The 3rd Duke, aged 85, died peacefully at Kinnaird Castle on 22nd June.
Beloved father of Alexandra and David and adored grandpa to Charlie, George,
Hugh and Amelia. Funeral service on Monday 6th July at Noon, St. Andrew’s
Church, Argyll Street, Brechin, DD9 6JL. All friends welcome. No flowers please.
Donations,if desired, to www.bmycharity.com/scotsguardscolonelsfund
Has the Duke been partner-less since his divorce almost 50 years ago? I also read a story somewhere that the Queen refused him permission to marry in the 50s as his intended bride was a catholic. This was before his wedding to Caroline Dewar obviously. Is that story true and if so, who was the intended bride?
ReplyDeletePablo, here is a piece I wrote in 2009 about Mary Drage
ReplyDeletehttp://royalmusingsblogspotcom.blogspot.com/2009/07/ballerina-named-mary.html After his divorce, he had a long term relationship with divina Gallica, but she never wanted to marry.
i wish there were more documentaries that focused on the "minor" (for lack of a better word) descendants of royal families. usually a documentary will mention the king/queen, their children, and then the children of the heir, then the heir of that generation, and so on. one of my favorite royal documentaries is the fabulous 6-part "A Royal Family" focused on the descendants of King Christian IX of Denmark. i'm sure part of why i love it is that almost every single country those descendants went on to reign over had ACTUAL DESCENDANTS who spoke on camera! as far as i know it's the largest amount of royals from different countries coming together to make 1 documentary. i got a region-free DVD player specifically so that i could watch that series, and it never gets old to me. (it seems many of the best documentaries are British and while some are made available in US format, most are not, so i find myself using that region-free player quite often!) i've also got the BBC documentaries released in the US a couple years back. one is about King George & Queen Mary (2 parts) and their role in the House of Windsor. the other is called "Queen Victoria's Children," and i LOVE it because the 3 parts focus first on the family as a whole, then a part each for the sons and the daughters. THAT is the kind of documentary i wish we could see of more recent royals.
ReplyDeletespeaking of "A Royal Family," i wanted to ask you a theoretical question. that documentary shows how the royal houses of Europe are connected through the Danish king, and if you look at Queen Victoria's vast number of descendants marrying into royal houses, many of them are related at least twice over. back then it was common for the children of the monarch who were NOT in the immediate line of succession to marry into foreign royal houses. what if two royals who WERE in the immediate line of succession fell in love & wanted to marry today? i know the 3 heirs to the Scandinavian thrones - Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden, Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, and Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark - have all been very close & are quite close in age. of course now they are all married and have families, but theoretically, would it even be possible for Victoria and Frederik or Haakon to have married without renouncing the throne? obviously each could reign over THEIR country, but the problem is their children. if i remember correctly, i want to say i heard that there actually WAS a union of the crowns of some of those Nordic countries many years ago, but i'm not sure and don't recall the details in any case.
centuries ago, when Queen Mary I was married to King Philip II of Spain, what would've happened had they been successful in having children? he remained king in his country, she was queen in hers, but their child would've been heir to both.
we know that the Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish royals are not only friends but cousins. these days even royals don't usually marry their cousins, but as each generation passes the genetic pool grows and a love match would become more acceptable. theoretically, COULD it be possible for, say, Prince Christian of Denmark to marry Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway down the line? as far as i can figure - and i'm REALLY bad at this "degrees of cousins" thing, so i could be wrong! - they are 4th cousins (their grandparents King Harald V & Queen Margrethe II being 2nd cousins). that's one degree further than Britain's Queen Elizabeth II & Prince Philip, and nobody makes a big deal of their marriage (though they were married many years ago & i don't know how educated the youth of their country are on details like that). i'm excluding a theoretical marriage between Prince Christian & Princess Estelle of Sweden because they're 3rd cousins and having grandparents who are 1st cousins in this day & age might not go over so well in the public eye - and there's a larger age difference anyway.
(part 2)
ReplyDeleteSO - the bottom line is, what would've happened if Queen Mary I had produced an heir for England AND Spain? and theoretically, what would the options be if Prince Christian & Princess Ingrid Alexandra wanted to marry as adults, given that their firstborn would be heir to both thrones? (both Norway & Denmark allow for succession based on birth order regardless of gender so a firstborn child of either gender would be heir to both thrones and wouldn't be displaced by any siblings arriving after them.
i wish i knew Swedish, every year there's a documentary in Sweden that shows what the royal family has been up to that year. it's footage shot in private settings, featuring interviews with all the major royals including the king & queen, and now they've got 3 grandchildren who feature as well. oh what i would give for a BRITISH version!!! back in the 1980s, there was a documentary called "In Private, In Public: The Prince & Princess of Wales" that featured footage of Prince William & Prince Harry as young children. i believe William was around the age for Kindergarten, while Harry was a toddler. as far as i know it's the only real footage in the public domain of the boys in their own home, with their parents, in a private setting. i would LOVE it if William & Catherine allowed such a documentary to be made in the next few years, showing what they do and including Prince George & Princess Charlotte. i HIGHLY DOUBT William would ever allow it, he's far too private & protective to allow film crews to film his children in their family home, but one can dream. ;-) :-P honestly though, it would be a MAJOR Public Relations win! it would allow the public to see how hard the royal couple works, the good the Monarchy does, and allow a glimpse into the young royals' lives and who they are as children. hopefully William looks back at the documentary made when he was a kid and feels it didn't harm him and enjoys the footage, perhaps one day he will allow a current edition to be made.
http://www.royalcourt.no/seksjon.html?tid=28690 should help you with information.
ReplyDeleteIf Christian and Ingrid married, most likely Ingrid renounce her rights in favor of her brother. Their children would not be heirs to both thrones.
But they are not going to marry. Their spouses will be from their own social circles.
Mary did not have a child, so we don't know what would have happened