However, when his older brother-King Edward VIII, later known as the Duke of Windsor-abdicated less than a year after inheriting the throne in order to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson, the then-prince was crowned. Like his father, George VI was a second son, not expected to take the throne. Her son Louis would also become a significant figure in the British Navy and a close confidant to Prince Philip. Her daughter Louise would go on to become Queen of Sweden, and her daughter Alice, the future mother of England’s Prince Philip, married into the Greek royal family before they were deposed. She married her first cousin on her father’s side, Prince Louis of Battenburg, though the family later changed their surname during WWI to the anglicized Mountbatten. The eldest daughter of Princess Alice, Victoria was named in honor of her grandmother Queen Victoria, who was present for her birth at Windsor Castle. Reigning from 1910 to 1936, George V officially changed the royal family’s name during WWI from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the less German-sounding House of Windsor, making him the first Windsor monarch. The second son of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, George became third in line to the throne after the death of his older brother Prince Albert Victor in 1892, and later, the Prince of Wales when his father took the throne in 1901. Her youngest surviving daughter, Alexandra, became the last Empress of Russia and, like Alice’s other daughter Elisabeth who was also married into Russian nobility, was executed by the Bolsheveks in 1918. Not only did she serves as a nurse to her father in the later days before his death, she also had an apparently unhappy marriage to Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse, and several of her children suffered tragic ends: Princess Marie from diphtheria at age four and Prince Friedrich at two as a result of hemophilia. The third child of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Alice’s life was marked by tragedy. He ascended the throne on January 22, 1901, upon the death of Victoria, reigning for nine years until his own passing in 1910. Despite his position, Edward VII had developed a reputation as a playboy and a contentious relationship with his parents Victoria blamed him for the death of his father in 1861, and largely prevented him from having political position or influence until the end of her life. The second child and firstborn son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, Edward VII (born Albert and better known to his family as Bertie) was the longest serving heir to the throne prior to King Charles III. An intellectually driven man-Albert prescribed himself an educational regiment requiring nine hours of study a day during his teen years-he not only served as regent during his wife’s nine pregnancies, he also had a significant role in encouraging scientific and technological innovation, and even helped organize the Great Exhibition in 1851. Though Albert had no official state powers as Prince Consort, he nonetheless had a major impact on the monarchy. In 1840, she married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, with whom she had a famously passionate connection.

Just a month after her 18th birthday, the petite princess (she was barely five feet tall) became queen following the death of her uncle, King William IV.

The daughter of Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent-fourth son of King George III-and German widow Princess Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Victoria was the result of a succession crisis that left her as the only legitimate heir to the throne. After all, with nine children, 42 grandchildren, and 87 great-grandchildren, she more than earned the title 'the grandmother of Europe.'īorn on May 24, 1819, Alexandrina Victoria was quite literally born to be queen. And while many effects of her rule are still present in modern society, perhaps one of the most obvious remains the impact of her massive family tree on the current monarchies of Europe. Over the course of her 63 year reign, Queen Victoria made an indelible impact not only on Britain, but on the world.

The Spanish Royal Descendants of Queen Victoria.

The Norwegian Royal Descendants of Queen Victoria.

The Swedish Royal Descendants of Queen Victoria.

The Danish Royal Descendants of Queen Victoria.

The English Royal Descendants of Queen Victoria.

Queen victoria family tree wikia