A Brief History of the House of Windsor

by Michael Paterson

  Familiarity does not exactly breed contempt, though there is far less respect for them than there was when the present monarch came to the throne. The public likes, and expects, its royal family to be accessible, informal and not aloof, even while demanding that they be dignified. Insofar as this is possible, the family perform the trick of facing both ways at once, of personifying the nation’s history and representing it abroad, upholding its ceremonial traditions, while at the same time belonging to the present – wearing the clothes, liking the music, befriending the celebrities, of their generation. Some royals are naturally more serious, some more fun-loving, but because there are now so many of them and they cover such an age span – and because they have between them such a wide variety of interests – they can relate to more or less any sector of society.

  A hundred years ago, their predecessors were very different. Then the monarchy was hedged around by rigid protocol, and members of the royal family were not seen in public anything like as much as they are now. Royal weddings were private events held behind the doors of Windsor Castle or the Chapel Royal, though they spawned general enthusiasm and were publicly celebrated. Family members were not seen by the public while informally dressed, though they might be photographed indulging in the leisure pursuits of the comfortably off – golf, shooting, hunting – in the appropriate costume, and a tweed suit would have been the equivalent of being ‘dressed down’ today. They did not take part in charity events – other than by acting as patrons – and certainly did not help to raise funds. They did not mingle with crowds by undertaking the ‘walkabouts’ that are now standard practice, and the most that many of their subjects would have seen of them was a distant splash of white dress or scarlet tunic.

  They made formal speeches without a trace of levity (King George V warned his sons never to inject humour into their official utterances), and indeed never smiled or laughed in public – a rule to which Queen Victoria had strictly adhered, and which her successors adopted in their turn. They did not tell jokes, and it would have been unthinkable for any of them to give an interview, so that their views on any subject were a matter purely for speculation. Both press and public treated them with what seems today to be exaggerated deference, their male subjects immediately doffing their hats at the appearance of any royal carriage. Their friends were drawn entirely from the aristocracy and the wealthy plutocracy, and no one pretended that they had any understanding of the lives of their more ordinary subjects. They did not go to school, and naturally did not work in any profession. They were deliberately kept apart from everyday life because it was considered important to preserve their mystique. In an age of more rigid class structure it was in any case unheard of for people in their position to court public favour. Members of the aristocracy after all would not have stopped to chat with coal miners or market women, and what was the monarchy if not the apex of the aristocracy? Members of the royal family were, and were expected to be, the remote tip of the social pyramid.

  Their business was not to be liked by the rank and file of their subjects – though it was gratifying when this happened, as it did sometimes. Rather it was to enhance the prestige of the nation through their splendour and dignity, to further the country’s interests through their relations with their fellow monarchs, to preside over Society (a hugely important function, since they thus set the tone of national life) and to provide a reference point, a nominal leadership, for politics, the Civil Service and the armed forces. Nowhere in their ‘job description’ were they required to befriend or even to notice the great majority of their people, other than with a distant wave.

  In fairness, their isolation was not so complete as might be imagined. They held the patronage of charitable organizations, just as they do today, and made visits to hospitals and orphanages, where they might have brief conversations with inmates who had probably been chosen and groomed in advance (such staged encounters were, and are, standard practice for politicians too). More importantly, the male members of the family served in the forces. The boys were put into the Royal Navy where they might live and work on close terms with men from the lower deck. Nevertheless it was taken for granted that members of the family existed on a different plane and had very little in common with their subjects.

  It was apparent, by the beginning of the twentieth century, that a more democratic age was coming. Monarchy had already been cast aside by France not once but twice, and the emerging giant among nations – the United States – was emphatically a republic. The future seemed to lie with big, energetic nations: America, Canada, Australia, South Africa. These were accumulating unheard-of wealth and their frontier nature made them egalitarian to an extent that Europe could never be. If these emerging powers were to dominate the world, monarchies would quickly seem outmoded. The subjects of kings would look enviously at the social freedom enjoyed by the citizens of these new countries, and would become increasingly impatient with their own situation.

  At this time there were also a number of murder attempts – many of them successful – against monarchs all over Europe, perpetrated largely by individual fanatics whose only motivation was to kill heads of state. Never before or since have royal families endured such persecution from the bombs and bullets of assassins as they did in the years between 1900 and 1914. The Age of Kings could be coming to an end, and Britain’s monarchy might well go down with all the others. That was why Edward VII – who presided over an era of radical upheaval – once introduced a visitor to the Prince of Wales, later George V, with the words: ‘This is my son, the last king of England.’

  Queen Victoria had identified the family with the morality of the middle class, though in everything else they belonged to the super-nobility. Edward VII, with his extravagance and extensive womanizing, had been a throwback to the more riotous Hanoverians, the sons of George III, and had lived with all the vulgarity of a nouveau riche millionaire. His own son was to prove quietly dutiful in a manner that would realign the institution of the monarchy with safely conservative bourgeois values. Once again its outlook would reflect that of the highly influential and politically important middle class.

