Middle Class Royals

[username]

http://www.dailymail.co.u...iddle-class-monarchy.html

my copy and paste is not working for me...

[PeDe]

thanks for posting the link, username  

lemme help you  


We're all princesses now: The rise of the middle-class monarchy

When Kate Middleton marries Prince William, she won’t be the first ordinary girl to become a princess. Marrying down is the new royal trend – look at Europe’s other middle-class queens-in-waiting, says Matthew Dennison




Crown Princess Mette-Marit of Norway
Married Crown Prince Haakon of Norway in 2001.
Children: Princess Ingrid, seven, and Prince Sverre, five. Princess Mette-Marit also has a son, Marius, 14, from an earlier relationship

Previous life
Mette-Marit’s route to tiaradom encompasses divorced parents, an ex-stripper stepmother and a former local newspaper journalist father, who has since developed a taste for spilling the beans to a bigger readership. These setbacks, of course, are not the 37-year-old Crown Princess’s doing. She has contributed to her own modern princess credentials with her 14-year-old son, Marius Borg Hoiby, by an ex-partner with drugs convictions, and a party-filled past that she tearfully admitted on Norwegian television had been ‘quite a wild life’.

Princess material?
Mette-Marit was born in Kristiansand – the town in which she later met Crown Prince Haakon at the country’s largest rock festival. Like her mother-in-law Queen Sonja, she is solidly Norwegian, if decidedly unroyal: simultaneously an icon of the Norwegian fashion industry and a challenge to her more conservative countrymen.

Embarrassing moments
You mean those not provided by her father? Being forced to cancel a state visit to Germany in 2002 due to first- and second-degree facial sunburn was a novel royal excuse





Princess Máxima of the Netherlands
Married Willem-Alexander, Prince of Orange, in 2002.
Children: Princess Catharina-Amalia, seven, Princess Alexia, five, and Princess Ariane, three

Previous life
It’s a tradition in the Dutch royal family to choose a spouse of whom parliament and the people can disapprove – Máxima Zorreguieta was no exception. It wasn’t anything the trilingual Argentinian investment banker had done herself, more a case of the sins of the father. If only Máxima’s dad Jorge had stuck at being a farmer…instead he served as Minister of Agriculture in Jorge R Videla’s military dictatorship in the late 1970s, a regime notorious for its human rights violations. Dutch heir Prince Willem-Alexander, who met 39-year-old Máxima at the Seville Spring Fair, was not daunted. Parliament stalled, the Queen showed her support and the rest has been up to Máxima.

Princess material?
Having described his wife as ‘a normal woman’, the Prince quickly corrected himself. Time has shown that the Dutch people share Willem-Alexander’s view of Máxima as ‘extraordinary’.

Embarrassing moments
It’s OK that she has remained Roman Catholic, OK that she considers herself still Latin, OK that she supports gay rights. So who can blame her if, during the 2006 World Cup, Máxima secretly supported Argentina?





Crown Princess Mary of Denmark
Married Crown Prince Frederik of Denmark in 2004.
Children: Prince Christian, five, Princess Isabella, three, and twins aged nine weeks

Previous life
Given Denmark’s notoriously strict immigration rules, Crown Prince Frederik could have made life easier for himself by not falling in love with an Australian advertising executive turned estate agent, who he met in a pub in Sydney. Danish law was accordingly tweaked to allow Mary Donaldson, the youngest of four children of Professor John Donaldson, Scottish-born former Dean of the Faculty of Science at the University of Tasmania, to become Crown Princess of one of the world’s oldest monarchies. Herself now a mother of four, Mary will become Europe’s first Australian queen.

Princess material?
Unassuming and, it is rumoured, less confident than she appears, Mary, 39, has endeared herself to the Danish public. She has also embraced royal life with grace – and learnt a new language. The couple’s two official residences have been restored for modern family living at a reported cost of more than £30 million to the Danish taxpayer.

Embarrassing moments
Mary probably hoped to keep secret an operation to remove a gallstone in October 2004, five months after her marriage. Speculation that she was pregnant outed the less glamorous explanation.





Letizia, Princess of Asturias
Married Prince Felipe of Asturias (heir to the Spanish throne) in 2004.
Children: Infanta Leonor, five, and Infanta Sofia, three

Previous life
No previous Spanish princess has boasted a Madrid cab driver for a grandfather, but the former Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano is also descended from medieval nobility in the form of the Constables of Castile. Less orthodox for the woman whose husband Felipe will one day inherit the title ‘His Catholic Majesty’ is her divorce from teacher Alonso Guerrero Pérez in 1999, after a marriage lasting only a year. Former TV news journalist Letizia, 38, met her prince on the Galician coast while reporting on the sinking of an oil tanker.

Princess material?
She may not be able to match her Greek/Danish mother-in-law Queen Sofia’s boast of being simultaneously a great-great-granddaughter (paternally) and great-great-great-granddaughter (maternally) of Queen Victoria, but Letizia is set to become Spain’s first Spanish queen since Isabella II in 1870.

Embarrassing moments
The death of her younger sister Érika at 31 from an overdose of sleeping pills in 2007 won widespread sympathy for Letizia – and diverted attention away from persistent rumours about suffering from anorexia (denied) and having had a nose job (admitted).





