Royal baby’s ancestry linked to prophet Mohammed
Even before the birth of the new British royal baby to Prince William and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge, genealogists are looking into its family tree, and are finding surprises.
The baby’s relations will stretch from a simple Parisian actress via the Dracula princes in Romania, to even an Islamic sultan from Seville in Spain, who descended from the Muslim prophet Mohammed.
The family tree of the baby’s father, Prince William, is strongly tied to the European Gotha line. There one finds, alongside all Britain’s kings, the sovereigns of Greece, Denmark, Sweden, Russia, Austria, Spain and a good number of German sovereigns.
On the side of mother-to-be Kate Middleton, on the other hand, there is a majority of commoners.
However, the late Queen Mum, the mother of Queen Elizabeth II, and Princess Diana, William’s mother, were not born princesses.
Genealogists have revealed several surprises in the family tree of the soon to be born baby of Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge.
Genealogist Jean-Louis Beaucarnot dissected the baby’s ancestry in La Revue Francaise de Genealogie (the French genealogy review).
The paternal forefathers of Kate were relatively well off, however on her mother’s side she has ‘‘largely workingclass ancestry from the English north’’, according to Scott Steward, the co- author of a book on Catherine Middleton’s family tree.
Her heritage includes coalminers, a linen maid, bakers, and a London street sweeper.
More unexpected is the discovery of Edward Thomas Glassborough, who was put behind bars in 1881 in London’s Holloway prison for reasons unknown.
But there are other surprises in the royal family’s ancestry.
Through Queen Mary, the wife of King George V, the line stretches back, according to Beaucarnot, right to the princes of Transylvania and Walachia in Romania. That leads back in the 15th century to the Dracula princes.
Among them figures Voivode Vlad III, also known by his patronymic name Dracula. He inspired, by his cruelty, Irish writer Bram Stoker’s famous vampire.
Another discovery: HyacintheGabrielle, an actress at Paris’ Palais Royal, brought to England during the revolution by her lover and then husband, the Marquis of Wellesley and a direct ancestor of the Queen Mum.
Via another Frenchwoman, a protestant noblewoman born in 1639 , the child will even be a cousin of late French president Francois Mitterrand, while her mother is related to the first president of the United States, George Washington.
Through its grandmother, Diana, the royal baby will have a link with the families of Winston Churchill and Lord Marlborough.
But the most astonishing discovery is the little-known heritage of a distant ancestor, queen of France Marie de Medici, descendant of Alphonse VI of Castillia, who died in 1109.
His fourth wife, Zaida, who was an Islamic princess converted to Roman Catholicism, had as an ancestor, according to Beaucarnot, ‘‘a king of Seville considered a direct descendant of the Prophet Mohammed’’.