September 2022 Newsletter
Will Charles Make the Sussex Children Royal and Are Harry & Meghan Toning Down Their Netflix Series?
Although it is generally the Sussexes who dominate the scandal and drama sheets of the royal watching world, a new royal drama has briefly eclipsed them, although there might be ramifications felt very close to home. Across the North Sea from London, the Danish royal family is going through some familiar difficulties.
On September 28, the Palace in Denmark announced that Queen Margrethe II was stripping the four children of her younger son of their royal styles His/Her Highness and titles Prince/Princess.
“As of January 1 2023, the descendants of His Royal Highness Prince Joachim will only be able to use their titles of Count and Countess of Monpezat, their previous titles of Prince and Princess of Denmark ceasing to exist.”
According to the Palace, the decision was taken to “future-proof” the monarchy and permit the junior royals to live more normal lives. But the decision clearly was not a welcome one to Prince Joachim, his second and current wife Princess Marie, or his ex-wife Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg.
When he was interviewed outside his Paris home about the change, Prince Joachim appeared very emotional. He told the reporter that he had been given only five days’ notice that the children would be stripped of their titles at the end of the year. He said that in May he had been presented with a plan that when each child turned 25 their titles would drop, but since that proposal he had had no word. The decision to take the titles immediately has left the family spinning. His two oldest with Alexandra are in their twenties, and his two youngest with Princess Marie are only 13 and 11.
In an interview with BT, the Prince said, “My children are sad. My kids don’t know which leg to stand on. Why should their identity be removed? Why must they be punished in that way?”
A spokesman for Prince Joachim’s ex-wife, Alexandra, Countess of Frederiksborg, said the Countess was “very sad and in shock” that the two sons she shares with Prince Joachim will lose their titles.
The drama is ongoing. I don’t follow this royal family closely, but it sounds like Joachim has had some quiet struggles working out his life as the spare, too. I can’t help notice the parallels between this action and the bubbling drama back in London.
When the Queen died, the super majority of