TEEN-AGE ROYALTY

It was a week in the news for the younger set of kings and pretenders as Belgium's Baudouin, 20, mounted his father's throne. Other junior royalty in the limelight:

Feisal II, * 16, King of Iraq, already safe on his strawberry-colored throne in Bagdad. He has been twelve years a monarch (but not yet a ruler; Iraq is governed in Feisal's name by 38-year-old Regent Abdul Illah, the boy King's crafty, effeminate uncle). Weaned on a well-balanced formula of British manners and Arab morals (an English governess taught him etiquette in the mornings; Queen Mother Aliyah read Islamic literature in the evenings), swarthy Feisal grew up a toytown prince, boxed in by such old-fashioned playthings as a 3-ft.-long General Grant tank whose wheel chains were forged out of gold, and a miniature Hurricane fighter, built for him by R.A.F. mechanics. At 14, Feisal knotted on his father King Ghazi's old school tie, trundled off to Harrow, England. Today, he is a thin, straw-hatted upperclassman, with a reputation for athletics and authorship. This year, Feisal wrote a judo manual in Arabic for the use of the Iraqi army, presented the first copy to his great uncle King Abdullah of Jordan, who was assassinated last week. Its title: How to Defend Yourself.

In 1953, when he is 18, Feisal will replace Abdul Illah as constitutional ruler of Iraq. Thousands of the Faithful hope the black-eyed little King will unite the Arab lands. Speaking of the Middle East, he once said: "Why those frontiers? We all speak the same language."

Emir Hussein of Jordan, 15, slender, bookwormish grandson of King Abdullah and likeliest to succeed to Abdullah's vacant throne. A lonely, taciturn adolescent who dislikes sports, he differs strikingly from his fun-loving cousin, Iraq's Feisal. Despite his captain's commission in the Jordan army, Hussein prefers collecting guns to firing them. He is a bright student at Victoria College, a British school in Alexandria, Egypt, but hates the British, hopes eventually to chuck them out of Jordan.

Prince Juan Carlos ("Juanito") Bourbon y Bourbon, 13, eldest son of Spain's Pretender Don Juan, reported last week to be the official (i.e., Franco-approved) candidate for the Spanish throne. A shy, spoiled teenager, who is maturing rapidly, Juanito was born in exile in Rome, never set foot in Spain until 1948, when General Franco invited him to study in Madrid. This year, in his fourth year exams at Madrid's blueblood St. Isidro high school--nimble-minded Juanito chalked up grades fit for a king in geography and history, still found time for bicycling, boxing and soccer. Biggest obstacle between Juanito and the throne: Franco's endorsement of the young prince is conditional upon his father's (Pretender Don Juan) renouncing his own claims.

* Not to be confused with Emir Feisal, viceroy of Hejaz, second son of King Ibn Saud.

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