Talk:Serene Highness

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Shouldnt this be called "His/Her Serene Highness" then afterwards referring to HSH?

"It also preceded the princely titles of members of some German ruling families, and exceptionally, the non-ruling Bismarck family, until 1918 and are used by courtesy nowadays by all former German princes, and it was also the form of address used for cadet members of the dynasties of France, Italy, Russia and Ernestine Saxony under their monarchies." Grammar & punctuation! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.25.222.255 ([[User t--State Of Completeness (talk) 05:16, 7 April 2011 (UTC)alk:82.25.222.255|talk]]) 02:38, 7 April 2011 (UTC)

etimology

So why "serene"? Had them any royal ancestor who was specially serene? --euyyn 15:09, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

It was probably just an exalting quality picked out because it sounds nice to say. From the German Durchlaucht, it is literally "Your Transparency"... I'd rather be called serene than basically told that people can see right through me ;-) Charles 16:01, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Is the style of serene highness considered to a royal style or is a noble style ? From reading the site it would appear the royal highess relates to being part of royal family and imperial highness relates to being a member of imperial family. The highess without any modifier relates to junior of imperial or royal houses. I am correct in this assumption.

royal highness is also used by reigning Grand Dukes. highness was used by reigning dukes, usually. Serene Highness is used for reigning princes and their families. As such, it is somewhere between a royal and a noble style. john k 15:45, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Would a reigning duke outranked a reigning prince ? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 195.93.21.8 (talk • contribs)

In some systems, yes. In others, no. In the system of the Holy Roman Empire and of Germany princes ranked below dukes. In other systems, this may have been the opposite. A very rough order of rank (or exaltation) in descending order is Emperor, King, Grand Duke, Duke, Prince, Margrave, Count, Baron. Charles 02:10, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

Which only applies to Germany; in France, the order is varies tremendously, as you get duchies treated as subsidiary titles of principalities (the heir to the principality of Condé was the duke of Enghien), on the other hand, some of the peers gave their princely titles as courtesies to their heirs (Léon for the dukes of Rohan, Bidache for the dukes of Guiche), and the hierarchy depended much more on your favour than effective protocol, the place of princes was generally seen as before peers because they were accepted as almost sovereign and it all becomes amazingly complex, at the same time, the princes du sang were not accepted as coming before other magnates just by virtue of being cadet lines of the house of France before, and it took the 17th century for it to be accepted seriously, made even worse by the insistance of some 19th century writers that the title of prince in France was strictly royal or a courtesy for formerly sovereign princes (like the Rohans in Britanny), but at the same time Boisbelle was a principality erected with letters patent from the kings and earlier the dukes of Berri... 70.55.59.133 (talk) 11:20, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Thailand?

It appears that this term is also used in Thailand. Some of the Crown Prince's children from his common law marriage are given this title. I don't have the knowledge to expand on that, but it would be nice if someone added something to this effect to this article. TransNique 10:38, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Bismarck

I think we need some evidence that the 'non-ruling Bismarck family' was addressed as Durchlaucht: I believe they weren't, though he certainly was. For clarification, a little background: Otto v.Bismarck stated life as Herr (Mr.), but in turn became Graf (Count), then Fürst (Prince), then Herzog (Duke). As is stated above, the order in Germanic states differs, confusingly, from British practice. In Britain, the highest status a non-royal could gain would be: Duke. Prince, King and Emperor would be grades of royalty: Prince of Wales, King of England (or Scotland, or Ireland), Empress of India. Prince trumps Duke. In Germanic states, it is the reverse: a 'Prince' (Fürst) was more like a British duke than British royalty, except for those who were sovereigns of their own statelets. So, when Bismarck went from Prince to Duke, he really was being honoured. Now he was more like a princeling. That's when he became Durchlaucht. The title of Duke was for him alone: a life-title. It died with him, as did, I believe the Durchlaucht title. The title of Prince was inherited by his eldest son, and then his eldest son in turn, and so on. The younger sons of each generation became Counts. In the examples given, Pless was also a Duchy, and I believe that is why they had the prefix HSH. I don't know about the remaining two families, but I would look for a Duke in one generation, if I were bothered... Protozoon (talk) 19:05, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Duchies and Principalities

On the subject of German titles and states, there are more existing Germanic states than one might think. Germany, Austria, Switzerland, of course, but also Liechtenstein and, surprisingly, Luxembourg (Luxemburg). The last two states still have a monarchical system: one is the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg and the other is the Fürstentum Liechtenstein (FL). Luxembourg is usually thought of as part of the Low Countries (eg. Benelux), but for centuries it was a state in "Germany", the region of more than a thousand states and statelets, otherwise known as the Holy Roman Empire, when there was no Germany (no inverted commas). It was, briefly and unhappily, part of that too, but let's move on... Though it now generally speaks French, hence the spelling, it still has its own Germanic language (Lëtzebuergesch), though it believes it is now sufficiently different that it does not attend German-language conferences. So, as a Germanic state, that explains to English-speakers why Luxembourg is a Grand-Duchy but the much smaller Liechtenstein is a Principality. Protozoon (talk) 19:05, 12 August 2015 (UTC)