Monthly Archives: June 2014

Prince Katsura of Mikasa

by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2014

Prince Katsura of Mikasa was the second son of the three sons and the third of the five children of Prince Mikasa of Japan and Yuriko Takagi (Princess Mikasa). Prince Mikasa was the youngest son of Emperor Taishō, the youngest brother of Emperor Hirohito (Shōwa), and the uncle of Emperor Akihito. Prince Katsura was born in Tokyo, Japan on February 11, 1948. He was called “of Mikasa” because his father was authorized to form a new branch of the Imperial Family by Emperor Hirohito (Shōwa). He was given the personal name Yoshihito and the childhood appellation Yoshi.  In 1988, he was granted the title Prince Katsura (Katsura-no-miya), and authorization to start a new branch of the Imperial Family. However, he never married.

Prince Katsura had four siblings:

  • Yasuko Konoe, formerly Princess Yasuko (born 1944), married Tadateru Konoe, had one daughter; upon her marriage, Princess Yasuko had to relinquish her title from birth and her official membership in the Imperial Family
  • Prince Tomohito (1946 – 2012), married Nobuko Asō, had two daughters
  • Masako Sen, formerly Princess Masako (born 1951), married Sōshitsu Sen, had two sons and one daughter; upon her marriage, Princess Masako had to relinquish her title from birth and her official membership in the Imperial Family
  • Prince Takamado (1954 – 2002), married Hisako Tottori, had three daughters

Left to right: Prince Tomohito, Princess Mikasa, Prince Katsura, and Princess Yasuko; Credit – Wikipedia

Prince Katsura studied political science at Gakushuin University in Tokyo, Japan, graduating in 1971. He then attended graduate school at  Australian National University, in Canberra, Australia for two years. Upon his return to Japan, he was an administrator at NHK, Japan’s national public broadcasting organization.

Prince Katsura was paralyzed from the waist down after suffering from a series of strokes in 1988 and used a wheelchair. Despite vision loss in his right eye, paralysis, and memory issues, he remained active in public life and was president of various charity organizations:

  • President of the Japan-Australia-New Zealand Society
  • President of the Agricultural Society of Japan
  • President of the Japan Forestry Association
  • President of the Japan Art Crafts Association
  • President of the Japanese Urushi Art Crafts Association

Prince Katsura attends an exhibition of Japanese traditional art crafts; Credit – http://www.kunaicho.go.jp

Prince Katsura died from a massive heart attack on June 8, 2014, at the University of Tokyo Hospital at the age of 66. Since Prince Katsura never married and his two brothers only had daughters, his death marked the end of his father’s branch of the Japanese Imperial Family.  His death left only five people in the line of succession to the Japanese throne.  Currently, females are not permitted to be in the line of succession.

His funeral, called the Renso-no-Gi (Ceremony of the Funeral and Entombment), was held on June 17, 2014, at the Toshimagaoka Cemetery in Tokyo. His remains were later cremated and then interred in a stone chamber next to the burial site of the ashes of his older brother, Prince Tomohito, who died in 2012. Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko did not attend the funeral as is the custom. The Imperial Family was represented by the Emperor’s two sons and their wives along with one of his granddaughters: Crown Prince Naruhito, Crown Princess Masako, Prince Akishino, and his wife, Princess Kiko, and their daughter Princess Mako.

Katsura funeral

Crown Princess Masako leads Crown Prince Naruhito, Prince Akishino, Princess Kiko, and Princess Mako at Prince Katsura’s funeral; Photo source: Japan Times

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Jetsun Pema, Queen of Bhutan

by Susan Flantzer  © Unofficial Royalty 2014

Jetsun Pema

Jetsun Pema, Queen of Bhutan; Credit – crielaa.blogspot.com

On October 13, 2011, 21-year-old Jetsun Pema became the youngest queen in the world when she married King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck of Bhutan.  Bhutan is a small, land-locked country in south Asia. The House of Wangchuck has ruled Bhutan since 1907. In 2008, Bhutan made the transition from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy.

Jetsun Pema was born on June 4, 1990, at Jigme Dorji Wangchuck National Referral Hospital, the main hospital in Bhutan’s capital, Thimphu. Her parents are Dhondup Gyaltshen, a pilot with Drukair – Royal Bhutan Airlines, the national airline of the Kingdom of Bhutan, and Sonam Chuki. Both parents have connections to the Royal Family of Bhutan. Jetsun Pema’s father is the half-brother of a former queen consort and her mother is the goddaughter of a Bhutanese prince. Besides Jetsun Pema, the second eldest, her parents have two sons and two more daughters.

Jetsun Pema received her early education at schools in her birthplace, Thimphu. She started her secondary education in Thimphu but then attended the Lawrence School, a boarding school in Sanawar, India. After completing her education at the Lawrence School, Jetsun Pema attended Regent’s College in London, England where she majored in International Relations and minored in Psychology and Art History. She is fluent in Dzongkha, the national language of Bhutan, English, and Hindi. Jetsun Pema was the captain of her high school basketball team and still enjoys the sport.

Punakha Dzong where the Buddhist wedding ceremony took place; Photo Credit – Wikipedia

Jetsun Pema first met her husband when she was seven and he was seventeen. On October 13, 2011, they were married in a traditional Buddhist ceremony at the Punakha Dzong (the Palace of Great Happiness) in Punakha, Bhutan. The wedding ceremony was followed by a formal proclamation naming the bride as Queen of Bhutan.

