Is the British Royal Family Really German?

genealogy of the British royal family are the British royal family really German considering that they are such a British institution the British royal family it may not be as British as you think it is often said that the Windsors are in fact mostly German while they are descendant from the German House of Hanover that's not quite the whole story several women and two men of various nationalities have married British monarchs meaning Queen Elizabeth the second and her heirs Prince Charles and Prince William has quite an interesting genealogy let's investigate where the branches of the royal family tree came from let's begin with the founder of the current royal bloodline George the first when Queen Anne of the Stuart dynasty which by the way had its origins in Scotland died without an heir in 1707 Parliament's scoured the royal family tree for the next in line to the throne after centuries of bloody conflict between Catholics and Protestants they were determined that no Catholic would ever again wear the crown so they passed over a 50 closer relations because of their religion and nearest Protestant relative was her second cousin George the elector of Hanover George was the great-grandson of King James the first of England and sixth of Scotland through him the new Hanoverian dynasty it could trace their lineage all the way back to William the Conqueror in 1066 Hanover was located in northwestern Germany and was at the time part of the Holy Roman Empire the 54 year old king didn't speak a word of English and had no interest in learning he disdained his New Kingdom and spent most of his time at home in Germany George the first father Ernst Augustus was a mostly German stock while his mother Sophia was the granddaughter of King James hence the connection to the British royal family we could go back further but where does it end so for simplicity's sake let's call George the first 75% German and 25% Scottish in the spirit of getting too convoluted we will be looking back no more than three generations to glean heritage rounding to the nearest half a percent and dropping off heritage when it drops below 2% George the second was a lot more fond of his new English Kingdom than his father had been he declared I haven't a drop of blood in my veins which is not English but that wasn't strictly true his mother Sophia Dorothea of Celle had a French mother and a German father so that makes George the second 25% French a little Scottish but mostly German he married Caroline of Ansbach another German their son Frederick hated his father who returned his vitriol the prince set up his own rival Court George cut Frederick's allowance and the two bad-mouthed each other constantly Frederick and his German wife Augusta of succs Agata had nine children together but Frederick never got the chance to be king at 44 he was hit in the stomach by a tennis ball and the resulting ulcer burst and killed him king george ii lived to the ripe old age of 76 and died on the toilet his grandson Frederick's eldest son became a king george the third at 22 he was the first Hanoverian King to be born in the United Kingdom his wife charlotte of mecklenburg-strelitz appears to be yet another German bride but her heritage is a bit more interesting she was also a distant descendant of the Portuguese royal family her ancestry has been traced to 13th century ruler Alfonso the third and his lover ma dragana who may have been a black moor this would mean that Charlotte was Britain's first biracial queen her contemporaries said that Charlotte had an unmistakable African appearance though if this were true and not just court speculation about her heritage portraits of her likely would have downplayed these features while this is a fascinating possibility ma dragana and Charlotte were separated by 500 years and 5th at generations if Charlotte did have moorish heritage it would have been much less than 1% so we will have to call her 100% German as well George the third was King during the American and French Revolutions and during the enactment of the enclosures Act which consolidated what was once common land used by the people into the private possession of the aristocracy and created an even wider gulf between the wealthy and the poor he ruled for a record-breaking 59 years but suffered from severe and debilitating mental health issues later in life George and Charlotte had 15 children the eldest also named George ruled as regent during his father's incapacitation this period from 1811 to 1820 is known as the Regency era he married his cousin Caroline of Brunswick who was you guessed it German the couple hated each other and only had one child Charlotte who was conceived on their wedding night Charlotte died tragically at 21 after giving birth to a stillborn son as Charlotte had been the only legitimate child of the Prince of Wales his brothers rushed to ditch their mistresses and marry royal brides in the hopes of fathering a future monarch the Prince Regent became King George the fourth following his father's death in 1820 he was famous for his gluttony and luxury he lived with flair and spent buckets on stylish clothes and redecorating his palaces and was less deeply disdained by the people when he died after 10 years on the throne his brother became King William the fourth he was also married to a German Adelaide of socks in my meanin but sadly their two daughters died in childhood King William's heir was his niece Victoria daughter of his brother Edward Duke of Kent who had died when Princess Victoria was less than a year old Victoria's mother victoria of saxe-coburg-saalfeld was wait for it German her brother Leopold who was princess Charlotte's widower became king of the belgians but their family was still quite German princess Victoria was raised by her mother and kept away from the court and her paternal family she spoke fluent German and grew up with a great fondness for her maternal homelands in addition to her love for the British Isles she inherited the throne from her uncle at the age of 18 and married her maternal cousin Albert of saxe-coburg and Gotha at this point the name of the British royal house changed from the German Hanover to the three times as German toxic oberg