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| HRH Crownprincess Victoria of Sweden |
The announcement was made by the press relations officer for the Royal Family of Sweden, Annika Sonnerberg. She added that the Royal Family is full of joy about the news and that the Crown Princess is well. It is not planned to alter her gruelling schedule of public appearances in the near future and she is expected in Oslo for a national memorial service for the victims of the recent terrorist attacks.
The way for the Royal couple to arrive at this joyous announcement was a hard one from the start. Prince Daniel was born a Swedish subject as Daniel Westling. He and the Crown Princess met nine years ago in a fitness studio in Stockholm. Crown Princess Victoria was going to the studio as part of her recuperation from bulimia; Daniel Westling was her personal trainer during that period.
They started out being friends first, before the romance was taking shape. But once that became public, contrary winds came from all directions. The Royal Family was less than enchanted, the press was unappreciative, and the public dismissed the guy from the fitness studio as a fortune hunter.
Despite the stones thrown into their path, the two persisted and won the grudging admiration of the population, the respect of the press, and finally the approval of the Royal Family. The marriage finally took place after eight long years in 2010. In its wake, Daniel was made Duke of Vastergotland and a Prince of Sweden. Since then, Victoria’s and Daniel’s approval ratings are in a constant climb.
The announcement well over a year after the fairytale wedding was greeted with great joy and a sigh of general relief. Crown Princess Victoria will one day follow her father King Carl XVI Gustav as Queen on Sweden’s throne with Prince Daniel as her Prince Consort (a Queen’s consort always remains a Prince and doesn’t become a King; a King’s consort on the other hand becomes Queen; so much for equal rights). Her first child, irrespective of its sex, will be her successor one day. The child’s birth is estimated to take place in March 2012.
The expected birth of a successor to Victoria takes a lot of pressure of her younger siblings Princess Madeleine and Prince Philip who both had been standing in as spares to date. With the Royal line secured in the principal line, their choice of life partners becomes of less interest to the public as their succession becomes a merely remote possibility.
The visit of Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel to Oslo to offer support should not be seen as a foreign visit in the normal sense. Norway’s and Sweden’s crowns were held in union by the Swedish Royal Family up to 1905 when Norway decided to secede. They chose a Prince of Denmark as their new king (Denmark, Sweden, and Norway had once been held in union by Danish Royal Family). But the relationship between the three Royal Families are so close, outsiders have sometimes problems to tell who is reigning where at any given time.
Further reading
Christina, The Female King of Sweden
The Queen Astrid Chapel
Prince Valdemar of Denmark and Too Many Thrones
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