Off The Record
Alan Crosby untangles Prince Philip’s family tree
The sad death of Prince Philip on 9 April prompted much press comment about his family history. As usual, the fact that he and the Queen were related was given much prominence – although since both were European royalty the opposite would have been a lot more surprising. The genealogical tangle of the royal families of Europe before the First World War is legendary. Queen Victoria was known as the ‘Grandmother of Europe’, because her nine children and no fewer than 42 grandchildren married into almost every royal house, specialising in German kingdoms and principalities.
Prince Philip was regarded as the quintessential Englishman, although he was born in Corfu and his birth was registered under the name ‘Philippos’. But genealogically his English blood was only a drop in a very complex mixture. One great grandmother, Princess Alice of Hesse, was British – she was the second daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. However, Albert of Saxe- Coburg- Gotha was German, so Alice was actually only 50 per cent British. Queen Victoria was herself half- German (her mother was Princess Victoria of Saxe- CoburgSaalfeld), and Queen Victoria’s father, Edward
Duke of Kent, had a German mother (Queen Charlotte)… and so it goes on!
Philip was one- eighth British, one- eighth Danish, one- eighth Russian, one- eighth Polish (but of German origin), and four- eighths pure German. Notably, therefore, he had no Greek blood – it is true that his grandfather was George I of Greece, but he had been born Prince William of Denmark and was nominated to the Greek throne in 1863, when he was still in his teens. He was not given much choice; the Danish royal family were already adept at making illustrious marriages, and to secure a throne for a younger son was a real coup. Being king of Greece was always a high-risk occupation: although George ruled his adopted country for 50 years, in the year of his golden jubilee he was assassinated at Thessaloniki, eight years before his grandson Philip was born.
Among the most fascinating, and bewildering, aspects of 19th- century European royal genealogy is the influence of a multitude of tiny principalities and small kingdoms in Germany – according to the popular tale, no fewer than 365 of them. Prince William of Denmark was the son of Christian IX of Denmark, who in a previous incarnation had been Prince William of Schleswig- Holstein- SonderburgGlücksburg. William’s mother (his father’s second cousin) was Louise of Hesse- Kassel. That mini-state (Kassel was the name of its capital) was obviously not to be confused with the neighbouring ministate officially known as Hesse and by Rhine, alternatively known as ‘Hesse- Darmstadt’ after its capital. The ‘by Rhine’ bit was added to clarify the geography, though in that it singularly failed. One of Prince Philip’s great grandfathers was Prince Alexander of Hesse and by Rhine; another was Louis IV, Grand Duke of Hesse and by Rhine. They were first cousins once removed.
Another of Prince Philip’s great grandmothers was Princess Alexandra of Saxe-Altenburg, which by the mid-1820s was among the smallest of all the many dozens of German states. Yet with its two slightly larger neighbours (Saxe- Coburg and Saxe-Meiningen) it provided, thanks to three very fertile ducal families, numerous brides and grooms for North European royal houses from the late 17th century until the First World War. I can spend happy hours working my way through the genealogical labyrinth of European royalty, getting my Gothas muddled up with my Glücksburgs. At the end, I feel quite relieved that none of them is related to me. Although there is a family story…
His English blood was a drop in a very complex mixture