This Week in Princesses

Wow! What a truly newsworthy week. While the Swedish royals were celebrating the Nobel Prizes, the Prince of Wales and his wife were caught up in the middle of violent student riots. Sometimes, I'll admit, royal news isn't really "news", but this week, it absolutely was.

DECEMBER 4, 2010

Princess Caroline presented the ceremonial prize check at the International Gucci Masters Show Jumping Competition in Paris. Her daughter, Charlotte Casiraghi, competed in the tournament, but didn't get the big check.

Incidentally, Gucci is Charlotte's sponsor: the fashion house makes her couture riding ensembles (and presumably the matching hat for her horse!)


DECEMBER 8, 2010

Queen Paola and King Albert II of Belgium officially welcomed Russian President Medvedev and his wife Svetlana on an official visit. It almost looks like the two ladies coordinated their ensembles. Did Paola (on the left) call Svetlana and tell her to wear dark blue or did they both say, "Look! We are twins!" when they met?


DECEMBER 9, 2010

The Duchess of Cornwall and her husband, the Prince of Wales, were all smiles as they arrived at the Palladium for the Royal Variety Performance. However, the two had just emerged from a truly frightening experience. Their car, which was somehow separated from its security detail drove straight into a violent protest by students angry over British tuition hikes. The crowd kicked the royal vehicle, threw things at it and chanted "Off with their heads." An investigation is underway to determine why the heir to the throne didn't have sufficient protection to have prevented his car bumbling into a riot and how his vehicle was separated from the following security vehicle. Concerns are now being raised about the level of protection that will be needed at next April's royal wedding.

Meanwhile, the rioting students not only damaged the prince's car, but also defaced several London landmarks.

In Moscow, Empress Elizabeth celebrated her 300th birthday by opening an exhibition about her life and reign. The daughter of Peter the Great, Elizabeth never married, just like the English Elizabeth. The Russian Elizabeth adopted her nephew Peter as her heir and found a nondescript German princess to marry him to. It took nine years for the couple to have a child, whom Elizabeth immediately claimed. After Elizabeth's death, that frustrated German princess overthrew her husband and declared herself empress; she became Catherine the Great.


DECEMBER 10, 2010

While Queen Silvia, Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Carl Philipp and the new Prince Daniel looked suitably regal at the Nobel Prize ceremony, King Carl XVI Gustaf looks angry and slouchy in this photo. All of the prizes, except peace, are presented in Alfred Nobel's native Sweden, followed by a lavish Swedish banquet. The Peace Prize is usually presented in Oslo with the Norwegian royal family on hand. This year, the Peace Prize winner, Chinese human rights activist Liu Xiaobo, is being held in a Chinese prison, so, he was honored with an empty chair in Stockholm. The Nobel Prize web site is full of great information, including a look back at Queen Silvia's Nobel gowns since 1976. (View the gowns page.) Princess Madeleine, who is now living in New York City, did not attend this year. Although she was not scheduled to be present, she is also said to be suffering from the flu.
Meanwhile, (below) the king's sister, Princess Christina, attended her 47th ceremony; setting a record!

Timeless Beauty: The Face of Monaco

Most of us know whether or not we look like our mothers. Some of us know whether we resemble our grandmothers. But, we are much less likely to be able to compare ourselves to earlier forbears. There, princesses have us beaten since they can view generations of royal ancestors—usually in the portrait galleries of their palaces.

The generational resemblance is particularly strong among the ladies of the princely house of Monaco.

The starring lady of the moment is the lovely Charlotte Casiraghi. Although not a princess, she is fourth in the line of succession to the princely title in Monaco, following her brothers and her mother. Born in 1986, Charlotte’s life was touched by tragedy when her father, Stefano Casiraghi, was killed in boat racing accident—she was only four. Her mother tried to shelter her from the media, but since she was a teenager, she has been a favorite target of the paparazzi. She is one of the elite of young European aristocrats. As if it wasn't enough to have a princess for a mom, Charlotte's maternal grandparents gave her her own island. So far, though, the press has found nothing scandalous in her behavior. Charlotte is active as a show-jumping equestrienne and as a fashion magazine editor. In 2009, she even launched her own fashion magazine, Ever Manifesto.

Young Charlotte may not (yet) have generated scandal, but her lookalike mother cannot make the same claim. From an ill-fated first marriage to a fortune-hunting playboy to conceiving two of her four children before she married their fathers, Princess Caroline of Monaco has caused ripples throughout her life. Her mother, the former movie star Grace Kelly, was often troubled by Caroline’s wild-child ways. After Grace’s tragic death, Caroline seemed to settle down. She married the father of her unborn son and had two more children before he also died tragically. Caroline stepped into her mother’s role as the first lady of Monaco and quickly established a reputation for being level-headed and civic-minded. Then, she got pregnant with her fourth child and married the father, Prince Ernest of Hanover six months before the birth. Still, compared to her sister Stephanie, who not only dated Rob Lowe, launched a rock career and literally ran away with the circus, Princess Caroline is a veritable matron these days and her brother has officially named her as his heir. However, Caroline’s life is still rocked by tribulations—within the last few months, her husband has been absent from Monaco and has been photographed kissing other women.

Scandal was the theme of Caroline’s grandmother, Princess Charlotte's life. Like Caroline, Charlotte was the heir to Monaco. Charlotte was the only child of Prince Albert I, but like the current Prince Albert, he had his child illegitimately, too. (The current prince has two acknowledged illegitimate children: an American girl named Jazmin Grace Grimaldi and a Togolese boy named Alexandre Coste.) When it became clear that her father would have no legitimate children, the fate of Monaco was in the balance. Without an heir, Monaco would cease to be independent and would become part of France. So, Charlotte’s father officially adopted her and made her a Princess of Monaco. He married her off to a French count. Together, they had two children, including Caroline’s father, Prince Rainier. After ten years, Charlotte ran off with her Italian lover and later divorced the count. Charlotte apparently had no desire to become the head of her own country and, when Rainier was 21, she renounced her right to the throne. Then, she went to college and became active in social work. Perhaps taking a note from her daughter-in-law’s movie, “To Catch a Thief,” which was filmed in Monaco, Princess Charlotte showed up at Rainier and Grace’s wedding on the arm of her latest lover, a jewel thief who had been France’s public enemy number one.