General Questions and Information about Danish Titles

[iceflower]

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This thread is dedicated to general questions and information about Danish Titles.


For the particular title changes in 2008, 2022 and 2024, please see and use our extra thread instead:

"New Titles for Queen Margrethe's Descendants: 2008 & 2022, 2024"


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[Biri]

It's curious that the heir(ess) of the Danish throne doesn't have any peculiar title, just Crown Prince(ss).

Heir(ess) of the Dutch throne - Prince of Orange
Heir(ess) of the Belgian throne - Duke/Duchess of Brabant
Heir(ess) of the Spanish throne - Prince(ss) of Asturias
Heir(ess) of the British throne - Prince(ss) of Wales.

 

[Stefan]

It's curious that the heir(ess) of the Danish throne doesn't have any peculiar title, just Crown Prince(ss).

Heir(ess) of the Dutch throne - Prince of Orange
Heir(ess) of the Belgian throne - Duke/Duchess of Brabant
Heir(ess) of the Spanish throne - Prince(ss) of Asturias
Heir(ess) of the British throne - Prince(ss) of Wales.

It is the same for the Heir/Heiress in Sweden and Norway. And it used to be the case to in the different german Kingdoms, Duchies etc.

 

[iceflower]

Off topic posts have been removed. Please discuss Danish titles only.

 

[Tatiana Maria]

I wonder whether anyone could explain why some Anglophone royal watchers (not on this forum) persistently insist that the Norwegian and British royals who are male-line descendants of Danish monarchs are Princes of Denmark.

Count Ingolf of Rosenborg is a male-line descendant of Danish monarchs, yet no royal watchers seem to have any hesitation in admitting that Ingolf is not (anymore) a Prince of Denmark.

So why is there a recalcitrance among certain royal watchers to acknowledge that the Norwegian and British royals are likewise not Princes of Denmark?

 

[blooms_rulers]

I wonder whether anyone could explain why some Anglophone royal watchers (not on this forum) persistently insist that the Norwegian and British royals who are male-line descendants of Danish monarchs are Princes of Denmark.

Count Ingolf of Rosenborg is a male-line descendant of Danish monarchs, yet no royal watchers seem to have any hesitation in admitting that Ingolf is not (anymore) a Prince of Denmark.

So why is there a recalcitrance among certain royal watchers to acknowledge that the Norwegian and British royals are likewise not Princes of Denmark?

I recall reading over a decade ago that there were doubts as to whether HRH Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark (1921-2021) legally had the ability to renounce his succession rights and titles. If he didn’t under the constitution in force at that time, then it would follow that his male-line descendants from approved marriages would have the legal rights to the Greek dynastic title which is “HRH Prince/ss of Greece and Denmark” even if they don’t use those titles in their lives. I don’t think the two sides ever came to a legal conclusion as to whether his renunciation was in line with the constitution.

I also don’t know if Prince Carl of Denmark ever renounced for himself and his son Alexander their Danish titles. I admit to not paying much attention to that time in Norwegian royal history but I recall reading that they stopped using the title—not that they renounced the title. Harald would not have married in line with Frederik IX’s marriage rules (Sonja wasn’t noble) so his children wouldn’t have Danish titles, but he and his sisters, if Olav/Alexander still had the legal right to the Danish title, would have had the right to the Danish title because Märtha would have met Christian X’s marriage requirements.

 

[Tatiana Maria]

I recall reading over a decade ago that there were doubts as to whether HRH Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark (1921-2021) legally had the ability to renounce his succession rights and titles. If he didn’t under the constitution in force at that time, then it would follow that his male-line descendants from approved marriages would have the legal rights to the Greek dynastic title which is “HRH Prince/ss of Greece and Denmark” even if they don’t use those titles in their lives. I don’t think the two sides ever came to a legal conclusion as to whether his renunciation was in line with the constitution.

I also don’t know if Prince Carl of Denmark ever renounced for himself and his son Alexander their Danish titles. I admit to not paying much attention to that time in Norwegian royal history but I recall reading that they stopped using the title—not that they renounced the title.

Thank you very much for the response!

Indeed, as you say, those who claim the Norwegian and British royals are Princes(ses) of Denmark often claim (rightly or wrongly) that they never renounced Danish royal titles - but why do they not apply this same argument to persons such as Ingolf?

They seem to fully accept that Ingolf is no longer a Prince of Denmark simply because King Frederik IX decided he was not. The majority of them also seem to acknowledge that Nikolai is no longer a Prince of Denmark simply because Queen Margrethe II decided it, even though Nikolai made it very, very clear that he did not voluntarily renounce his title.

So, why is it that they will acknowledge the monarch's authority to unilaterally remove Danish royal titles in the cases of Nikolai and Ingolf, but not in the cases of Philip and Carl?

Harald would not have married in line with Frederik IX’s marriage rules (Sonja wasn’t noble) so his children wouldn’t have Danish titles, but he and his sisters, if Olav/Alexander still had the legal right to the Danish title, would have had the right to the Danish title because Märtha would have met Christian X’s marriage requirements.

That's a good point as well.

 

[blooms_rulers]

So, why is it that they will acknowledge the monarch's authority to unilaterally remove Danish royal titles in the cases of Nikolai and Ingolf, but not in the cases of Philip and Carl?

I think the issue is these two, Philippos and Carl, weren't cases where the title was stripped from a Danish prince, but rather where the title may or may not have been renounced.

For Philippos, the issue comes down to the question of whether the Greek constitution in force at the time allowed for a Greek prince to renounce his Greek royal titles. If it did not, then his renunciation was invalid and his children would have been entitled to the titles of Prince(ss) of Greece and Denmark. Whether his grandchildren would have been entitled to those titles is unknown--they didn't seek out Konstantinos II's approval for their marriages, but he remained closed to the Windsors. Philippos' Danish title was an appendage of his Greek title, so what Christian X thought of his marriage (or Margrethe II thought of his chidren's marriages) and whether he would have approved his marriage (presumably Christian would have approved because Elizabeth II was equal, but Margrethe would not have because she seemingly insisted on dynasts marrying foreigners (unless that only applied to Danes)) is moot.

For Carl, there is nothing I can recall that shows that Carl ever actually renounced his Danish titles. We know that the Norwegian RF are not considered to be members of the Danish RF and are not in line to the Danish throne, but is there a document where Carl formally renounced his titles for himself, his son and his descendants? I have never heard of there being one.

I think most people accept that the Danish constitution allows the Danish sovereign to remove titles from Danish dynasts for various reasons (usually an unapproved marriage), which means that we accept the removal of the titles from Margrethe's grandchildren and her cousins. I don't know that the Danish constitution allows for the renunciation of royal titles. Perhaps it does not, and a Danish dynast who wishes to renounce a title and succession rights in olden days would simply have married unequally and forced the removal of the title and succession rights.