I've always been fascinated with the history and lifestyle of the European Royals that I made a strenuous research about their exalted circle. For 12 years now my research journey brought me closer to the intricacies of their amusing lives. The subject of the royals is one of the most complicated topics I'd ever encountered probably because of its subtleties and dimensions: the strict royal protocol, the hierarchy of their social status and the complication of its functions in the royal court. Then there's a constant debate of how accurate your article is.
My first attempt to chronicle the life of the royals is physically draining, a tedious task that give me constant back pains and blurring vision but somehow provided me a perfect view on how to joggle into the royal world. It is an exciting experience to finally uncover the secrets of their existence; that their lives perfect as it may seems has many loopholes as ordinary folks too. The different controversies that haunted their exceptional circles, the troubled water they are traversing and the high prize they paid for being “untouchables”. Their glamorous and extravagant lifestyle maybe envied and the ancient rituals of prancing horses and gun carriages are simply mesmerizing but their lives, run by protocol and-sometimes- dictated by traditions, are excruciatingly painful and miserable.
Prior to the 20th century, royals are treated as demigods by their subjects that commoners are not allowed to mix let alone join their illustrious court. During that period in Britain, homosexuals and divorced persons are not allowed in the presence of the monarch, prompting one reporter to comment, “it is possible for a homosexual and a divorce person to enter the Kingdom of God but not in the palaces of Great Britain”. Divorce was such a disgrace state at that time that direct family of the ruling sovereign was prohibited to mix with divorce people. Anybody who attempted this suffered a sad fate. Edward VIII of England was the first modern King who voluntarily gave up his throne to marry his divorce lover whom his family despised and dismissively branded as “unholy”. No divorce person mounted the British throne since King George I, the first of the Hanoverian monarchs in the 18th century assumed the throne and no divorce sovereign ruled the Kingdom since King Henry VIII divorces his 4th wife Princess Anne of Cleves in the 16th century. Two grandsons of King Christian X of Denmark lost their princely titles and inheritance for marrying commoners and King Gustav V's grandsons were stripped of the Prince title for not choosing wives from the existing royal houses of Europe.
Today, as the modern age slowly overtaking the medieval concept of royalty, European monarchies welcomed the new changes as part of their existence. As personal choice is stronger than royal protocol and decorum, some of the ruling sovereigns give way to the call of times. The first to submit these sweeping changes was King Olaf V of Norway, a first cousin to King George VI of Britain, when he allowed his only son and successor Prince Harald to marry the commoner Sonja in 1971, though Harald's royal relatives wanted him to marry the Princess Irene of Greece, daughter of King Paul I of Greece and sister of Queen Sofia of Spain, the future Norwegian monarch chooses his commoner girlfriend, disappointing his relatives' wishes. Princess Irene remained single up to these days, savoring the hopes of her failed royal match with King Harald V, she is now leaving in Spain.
King Carl XVI Gustav of Sweden followed the same trend when he married Silvia in 1978. Presently, among the future crown heads of Europe only Prince Philip of Belgium has an aristocrat wife (although not royal by birth), Mathilde, who is a daughter of a Belgian Baron. Among the current ruler of Europe, only King Juan Carlos of Spain and Queen Elizabeth II of Britain has royal spouses. Juan Carlos's wife is Sofia, the former Princess of Greece and eldest child of King Paul I of Greece, Juan Carlos and Sofia are third cousin through their common ancestor Queen Victoria of Britain. Queen Elizabeth II's husband is the former Prince Philip of Greece and King Paul I's first cousin, he renounced his Greek royal title to be more acceptable to the British public for his marriage to the heiress presumptive, the then Princess Elizabeth, he was created the Duke of Edinburgh by his future father in law King George VI, who was his second cousin through King Christian IX of Denmark (Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip are 3rd cousin through Queen Victoria).
Perhaps the future sovereign who has an unthinkable choice for a Queen Consort is Prince Haakon of Norway, the Prince, a great-great grandson of King Edward VII of Britain and who would destined to become King Haakon VIII of Norway married the unconventional Mette Meritte, a single mother whose lover was a drug convict and who partied aimlessly all her life and did not even go to college. Despite open protests from his future subjects, Prince Haakon secured permission for marriage from his father King Harald V. In Britain, the last aristocrat to be married in the royal family was Diana, Princess of Wales, she was the daughter of the 8th Earl of Althorp, the Lord Spencer, a direct descendant of King Charles II. It is best to note also that Diana was the first English woman to marry an heir to the British throne in 300 years since Lady Anne Hyde marry the future King James II. Diana was the first non-princess also to become The Princess of Wales. The last royal Princess of that title was Princess Alexandra of Denmark, wife of King Edward VII.
Although the royal lifestyle exudes enchantment and fascination, it is still a distancing phenomenon whether they can survive in the future centuries to come. The modern world ceases to believe in fairytales anymore which some individuals referred them as “outdated” and “gone with the ages”, however it is still my pleasure to study their fantastic circle and believes they can still survive so as long as Mt. Everest is standing high.