Bhutan wedding

King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck and Queen Jetsun Pema at their wedding; Credit – www.telegraph.co.uk

The bride wore a kira, the Bhutanese national dress for women, of red, yellow, green, and white, and a light yellow toego, a long-sleeved, short jacket-like garment over the kira. The groom wore a rose-patterned gho, the Bhutanese national dress for men. This was the same gho that the king’s father and grandfather wore at their weddings.

Bhutan Royal Family, June 2020; Credit – His Majesty King Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck Facebook Page

The couple has two sons and one daughter

Queen Jetsun Pema and her husband meeting the then Prince Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall at Clarence House on November 23, 2011 in London, England

Queen Jestun Pema has accompanied her husband on foreign official trips and she accompanies him on official visits throughout Bhutan. She is the patron of the Ability Bhutan Society, the Royal Society for Protection of Nature, Jigten Wangchuk Tshogpa, and the United Nations Environment Programme Ozone Ambassador.

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King Juan Carlos of Spain’s message to Spain, 2 June 2014

Photo Credit – www.reuters.com

BBC Mundo: Vea el mensaje de abdicación del rey Juan Carlos (Video of King Juan Carlos of Spain’s message to Spain)

English text of King Juan Carlos of Spain’s message to Spain, 2 June 2014

Today, when I look back, I can only feel pride and gratitude to you.

Pride for the many good things we have achieved together over the years.

And gratitude for the support you have given me to make my reign, begun in full youth at a time of great uncertainties and difficulties, a long period of peace, stability and progress.

Faithful to the political desire of my father, the Count of Barcelona, from whom I inherited the historic legacy of the Spanish monarchy, I wanted to be king for all Spaniards. I have identified with and engaged with your hopes, I have enjoyed your successes and suffered when pain or frustration overwhelmed you.

The long and deep economic crisis we are suffering from has left serious scars in the social fabric but it is also showing us the way to a future full of hope.

These difficult years have allowed us to take self-critical stock of our errors and our limitations as a society.

And, as a counterweight, it has also revived the proud awareness of what we have been and are capable of; and of what we have been and are: a great nation.

All this has awakened in us an urge for renewal, to overcome, to correct mistakes and open the way to a decidedly better future.

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In forging this future, a new generation is rightly claiming its role as protagonist, just as happened in a crucial moment of the history of the generation to which I belong.

My only ambition has been and will continue to be to contribute always to achieve the well-being and progress in freedom of all Spaniards.

I want the best for Spain, to which I have dedicated my entire life and to whose service I have placed all my abilities, my hope and my work.

My son Felipe, heir to the Crown, embodies the stability that is the distinguishing mark of the monarchical institution.

When last January I turned 76, I thought it was time to prepare the handover in a few months so as to leave the way to someone who is in excellent condition to assure that stability.

The Prince of Asturias has the maturity, the readiness and the sense of responsibility needed to take on with full guarantees the leadership of the state and open a new phase of hope combining experience and the drive of a new generation. For that, I know he will count on the support that he will always have from Princess Letizia.

For all these reasons, guided by the conviction of having given my best service to the Spanish people and having recovered physically and resumed my institutional activities, I decided to put an end to my reign and abdicate the Crown of Spain so that the government and parliament can give effect to the succession in line with the constitution.

I have just officially informed the president of the government of this, this morning.
I would like to express my gratitude to the Spanish people, to all who have embodied the powers and institutions of the state during my reign and to all those who have generously and loyally helped me to fulfill my duties.

And my gratitude to the Queen, whose help and generous support have never failed me.

I hold and will always hold Spain deep in my heart.

Princess Désirée of Sweden, Baroness Silfverschiöld

by Scott Mehl  © Unofficial Royalty 2014

Princess Désirée of Sweden, Baroness Silfverschiöld – photo: Wikipedia

Princess Désirée Elisabeth Sibylla of Sweden was born June 2, 1938, at Haga Palace, the third child and third daughter of Prince Gustaf Adolf, Duke of Västerbotten (son of King Gustaf VI Adolf), and Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. She is the third of the four elder sisters of King Carl XVI Gustaf. Through both of her parents, she is a great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. She was named for her ancestress, Queen Desideria, born Désirée Clary.

Désirée has four siblings:

Along with her siblings, Princess Désirée spent much of her youth at Haga Palace. Her father was killed in a plane crash in 1947, and in 1950, her great-grandfather died, and her grandfather ascended to the Swedish throne.  The family moved to the Royal Palace of Stockholm. She was initially educated at home, and later attended a French school and studied languages in Switzerland. She and her sisters were often known as ‘Haga Princesses’ and were considered some of the most glamorous, and most eligible, princesses in Europe.

photo: Wikipedia

On June 5, 1964, she married Baron Nils-August Otto Carl Niclas Silfverschiöld, from a Swedish noble family, at the Storkyrkan (Stockholm Cathedral). Due to her husband’s non-royal position, Désirée lost her royal status and any right of succession to the Swedish throne. She became simply Princess Désirée, Baroness Silfverschiöld.  The couple lived at Koberg Castle in Västergötland, Sweden and at Gåsevadholm Castle in Halland, Sweden.  Baron Silfverschiöld died on April 11, 2017, at the age of 82.

The couple had three children:

  • Carl Otto Edmund Silfverschiöld (born 1965), married Gunilla Maria Fredriksson, had one daughter, divorced
  • Christina Louise Ewa Madelaine Silfverschiöld (born 1966), married to Hans Louis Gerard De Geer of Finspång, had one daughter and two sons
  • Hélène Ingeborg Sibylla Silfverschiöld (born 1968)

While no longer a member of the official Swedish Royal Court, Princess Désirée is occasionally in attendance at state and official functions along with private family events.

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