Today I’m going to show you exactly how
all of the current kings and queens of Europe
are related. I’ll be using this family tree
chart, which includes five kings – those
of the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain, Norway,
and Sweden; and two queens – those of the
United Kingdom and Denmark.
Currently, there are twelve countries in Europe
that are classified as monarchies. However,
only seven of those are kingdoms, meaning
that their monarchs hold the rank of king
or queen. These other five countries, all
very small, have some other sort of monarch.
Luxembourg has a grand duke and Lichtenstein,
Monaco, and Andorra all have princes. And
yes, Vatican City is technically a monarchy.
The monarch of Vatican City is the pope but
keep in mind that the pope is not actually
a king. His exact title in English is simply
that of “Sovereign”.
So, my point here is that the terms kingdom
and monarchy do not always mean the same thing.
All kingdoms are monarchies but not all monarchies
are kingdoms.
And in this video, I’ll only be looking
at the seven kingdoms of Europe. So the two
monarchs who are most closely related are
the Queen of Denmark and the King of Sweden.
They are first cousins. You can see here that
the Swedish king’s father and the Danish
queens mother were brother and sister.
For the rest of the video, I’m going to
use Queen Elizabeth as the vantage point.
The monarch that she is most closely related
to is the king of Norway. They are second
cousins. You can see here that the Queen’s
grandfather had a sister who married a king
of Norway. So these two were brother and sister.
These two were first cousins and these two
are second cousins.
The next two that Queen Elizabeth is most
closely related to are the monarchs of Denmark
and Sweden. Both of them descend from Queen
Victoria through this connection here. That
makes them both third cousins to Queen Elizabeth.
The two queens have an additional connection
though. The Danish queen descends from this
former Danish king, but so does Queen Elizabeth,
because of this marriage here.
So, that takes care of this side. Now let’s
look at the other side. Felipe the Sixth and
Queen Elizabeth are related because both of
them descend from Queen Victoria. Let’s
look at the details.
These two were brother and sister, meaning
that these two were first cousins. That makes
these two second cousins and thus the former
Spanish king, Juan Carlos and Queen Elizabeth
third cousins. The way to describe the relationship
between Felipe the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth
is to say that they are third cousins, once
removed.
The connection between Queen Elizabeth and
King Philippe of Belgium is more distant – they
are fifth cousins. However, note that I’ve
shown them in the same color. That’s because
they are technically members of the same royal
house – the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
This was the house that Albert, the husband
of Queen Victoria, belonged to. And house
names are usually based on the male line,
not the female line. So, Prince Albert’s
paternal uncle became the first king of Belgium.
During World War I, because of they were fighting
the Germans and wanted a less German-sounding
name, the Belgians changed their name to the
House of Belgium and the British changed their
name to the House of Windsor, but really the
two are still the same house.
Finally, we have the Dutch king. He’s the
monarch that is most distantly related to
Queen Elizabeth. However, they are still fifth
cousins once removed because both of them
have a connection to the German House of Württemberg.
In Queen Elizabeth’s case, it’s through
her paternal grandmother.
Now, note that Prince Charles, the future
king of the United Kingdom, is shown in blue.
That’s because he technically belongs to
the same house as the current king of Norway
and current queen of Denmark. That’s because
his father, Prince Philip is a member of the
former Greek royal family, which in turn,
is descended from the Danish royal family,
as is the Norwegian royal family. But it’s
actually unlikely that Charles will ever use
the name of this house. The British royals
will probably just continue to call themselves
Windsor.
This chart is actually just a simplified version
of some much larger charts that I sell as
posters. I now have two versions of my European
Royal Family Tree poster – one focused on
the West and the other focused on the North
And East. You can find both of those products
by heading over to my website UsefulCharts.com.
