Useful Notes / The House of Windsor

Thy choicest gifts in store
On him be pleased to pour,
Long may he reign!
May he defend our laws,
And never give us pause
To sing with heart and voice:
"God save the King!"

— "God Save the King", third verse

On 8 February 1960, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II confirmed that she and her children would continue to be known as the House and Family of Windsor. Though the royal house is named Windsor, it was decreed, via a 1960 Order-in-Council, that those male-line descendants of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip who were not titled princes or princesses of the United Kingdom should have the personal surname Mountbatten-Windsor. In practice, all of their children, in honour of their father, have used Mountbatten-Windsor as their surname (although Princes William and Harry had "Wales" on their military uniforms, reflecting the long-standing tradition that when a surname is required, as for military service, a royal will use his most prestigious title as if it were a surname). Since becoming queen, she is Elizabeth II, all other names are not used officially. There was a minor flap about her being the first Elizabeth to reign over Scotland (thus making her simply Elizabeth with no regnal number there, if that rule were to be believed), but the royal family decided that when Scotland and England had different numbers of rulers of the same name, they would follow the higher one whether it was Scottish or English. As it happens, that is the rule that had (accidentally) been followed since the Act of Union 1707.^note Of the twelve monarchs since the Union, seven (Victoria and all six Georges) had names never used before the Union, two (Anne and Charles III) had an equal number of uses before the Union (namely, Anne herself was the monarch in 1707, and was the first Queen Anne in both kingdoms; both Charles I and II of England reigned as monarchs of Scotland in their own right), and three (Edwards VII and VIII, William IV, and Elizabeth II) had previously-used names. In each case, the English number has been higher; Scotland never had an Edward or Elizabeth before the Union, and had only two Williams (the thirteenth-century William the Lion, and then William III of England, who was independently William II of Scots). A consequence of this is that if there were to be another King James, he would be James VIII (since James II of England was James VII of Scotland).

The Windsors were also monarchs of Ireland (until 1949 or 1937, depending on how one interprets the Irish constitution), India (until 1950), and Pakistan (until 1956). As noted below, the family was originally known as the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha), the name of the ducal house to which Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, belonged; this family also holds the monarchy of Belgium and is descended from the late medieval Wettin Dukes of Saxony (the ones who, most famously, protected Martin Luther during the Reformation).^note  The House of Wettin is split into two main branches ever since Ernest, Elector of Saxony, Landgrave of Thuringia and Margrave of Meissen, divided up the Wettin territories between himself and his younger brother Albrecht (Albert III) in 1485. Paradoxically, Queen Victoria's consort Prince Albert comes from the Ernestine (ducal), not the Albertine (royal) branch. The Ernestine Wettins continued to divide the lands of a ruler amongst his sons longer than most other ruling houses, which meant that Ernestine territory became fragmented into different lines; when a line died out its territory was inherited by or divided up between Ernestine relatives. This is why the name Saxe-Coburg and Gotha only started with Albert's father Ernest (Ernst). His line had previously been known as Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, but in 1825 the Saxe-Gotha-Altenburg line died out; in the subsequent re-partitioning Ernest inherited Saxe-Gotha through his wife Louise, but he had to give up Saalfeld to the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen. Consequently, Prince Albert and King Leopold I (Ernest's younger brother) are called Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, while Ernest's sister Victoire (Queen Victoria's mother), who married the Duke of Kent in 1818, years before the re-partitioning, is called Victoria, Princess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. George V later changed the name during World War One to appease anti-German sentiment (his Belgian cousins did the same). After the death of Elizabeth II in 2022, the British branch of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha no longer reigns, being replaced by the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg (Prince Philip's royal house, Charles III being his son), but the House of Windsor endures all the same.

The current line of succession for the house—beginning with the current sovereign, King Charles III—can be seen at The British Royal Family.

The House of Windsor

Edward VII of the United Kingdom

Lived: 9 November 1841 — 6 May 1910

Reigned: 22 January 1901 — 6 May 1910

Full Name: Albert Edward

Parents: Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and Queen Victoria

Consort: Alexandra of Denmark

Title: His Majesty King Edward VII

Nicknames: Bertie, Dirty Bertie ^note Due to the scandalous living; he was actually known for being highly fastidious in terms of things like dress and correct decorations, Edward the Caresser ^note A pun on the name of his 11th-century predecessor and distant relative Edward the Confessor, on account of the modern Edward's somewhat lecherous reputation, Tum-Tum ^note On account of his weight, used among his close friends and others, but not to his face by anyone who wished to continue associating with him.

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Great-great-grandfather of Charles III. Eldest son and second child of Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort (the eldest being Victoria, Princess Royal (later Victoria, German Empress). Spent 59 years as heir to the throne, the longest ever until Prince Charles. Lent his name to The Edwardian Era. Before his coronation, known as Albert Edward, but familiarly as "Prince Albert" (especially after his father died in 1861), and called "Bertie" by the family even after he became King.

