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House of Windsor

The yearlong celebration of Queen Elizabeth's 60th year on the throne culminate 02 June 2012 with four days of celebrations, including a concert, a parade and a 1,000-ship flotilla through London on the River Thames. This Diamond Jubilee, is only the second in Britain's long history. The pomp and ceremonies of royalty are alien to many modern democracies. But the queen's longevity and the dignified way she carries out her duties appear to have cemented the monarchy's place in 21st-century Britain.

The 19th-century British journalist and essayist, Walter Bagehot, famously wrote that the monarchy represented the “dignified” branch of the English Constitution. “The Firm” is obsessed with burnishing the perception that the monarchy matters. In this near all-consuming public relations endeavour, The Queen and dysfunctional company rely heavily on Britain’s rancid tabloids, spending a lot of royal time and energy coddling influential editors and reporters at grand garden parties on their sprawling estates. The overarching aim of this alliance between the palace and the gutter (press) is to promote and defend an illusion; that the monarchy, despite its manifest fallacies, follies and foibles, remains an indispensable institution. “The Firm” remains captive to, and controlled by, a constant fear that the tabloids will turn on them and expose the inconsequential façade and, in so doing, potentially pose an existential threat to the monarchy.

The House of Windsor came into being in 1917, when the name was adopted as the British Royal Family's official name by a proclamation of King George V, replacing the historic name of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which at the time of the Great War sounded a bit too Germanic. Britain's royal family had been of Germanic extraction since the first of the Hanover Kings, George I, ascended the thrown in 1714. Windsor remains the family name of the current Royal Family. During the twentieth century, kings and queens of the United Kingdom fulfilled the varied duties of constitutional monarchy. One of their most important roles has been acting as national figureheads lifting public morale during the devastating wars of 1914-18 and 1939-45.

George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 through the Great War (1914–1919) until his death in 1936. George V was born in 1865, second son of Edward VII. His education was begun as cadet of the Royal Navy at 12 years of age. He spent two years in cruising about the world. He returned as sub-lieutenant and joined the Naval Academy at Greenwich. He then served three years in the Mediterranean for a course of training in gunnery.

As a younger son, he was destined for the Navy, but suddenly came into prominence by the death of his elder brother in 1892, Prince Albert, Duke of Clarence. The next year he attained the rank of captain in the Royal Navy. In 1893, he married his second cousin, Princess Victoria Mary of Teck, daughter of the Duke and Duchess of Teck, who was to have married Prince Albert. He now joined his father in the duties incident upon court life. In 1901, he was made rear admiral of the British Navy, and on his return from a tour of the British colonies, he was created Prince of Wales.

With Princess Victoria Mary of Teck he had one daughter, Princess Mary, and five sons — Edward, later Prince of Wales, and Princes Albert, Henry, George, and John. Queen Mary is the daughter of Francis, late Duke of Teck, and Princess Mary-Adelaide of Cambridge, the first cousin of Queen Victoria. Francis was a son of the morganatic marriage of Duke Alexander of Wurttemburg with Claudia, Countess of Rhedey, a daughter of a very old Hungarian House, and therefore the children of King George V have new blood in them, brought in from the noble families of Germany, Austria, and Hungary.

On the death of his father, Edward VII, May 6, 1910, he succeeded to the throne under the title George V. The new ruler over the world's greatest empire of more than 400,000,000 souls was a comparatively unknown man, even in England. All eyes had been on King Edward VII and his foreign politics, and his death came so suddenly and unexpected that for a while it was quite impossible to get the Governmental machinery in proper order.

The death of Edward VII was a misfortune for English diplomacy and the peace of Europe. Although in some ways he had launched the Foreign Office on an adventurous course by the two ententes for which he was primarily responsible, that with France about Morocco and that with Russia about Persia, his influence with the Government had been a steadying one, and it is probable that if he had lived another ten years the supreme catastrophe of a European war would have been avoided. He knew what was going on in the various Courts of Europe far better than did professional British diplomatists, and his disappearance from their counsels left the supreme direction of British foreign policy uncontrolled in the hands of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Sir Edward Grey, whose ignorance of foreign affairs was really astonishing, knowing as he did no foreign language, and having made hardly so much as a holiday tour in Europe.

King Edward's successor, whose life had been that of a sailor, knowing the world only as a sailor sees it at the seaport towns where his ship stops to coal — and seaport towns all the world over are alike — and being without any experience of politics, even those of his own country, was quite unable to supply the directing power his father had exerted at times so successfully. Consequently from this point onward, the year 1910, English policy on the Continent exhibited a series of blunders of the most dangerous kind, leading by a logical sequence in four years' time to England's entanglement in a war, the result of which was not foreseen, and for which no preparation whatever had been made.

