Comments

1. Walton says

   29 April 2011 at 3:10 pm

   Walton, if you’re explaining titles, can you explain to me what’s up with the French? I stumbled onto a section on French nobility on wiki a while back (one of those searches that started on something like ‘South Pacific’ and migrated all over), and I was completely and utterly lost.

   Ancien régime France had a very complicated system of noble titles, much more complex than its English counterpart. I’m no expert, but the Wikipedia article seems to provide a decent summary.

   Although the Revolution abolished the privileges of the nobility, there are still French aristocratic families who continue to use their titles. (For instance, Prince Consort Henrik, the husband of Queen Margrethe of Denmark, is from a French noble family and bears the hereditary title of Comte de Monpezat.)

   Today, there are two pretenders with a claim to be King of France. Louis Alphonse, Duc d’Anjou is the “Legitimist” claimant, being the heir of King Charles X who was overthrown by the July Revolution in 1830. There is a rival “Orleanist” claimant, Prince Henri; he’s descended from Louis-Philippe, Duc d’Orleans, who was installed as a puppet-king by the revolutionaries between 1830 and 1848. (If France were ever to restore its monarchy, they’d obviously have to decide which branch of the House of Bourbon to install as the restored royal family.)

   Even more confusingly, there’s also a descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte, Charles Napoléon, who claims the title of “Emperor of the French”. And during the French Empire, Napoleon created his own titles of nobility which were different from those existing under the ancien régime.

   And Spain still has a king and queen, correct?

   Yep. The Spanish monarchy was restored in 1975, following the death of the Spanish dictator General Franco. Juan Carlos I has reigned as King of Spain since 1975, and has transformed the country from a dictatorship into a liberal constitutional monarchy.