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Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg

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Charlotte (Charlotte Adelgonde Elisabeth Marie Wilhelmine; 23 January 1896 – 9 July 1985) was Grand Duchess of Luxembourg from 14 January 1919 until her abdication on 12 November 1964. Her reign is the longest of any Luxembourgish monarch since 1815 when the country was elevated to a Grand Duchy.

Charlotte
Charlotte in 1942
Grand Duchess of Luxembourg
Reign14 January 1919 – 12 November 1964
PredecessorMarie-Adélaïde
SuccessorJean
Prime ministers
See List
Born(1896-01-23)23 January 1896
Berg Castle, Luxembourg
Died9 July 1985(1985-07-09) (aged 89)
Fischbach Castle, Fischbach, Luxembourg
Burial
Notre-Dame Cathedral
Spouse
​
​
(m. 1919; died 1970)​
Issue
Names
Charlotte Adelgonde Elisabeth Marie Wilhelmine
HouseNassau-Weilburg
FatherWilliam IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg
MotherInfanta Marie Anne of Portugal
ReligionCatholicism

She acceded to the throne on 14 January 1919 following the abdication of her sister, Marie-Adélaïde, due to political pressure over Marie-Adélaïde's role during the German occupation of Luxembourg during World War I. A referendum retained the monarchy with Charlotte as grand duchess.

She married Prince Felix of Bourbon-Parma on 6 November 1919. They had six children. Following the 1940 German invasion of Luxembourg during World War II, Charlotte went into exile: first in France, then Portugal, Great Britain, and North America. While in Britain, she made broadcasts to the people of Luxembourg. She returned to Luxembourg in April 1945.

She abdicated in 1964, and was succeeded by her son Jean. Charlotte died from cancer on 9 July 1985. She was the last agnatic member of the House of Nassau. She was the last personal recipient of the Golden Rose and since her death there are no living personal recipients of that honour, which in modern times has been awarded only to churches and shrines. She is to date the most recent Grand Duchess of Luxembourg.

Early life and tenure as Grand Duchess

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Private portrait, 1921

Born in Berg Castle, Charlotte of Nassau-Weilburg, Princess of Luxembourg, was the second daughter of Grand Duke William IV and his wife, Marie Anne of Portugal.[1]

Her older sister, Marie-Adélaide, had succeeded their father. However, Marie-Adélaïde's actions had become controversial, and she was seen as sympathetic to the German occupation of Luxembourg during World War I. There were calls in parliament for her abdication, and she was forced to abdicate in favour of Charlotte on 14 January 1919.[2]

Luxembourg adopted a new constitution that year. In a referendum on 28 September 1919, 77.8% of the Luxembourgish people voted for the continuation of the monarchy with Grand Duchess Charlotte as head of state.[1] However, in the new constitution, the powers of the monarch were severely restricted, thus codifying actual practices dating from the end of the personal union with the Netherlands in 1890.

Reign

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By 1935, Charlotte had sold her German properties, the former residential palaces of the Dukes of Nassau, Biebrich Palace and Schloss Weilburg, to the State of Prussia. During World War II the grand ducal family left Luxembourg shortly before the arrival of Nazi troops. Luxembourg's neutrality was violated on 9 May 1940, while the Grand Duchess and her family were in residence at Colmar-Berg. That day she called an extraordinary meeting of her leading ministers, and they all decided to place themselves under the protection of France, described by the Grand Duchess as a difficult but necessary decision. Initially the family took up residence at the Château de Montastruc in south-western France, but the rapid advance of the German forces into France followed by French capitulation the next month caused the French government to refuse any guarantee of security to the exiled Luxembourg government. Permission was received to cross Spain provided they did not stop en route, and the Grand Duchess with her ministers moved on to Portugal.[3]

The Germans proposed to restore the Grand Duchess to her functions, but Charlotte refused, mindful of her sister's experiences of remaining in Luxembourg under German occupation during the First World War. By 29 August 1940 Grand Duchess Charlotte was in London where she began to make supportive broadcasts to her homeland using the BBC.[4] Later she travelled to the United States and to Canada. Her children continued their schooling in Montreal[5] while she had several meetings with President Roosevelt who encouraged her itinerant campaigning across the country in support of his own opposition to isolationism which was a powerful political current until the Pearl Harbor attacks.[6] In the meantime Luxembourg, along with the adjacent French Moselle department, found itself integrated into an expanded Germany under the name Heim ins Reich, which left Luxembourgers required to speak German and liable for conscription into the German army.[7][8]

In 1943 Grand Duchess Charlotte and the Luxembourg government established themselves in London: her broadcasts became a more regular feature of the BBC schedules, establishing her as a focus for the resistance movements in Luxembourg.

Charlotte's younger sister Antonia and brother-in-law Rupprecht, Crown Prince of Bavaria, were exiled from Germany in 1939. In 1944, living now in Hungary, Crown Princess Antonia was captured when the Germans invaded Hungary and found herself deported to the concentration camp at Dachau, being later transferred to Flossenbürg where she survived torture but only with her health badly impaired. Meanwhile, from 1942 Grand Duchess Charlotte's eldest son, Jean, served as a volunteer in the British Army's Irish Guards,[9] after the war becoming its Honorary Colonel-in-chief (1984-2000).