In his speech during the unveiling of the Queen Victoria monument there was a reference which pointed to the fact that a much more intimate relationship existed between the ruler of the German Empire and the ruler of Great Britain than had been the case in the days of Edward VII. At Emperor William's departure from London, May 20, 1911, a scene took place at the Victoria railroad station which gave inkling that elements of misunderstanding had come to hand.

The increasing detestation of the Germans which was inspired by their merciless submarine campaign and by their recurrent air-raids during teh Great War insured a warm welcome for certain measures which the King took in the summer of 1917, dissociating the royal family from German connections. In June 1917 he decreed that those princes of his family who were his subjects and bore German names and titles should relinquish those titles and adopt British surnames. Accordingly the family of Teck became that of Cambridge and that of Battenberg Mountbatten; and the following peerages were conferred: the Duke of Teck, Marquess of Cambridge; Prince Alexander of Teck, Earl of Athlone; Adml. Prince Louis of Battenberg, Marquess of Milford Haven; Prince Alexander of Battenberg, Marquess of Carisbrooke.

In July 1917 the King abandoned all German titles for himself and family, and issued a proclamation that his house and family should henceforth be known as the house and family of Windsor. The King also heartened the munition workers of Lancashire and Cheshire and the shipping and engineering workers of the Clyde district by making tours among them, and he paid a visit in the summer, not for the first time, to the Grand Fleet. He instituted, moreover, two new orders—the Order of the British Empire, and the Order of Companions of Honour.

As regarded the larger political affairs, it did not seem that King George V, in contrast to his father, cared especially for them. The period after the Great War saw the modernisation of the monarchy in tandem with many social changes which have taken place over the past 90 years. One such modernisation has been the use of mass communication technologies to make the Royal Family accessible to a broader public all over the world. George V adopted the new relatively new medium of radio to broadcast across the Empire at Christmas.

In England no monarch can abdicate without consent of Parliament. In Great Britain there had been no case of voluntary abdication. Edward II. and James II. were forcibly driven from the throne. Of the foreign precedents there were just half a dozen. In 79 BC Sulla abdicated the dictatorship of Rome. In 305 AD Diocletian abdicated the imperial throne. In 1555 Charles V. of Spain abdicated. Then there are the abdications of Christina of Sweden in 1654, Philip V of Spain in 1724, and Louis Bonaparte of Holland in 1810.

Through the 1920s and 1930s, the Royal Family steadfastly opposed conflict with their ancestral German fatherland. Indeed, Queen Mary - George V's wife - maintained that Britain had "backed the wrong horse" in 1914. From King Edward VIII down, there was a widespread view that only a powerful Germany could hold back the threat of Bolshevism, and that Britain should be supporting Hitler, not preparing to attack him. They cast Hitler as a conscientious statesman in the Continental tradition — certainly cunning, and perhaps even somewhat Machiavellian at times, but basically honest and sincere.

In 1930 Edward, the Prince of Wales, who had already had a number of affairs, met and fell in love with a married American woman, Mrs Wallis Simpson. Edward was never crowned; his reign lasted only 325 days. Edward realised he had to choose between the Crown and Mrs Simpson who, as a twice-divorced woman, would not have been acceptable as Queen. As King, and Supreme Governor of the Church of England, Edward could not marry a divorcee. On 10 December 1936, Edward VIII executed an Instrument of Abdication.

As a habit of British royalty, oratory was a development of the modern spirit, hardly dating back of the birth of her Majesty, Queen Victoria. Both the Queen and Prince Albert were so democratic that it might not be easy for their descendants, inheriting talents as writers and speakers, to decide from which of them came the greater force of the impulse toward expression, which until the Nineteenth Century was denied royalty. As under modern usages King George V, while Prince of Wales, was often called on to speak for royalty on public occasions, the unkindest criticism admits that he did it well.

Following the spate of recent movies about British female royalty (the Elizabeths and Victoria), came one about British male royalty, The King’s Speech. Starring Colin Firth as the King, it focuses on George VI (the father of Elizabeth II) and his struggle to overcome stuttering and stammering. Geoffrey Rush (“Pirates of the Caribbean” series) stars as Lionel Logue, King George’s quirky speech therapist. Helena Bonham Carter (“Alice in Wonderland,” “Harry Potter” series) co-stars as Queen Elizabeth, the wife of King George VI. By June 1937, King George VI had largely overcome the speech impediment noticed in some of his addresses while Duke of York.

