The Grand Duke of Luxembourg ( lb, Groussherzog vu Lëtzebuerg, french: Grand-duc de Luxembourg, german: Großherzog von Luxemburg) is the

monarch A monarch is a head of stateWebster's II New College DictionarMonarch Houghton Mifflin. Boston. 2001. p. 707. Life tenure, for life or until abdication, and therefore the head of state of a monarchy. A monarch may exercise the highest authority ...

ical

head of state A head of state (or chief of state) is the public persona who officially embodies a state Foakes, pp. 110–11 " he head of statebeing an embodiment of the State itself or representatitve of its international persona." in its unity and l ...

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

. Luxembourg has been a

grand duchy A grand duchy is a sovereign state, country or territory whose official head of state or ruler is a monarch bearing the title of grand duke or grand duchess. Relatively rare until the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the term was oft ...

since 15 March 1815, when it was created from territory of the former Duchy of Luxembourg. It was in

personal union A personal union is the combination of two or more states that have the same monarch while their boundaries, laws, and interests remain distinct. A real union, by contrast, would involve the constituent states being to some extent interlink ...

with the

United Kingdom of the Netherlands The United Kingdom of the Netherlands ( nl, Verenigd Koninkrijk der Nederlanden; french: Royaume uni des Pays-Bas) is the unofficial name given to the Kingdom of the Netherlands as it existed between 1815 and 1839. The United Netherlands was cr ...

until 1890 under the House of Orange-Nassau. Luxembourg is the world's only sovereign grand duchy and since 1815, there have been nine monarchs, including the

incumbent The incumbent is the current holder of an official, office or position, usually in relation to an election. In an election for president, the incumbent is the person holding or acting in the office of president before the election, whether seek ...

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 The Constitution of Luxembourg (french: Constitution du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg) is the supreme law of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. The modern constitution was adopted on 17 October 1868. Whilst the constitution of 1868 marked a radical c ...

defines the grand duke's position: :The grand duke is the head of state, symbol of its unity, and guarantor of national

independence Independence is a condition of a person, nation, country, or state in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the statu ...

. He exercises

executive Executive ( exe., exec., execu.) may refer to: Role or title * Executive, a senior management role in an organization ** Chief executive officer (CEO), one of the highest-ranking corporate officers (executives) or administrators ** Executive dir ...

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 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 The House of Nassau is a diversified aristocratic dynasty in Europe. It is named after the lordship associated with Nassau Castle, located in present-day Nassau, Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany. The lords of Nassau were originally titled "Count ...

, as stipulated under the 1815 Final Act of the

Congress of Vienna The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon B ...

and as confirmed by the 1867 Treaty of London. 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 Count of Merenberg (German: ''Graf von Merenberg'') is a hereditary title of nobility that was bestowed in 1868 by the reigning Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont, George Victor, upon the morganatic wife and male-line descendants of Prince Nikolaus ...

branch of the House, which was descended from a

morganatic marriage Morganatic marriage, sometimes called a left-handed marriage, is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which in the context of royalty or other inherited title prevents the principal's position or privileges being passed to the spous ...

. An

heir apparent An heir apparent, often shortened to heir, is a person who is first in an order of succession and cannot be displaced from inheriting by the birth of another person; a person who is first in the order of succession but can be displaced by the b ...

may be granted the style 'hereditary grand duke'. The current heir apparent is Hereditary Grand Duke Guillaume. In June 2011, agnatic primogeniture was replaced with absolute primogeniture, 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 By the Grace of God ( la, Dei Gratia, abbreviated D.G.) is a formulaic phrase used especially in Christian monarchies as an introductory part of the full styles of a monarch. For example in England and later the United Kingdom, the phrase was fo ...

, Grand Duke of Luxembourg,

Duke of Nassau The Duchy of Nassau (German: ''Herzogtum Nassau'') was an independent state between 1806 and 1866, located in what is now the German states of Rhineland-Palatinate and Hesse. It was a member of the Confederation of the Rhine and later of the G ...

