I have to admit, I really don't get the whole media circus that builds up around the royals. The Royal Family are a part of our history, although the current royal line isn't as British as you may think, they are a core part of Britain, and the concept of them along with the pomp that accompanies anything they do, own, or have done, is a huge tourist draw, which makes them probably the buggest single boost to the UKs tourism trade. In short they're a good thing, but I really don't want to see or hear constant updates on things regarding them.
The Royal baby, is news, but after nine months of near constant coverage on Kate's baby bump I was pretty sick of it all.
Historically this is, so I hear, the first time in a long time that there have been three generations of heirs to the throne alive at the same time.
However, let's look at the family a little closer, you see Windsor is an adopted name brought about by King George V in 1917 following the the First World War to move away from the anti-german sentiments of the time. The Familiy name used to be Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (which is German), a result of their descendancy from Prince Albert. However even Queen Victoria wasn't as British as you may think, her monther was the German, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld.
In fact there has been German Lineage on the British throne since 1714 when George I, of the House of Hanover, took the throne.
For a time, the King of England was also the King of Hanover.
But, Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, is British surely, with his near the knuckle gaffes and such?
No. He was born Prince Philip of Denmark and Greece, to House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg. BEfore he was allowed to marry the, then, Princess Elizabeth he had to abandon his Danish and Greek royal titles, convert from Greek Orthodoxy to and Anglicanism. He also adopte dthe surname Mountbatten (which is derived from Battenburg - his family's ancestry from Germany on his monther's side) due to anti-German feelings following World War Two. None of Prince Philip's three sisters were allowed to attend his wedding because they had married Germans, some with Nazi affiliations.
As well as being Queen Elizabeth II's Great-Great-Grandmother, Queen Victoria is also Prince Philip's Great-Great-Grandmother.
Who'd have though that in this day and age there was so much in-breeding between Europe's royalty? I mean the British queen has effectively married a cousin, quite removed, but a cousin never the less, and that's a trait that today would be levelled more at families in a Southern States trailer park than the high and mighty of Europe. Then again, that's how royal dynasties were planned back in medieval times, maybe old habbits are hard to break?
At least with Charles marrying Diana (then Camilla) and William marrying Kate there is new, British and non Royal blood entering the line of inheritance.
Of course now that Prince George has been born and named, the media circus doesn't stop there, a google search shows such headlines as 'Will baby George be circumsiced?' who, outside of that family, cares?
On the matter of Kate, while I'm on the subject of the Royals; here in the UK the media refer to Kate as Kate Middleton. Now, as I recall, Kate Married Prince William. When a woman marries, here in the UK, she takes takes her Husband's name, so she stopped being Kate Middleton and is now Kate Windsor. I wish the media would get it right.
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