Month: January 2012

The Princess Royal’s life in photos: from a young girl to the hardest-working royal

History of the Danish royal family

Denmark’s royal house is Europe’s oldest, stretching back to 899 when the marvellously named Gorm the Old (other idiosyncratically titled rulers have included Erik the Lame, Sweyn Forkbeard and Valdemar the Victorious) took the throne. The current incumbent, Queen Margrethe II, is the latest in an unbroken line of descendants – 50 kings and two queens – to survive from Viking times to the present. The Oldenburg branch of the dynasty came to power in 1448 when King Christoffer III died without issue. Parliament offered the throne to the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, but he demurred, suggesting instead his nephew, Count Christian of Oldenburg, who became Christian I. This branch died out with the death of Frederik VII in 1863, but the Oldenburg title was retained as Frederik’s successor, Christian IX, was a direct descendant of the same family. Through the marriages and alliances of his offspring, Christian IX was to become known as the father-in-law of Europe. His son Vilhelm went on to rule Greece as George I, while many of his other children married …

The Princess Royal’s life in photos: from a young girl to the hardest-working royal

The Spanish royal family | HELLO!

The Bourbon, or Borbón, family has sat on the Spanish throne almost uninterruptedly since the year 1700, when Philip V became king following almost two centuries of Habsburg rule. The last Habsburg monarch, Charles II, died without issue and named Philip, a grandson of French king Louis XIV, his successor.  The Habsburgs had ruled Spain since 1516 when Charles I of the Netherlands – later crowned Holy Roman Emperor Charles V – succeeded his maternal grandfather, Ferdinand II.The current king, Juan Carlos Alfonso Victor María de Borbón y Borbón, acceded to the throne on November 22, 1975, and is credited with being a key player in Spain’s smooth transition into a democracy. Juan Carlos’ grandfather, Alfonso XIII, had been forced to leave the country following the 1931 elections, and when his grandson arrived in Spain in 1947 – fulfilling his father’s wish that he receive a Spanish education in the hope that the Borbón dynasty would return to the throne – it was for the first time. Twenty one years later he was named future …