• He had a very difficult childhood and adolescence due to being raised for a decade or so with an isolated overly-strict educational system designed by his father Prince Albert that was completely at odds with his own learning issues and even major strengths such as his social skills, with the sad result that both his parents questioned his intelligence and fitness to do anything, and Bertie himself became very temperamental and high-strung and desperately craved affection as well as entertainment for the rest of his life. When you consider how warped someone could have easily become with this kind of Freudian Excuse, he actually got through it all half-decently.
• In his fifty-nine years as Prince of Wales, he earned a reputation as a cigar smoking (he apparently once lit up from a church candle during a service)^note His habit was famous enough that he actually had a brand of tobacco named after him across the Pond — and now you know where the "Prince Albert in a can" joke comes from., womanising, gambling, food-loving and generally lively playboy, and was widely expected to be utterly incapable of reigning properly, but surprised everyone by being a pretty good king.
• A famous Francophile—he had loved France, the French, and French culture ever since coming with his mother and father on their only state visit abroad (to Paris in 1855), and regularly holidayed at the resort of Biarritz in the French Basque Country^note This caused a minor scandal, as when Henry Campbell-Bannerman died in 1908, the King was in Biarritz and had Herbert Henry Asquith come to France to kiss hands rather than go up to London himself—paved the way for the British alliance with France (and ultimately Russia).
• As Prince of Wales, he also started the traditions of the British monarch and royals making public "make-a-speech-cut-the-ribbon-and-kiss-the-babies"-type public appearances and going on numerous state visits to strengthen Britain's ties with foreign states;^note The former led to the latter; after laying the cornerstone for the Canadian Parliament at Ottawa during his visit in 1860, he went down to the United States, visiting Washington, D.C.—hopping over to Virginia to pay his respects to George Washington—Philadelphia, and New York City. in other words, it's fair to say he invented the modern role of the British monarch and royal family (since those two things occupy more of a modern royal's public exposure than anything else).
• As noted, Edward was long noted for his love of a good time. He had a number of mistresses, many of them high profile. His most famous mistresses were the actress Lillie Langtry,^note Who is alleged—probably wrongly—to have had this exchange with him: "Why should I spend any more money on you? I've spent enough on you to build a battleship." "And you've spent enough in me to float it." She also had dalliances with other high-placed figures—among them the maternal grandfather of Elizabeth II's consort Prince Philip. the aristocratic Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick,^note Who got the nickname "Babbling" Brooke because (1) her husband, as heir to the Earldom of Warwick, was Lord Brooke, and (2) she couldn't keep her mouth shut. This last proved to be her undoing as a royal mistress. She was also the inspiration for the ditty "Daisy, Daisy." and the society hostess Alice Keppel.^note Great-grandmother of another mistress of a Prince of Wales, Camilla Parker-Bowles. Of course, Prince Charles was eventually allowed to marry her.)
• Edward also faced a number of scandals (some involving his mistresses and some not) as Prince of Wales. He has the dubious distinction of having had to appear as a witness in not one but two high-profile and very scandalous trials, the first being the divorce trial of an MP (where the issue was the MP's wife's cheating on him with the Prince while her husband was at sittings of Parliament) and the second case involved gambling (and had the added indignity of his being forced to testify, rather than willingly taking the stand as he had the previous time).
• He was also, outside of his mistresses, a truly notorious womanizer. He had liaisons with numerous society women (including Winston Churchill's mother Lady Randolph Churchill and actresses Sarah Bernhardt and Lillie Langtry). In the 1880s and 1890s, he also had special rooms in some of the top brothels of Paris, including one with a specially-designed siège d'amour ("love chair") built so that even with his great weight he could take two prostitutes at once.
• In the end, though, all of that was, if not forgotten, then easily forgiven—more of a national joke than an embarrassment, especially given how the rest of the late Victorian upper classes carried on. It helped that his wife only minded to a certain extent; it hurt her and turned her into a My Beloved Smother for their children, but she was determined to remain gracious and quite publicly forgave a few of the former mistresses. For all the cheating, he was a reasonably caring and otherwise respectful husband and he and Alix were fairly fond of each other, despite everything.
• He was also a great lover of food—especially French food—and ended up with a 50-plus-inch waist; again, fate spared him, and of the whole long line of fat British monarchs (i.e. every single one from George I until him), he carried it best. He was also (thus far) the last fat British monarch; his marriage to the slender Alexandra of Denmark seems to have had the lasting effect of ensuring reasonably svelte monarchs for the next five generations. Also, peculiarly for someone so thoroughly in love with fine French cuisine, he was the one who cemented the English tradition of eating roast beef with Yorkshire pudding and potatoes for the Sunday roast.
• Continued the proud Hanover tradition of the monarch feuding with the eldest son - his mother was not especially fond of him, even going so far as to blame him for her beloved Albert's death, and refused to allow him any active role in affairs of the state. That being said, Victoria was too kindhearted to ever be as nasty to him as the other Hanover monarchs had been to their eldest sons. For his part, seeing as he was not a Hanover himself, he did not return the ill-will; he loved his mother deeply, and for all his frustration at her he never feuded publicly with her like the previous heirs. He also got along very well indeed with his own son George V, who always remembered his father fondly, albeit more as a friend and mentor than as an actual father figure.
• Ultimately, it was his smoking (twelve cigars daily, plus twenty cigarettes)^note For those following along at home, that's a pack of cigarettes a day plus probably the equivalent of several more packs in cigars that caught up to him, and he died of heart disease after nine years on the throne in 1910. His funeral was noted by Barbara Tuchman in The Guns of August to be the greatest assemblage of royalty in history. He was the longest-serving heir apparent in British history, until Charles beat Edward's record on 20 April 2011. Probably the only Windsor to actually enjoy being a monarch; the others seem to regard it largely as a duty.
• He was also known to be a surprisingly liberal man for his time (though, considering his personal life, this is perhaps less surprising than it might be). He famously took a severe dislike to the way Indians were treated in the British Raj, saying that to the Foreign Minister of the time, Lord Granville, "because a man has a black face and a different religion than our own, there is no reason why he should be treated as a brute." When, during an Anglo-German summit meeting, Kaiser Wilhelm II characterized the Japanese as the "Yellow Peril" and accused the British of "race treason" by supporting Japan against Russia, Edward rejected the tirade and called the Japanese "an intelligent, brave and chivalrous nation, quite as civilised as the Europeans, from whom they only differed by the pigmentation of their skin." At the same time, he happily included Catholics, Jews and the nouveau riche in his circle of friends, at a time when all three groups were very much persona non grata.^note He did, however, try to draw the line at giving the Shah of Iran the Order of the Garter, on the grounds that it was a Christian order of chivalry from which a Muslim was rightly excluded. That said, it seems that this was a fig leaf for the actual reason he opposed the Shah's induction into the order—a government minister had promised it to the Shah without the King's permission, and since the Order is a knighthood primarily within the King's gift, the promise was deeply insulting and the King had to find some way to reassert his authority over such matters. He was also genuinely concerned by the plight of the poor; while this was instinctively more a sense of quasi-feudal obligation of a monarch to his subjects rather than any kind of reformist tendency, he seems to have been on board for the reforms the Liberal Party started gravitating towards during his reign. He tended to also be privately vaguely sympathetic to the Liberals; he counted William Gladstone as a personal friend and mentor (to the annoyance of his mother, who greatly preferred Gladstone's archrival Disraeli and rather detested Gladstone on a personal level^note To the point where after he retired, she subtly but clearly let it be known that Gladstone would not be granted the traditional earldom given to a non-Peer retired PM while she reigned. Unfortunately for Gladstone, he died three years before she did, so he never did get that earldom; had he survived her (admittedly something of a tall order, since he was fully 10 years older), there's little question that Edward VII would have granted him the peerage if the Government so asked. (Also, admittedly, the Queen was rather miffed that Gladstone had declined her offer of an earldom when he had first resigned—not retired—in 1885. Tit for tat, as you say.)) and generally had better relationships with his Liberal PMs (Campbell-Bannerman and Asquith) than with his Tory ones (Lord Salisbury and Balfour).
• He is the most recent British sovereign to be the ancestor of a foreign monarch, as one of his daughters (Maud) married her cousin Prince Carl of Denmark, who was elected King of Norway (as Haakon VII) in 1905. The current King of Norway, Harald V, is the great-grandson of Edward VII, making him the second cousin once removed of Charles III, and the highest-placed foreign monarch on the British line of succession.
• Has a major commercial cultivar of potatoes named after him, first bred in Linconshire early in his reign. A floury breed, King Edward spuds are still considered some of the best in Britain for chips and mash (alongside Maris Piper).

Queen Alexandra

Lived: 1 December 1844 — 20 November 1925

Full Name: Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia

Parents: King Christian IX of Denmark and Princess Louise of Hesse-Kassel

Spouse: King Edward VII

Title: Her Majesty Queen Alexandra

Nickname: Alix

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Wife of Edward VII, she was a Danish princess before she married into the British royal family.

• Her family was of very modest means. Her father, the future Christian IX of Denmark, was only distantly related to the main line of Danish monarchs, and was pursuing a career in the Royal Danish Army when it became clear that the male line of monarchs was about to die out, precipitating a Succession Crisis. Christian was the closest agnatic relative of the King, but there were several potential claimants in the female line who were more closely related and could inherit if Denmark decided not to continue following Salic law (an option under discussion at the time). It was thus not until Alexandra was about 12 that her father was confirmed as heir to the Danish throne. Even then, he was not given a royal income (as he and his wife refused to meet with the King's mistress), and continued to live off his modest Army salary. Alexandra and her sister Dagmar (who later married the Tsar Alexander III) therefore grew up sewing her own clothes. In fact, she fully thought she'd have to sew her own wedding dress, to the horror of her future in-laws.
• Despite being related to German royalty, she was not a fan of Kaiser Wilhelm and firmly supported the British in World War I—indeed, relations between Prussia and Denmark often led to tension within the family, particularly as Kaiser Wilhelm was her nephew (his father Frederick III was married to Edward's elder sister Victoria) and Alexandra did not forget that Denmark had lost Schleswig-Holstein in the German-Danish War of 1864. Other than that, she was most notable for her charitable work, for her status as a fashion icon, for her deafness, and for being the great-great-grandmother of the current king.
• Despite also being generally known as anything but intellectual, as a native Dane she wrote a memorandum in 1890 that was distributed to British government officials where she warned against trading the North Sea island of Heligoland to Germany, predicting that it could be fortified and used militarily, including against the UK. She was not heeded and this is exactly what happened.
• She was in great shape and looked a lot younger than she was for most of her life; it is said that the lissome queen once almost split her sides laughing when she saw her portly husband and his fat mistress Alice Keppel taking a walk in the garden through the window.
• She was also known to view many things through a rather youthful prism and several relatives are on record as having received children's presents from her when they were adults.
• Known for Queen Alexandra's Imperial Military Nursing Service, formed in 1902, which served with distinction in both World Wars and was eventually folded into the British military itself.
• Remember the part about her husband respecting her? Once he became King in 1901, Bertie made her the first Lady of the Garter for centuries. When there was some grumbling about putting up her stall and banner in St. George's Chapel, he ordered it done at once.
• If you've ever seen a Victorian play where a female character affects a fake limp, you can thank Alexandra for that. A bout with rheumatic fever left her lame in one leg; within days the "Alexandra Glide" had become fashionable.
• Her illness also accelerated hereditary issues she had with her hearing, and she became almost totally deaf as she grew older; the strain of functioning in society led her to spend much of the time in the country with her children and animals or abroad visiting her many relatives, while Bertie remained at the center of fashionable life. However, when she did perform social functions, people still found her highly charming and were left with the impression she could understand them perfectly.
• She started a fashion for choker necklaces, which she wore to hide a scar on her throat from a childhood surgery.
• She was an enthusiastic photographer who had several exhibits of her work, and in 1908 created Queen Alexandra’s Christmas Gift Book: Photographs from my camera (the proceeds went to charity).
• Alexandra Palace, a London entertainment venue, was named after her. Among other historic events, it was fitted with a broadcast tower (still in use) that transmitted the first BBC television signals in 1936.

George V of the United Kingdom

Lived: 3 June 1865 — 20 January 1936

Reigned: 6 May 1910 — 20 January 1936

Full Name: George Frederick Ernest Albert

Parents: King Edward VII and Princess Alexandra of Denmark

Consort: Mary of Teck

Title: His Majesty King George V

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Father of Edward and George, grandfather of Elizabeth II, great-grandfather of Charles III. Solid, reliable, conservative monarch, by no means intellectually brilliant but a steady capable hand (rather like Elizabeth II in fact). Also a keen philatelist.

