The Grand Duke of Luxembourg ( lb, Groussherzog vu Lëtzebuerg, french: Grand-duc de Luxembourg, german: Großherzog von Luxemburg) is the monarchical head of state of Luxembourg. Luxembourg has been a grand duchy since 15 March 1815, when it was created from territory of the former

Duchy of Luxembourg The Duchy of Luxemburg ( nl, Luxemburg; french: Luxembourg; german: Luxemburg; lb, Lëtzebuerg) was a state of the Holy Roman Empire, the ancestral homeland of the noble House of Luxembourg. The House of Luxembourg, now Duke of Limburg, becam ...

. It was in personal union with the United Kingdom of the Netherlands until 1890 under the

House of Orange-Nassau The House of Orange-Nassau (Dutch: ''Huis van Oranje-Nassau'', ) is the current reigning house of the Netherlands. A branch of the European House of Nassau, the house has played a central role in the politics and government of the Netherlands ...

. Luxembourg is the world's only sovereign grand duchy and since 1815, there have been nine monarchs, including the incumbent,

Henri Henri is an Estonian, Finnish, French, German and Luxembourgish form of the masculine given name Henry (given name), Henry. People with this given name ; French noblemen :'' See the 'List_of_rulers_named_Henry#France, List of rulers named Henry ...

Constitutional role

The constitution of Luxembourg defines the

grand duke Grand duke (feminine: grand duchess) is a European hereditary title, used either by certain monarchs or by members of certain monarchs' families. In status, a grand duke traditionally ranks in order of precedence below an emperor, as an approxi ...

's position: :The grand duke is the head of state, symbol of its unity, and guarantor of national independence. He exercises executive power in accordance with the constitution and the laws of the country. After a constitutional change (to article 34) in December 2008 resulting from Henri's refusal to assent to a law legalizing

euthanasia Euthanasia (from el, εὐθανασία 'good death': εὖ, ''eu'' 'well, good' + θάνατος, ''thanatos'' 'death') is the practice of intentionally ending life to eliminate pain and suffering. Different countries have different eut ...

, laws now no longer require the grand duke's formal assent (implying "approval") but his task of

promulgating Promulgation is the formal proclamation or the declaration that a new statutory or administrative law is enacted after its final approval. In some jurisdictions, this additional step is necessary before the law can take effect. After a new law ...

the law as chief executive remains.

Compensation

The grand duke does not receive a salary, but the grand ducal family receives annually 300,000 gold francs (€281,000) for grand ducal functions. In 2017, the Luxembourg budget included €10.1 million for the grand duke's household costs.

Succession

Succession to the throne was governed by

Salic law The Salic law ( or ; la, Lex salica), also called the was the ancient Frankish civil law code compiled around AD 500 by the first Frankish King, Clovis. The written text is in Latin and contains some of the earliest known instances of Old Du ...

, as dictated by the

Nassau Family Pact The Nassau Family Pact was a mutual pact of inheritance and succession made in 1783 by princes of the House of Nassau. It confirmed that Salic Law was to operate in favor of all the agnatic lines of the family, specifically the two senior survivin ...

, first adopted on 30 June 1783. The right to reign over Luxembourg was until June 2011 passed by

agnatic-cognatic primogeniture Primogeniture ( ) is the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn legitimate child to inherit the parent's entire or main estate in preference to shared inheritance among all or some children, any illegitimate child or any collateral relativ ...

within the House of Nassau, as stipulated under the 1815 Final Act of the Congress of Vienna and as confirmed by the 1867

Treaty of London The Treaty of London or London Convention or similar may refer to: *Treaty of London (1358), established a truce between England and France following the Battle of Poitiers *Treaty of London (1359), which ceded western France to England *Treaty of ...

. The Nassau Family Pact itself can be amended by the usual legislative process, having been so on 10 July 1907 to exclude the Count of Merenberg branch of the House, which was descended from a morganatic marriage. An heir apparent may be granted the style 'hereditary grand duke'. The current heir apparent is

Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume Prince Guillaume, Hereditary Grand Duke of Luxembourg (''Guillaume Jean Joseph Marie''; born 11 November 1981), is the heir apparent to the crown of Luxembourg since his Henri, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, father's accession in 2000. Early life a ...