  Whatever their affiliations with a particular class, one thing the royal family clearly did not have in common with their subjects was much of a sense of ‘Britishness’. Their names, their accents, their family customs, were alien, and did not always sit well with British attitudes or expectations. Like most monarchies they were, by force of circumstance, a very cosmopolitan lot. By and large, royals could only marry people from their own social stratum, and suitable candidates could of course only be found in other countries – in courts and palaces equivalent to their own. The result was that although ‘imported’ members might live most of their lives in England, they remained – subconsciously or deliberately – wedded to other cultures, languages and practices. One example of this was the Duchess of Edinburgh (1853–1920) who was born Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna of Russia and married Queen Victoria’s second son, Prince Alfred. She never ceased to regard her adopted country with disdain, and continued to order her clothes, her shoes and even her biscuits from St Petersburg. Monarchs spoke German or French to each other – Victoria and Albert had used German as their language while at home – and British royals often spent their summers on the Continent, at health spas or visiting their seemingly endless relations.

  The close ties between Britain’s monarchy and several of those in modern-day Germany were well known. The most conspicuous of these were with the Royal House of Prussia, a country that had come to dominate its neighbours and whose kings had since 1871 become emperors, or kaisers, of a united German nation. Wilhelm II, who had come to the throne in 1888, was a grandson of Queen Victoria and a cousin of George V. He was a noisy, erratic, opinionated man whose personal behaviour and public statements more than once caused offence in Britain. He was also the head of a state that was actively arming itself, building a huge navy that was intended to rival, perhaps surpass, that of Britain, thus threaten
ing the balance of power and the preservation of peace. His prominent role in European affairs was a source of considerable disquiet. The British public did not like or trust him, yet he was related to their own royal family.

  Another cousin, so physically similar to George V that they were even mistaken for each other, was Tsar Nicholas II of Russia (1868–1918). Though personally benign, he was the autocratic ruler of a backward country, and was regarded by many as an oppressive, reactionary despot. It seemed to some that the British monarchy kept highly questionable company. These international hate figures were their friends, intimates, relations. Instead of belonging to the country and its people, the British royal family of the time could be viewed as part of a class of rootless international idlers and troublemakers. Had these monarchs confined themselves merely to dressing up and mounting ceremonial displays, they could safely have been ignored, but in fact they wielded enough power or influence to threaten the political stability of the Western world. When in the summer of 1914 war did indeed break out, dividing the Continent into two armed camps, some of the monarchies were on the same side as Britain (Russia, Romania, Serbia, and later Italy and Greece) while others (Germany, Austria–Hungary, Turkey and then Bulgaria) became her enemies. The British people greeted the war with enthusiasm as a chance to settle the score with a European bully. As stories of German atrocities in Belgium began to spread, and as sons and brothers began to die in the conflict, a state of perpetual fury and indignation replaced the initial euphoria.

  It was seen as particularly unfortunate at this time that the British royal family had affiliations with Germany, though over the previous centuries it had never occurred either to them or to their subjects that there was anything negative or shameful about these links. The German states were seen as having much in common with Britain, and were regarded by the often xenophobic British as less foreign than other nations. (This attitude was mutual. When war broke out, the fact that the British were on the other side was viewed by Germans as ‘racial treason’.) The links were so close and so obvious that it would be impossible to ignore or to undo them. Since 1714, when the Elector of Hanover had become King George I of Great Britain, the British Court had been dominated by German names and German culture. George I and his son and successor George II had not even troubled to learn their subjects’ language.

  For members of the British Royal House the choice of marriage partners had been limited. Their brides must of course be Protestant princesses, which meant that they must come from northern Europe, not from the Mediterranean or Austria. There were occasional exceptions: Queen Victoria’s eldest son had married a Danish princess, and her second – as we have seen – a Russian grand duchess (Orthodox Russians were generally viewed with as much suspicion as Catholics), but to a large extent young women were recruited from the same tried and tested kingdoms and duchies. Coburg, from which Prince Albert originated, was nicknamed ‘the stud-farm of Europe’ because its ruling family married into so many dynasties. The range of available girls in the German lands was so wide owing to the fact that the territory contained over three hundred princely states – more than any other part of the Continent, or indeed the world. Germany did not become a united nation until 1871, and even then its ruling families retained their individual titles until the general collapse of the monarchy in 1918. George III had married a German, as had George IV and his brother William IV. Queen Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, was German, and Victoria went on to marry Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The name of her grandson – George V – was a reminder of the Hanoverian connection and of the sheer foreignness of the family.

  As the First World War continued the public and the press increasingly looked toward Buckingham Palace and wondered about the real loyalties of those who lived there. Were they as committed as everyone else to a war against their own relatives? How British were they, in hearts and minds? With whom did their sympathies lie – their compatriots or their class?

