House of Windsor
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[edit] Name of the Royal House
The House of Windsor, a branch of the Saxe-Coburg and Gotha line of the House of Wettin, is the Royal House of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and each of the other Commonwealth Realms. In 1917, during World War I, anti-German feeling among the people resulted in the Royal Family exchanging use of all of their German titles and house names for English-sounding versions.
The German name had come via Queen Victoria's marriage to Prince Albert, son of Duke Ernst I of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in February 1840. Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, however, was not the Prince Consort's personal surname, but the territory ruled by his family; his house, and possibly his surname, was Wettin.
Thus, the name Wettin was replaced with Windsor, which also became the name of the Royal House through an Order-in-Council of King George V.
However, the Order only referred to all descendants of Queen Victoria in the male line, but not necessarily by female descendants. In April 1952, after her accession, Queen Elizabeth II ended confusion over the dynastic name when she declared to the Privy Council her “Will and Pleasure that I and My children shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor, and that my descendants who marry and their descendants, shall bear the name of Windsor.” This comes into conflict with Germanic house laws, which state that all of her children are of the house of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg through their father, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.
Later, on February 8, 1960, the Queen issued another Order-in-Council, confirming that she and her four children will be known as the House and Family of Windsor, and that her other male-line descendants (except those who are "HRH" and a Prince or Princess) will take the name "Mountbatten-Windsor".
Any future monarch could change the dynasty name if he or she chose to do so. Another Order-in-Council would override those of George V and Elizabeth. For example, if the Prince of Wales accedes to the throne, he could change the royal house to "Mountbatten" in honour of his father, and of his uncle Louis Mountbatten. Mountbatten is the English translation of "Battenberg" and so a name of German origin as well.
King George V's reign began in 1910 under the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha and ended in 1936. Though the Irish Free State left the United Kingdom in 1922, the actual name of the kingdom was not changed until 1927, when he also became King of Ireland. In the decades after 1927, the monarch also became the king or queen of many Commonwealth Realms, including, Australia, Canada, the Irish Free State, New Zealand, Union of South Africa, etc. Previously they had been monarchs in, not of, those states, through a shared Crown of the British Empire. After 1927, it became a shared monarch wearing multiple crowns. Until 1947, the king was also styled Emperor of India.
[edit] Commentary
- Upon hearing that his cousin George V had changed the name of the British royal house to Windsor, German Emperor William II remarked that he planned to see Shakespeare's play "The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha", instead of The Merry Wives of Windsor.
[edit] Further reading
- Longford, Elizabeth Harman (Countess of Longford). The Royal House of Windsor. Revised ed. Crown, 1984.
- Roberts, Andrew. The House of Windsor. University of California Press, 2000.
