As TFA pointed out, it's not the first time in the belgian royal family (which has no power btw and they're not anywhere near as rich as, say, the royal british family). A few years ago it was revealed that Delphine Boel was the daughter of the then belgian king.

And contrarily to his son, prince Laurent, who's been classy and accepted immediately the DNA test, the king refused and went to court but lost his case and had to submit to a DNA test. He later on abdicated IIRC.

It's interesting to think of the number of kids from kings and princes that, through the ages, never got recognized because DNA tests didn't exist and they could just deny it, even if the offspring was a near identical copy (in the case of the son of prince Laurent: he looks just like his father).

But yup in Belgium we've got a monarchy and king/queen/princes/princesses (princes and princesses either from the royal family or not), counts/countesses, dukes, many barons, a lot of knights and some esquires (I think we have esquires). And even more "Madame/Monsieur": people from the nobility but without any title.

The title appears on the identity card but that's basically it: it's more of an historical thing than anything else really.

Several of my friends hold such titles: it is not uncommon and it brings you exactly jack fucking shit advantage in life (unless you're really from the royal family).

It's not just Belgium, Practically every major monarchy has had some kind of controversy that could have easily been resolved through DNA testing, if it existed at the time: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretender