20 Royal Heirs Who Ditched The Throne For Ordinary Jobs

Aisin-Gioro Puyi was only two years old when he became emperor of China in 1908. He was later the Japanese puppet ruler of Manchukuo until he was arrested by the Soviets in 1945. After spending 10 years in a camp for war criminals, China released Puyi in 1959. Puyi had an ordinary life after that, working as a gardener in the Beijing Botanical Garden, riding the bus to work every day, and getting paid an ordinary salary.

Before marrying Princess Elizabeth, Philip was a prince of both Greece and Denmark, with real entitlement to both thrones. In March 1947, prior to his engagement, he renounced both his Greek and Danish titles and his foreign right of succession to become a British subject, Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten. He survived for several months on the very limited income of a naval officer, acting as a lieutenant in the Royal Navy, before he was created Duke of Edinburgh immediately before the wedding.

Archduke Johann Salvator’s cousin, Crown Prince Rudolf of Austria, had committed suicide in 1889, a shocking scandal for the imperial family. In that same year, Salvator gave up his title and assumed the alias Johann Orth. He married a Viennese opera dancer and attended merchant marine school in Hamburg. After earning his license as a merchant ship captain, he purchased a cargo steamer of his own. The vessel vanished off the coast of Cape Horn in 1890, and he was pronounced dead by an Austrian court in 1911.

Leopold Ferdinand was the eldest son of a Habsburg grand duke of the Austrian and Hungarian Empire. In 1902, he renounced his nobility in order to marry a commoner, changing his name to Leopold Wölfling. When the Habsburgs were deposed and his allowance vanished, he made ends meet by taking jobs as a letter-writing clerk and a tour guide for the Imperial Palace, and running a small Viennese deli that specialized in salami and olive oil.

Carol had been heir to the Romanian throne until an affair with a divorced commoner scandalized the royal family. In 1925, he signed over his right of succession and went into exile under the name Carol Caraiman, living incognito in Paris and even driving his own cars, unattended by any royal chauffeur. His young son became king in his stead. In 1930, Carol returned to Bucharest in a political coup and retook the throne as king.

Alfonso was heir to the exiled Spanish throne when he fell in love with a Cuban sugar merchant’s daughter despite his father’s disapproval. In 1933, he renounced his rights to the throne and married her days later, taking the title Count of Covadonga and moving to Miami to work selling automobiles.

As the grandson of a Thai king, Bira spent his childhood in England. He never returned to Thailand to carry out traditional royal duties but instead raced a Grand Prix car, competing in the first Formula One World Championship in 1950 and running 19 Grand Prix events in the next few years under the name of his team. Outside of racing, he exhibited sculptures at one of London’s leading art schools.

In 1934, Sigvard, the second son of the king of Sweden, married a German businessman’s daughter without his father’s approval. Under Swedish law, that act immediately disqualified Sigvard from the throne and reduced him, practically overnight, to Mr. Bernadotte. A trained artist, he went on to become an industrial designer, producing silver collections for Denmark’s most prominent silversmith and designing a plastic bowl that is still in use in many Scandinavian homes. He spent decades trying to get his title back before passing away in 2002.

One of Emperor Hirohito’s daughters, Kazuko, lost her royal status in 1950 under a new postwar law when she married a museum researcher, a commoner, losing her title and allowance the minute she said, “I do.” She lived in a tiny house as Mrs. Takatsukasa, where she learned to cook and do the laundry. She later worked her way up to a high-ranking job at a Tokyo department store, where she was praised for her adaptability.

Another of Emperor Hirohito’s daughters, Atsuko, was also stripped of royal status after she married a commoner in 1952. She became the wife of a rancher whose family owned a cattle ranch in Okayama Prefecture that eventually became a zoo. Atsuko became the zoo’s director and fed the animals even in her advanced years.

