King Felipe VI of Spain has decided to present his country’s highest honor to his mother, Queen Sofia, who dedicated her life to the service of the Spanish people. Queen Emeritus Sofia will soon receive from her son the necklace of the Golden Fleece, an ancestral order that King Felipe had only granted once since the start of his reign.
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Queen Sofia finally decorated with the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece
In 2015, on the occasion of her 10th birthday, Princess Leonor received the Order of the Golden Fleece but the insignia was not physically presented to her until 2018, on the occasion of King Felipe’s 50th birthday. VI. She waited until she turned 18, in 2023, to wear the necklace for the first time during a public celebration. Since then, King Felipe, who ascended the throne in 2014, has no longer awarded this award, considered the highest Spanish distinction. This order was created almost 400 years ago.
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This January 10, 2025, the Spanish Official Bulletin (BOE), which publishes all of the country’s laws and decisions, makes public Royal Decree 116/2024, signed by King Felipe on October 29, 2024. This decree concerns the granting of necklace of the Order of the Golden Fleece to Queen Sofia. King Felipe justifies this gesture as a witness to his “royal appreciation to Her Majesty Queen Sofia” and in order to “publicly recognize his dedication and work in the service of Spain and the Crown”.
Princess Sofia of Greece, daughter of King Paul I of Greece, married Juan Carlos of Spain in 1962. At the time, Greece was a monarchy while Spain had abolished the monarchy. The daughter of the king of the Hellenes therefore agreed to join an ancient royal family in exile. In 1975, the monarchy was restored in Spain and Juan Carlos became king. The situation was reversed as the monarchy was abolished in Greece in 1973. The former princess of Greece immediately adopted her husband’s homeland and dedicated her entire life to the service of Spain. Despite the abdication of King Juan Carlos in 2014, despite Juan Carlos’ withdrawal from public life in 2019 and despite Juan Carlos’ departure from the country in 2020, Queen Sofia continues to work full time for the Crown and actively in within its foundation.
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Queen Sofia becomes the fifth woman to hold a Golden Fleece necklace
On the occasion of her marriage in 1962, Sofia had obtained dynastic rewards and her highest reward was obtaining the collar of the order of Charles III in 1983. At 86 years old, Queen Sofia will therefore receive the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece, during an upcoming ceremony. The date has not yet been announced.
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Margrethe II of Denmark, Beatrix of the Netherlands and Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom are the only three women to have received the Golden Fleece. These are three foreign monarchs. Princess Leonor was the first woman from the Spanish royal family to receive the necklace. Queen Sofia is therefore the second woman from the Spanish royal family to receive it. The necklace is recognizable with its pendant representing the fleece of a ram.
The name of the order is inspired by the Greek myth of the Golden Fleece. According to this myth, the fleece is that of the winged ram Chrysomallos, given birth to by Poseidon. The most famous passage from this myth is when Jason seizes the Golden Fleece to give it to his uncle, King Pelias. Conquering the Golden Fleece brings hero status and is also the symbol of sovereignty. Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, inspired by this myth, founded the order of the Golden Fleece in 1430, on the occasion of his marriage to Isabella of Portugal. The Burgundian states passed into the hands of the Habsburg dynasty in 1477, who themselves also became kings in Spain, notably with Charles V. The Order of the Golden Fleece has remained a royal and dynastic order which coexists in two families: the original Habsburg family but also the royal family of Spain. Indeed, the kings of Spain, after the dynastic change for the Bourbon family in 1700, also retained their order of the Golden Fleece.
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