A Brief History of the House of Windsor

by Michael Paterson

  GEORGE R.I.

  WHEREAS WE having taken into consideration the Name and Title of Our Royal House and Family, have determined that henceforth Our House and Family shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor:

  AND WHEREAS We have further determined for Ourselves for and on behalf of Our descendants and all other the descendants of Our Grandmother Queen Victoria of blessed and glorious memory to relinquish and discontinue the use of all German Titles and Dignities:

  AND WHEREAS We have declared these Our determinations in Our Privy Council:

  NOW, THEREFORE, We, out of Our Royal Will and Authority, do hereby declare and announce that from the date of this Our Royal Proclamation Our Royal House and Family shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor, and that all the descendants in the male line of Our said Grandmother Queen Victoria who are subjects of those Realms, other than female descendants who may marry or have married, shall bear the name of Windsor.

  And do hereby further declare and announce that We for Ourselves and for and on behalf of Our descendants and all other the descendants of Our said Grandmother Queen Victoria who are subjects of these Realms, relinquish and enjoin the discontinuance of the use of the Degrees, Styles, Dignities, Titles and Honours of Dukes and Duchesses of Saxony and Princes and Princesses of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, and all other German Degrees, Styles, Dignities, Titles, Honours and Appellations to Us or to them heretofore belonging or appertaining.

  Given at Our Court at Buckingham Palace, this Seventeenth day of July, in the year of our Lord One thousand nine hundred and seventeen, and in the Eighth year of Our Reign.

  GOD SAVE THE KING

  The spring of 1917 was a dark time for Britain. The war, which was now almost three years old, was going badly. In France and Belgium, the conflict had settled into a static contest in which neither side could defeat the other. The British armies, now no longer made up of regulars but of wartime volunteers whose only asset had been enthusiasm, were being ground down by attrition and decimated by frontal attacks on positions that were grimly defended. The previous summer the biggest of these, along the River Somme, had cost over 20,000 fatalities on the first day alone. The territory gained had ultimately amounted to about six miles. That winter, there had been another costly fight at Passchendaele. Scores of thousands of men were dying for nothing, and no one seemed to know what to do about it.

  Elsewhere in the theatre of war, the situation was no better. An attempt by Allied troops to break through the Dardanelles and attack the enemy countries through a side-door had been a costly failure. In the Middle East, Britain had suffered disaster in the siege and fall of Kut. In East Africa the war was unwinnable, and would remain so. Further east the Russian Empire, a staunch ally if an inadequately equipped military power, underwent a revolution in the first months of the year that toppled the tsar. The new government had pledged to keep Russia in the war, but this promise was clearly not popular with a people that had suffered, perhaps, more than any other of the combatants, and the stability and commitment of the country’s new rulers could not be guaranteed. If Russia should make peace, or be defeated by Germany, the consequences would be grave if not catastrophic. The Eastern Front would cease to exist, freeing a million men to fight in the West. With so many seasoned troops at the enemy’s disposal, the rest of Continental Europe would surely be overrun.

  Added to the morale-sapping sense of frustration was the horror of new weaponry. In 1915 the Germans had begun using poison gas. Zeppelin airships had flown over the English coast to bomb centres of population. From the early summer of 1917 there was a new danger – ‘Gothas’ were long-range German bombers that began mounting daylight raids. Their reign of terror lasted several months. In the course of one attack on London they killed 162 people, including 18 children in a primary school. This was barbarity on a scale never before experienced by the British populace, for whom wars had previously been something that went on in fardistant places.

  Equally horrifying was the principle of ‘unrestricted submarine warfare’. Germany possessed a fleet of submarines that patrolled the British coast and ranged far into the Atlantic. Their purpose was to starve the country into surrender by preventing food and raw materials from getting through. The Germans were bound by international treaty – as were other countries’ navies – to give warning before sinking any merchant vessel and to allow the crew time to abandon ship. Since the surface vessels were routinely armed, the Germans felt that warning them simply invited retaliation and put their own crews at risk. They therefore reserved the right to attack without notice ships that were sailing for British ports, whether these belonged to combatant nations or not. One casualty was the liner RMS Lusitania, torpedoed off the Irish coast in May 1915 with the loss of over a thousand passengers. Among the dead were 128 Americans, whose country was neutral. The event caused worldwide outrage (even though later investigation suggested that the ship was illegally carrying huge stocks of ammunition and that the explosion of these, rather than just torpedo damage, was what sank her). It was a propaganda coup for the Allies, doing much to alienate American opinion from Germany, and led to a lull in submarine activity. In February 1917, however, after the policy had been ratified by vote in the German Parliament, unrestricted submarine warfare resumed. The enemy was back scouring the sea-lanes and as dangerous as ever. Only two months later the United States would enter the war.

