At the time of her wedding with Prince Rainer III of Monaco in 1956, Grace Kelly was one of the most prominent Hollywood actresses. In her last film, „The High Society“, she wore her engagement ring and sang a duet along with Frank Sinatra, „True Love“. The couple met when she attended the Cannes film festival in 1955. She had a photo session with Prince Rainer at his palace. When she returned to USA, they had a private correspondence resulting in prince's visit to America and official proposal, at the end of the year.
As a matter of fact, it seems that 42-year old prince-bachelor was in a way 'forced' to get married, because a treaty of Monaco and France states clearly that if monarch doesn't produce a heir, small state will be turned back to France. Although Prince Rainer denied that he was pursuing a wife, at press conference in US, it was evident that that was his principal concern there. He was asked „"If you were pursuing a wife, what kind would you like?" Rainier smiled and answered, "I don't know – the best."
It seems that Prince’s long postponed official marriage proposal was not just accidental, and that he didn’t chose Kelly for his wife just because of her pretty face – he simply found (though probably subconsciously) incarnation of his soulmate of his queen, from an earlier life.
His recognizable ‘Mexican’ look, with moustaches, is, because he really is, at least in part, of Mexican descent (Rainier's father was a half-French, half-Mexican who adopted his wife's surname, Grimaldi.) But, it is surprising that one prominent European ruler of the 15th century, also bore quite similar image. His name was Albert II of Germany, and he was king of Hungary and Croatia, as well. Albert was born in Vienna as the son of Albert IV, Duke of Austria, and Joanna Sophia of Bavaria. (By interesting coincidence, son of Prince Rainer and Grace Kelly is also named Albert II.)
In 1422 Albert married Elisabeth of Luxemburg, the daughter of the King Sigismund of Hungary (later also Holy Roman Emperor and Bohemia), and his second wife, the Slovenian noblewoman Barbara of Celje. Thus she became queen consort of Germany, Hungary and Bohemia.
Elizabeth of Luxembourg, was obviously a beautiful woman, who reminds very much of actress Grace Kelly. Her paternal grandparents were Emperor Charles IV and Elizabeth of Pomerania. Her maternal grandfather was the Ban of Slavonia Count Herman II of Celje, whose parents were Count Herman I of Celje and Catherine of Bosnia, who descended also from Nemanjić kings of Serbia and from Catherine of Hungary, a daughter of Stephen V of Hungary.
She suffered an unhappy fate (similarly as Grace Kelly), as she was determined to contend (after her husband’s death in 1439 for her patrimony on her son's behalf, which led to a civil war. The conflict ended with the queen's death at the age of 33.
Post je objavljen 30.01.2017. u 15:41 sati.