By Daniela Elser

Copyright news

I am very pleased to report that 121 years on, the inter-royal romance is alive and well, news revealed by what but an Instagram post. While no one was watching, a future Queen and a European prince appear to have secretly become an item, a development that is unheard of in modern royal life. If either/or the royal houses confirm their pairing, it will be the first relationship between members of two ruling royal houses in nearly 50 years.

She is Princess Elisabeth, Duchess of Brabant, and will one day become Belgium’s first ever Queen in her own right; be is Prince Georg von und zu Liechtenstein which makes him sound like a character from Princess Diaries 3 but is actually third in line to the throne of the richest monarchy in Europe.

Now a personal snap of Elisabeth and Georg is currently burning its way though royal social media with the Belgian palace’s official communications team only adding to the intrigue by reportedly saying, “We saw the photo too. We don’t know if it’s real or AI. We aren’t commenting [on private matters].” Hardly a firm denial now is it?

I’ve seen some speculation the shot was taken in Greece over the northern summer, but that’s all we have to go on at the moment. Still, Elisabeth and Georg, assuming the pic is legit, look as happy as two kids in the full flush of a sunny romance and subsisting on a diet of saganaki and pheromones should be.

Far, far more is known about Elisabeth than mystery chap Georg. She grew up in the family’s 173-room Palace of Laeken and went to school in Brussels before completing her International Baccalaureate at UWC Atlantic College in the UK, which costs upwards of $70,000-a-year and is known as Hippie Hogwarts. (Crown Princess Leonore and her sister Princess Sofia of Spain and the Netherlands’ Princess Alexia also studied there in recent years.)

Elisabeth, after doing her military training and learning how to wave a rifle around and wear a ceremonial hat without dying of embarrassment, went to Oxford to study history and politics, following that up by enrolling at Harvard’s Kennedy School for a masters in public policy. Earlier this year there was some question about whether she would be returning given Donald Trump’s attempt to restrict foreign students from the university but reports suggest she will be returning Stateside.

Like fellow future throne sitter Prince William just across the North Sea, Elisabeth is the far more liked and charismatic heir to an often stiff-seeming King of a father, in her case, King Phillipe.

“The Belgian monarchy is very lucky with Elisabeth,” European royal expert Wim Dehandschutter told The Brussels Times in 2024. “The Royal Family is not always particularly popular, with the often-heard criticism that it is an outdated institution. But I do notice a certain excitement when it comes to Elisabeth.”

While Elisabeth currently does perform some royal duties, she is by and large being given the space to be a normal 20-something before the full, dull weight of ruling falls on her shoulders.

It’s entirely a different story for Georg. The current head of state of the principality is his grandfather, Prince Hans-Adam II, however in 2004 he handed over day-to-day ruling to his son and Georg’s father Alois, Hereditary Prince of Liechtenstein. (Unlike most other monarchies, the ruling prince has strong constitutional power.)

After Alois, the ‘throne’ will go to Georg’s older brother Prince Joseph Wenzel. (Even though Georg has an older sister too, Princess Marie Caroline, Liechtenstein is really up on the times and does not allow women in the line of succession. In fact it has an unbroken paternal lineage that can be traced all the way back to the 12th century. Talk about a sausage fest.)

The details I could find about Georg could fit on the back of a Gstaad ski lift ticket – he was educated at Malvern School in the UK (it’s up there with Eton and Harrow) before going to university in Switzerland. It’s reported he took a job in Berlin, where he was known ever so humbly as Georg Liechtenstein and subsequently, potentially is working in the United States, which is really cornering the Euro prince spare market. (Also calling America home, Prince Harry, The Duke of Sussex and King Frederik of Denmark’s younger brother Prince Joachim.)

What the Liechtenstein royal family lacks in public presence it certainly makes up for in cash, or Swiss francs, because the country is so small they don’t even have their own currency. The Liechtenstein royal family is the only monarchy that has its very own bank, LGT Group, which has more than $600 billion in assets under management. According to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, the family is personally worth about $19 billion as of this month. (By contrast, King Charles is worth about $1.2 billion.) Hans-Adam is the 253rd richest person in the world, according to Bloomberg.

The Belgian royal family, by comparison, is on struggle street and based on a 2019 estimate, is only worth about $22 million.

If Elisabeth and Georg make a go of it, them marrying would be a major bucking of the trend that has seen the heirs to European thrones pattern up commoners, like a gym instructor (Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden’s husband Prince Daniel), a former real estate agent (Denmark’s Queen Mary), a TV presenter (King Felipe of Spain’s wife Queen Letizia), a financial analyst (The Netherland’s King Willem-Alexander’s wife Queen Maxima), a part-time accessories buyer (Kate, The Princess of Wales), and a one-time waitress and single mother (Crown Prince Haakon of Norway’s wife Crown Princess Mette-Marit).

For all you royal nerds, the last time that members of reigning royal houses wed was in 1982 when Prince Nikolaus of Liechtenstein (the son of the then reigning Prince Franz Joseph II) married Princess Margaretha of Luxembourg (daughter of then reigning Grand Duke Jean).

Which is basically saying, if Elisabeth and Georg are serious, this makes them pretty much the rare, white rhino of modern royalty.

Meanwhile, wherever Queen Victoria is, her matchmaking efforts are still in effect and the Kings and Queens of Belgium, Denmark, Luxembourg, Norway, Spain, Sweden, and the UK are all descendants of hers. Handily, Liechtenstein is not one of them so no one can make kissing cousins jokes.

Daniela Elser is a writer, editor and commentator with more than 15 years’ experience working with a number of Australia’s leading media titles.