Albert Frederick Arthur George was born 14 December 1895. He attended naval college before serving during the Great War in the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. Where previous royal marriages had been private, his own, in 1923, was a state occasion, the first wedding of a royal prince to take place in Westminster Abbey since 1382. But as a second son he never expected to become king. The Crown was thrust upon Albert, the Duke of York ['Bertie'] by his brother's abdication in 1936. With privilege, position and wealth came responsibility and duty. King George VI understood this, and his brother Edward did not.

Chancellor Adolf Hitler was not permitted to attend the coronation of King George VI. He was barred by a curious convention. Invitations had been sent by the British Government to other countries inviting them to send representatives, other than heads of state. The attendance of heads of state would have presented impossible protocol problems of precedence. Gun salutes are fired in odd numbers, of course, and this is likely because of ancient superstitions that uneven numbers are lucky. As early as 1685, the firing of an even number of guns in salute was taken as indicating that a ship's captain, master, or master gunner had died on a voyage. Indeed, the firing of an even number of salute guns at the coronation of George VI on 12 May 1937 was regarded by at least one observer as an "ominous" portent.

Bertie assumed the thrown as King George VI. Choosing to be known as another George, the new King seemed to wish to give the British Empire to understand that, in spirit, in aims, and in conduct, he intended to follow in the footsteps of George V. It is the mission of King George VI to retrieve what has been lost, but his task is as nothing in comparison with that which faced his great-grand mother. George was unprepared for his role and was often described by historians as a reluctant king. George VI was no genius (he came in 68th out of 68 in his class as a naval cadet), but his decency shone through.

By 1939, Roosevelt and America's attention began moving to a new crisis: global conflict. King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain visited America in June of 1939. The royal couple was visiting the Province of Canada and the visit to Hyde Park was made to appear as casual as possible, as if they were just friends "dropping by" to visit. In fact, the visit was designed to reshape American public opinion about the British royal family, making King George VI and Queen Elizabeth seem like a normal, likable couple. Britain was close to war with Germany and President Roosevelt knew he had to move a neutral, isolationist American public towards a pro-British stance. Roosevelt's strategy was a huge success.

When King George VI gave his Sept. 3, 1939, war message to the people of the British Empire, it was a time of great moment. It was a "grave hour," he began, "perhaps the most fateful in our history." The king said that "for the second time in the lives of most of us, we are at war." King George VI's Empire Day address that was broadcast from London on 24 May 1940. The King said: "It is not mere territorial conquest the enemy is seeking. It is the overthrow, complete and final, of the Empire and of everything for which it stands, and after that the conquest of the world." King George VI made one of his rare broadcasts the afternoon of 23 September 1940, when, in speaking from Buckingham Palace in the midst of an air-raid warning, he warned the people that they live in grim times and face a future that may be grimmer yet.

Six years of his reign were war years when he and Elizabeth, his Queen, who now became Queen Mother, endeared themselves to their people by their bravery and devotion to their predestined roles. During the war, George and his wife Elizabeth maintained high profiles, choosing to remain in London during the Nazi bombing raids. His chain-smoking is presumed to have preceeded a diagnosis of lung cancer in 1951. The Times reported that his “recovery seemed assured,” and in the days just before his death, he was seen out in public. On 06 February 1952 Britain's King George VI died in his sleep at age 56.

Like his grandfather Edward VII [who perhaps had too many decades of preparation to be king], the death of King George VI was quite unexpected. And like his father George V, King George VI had followed a career in the Royal Navy and had not prepared to be king, though both grew into the position with time.

Queen Elizabeth II reigned as the British Sovereign for over 60 years - the fifth-longest-reigning British monarch - celebrating her Diamond Jubilee in June 2012 at the age of 81. Her Majesty represents Britain to the rest of the world, and has made hundreds of official overseas trips to well over one hundred different countries. She was born Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor on 21 April 1926 at 17 Bruton St. in Mayfair, London. Elizabeth - nicknamed "Lillibet" as a child - was the granddaughter of King George V, and at the time of her birth was third in the line of succession to the throne. When her uncle, King Edward VIII abdicated the throne in 1936 to marry a divorcee, Her Majesty became Heiress Presumptive and Her Royal Highness The Princess Elizabeth. Upon the death of her father, King George VI, she became The Queen at age 25. Her coronation took place in London's Westminster Abbey on June 2, 1953 - the first coronation to be broadcast on television.

