest/bishop/archbishop of high-ranking, or any other religious representative, such as Rabbi, that is also considered high-ranking in their religious sect.��⛪

interesting to me that you seem to detest the idea of curtsying/bowing to a royal, but have no problem with it for a high ranking religious person. but that's not a conversation for here.

For me, it would depend on who I'm meeting and what sort of environment we're in. Many of the royals I wouldn't object to it, but some of them I don't respect enough to do it.

[Curryong]

I would certainly curtsey to Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip if I was presented to them at a function of some sort. She's my sovereign and it's a mark of my respect for her position and that of her consort. I wouldn't expect citizens of republics to do it though, unless they really wanted to!

[Roslyn]

I would give them a head bow, like a man does. No way in the world am I going to curtsy to anyone. I would do the same thing to Charles, Camilla, and Anne. That's probably it for that family. I'd also do the same to any other Head of State I held in high esteem, not just because they are a Head of State. And other people I hold in high esteem, too. For me it's about esteem, and I consider people have to earn that; they don't deserve it merely because of accident of birth.

[lucymae88]

People make so big a deal out of royals marrying commoners. But most of the commoners are wealth and well to do families that hang in the same circles has royals. My question is has a royal every married someone not wealthy or from a well to do family. Someone with a normal income and life??

[Curryong]

I don't think Queen Letizia, who is married to King Felipe of Spain, came from a particularly wealthy family. Her father was a journalist and her mother a nurse. One of her grandfathers drove cabs for a living.

Although you couldn't call Sophie Rys Jones's family working class they didn't have pots of money. I think her father sold car tyres and car products at one time, though he was from a middleclass background. Sophie wasn't in aristocratic social circles before she met Prince Edward and later became the Countess of Wessex. I believe she was working as a PR assistant when they met at a sports match.

Crown Princess Mary's father was an academic but the family weren't really wealthy. She met Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark at the Slip Inn bar in Sydney during the Sydney Olympics. She wasn't a Sydney socialite. I think she worked in the real estate business.

[Pranter]

Originally Posted by NotHRH

I would only curtsy to the Pope, any Eastern Orthodox priest/bishop/archbishop of high-ranking, or any other religious representative, such as Rabbi, that is also considered high-ranking in their religious sect.💒⛪

I would genuflect to the pope, for me he is the representative of Christ on earth. However no I would not bow/curtsey etc to the heads of other religious faiths.


LaRae

[XeniaCasaraghi]

Why do so many in this thread act like Charles and Diana are the reason royals marry commoners. Carl Gustaf married a commoner before Diana was even heard of as did Ranier. Why do some act like the British experience defines everyone else in the world?
They marry commoners because the world has expanded and they can meet and have a connection with almost everyone. Also royals are no longer the richest best most successful people in the world, all they have is lineage which most people don't give a crap about these days.

[Osipi]

Originally Posted by XeniaCasaraghi

Why do so many in this thread act like Charles and Diana are the reason royals marry commoners. Carl Gustaf married a commoner before Diana was even heard of as did Ranier. Why do some act like the British experience defines everyone else in the world?
They marry commoners because the world has expanded and they can meet and have a connection with almost everyone. Also royals are no longer the richest best most successful people in the world, all they have is lineage which most people don't give a crap about these days.

Another aspect is that times have changed so much that it is no longer necessary to form alliances between royal houses through arranged marriages that insured a power base and ownership of land. Sometimes children were "betrothed" to each other while they were still in the cradle.

[Countessmeout]

Originally Posted by XeniaCasaraghi

Why do so many in this thread act like Charles and Diana are the reason royals marry commoners. Carl Gustaf married a commoner before Diana was even heard of as did Ranier. Why do some act like the British experience defines everyone else in the world?
They marry commoners because the world has expanded and they can meet and have a connection with almost everyone. Also royals are no longer the richest best most successful people in the world, all they have is lineage which most people don't give a crap about these days.

As did Harald when he married Sonja in 1968.

Some royals are extremely rich, perhaps not the 'richest' but if you look back in the centuries they often weren't. Kings used to take loans from their nobles for military actions. The top 9 richest royals are all worth billions. Most are Asian/middle eastern but Hans Adam and Prince Albert of Monaco both break the billionaire mark. The Sultan of Brunei spent many years as the richest man in the world though that has dropped. The king of Thailand and some Saudi princes have topped him in the charts.

[Ish]

If we're counting Diana as a "commoner" then George VI has them all beat for marrying Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923.

[Countessmeout]

Originally Posted by Ish

If we're counting Diana as a "commoner" then George VI has them all beat for marrying Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon in 1923.

