Highness, often used with a personal possessive pronoun (His/Her/Your Highness, the first two abbreviated HH) and/or an adjective referring to the rank of the dynasty (e.g. Royal Highness, Imperial Highness) as in an address, literally the quality of being lofty or high, a term and style used, as are so many abstractions, as a title of dignity and honor, to signify exalted rank or station. Style may refer to genre, design, format, or appearance, including: Clothing: fashion Flower part: flower Music: music genre Sundial part: Gnomon Titles or honorifics: Style (manner of address) including Chinese courtesy names Web design: Cascading Style Sheets Writing: style guide and literary genre Linguistics: Variation in language use of an...

Western (European) tradition

These abstractions arose in great profusion in the Roman empire, both of the East and West (subject to a now very confusion inflation and devaluation of titles, but at any given time rather rigidly ruled by imperial commands, rendering the official hierarchy of offices), and highness is to be directly traced to the altitudo and celsitudo of the Latin and the iah7Xr,~ of the Greek emperors. Like other exorbitant and swelling attributes of the time, they were conferred on ruling princes generally but also often attached to various offices at court and/or in the state (military, financial, judiciary and various other, often combined, central and provincial administrations).

In the early middle ages such titles, couched in the second or third person, were uncertain and much more arbitrary (according to the fancies of secretaries) than in the later times (Selden, Titles of Honor, pt. i. ch. vii. 100). In English usage, Highness alternates with Grace (not reserved for the sovereign) and Majesty, as the honorific title of the King and Queen until the time of James I. Thus in documents relating to the reign of Henry VIII all three titles are used indiscriminately; an example is the King's judgment against Dr Edward Crome (d. f562), quoted, from the Lord Chamberlains books, ser. I, p. 791, in Trans. Roy. Hist. Soc. N.S. lOX. 299, where article 15 begins with Also the Kinges Highness hath ordered, 16 with Kinges Majestie, and 17 with Kinges Grace. In the Dedication of the Authorized Version of the Bible of 1611 James I is still styled Majesty and Highness; thus, in the first paragraph, the appearance of Your Majesty, as of the Sun in his strength, instantly dispelled those supposed and surmised mists . . . especially when we beheld the government established in Your Highness and Your hopeful Seed, by an undoubted title. It was, however, in James I's reign that Majesty became the official title. It may be noted that Cromwell, as lord protector, and his wife were styled Highness. In present usage the following members of the British Royal Family are addressed as Royal Highness (H.R.H.): all sons and daughters, brothers and sisters, uncles and aunts of the reigning sovereign, grandsons and granddaughters if children of sons, and also great grandchildren (decree of 31st of May 1898) if children of an eldest son of any prince of Wales. Nephews, nieces and cousins and grandchildren, offspring of daughters, are styled Highness only. A change of sovereign does not entail the forfeiture of the title Royal Highness, once acquired, though the father of the bearer has become a nephew and not a grandson of the sovereign. The principal feudatory princes of the Indian empire are also styled Highness (see below). Grace may stand for: // Meaning a quality of aesthetics, usually applied to human motion. ... Majesty is an English word rooting in the Latin Maiestas, meaning literally,Greatness. ...