Although The Queen reigns in Great Britain, she also serves as "Head of State" for 16 countries - known as the Commonwealth Realms - and as "Head of the Commonwealth," a voluntary association of 53 independent countries that were once under British rule. Other roles include "Defender of the Faith and Supreme Governor of the Church of England" and "Head of the Armed Forces." The Queen herself served in the Armed Forces during World War II as a driver in the Women's Auxiliary Territorial Service and was the first female of the royal family to actually serve in the military.

The Queen and her husband, Prince Philip, The Duke of Edinburgh, were married on Nov. 20, 1947 in Westminster Abbey; they have four children and seven grandchildren. Their firstborn, Charles, Prince of Wales, is first in line of succession to the throne. Although The Queen celebrated her 86th birthday on 21 April 2012, it is considered highly unlikely that she will abdicate. On 21 December 2007, HM Queen Elizabeth II became the oldest reigning monarch in the history of both British and the Commonwealth Realms.

Prince Charles

Charles, Prince of Wales, eldest son of The Queen and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was born at Buckingham Palace at 9.14pm on 14th November 1948. On 15th December 1948, Charles Philip Arthur George was christened at Buckingham Palace, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Geoffrey Fisher. The Prince went to Cambridge University in 1967 to read archaeology and anthropology at Trinity College. He changed to history for the second part of his degree, and in 1970 was awarded a 2:2 degree.

He was invested as Prince of Wales by The Queen on 1st July 1969 in a colourful ceremony at Caernarfon Castle. Before the investiture The Prince had spent a term at the University College of Wales at Aberystwyth, learning to speak Welsh. On 8th March 1971 The Prince flew himself to Royal Air Force (RAF) Cranwell in Lincolnshire, to train as a jet pilot. At his own request, The Prince had received flying instruction from the RAF during his second year at Cambridge. In September 1971 after the passing out parade at Cranwell, The Prince embarked on a naval career, following in the footsteps of his father, grandfather and both his great-grandfathers. The six-week course at the Royal Naval College, Dartmouth, was followed by service on the guided missile destroyer HMS Norfolk and two frigates. The Prince qualified as a helicopter pilot in 1974 before joining 845 Naval Air Squadron, which operated from the Commando carrier HMS Hermes. On 9th February 1976, The Prince took command of the coastal minehunter HMS Bronington for his last nine months in the Navy.

Prince William

Prince William is the elder son of The Prince of Wales and the late Diana, Princess of Wales. He is second in line to the British Throne. As second in line to the British Throne, Prince William attends a number of important royal occasions such as Trooping the Colour and Remembrance Day at the Cenotaph. Prince William carried out his first solo engagements representing The Queen in July 2005. He attended ceremonies to mark the 60th Anniversary of the Second World War in New Zealand and met veterans in Wellington and Auckland.

Britain's Prince William and his wife Kate chose three traditional royal names by calling their new-born baby boy George Alexander Louis, William's office said on July 24, 2013. The baby, born on July 22, 2013 to global media frenzy and third in line to the British throne, will be known as His Royal Highness Prince George of Cambridge. The choice of name, relatively short by royal standards, does not necessarily mean the baby will eventually become King George VII. The queen's father was christened Albert, but chose to be crowned as George VI.

Prince Andrew

Prince Andrew, Queen Elizabeth's second son, faced heated questions about his relationship with the late convicted sex offender and financier Jeffrey Epstein. Andrew, the queen's second son, has relinquished royal duties and patronages after being accused by a woman who said she was an Epstein trafficking victim who slept with the prince. Prince Andrew stepped down from public duties on 21 November 2019, saying the controversy surrounding his "ill-judged" association with late U.S. financier Jeffrey Epstein had caused major disruption to the royal family's work. Andrew denied an allegation that he had sex with a 17-year-old girl procured for him by his friend Epstein, who killed himself [or was killed] in a U.S. prison in August 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. The scandal had escalated since Andrew's rambling explanations in a disastrous BBC TV interview aired on left many viewers incredulous, and his apparent lack of compassion for Epstein's victims drew widespread condemnation.

Word had it that Prince Charles was the one behind the purge. He would like to streamline the royal house and cap the clan at a manageable core group of people. The first to go was his brother, Prince Andrew, after that scandalous friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, that stupid interview, those good-for-nothing daughters and that crazy ex of his. Princess Anne might still come in handy for special missions, like visits from Donald Trump and travel-happy Commonwealth autocrats. But the rest of the baggage brings nothing but crises and catastrophes. Still, the fact that Prince Harry, who for years was everyone's darling, would take his father's household sweep so personally — that probably wasn't part of the plan.

Harry and Megan

Harry's hatred of the media is probably one of the most important things in his life. His mother Diana, Princess of Wales, who died in a car crash in Paris while being pursued by the paparazzi. The princes were left about £6.5 million each when Diana, Princess of Wales, died. The sum was invested and gathered substantial interest, so Prince Harry inherited around £10 million on his 30th birthday.

