WesWorld

DAGENS NYHETER 04.07.1921: ARRESTANTS' IDS PUBLIC - SHOCK AND ROYAL SCANDAL
In a statement to the press yesterday, the names of more than 80 persons arrested as part of the ongoing investigation into the assassination of the King and Queen. The names included a wide range of persons, ranging from plain workers at private dockyards, to Communists, and even a rear admiral of the navy, with most nevertheless being foreign citizens – however, the greatest shock was the revelation that Maria Mercedés Bernadotte, the famous Paraguay-born socialite and wife of the Prince Adam-Bertil, the Duke of Södermanland, has been arrested on charges of High Treason and conspiracy to assassination.

A spokesman for the Royal Nordmark Navy Foreign Office indicated that the evidence against MS Bernadotte is quite firm, including photographs, several confiscated letters to and from Ms Bernadotte, as well as testimony from several witnesses. Concerning the nature of the charges against Ms Bernadotte, the spokesman did intimate that these concern mainly the illegal transfer to Argentina of information intended to facilitate attacks on the royal family, as well as actively plotting with Argentine persons to that end.

Maria Mercedés Bernadotte was born Maria Mercedés Galván y Velasquez in 1885 as the youngest of five daughters of a wealthy banker in Asunción, Paraguay. Like her sisters, she was inducted into high society, and shared in the high fortune of this family - indeed, four of the five daughters married into high-echelon society, with one now being the wife of the president of Argentina. In 1904 she met the then Royal Highness, Prince Adam-Bertil of Sweden - a cousin of our late King's, and oldest son of his younger brother - and they seemed to immediately fall in love.

This love was in its time highly controversial, and in time led to the Prince officially renouncing for perpetuity his place in the line of succession, so that he might be allowed to marry his love; at the same time he was stripped of the style of Royal Highness and Prince of Sweden. Since their marriage, the couple has made great efforts for charitable purposes as well as for the arts. While not having Royal status, they remained close with the royal family, and indeed visited with the late King and Queen for long periods every summer and Christmas.

The prince is not under suspicion, having been cleared beyond doubt at a very early stage of the investigation.

OOC Note: The Royal Nordmark Navy Foreign Office is essentially the intelligence-service of the Nordmark Navy; there is a similar Army Foreign Division. There is at present no unified military or civilian intelligence-service in Nordmark; the nearest thing to that is the Assessment-office in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.