The Royal Family's Intriguing German Roots | Keeping It In The Royal Family | Real Royalty

i'm alice loxton and i present documentaries over on history hit tv if you're passionate about all things royal history sign up to history hit tv it's like netflix but just for history you've got hours of ad-free documentaries about all aspects of the past you can get a huge discount for history hit tv make sure you check out the details in the video description and use the code real royalty all one word when you sign up now on with the show [Music] [Music] supreme [Music] [Music] is [Music] [Music] a good name that today has almost been forgotten saks koberg and gote yet it played a pivotal role in the royal history of europe the ancestors of the small duchy in central germany now adorned most of the thrones of europe even in the united kingdom on the 2nd of june 2013 queen elizabeth ii celebrated the 60th anniversary of her coronation the guest list not only featured the extended british royal family but the majority of europe's nobility a set of people that enjoys considerable influence substantial wealth and are somehow all related to each other even queen elizabeth and prince philip are distant cousins the thais run haphazardly through the different families and various political alliances of europe all these ties can be traced back to an impoverished and unimportant duchy in germany the house of saks koberg and gota at the end of the 18th century the most powerful states in europe are in turmoil a bloody revolution in france has just stripped the nobility of their privileges and the workforce in the german principalities are becoming increasingly resentful of working themselves to the bone for the benefit of their feudal overlords at the family estate palace ehrenberg in coburg a noble family is taking a big risk and placing their fate in the hands of the russian czarist court a final desperate attempt to [Music] it was a defining moment for five-year-old leopold he witnessed how his sisters in order to secure the future of the family were dispatched to a city thousands of miles away there one of them was to be wed to the widely disliked constantine the gamble pays off constantine on a whim picks the youngest of the sisters fourteen-year-old julian for whom years of martyrdom now begin [Music] [Music] juliana foreign [Music] the relationship with the russian royal family is a turning point for the koberg family leopold soon follows his sister to st petersburg and there completes his military training he's in the right place at the right time and makes contact with all the royal european households whilst in attendance with the tsar [Music] young leopold witnessed how his sister was effectively sold off and now finds himself on the stage of post-revolutionary europe with the best connections to the rich and powerful thank you almost single-handedly he will ensure the saks coburg and goto family will have influence in the whole of europe [Music] but what kind of man is leopold what is his inspiration and how did he manage to pull it off [Music] once he's reached the upper echelons of european nobility leopold sets his plan in motion thanks to the well-connected royal russian relatives a trip to london is organized the reason for the journey is charlotte next in line to the british throne and the most sought after hand in europe [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] winning charlotte's heart and with it the english throne would be harder than young leopold had anticipated her father had his own candidate for his daughter's heart and then charlotte goes and falls in love with the wrong man her favorite is august the nephew of the prussian king but a union between the english and prussian royal houses is in nobody's interest the powers that be persuade august to nip the romance in the bud and even the secret engagement ring is returned and leopold is back in the game is foreign [Music] [Music] again and with a single stroke leopold has moved into the limelight of european power politics as husband to the english heir apparent the financial woes for the saks coburger are finally over circumstances that the british tabloid press mock with great pleasure neither the british nor the german royal families are very popular madam i have no money but i'm of the right breed true german and blood royal i had rather you were english but a german husband is better than none [Music] the contrast a single life on the continent starving on sauerkraut or he comes to england is made a general and marries a lady of sixty thousand pounds per annum leopold's aponage is considerable he's to receive over 50 000 pounds a year claremont house is the wedding present for the happy couple [Music] [Music] i want you to come through and see this is where charlotte and leopold lived when they first got married they had their honeymoon and then it found that claremont was to say and they were so thrilled to get their own place to come and live here because we're not too far from london and she was away from the prince regent which was very special because she'd been quite a a difficult father and she'd had a very hard um life really with her parents always being um at loggerheads with each other so suddenly she's got her freedom and she's got the man that she has chosen to marry and that's terribly important for her and she really loved him i mean i think in fact the marriage the love grew during the marriage although perhaps she was just very excited from the beginning um but by the whole experience of leopold who was so so charming so very good looking as you know one of the most handsome