Royalty Digest Quarterly no. 3, 2011

Royalty Digest Quarterly no. 3, 2011 arrived in my mailbox last week. As usual I will give a short presentation of its contents.

In his Editor's Corner Ted Rosvall has not very surprisingly decided to comment on the pregnancy of HRH Crown Princess Victoria Sweden. Rosvall's main focus this time is his disagreement with the claim that Victoria marks the end of the Bernadotte dynasty on the Swedish throne, as the future child, which is expected in March 2012, will be a Westling. Rosvall hammers away: "Rubbish, I say! Uneducated, stubborn, macho rubbish!"

Of course I agree with Rosvall. I am not going to ignore the fact that traditionally - and genealogically speaking - dynastic and family names are inherited through the agnatic line. But the times have changed, and the name laws in Scandinavia, to take one example, open up for many possibilities concerning the choice of a child's surname. And of course there are many dynastic names which have carried on through the cognatic line, such as Oranje-Nassau, Romanov and Grimaldi. Finally, the fact remains that Prince Daniel has formally taken the surname Bernadotte (see my articles (1) and (2) of June 2010), so the future heir will definately be a Bernadotte, regardless of what the traditionalists say!

Following the Editor's Corner, Robert Prentice has the honour of being credited the first article of this issue, titled Princess Olga of Greece and Yugoslavia. Princess Olga was the daughter of Prince Nicholas of Greece and his wife Princess Helena, née Grand Princess of Russia. Prentice's sources include conversations and correspondence with numerous family members.

No issue of Royalty Digest Quarterly without the traditional family album provided by the periodical's historical consultant, Charlotte Zeepvat. This time we get the 2nd part of her Saxe-Coburg series. In RDQ no. 2, 2011 we were introduced to the Saalfeld and Kohary branch. This time the focus is on Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and we get a short introduction besides the main part - a 21 pages' long family album, or 23 pages if we include the photos above the introduction. All in all 75 wonderful photos of royals and houses! And as usual 2 pages with a genealogical outline of the family.

Otto von Habsburg died earlier this year, 98 years old, and his obituary The Life of an Uncrowned Emperor is written by Stefan Haderer. Randi Buchwaldt, on the other hand, has contributed with the article Royal Twins, which, as the title suggests, deals with a long list of royal twins throughout the years - from Alexander Helios and Cleopatra Selene, children of Cleopatra VII of Egypt and the Roman triumvir Mark Antony, to the Danish royal twins Vincent and Josephine.

Charlotte Zeepvat then continues with the second part of her wonderful article Diddo, Arnold ... and the Urge (Governess Edith Greer, Archduchess Ileana and Archduke Anton of Austria), and the article is close to make claim on the rest of the issue - 23 pages! But as usual we get to read The World Wide Web of Royalty with news of the royal and princely families (page 64) as well as the ads section, which includes information about Diana Mandache's forthcoming publication (30 September 2011), which I also mentioned last time around.

The front cover shows the family of Duke Karl Eduard of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Karl Eduard, Victoria Adelheid, Caroline Mathilde, Sibylla, Hubertus and Friedrich Josias).

Royalty Digest Quarterly is published by Roosvall Royal Books, which can be contacted by e-mail royalbooks[at]telia.com.

See earler presentations of RDQ here.