Until recently I always assumed that Queen Victoria had been the daughter of George IV. It seems like the obvious conclusion. But I was wrong. George was her Uncle. Her father was aristocrat Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn.
Not exactly a commoner by birth, but at the same time reigning over Britain wasn't in her plan for most of the time leading up to her reign. She had to catch up and become a queen that Britain would take seriously. So it's definitely a British story.
2 comments:
It's funny you should have wondered about Victoria's lineage since I did much the same a few weeks ago when I wondered how Elizabeth II was related to The Empress of India. Unsurprisingly, it turned out she was Victoria's great great granddaughter.
It's a complicated business being interested in royal family trees. I have a strong tendency to drift away not long after discovering the children of the original king and queen. Soon you start running into a number of those kids born on the wrong side of the blanket (interesting euphenism there).
Have you ever looked up information about Prince Albert? During their twenty years together Victoria gave birth to nine children and appears to have left a lot of the work of royalty to him. It was beneficial to lots of people since Albert was talented and devoted to good causes. I finally understood how it was that Victoria continued to mourn him for the rest of her life. Albert was King in all but name.
I guess great great granddaughter sounds about right, as their birthdates are a little over a century apart. Family with average fertility for the time, that could be five generations. What I wonder is the late Elizabeth II ever heard any old family stories about her ancestor, stuff the general public wouldn't know about.
It's an interesting field of study to look at, especially if you also have an interest in alternate history. What I've found out is that back before the royals became apolitical, ceremonial figures (a process that largely happened under the Hanovers) there was a lot of scheming and violence, even between friends and family members. People from a few centuries back would have thought the Windsors were the most placid family ever.
Prince Albert seems to have been a significant figure both in Victoria's life and the public life of Great Britain. It seems odd that his son didn't keep the "Albert" name when he was coronated himself. I guess it's a kind of royal conservatism. Kings and reigning queens don't get original names very often.
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