• Last British monarch with facial hair.
• He led Britain through World War I. He infamously denied his cousin Tsar Nicholas II of Russia asylum; he did so on the advice of his ministers, a concept the autocratic Nicholas could never wrap his head around.^note Which, if we're being honest, was Nicholas's downfall generally; if he'd been content to do like his cousin and let his ministers make decisions rather than micromanage, he probably would never have been deposed.
• A tragic personal life includes the premature death of his only brother to survive infancy, with whom he was very close (Prince Albert Victor), and his youngest son (Prince John).
• Technically the first Windsor - he changed the family name from the bulky "Wettin von Saxe-Coburg and Gotha" during the war to appease anti-German sentiment (particularly after the name "Gotha" became infamous due to German bombers of the same attacking London). When H.G. Wells referred to Britain's "alien and uninspiring court" before the name shift, George is said to have responded "I may be uninspiring, but I'll be damned if I'm alien!". Supposedly, the name change prompted the humour-challenged Kaiser Wilhelm II's nearly-sole recorded joke: he would be going to the theatre to see The Merry Wives of Wettin von Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
• Masterminded the royal family's media image by being the first royal to live-broadcast to the nation, via the wireless. So shocked were the populace to hear the King’s voice that many stood to attention wherever they were. He had the perfect voice for radio; deep, with a pleasing timbre, as though it had been marinated in ancient whisky (which it probably had). His are the oldest surviving voice recordings of a reigning British monarch; none seem to survive of his father, and a popular clip claiming to be of his grandmother is nearly indecipherable and probably not provable either way.
• Famous for expressing what may or may not be a Beam Me Up, Scotty!: during his terminal illness, one of his advisors is supposed to have said that he would soon be well enough to visit Bognor Regis, a town granted the "Regis" when he had convalesced there previously. George's response? "Bugger Bognor."
• Although he was dying at the time, his death was slightly hastened due to involuntary euthanasia by a decision of his physician Lord Dawson, who gave him a lethal overdose by injection — apparently so his death could be reported in the more respectable morning papers.
• Like his son the future George VI, as the second son he was destined for a career in the Royal Navy, and he served for 15 years until the death of his elder brother. He also notably had a dragon tattoo (at the time, tattoos were generally associated with sailors).
• At first glance, he looked freaking identical to his first cousin Nicholas II◊, the last Tsar of Russia ("Nicky" even also had a dragon tattoo). During the celebrations of George's wedding to Mary, at which Nicholas was in attendance, guests are reported to have congratulated Nicholas on his marriage and asked George how he was enjoying his stay in England.^note  Despite the similarities, however, George's more prominent eyes are a fairly reliable way of telling them apart.
• Although he and his wife genuinely loved one another, they were both so emotionally inhibited that they could only express it through letters. But it is noted the King wrote Queen Mary every day when they were apart, and (unlike his father) he never took a mistress.
• Was famously stern and distant towards his children, including the future kings Edward VIII and George VI, reputedly because his own father Edward VII had been stern to him (others say the two acted closer to brothers than father and son, especially towards the end of Victoria's reign). He did, however, become much more affectionate towards his second son after Bertie/George was kept out of much of WW1 by chronic illness, and had to spend a good deal of his time with his father. This is probably what led to George V's famous remark that he hoped Bertie would become king, in turn to be succeeded by Elizabeth. He got his wish.
• Was originally a Spare to the Throne, but his elder brother Albert Victor died of influenza shortly before his wedding to a certain HSH Princess May of Teck...

Queen Mary

Lived: 26 May 1867 — 24 March 1953

Full Name: Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes

Parents: Francis, Duke of Teck and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge

Spouse: King George V

Title: Her Majesty Queen Mary

Nickname: May

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Her full name being hugely bulky even by royal standards — Victoria Mary Augusta Louise Olga Pauline Claudine Agnes — she was informally called May, after her birth month. Prior to her marriage she was known as Princess (Victoria) Mary of Teck, the name by which historians generally refer to her to this day.

• Her family was technically a junior branch of the royal family of Württemberg in southwestern Germany, but she was born and raised in Britain—which is why Victoria thought her a suitable wife for her grandson, as she was thoroughly English but also of royal blood.^note Her mother was the daughter of the 1st Duke of Cambridge, a son of George III, making her the second cousin once removed of her husband. She would become the first British queen consort born in the British Isles since Catherine Parr in the 16th century.^note Who was, of course, technically only the last English queen consort born in the British Isles. The last Scottish queen consort born in the British Isles, if you were wondering, was Margaret Tudor, consort of James IV of Scots, r. 1503-13, who was of course the eldest daughter of Henry VII and older sister of Henry VIII.
• Her Amazingly Embarrassing Parents — her mother was kind, popular, very extroverted and known as "Fat Mary", not unpleasantly; her father was handsome, emotionally intemperate and the child of a morganatic marriage (otherwise he would have been in line to be King of Wurttemberg), meaning that neither he nor his children were considered "royal enough" for the strictest (non-British) standards of marriage. Neither of them were capable of living a life out of debt, and at one point the family had to go abroad to Italy because of it — were the reason for her famous emotional restraint and majestic grandeur.
• She was originally engaged to Prince Albert Victor, but when he died and she and George hit it off, the royal family decided Why Waste a Wedding?, and she ended up the mother-in-law to the Queen Mum.
• She was a fanatic jewel collector, and people would often hide any royally-significant items they might have had in their own collections as Mary would frequently make it clear she felt such things belonged with the royal family. Had she not been a princess and then a queen, she would have been an excellent museum curator, as described by a biographer.
• Was described by one politician as "magnificent, [...] worldly, in fact nearly sublime, but cold and hard", making it appropriate that she had an ocean liner named after her — RMS Queen Mary, a Cunard liner and, as noted below, running mate to RMS Queen Elizabeth, named after then-Queen Consort Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.
  • How she came to be the namesake of RMS Queen Mary and her successor the RMS Queen Mary 2 is a funny (if apocryphal) story. Cunard had a convention that all her ships had names that ended in "-ia" (Lusitania, Mauretania, etc)^note As an aside, the convention for Cunard's main rival, the White Star Line, was to use names that ended in "-ic" such as Majestic, Britannic and most famously Titanic.. When they laid down Hull Number 534 in 1930, legend goes that she was to be named Victoria and the company approached George V for permission to name their latest liner after Britain's greatest Queen, only for him to respond, "My wife will be delighted." Clearly too embarrassed to correct the King, Cunard went ahead and launched RMS Queen Mary. Amusingly, every modern Cunard liner now follows the lead of the Queen Mary in its naming^note RMS Queen Elizabeth (sunk; named after Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother), Queen Elizabeth 2 (now retired), RMS Queen Mary 2 (successor to the original), Queen Elizabeth (not to be confused with either the RMS Queen Elizabeth or the QE2), Queen Victoria (all still sailing), and Queen Anne (currently under construction).
• As noted above, she and her husband were genuinely in love, but could only express it via letter.
• She became the first queen dowager to attend a coronation when she attended the coronation of her son, George VI.^note Anne of Cleves is believed to have attended the coronation of her former stepdaughter Mary I, but because Henry VIII annulled the marriage she wasn't his widow, nor was she ever crowned. By convention, crowned monarchs and consorts, both domestic and foreign, do not attend the coronations of others. She also planned on attending the coronation of her granddaughter, Elizabeth II, but died two months before it. She had stipulated in her last wishes that it should not be delayed if she died.

Edward VIII of the United Kingdom

Lived: 23 June 1894 — 28 May 1972

Reigned: 20 January 1936 — 11 December 1936

Full Name: Edward Albert Christian George Andrew Patrick David

Parents: King George V and Princess Victoria Mary of Teck

Spouse: Wallis Simpson

Title: His Majesty King Edward VIII, latterly His Royal Highness The Duke of Windsor

Nickname: David

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Elder brother of George VI and uncle of Elizabeth II. Known as "David" among his immediate family.

