Bernadotte was born Prince of Sweden and Duke of Uppland, but having made an
unequal match was disqualified from the
line of succession. He was also forbidden to use his birth titles and left to be called
Mr. Bernadotte. His cousin
Lennart Bernadotte, who two years earlier had experienced the same thing (as the first Swede in history), considered himself, and even more so Sigvard, subjected to very cruel treatment for several decades by the
Royal Court of Sweden due to their marriages. On 2 July 1951, for himself, his wife and his marital descendants, Bernadotte was admitted by
Grand Duchess Charlotte (
head of state at the time) into the nobility of Luxembourg with the title
Count of Wisborg and in that conferral was also called
Sigvard Oscar Frederik Prince Bernadotte. After more than 30 years of argument and controversy in Sweden over his rank and titles, problems which worsened when his father died in 1973, and fed up after having been demonstratively snubbed by the Royal Court of Sweden during a state visit by Queen
Elizabeth II in 1983, Bernadotte announced to
Tidningarnas Telegrambyrå on 28 May of that year that he was to be known as
Prince Sigvard Bernadotte from then on. Over the years since then, based on precedent established in 1888 for his great-uncle
Oscar, and citing Oscar's title of nobility as it was confirmed by the Government of Luxembourg in 1892, Bernadotte was supported by several legal experts when he petitioned for acknowledgement in Sweden of the
Prince Bernadotte title as his also, although he did not seek reinstatement in the line of succession to the throne as a royal prince of that country.
King Carl XVI Gustaf has been criticized for never obliging and for his consequent estrangement from his uncle. Bernadotte went to the
European Court of Human Rights in an effort to have the Government of Sweden acknowledge his princely title there, but in 2004, after his death, the ECHR declared the application inadmissible. ==Marriages==