In regards to titles, the British royal family seems unusual in one respect.
In many European ruling houses, including the British, there are some male-line descendants (or their wives) who are not entitled to full royal titles.
In most such monarchies, one or more male-line descendants or their wives have ignored the law, the monarch, and the government, and called themselves by a title they did not possess and had no right to use.
(For example: "Prince" Alvaro of Bourbon, who in reality is a mere Excellency, "Princess" Marianne Bernadotte, who in reality was a mere Countess of Wisborg, or Princess Julie "of Luxembourg", who in reality is only Princess Julie of Nassau.)
But it seems the non-royal descendants of the British royal family have been remarkably obedient in respect of titles. As far as I know, no descendants of the British royal family have ever used a title they were not officially entitled to use.
Does anyone have an idea as to why British royal descendants are unusually compliant when it comes to titles?
I have the opposite question in regard to descendants of the royal family of Spain.
In many European ruling houses, including the Spanish, some male-line descendants (or their wives) are not entitled to full royal titles.
In other European ruling families, it happens
occasionally that a male-line descendant or his wife ignores the law, the monarch, and the government, and calls themself by a title they do not possess and have no right to use.
But that is the exception and not the rule: Most descendants follow their countries' laws and their monarchs' wishes on titles.
In Spain, however, dozens, perhaps hundreds, of non-royal descendants of the royal family's morganatic marriages and extramarital liaisons have falsely used Prince or Princess titles over the past couple of centuries, in defiance of the law and the monarchs.
Unlike in other monarchies, this behavior has not even been restricted to male-line descendants and their wives (though they are indeed the main culprits). Some female-line descendants have also promoted themselves to Princess or Prince.
Does anyone have an idea as to why Spanish royal descendants are unusually
noncompliant with monarchs' decisions or laws, when it comes to titles?
Note:
One popular explanation is that many Spanish morganatic and illegitimate descendants are male-line descendants of foreign ruling houses (France, Two Sicilies, etc.) and so they believe (rightly or wrongly) they have a claim to be Princes or Princesses through those foreign former monarchies.
However, that itself does not explain the discrepancy, because the same is true in most of the other monarchies:
- The Counts of Rosenborg are male-line descendants of Dukes and Princes of Schleswig and Holstein.
- The Counts Bernadotte of Wisborg are male-line descendants of a Prince of Pontecorvo.
- The Lords and Messrs. Windsor or Mountbatten-Windsor are male-line descendants of Dukes and Princes of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Windsor) or of Kings and Princes of Greece, Kings and Princes of Denmark, and Dukes and Princes of Schleswig and Holstein (Mountbatten-Windsor).
But few to none of them used their male-line descent from these foreign princes to justify calling themselves Prince (the Counts Bernadotte who called themselves Princes used other justifications).
