Bernadotte af Wisborg
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Under the Swedish Act of Succession a prince or princess of Sweden marrying without the consent of the Sovereign forfeits the right of succession for themselves, their children and their descendants. They give up their titles and assume the family name of Bernadotte.
Since 1868, Swedish princes who have lost their succession rights have received noble titles conferred by other reigning monarchs. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg has conferred the title of Bernadotte af Wisborg, i.e Count of Wisborg.
King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, who lost the right to confer noble titles in the new constitution of 1974, does still retain the prerogative to restore royal titles, but has chosen not to do so in any of the five cases they were lost.
Four people have been created Count Bernadotte af Wisborg in the Luxembourg nobility, all of whom were members of the Swedish Royal House of Bernadotte, to which the Grand Duke of Luxembourg is closely related. The princes in question had all lost their royal titles due to marriages not tolerated by the Swedish King.
The first such person was:
- Oscar Bernadotte (1859-1953), formerly Duke of Gotland and then second in line to the Swedish throne.
He was created Count Bernadotte af Wisborg by Grand Duke Adolphe on February 2, 1892. Prince Oscar's mother, Queen Sofia, was born Princess Sophie of Nassau and half-sister to Grand Duke Adolphe. A possible explanation for the suffix name is that the fortification Visborg (then spelled Wisborg) lies within his former dukedom.
During the 20th century, marriages of this kind were more frequent. On July 2, 1951, no less than three deposed princes were created Count Bernadotte af Wisborg:
- Sigvard Bernadotte (1907-2002), formerly Duke of Uppland. Sigvard reclaimed his royal title on May 28, 1983, but it was never accepted by King Carl XVI Gustaf.
- Carl Johan Bernadotte (born 1916), formerly Duke of Dalecarlia.
- Lennart Bernadotte (1909-2004), formerly Duke of Småland. Lennart styled himself Prince Lennart Bernadotte, but as in Sigvard's case, this use was not accepted by the King.
The agnatic descendants of these four persons are entitled to the title Count Bernadotte af Wisborg. The most well-known of them is Count Folke Bernadotte af Wisborg, a son of Oscar Bernadotte, 1st Count of Wisborg.
They may have certain justification in using the princely title of Bernadotte, independently of any decisions by Swedish authorities, because
- (1) their agnatic ancestor Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, Marshal of France, was created a prince of the French Empire by Emperor Napoleon I under the name Bernadotte of Ponte Corvo and received the small allodial principality of Ponte Corvo in southern Italy. The first Prince Bernadotte later exchanged the proceeds of sales of his properties including Ponte Corvo with the Swedish government in a complex transaction where the Guadeloupe Fund was created as compensation to the Prince and he specifically retained the rights to the titles of Ponte Corvo principality despite of relinquishing the actual estate, and did not change the name in the titles to that of Guadalupe although that would have been possible.
- (2) their ancestress Josephine de Beauharnais the Younger was created by Napoleon the Princess of Bologna, and later also the Duchess of Galliera, a small allodial property in Northern Italy, to be succeeded by her heirs male. Josephine married 1823 king Oscar I of Sweden and Norway, and all her heirs male are the Bernadotte, issue of her marriage.
In the fifth case, the King of Belgium has conferred the title Prince Bernadotte to his brother-in-law Carl Bernadotte - that title does not have anything to do with the title Count of Wisborg.
