The Benelux Royals Message Board: Re: Another generation of Belgian Royals with an extra-marital child

I would not be surprised if in time the titles of the Royal family will be limited. It has already been made public that of the four children of the current King of the Belgians only the oldest, the Duchess of Brabant, will receive in time a donation. The younger three will have to provide for themselves. The same applies to the children of the King's siblings Astrid, Laurent and Delphine. Being an HRH prince(ss) of Belgium may not be that desirable both for the young people involved and the monarchy.
I believe the commercial activities of her elder grandsons made Queen Margrethe of Denmark decide to remove the princely titles from her younger son's children. A similar thing might happen in Belgium. Just leaving the royal title to children of the main line and with succession-rights.

As for the dynastic status of the youngest son of Leopold III, I've seen quite a few constitutional experts stating that prince Alexander was a dynast and had succession-rights.

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I used to have issues with illegitimate children having titles: but by now, I'm resigned to the situation. At the very least, the said children don't have SUCCESSION RIGHTS. That would be the last straw ...

The fact is that titles are largely meaningless: in the past, there was a correlation between them and succession rights. But under the Salic law, princesses have titles without succession rights. The issue of King Leopold III and his morganatic second wife, Lilian Baels, were all born with full royal titles -- but have never been acknowledged as dynasts.

Great Britain has long had dynasts without titles -- even commoners. So why can't the opposite be possible? Indeed, we have seen neighboring Luxembourg, with its own share of persons born out of wedlock (e.g. the first son of Prince Louis and Tessy Anthony), eventually granted titles of some sort. If not HRH Prince(ss) of Luxembourg, then at least of Nassau.

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After Leopold I, Leopold II, Charles count of Flanders and Albert II now prince Laurent has finally admitted he is the biological father of the son of Flemish celebrity Wendy van Wanten (real name Iris Vandenkerckhove). The young man was born in 2000 years before Laurent married Claire.
Iris/Wendy was by that time a divorcee with a rather racy career so unsuitable to ever be considered as the bride of a Belgian Prince.
The son is called Clement and as Laurent already lived in Villa Clementine speculation about his fatherhood has been ongoing since the birth of Clement.

So Belgium might get another HRH prince of Belgium without succession-rights.