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: This was forced on the Princely lines when
: they were driven out during the 1848
: revolution and only restored at the point of
: Prussian bayonets, at which point the King
: of Prussia forced them to hand over
: sovereignty of the two principalities to
: Prussia. They continue to own the land and
: property but not as sovereigns and the
: Prussian King bought part of the palace. The
: Prussians then, in 1851, declared that the
: House Order was a Prussian Royal Order but
: allowed the two Fursts (as Sigmaringen and
: Hechingen had not yet united) to award it
: themselves, but the two were effectively
: separate Orders - the Furst was a
: "grand commander" of the Prussian
: Order, as were all the Prussian princes. The
: king of Prussia declared that all knights of
: the Black Eagle would receive the 1st class
: of the Prussian Order, all Princes of
: Hohenzollern at birth received the 1st class
: (including the Romanian Princes). Since 1918
: the two Orders have effectively separated
: again, with the Furst awarding it without
: any reference to the head of the Prussian
: line. There were various changes and
: additions to the grades including the
: addition of lady members. In 1935 because
: the Nazi government prohibited awards of the
: House Orders in 1935, the Furst went to
: Bucharest to meet with King Carol and the
: Order was converted into a Romanian royal
: Order, but which could be awarded by both
: the King and the Furst, although the King
: had a rather grander collar. When Carol was
: deposed and the pro-Nazi dictatorship took
: over the new government declared the
: Romanian Hohenzollern House Order suspended
: and instead founded the Romanian Order of St
: George. Carol, however, continued to award
: the Order until his death while making some
: changes to the grades. Then, in 1941,
: although the Furst had had no contacts with
: Romania since Carol's deposition, he added
: some further classes making ten in all plus
: two medals. All Princes of Hohenzollern and
: Romania were to receive the grand cross
: (actually now the 2nd class, because there
: was also a collar grade) at birth, all
: Princesses at 16. One would assume that at
: least theoretically, King Michael's
: daughters were grand crosses of this Order.
: The head of the house of Prussia is believed
: to award this very sparingly, but I could
: not find any evidence to confirm this. The
: statutory award to all Prussian princes at
: birth would still apply.
:
:

Thank you for this explanation. It was much more complicated than I thought.