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HM The Queen HRH Princess Benedikte Extended royal family
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The Danish Royal Family includes the Queen of Denmark and her family.[1] All members except the Queen hold the title of Prince/Princess of Denmark with the style of His/Her Royal Highness or His/Her Highness. The Queen is styled Her Majesty. The Queen and her siblings belong to the House of Glücksburg, which is a branch of the Royal House of Oldenburg.[2] The Queen's children and male-line descendants belong agnatically to the family House of Laborde de Monpezat and were given the concurrent title Count/Countess of Monpezat by royal decree in April 2008.[3]
The Danish Royal Family enjoys remarkably high approval ratings in Denmark, possibly ranging from somewhere between 80% and 90%.[4][5]
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The Danish Royal Family includes:[6]
The above are all the living agnatic descendents of King Christian IX, the founder of the current dynasty, and cognatic descendents of King Christian X, excepting those who have become members of royal families of other realms and those who are Counts of Rosenborg.
The former wife of Queen Margrethe's youngest son Prince Joachim, Princess Alexandra lost the style of Royal Highness and was granted the lower style of Highness upon her divorce in 2005, becoming known as HH Princess Alexandra of Denmark, a style which would cease upon her remarriage. During this time she was still a Princess of Denmark and thus a member of the Danish Royal Family. In 2005, her former mother-in-law granted her the additional title of grevinde af Frederiksborg (Countess of Frederiksborg), a personal title which would not be forfeited if Alexandra remarried. When she remarried on 3 March 2007, she lost the style of Highness and titular dignity of Princess of Denmark, and was no longer a member of the royal family (although she still receives an allowance, and keeps the title of Her Excellency Countess of Frederiksborg).[25]
Most of the members of the deposed Royal Family of Greece hold the title of Prince or Princess of Denmark with the qualification of His or Her Highness because their male line ancestor, George I of Greece, was born a Danish prince and, until 1953, his dynastic male-line descendants remained in Denmark's line of hereditary succession. So, they are members of the Danish Royal Family.
There exist only two members of the Greek Royal Family who are not known to bear the title of Prince/ss of Denmark with the qualification of His/Her Highness.[26][27][28]
The following are consorts of royal monarchs today who were born with the titles of Prince/Princess of Greece and Denmark, although they are not descended from King Constantine and Queen Anne-Marie:
The following relations of The Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh may be members of the extended Greek and Danish royal families. However, unlike members of the Greek and Norwegian branches, Prince Philip, as the senior dynast of this branch, allegedly renounced (upon taking British citizenship) not only his right to succeed to the Greek throne, but discontinued use of his title Prince of Denmark (as well as Prince of Greece). Nonetheless, all are members of the House of Oldenburg by agnatic descent or marriage:
The Royal Family of Norway descends in the legitimate male line from Frederick VIII of Denmark, Queen Margrethe II's great-grandfather. Haakon VII of Norway, who was born Prince Carl of Denmark as Frederick VIII's younger son, was invited to reign over another nation (like George I of Greece). As with the Greek branch's descendants, members of the Norwegian line no longer have succession rights to the Danish crown, but unlike the Greek dynasts they discontinued use of Danish royal titles upon mounting their foreign throne in 1905.
Danish princes who marry without consent of the Danish monarch lose their dynastic rights, including royal title.[29] The ex-dynasts are then usually accorded the hereditary title "Count of Rosenborg". They, their wives, and their legitimate male-line descendants are:[30]
The first law governing the Danish monarchy, Kongeloven (Lex Regia) dating from 1665, stated that the line of succession should follow agnatic-cognatic primogeniture, thus allowing female heirs if there was no surviving male heir to the throne. As for the duchies, Holstein and Lauenburg where the King ruled as duke, these lands adhered to Salic law (meaning that only males could inherit the throne). The duchies of Schleswig (a Danish fief), and Holstein and Lauenburg (German fiefs) were joined by personal union with the Kingdom of Denmark.
This difference caused problems when Frederick VII of Denmark was childless, so a change in dynasty was imminent and the lines of succession for the duchies and Denmark conflicted. That meant that the new King of Denmark would not also be the new duke of Holstein and duke of Lauenburg. So for this purpose, the line of succession to the duchies was modified in the London Protocol of 1852, which designated Christian IX, duke of Glücksburg, as the new heir apparent. Originally, the Danish prime minister Christian Albrecht Bluhme wanted to keep the separate principles, but in the end the government decided on a uniform agnatic primogeniture, which was accepted by the parliament.
This lasted a hundred years, then the Salic law was changed to male-preference primogeniture in 1953, meaning that females could inherit, but only if they had no brothers. In 2009, the primogeniture was once more changed, this time into an absolute cognatic primogeniture. It had no immediate altering effect on the line of succession, however. The current line of succession remains:
1Princess Benedikte's children have no succession rights. This is because the marriage consent given to her had very specific provisions; if Benedikte ever became the heiress-presumptive, she and her husband would have to take permanent residence in Denmark and her husband would have to become a naturalized Danish citizen, and her children would only have succession rights if they had applied for naturalization upon reaching adulthood, and taken up residence in Denmark: (a) at the time of becoming the immediate heir to the throne, and (b) no later than when they reached the age of mandatory schooling under Danish law. Since the children continued to be educated in Germany well past the mandatory schooling age, they are deemed to no longer have succession rights.[29]
2Queen Anne-Marie has no succession rights because the permission granted for her marriage stipulated that she renounced her claim to the Danish throne upon becoming Queen consort of the Hellenes.
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