As a general rule the members of the blood royal of an Imperial or Royal house are addressed as Imperial or Royal Highness (.4ltesselmpriale, Royale, Kaiserliche, Koniglic/ze Hoheit) respectively. In Germany (and other former parts of the Holy Rman Empire) the reigning heads of the Grand Duchies bear the title of Royal or Grand Ducal Highness (Königliche - or Gross-Herzogliche Hoheit), while the members of the family are addressed as Hoheit 'German 'Highness'), simply. Hoheit is borne by the reigning dukes and the princes and princesses of their families. The title Serene Highness has also an antiquity equal to that of highness, for yaXflv6r1~c and were titles borne by the Byzantine rulers, and serenitas and serenissimus by the emperors Honorius and Arcadius. The doge of Venice was also styled Serenissimus (Latin 'Most Serene'), the crowned republic and the (later Austrian, then Italian) city itself remain widely known as (la) Serenissima. Selden (op. cii. pt. ii. ch. X. 739) calls this title one of the greatest that can be given "to any Prince that hath not the superior title of King". In modern times Serene Highness (Altesse Sérénissime) is used as the equivalent of the German Durchlaucht, a stronger form of Erlaucht, illustrious, represented in the Latin honorific superillustris. Thackerays burlesque title Transparency in the court at Pumpernickel very accurately gives the meaning. The title of Durchlaucht was granted in 1375 by the emperor Charles IV to the electoral princes (Kurfürsten, the highest rank under the Roman Emperor). In the 17th century it became the general title borne by the heads of the reigning princely states of the empire (reichstandische Fürsten), as Erlaucht by those of the countly houses (reichstandische Grafen, i.e. counts of the Empire). In 1825 the German Diet agreed to grant the title Durchlaucht to the heads of the mediatized princely houses whether domiciled in Germany or Austria, and it is now customary to use it of the members of those houses. Further, all those who are elevated to the rank of prince (Fürst) in the secondary meaning of that title (see PRINCE) are also styled Durchlaucht. In 1829 the title of Erlaucht, which had formerly been borne by the reigning counts of the empire, was similarly granted to the mediatized countly families (see Almanach de Gotha, 1909, 107). The Almanach de Gotha was a directory of Europes nobility first published in 1763 at the ducal court of Friedrich III of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld (which included the city of Gotha) in 1763. ...

This article is partially based on a lightly edited version of the one from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica. The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...

His Highness, often abbreviated HH, is a style for members of ducal families, some grand ducal families, and lesser members of some royal families. The third case is the only usage of the style that is still used officially. However, socially, many formerly-reigning ducal and grand ducal families assume the style HH, but this is only used socially and they are not normally referred to as such in any official capacity.

The style is officially used by junior members of the royal houses of Denmark and the Netherlands. Before 1917, it was also used by some junior members of the British royal house. The style was also once used by the ruling families of the Grand Duchies of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Oldenburg, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and of the Duchies of Brunswick, Anhalt, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Saxe-Meiningen, and Saxe-Altenburg, as well as by the House of Schleswig-Holstein, which never ruled. Surviving members of these families are sometimes known by the title. 1917 was a common year starting on Monday (see link for calendar). ... The Duchy of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (Herzogtum von Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach) was created in 1809 by the merger of the Duchies of Saxe-Weimar and Saxe-Eisenach, which had been in personal union since 1741, when the Saxe-Eisenach line had died out. ... Oldenburg is a historical state in todays Germany named for its capital, Oldenburg. ... Mecklenburg-Schwerin was a Duchy (from 1815 a Grand Duchy) in northeastern Germany, formed by a partition of the Duchy of Mecklenburg. ... Mecklenburg-Strelitz was a duchy in northern Germany, roughly consisting of the present day district of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (the historical Stargarder Land), bordering areas of modern-day Brandenburg with the town of Fürstenberg and the area around Ratzeburg in modern Schleswig-Holstein. ... Brunswick-Lüneburg was an historical state within the Holy Roman Empire. ... Anhalt is a historical region of Germany, which is now included in the state of Saxony-Anhalt. ... Arms of the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha Saxe-Coburg-Gotha or Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (German: Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha) served as the name of the two German duchies of Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Gotha in Germany, in the present-day states of Bavaria and Thuringia, which were... The Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen was one of the Saxon Duchies held by the Ernestine line of the Wettin Dynasty. ... Saxe-Altenburg (German Sachsen-Altenburg) was one of the Saxon duchies held by the Ernestine branch of the Wettin dynasty. ... Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the 16 Bundesländer in Germany. ...