men a lot of the most handsome men in europe so in fact they were a wonderful couple from that point of view because he was trying to teach her to be uh the monarch that she was going to be and be her to be the console and she wanted to be called sucks cooper yes but of course that was her personal desire but uh politically it was impossible to uh to do in britain but it shows you the feeling that she had that they would come as king and queen and there's another side to her too which i think is rather lovely when a visitor came and saw them studying together working again and said i'm so sorry to somebody said don't come in it's only mr mrs coburg doing their account so they that simplicity was in fact the secret of their popularity they really were loved for their ordinary way of seeing and loving each other [Music] the arm in which [Music] one and a half years after the wedding the time has come two weeks behind schedule charlotte goes into labor on november the third 1817. sir richard yes i asked [Music] given [Music] i think this is very interesting to know that this is one of the places where history changed the british history changed in one night because this was where charlotte went as you know went into labor and and began and had the the birth of the child took place here in claremont and with a whole nation watching a whole nation every day in the times was something about what the the birth going on everybody was was wondering what was going to happen and they waited and waited 50 hours 50 hours yes that's a very long time i don't think we'd have it today do you know dr kraft was already blamed at the time he would have the birth as natural as possible but that was not a good idea definitely not so the nurse came out of the room into the antechamber carrying this stillborn child um dead in her arms and she was weeping and that must have been a tragic moment for leopold didn't you think it was terrible absolutely you know but he understood that charlotte was fine everybody said she was fine in those days babies did die much more easily than today and didn't survive the first few hours that being the the situation um she seemed charlotte seemed fine she was a healthy young lady she'd have more children so um they all went home and leopold went to his room to sleep and then it was in the middle of the night that suddenly at 12 30 it became clear that um charlotte was in great pain and by 2 30 in the morning she had died and i think it was must have been devastating for him that in one night he lost both his wife and his son and his reason for being true yes because for that moment in that moment he had lost not only his son but his wife and his reason for being he was here in order to have an heir to the throne and then it had all gone his whole world must have been in shatters just in one night [Music] you're leopold loses not only his wife and child but also the english throne although he's financially secure now his private life is virtually barren [Music] [Music] or varicose amends the figure in leopold [Music] whilst leopold weighs up the offer from greece his little niece victoria rises in the ranks of royal hierarchy the plan that was cut short by charlotte's tragic death is to be achieved by victoria a sax coburger is to rule over england despite leopold's personal and political engagements he stays in close contact with his sister's daughter [Music] my libra uncle [Music] does look fabulous victoria [Music] [Music] my lipling [Music] my [Music] and then another opportunity presents itself on the european stage of power politics whilst leopold is considering the greek crown the belgians throw off the yoke of the dutch becoming another free nation in need of a king belgium is independent and on the lookout for a king and so the diplomatic bargaining begins to find a candidate that won't upset the power balance in europe a little like hurrying the head of the european central bank at first the belgians choose 16 year old louis dolyon the son of the french king but that doesn't suit the english so the sax coburg is back [Music] the throne in brussels seems a more promising and lucrative prospect than the one in unstable greece [Music] this time leopold doesn't hesitate and on july the 17th 1831 he sails from england setting foot on belgian soil for the first time to become king of the belgians [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] on [Music] under the auspices of her uncle leopold victoria is slowly prepared for her future role i am [Music] [Music] when she was growing up here at kensington palace as a child she lived under this education regime that became known as the kensington system and the kensington system as it was sort of nicknamed was a strict program of lessons that the princess received every day while she lived here um but also a sort of attitude um to her important role that she would have in the future as queen but victoria really looked to the kensington system later on in her life she looked back on it as something that had been very difficult and very cruel and she often described the very difficult very unhappy childhood that she felt she had led here at kensington palace for example she was very very rarely left alone and she wasn't allowed to walk downstairs without holding an adult's hand she even shared a bedroom with her mother it doesn't really sound good for me absolutely not no no maybe not but um if you were to prepare for a role as the head of state um queen king for instance perhaps it would be a more fitting set of set of rules and how was her relation to to leopold well prince leopold adopted a sort of