True enough. For the modern royals, the first actual commoner marriage would be Princess Margaret to Anthony, who was made an earl after marriage. Followed by Anne and Mark Philipps. Prince Andrew would be the first son of a modern monarch. And certainly they weren't paving the way for foreign royals who had done it previously before.

Diana was the 'cinderella' image I think because she wasn't the traditional aristocratic socialite. Everyone tends to picture the pre-school teacher who cleaned flats, forgetting she grew up at Sandringham playing with Andrew and Edward, and her father was a viscount/earl.

[Ish]

Originally Posted by Countessmeout

True enough. For the modern royals, the first actual commoner marriage would be Princess Margaret to Anthony, who was made an earl after marriage. Followed by Anne and Mark Philipps. Prince Andrew would be the first son of a modern monarch. And certainly they weren't paving the way for foreign royals who had done it previously before.

Diana was the 'cinderella' image I think because she wasn't the traditional aristocratic socialite. Everyone tends to picture the pre-school teacher who cleaned flats, forgetting she grew up at Sandringham playing with Andrew and Edward, and her father was a viscount/earl.

Actually, if you think about it, Margaret isn't the first modern marriage between a royal and a commoner, not even in Britain. In Britain, she's beaten by her infamous uncle David, the former Edward VIII, who married Wallis Simpson in 1937.

There are predecessors to that marriage as well. Prince Sigvard of Sweden married Erica Patzek in 1934. Alfonso, Prince of Asturias, married Edelmira de Sampedro-Ocejo y Robato in 1933. And of course Carol II of Romania tops them all with his 1918 marriage of Zizi Lambrino.

[Countessmeout]

Sorry I guess I should have specified I was referring to the modern BRF and not monarchies in general.

The difference between Margaret and her Uncle, David had to give up his place in the royal family to marry his commoner (though it was more the fact she was a divorcee). Margaret is the first in the modern BRF who married a commoner and maintained her place in the family and succession. She even gained a title.

Same goes for Sweden. CG certainly is not the first to marry a commoner, but the others before him lost their titles and place in the family to do so. It is why Bertil and Lilian waited so long to marry. Women didn't have a place in succession so it didn't matter to CG's sisters when they married.

Prince Alfonso had to renounce his rights to the throne to marry a commoner as well.

CG, Harald, Rainier and others certainly were not the first to marry commoners, but they were the ones who made it acceptable for an heir to marry a commoner and maintain their place in succession.

[Pranter]

Anne Boleyn was not royal either...that's going way back.


LaRae

[NotHRH]

Originally Posted by Pranter

Anne Boleyn was not royal either...that's going way back.


LaRae

Yeah, but she had "connections" - 🏰👸👈👎👑👏

[Pranter]

If her mother hadn't married 'beneath her station' to a man from the trades who knows the course of history ....I think that probably happened more than people realize even back then.


LaRae

[Countessmeout]

Anne may not have been royalty but she was highly connected, and aristocratic maternally. Her father may have only been made an Earl after Anne hooked up with the king, but his father was a knight of the bath by Richard III and high sheriff, and his grandfather was Lord mayor of London. His mother was Lady Margaret Butler, the daughter of the Earl of Ormond. She was co-heiress to her father's fortune, outside of Ireland where a male cousin inherited, and the land and money Mary Boleyn and her husband William inherited after the death of her parents, came from her. Of course Anne's mother was the daughter of the Duke of Norfolk.

Henry VIII may not have married princesses as was expected, with the exception of Katherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves, but his wives were all well-connected and most at least partially aristocratic (maternal side). Katherine Howard was of course Anne's cousin, and artistocratic on her dad's side. Edmund Howard was very poor (Elizabeth Boleyn's brother) and left her in the care of his stepmother, the dowager duchess of Norfolk. Jane Seymour is actually related to them as well. Her father was gentry, knighted for service to Henry VII an VIII but her mother was first cousins with Elizabeth Boleyn and Edmund Howard. Margery, Elizabeth and Edmund were all the grandchildren of Elizabeth Chenney. Elizabeth was married twice. Her only child from her first husband was a daughter who married the Duke of Norfolk and was mother to Elizabeth and Edmund. Wit her second husband she had 7 kids. It was her daughter Anne from this marriage who was mother to Jane's mother Margery.

Katherine Parr was of the wealthy landed gentry. Her father was a knight and lord of the manor. Her mother Maude was an heiress, and was connected with Catherine of Aragon. After the death of her second husband Baron Latimer, Lady Latimer (Katherine) used her mother's connections to gain a place in the household of Lady Mary, where she caught the king's eye.