Example of official holder of the style Highness:

• His Highness Prince Maurits of Orange-Nassau, Van Vollenhoven, son of HRH Princess Margriet of the Netherlands and Mr. Pieter van Vollenhoven, the maternal grandson of HM Queen Juliana of the Netherlands, and nephew of HM Queen Beatrix. Upon his mother's marriage, it was decreed that her children would be known as HH Prince(ss) <name> of Orange-Nassau, Van Vollenhoven.
• His Highness Prince Nikolai of Denmark, son of HRH Prince Joachim of Denmark and HH Princess Alexandra Christina, Countess of Frederiksborg, the paternal grandson of HM Queen Margrethe II of Denmark.

Examples of people who have assumed the style Highness: His Highness Prince Maurits Willem Pieter Hendrik van Vollenhoven, Prince of Orange-Nassau (born 17 April 1968), is the eldest son of HRH Princess Margriet of the Netherlands and Mr Pieter van Vollenhoven. ... Princess Margriet Francisca of the Netherlands (born January 19, 1943) is the third daughter of Princess Juliana of the Netherlands and Prince Bernhard, the former Prince Bernhard of Lippe-Biesterfeld. ... Pieter van Vollenhoven (born April 30, 1939) is the husband of HRH Princess Margriet of the Netherlands. ... Queen Juliana Juliana Louise Emma Marie Wilhelmina, Duchess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, (April 30, 1909 - March 20, 2004) of the House of Orange-Nassau was Queen of the Netherlands from her mothers abdication in 1948 to her own abdication in 1980 and Queen Mother (with the title of Princess) from... Her Majesty Queen Beatrix (Beatrix Wilhelmina Armgard of Orange-Nassau) (born January 31, 1938), styled HM The Queen is the Queen of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, having acceded to the throne in 1980. ... This article is being considered for deletion in accordance with Wikipedias deletion policy. ... Prince Joachims logo His Royal Highness Prince Joachim of Denmark (born June 7, 1969), is the younger son of Queen Margrethe II of Denmark and her husband, Prince Consort Henrik of Denmark. ... HH Alexandra Christina, Princess of Denmark, Countess of Frederiksborg Her Royal Highness Alexandra Christina, Princess of Denmark, Countess of Frederiksborg, formerly The Princess Royal of Denmark, is a member of the Danish royal family and the former wife of His Royal HighnessPrince Joachim of Denmark. ... Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II (Margrethe Alexandrine Þorhildur Ingrid), styled HM The Queen (born April 16, 1940), is the Queen regnant and head of state of Denmark. ...

• His Highness Prince Andreas of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the current Head of the Ducal Family of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. His actual official name is Andreas Prinz von Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha.
• His Highness Duke Christoph of Schleswig-Holstein, the current Head of the Ducal Family of Schleswig-Holstein. His actual official name is Christoph Herzog von Schleswig-Holstein.

Saxe-Coburg-Gotha or Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (German: Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha) was once the name given to the two German duchies of Saxe-Coburg and Saxe-Gotha in Germany, in the present states of Bavaria and Thuringia, which were in personal union between 1826 and 1918. ... Schleswig-Holstein is the northernmost of the 16 Bundesländer in Germany. ...

Colonial use

• In the British Empire, the style (His) Highness became reserved for the elite of the feudatory dynastic heads of the major princely states (mainly in India and other territories -as on the Arabian Gulf coast- once under the HEIC)
• In various other empires, such as the Dutch East Indies (cfr. regentschap), a similar system was introduced.

A princely state or native state was a feudal monarchy in British India ruled by a hereditary ruler, who was nominally sovereign. ... REGENTSCHAP is the Dutch word for Regency, in the sense of the (term of) office of a Regent. ...

Other uses

Regardless of the official traditions in the various colonial empires, the style is evidently used to render, often merely informally, various somewhat analogous titles in non-western cultures, regardless whether there is an actual linguistic and/or historical link.

See also

• Use of courtesy titles and honorifics in professional writing