Count Palatine of the Rhine The counts palatine of Lotharingia /counts palatine of the Rhine /electors of the Palatinate (german: Kurfürst von der Pfalz) ruled some part of Rhine area in the Kingdom of Germany and the Holy Roman Empire from 915 to 1803. The title was a kind ...

, Count of

Sayn Sayn was a small German county of the Holy Roman Empire which, during the Middle Ages, existed within what is today Rheinland-Pfalz. There have been two Counties of Sayn. The first emerged in 1139 and became closely associated with the County ...

, Königstein, Katzenelnbogen and Diez, Burgrave of

Hammerstein Hammerstein is a municipality on the river Rhine in the district of Neuwied in Rhineland-Palatinate in Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous co ...

, 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 o ...

Wiesbaden Wiesbaden () is a city in central western Germany and the capital of the state of Hesse. , it had 290,955 inhabitants, plus approximately 21,000 United States citizens (mostly associated with the United States Army). The Wiesbaden urban area ...

, Idstein,

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 Limburg or Limbourg may refer to: Regions * Limburg (Belgium), a province since 1839 in the Flanders region of Belgium * Limburg (Netherlands), a province since 1839 in the south of the Netherlands * Diocese of Limburg, Roman Catholic Diocese in ...

and

Eppstein Eppstein is a town in the Main-Taunus-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany. Eppstein lies west of Frankfurt am Main, around 12 km north east of the state capital Wiesbaden, and is at the edge of the Taunus mountains. The ruins of the Eppstein castle is ...

''. 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 The Holy Roman Empire was a Polity, political entity in Western Europe, Western, Central Europe, Central, and Southern Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, dissolution i ...

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 Inheritance is the practice of receiving private property, Title (property), titles, debts, entitlements, Privilege (law), privileges, rights, and Law of obligations, obligations upon the death of an individual. The rules of inheritance differ ...

by females or through the female line only upon extinction of male members of the

dynasty A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family,''Oxford English Dictionary'', "dynasty, ''n''." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1897. usually in the context of a monarchical system, but sometimes also appearing in republics. A ...

. When William III 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 ''Adolphe'' is a classic French novel by Benjamin Constant, first published in 1816. It tells the story of an alienated young man, Adolphe, who falls in love with an older woman, Ellénore, the Polish mistress of the Comte de P***. Their illicit ...

, the dispossessed

and head of the branch of Nassau-Weilburg. In 1905, Grand Duke Adolphe's younger half-brother, Prince

Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau Prince Nikolaus Wilhelm of Nassau (20 September 1832 – 17 September 1905), was the only son of William, Duke of Nassau by his second wife Princess Pauline of Württemberg. Marriage and issue He married morganatic marriage, morganatically in Lo ...

, died, having left a son Georg Nikolaus, Count von Merenberg who was, however, the product of a

, and therefore not legally a member of the House of Nassau. In 1907, Adolphe's only son,

William IV, Grand Duke of Luxembourg 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 ...

, 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 A dynasty is a sequence of rulers from the same family,''Oxford English Dictionary'', "dynasty, ''n''." Oxford University Press (Oxford), 1897. usually in the context of a monarchical system, but sometimes also appearing in republics. A d ...

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 Abdication is the act of formally relinquishing monarchical authority. Abdications have played various roles in the succession procedures of monarchies. While some cultures have viewed abdication as an extreme abandonment of duty, in other societ ...

in 1919, was succeeded by her younger sister

Charlotte Charlotte ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. Located in the Piedmont region, it is the county seat of Mecklenburg County. The population was 874,579 at the 2020 census, making Charlotte the 16th-most populo ...

, who married

Felix of Bourbon-Parma Prince Félix of Bourbon-Parma (later Prince Félix of Luxembourg; 28 September 1893 – 8 April 1970) was the husband of Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg and the father of her six children, including her successor Jean, Grand Duke of ...

