Dynastic Order of Knighthood - Personal Gift of The Sovereign

Personal Gift of The Sovereign

Dynastic orders are under the exclusive control a monarch and are bestowed without the advice of the political leadership (prime minister or cabinet). A recent report by the British government mentioned that there is "one remaining exercise that has been identified of the Monarch’s truly personal, executive prerogative: that is, the conferment of certain honours that remain within her gift (the Orders of Merit, of the Garter, of the Thistle and the Royal Victorian Order)." Generally, dynastic or house Orders are granted by the monarch for whatever reason the monarch may deem appropriate whereas other orders, often called Merit Orders, are granted on the recommendation of government officials to recognize individual accomplishments or services to the nation.

The term dynastic order is also used for those orders which continue to be bestowed by former monarchs and their descendants after they have been removed from power. For instance, the website of Duarte Pio de Bragança, a pretender to the throne of Portugal using the title Duke of Braganza, asserts that the Order of the Immaculate Conception of Vila Viçosa, "being a Dynastic Order of the House of Bragança and not an Order of State, continued to be conferred by the last King Dom Manuel II, in the exile." On the basis of his succession to King Manuel II, Duarte Pio continues to award those orders of the Kingdom of Portugal which were not taken over by the Portuguese Republic. The Portuguese Republic views things somewhat differently, regarding all the royal orders as extinct following the 5 October 1910 revolution with some of them revived in republican form in 1918. For official purposes, Portugal simply ignores the orders awarded by the royal pretender, Duarte Pio. Although no one is prosecuted for accepting orders from Dom Duarte, including himself, Portuguese law requires government permission to accept any official award, either from Portugal or foreign powers, and the awards of Dom Duarte simply do not appear anywhere on either list.

A similar situation exists in Italy where the Republican Government regards the orders of the former kings to have been abolished but the last king's heir continues to award them. The Italian situation differs from that in Portugal in that Italy forbids the public wearing of the former royal orders in Italy. Nevertheless, the last Italian Crown Prince Vittorio Emanuele di Savoia widely distributes the orders that he claims to have inherited from his father. As is the situation in Portual, the Italian pretender asserts that control of the Savoy dynastic orders exists separate from the Kingdom of Italy so that he retains the right to award the orders, and accompanying privileges, despite his recognition that "the Italian throne was formally abolished by referendum in 1946 and a republic was instituted in its place."