• Much more forceful than his brother, he was initially an incredibly popular member of the royal family, due to his blond, film-star good looks and skills as a ‘salesman’ for brand-Britain across the Empire. During The Jazz Age his popularity rivalled, if it did not exceed, that of his enormously popular and vivacious grandfather, King Edward VII, when the latter was Prince of Wales. In fact, the hysteria surrounding Edward at its height even rivalled and presaged that of Diana, Princess of Wales. A silly-yet-catchy song of the era has Jenny Wren singing as someone who's "danced with a man who's danced with a girl who's danced with the Prince of Wales" — him. It became the theme and leitmotif for the 1978 ITV series about him and his wife.
• However, although he remained broadly popular throughout most of his reign, in court and political circles he was regarded as lazy, reckless and ignorant; he didn't bother to read his state papers and he behaved as though Parliament didn't matter.^note His Assistant Private Secretary for many years, Alan "Tommy" Lascelles, familiar from his depiction in the TV series The Crown, observed to prime minister Stanley Baldwin in 1927 that the best thing for the country would be if Edward were to break his neck in a horse-riding accident. Instead of reprimanding Lascelles for this quasi-regicidal remark, Baldwin actually agreed with him. The government also thought he overstepped his role as a constitutional monarch by making comments that could be interpreted as political, particularly when he called attention to unemployed coal miners in Wales. In addition, he was carrying on a love affair with divorced American commoner Wallis Simpson, whom he insisted on marrying, when as head of the Church of England he wasn't allowed to marry a divorcée since while the Church technically recognised divorce, it did not allow divorced persons to remarry while their former spouses were still alive (which both of Simpson's ex-husbands were). This led to a constitutional crisis, with prime minister Stanley Baldwin consulting the leaders of the Dominion governments and informing Edward that if he insisted on being still being king and marrying Mrs Simpson against the advice of the government, then the government would have to resign. The British press had loyally kept the news about his affair with Mrs Simpson out of the papers, but when the story finally broke in the UK, public opinion began to turn. He reluctantly abdicated after less than a year on the throne, the only British monarch since the Norman Conquest to ever voluntarily do so. His younger brother gave him the title of HRH Duke of Windsor.^note The new king's advisers couldn't figure out what title Edward should have: the head of the BBC, Lord Reith, was planning to announce Edward's abdication speech as being from "Mr Edward Windsor", but the new King George VI pointed out that he would always be the son of a king and entitled to be addressed as such – so he ended up introduced as "The Prince Edward". Furthermore, if Edward were to be a commoner, he could have run for MP, which nobody wanted; but if they made him a regular duke, he would be in the House of Lords, which nobody wanted either, so letting him keep his HRH as a royal duke seemed like a generous solution but robbed him of any potential political power. Because Parliament wouldn't allow him to marry Mrs Simpson whilst he sat on the throne, he's the most recent British monarch to be unmarried during his entire reign.
• Greatly disliked by quite a number of people, including his father in his later years, mainly because he was appalled by Edward's laziness, irresponsibility and numerous affairs, to the point that he eventually said: "I pray to God my eldest son will never marry and have children, and that nothing will come between Bertie and Lilibet and the throne". He got his wish, in a way.
• Generally considered to have been both selfish and egotistical; his childlike petulance was not helped by the somewhat infantilising manner with which Wallis Simpson treated him, referring to him as “the little man” and “Peter Pan”.
• But he was also a complex, neurotic figure, distanced from his overly disciplinarian parents, especially the King, George V, who was extremely stern and almost unable to show affection towards his children. Edward had an addiction to exercise and a form of anorexia, often eating nothing but an orange all day. He was obsessed with the thinness of his legs, smoked and drank to excess, and loved all things then considered modern — jazz, nightclubs, the telephone, planes, cocktails, Americans ^note  His ice-breaker for Mrs. Simpson was whether she missed American central heating, of all things, to which she later recollected her initial thought was that she was disappointed by such a mundane question coming from somebody who was well-known for being a Ladies Man . He was extravagant and reckless, and spoke in an affected accent, mixing cockney and an American twang with the more modulated tones of the English upper classes.
• His healthiest relationship was probably with Freda Dudley Ward, the married woman who was his mistress for over a decade after the First World War — she was seen as discreet, encouraging of his better side (despite letters which still show his anger and immaturity, including him saying "fuck the rest of the world") and the closest he came to a family of his own with her two daughters, of whom he was very mutually fond. However he broke all contact with her soon after becoming involved with Wallis and never spoke to her again.
• Despite his large number of affairs he has no known illegitimate children (nor legitimate ones with Wallis, though she was almost 41 when they finally married) - indeed, he is popularly believed to have been infertile, perhaps as the result of a bout of mumps in his youth which essentially "locked" his physiological development in an early adolescent state (which explains a great many things, actually). He was also rumoured to completely lack body hair, which supports this theory, although of course this may have been a personal grooming decision.
• Often accused of not-exactly-latent fascist sympathies◊. After the unearthing of the so-called Marburg Files in 1945, the contents allegedly present the Duke as nothing short of a Nazi sympathizer, whose treachery and ambition extended so far as to encourage the Germans to bomb the United Kingdom into suing for peace.
• In 1940, he was made Governor of the Bahamas essentially against his will - the Open Secret being that the Caribbean kept him as far from the war in Europe as possible.
• His regnal name was in fact his first name, but his family consistently called him David, his last middle name. In a quirk, he was in fact named after his father’s late older brother Albert Victor Christian Edward — who was always known to his family as “Eddy”.
• He was a very stylish gentleman who always dressed impeccably and spent vast sums on his wardrobe. He could be quite daring in his fashion choices and occasionally favored very bold fabrics. Prince of Wales check was named after him.
• Edward Fox gave a BAFTA-winning The Danza portrayal in the 1978 series Edward And Mrs. Simpson. He is played by Guy Pearce in The King's Speech. It was the anomaly in the succession caused by his abdication that inspired the 1930s setting for Ian McKellen's film adaptation of Shakespeare's Richard III. Other elements of the story appear in the film; Richard's regime is unmistakably fascist, while Edward IV's wife (played by Annette Bening) is given an American accent. In The Crown, he's portrayed by Alex Jennings in series 1, 2, and 5, and Derek Jacobi in series 3.

Wallis, Duchess of Windsor

Lived: 19 June 1896 — 24 April 1986

Full Name: Bessie Wallis Warfield

Parents: Teackle Wallis Warfield and Alice Montague

Spouse: (1) Earl Winfield Spencer Jr. (1916 — 1927); (2) Ernest Aldrich Simpson (1928 — 1937); (3) Prince Edward, Duke of Windsor (1937— died 1972)

Title: Her Grace The Duchess of Windsor

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One of the most scandalous women in British history, Mrs Simpson hit the headlines in the The '30s when it became public knowledge that she was King Edward VIII’s mistress – and that he intended to marry her. Simpson will forever be known as the woman who rocked the Royals and plunged the monarchy into crisis.

• While unmarried himself at the time of his ascension to the throne in 1936, King Edward planned to take Wallis as his wife – although she was still very much committed to her second husband, Ernest Simpson. Even more so, as an American divorcee, she was subsequently seen an utterly unacceptable match to be the queen consort of the British monarch and head of the Church of England.
• The affair between Wallis and Edward VIII led to her divorce and his abdication before he had even been crowned. His abdication — long since dubbed the "Abdication Crisis" — led to his brother, the Queen’s father King George VI, taking the throne. Most famously, Edward announced his abdication by explaining: “I have found it impossible to carry the heavy burden of responsibility and to discharge my duties as King as I would wish to do without the help and support of the woman I love.”
• After the abdication in 1936, TIME Magazine named her "Woman of the Year," the first time the magazine had ever given its "Man of the Year" award to a woman. Their reasoning? That year, she became the most-talked-about, written-about, headlined and interest-compelling person in the world, fulfilling their standard criteria of awarding it to the person who generates the most news.
• The Duke and Duchess of Windsor ran afoul of the rest of the royals (and much of the British government) during World War II. They had made a high-profile trip to Nazi Germany during 1937 to see how the German people lived under Hitler's regime; they even stayed with the Führer as his personal guests. When tensions flared during the early days of World War II, the couple was still said to entertain fascist friends in their French home — which has also forever tarnished their reputation.
• Despite her marriage to a British prince, she was famously furious after her brother-in-law King George VI denied her the style of "Her Royal Highness", which is usually automatically granted to the wife of a prince, and was referred to by the lower form of address, "Her Grace". Wallis' household staff were instructed to refer to her as "Her Royal Highness". It is therefore likely that any children they might have had would have likewise been addressed as "Lord" or "Lady", as the children of a Duke, despite otherwise being grandchildren in the male line of a Sovereign and therefore entitled to the style "Royal Highness" and the title of "Prince" or "Princess" by right.
• She owned a pack of pugs with some creative names: Disraeli, Davey Crockett, Black Diamond, Imp, Trooper, and Ginseng. Wallis didn't just love live pugs though; she also had 11 pug-shaped pillows arranged at the foot of her bed.
• She had a grim fate after the Duke's death, basically spending years confined and isolated (even to bed) with dementia and subject to abuse by her lawyer, who had power of attorney.
• Her lavish and extensive jewelry collection was eventually auctioned in 1987, following her own death.
• She is buried at Windsor Castle, next to her husband, identified simply as "Wallis, Duchess of Windsor".

George VI of the United Kingdom

Lived: 14 December 1895 — 6 February 1952

Reigned: 11 December 1936 — 6 February 1952

Full Name: Albert Frederick Arthur George

Parents: King George V and Princess Victoria Mary of Teck

Consort: Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

Title: His Majesty King George VI

Nickname: Bertie

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Grandfather of the current King, father of the late Queen Elizabeth II, husband of the late Queen Mum. Last King of Ireland and last Emperor of India.