father figure role um for princess victoria he had been one of the last people to see her father alive and before he died when she was about eight months old and he had decided that he would take on this um very serious uncle sort of father figure role um for her so she had a huge affection for prince leopold they exchanged letters very frequently she scolded him when she didn't receive enough letters from him because she really looked forward to receiving them and he sent her little gifts he sent books to her to read important history books um but for instance um we're looking at her dollhouse here and he also sent her little presents like um little plates for the dollhouse so that she can have fun and play with yeah oh that's nice and so they exchanged these sort of fatherly moments but leopold he wasn't just the lovely uncle leopold had a plan um to advise victoria for her future role as queen and while he had lost some of the ambitions that he had when when he before princess charlotte died in 1817 princess victoria was really his opportunity to gain more political power and influence and possibly to bring the sax coburg family back into the frame it's time for leopold to turn his attention to his nephew albert who he's singled out as a future husband for victoria but early on victoria makes it clear that she's only willing to enter into a marriage of love and so leopold realizes he must approach his plan with delicacy indeed is be [Music] not a man to leave anything to chance leopold invites albert to join him in brussels [Music] parliamentary democracy that was foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] at last leopold sends his nephew albert for a family visit to london it takes a while for the prince to recover from the stormy crossing and be fit enough to present himself to the aeres and windsor castle [Music] is blitzen test [Music] [Music] and intelligent princess victoria really enjoyed albert's company she said he was very good looking and that he was very kind and nice he played with her dog dash and they had fun together but he was a little bit boring and she loved to stay out late she really loved to have a good time and she loved dancing and albert kept complaining that he had a headache that he wanted to go home early and so while she enjoyed his company she wasn't immediately in love with him let's say but shortly after albert's visit to london the cards are shuffled anew so i had to get [Music] foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] finally the first part of leopold's plan comes together his niece victoria a sax coburg has become the queen of great britain and ireland and in future she'll even be the empress of india three years later after she had become queen albert visited her at windsor in 1839 and the minute she laid eyes on him she knew he was the one and so she wrote to her uncle leopold something like i said i couldn't think of marrying for three or four years but seeing prince albert has changed all of this so she fell in love with him absolutely she was completely besotted with him okay [Music] is um hoffenheim [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] foreign support [Music] uh [Music] my natural wear and believe naturally their humanity and their openness raised the royals popularity and they became the role model for the whole nation the royal family under the christmas tree a german tradition that albert brought over to the island and that still characterizes a british christmas an idyllic scene that does not always reflect reality [Music] subscribers [Music] [Music] albert becomes the most important advisor to the queen and also has his own projects [Music] being socially minded he ensures there's adequate housing for the working classes at the peak of the industrial revolution he is involved with the anti-slavery movement and reforms the university of cambridge last but not least the great exhibition of 1851. [Music] the sax coburg prince becomes an influential figure in the fast-moving industrial revolution and guides the country and monarchy into the modern age even if it's his wife that lent her name to the era the victorian age [Music] [Music] albert and victoria's nine children marry into most of the royal families in europe family ties that remain in the european royal houses to this day nowadays the considerations behind marriage a little different it's no longer power politics that play a role when the swedish norwegian or english heirs to the throne choose their partners as prince william demonstrated when he chose not a blue-blooded princess but a commoner and made his union an affair of the heart [Music] a development that leopold despite all the upheaval in his lifetime was not to witness [Music] leopold dies in 1865 at the age of 75. born shortly after the french revolution he was contemporary of napoleon and bismarck and witnessed the change of the european monarchy [Music] so [Music] so affirmative that is foreign foreign [Music] [Music] foreign [Music] you

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Keywords: real royalty, real royalty channel, british royalty, royalty around the world, royal history, queen elizabeth, royal family history, royal family documentary, royal family german roots, saxe coburg gotha, queen elizabeth and prince philip cousins, history of the royal family, british monarchy, king of england, british royalty news, british history, prince william and kate middleton, queen victoria, victoria and albert, queen victoria family tree, leopold I

Id: LJMSXqk-W8E

Length: 49min 59sec (2999 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 14 2021