House of Windsor
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The House of Windsor is the current Royal House of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and each of the other Commonwealth Realms. The older part is a branch of the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha line of the House of Wettin, while the newer part is a branch of the Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg line of the House of Oldenburg.
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[edit] Descendants of Victoria
By virtue of Queen Victoria's marriage to Prince Albert, son of Duke Ernst I of the small German duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, her descendants were members of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha with the surname of Wettin. Victoria's son Edward VII and his son George V reigned as members of this house. However, high anti-German feeling among the people during World War I prompted the Royal Family to abandon all titles held under the German crown and to change German-sounding titles and house names for English-sounding versions. On 17 July 1917, a royal proclamation by George V provided that all agnatic descendants of Queen Victoria would be members of the House of Windsor with the personal surname of Windsor. The name Windsor has a long association with English royalty through the town of Windsor and Windsor Castle.
Upon hearing that his cousin George V had changed the name of the British royal house to Windsor, German Emperor Wilhelm II remarked that he planned to see Shakespeare's play The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
[edit] Descendants of Elizabeth II
In April 1952, after her accession, Queen Elizabeth II officially declared her “Will and Pleasure that I and My children shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor, and that my descendants who marry and their descendants, shall bear the name of Windsor.” This is in contrast with the usual practice in which her children would be of the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg through their father, born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark, with the surname of Oldenburg.
On 8 February 1960, the Queen confirmed that she and her descendants will be known as the House and Family of Windsor, and further provided that their personal surname, whenever one should be needed, is "Mountbatten-Windsor". Mountbatten is the surname adopted by Prince Philip before his marriage, an anglicization of his mother's family name of Battenberg.
Any future monarch could change the dynasty name by royal proclamation if he or she chose to do so. For example, if the current Prince of Wales accedes to the throne and desires to do so, he could change the name of the royal house to "Mountbatten" in honour of his father. But the proclamations of George V and Elizabeth II will stand unless and until they are overridden by a monarch in the future.
[edit] Realms
King George V's reign over a unitary United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland began in 1910 under the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, but many changes occurred before his death in 1936. Though the Irish Free State left the United Kingdom in 1922, the actual name of the kingdom was not changed until 1927, when he became separately the King of Ireland. Under the Royal and Parliamentary Titles Act 1927, the monarch also became separately the king or queen of many Commonwealth Realms, including Australia, Canada, New Zealand, South Africa, and others. He had previously been monarch in, not of, those states, through a shared Crown of the British Empire. As the situation continued to evolve under the Statute of Westminster 1931 and other developments, he now became a shared monarch wearing multiple crowns. Some of these realms (including Ireland) have since become republics and abolished the monarchy altogether. Until 1947, the king was also styled Emperor of India. Since 1949, the head of the House of Windsor is also Head of the Commonwealth of Nations, comprising most (but not all) parts of the former British Empire and some states that were never part of it.
[edit] Further reading
- Longford, Elizabeth Harman (Countess of Longford). The Royal House of Windsor. Revised ed. Crown, 1984.
- Roberts, Andrew. The House of Windsor. University of California Press, 2000.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Royal Family Name from royal.gov.uk
- House of Windsor from royal.gov.uk
- Graphic family tree of the Windsors