• A well-meaning but painfully shy and socially awkward man (rather like his grandson Charles, but more so) who led Britain through World War II. Had the misfortune to suffer a dreadful stammer which required considerable therapy, and coaching during public addresses, by Australian speech expert Lionel Logue.
• Besides his stammer, he pronounced the letter "r" as "w": most fictional depictions of him will include this.
• Only came to the throne due to the abdication of Edward VIII (which would partly explain the shyness, as he was never groomed and trained for kingship; he had expected to have a career as a military officer—in his case, in the Navy—as was the tradition for second sons). Until then he had been known as Prince Albert, Duke of York, and remained "Bertie" to the family. He never wanted to be king and was appalled at the prospect, but once it actually happened and he got through his Coronation in fine style, there was a wave of public support for him and the queen which boosted his confidence enormously. In the earliest years of his reign, he was plagued with rumours about his supposed frailty and bad health (the rumours possibly arising from the early death of his youngest brother, Prince John) but his first royal visit to the United States in 1939 quashed these.
• One of England's most beloved monarchs due to his steadfast leadership during the War, including his famous refusal to leave the country during the Blitz.
• In spite of his crippling shyness, had a famously short temper as well as a sharp sense of humour (which he may have bequeathed to his eldest daughter). On meeting General Sir Harold Alexander, George VI asked him what he thought about Montgomery. Alexander replied that he always had the impression that Montgomery was after his job (commanding 18th Army Group as Montgomery's direct superior). "You should worry," George replied, "whenever I meet him I always think he's after mine." ^note On another occasion, when he was a young RAF officer in 1919, he was in an officer's mess when another pilot, a distinguished air ace who was quite drunk, noticed that Prince Albert had a lot of medal ribbons but, mysteriously, no pilot's wings, meaning he couldn't possibly have earned them the way the air ace had. The air ace said "Captain, what are all those ribbons?" Albert stared at them for a moment and then smiled and said "I'm not quite sure. The tailor puts them there whenever I have a uniform made." This self-deprecation earned him the respect of the other fliers. In fact, in 1919 Albert had a number of legitimately earned ribbons, including the 1914-15 Star, the General Service Medal 1914-1918 and the Allied Victory Medal 1914-1918 with Oak Leaf, and some honorary ones including the King Edward VII Coronation Medal and the King George V Coronation Medal.
• George VI was the last British monarch to fight in battle during his lifetime^note The last to fight in battle while reigning being his 5x-great-grandfather, George II, as a turret officer aboard the battleship HMS Collingwood at the Battle of Jutland, although other royals since then have seen battle (Prince Philip was a naval officer in World War II, Prince Andrew was a helicopter pilot during the Falklands War, and Prince Harry was deployed to Afghanistan). He was also the first member of the royal family to become a qualified aeroplane pilot; he joined the RAF because he wanted to serve on the Continent during the Great War, but only arrived there in October 1918 and thus never flew before the war ended.
• Inaugurated the George Cross, the highest civilian gallantry medal, in 1940 to reward those who had shown courage in the Blitz.
• He was an enthusiastic gardener, and became a huge nerd about rhododendrons in particular.
• An extremely heavy smoker, like his father and grandfather before him. The combined stress of becoming king aged 41 without having spent his life preparing to be one, followed by the unprecedented problem of having to deal with his egotistical and demanding elder brother, followed by the small matter of World War Two, meant that he used to stay up too late and smoke even more; it was clear in royal and government circles by the early 1950s that he was not going to last much longer. The actual cause of his death was a combination of lung cancer and arteriosclerosis; he died in his sleep and was found by his valet the following morning. His former secretary Alec Hardinge commented that "he died for England". Winston Churchill, his last Prime Minister, felt similarly, writing the words "For Valour" on the government's floral wreath - the words engraved on the Victoria Cross, the highest British gallantry award.
• Despite being portrayed increasingly frequently — Colin Firth did in the 2010 film The King's Speech^note a film Elizabeth II apparently enjoyed very much, particularly the portrayal of her beloved Papa, about him and his speech therapist, and received the Best Actor Oscar for it — it's much harder to find someone who resembles the actual George VI than it is for his father or older brother, for some reason.^note  Probably because the real Bertie had a combination of particularly "finely-drawn" but not otherwise exceptionally-memorable features; rather than go for this tricky resemblance, the solution appears to be that anyone can play him, and so we've gotten people as diverse as Colin Firth and Jared Harris winning praise. James Wilby played him in the 2002 feature Bertie and Elizabeth, which was part of the celebration of Her Majesty's 50th year as Queen. Samuel West played him in the movie Hyde Park on Hudson. Jared Harris played him in the The Crown (2016); he did a remarkably good representation of the king's character, but doesn't bear even the vaguest resemblance.^note For viewers of Mad Men, it's essentially watching Lane Pryce do a remarkable impression of the King. He appears in two 2017 biopics of Winston Churchill: Ben Mendelsohn plays him in Joe Wright's Darkest Hour (2017) and James Purefoy in Churchill. In the 1974 TV movie The Gathering Storm, he's played by Denis Lill. In Into the Storm (2009), he's played by Iain Glen, who perhaps comes the closest to a physical resemblance.

Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother

Lived: 4 August 1900 — 30 March 2002

Full Name: Elizabeth Angela Marguerite

Parents: Claude Bowes-Lyon, 14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne and Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck

Spouse: King George VI

Title: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother

Nickname: The Queen Mum; Cake ^*a disparaging nickname given to her by Wallis Simpson after she once exclaimed it at a party they were both attending; Mrs Temple^*used by the Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson in analogy to her daughter; see above; The most dangerous woman in Europe^*Adolf Hitler referred to her as this due to her popularity in Europe. Keep reading to see how she earned the moniker at home during World War II.

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Pre-marital name Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, having been born the daughter of the Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne, a title in the Peerage of Scotland, created in 1606 for her ancestor the Lord of Glamis; before that, her ancestors had been Lords and still before that Thanes of Glamis since 1372. Better known as "The Queen Mum", she lived for over 100 years

• She died with a bank overdraft of ten million pounds, an impressive feat in these modern times—and an amusing one, since the press and the bank seemed to treat it as a kind of national joke once revealed rather than an indication of trouble.
• Well known for her dry wit and being a particularly lovable figure. Spitting Image gave her a Birmingham accent—despite her being Scottish—and she was invariably caricatured as being mad keen on Horse Racing and gin. Which isn't actually that far wrong; by a conservative estimate, she had ten drinks a day minimum ^note  This is reckoned in British standard drinks, which are half the size and therefore potency of American standard drinks which are also similar in size to the rest of the world's, so by the reckoning of almost everyone else, she had more like 5 units of alcohol per day.) Gin and Dubonnet at noon, red wine with lunch a few hours later, a port and martini at six, and two glasses of champagne at dinner, plus a nightcap. Note that these sorts of drinking habits have not historically been uncommon for the British aristocracy, or indeed any aristocracy; it's simply that, unlike others of her era, she lived to be 102. ^Also...Upon being told by a nervous host, "I've heard you like gin," she said, "Make it a double." Upon being presented with a Nebuchadnezzar—the equivalent of 20 bottles—of champagne, she said, "I suppose I'll just finish it off myself.", and the British royals have always been into horses ^note  she was the owner of Devon Loch, the horse who infamously and inexplicably leapt up into the air and belly-flopped while leading in the final straight of the 1956 Grand National; watching from the stands, she was heard to exclaim: "Oh well, that's racing". Her granddaughter Princess Anne and great-granddaughter Zara Phillips are both Olympic eventers — the only Olympians among the British royals.
• Then-Prince Albert had to propose to her three times before she said yes; she was afraid of the restrictions of royal life, but eventually decided he was worth it and agreed to marry him. As noted below, Prince Albert chose "George" as his regnal name when he was crowned, and so became King George VI. On the occasion of their marriage in Westminster Abbey in 1923, she placed her bouquet on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, starting a tradition that has continued with royal weddings held there to this day. This was especially poignant for her as her brother Fergus was killed in World War I ^note  and at the time had no known grave, which remained the case until 2012 when he got a headstone marked "buried near this spot" at the Quarry Cemetery near Vermelles; she also stipulated that after her funeral, the wreath that had laid atop her coffin be placed there, echoing her wedding tribute.
• She earned longstanding devotion from the Blitz Generation for her and George VI's refusal to flee the country during World War II; when asked to send her children to Canada for safekeeping, she famously replied, "The girls won't leave without me, I won't leave without the King and the King will never leave". After Buckingham Palace was bombed during the Blitz, she quipped, "Finally. Now I can look the East End in the face."^note being where the docks were and also being the first part of London the Luftwaffe bombers came upon while using the Thames as a navigational aid, the East End was by far the part of London most devastated by aerial bombing during the war.
• She also had a cruise liner named after her,^note the Cunard ocean liner RMS Queen Elizabeth, sister ship and running mate to RMS Queen Mary (which, incidentally, was named after her mother-in-law) as well as a famous expressway in Canada (which you take to get to Niagara Falls^note And Buffalo.).
• During her half-century-long widowhood she was never romantically linked with anyone. She survived one of her two daughters, Princess Margaret, by seven weeks, and though she was infirm, confined to a wheelchair, and had recently suffered an injury, she insisted on participating in the funeral, though she was carefully concealed from the sight of the general public.
• After her death it was discovered that she owned an impressive library of ska music.
• She has been played by Sylvia Syms in The Queen (2006), Juliet Aubrey in Bertie and Elizabeth (2002), Helena Bonham Carter^note Fun fact: the Queen Mum may have met Bonham Carter's great-grandfather Herbert Henry Asquith, as she was after all the daughter of an earl while he was PM, and by the time "Squiffy" was elevated to the Peerage, the King doing the elevating was her father-in-law. in The King's Speech, Olivia Colman in Hyde Park on Hudson, and Victoria Hamilton (seasons 1-2) and Marion Bailey (seasons 3-4) in The Crown (in which, confusingly, Colman appears as Elizabeth II and Bonham-Carter appears as Princess Margaret).

Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent

Lived: 13 December 1906 — 27 August 1968

Parents: Prince Nicholas of Greece and Denmark and Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna of Russia

Spouse: Prince George, Duke of Kent

Title: Her Royal Highness Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent

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Born Princess Marina of Greece and Denmark, she was a member of the Greek Royal Family and a first cousin to Prince Philip. Although it was common practise in years past, Marina is noteworthy here as representing the very last time that a foreign princess married into the British Royal Family.

• In 1913 Marina’s grandfather, King George I of Greece, the younger brother of Queen Alexandra, was assassinated. After several years of upheaval, the monarchy was overthrown in 1924, and her father Prince Nicholas and his family settled in Paris.
• In 1934 she married Prince George, Duke of Kent, becoming the Duchess of Kent and Queen Elizabeth’s aunt. The couple bore three children — Prince Edward, the current Duke of Kent, Princess Alexandra and Prince Michael — who are the Queen’s first cousins.
• In 1942, George was killed in a plane crash, so Marina threw herself into her royal duties, helping the war-effort as a nurse under the guise of the pseudonym ‘Sister Kay’.
• Before Princesses Margaret and Diana, and Duchesses Catherine and Meghan came along, Marina was the royal fashion icon, with a tall frame and slightly vampish looks that perfectly suited the bohemian fashions of the 30s. This was acknowledged by the The Kinks in their song "She's Bought a Hat Like Princess Marina" for their 1969 album Arthur. The song details a woman’s efforts to be as glamorous as the princess, despite the drudgery of her own life.
• In July 1968, it was discovered that she was suffering from an inoperable brain tumor. Sadly, her condition deteriorated very quickly. On August 27, 1968, Princess Marina passed away peacefully in her sleep at her home at Kensington Palace, surrounded by her children and her sister Olga.

Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom

Lived: 21 April 1926 ^note Her 'Official Birthday' was celebrated in June in the UK and in May in Canada — 8 September 2022

Reigned: 6 February 1952 — 8 September 2022

Full Name: Elizabeth Alexandra Mary

Parents: King George VI and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

Consort: Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Title: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II^note She was known as HM The Queen during her lifetime

Nicknames: Lilibet ^note to her family; Cabbage ^note to Prince Philip; Shirley Temple ^note to her uncle the Duke of Windsor & Wallis Simpson, disparagingly, and on account of her curls and destiny for stardom; Brenda ^note in Private Eye

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Elizabeth was enormously popular, to the point that some of the nations of the commonwealth actually rejected movements towards republicanism, preferring to retain her as their Head of State (even if only a ceremonial one). She was the longest-living British monarch in history, and as of September 9, 2015 the longest-reigning British monarch, beating the record formerly held by her great-great grandmother Queen Victoria. She was also the longest-reigning and longest-lived female head of state in world history, second only to the Sun King in length of reign for the monarch of a European Great Power, and — as she was never under a regency — the longest-reigning European monarch in her own right.

• She was the oldest and longest-reigning monarch in the world, showing an incredible longevity. In September 2015, she broke Queen Victoria's record of 63 years and 216 days as monarch, and on February 6, 2022, she became the first female and first British monarch to celebrate a Platinum Jubilee. She also had the second-longest confirmed reign of any monarch of a sovereign power in human history, surpassed only by Louis XIV.^noteHad she remained on the throne through to 26 May 2024, she would have broken the Sun King’s record. Also, Elizabeth reigned in her own right for considerably longer than Louis; the Sun King ascended to the French throne before his 5th birthday and thus was represented by a regent until his early twenties.
• Her sovereignty can be traced back to Anglo-Saxon times; she was the 32nd great-granddaughter of King Alfred the Great, who was the first effective King of England, ruling from 871 to 899. Alfred counted Cerdic of Wessex as his ancestor, who claimed descent from the god Wōden himself.
• Elizabeth was very much the epitome of the Cool Old Lady: among other things, she was a reportedly fan of Doctor Who, was a confirmed technophile who asked Barack Obama to upgrade her iPod, had an extensive history of service in World War II where she was a mechanic, and even co-starred with Daniel Craig in a James Bond scene (in the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympics), meaning that her popularity in the UK was phenomenal.
  Eddie Izzard: I am the queeen... I live foreveeer!
• Despite her great longevity, she was never likely to Abdicate the Throne. This was in spite of an increasingly popular trend among other monarchs to do so; the rulers of The Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, and even the Pope all abdicated within an 18-month period in 2013-14, and the Emperor of Japan (a similarly venerated figure in his home country, if not more so) abdicated in 2019. But not Elizabeth, which was apparently known to cause a little consternation for her heir apparent Charles. Three reasons are given for this refusal: first, she took her coronation oath (and the declaration she made on her 21st birthday) very seriously, considering it an unshakable promise made personally to God; and second, she saw her uncle Edward VIII abdicate in favour of her father George VI, and her father's relatively early death at age 56, which she may have attributed to the stress of his not having been ready for the throne.^note That said, George VI was a heavy smoker who died of lung cancer, and the stress of his reign could not have been made any easier by the outbreak of World War II. There was speculation that Charles would be set up as prince regent if she became incapable of discharging her duties as Sovereign. Instead, he took on many of her roles without the establishment of a formal regency. Third, like her uncle Edward discovered, the laws of the United Kingdom are not friendly toward abdicated monarchs. Unlike Spain, Belgium and Japan, abdicated British monarchs lose their regal title and style (there's no honorific title for former monarchs like king/queen emeritus), as well as their previous titles that merged with the crown, and she'd have to start curtseying again for the first time in decades.^note Her title and style would have reverted back to HRH The Princess Elizabeth, Duchess of Edinburgh, as she'd still be eligible for the courtesy title from her late husband (had her son Charles not inherited his father's title and been married to the subsequent HRH The Duchess of Edinburgh — who typically went by HRH The Duchess of Cornwall — she could have used that title instead).
• Age and mobility issues eventually slowed her down, but couldn't stop her. She showed every indication that she'd continue doing what she could as long as she was able. Indeed, she worked right up until the very end.^note  Her Majesty’s final publically official duty was appointing Liz Truss to be Prime Minister and asking her to form a government two days before she died. Her last public statement came just a day latter to express her sympathies as Queen of Canada with the victims of a stabbing spree in northern Saskatchewan. It was also later revealed that her last official act was to appoint six new members to the Order of Merit which was in her personal gift.
• After her death, she is now referred to by the BBC as "Elizabeth II" and "the late queen" to avoid confusion with Queen Camilla, who is now "the Queen".

See her page for more details.

Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh

Lived: 10 June 1921 — 9 April 2021

Full Name: Philip ^note "Philippos Andreou" when his birth was registered in Corfu. "Andreou" is a patronym for his father Prince Andreas of Greece and Denmark. Mountbatten ^note Philip was a prince by birth and thus used no surname until his engagement to the-then Princess Elizabeth, for whom he renounced his Greek and Danish titles, became a naturalized British subject and adopted his maternal surname of "Mountbatten" (originally "Battenberg", but Anglicized due to prevalent anti-German sentiment in Britain during the two World Wars)

Parents: Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark and Princess Alice of Battenberg

Spouse: Queen Elizabeth II

Title: His Royal Highness The Duke of Edinburgh ^note His birth name was Philippos Andreou of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderberg-Glucksburg, Prince of Greece and Denmark. He was a member of the Greek royal family, but renounced his titles before his marriage to Elizabeth. Elizabeth's father, King George VI, gave him the title Duke of Edinburgh so Elizabeth could marry a British nobleman. In 1957, Elizabeth created him a prince of the United Kingdom, allowing him to use a princely title before his given name.