  What was the British monarchy to do in this climate of fearful suspicion and intermittent hostility? How did it change and adapt, to keep its credibility and the loyalty of its subjects – and to ensure its own survival in a world where respect could no longer be taken for granted? How did it turn from the aloof and formal institution that was so much a part of the old European order into the royal family personified today by William and Kate?

  The story of this transformation in expectations – both theirs and ours – is a fascinating one. It is filled with colourful characters and exciting events. At the time it begins – the First World War and its aftermath – the institution of monarchy seemed to have no future. Today the British monarchy seems more secure than it was a century ago, and its appeal, judging by international interest in the royal wedding and Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee, is truly universal. Its survival, and successful adaptation, is an inspiration to all those who wish the institution well.

  How did this successful transformation come about? To a large extent it was a matter of personalities. The twenty-six-year reign of George V represented a clean break in style and tone from the very public excesses of his popular but profligate father, Edward VII. For a long time dismissed as dull by historians, George was in fact a good deal more shrewd – and intelligent – than many give him credit for. He read the mood of the country and set about giving his people a monarchy that suited the time: unspectacular, dutiful and safe. He was aware that respect and goodwill would henceforth have to be earned through hard work, and he ensured that his heirs understood this. His own son, Edward VIII, brought the institution of monarchy to new heights of popularity as Prince of Wales, only to squander this goodwill once he briefly ascended the throne. Edward’s brother, George VI, became arguably the best-loved king in British history. His is a story of triumph over personal limitations, but his leadership of the nation during its gravest crisis undermined his health and contributed to his early death. His daughter, inheriting the throne at an age when her contemporaries were busy setting up homes for themselves, has reigned with exemplary devotion ever since.

  The crucial year in the process of modernizing the monarchy was 1917, a more important date in British history than most of us realize. Though, quite rightly, the nation was preoccupied at that time with the First World War, it was in this year that a quiet revolution took place. In essence what happened was that the British people told their rulers what sort of monarchy they wished to have, and the royal family – swiftly, willingly and completely – made the necessary changes.

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  THE HOUSE OF WINDSOR, 1917–PRESENT

  ‘The British Empire is very near the limit of its endurance of a kingly caste of Germans. The choice of British royalty between its peoples and its cousins cannot be indefinitely delayed. Were it made now, publicly and boldly, there can be no doubt the decision would mean a renascence of monarchy and a tremendous outbreak of royalist enthusiasm in the empire.’

  H. G. Wells, 16 May 1917, New York Times

  If you travel by rail from Waterloo, you arrive at Windsor and Eton Riverside, one of two stations in this royal town. The immense, battlemented, grey granite ramparts of the Castle loom above you as you come out on to a busy road. Walk along this, in the direction of the High Street, and in less than a minute you will see a monument. It is set back from the roadway in a miniature garden. There are benches, flowers and long wild grasses, and two matching basins in which fountains play. A pair of stone lion’s heads, one at either end, spew water into a pool. Perhaps there ought to be a statue here but there is only a plinth, and on it there are the trappings of kingship, carved in stone: a crown, an orb, two sceptres, all displayed on a cushion. It is as if the figure who should be holding these things has vanished on some urgent errand, and if you wait a few minutes he will return and pick them up. On the plinth there is the briefest of inscriptions:

  GEORGE V

  FIRST SOVEREIGN OF THE HOUSE OF WINDSOR

  There is not even a date, though a near
by plaque tells you that the memorial – designed by the great imperial architect Lutyens – was unveiled by the king’s successor in 1937. George V, as you may know, reigned during the First World War, and the twenties, and some of the thirties.

  The House of Windsor, Britain’s royal family, is evidently not very old, as dynasties go. There are millions of people still alive throughout the world who were this man’s subjects, who were born during his reign, who might even have caught a glimpse of him. The present queen, now in her eighties, remembers him very well indeed. As a child she often had breakfast with him, or visited in his company the stables where his horses were kept. She and he were great friends. He called her ‘Lilibet’. She referred to him as ‘Grandpapa England’.

  Though the House of Windsor is clearly not ancient, it was the ancestors of George V who built Windsor Castle, and that was almost a thousand years ago. They have lived in it more or less ever since. It is in effect the same family, the same dynasty, that has ruled the country for a millennium, if under different names. The British royal family – and the Crown is the oldest institution in Britain, other than the Christian Church – has ‘re-branded’ itself.

  In pictures King George V looks the archetype of a monarch and an Englishman. Yet since his foreign-sounding family name had become a source of embarrassment or even antipathy, he decided – no doubt after consultation with the College of Arms, and whoever else might be interested in these matters – to change it by royal command.

  BY THE KING

  A PROCLAMATION

  Declaring that the Name of Windsor is to be borne by His Royal House and Family and relinquishing the use of all German Titles and Dignities