In 1932, Lennart, a grandson of Sweden’s king, married a commoner against his royal family’s wishes, and his title of prince was revoked, so he became simply Mr. Bernadotte. He settled on Mainau, an island in Lake Constance in Germany that belonged to his family. There he began studying horticulture and working his own garden. For years he personally designed and maintained the estate, eventually making Mainau one of the continent’s most celebrated public parks. He served as director of the island until his death in 2004.

Archduke Ferdinand Karl was also the younger brother of the late heir of Austria-Hungary, Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, who was murdered in Sarajevo. He had been married in Switzerland in 1909 to the daughter of a professor, without the permission of the Emperor. After the discovery, he was obliged to give up his rank and title of imperial prince, as well as his commission as an officer in the army. He assumed the name Ferdinand Burg and lived on his estate in Tyrol as a country gentleman until his death in 1915.

Jaime, second in line to the throne of exiled Spain, had been rendered deaf and unable to speak clearly after childhood ear surgery. His father requested that Jaime forego his place in the line of succession because a king must be present at public functions and is constitutionally obligated to do so. Jaime was made Duke of Segovia, and he spent the rest of his life as a civilian in Switzerland and France until his death in Switzerland in 1975. His brother’s descendants inherited the Spanish crown.

In 1924, Erik married the daughter of a Canadian timber merchant, and as that was not considered a dynastic marriage according to Danish royal law, he was stripped of the title of Prince of Denmark and instead became the Count of Rosenborg. He then abandoned all courtly activities and worked as a farmer and farm manager. He ran estates on both sides of the Atlantic until his death in 1950.

Miguel’s father had a claim to the Portuguese throne, although by then, Portugal was a republic, so there was no longer a crown to claim, only a family matter. In 1909, Miguel married a wealthy American commoner, and in 1920 he relinquished his throne rights, ostensibly in order to settle outstanding family matters but also to earn some money of his own. He went to live in Manhattan, where he became an insurance salesman and a Wall Street stockbroker before dying of pneumonia in 1923.

When Carl Johan wed a Swedish journalist in New York in 1946 without the blessing of the king or the Swedish government, Swedish constitutional law dictated that he lost his status as prince and his place in line to the throne, becoming simply Mr. Bernadotte. He spent the next few decades working as a business executive for Swedish industrial firms in New York before receiving another title in his own right from Luxembourg’s grand duchess.

Heinrich Ferdinand, no great fan of life at court, requested his own release from the imperial court in 1909 and lost his stipend as a result. Going by the name Heinrich Habsburg, he was able to eke out a living in Munich and Salzburg with his watercolors and photographs of landscapes. He married a non-royal in 1919.

A son of a Habsburg grand duke, Ludwig Salvator was never particularly fond of the strict court protocols and martial spirit of Vienna, nor did he feel called to serve in the Austrian imperial court. He purchased estates on the island of Mallorca in the Mediterranean, abandoned aristocratic dress and social conventions, and instead lived among the island’s peasants and fishermen. With his own money, he devoted himself to work as a geographer and naturalist, producing meticulous scholarly works and sailing the Mediterranean aboard his own research ship.

Prince Alexander of Battenberg, a Hessian, was elected ruler of Bulgaria in 1879 and was compelled to abdicate the throne by Russian political pressure in 1886. In 1889, he married an Austrian opera singer, completely relinquished his title, and assumed the name Count Hartenau. He became a commissioned officer in the Austro-Hungarian army and commanded a garrison at Graz on a regular military salary, where he died in 1893.

In 1914, Aage, a grandson of a Danish king who was once in line for the throne, wed an Italian countess without the king’s permission, renouncing his title and his place in the succession in return for the lesser title Count of Rosenborg. In 1922, he entered the French Foreign Legion as a commissioned officer, where he led legionnaires in some of the heaviest combat of Morocco’s Rif War and won two of France’s highest decorations for valor. After nearly two decades, he died on active duty in Morocco in 1940.

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