Charlene Wittstock
Set to marry Albert II, Prince of Monaco, in July, when she will become Princess of Monaco

Previous life
‘I know who I am and where I come from. My father works in marketing and my mother is a swimming coach,’ Wittstock recently told reporters. Like all the new breed of royal consorts, the 33-year-old South African former Olympic swimmer is making no false claims about her background. Why should she? Her predecessor as Princess of Monaco was Hollywood actress Grace Kelly. Wittstock’s own career, which includes a number of women’s swimming records in South Africa (she met Albert at a swimming competition in Monaco), turns few heads in the sunny principality once famous for its shady characters, a miniature royal world that is as much Dynasty as dynastic.

Princess material?
Grace Kelly proved that, in Monaco, it’s glamour not bloodlines that count. The Monégasques have waited 30 years for a new princess. This one is cool and blonde too.

Embarrassing moments
A fashion faux pas when she appeared with Prince Albert at a Red Cross Ball. ‘I was used to living in a swimsuit and was totally clueless about fashion. I borrowed a green dress from a friend and painted my nails red – I looked like a Christmas tree.’



and now our Catherine

[orange]

Was MM's mother really a stripper? I've never heard that before!
And what on earth is the Daily Mail thinking putting Letizia's sister's suicide under 'embarrassing moments'. Unbelievable.

[Charlotte]

Was MM's mother really a stripper? I've never heard that before!
And what on earth is the Daily Mail thinking putting Letizia's sister's suicide under 'embarrassing moments'. Unbelievable.

The article says step-mother.

[orange]

Ah ok thanks Charlotte!

[Clara]

Yes, MM's father married a stripper, talked to the press about her and IIRC they were even estranged.


It's an interesting article, no sugar coated and only two obvious mistakes in the Spanish section 
Felipe is NOT Prince Felipe of Asturias, he's Prince Felipe of Spain, the Prince of Asturias. Letizia will not be the first Spanish Queen since Isabel II, Isabel's son, Alfonso XII married the Spanish Princess Maria de las Mercedes de Orléans who became Queen consort until her premature death six months later. Of course, Juan III's wife was another Spanish Princess 

[username]

thanks PeDe,
rep added

[MBA Princess]

It's one thing to have royal families that marry "middle-class" princesses. It's something else to have a royal family whose mores and actions make them seem like lower class trash. Thank you Prince Andrew.

[Plum Royale]

Ha ha, they used the worst pic of Mosh with the sinewy man neck and crepey undereye bags! Don't scare the kiddies!
Plum

[Miss Waynfleet]

It's one thing to have royal families that marry "middle-class" princesses. It's something else to have a royal family whose mores and actions make them seem like lower class trash. Thank you Prince Andrew.

  

[lover]

I really don't care if royals marry "commoners", but surely most of these royals could "swing a dead cat", as the saying goes, and come up with better choices than the ones I'm seeing.

Most are not just inappropriate, but boring, vulgar, educated usually but do barely anything with their degree, clinging, ruthless, manipulative, not great in the looks department, etc.

The kicker is that as "royals" they are supposed to be above a girl like me, yet I would never dream of doing the things they do to land a prince. I'm supposed to curtsy to that? NO!

 

[xaristocratx]

I really don't care if royals marry "commoners", but surely most of these royals could "swing a dead cat", as the saying goes, and come up with better choices than the ones I'm seeing.

Most are not just inappropriate, but boring, vulgar, educated usually but do barely anything with their degree, clinging, ruthless, manipulative, not great in the looks department, etc.

The kicker is that as "royals" they are supposed to be above a girl like me, yet I would never dream of doing the things they do to land a prince. I'm supposed to curtsy to that? NO!

 

Exactly Lover! 
The fact that they are commoners isn't the problem. The problem is that they're common 
and apparently the Royal princes today aren't disguising their desire to be/act vulgar and tasteless  I feel cheated out of an exciting monarchy. My mom got Diana, and I get Kate (and all those other unexciting women)  I'm positive that Anne Boleyn was somewhat imaginative and exciting. If we're going to get social climbers, we should at least get the clever ones that have incredible looks! 

[lyndell75]

I'm sorry but what is so wrong with Maxima supporting gay rights, what because she grew up Catholic I'm Christian and don't see anything wrong with that

[Holly Golightly]

I'm sorry but what is so wrong with Maxima supporting gay rights, what because she grew up Catholic I'm Christian and don't see anything wrong with that

Neither do I Lyndell - especially seeing as she is the CP of a country which is quite liberal and allows gay marriages - I would have thought it would be more scandalous had she been openly against gay rights in the Netherlands, or if she had supported gay rights but been the CP of a more traditional country such as Jordan.

I find that lots of the English ragmag writers (I refuse to use the word 'journalist') often slide value judgements such as this into their pieces. Another recent example was a piece on how the writer thought Chelsy looked trashy and vulgar, and used the sentence "her being blonde does not help, either". Think it reflects more on the writer and their own prejudices than anything else.

[dKaren]

Middle class or not, you can't choose your parents, but you can choose what you want to do with your own life. Waity Katie has done nothing the last 5-6 years besides being William's booty call. On her own, Waity is on her own class,  the booty call class.