During the Belgian royal family's visit to the royal crypt, alongside King Philippe and Queen Mathilde and Philippe's parents, the 87-year-old Albert II of Belgium and 83-year-old Queen Paola, Princess Delphine was also spotted…

During the Belgian royal family's visit to the royal crypt, alongside King Philippe and Queen Mathilde and Philippe's parents, the 87-year-old Albert II of Belgium and 83-year-old Queen Paola, Princess Delphine was also spotted: Philippe's half-sister, the very woman who last year was recognised by the courts as the daughter of King Albert II and granted the right to be styled a princess. It is heartening that, after so many years of struggling for recognition of the king's paternity in the Belgian courts, Delphine has at last been admitted to the family circle and become part of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. At the memorial event she appeared with James O’Hare, the man whom she calls her husband in interviews, though he is nothing of the kind. So the royal family is not merely carrying out the court's ruling on recognising a new member, but has also taken Delphine's long-standing partner into its fold. Monarchies, too, are obliged to change: an illegitimate royal daughter receives the status of princess, and not for herself alone but, it follows, for her own children born out of wedlock as well.