Future Monarch
Ten years prior to Elisabeth's birth, a new act of succession was put into effect which created full lineal primogeniture, meaning that despite having two younger brothers, Elisabeth, as the eldest child, comes first in the line of succession. If she ascends the throne, she will be Belgium's first ever queen regnant.
The eldest son of the heir apparent was traditionally titled 'Count of Hainaut' (French: Comte de Hainaut, Dutch: Graaf van Henegouwen). It was therefore expected that a new royal decree would be issued, granting the title of Countess of Hainaut to Princess Elisabeth. A royal decree was indeed issued, but, despite all predictions, it didn't grant her the title, but abolished it, because the French "Hainaut" was not considered linguistically neutral.
Through her father, Elisabeth is descended from both Italian nobility and several prominent royal families, including the Coburgs, as well as the French Orléans, Danish, Swedish and Bavarian royal houses. Through her mother, she is related to many famous Polish noble, magnate families, such as the Czartoryski, Lubomirski, Radziwiłł, Zamoyski, Sanguszko, Tyszkiewicz houses. As a descendant of the Czartoryski and Sanguszko princes, she is related to the Gediminids, has connections to the Jagiellon royal dynasty, (which reigned in Poland, Lithuania, Hungary and Bohemia) as well as connections to various Russian princely families, such as Galitzines and Trubetskoy.
Read more about this topic: Princess Elisabeth Of Belgium
Famous quotes containing the words future and/or monarch:
“We must choose. Be a child of the past with all its crudities and imperfections, its failures and defeats, or a child of the future, the future of symmetry and ultimate success.”
—Frances E. Willard 1839–1898, U.S. president of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union 1879-1891, author, activist. The Woman’s Magazine, pp. 137-40 (January 1887)
“There is no necessity to separate the monarch from the mob; all authority is equally bad.”
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900)