In the years after the war, Charlotte showed a lot of public activity which contributed to raising Luxembourg's profile on the international stage, by hosting visits from foreign heads of state and other dignitaries, such as Eleanor Roosevelt (1950), Queen Juliana of the Netherlands (1951), René Coty (1957), King Baudouin of Belgium (1959), King Bhumibol of Thailand (1961), and King Olav V of Norway (1964). Likewise, she visited Pope Pius XII (1950), Charles de Gaulle (1961), and John F. Kennedy (1963).[10]

In 1951 Charlotte and her prime minister Pierre Dupong admitted by decree three Swedish relatives into the nobility of Luxembourg who were not allowed to use their birth titles in Sweden. They were then named as Sigvard Prince Bernadotte, Carl Johan Prince Bernadotte and Lennart Prince Bernadotte and also, with their legitimate descendants, were given the hereditary titles of Counts and Countesses of Wisborg there.[11]

Abdication and later life

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Charlotte of Luxembourg and Prince Felix before her abdication, 11 November 1964

On 12 November 1964, she abdicated in favour of her son Jean, who then reigned until his abdication in 2000.

Charlotte died at Schloss Fischbach on 9 July 1985, from cancer. She was interred in the Ducal Crypt of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in the city of Luxembourg.

A statue of the Grand Duchess is in Place Clarefontaine in the city of Luxembourg.[12]

Marriage and children

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On 6 November 1919 in Luxembourg, she married Prince Felix of Bourbon-Parma, a first cousin on her mother's side.[13] (Both Charlotte and Felix were grandchildren of King Miguel of Portugal, through his daughters Maria Anna and Maria Antonia, respectively). With the marriage, their lineal descent was raised in style from Grand Ducal Highness to Royal Highness.

The couple had six children:[14]

Honours

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National honours
Foreign honours
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  •  
    The old Berg Castle (demolished 1906), Mersch, central Luxembourg, ducal residence where Charlotte was born
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    Fischbach Castle, Mersch, Charlotte's residence, and where she died
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    Statue of Grand-Duchess Charlotte in Clairefontaine square, side view

Notes and references

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  1. ^ a b "H.R.H. Grand Duchess Charlotte | Cour grand-ducale". www.monarchie.lu. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  2. ^ "H.R.H. Grand Duchess Marie-Adélaïde". Cour grand-ducale (in French). Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  3. ^ "Charlotte". WW2DB. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  4. ^ "'Léif Lëtzebuerger' Grand Duchess Charlotte's defiant WWII broadcasts". Luxembourg Times. 16 January 2019. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
  5. ^ Bernier Arcand, Philippe (2010). "L'exil québécois du gouvernement du Luxembourg" (PDF). Histoire Québec. 15 (3): 19–26 – via Erudit.
  6. ^ "Grand Duchess Charlotte's US Good-Will-Tours". Luxembourg Times. 14 April 2015. Retrieved 1 January 2019.
  7. ^ Waller, George Platt (2012). Fletcher, Willard Allen; Fletcher, Jean Tucker (eds.). Defiant Diplomat: George Platt Waller, American consul in Nazi-occupied Luxembourg 1939–1941. Newark: University of Delaware Press. p. 102. ISBN 978-1-61149-398-6.
  8. ^ "World War II". Allo Expat: Luxembourg. Archived from the original on 20 February 2015. Retrieved 11 May 2013.
  9. ^ "No. 36191". The London Gazette (2nd supplement). 1 October 1943. p. 4352.
  10. ^ Kreins, Jean-Marie. Histoire du Luxembourg. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 2010. 5th edition. p. 105
  11. ^ "Mémorial A n° 48 de 1951 - Legilux" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 21 July 2015. Retrieved 7 May 2016.
  12. ^ "Commemoration to mark return of Luxembourg monarch". Luxembourg Times. 11 April 2015. Retrieved 4 March 2023.
  13. ^ "H.R.H. Grand Duchess Charlotte". Cour Grand-Ducale. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
  14. ^ "H.R.H. Prince Félix of Bourbon-Parma". Cour Grand-Ducale. Retrieved 10 September 2022.
  15. ^ http://www.luxcentral.com/art/rulers/Charlotte.gif [bare URL image file]
  16. ^ Albanian Royal Court
  17. ^ Jørgen Pedersen (2009). Riddere af Elefantordenen, 1559–2009 (in Danish). Syddansk Universitetsforlag. p. 466. ISBN 978-87-7674-434-2.
  18. ^ M. & B. Wattel (2009). Les Grand'Croix de la Légion d'honneur de 1805 à nos jours. Titulaires français et étrangers. Paris: Archives & Culture. pp. 21, 489, 615. ISBN 978-2-35077-135-9.
  19. ^ https://journaldemonaco.gouv.mc/var/jdm/storage/original/application/481fcbccfcc1a320d5df3aa68661fe82.pdf [bare URL PDF]
  20. ^ "Het Geheugen". geheugen.delpher.nl.
  21. ^ "Den kongelige norske Sanct Olavs Orden", Norges Statskalender for Aaret 1970 (in Norwegian), Oslo: Forlagt av H. Aschehoug & Co. (w. Nygaard), 1970, pp. 1240–1241 – via runeberg.org
  22. ^ "Banda da Grã-Cruz das Duas Ordens: Carlota Aldegundes Elisa Maria Guilhermina (Grã-Duquesa do Luxemburgo e Duquesa de Nassau)" (in Portuguese), Arquivo Histórico da Presidência da República. Retrieved 2 April 2020.
  23. ^ Sveriges statskalender (in Swedish), vol. II, 1940, p. 8, retrieved 2 April 2020 – via runeberg.org
  24. ^ Royal Thai Government Gazette (28 December 1964). "แจ้งความสำนักนายกรัฐมนตรี พระราชทานเครื่องขัตติยราชอิสริยาภรณ์มหาจักรีบรมราชวงศ์" (PDF). www.ratchakitcha.soc.go.th (in Thai). Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 March 2016. Retrieved 8 May 2019.
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Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg
Cadet branch of the House of Nassau
Born: 23 January 1896 Died: 6 July 1985
Regnal titles
Preceded by Grand Duchess of Luxembourg
1919–1964 		Succeeded by
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