Thursday 18 June 2015

Prince Nicolas Paul Gustaf of Sweden, Duke of Ångermanland

At 1.45 p.m. on Monday 15 June, less than 48 hours after the wedding of her brother Prince Carl Philip and Sofia Hellqvist, Princess Madeleine of Sweden gave birth to a son at Danderyd Hospital in Danderyd outside Stockholm, and in a council meeting with the government earlier today King Carl XVI Gustaf announced that his grandson's name and titles will be Nicolas Paul Gustaf, Prince of Sweden and Duke of Ångermanland.
The name Nicolas has not been used in the Swedish royal family before, except in the version Nicolaus. In 1831, the fourth son of the future King Oscar I and Queen Josephine received the name Nicolaus August, the first of them in honour of Emperor Nikolaj I of Russia, but when the Emperor shortly thereafter cracked down on the Polish uprising the reactions in Sweden were so strong that it was apparently felt safest to let the newborn prince be known by his second name, August.
Paul is obviously in honour of Prince Nicolas's paternal grandfather, the late Paul O'Neill, while Gustaf is a name with deep roots in Swedish royal history and of course also the second name of the current King, the baby's maternal grandfather.
All three names were also used in 1909, when the only child of Prince Wilhelm and his Russian-born wife Maria Pavlovna was named Gustaf Lennart Nicolaus Paul, although he was always known as Lennart.
The dukedom, on the other hand, is without precedent. Since Gustaf III re-introduced dukedoms in 1772 these have been derived from the provinces of Sweden. Some have been used more often than others, while some have never been used for dukedoms. Until today, Ångermanland was one of the latter.
The newborn Prince is sixth (and last) in the order of succession to the Swedish throne. He is the second child of Princess Madeleine and her husband Christopher O'Neill, following Princess Leonore, who was born on 20 February 2014.

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