, a prince of the former Duchy of Parma. Charlotte's descendants have since

reign A reign is the period of a person's or dynasty's occupation of the office of monarch of a nation (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Belgium, Andorra), of a people (e.g., the Franks, the Zulus) or of a spiritual community (e.g., Catholicism, Tibetan Buddhism, N ...

ed as the continued dynasty of ''Nassau'', and also constitute a

cadet branch In history and heraldry, a cadet branch consists of the male-line descendants of a monarch's or patriarch's younger sons ( cadets). In the ruling dynasties and noble families of much of Europe and Asia, the family's major assets— realm, title ...

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 William I; ang, WillelmI (Bates ''William the Conqueror'' p. 33– 9 September 1087), usually known as William the Conqueror and sometimes William the Bastard, was the first Norman king of England, reigning from 1066 until his death in 10 ...

" 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:" William III" fontsize:10 from: 23/11/1890 till: 17/11/1905 color:nassau text:"

" fontsize:10 from: 17/11/1905 till: 25/02/1912 color:nassau text:"

William IV William IV (William Henry; 21 August 1765 – 20 June 1837) was King of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and King of Hanover from 26 June 1830 until his death in 1837. The third son of George III, William succeeded h ...

" 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:"

" fontsize:10 from: 12/11/1964 till: 07/10/2000 color:nassau text:"

Jean Jean may refer to: People * Jean (female given name) * Jean (male given name) * Jean (surname) Fictional characters * Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character * Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations * Jea ...

" 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 ...

(first wife of Grand Duke William I) *

Grand Duchess Anna Pavlovna of Russia Anna Pavlovna of Russia (russian: Анна Павловна ; nl, Anna Paulowna ; – 1 March 1865) was a queen of the Netherlands by marriage to king William II of the Netherlands. She was a Russian patriot who upheld a strict royal etiquette ...

(wife of Grand Duke William II) * Princess Sophie of Württemberg (first wife of Grand Duke William III) *

Princess Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont Emma of Waldeck and Pyrmont (Adelheid Emma Wilhelmina Theresia; 2 August 1858 – 20 March 1934) was Queen of the Netherlands and Grand Duchess of Luxembourg as the wife of King-Grand Duke William III. An immensely popular member of the Dutch R ...

(second wife of Grand Duke William III) *

Princess Adelheid-Marie of Anhalt-Dessau Princess Adelheid-Marie of Anhalt-Dessau (german: Adelheid-Marie; french: Adélaïde-Marie) (25 December 1833 – 24 November 1916) was a Princess of Anhalt-Dessau and member of the House of Ascania. As the wife of Adolphe of Nassau, she was Duch ...

(wife of

Grand Duke Adolphe Adolphe (Adolf Wilhelm August Karl Friedrich; 24 July 1817 – 17 November 1905) was Grand Duke of Luxembourg from 23 November 1890 to his death on 17 November 1905. The first grand duke from the House of Nassau-Weilburg, he succeeded King Willia ...

) *

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) *

Prince Felix of Bourbon-Parma Prince Félix of Bourbon-Parma (later Prince Félix of Luxembourg; 28 September 1893 – 8 April 1970) was the husband of Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg and the father of her six children, including her successor Jean, Grand Duke of ...

(husband of

Grand Duchess Charlotte Charlotte (Charlotte Adelgonde Elisabeth Marie Wilhelmine; 23 January 1896 – 9 July 1985) reigned as Grand Duchess of Luxembourg from 14 January 1919 until her abdication on 12 November 1964. She acceded to the throne on 14 January 1919 foll ...

) *

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 Jean (Jean Benoît Guillaume Robert Antoine Louis Marie Adolphe Marc d'Aviano; 5 January 1921 – 23 April 2019) was the Grand Duke of Luxembourg from 1964 until his abdication in 2000. He was the first Grand Duke of Luxembourg of French agnatic ...

) * María Teresa Mestre y Batista (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