This is How You Can Legally Become a Royal

 Sometimes, we all want to be treated like royalty - and the best way to ensure that happens is to actually become royalty! You may think this is an impossible task: Surely, if you’re not born with blue blood in your veins - metaphorically speaking - there’s almost no way you can actually just “become” royalty. But hey, a small chance is still a chance, and today, we’re gonna tell you exactly how a regular potato farming peasant like you can step up and join the aristocracy. 

When you picture a modern monarchy, chances are your attention immediately drifts to House Windsor, the current reigning royal family of Great Britain, headed by their matriarch, Queen Elizabeth the Second. So before we consider international alternatives for royal infiltration, let’s first discuss all the ways you potentially could - and also definitely couldn’t - find your way into Queen Elizabeth’s coveted Christmas card list. 

The most obvious option is marrying your way in. The bride or groom of a royal automatically becomes a royal in the process. And you may be thinking, “But how can I possibly expect to marry a royal if I’m not already of noble birth? Aren’t the English royals kind of famous for ‘keeping it in the family’, so to speak?” And you’re not crazy for thinking this. 

This is How You Can Legally Become a Royal

Before the last two decades, Lady Di - known to many as “The People’s Princess”, and wife of Prince Charles before her untimely death - was considered the most down-to-earth, likable, and fun member of the royal family. From spending time with AIDS patients while the disease was still highly stigmatized, to hanging out with iconic Queen front man Freddie Mercury in gay bars while in disguise. Yes, that really happened. 

But even Diana was the child of a Viscount and a Viscounts, both of which already had strong ties to the Windsor dynasty. But times have changed. The last eleven years have given us two famous royal weddings between princes in the lines of succession and women of potato farmer birth: The wedding of Prince William to Catherine “Kate” Middleton, and the marriage of Prince Harry to Meghan Markel.

 The case of Meghan Markel, now the Duchess of Suffolk, is particularly inspiring for people outside the UK looking to marry their way into British royalty: She’s an American woman, born to two American parents. So let’s take a quick look at how these two boundary-pushing royal marriages happened, and see if we can pick up any royal seduction tactics along the way. 

First, Kate Middleton: She first started dating Prince William when they boarded together during their college education at the University of St Andrews, in Scotland. If you’ve got good looks and a magnetic personality, picking up a Prince or a Princess in college doesn’t seem like it’d be so hard, but the hard part is actually attending the kind of college that royalty favors. 

This is How You Can Legally Become a Royal

St Andrews is the oldest and most prestigious university in Scotland, having been founded in 1413. So if you want to attend somewhere like that and meet the royal date of your dreams, it’ll help you to study hard and also be obscenely wealthy. But what about Harry and Meghan? While William and Kate’s meet-up is an almost disappointingly pedestrian tale of college romance, Harry and Meghan’s love story is a lot more like a fantastical romantic comedy you’d see on Netflix. 

Harry had always been considered somewhat of the black sheep of the royal family - the Chet Hanks to Prince Charles’ Tom. For years, he’d been known for his wild and controversial party antics, which more often than not got him in trouble with the notoriously rabid British tabloids. Meghan is a little more aspirational for all you would-be royal partners out there than the privileged, British Kate. While Meghan’s parents were both successful in their own right, she wasn’t enmeshed in the complex social hierarchy of the British high life. 

Meghan forged her own public identity through cultivating a pretty successful career in show business, occasional public activism, and a popular social media presence bolstered by frequent blogging. These are all things that you or I could, in theory, do. But as the old saying goes, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you know”, and this was definitely true for Meghan. 

According to Prince Harry, a mutual friend of theirs set them up on a blind date in 2016, where they immediately hit it off. The two most likely candidates for their mysterious matchmaker are noble-born Violet von Westenholz and successful fashion designer Misha Nonoo. What can we, as aspiring royalty, learn from this?  

That it can massively increase your chances of marrying into the royal family if you first successfully infiltrate and ingratiate yourself to their social circle, like your average Facebook Stalker on steroids. So now you know two tried and true methods of marrying your way into the British royal family. But again, you’re probably thinking, “These are two exceptional circumstances, where chance played a huge factor. How can I leave my potato farm behind and work to increase my chances of marrying royalty?” 

This is How You Can Legally Become a Royal

And one suggestion you may see bandied around is buying your way into the UK aristocracy in order to get closer to your target. How would a person do this, exactly? A key thing about being a British aristocrat is being a landowner. There are a number of services out there that allow you to buy an obscenely small piece of land - for example, half an inch of the Scottish wilderness - and go on to claim that this makes you, for example, a Lord or Lady. 

It’s definitely a fun novelty gift for a royalist friend or family member, but this industry is actually largely a scam. British law states that these kinds of titles are effectively worthless, and mean about as much as declaring yourself “Emperor of Central Park” or “Sovereign of the Moon.” It’s the tacky illusion of nobility - like thinking the actual height of wealth and taste is one of Donald Trump’s solid gold toilets. 

Not only is buying your way in like this effectively worthless, but it might also go against your plans for getting closer to royalty. A number of people who were actually born into the aristocracy will look down on you for cheating like that. Richard Bridgeman, 7th Earl of Bradford, even made a whole website to debunk the value of these so-called “title mills.” 

