Category: Miscellaneous

The first Nassaus in the Netherlands © Pixabay / manfredrichter
History, Miscellaneous

The first Nassaus in the Netherlands

The new Dutch TV series and accompanying book “Het verhaal van Nederland: Oranje Nassau. A new history of the Netherlands and the royal house” by Dorine Hermans and Marchien den Hertog, do mention how the Nassaus eventually ended up in the Netherlands. However, the link between Count Engelbrecht I of Nassau and Willem (William) “the […]

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Abdicating: reasons and advantages © Kongehuset / Keld Navntoft
History, Miscellaneous

Abdicating: reasons and advantages

For a long time, monarchs tended to sit on their thrones until the day they died, and many regarded it as a failure to quit the throne. The heirs were handed over more power if necessary. With the abdication of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark, another country has joined the growing list of monarchies, where […]

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No more reigning Queens
History, Miscellaneous

No more reigning Queens

I must say that I was intrigued when reading that, after the abdication of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark on 14 January 2024, the world doesn’t have a single reigning queen anymore. There are several Crown Princesses in Europe, but there is not a single woman anymore sitting on a real throne, which is really […]

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The nine predecessors of King Frederik X © Netty Leistra
History, Miscellaneous

The nine predecessors of King Frederik X

After 52 years, Denmark has a king again: King Frederik X. The regnal number X means that Frederik has nine predecessors. Who are they? Denmark is one of the oldest monarchies in the world. The first monarch, not being legendary, was Gorm the Old, who died around 958. After kings with names as Harald, Svend, […]

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The changing world of royalty – criticism
Bits & Pieces, Miscellaneous

The changing world of royalty – criticism

There are far more former monarchies than reigning monarchies in the world left. In the years to come only more monarchies will disappear and become a republic. Nowadays there is a lot of criticism on the work ethics, the finances, the private holidays and a lot of other subjects. You have to be seen to […]

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Royal thoughts of the week (1) © Hudsoncrafted / Pixabay
Bits & Pieces, Miscellaneous

Royal thoughts of the week (1)

The way magazines and newspapers report about royal families online, especially in the United Kingdom, gets more and more irritating. Royalty seems to be a kind of theme everybody has an opinion about, yet it isn’t exactly easy to actually understand royal families and monarchies. One has the royal correspondents, royal journalists, royal photographers and […]

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The impossible love of an author
History, Miscellaneous

The impossible love of an author

The Dekemastate in Jelsum, Province of Friesland, has a showcase full of books of the Dutch journalist, translator and writer Havank. He published over 30 crime-novels and stories and is one of the founding fathers of Dutch crime books. What are these books doing here? Havank’s real name was Hendrikus Frederikus van der Kallen (1904-1964), […]

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Noble and royal “interracial” Marriages
History, Miscellaneous

Noble and royal “interracial” Marriages

Updated 10 June 2022 How often these days I see articles stating that when Prince Harry of Wales married Meghan Markle in May 2018, it would be the first royal interracial marriage ever. Obviously most articles mean, the first British royal interracial marriage – as lots of media tends to forget there are other royal […]

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This is the Platinum Pudding 2022 Copyright: BBC
Bits & Pieces, Miscellaneous

This is the Platinum Pudding 2022

Remember the platinum pudding competition launched by the department store Fortnum & Mason and The Big Jubilee Lunch to celebrate the 70th Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom a few months ago? Amazingly there were more than 5,000 entries by people in the age of 8 to 108, and I can imagine […]

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