Luxembourg was one of the fiefdoms in the former Burgundian Netherlands which Maximilian and Mary's grandson, Emperor Charles V, combined into an integral union, the Seventeen Provinces, by issuing the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549.
Luxembourg's territories, centering on the ancestral castle, were captured from occupying French forces in the first stages of the fall of Napoleon.
[2] The Great Powers agreed at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to re-constitute and elevate Luxembourg into a grand duchy, to be hereditary in the male line of the entire House of Nassau, beginning with the Prince of Orange, who was simultaneously but separately recognised as King of the Netherlands.
[3] On 28 July 1987, by grand ducal decree, members of the dynasty assumed the surname "de Nassau" and discontinued use of the princely title and inescutcheon of the House of Bourbon-Parma (the dukes of which had not consented to the marriages to commoners of the dynasts of their Luxembourg cadet branch, Prince Charles in 1967 and Hereditary Grand Duke Henri in 1981),[4] while retaining the style of Royal Highness.
[6] The wives, children and male-line descendants of a prince of the dynasty whose marriage has not received grand ducal consent are "Count/Countess de Nassau".
They have 5 children: The preference for men over women in succession to Luxembourg's throne was abandoned in favour of absolute primogeniture on 20 June 2011 by decree of Grand Duke Henri.
[20] Henceforth, any legitimate female descendant of the House of Luxembourg-Nassau born of authorized marriage shall inherit the throne by order of seniority of line of descent and of birth as stipulated in Article 3 of the Constitution and the Nassau Family Pact without regard to gender, applicable first to succession by the descendants of Grand Duke Henri.