and Goethe the couple observed many German traditions and they popularized the Tannenbaum or Christmas tree in Britain Albert built Balmoral Castle in Scotland as a retreat for his family as the rolling hills and wild countryside reminded him of his German homeland Victoria and Albert had nine children five of whom married Germans Victoria's reign saw extensive expansion of the British Empire and lasted sixty-three years breaking her grandfather's record she died in 1901 and her son became King Edward the seventh he was famous for his love of food and women he married Alexandra daughter of Christian the 9th of Denmark she brought some Danish blood to the British royal family but still had a lot of German heritage their eldest son Albert Victor was a playboy like his old man he was engaged to marry Princess Mary of Teck but he died of influenza shortly before the wedding his younger brother George took his place in the line of succession and at the altar he married Mary of Teck who was mostly German but had a grandmother countess Claudine Reid a vodka Sade who was Hungarian she was born in Transylvania and was a descendant of Vlad the Impaler popularly known as Dracula George v was raised in the Navy which fit his serious and rather boring personality in 1914 he went to war with his first cousin servile helm of Germany in a little family feud known as world war one to learn more about these two quarrelsome cousins check out my video on the grandchildren of Queen Victoria in light of the aversion to all things German during the conflict king george v changed the royal family's name from socks Ichabod and Goethe to the much more British sounding windsor after his favorite castle he also decreed that his descendants would no longer be required to marry foreign royals as by this time there were a very few of them left following his death the throne went to his eldest son Edward the eighth he abdicated in less than a year to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson who happened to be a Nazi sympathizer his younger brother George the six saw serving the nation as his duty so he reluctantly took the throne right on the eve of World War two he was married to Elizabeth bowes-lyon the daughter of a Scottish nobleman Claude bowes-lyon 14th Earl of Strathmore and kinghorn Elizabeth became the first non royal to be married to an English monarch since Henry the eighth married Catherine Parr in 1543 and she gave the British monarchy its first infusion of actual British blood in over two hundred years according to my research their daughter Elizabeth the current queen of the United Kingdom has a heritage that is approximately 38% German 25% Scottish 25% English 6% Danish and 6% Hungarian Elizabeth inherited the throne in 1952 when her father died unexpectedly young from lung cancer she married Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark which sounds rather exotic for this family but his heritage is in fact mostly German his grandfather George the first was a Danish Prince and son of King Christian the ninth whose family had a lot of German heritage mixed in with the Danish George the first was elected king of Greece in 1863 and the family moved his wife was grand duchess olga konstantinovna of the Russian royal family at the Romanovs Prince Philip's mother was Alice of Battenberg a descendant of German Royals and of Queen Victoria's second daughter Alice so again German that makes Elizabeth and Philip second cousins through Christian the ninth of Denmark and third cousins through Queen Victoria if you've noticed all the looped branches in this family tree and you're interested to learn more check out my videos on royal incest and inbreeding Queen Elizabeth and Phillips son Prince Charles who is next in line to the throne married Diana Spencer daughter of John the eighth Earl Spencer the English aristocratic Spencer family was established in the 15th century and also counts Prime Minister Winston Churchill as a member he and Diana were distant cousins Diana's mother Frances Roche was from a noble Irish family her father was the Baron of Fermoy diana was deeply loved by the people for her character style and charity work she died tragically in a car crash at the age of 36 her son William who is second in line to the throne after his father married Catherine Middleton whom he met at the University of st. Andrew her parents Michael and Carol Middleton are neither royal nor noble though they are successful business owners Michael's father pilot Peter Middleton helped to Train Prince Philip to fly in the early 1960s there has been speculation that the Duchess of Cambridge may be partly Jewish as her mother Carol's surname is Goldsmith however Lawrence Harris of the Jewish genealogical society says that there is no evidence of Jewish branches in Kate's family tree many non-jews have Jewish sounding names and there are records of Christian Church baptisms weddings and burials in Carol's family going back five generations so we will call Catherine Middleton 100% English that means that William and Catherine's children George Charlotte and we who are third fourth and fifth in the line of succession respectively are a mix of 66% English 15% German 12% Irish 3% Scottish 2.5% Danish and 1.5% Russian if and when it is George's turn to be king of the UK he will be the most British monarch the kingdom has had in over 300 years if you enjoyed this video please like subscribe comment your thoughts and check out my other royal history videos if you really want to help please consider supporting me on patreon a link is in the description thank you for watching

Channel: Lindsay Holiday

Views: 419,680

Rating: 4.8921442 out of 5

Keywords: history, game of thrones, documentary, royal family, nobility, royalty, sex, bbc, the crown, british history, england, scandal, queen elizabeth, royal wedding, pregnancy, women, Queen victoria, prince albert, incest, inbreeding, europe, 1800s, historic costumes, royal marriage, wwi, king george i, hanovarian dynasty, family tree, 23 and me, ancestry, german, genealogy, investigation, hungarian, russian, irish, scotish, Prince william, kate middleton, jewish, african, princess diana

Id: PCKe_CCcgQw

Length: 14min 7sec (847 seconds)

Published: Tue Jul 28 2020