Even if you’re doing it the really expensive way, and buying a Scottish Baron title for six or seven figures, you’re always going to look like a counterfeit aristocrat. So, seeing as marrying is your primary option now, the next question is: Who? We’re gonna cast our net a little wider than just the British royal family here, to show you just how many royals across the globe are looking to get hitched. 

For example Edward Windsor, aka Lord Downpatrick, King Leruo Molotlegi of the Royal Bafokeng Nation, Sheikha Maitha bint Mohammed bin RashidAl Maktoum of the UAE, Princess Maria Laura of Belgium, Archduchess of Austria-Este, Prince Joachim of Belgium, Princess Alexandra and Prince Sebastian of Luxembourg, Lady Marina Charlotte Windsor, and Prince Adam of Eternia But wait, there’s more! 

This is How You Can Legally Become a Royal

There’s also Lady Amelia Sophia Theodora Mary Margaret Windsor, Prince Wenzeslaus of Liechtenstein, Princess Elizabeth and Prince Albert of Thurn and Taxis, Prince Haji Abdul Azim of Brunei, Prince Constantine-Alexios, Princess Theodora, and Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark, Aragorn King of Gondor, Princess Sirivannavari Nariratana of Thailand, Princess Beatrice Elizabeth Mary of York, Prince Hamdan bin Mohammed of Dubai, and Crown Prince Hussein bin Abdullah of Jordan. 

So as you can see, there are a hell of a lot of eligible royal bachelors and bachelorettes for you to choose from in your campaign of seduction. But maybe you’re not the marrying type, or you’re already taken and don’t feel like giving up your current relationship for a narrow shot at getting yourself a royal title. What other ways can the average potato farmer break through the gilded ceiling, and get themselves a seat at the royal table? 

There have been some pretty strange outliers throughout history. Charles Burgess Fry was an eccentric English renaissance man, who dabbled in everything from diplomacy to cricket, perhaps making him one of the most British men of all time. He was such an exceptional chap that many believe he was once offered the throne of Albania, though he also apparently turned it down, likely because he was already too busy. 

So if you dedicate your life to being a truly exceptional person in a number of fields, a country in the Balkans may just offer you a seat in their monarchy. But you probably shouldn’t count on it, especially considering the Balkans don’t have any surviving monarchies in the modern day. There are two other ways you can start counting yourself among the ranks of royalty. 

The first is genealogical - you can try searching through your family history to find some royal lineage, however tenuous, and hopping on that as your claim for inclusion. It’s the King Ralph approach - a forgettable John Goodman comedy about an average joe who discovers, by pure chance, he’s next in the line of succession for the throne. 

Of course, the big problem with this approach is that if you go back far enough, pretty much everyone will be related to some kind of long-deceased royal.  80% of the modern British population descended from King Edward III, and it’s believed that one in 200 men alive today are related to legendary Mongol ruler Genghis Khan - because Edward and Genghis may have been history’s greatest players.

This is How You Can Legally Become a Royal

But trotting out your vague genealogical links to either of these men as a sign of royalty will almost definitely get you laughed out of the palace, then beaten up by the royal guard. But what if you want your ascendance to the throne to be decidedly more Game of Thrones than The Crown? If there’s a kingdom you’ve set your sight son, and you’ve got both a Machiavellian streak and a large army at your disposal, you can always take over and install yourself as the new royal ruler by force. 

All you’d need to do is find powerful figures within the kingdom of your choosing willing to support your coup, thanks to the promise of kickbacks and advantages under your new royal regime. But as the Wire’s Omar Little, paraphrasing Ralph Waldo Emerson, put it, “If you come at the king, you best not miss.” 

Because if your attempt at a takeover fails, you’re almost definitely going to be tried for the crime of High Treason, and if convicted, you’ll earn yourself a life in prison in some places, and execution in others. It’s the very definition of a High Risk, High Reward scenario. So before rousing your troops and preparing to lay siege to the kingdom of your choice, really, really ask yourself whether it’s worth it. 

Also, for the record, The Info graphics Show does not endorse royal coups or high treason of any kind, so don’t blame us when you end up behind bars or on the chopping block. The final question is really asking yourself whether you’d want to be a member of a monarchy at all. Take the British royal family, for example. 

There are certainly some wonderful benefits to membership - working royals get access to historic homes, and get many of their financial needs taken care of. As well as some stranger benefits, like Prince Charles getting his shoelaces ironed, and the Queen not needing to use ID. Though to be fair, Queen Elizabeth can just use English money as photo ID. 

But it also comes with its fair share of drawbacks. Much like American Presidents, there are a huge number of things the Royals can’t do, due to security risks, like drive on public roads, go for walks alone, or have a simple trip to the supermarket. 

You also lose almost all of your privacy, and a right to a quiet life, from a combination of encroaching royal duties and the ever-present camera lenses of the paparazzi. There’s a reason Meghan and Harry decided to renounce their positions as working Royals. 

Sometimes, it’s just a little too much to handle. But hey, perhaps it’s all worth it to get a cool title, sit on a fancy chair, and maybe, if you’re really, really lucky, someday wear a crown. Before going back to the potato fields checkout “7 People Who Pretended to be Royals - Did They Get Away With It?” and “The Weird Secret Rules The Royal Family Has To Follow” for more ridiculous royal facts!