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Queen Elizabeth II's husband between their wedding in 1947 and his passing in 2021. He was the longest-serving royal consort in British history and a popular figure in his own right. Notable things about him:

• He was famously irascible and had a reputation for making extremely blunt comments. He was well aware of it and invented a word for it: dontopedalogy, or "the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it, a science which I have practised for a good many years." The press liked to trumpet his comments to stir outrage, but bystanders usually just found them a good laugh. Depending on his mood and how much you'd prepared, he could have been your best friend or your worst enemy, but you knew what you were getting with him. He'd also got a reputation for being hardworking and for having a similar longevity to the Queen.
• He was, above all else, fiercely dedicated to the Queen and "the Firm". If someone in the fold found themselves struggling with the pressures of being a royal, he'd try to help in his own gruff way. For instance, he reached out to Diana and let her know that she could turn to him for help when her marriage to Charles was falling apart. And, although he was never a big fan of Sarah Ferguson, he became a supporter when she worked to obtain plane and helicopter licences. However, if he viewed anyone as a traitor^note such as the aforementioned Diana and Fergie after they aired the family's dirty laundry in the press, or staff and courtiers who wrote tell-all books, or Harry after he and Meghan abruptly decided to quit the Royal Family, that person would end up on the receiving end of his legendary wrath before being frozen out.
• He was a former member of the Greek royal family. Due to the tangled nature of European royal families, this means that he came from a junior branch of the Danish royal family while primarily being of German descent, but was baptised and raised in the Greek Orthodox Church. He converted to Anglicanism shortly before his wedding, though he had been informally attending Church of England services for years before that.^note The C of E has never been picky about who can attend, and Orthodox congregations were rather thin on the ground in mid-century Britain anyway, especially in the Navy.
• His family was kicked out of Greece after a disastrous defeat by Turkey when he was a child, with his father court-martialed and almost executed and with great fear of them meeting the same fate as the Romanovs; see below. Eighteen-month old Philip was famously carried onto a waiting British evacuation vessel in an orange crate, and he never properly learned the Greek language, which was known to be one of his great regrets in life. The press still sometimes gave him the nickname "Phil the Greek".
• He was also related to the Romanovs on many sides; his paternal grandmother Queen Olga of Greece was one, the wife of Tsar Alexander III, Maria Feodorovna, was his paternal grandfather's sister (born Princess Dagmar of Denmark), and the last Tsarina of Russia, Alexandra Feodorovna, was his maternal grandmother's youngest sister (born Princess Alix of Hesse)^* Another sister, Ella, was married to Grand Duke Sergei, Nicholas II's uncle. She became a nun after being widowed, inspiring Philip's mother, and was nevertheless also killed by the Bolsheviks. In the 1990's his mitochondrial DNA was used to help identify Alexandra and her five children. Before actually visiting Russia after that, he had made a remark during Communism that he would like to visit the country, "even though the bastards killed half my family".
• He renounced his Greek and Danish titles and princely status voluntarily and became a naturalised British citizen before marrying Elizabeth in the slightly tense post-WWII climate. However, no one realized until years later that under the laws of the time, as a descendant of Electress Sophia of Hanover, he had had British citizenship to start with.
• Royal bloodlines being what they are, he was actually eligible to become King in his own right, as a descendant of Princess Alice, daughter of Queen Victoria. (This made him 679th in line for the throne as of 2011— or thereabout, as it was just so low that it wasn't worth keeping track.) He was in fact the longest-lived descendant of Queen Victoria when he died at age 99. He had a clear path to becoming king of Greece in his own right before his cousin Constantine was born in 1940.
• Despite being in exile, he had a relatively normal childhood in Paris with his family until the age of 9, at which point things took a Reality Is Unrealistic turn: his mother developed severe psychiatric symptoms and required involuntary hospitalisation for several years, during which Philip had very little contact with her; his father couldn't handle this additional trauma and drifted away to the Riviera and Monaco, leaving Philip's guardianship to his wife's relatives; his four older sisters all married German princes in a span of about a year^note  the first and youngest, Sophie, was only 16, and Philip was sent to boarding school at Cheam in England, Salem in Nazi Germany (briefly), and finally Gordonstoun in Scotland. When in the UK, he was looked after by his grandmother, Victoria, Dowager Marchioness of Milford Haven and his uncle the marquess, George Mountbatten. When he was 16, his sister Cecile died with her family in a plane crash, and the following year his uncle George died of bone cancer, after which his other uncle "Dickie" Mountbatten took a larger role in his life.^note Since his mother and her brothers have been noted, it's worth mentioning that the final sibling, their sister Louise, had married the widowed Crown Prince of Sweden in 1923 and eventually became that country's Queen consort; Philip may have been an impoverished exile with a scattered family, but he was very highly connected all over Britain and Europe. WWII separated him from his parents and sisters again, with his father dying when Philip was away on naval service before the end. Small wonder he was so self-reliant.
• Due to his continental and cosmopolitan childhood, he not only spoke English like a native, but excellent German and French (as he himself said to a former francophone Canadian prime minister, "I'm not an Englishman and I was speaking French before you were born"), as well.
• He was considered old-fashioned with dated views, but he also had a surprisingly progressive streak, which was especially evident in his early years. He instituted several reforms within Buckingham Palace, including replacing the messengers with an intercom system. He was the one to suggest that Elizabeth's coronation be televised (popular belief is that it was her idea, although she was the one who put her foot down when conservatives raised their objections). He even presented a couple of documentary programs on television.
• He was an early advocate for environmentalism, long before it came in vogue with the general public. He insisted that he wasn't "a green", but that there is a clear environmental crisis that everyone should be able to see and that concrete steps must be taken to address it.
• He served with distinction as a naval officer in World War II on the Allied side (i.e. in spite of his German heritage), even being mentioned in dispatches for bravery in battle. His mother, Princess Alice, was similarly named a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem for her role risking her own life saving a Greek-Jewish family during the Holocaust. This may be why he was so hurt and annoyed when Mohammed al-Fayed, in one of the stranger moments of the very strange inquest into Diana's death, called him a Nazi.
• He was adept in his naval service; on the basis of his wartime accomplishments, people say he could easily have become an admiral on his own merits, following in the footsteps of his maternal grandfather (Lord Louis Mountbatten, Marquess of Milford Haven) and his uncle (The Earl Mountbatten of Burma), who were Fleet Admirals at the peak of their wartime service. He instead resigned his commission to serve as Queen Elizabeth's consort. He was still given honorary five-star ranks in the Army, Navy, and Air Force, as well as various colonel-in-chief appointments, in recognition of what he had to sacrifice. He eventually held the even higher rank of Lord High Admiral, having been appointed by the Queen (who formerly held the post) in 2001 — largely a ceremonial position, but still pretty cool.
• According to insiders, while he played a subordinate role to the Queen in regards to their public duties, behind the scenes he was the absolute head of household. He proved himself to be stern, playful, and loving in equal measure. This side of him was seen most acutely during the funeral of Diana, as he convinced William to walk behind his mother's coffin, joined the procession in support of his grandsons, and was even briefly seen putting his arm around William and asking him if he was alright just before they walked onto the Horse Guards Parade.
• He was worshipped as a god by the inhabitants of some Pacific islands.
• He was well-known as dashing and handsome in his youth (often and inevitably described as a "Greek god" despite self-identifying as "Danish").
• He retired from royal duties in August 2017 and stopped making public appearances, but he still maintained a nominal membership in the nearly 800 organizations with which he had worked.
• He was played by James Cromwell in The Queen, and Matt Smith (Seasons 1-2), Tobias Menzies (Seasons 3-4), and finally Jonathan Pryce (Seasons 5-6) in The Crown.

The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon

Lived: 21 August 1930 — 9 February 2002

Full Name: Margaret Rose

Parents: King George VI and Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon

Spouse: Antony Armstrong Jones, 1st Earl of Snowdon

Title: Her Royal Highness The Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon ^note  the definite article "the" is reserved only for children of a monarch

Nickname: Margot

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Elizabeth's little sister and in many ways her complete opposite. Known for her beauty and hauteur in equal measure, she epitomises The Beautiful Elite and was THE original Rebellious Princess.

