Wirklich? Really?: Royalty

Who knew that Europe still was ruled by kings and queens?  And there's not just Kate and William, but who could forget Silvia and Carl Gustaf, Letizia and Filippe, and, last but not least, Mette-Marit and Haakon?  There is a steady stream of royal weddings ready to fill out half the pages of every European-based gossip magazine before they even get around to documenting Christina Aguilera's bad hair days.

And it's not only the affairs of those choice ruling royal houses who somehow escaped the "off-with-their-heads" portion of European history that make the news.   The deposed and otherwise long-forgotten descendants of the royals of Europe have been quietly filing their comings and goings with rag-trade papers as well. According to Frau magazine, the family of the ex-King of Romania gathered to celebrate his 90th birthday last month, among whose guests were the Princesses of Liechtenstein, the crown prince of Yugoslavia, and both the Prince and the Markgraf of Baden.  (That's Baden as in Baden-Württemberg, the modern left-leaning German state of which Stuttgart is the manufacturing centre.)  Whyever did the Emperor of Mexico fail to grace them with his presence?

While I thought that the only remaining socialites were the drug-addict great-grandchildren of oil barons and coal magnates, and that the septuagenarian descendants of deposed monarchs were only kept in funny hats by their British cousins in order to be trotted out at ceremonial gatherings, it turns out that the ruling classes of Europe are very much alive and socializing.  Take, for example, the Tiffany ball profiled in the back of Instyle Germany, which boasted a Gräfin, a couple "zu Whatsits", and a "von Wherever".  Those little words mean they're royal, even if they're being coy about whether their great-grandfather was an Erzherzog or a Fürst.

By breaking free from monarchies into democratic rule, it looks like we really did the ruling houses of Europe a solid.  The ex-royals of Europe are still rich enough to do nothing for a living, and even upset that they are not richer.  And, while their officially royal ancestors may have had a country or two to look after in order to keep themselves in gold cutlery and velvet bedding, all today's royals need to manage is an annual charity luncheon. But, with centuries of practice, they know how to keep us pacified. As long as they can keep feeding us a heavy helping of fairytale romances, let them eat wedding cake.

image via novinite.com