Thursday, February 15, 2018

A prince of a guy

This NPR story came across my Twitter feed, about the death of Prince Henrik of Denmark. Henrik, husband-consort of Queen Margrethe, was 83 and had apparently been in poor health. He and Margrethe were married for more than 50 years, so I’m guessing she (and their family) are having a rough Valentine’s Day, even if the end was expected.

But here’s what I find interesting: a good chunk of this story (admittedly from a US media outlet) gives the impression that—whatever his other stellar qualities—Henrik apparently had a 50-year case of the sulks over his title and status. He wanted to be styled King Consort, instead of Prince Consort, which would have given him a place in the succession to the throne. (Although I do not know what that place would have been—ahead/behind of Margrethe’s siblings, their children, or her cousins and her aunts. And, tbh, I don’t care enough to look it up. I’m an American.)

I'm wracking my brain trying to hawk up an instance more recent than Maria Theresia of Austria where the consort of an anointed queen (or in MT’s case, empress) got the title of King, but I’m coming up dry. (And Franz I came into the marriage as Holy Roman Emperor, so it was more an instance of him keeping it. Franz also pretty much kept shtum and let Maria Theresia run the family business, which was smart of him.)

In soon-to-be-not-part-of-Europe Britain, Victoria and Albert got miffed when Parliament wouldn’t grant him the title King Consort, but he, at least, got over it. Anne’s consort was a Danish Prince, George; he was not made King. Not sure that the prospect of king-hood ever cropped up in the case of Elizabeth II’s Prince Philip. If it did, it long since disappeared.

(Okay, up the pike a bit, when Lord Charles Darnley married Mary, Queen of Scots, he did get the title King Consort. But it was short-lived, and didn’t do him much good. Also, for about 27 minutes, Philip II of Spain was married to Mary I of England, and during that period, he did have the title of King of England, and he co-reigned with her as Catholic monarchs. However, at her death, he had no succession rights, and Elizabeth I took over and returned the country to Protestantism.)

In Spain we had los Reyes Católicos—Ferdinand and Isabella. But they were independently co-equal monarchs, bringing into the marriage the provinces of Aragón (him) and Castilla (her). It was equal parts marriage and merger. It’s always good for a woman to have sovereign possession of valuable property; it concentrates the male brain somewhat. (Thinking Éléanore, Duchess of Aquitaine, who inherited a vast swath of what we now think of as France. She first took it to Louis VII of France, but when they divorced, it went with her to Henry II of England. She was queen-consort to both kings, and wielded considerable power as Queen dowager after Henry’s death, while Richard I was off at the Crusades. Éléanore was a dame.)

The husbands of the most recent reigning queens of the Netherlands, Wilhelmina, Juliana and Beatrix, all sucked up the titles of Prince Consort (although, tbf, I think most of them came into the family business as princes, so it was more or less of a muchness).

Juliana’s husband, Prince Bernhard, actually had A Past: a German prince, he met Juliana (while she was still a princess) at the Berlin Olympics in 1936. He’d been a (Nazi) Party member, and served in the Reiter-SS (an SS cavalry brigade). However, when push came to shove and then turned to invasion, Bernhard earned respect and admiration amongst the Dutch by organizing armed defenses against the Germans while still in the Netherlands, and then by serving Queen Wilhelmina’s government-in-exile in London. When he accepted the surrender of German forces in 1945, he spoke only Dutch to them. That’s class.

And I don’t know about Sweden or Norway, but I’m guessing that if there are reigning queens, their husbands don’t get to use the K-word.

So it’s kind of interesting that Henrik just couldn’t get over it. My Danish friend, the Viking Maiden, says, “The Danes had a hard time getting used to him, but because our Princess/Queen loved him they gave him the benefit of doubt. The queen is very much loved.” He was a Frenchman by birth, so I dunno if that has anything to do with it. The French are big on airs and graces.

Okay, but here’s the thing. Why does this issue of title and succession for the spouse only ever arise when the consort has the XY chromosome configuration? Not that I’m a student of monarchies (aside from how they fit into history in general), but there has never ever been a question of a woman marrying a reigning monarch (or the crown prince) having any succession rights. She almost always gets the title of queen, but everyone knows that she’s there to do two things: look nice at court functions and produce heirs. Male heirs.

Men marrying into the family business, on the other hand, get ideas above their station, and seem to assume that of course they’ll be given equal status with their wives, even though they may have only a glancing acquaintance with the business and are frequently brought in from other countries. They don’t seem to grasp that their role, in this admittedly anachronistic line of work, is exactly the same as the queen-consort’s: to look good standing next to the queen, and produce heirs. Male or female heirs.

(Franz I gave Maria Theresia 16 children, which was really a stellar effort, I’d say. Way above the customary heir and a spare. They were none of them 18th Century equivalents of rocket scientists, but that’s not part of the job description. Royal heirs just have to have a pulse and not drool a whole awful lot. Extra points if they’re good looking, but as long as they look enough like their parents to not draw questions, they’ve fulfilled their obligations.)

That’s it, folks; that’s the whole purpose of the consort: complement the monarch during photo ops, don’t eat with your mouth open (in fact—in general be very careful when you open your mouth; a duty Prince Philip ought to have reread every once in a while) and ensure the line of succession.

Henrik might have been a happier guy if he’d taken this on board. He did fulfill the responsibilities of Prince Consort of Denmark—he’s survived by two adult sons, in addition to the Queen, and photos show him to have been quite the good looker. Also, he made wine at his French estates. Seems like a pretty good life to me.




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