Fascinating Friday (Royal Titles)

On a Friday one really needs to be stimulated and entertained. Its been a long week so now you want pudding. I hope what I consider pudding counts as the same for you? I call it "Fascinating Friday" because here I will discuss the nitty-gritty aspects of Royalty. The "why's" and "how's". We will see the different ranks, titles, forms of address, countries, genealogies, terminologies and how it all works together. 

Let's start with the encompassing concept, that of Royalty. What makes someone "Royal"? There is one rule for being Royal and that is, A monarch makes you Royal. You are either a child or grandchild of a monarch or you are "created" Royal if a monarch officially declares you as such. Nobility on the other hand is an intermediatary level of several ranks between Royalty and peasantry or the commoners. When a monarch's grandchildren have children of their own, they are normally already in line for a Noble title, granted by the monarch to his child or grandchild. So Nobility can be seen as the distant relations of Royalty and one becomes Noble also either by being born the child of a Noble or by being created a Noble by a monarch.

Here follows the categories of Royalty in order of precedence.

Monarch Level (rulers of countries)

Emperor/Empress

King/Queen

Sovereign Grand Duke/Sovereign Grand Duchess

Sovereign Prince/Sovereign Princess

Sovereign Duke/Sovereign Duchess

Sovereign Margrave/Sovereign Margravine

Count Palatine/Countess Palatine

Royal Level (Royal family)

Crown Prince or Hereditary Prince/Crown Princess or Hereditary Princess

Prince of the 1st Blood Royal/Princess of the 1st Blood Royal

Prince of the 2nd Blood Royal/Princess of the 2nd Blood Royal 

The state portrait of Her Majesty Queen Gloria I of Normandia. The Sovereign Queen Regnant of the Kingdom of Normandia.

Normally the children and grandchildren of these are Princes and Princesses by default unless otherwise specified like in the case of some Empires where they are referred to as Grand Dukes/Grand Duchesses or Archdukes/Archduchesses.

Another note is that the wife of a sovereign monarch of any of the above titles would be called a consort. Thus a King's wife is known as a Queen Consort. If a woman is the sovereign monarch then she is a Queen Regnant and her husband is by default, Prince Consort, although not always referred to as such. 

His Royal Highness Grand Duke George III of Hanoveria and Her Royal Highness Grand Duchess Alice, Grand Duchess Consort of Hanoveria.

That is quite a lot to take in, so we will discuss more next week but just one more aspect, The first-born child of the sovereign monarch normally inherits the throne. This is referred to as being first in line of succession. These children get a special title which ranks higher than other Princes/Princesses and most commonly is Crown Prince or Crown Princess. Sometimes a specific title is traditional to a specific country and as such gained instead of Crown Prince/Crown Princess. In the case of the former Kingdom of Syldavia the title of the heir apparent is by tradition the Prince of Hohenreich. Children of a monarch are designated Prince of the first blood Royal and grand children are Prince of the second blood Royal.

The reigning sovereign of Swann, His Royal Highness the Duke of Swann at left standing next to his cousin and heir, His Royal Highness Prince Dillon the Hereditary Duke of Swann.

It is interesting to note that there are exceptions to these above mentioned principals as they are not "laws" per se but rather , traditions. In the Islands of Arcwhite the sovereign monarch, who is always female is referred to as "Lady" although equal in rank to at least a Sovereign Prince by virtue of the scope of her territory. The Duke of Swann is traditionally seen equal to a Sovereign Grand Duke even though he is referred to as "Duke" and his territory as a "Principality". Both these nations also have irregular laws of succession but this will be discussed another time.

So there we have our introduction to Fascinating Friday. Hope you are sufficiently fascinated.