The Monegasque Family General News and Chat

[LouisFerdinand]

If Prince Rainier III would have bypassed Prince Albert, would not Princess Caroline have become the reigning Sovereign Princess?   
Or was Princess Caroline expected to renounce her claim like Hereditary Princess Charlotte did?   
Would Andrea have been created a Prince before he ever succeeded?

[Curryong]

I think that Rainier was very worried at the time that the Grimaldi name would die out as Albert was not married. Any children he had were very young, illegitimate and unlikely to be allowed to succeed.

It all appears to be speculation and we don't know what senior legal and constitutional authorities were consulted by this adviser at the time or how serious it all was. Certainly Monegasque royals had behaved in very unconventional ways in the past. It shouldn't be forgotten that Rainier's own mother, Hereditary Princess Charlotte, was legitimised, adopted and made an heir by his grandfather, who had no other children.

However, the Charlotte situation just after WW1 was probably unconstitutional and there were apparently grave doubts about its legality at the time. And that situation was very different to Rainier being able to actually set a legitimate heir (Albert) aside and placing his elder sister Caroline in his position. If he had wished to bring in equality among his heirs regardless of their gender then surely the obvious time to have done it would have been when Prss Grace was expecting their first child.

The situation in the 1990s would have been akin to Queen Elizabeth II telling Charles that she intended to set him aside as heir in favour of Andrew because his private life was endangering the House of Windsor. That wouldn't have happened in a million years and I don't think the proposals re Albert would have gone ahead anyway even if Rainier and Albert had hit a rough spot in their relationship and Rainier was closer to his elder daughter at the time. That personal situation was not uncommon in the Grimaldis anyway.

There would almost certainly have been legal challenges had Rainier attempted anything of the sort, imo, and as this is a DM concoction we don't know the background to these investigations. It may well have just been impatient moves by Rainier to forc3 Albert to get married and produce legitimate heirs, something that happened anyway, albeit many years later.