When Harry announced his plans to marry Meghan, skeptics piled on. The nation's collective memory quickly conjured up images of Wallis Simpson, who was divorced and whose clothes were far too elegant. King Edward VIII abdicated because of her in 1936, causing a huge scandal. And now, Meghan, with her unworthy father, greedy half-siblings and her former career as a TV star? The FoMs — friends of Meghan — hailed her as a breath of fresh air in the stale house of the royals. A shot of American ease and ethnic diversity in the stiffly starched House of Windsor. A woman from a different background who had her own career. Their verdict was that it could only bode well. In the shark tank of the British tabloids, however, there were, of course, unpleasant references to Meghan's relatives and skin color. Eidn't Meghan know what she was getting into when she signed up?

Harry, who is sixth in line to the British throne, married American actress Meghan Markle at Windsor Castle in a lavish ceremony watched by millions around the world 19 May 2018. Soon the couple began to bristle at intense scrutiny by the British media — which they said tipped into harassment. They decided to break free, in what Harry called a "leap of faith" as he sought a more peaceful life.

It quickly became apparent that Meghan had no intention of she and Harry being the "supporting act" to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, despite their seniority in the royal pecking order. "What Meghan wants, Meghan gets" - royal aides were well acquainted with the importance of meeting the Duchess's exacting standards. They're both very thin-skinned about press coverage. Meghan's allies suggested that Kate did not make enough of an effort to welcome her future sister-in-law into the royal fold, allies of the Cambridges suggest there was a sense that Meghan never really wanted to be friends. There was a sense that they were just refusing to take advice, and insisting on doing everything their way. The Duchess seemed intent on always having someone in her sights. The Sussexs courted controversy throughout the summer of 2019 for snubbing the Queen's invitation to Balmoral and taking four private jets in 11 days instead.

Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor was born at 05:26 on Monday 6th May 2019. He is the first child of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex and is seventh in line to the throne. One member of the Royal family raised concerns during “several conversations” with Prince Harry about the darkness of their unborn child’s skin. Buckingham Palace decided that Archie, when he was born, could not be made a prince. When Archie was born in May 2019, it was claimed the couple did not want him to have a title as they wanted him to grow up as a private citizen.

The Duke and Duchess of Sussex shocked the world with a revelation on their official Instagram account on 08 January 2020. Harry and Meghan announced that they were becoming part-time royals and moving away from England. Harry, 35, was then sixth in line to the throne. The term #Megxit was born. In this statement, the couple said they wanted to “to carve out a progressive new role within this institution”. They said they intended “to step back as ‘senior’ members of the Royal Family, and work to become financially independent, while continuing to fully support Her Majesty The Queen.”

Queen Elizabeth II convened a family summit at her Sandringham estate in eastern England and agreed 13 January 2020 to grant Prince Harry and and his wife Meghan their wish for a more independent life, allowing them to move part-time to Canada while remaining firmly in the House of Windsor. The British monarch said in a statement that the summit of senior royals on Monday was "constructive," and that it had been "agreed that there will be a period of transition" in which the Duke and Duchess of Sussex will spend time in Canada and the UK. “My family and I are entirely supportive of Harry and Meghan’s desire to create a new life as a young family," the queen said in a statement. “Although we would have preferred them to remain full-time working members of the Royal Family, we respect and understand their wish to live a more independent life as a family while remaining a valued part of my family." One of the more fraught questions that needs to be worked out is precisely what it means for a royal to be financially independent and what activities can be undertaken to make money. The Duke and Duchess of Sussex also face questions on paying for taxpayer-funded security.

The couple kept their titles, Duke and Duchess of Sussex, but would no longer be called Their Royal Highnesses. The couple lost a taxpayer-funded Royal Canadian Mounted Police security detail at the end of March, when their right to use their titles of His and Her Royal Highnesses expired. They had hoped to keep using the Sussex Royal brand in their new life. But in February 2020 they announced they wouldn't seek to trademark the term because of UK rules governing use of the word "royal." Donald Trump tweeted: "the U.S. will not pay for their security protection. They must pay!"

Markle and Prince Harry stunned the royal family in January 2021 when they announced they would step down from their official royal duties to live independently in Montecito, California. Since coming to Montecito, the couple announced their new commonwealth project, Archewell Foundation, named after their son Archie. Teaming with chef José Andrés’ World Central Kitchen, the foundation said it would create Community Relief Centers in regions of the world prone to climate disasters.