Talk:Lord Nicholas Windsor

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[edit] His Serene Highness Prince Nicholas of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke Nicholas of Saxony

Where does this information come from? The British Royal Family gave up this title in 1917. Saying Lord Nicholas would be called HH Prince Nicholas of Kent had the Letters Patent not been passed is right, but how would he be essentially still known as His Serene Highness Prince Nicholas of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke Nicholas of Saxony? I can understand maybe because he would have inherited this from Prince Albert, but the family abandoned this title, as opposed to the Ducal Family of Coburg, which lost the title, but didn't relinquish it. This is like saying the Prince of Wales should be known as Prince Charles of Greece and Denmark because that's his father's birth title, despite him relinquishing it. Morhange 01:07, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Philip couldn't have relinquished the titles of prince of Greece and prince of Denmark. There are no provisions to do so. He merely stopped using them, the same as the Norwegian Royal Family stopped using the Danish princely title. The same goes for the Saxon titles. They merely were not used in the UK. Abroad, some members who "relinquished" their German titles used them (eg, Princess Edwina of Battenberg). You are wrong on the matter. Charles 23:20, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

The princely titles of members of the Greek and Danish royal families are held by custom, not law -- and it was never a matter of law. Therefore it is, at the very least, debatable that Philip could not relinquish them because "there are no provisions to do so". I agree with you that it may be more accurate to say that his Greek and Danish titles are suppressed or have fallen into desuetude than to say that they could never be resumed, but this is a matter of tradition, whereas you state it as if it were a matter of law. See http://groups.google.com/group/alt.talk.royalty/msg/f1670b5f1c76809b

To cite the 1st Countess Mountbatten of Burma as an example of someone who resumed use of a relinquished title is misleading, since it is only documented that she and her daughters signed into a hotel registry as "Prinzessin von Battenberg" in 1959 at the invitation of the proprietor of a hotel in the town of Battenberg which the family was visiting: this was a one-time, sentimental use of this defunct title, not an assertion of a legal right to it. I entirely agree that the Battenbergs merely relinquished the use of their princely title in the UK in 1917, but this kind of specious evidence simply makes that fact look like POV dogmatism rather than a reasonable alternative to their current styling. See http://groups.google.com/group/alt.talk.royalty/msg/8d47051e6250a92c Lethiere 14:07, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

Yes, but I'm not talking about the Battenbergs. They gave up their title at the request of George V. George V renounced the family's German titles for himself and all of the members of the family. I meant that hypothetically, calling Nicholas HSH Prince Nicholas of Saxe-Coburg, etc, would be like someone calling Prince Charles HRH Prince Charles of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Prince of Wales, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Duke of Saxony, Prince of Greece and Denmark, etc. I didn't add all the rest of that when I wrote this the first time. But I was saying that this wouldn't make sense to say this about Lord Nicholas, because while the Battenbergs just stopped using their title, didn't the British Royal Family actually give theirs up? Morhange 22:44, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

George V had no more right to legally renounce Saxon titles for anyone other than himself than he did the German titles of the Battenbergs. Charles cannot use any Saxon titles. Those are only transmitted in the male-line. The British Royal Family merely stopped using the Saxon titles, much like Charles doesn't use the Greek or Danish titles. Charles 23:04, 22 March 2006 (UTC)

George V did not claim to have the legal right to "renounce Saxon titles for anyone other than himself". He revoked permission for them to be borne by British subjects in British territories -- which includes Lord Nicholas Windsor and Elizabeth II (but not the current Prince of Wales, who derives no such titles from George V). George V did have the right to renounce German titles for himself and his unborn or minor children if he'd had any in 1917, since German Princely Law permits nobles (and the title "Duke of Saxony" is a "noble" title in this sense, having been conferred by the Holy Roman Emperors as the Wettins' sovereign) to unilaterally renounce their titles, unlike holders of British titles.

More relevantly, Lord Nicholas Windsor would not be entitled to bear Saxon dynastic titles and styles because he is the son of a marriage contracted in violation of the laws of the Coburg dynasty, which is why the article's attribution to him of such styles and titles is incorrect and needs to be removed.Lethiere 18:05, 23 March 2006 (UTC)