Did anyone else ever wonder how come we have a German royal family here in England?

[BlueTitSmilingAtMe]

I did, and idly googling have found out the answer.

They just didn't want a Catholic monarch! Fascinating stuff:

www.englishmonarchs.co.uk/hanover.htm

Did you get taught this in school? I didn't.

This horrible histories song is brilliant for learning about the Hanoverians:

Also, if you're interested in how the royals are all interrelated, Google 'the Hapsburg chin'. - it's fascinating.

Was P-Philip truly "Greek" ? When I looked at his ancestry it looked heavily German, English & Russian to me.

Not Greek at all.

His relatively close ancestor (grandfather? Maybe great grandfather) was asked to be Greek king. He was German/Danish

As an aside, it really is alarming how faddy education is, and the fashion you speak of is responsible for a lot of damage I think. Actual knowledge and learning is still regarded as as a bad thing in the part of the education community that I’ve had dealings with. They do not encourage thought about what is being taught, or knowledge of the history of education, among teachers either: we’re very definitely in an era of centralised authoritarianism. Thanks for helping me to make my suspicions and feelings in this area more explicit!

Actually, if I've got my calculations right (please correct me if not!) the present Queen is only 7/16 German, ½ Scottish and 1/16 Danish. (Her great-grandmother, Queen Alexandra was half Danish, half German)

Charles is actually slightly more German than his mother: ¼ Scottish, 19/32 German, 5/32 Danish (through Phillip, who wasn't actually Greek by descent at all, as his grandfather was ½ Danish, ½ German and elected King of the Hellenes (Greeks) in 1863)

William is ½ English, 19/64 German, 1/8 Scottish and 5/64 Danish

George is ¾ English, 19/128 German, 1/16 Scottish and 5/128 Danish.

(Note that I haven't gone further back than parents for nationality of the various spouses, so it's really a little more complicated than this, but it does give a general idea)

OP will be stamping her feet at this! She wants the queen to be German.

When you say fluent, what do you mean? Bilingual?

Or maybe passed GCSE but didn't do them at A-Level.

The thing is - many people can trace their ancestors back to well known Royals.

The current RF 'got lucky' - because of being the first born, male etc. In 100 years time, no one will care about the ancestors of say Andrew or Harry. There will be lots of them. We are just following a specific line down a very long family tree.

Imagine William the Conqueror. If you traced 'all the descendants' from there, you are talking about a lot of people.

So basically, the RF are nothing special, God didn't choose them, there's no divine right and they aren't superior.

Just lucky. Or unlucky. Depending on your POV

www.visitscotland.com/about/history/jacobites/

Not always the first born male, it's interesting to note that out of 41 people proclaimed as ruler since the Norman Conquest, only 10 were the eldest son of the previous monarch, and two of those were never crowned (Edward V, one of the Princes in the Tower, and Edward VIII, who abdicated) One (Charles II) didn't succeed for 11 years after his father's death because of the Civil War. Two (Mary II and Elizabeth II)were the eldest daughter of the previous ruler, though Mary only succeeded because her father was deposed, and she wasn't the eldest child of James II, she had an older brother who died. Infant death was often the cause of the eldest son not succeeding, and five more kings had older brothers who died young, while Richard II and George III were the grandson of the previous king (though even Richard wasn't the eldest son of his father)And there were several occasions when the line changed, through conquest, usurpation or whatever cause, so in all, the rules of primogeniture were not followed 12 times between the Norman Conquest and the abdication of Edward VIII.

@RustyBear

So basically - lucky,

No God no divine right..

Well, he tries. I don’t know if he has had the chance to improve.

That was the first thing I thought of when I saw this thread. 😁

People complain about not being taught History in school. How much do you expect to know in an hour a week for three years? Especially while simultaneously trying to flirt with Darren from 8G. History in schools can only cover a tiny bit because THE PAST IS VAST!

There's no cover up, if you're interested in finding out more about different topics then there's plenty of books out there to do your own research!

People complain about not being taught History in school. How much do you expect to know in an hour a week for three years?

It never used to be a problem. From memory I had three hours a week for five years in secondary school, increasing if it was an O level choice.

Give the podcast "the rex factor" a go. Gives each monarch their own episode, very informative.

I would also argue that although Alfred started the uniting of England it was Athelstan who finished the job and would have started the national identity

No, it's a myth that orange carrots were cultivated honour of the House Of Orange.

"Though the development and stabilization of the orange carrot root does appear to date from around that period in the Netherlands, it is unlikely that honoring William of Orange had anything to do with it. There is no documentary evidence that the Dutch invented orange carrots to honor their royal familyi repeat, orange carrots were never developed solely to honour the royal family. No matter how often the Dutch repeat thus myth."

• John Stolarczyk, curator of the World Carrot Museum.

Full story: www.livescience.com/why-are-carrots-orange.html

😂😂😂😂

It's all random anyway. We could've been born anywhere. By sheer fluke and chance we were born in the UK and then we're meant to feel proud and superior? It's all luck. It's mad that any of us get born at all given the odds of that.

Well thats a great disappointment to me and Im going to believe it anyway!

As far as I remember from Primary School (drink has been taken and I can't be arsed to Google) the Queen is directly descended from Robert the Bruce. So, probably, am I and a good proportion of Scots and others further afield. I'm just too much of a peasant to have my ancestry recorded that far back.

The Hanoverian connection was through the Stewarts (deliberate spelling) so you could say they're as Scottish as German, but that doesn't go down well in some circles.

European Royalty is so interbred (see pp reference to Hapsburg chin) that it's nonsense to say QE is any more German than anything else.

But thanks for this thread any way as I now know there is a World Carrot Museum, which is far more interesting to me than than the Royal Family.