. In June 2011, agnatic primogeniture was replaced with

absolute primogeniture Primogeniture ( ) is the right, by law or custom, of the firstborn legitimate child to inherit the parent's entire or main estate in preference to shared inheritance among all or some children, any illegitimate child or any collateral relativ ...

, allowing any legitimate female descendants within the House of Nassau to be included in the line of succession.

Full titles

The traditional titulatures of the grand duke are '' By the Grace of God, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, Duke of Nassau, Count Palatine of the Rhine, Count of Sayn, Königstein,

Katzenelnbogen Katzenelnbogen () is the name of a castle and small town in the district of Rhein-Lahn-Kreis in Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. Katzenelnbogen is the seat of the ''Verbandsgemeinde'' ("collective municipality") Aar-Einrich. History Katzenelnboge ...

and Diez, Burgrave of Hammerstein, Lord of

Mahlberg Mahlberg ( gsw, label= Low Alemannic, Mohlburg) is a town in the Ortenaukreis, in western Baden-Württemberg, Germany. It is situated 8 km southwest of Lahr, near the Europa-Park Rust. It is about north of Freiburg im Breisgau and south of ...

, Wiesbaden,

Idstein Idstein () is a town of about 25,000 inhabitants in the Rheingau-Taunus-Kreis in the ''Regierungsbezirk'' of Darmstadt in Hesse, Germany. Because of its well preserved historical Altstadt (Old Town) it is part of the ''Deutsche Fachwerkstraße'' ...

Merenberg Merenberg is a municipality in Limburg-Weilburg district in Hesse, Germany. Geography Location Merenberg lies on the southern edge of the Westerwald between the district seat of Limburg and Weilburg. Neighbouring communities Merenberg borders in ...

, Limburg and Eppstein''. It should, however, be noted that many of the titles are held without regard to the strict rules of Salic inheritance and that most, save for Grand Duke of Luxembourg and Duke of Nassau, are simply not used.

List of grand dukes

House of Orange-Nassau

House of Nassau-Weilburg

Under the 1783

, those territories of the Nassau family in the Holy Roman Empire at the time of the pact (Luxembourg and

Nassau Nassau may refer to: Places Bahamas *Nassau, Bahamas, capital city of the Bahamas, on the island of New Providence Canada *Nassau District, renamed Home District, regional division in Upper Canada from 1788 to 1792 *Nassau Street (Winnipeg), ...

) were bound by semi-

, which allowed inheritance by females or through the female line only upon extinction of male members of the dynasty. When

William III William III or William the Third may refer to: Kings * William III of Sicily (c. 1186–c. 1198) * William III of England and Ireland or William III of Orange or William II of Scotland (1650–1702) * William III of the Netherlands and Luxembourg ...

died leaving only his daughter Wilhelmina as an heir, the crown of the Netherlands, not being bound by the family pact, passed to Wilhelmina. However, the crown of Luxembourg passed to a male of another branch of the House of Nassau: Adolphe, the dispossessed Duke of Nassau and head of the branch of Nassau-Weilburg. In 1905, Grand Duke Adolphe's younger half-brother, Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau, died, having left a son Georg Nikolaus, Count von Merenberg who was, however, the product of a morganatic marriage, and therefore not legally a member of the House of Nassau. In 1907, Adolphe's only son, William IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, obtained passage of a law confirming the right of his eldest daughter, Marie-Adélaïde, to succeed to the throne in virtue of the absence of any remaining dynastic males of the House of Nassau, as originally stipulated in the Nassau Family Pact. She became the grand duchy's first reigning female monarch upon her father's death in 1912, and upon her own abdication in 1919, was succeeded by her younger sister Charlotte, who married Felix of Bourbon-Parma, a prince of the former

Duchy of Parma The Duchy of Parma and Piacenza ( it, Ducato di Parma e Piacenza, la, Ducatus Parmae et Placentiae), was an Italian state created in 1545 and located in northern Italy, in the current region of Emilia-Romagna. Originally a realm of the Farnese ...