• Long before the rebellious Prince Harry came on to the scene, Princess Margaret established herself as the royal family’s ‘wild child’. Known in the press for her vivacious personality and antics, Margaret was an enthusiastic ‘party princess’ – drinking, smoking and cultivating friendships with a variety of celebrities, actors and musicians. She was drawn to bohemians, just as they were drawn to her. She liked the louche hours they kept, their smoking and drinking, their refusal to do the right thing. They, in turn, enjoyed the cachet of having a real-life princess on display. It didn’t really matter that she could be difficult. After all, being difficult was her party piece. If she happened to round off an evening with a display of her famous hauteur, then it gave them something to write about.
• To elaborate on the above, she disliked over-familiarity, and whilst her friendship circle was broad and liberal, everyone bar her family still had to show deference and address her as "Ma'am" — even life-long friends like Lady Anne Glenconner.^note Herself a Blue Blood, daughter of the 5th Earl of Leicester; the style "Lady" is one she holds by right although she is also entitled to one as the wife, and then widow, of a Baron. The princess’s party trick seems to have been to lull people into a false sense of security and camaraderie and then demolish them with regal, rank-pulling put-downs that were masterpieces of the art. Tracey Ullman's mimicry of her at her worst, where they were careful not to use her name, is not entirely out of sight of the truth.
• She was one of the first royals to truly be considered a sex-symbol, and in the early 1950s Pablo Picasso of all people first began to have erotic dreams about her. Occasionally, he would throw her elder sister into the mix. “If they knew what I had done in my dreams with your royal ladies, they would take me to the Tower of London and chop off my head!” Picasso confided to his friend Roland Penrose.
• In 1953 she wanted to marry her father's equerry, Group Captain Peter Townsend (not that one, although frankly he would have been right up her alley; keep reading to see why). The only problem was that he was divorced, and at this time such a marriage would have been a Very Big Deal Indeed. She eventually decided against marrying Townsend.
• Years later, in 1960, she married the Welsh society photographer Antony "Tony" Armstrong-Jones, who was made the Earl of Snowdon after his marriage to her. Lord Snowdon had perhaps a classic artistic temperament and a bohemian disregard for convention; while this seems to have been the attraction for Margaret, it also caused tension. Ironically, though perhaps unsurprisingly, they themselves divorced in 1978 after years of bitter acrimony and mutual recriminations. Their son, David Armstrong-Jones, 2nd Earl of Snowdon, is a noted designer of extremely expensive bespoke neoclassical-style furniture through his atelier Linley (from his courtesy title Viscount Linley, which he bore until his father's death in 2017).
• One of her closest friends was Peter Sellers and the rumour of her having an affair with Mick Jagger is 'unconfirmed'.^note If true, it would appear that Jagger has a thing for high-placed women named Margaret: he also had an 'unconfirmed' affair with Margaret Trudeau, wife of then-Canadian PM Pierre Elliott Trudeau, although we should say that Mrs Trudeau was a bit more age-appropriate for him. (Indeed, Jagger was more age appropriate for Mrs Trudeau than Mr Trudeau ever was, which is part of the reason this rumour is given more credit than the one about Princess Margaret.
• Towards the end of her life she had a few health problems, including suffering a real life Agony of the Feet accident whilst holidaying on Mustique involving a hot bath that’s both Nightmare Fuel and Nausea Fuel. She never really got over it, and Margaret died from complications following multiple strokes, shortly before her mother in 2002, after a life spent drinking, chain-smoking and staying up all hours partying. In a rarity among the Royal Family, she was cremated, with her remains kept in the same tomb as that of her parents. She once said that her greatest regret in life was not having been allowed to attend school; it has been remarked that her great tragedy was to be born with frightening intelligence and no outlet for it whatsoever. No wonder she drank.
• In recent years, she has been award-winningly played by Vanessa Kirby in the first two series of Netflix's much celebrated The Crown, and despite Ms Kirby being a good nine inches taller than the petite real-life Margaret, her complicated, layered performance has been met with universal praise. Helena Bonham Carter's turn at the role in Series 3 has yet to win an award, but it has met with great praise. Lesley Manville portrayed her in the show's final two seasons, including an episode which unflinchingly and minutely detailed her strokes and scalding.

Diana, Princess of Wales

Lived: 1 July 1961 — 31 August 1997
Full Name: Diana Frances
Parents: John Spencer, 8th Earl Spencer and Frances Shand Kydd

Spouse: Charles, Prince of Wales

Title: Her Royal Highness The Princess of Wales (1981 — 1996)

Nicknames: The People's Princess; Shy Di

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Pre-marital name Lady Diana Spencer. Often dubbed "the most famous woman in the world", you've almost certainly heard of her, often as the technically incorrect 'Princess Diana'.^note inspiring numerous cartoons in which she and Wonder Woman received each other's outfits back from the cleaners, &c. As such, she has her own page — Diana, Princess of Wales — containing much more information.

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Depictions in fiction

Film

• The King's Speech, of course.
• Bertie and Elizabeth: Equally obvious.
• Churchill features George VI in a crucial scene where he talks down the title character from an ill-conceived scheme to attend the D-Day landings in person, with the King at his side.
• Into the Storm (2009) features George VI throughout, depicting his evolving relationship with Winston Churchill, from initial suspicion (on the King's side) to eventual friendship and mutual respect.
• A Royal Night Out features Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose in a wild adventure during the night of the VE-Day celebrations, along with George VI and the Queen Mum as two very concerned parents.
• Darkest Hour shows George VI during the crucial days of the Blitz, and as particularly supportive in dark times for Churchill, although the film is about the latter.
• Spencer, about the falling out of the marriage between Diana, Princess of Wales, and Prince Charles.
• The King's Man: Orlando, Duke of Oxford is a distant cousin and good friend of George V, who meets with him several times throughout the movie. He initially seeks to prevent the outbreak of WWI, though he's only vaguely aware of Orlando's efforts towards that goal. After Orlando's son Conrad is killed in action, he tries unsuccessfully to talk Orlando out of his depression (he does snap out of it later). He eventually becomes one of the founding members of the Kingsmen.

Literature

• Edward VII (as the Prince of Wales) turns up as a character in the Flashman series, notably in Flashman and the Tiger (1999). Specifically, the tale depicts the Royal Baccarat Scandal of 1890, when Edward testified in court against card sharp Sir William Gordon-Cumming, 4th Baronet (1848-1930).
• Young James Bond in By Royal Command meets several of the house's members in the 30s, and ends up saving their lives later.
• The crime writer Peter Lovesey wrote three light-hearted novels featuring "Bertie", Prince of Wales, as an amateur detective.
• A weird example from the future: In the Hyperion Cantos, the abandonment of Earth forces the exodus of the British from the Isles, whereupon they decide to establish a colony on another planet that is as much like Britain as possible—down to the constitutional monarchy with the Windsors as monarchs. (They also name the planet Asquith, so clearly these are either some Edwardian nostalgics or have a wicked sense of humour—or both.)
• In many Alternate-History Nazi Victory stories, Edward VIII (infamously a big fan of fascism in general and Hitler in particular) is installed as the Puppet King of Occupied Britain, with George VI reigning in exile with his family in (usually) Ottawa, Canada.

Live-Action TV

• The Netflix series The Crown depicts Elizabeth II's life and reign, starting (barring flashbacks) with her marriage to Prince Philip. Various members of the House appear; in particular, the Queen Mum and Princess Margaret are regular characters from the beginning, Edward VIII is a recurring character, and both George VI and Queen Mary are regular characters in the first season (Queen Mary is a regular through to her death in the fifth episode; George VI actually lingers posthumously through copious flashbacks after he dies in the second episode). Incidentally, Jared Harris' turn as George VI has earned him much acclaim. George V and a much-younger Queen Mary and Edward as Prince of Wales actually make a surprise appearance in a flashback to 1917 in the penultimate season.
• ITV aired a thirteen-part biographic miniseries on Edward VII in 1975, titled fittingly Edward the Seventh. Incidentally, the title role was played by Timothy West, whose son Samuel would later play George VI in Hyde Park on Hudson.
• The 1978 ITV seven-part series Edward And Mrs Simpson, obviously.
• Edward VIII appears while Prince of Wales in the 1923-set Series 4 Christmas Special of Downton Abbey, in which his dalliance with Freda Dudley Ward gets the Crawleys caught up in a mess. The Crawleys fix it, and so the Prince (at Mrs Dudley Ward's insistence) attends and opens Lady Rose's ball (which he is only too happy to do, as although he is unaware of how the Crawleys have saved his reputation, he rather liked Rose's father's reception for him in India and rather likes the look of Rose herself).
  • George V (and Queen Mary) also shows up briefly, when Rose is presented. He even talks to Rose, mentioning her father's service.
• Call the Midwife: Chummy, coming from an upper-class background (her father was a colonial civil servant in India and later knighted), has met a few of the royals, and manages to get Princess Margaret to formally open the Poplar Community Centre in Series 3 (1959). We only see Princess Margaret from the back, though, and she has no lines (although she clearly talks to Chummy, we don't hear what they say).
• Spitting Image: Arguably the funniest depiction of the British Royal Family in the 1980s and 1990s, though it has been rumored that they all hated it. Not surprising, really!
• UK Channel 4 sitcom The Windsors portrayed the family as a soap opera like Dallas or Dynasty, with Camilla and Pippa as villainesses, Wills and Kate as nominal heroes and the rest of the family as either deluded or incompetent. It mixes real events with soap opera tropes such as amnesia, long-lost twins and dream sequences.
• Stephen Poliakoff's The Lost Prince is about the life and death of little Prince John, the "sweet boy" Bertie mourns for in The King's Speech, speaking about his epilepsy and the fact that he was 'different'. (He may have been learning-disabled, autistic or both; no one is sure.)

Theater

• King Charles III, a speculative "future history" first performed in 2014, follows the royal family's turbulent internal relationships and tenuous political position in the months between Queen Elizabeth II's death and Charles' coronation.

Web Comics

• Hark! A Vagrant has this cartoon in which Edward VII is reviewing his mother's memoirs:
  Edward VII: Mummy that is not appropriate.
  Queen Victoria: You're one to talk.

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We go back any further, we're into the Hanover dynasty.