. Charlotte's descendants have since reigned as the continued dynasty of ''Nassau'', and also constitute a cadet branch of the House of Bourbon-Parma. ImageSize = width:800 height:auto barincrement:12 PlotArea = top:10 bottom:50 right:130 left:20 AlignBars = late DateFormat = dd/mm/yyyy Period = from:15/03/1815 till:01/01/2022 TimeAxis = orientation:horizontal ScaleMajor = unit:year increment:10 start:1820 Colors = id:orange value:rgb(0.9999,0.7,0.5) legend:Orange-Nassau id:nassau value:rgb(0.8,0.8,0.9999) legend:Nassau-Weilburg Legend = columns:2 left:50 top:24 columnwidth:150 BarData = barset:PM PlotData= width:5 align:left fontsize:S shift:(5,-4) anchor:till barset:PM from: 15/03/1815 till: 07/10/1840 color:orange text:" William I" fontsize:10 from: 07/10/1840 till: 17/03/1849 color:orange text:" William II" fontsize:10 from: 17/03/1849 till: 23/11/1890 color:orange text:"

" fontsize:10 from: 23/11/1890 till: 17/11/1905 color:nassau text:" Adolphe" fontsize:10 from: 17/11/1905 till: 25/02/1912 color:nassau text:" William IV" fontsize:10 from: 25/02/1912 till: 14/01/1919 color:nassau text:" Marie-Adélaïde" fontsize:10 from: 14/01/1919 till: 12/11/1964 color:nassau text:" Charlotte" fontsize:10 from: 12/11/1964 till: 07/10/2000 color:nassau text:" Jean" fontsize:10 from: 07/10/2000 till: 30/07/2020 color:nassau text:"

" fontsize:10

Grand ducal consorts

Princess Wilhelmine of Prussia Princess Friederike Sophie Wilhelmine of Prussia (3 July 170914 October 1758) was a princess of Prussia (the older sister of Frederick the Great) and composer. She was the eldest daughter of Frederick William I of Prussia and Sophia Dorothea of H ...

(first wife of Grand Duke William I) * Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna of Russia (wife of Grand Duke William II) *

Princess Sophie of Württemberg Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin '' princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince. Princess as a subs ...

(first wife of Grand Duke William III) * Princess Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont (second wife of Grand Duke William III) * Princess Adelheid-Marie of Anhalt-Dessau (wife of Grand Duke Adolphe) *

Infanta Marie Anne of Portugal Infanta Marie Anne of Portugal ( pt, Maria Ana; 13 July 1861 – 31 July 1942) was Grand Duchess of Luxembourg as the wife of Grand Duke Guillaume IV. She was the regent of Luxembourg between 1908 and 1912; first during the illness of her spouse ...

(wife of

Grand Duke William IV William IV (Guillaume Alexander; ''French: Guillaume Alexandre''; 22 April 1852 – 25 February 1912) reigned as the Grand Duke of Luxembourg from 17 November 1905 until his death. He succeeded his father, Adolphe. William was a Protestant, the ...

) * Prince Felix of Bourbon-Parma (husband of Grand Duchess Charlotte) *

Princess Joséphine Charlotte of Belgium Princess is a regal rank and the feminine equivalent of prince (from Latin ''princeps'', meaning principal citizen). Most often, the term has been used for the consort of a prince, or for the daughter of a king or prince. Princess as a subst ...

(wife of Grand Duke Jean) *

María Teresa Mestre y Batista Maria Teresa (born María Teresa Mestre y Batista; 22 March 1956) is the Grand Duchess of Luxembourg as the wife of Grand Duke Henri, who acceded to the throne in 2000. Early life and education Maria Teresa was born on 22 March 1956 in Mariana ...

(wife of

Grand Duke Henri Henri (french: Henri Albert Gabriel Félix Marie Guillaume, ; born 16 April 1955) is the Grand Duke of Luxembourg. He has reigned since 7 October 2000. Henri, the eldest son of Grand Duke Jean and Princess Joséphine-Charlotte of Belgium, is a f ...

)

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Grand Duke Of Luxembourg 1815 establishments in Germany