  It is therefore clear that during the spring and summer of that year, several elements – fear and frustration, ‘Hun Frightfulness’ and British public outrage – built toward a crescendo. Since the beginning of the conflict there had been mass hostility toward symbols of the enemy nations – the sacking of shops and businesses with German names, the banning of performances of Beethoven and Bach, the interning of German citizens, and even the stoning of dachshunds. All of that had long since removed from sight any public reminder of Britain’s past teutonic connections – except for one: the royal family.

  In this climate of hysteria it was, in a sense, the only target still standing. As soon as the war had begun, the king had returned all enemy uniforms to which he was entitled – he was Colonel-in-Chief of a Prussian regiment – just as the kaiser had handed back his honorary British ones (this swapping of clothes among Europe’s monarchs would now cease for good), but a number of buildings still attested to the royal family’s origins, such as the Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens. Prince Albert’s coat-of-arms, as well as his wife’s, appeared as a motif on the arch spandrels and panels on the roadside of Westminster Bridge, and the crest was the same as that seen on the helmet-plates of some soldiers fighting against the British. In St George’s Chapel, Windsor, the home of the Order of the Garter, the personal standards of German members still hung above their stalls. The surname of Britain’s ruling family remained as Germanic as ever – a continuing source of discomfort, resentment, anger. Tsar Ferdinand of Bulgaria, ruler of a hostile power – one of the leaders of the enemy camp – even bore the name Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and Gotha was of course also the name of the aircraft responsible for the recent massacre of civilians.

  It got worse. Two of the king’s relations were fighting for Germany while holding British titles: the Dukes of Albany and Cumberland. Another, Prince Albert, Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, was commandant of a prisoner-of-war camp that housed captured Britons. An open disrespect for the royal family in Britain was spreading with alarming speed. It was even rumoured that they had been signalling to zeppelins from the roof of Sandringham. The prime minister, and the king himself, received an increasing number of vitriolic letters demanding that something be done to rid the country of these associations. Prime ministerial advice became more pressing: public repudiation of the German connection would not only be timely and welcome, it was now vital.

  With King George’s decree, the British royal family publicly shed all connections with its German heritage. It did so in the nick of time; waiting even a few months more might have been
leaving it too late. A contemporary cartoon in the satirical magazine Punch, titled ‘A Good Riddance!’, showed the king with a broom, sweeping crowns out of the door. Only several years of bitter war could have provoked such an attitude, and the king did not share it. He was yielding to public pressure and prime ministerial advice. It is likely that the decision caused him some private grief, not only because he was abandoning the only family name he had known but also because he saw the gesture as a capitulation to his country’s mood of panic. Monarchy takes the long view. One of its most important functions is to represent continuity, to stand above the tides of fashion and the short-term preoccupations of the public, to remain unmoved by the issues of the moment. Another is to symbolize the best of its people’s characteristics and aspirations – and certainly not to reflect their hatreds and prejudices. It must have been humiliating to have to yield to pressure from what appeared to be a mob howling for blood. Some supporters of the status quo may have felt that once the war was over the issue would quickly be forgotten, but in this they would have been mistaken. Hostility persisted for years after the Armistice in 1918 and the advent of another war, twenty years after the last, would ensure that anti-German feeling lingered well into the 1960s.

  The College of Arms, the ultimate authority on genealogy, was not actually certain that the family was called Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in the first place, so that the change might not even have been necessary. What, in any case, were they to call themselves now? Members had accumulated over centuries a host of other titles – dukedoms, earldoms, lordships – that referred to places in Britain and would therefore sound more appropriate, though these ranks were not exalted enough to be used by a sovereign. One of the first suggestions – The House of Brunswick-Luneberg – was no improvement at all, being if anything even more obviously German. The House of Cerdic was hopelessly unevocative, sounding like the name of some patent medicine. Other dynastic names – Guelph and Wettin – that were equally teutonic had been associated with the family in the past. Both sounded just as alien and, to British ears, frankly silly. A number of further names and associations were dredged up from history, tried on like hats and discarded. Whatever was chosen had to sound unmistakably British and long-established, and to reinforce the sense of seamless national continuity that is one of the major reasons for having a monarchy in the first place. Options considered included Plantagenet, York, Lancaster, Fitzroy. All of these awakened echoes of schoolroom history lessons, of dreary things learned by rote, or of Shakespeare plays. D’Este, another option, was absurdly foreign. It was suggested that ‘England’ as a surname would suit the purpose, though this would at once have alienated subjects in other parts of the United Kingdom and overseas.

  The notion of ‘Windsor’ as a family name was the inspired proposal of the king’s private secretary, Lord Stamfordham. From the moment it was first mooted, it sounded right. It worked on every level and it followed precedent, for to take the name of a castle was established practice in Europe. The Habsburgs, rulers of Austria, had done so. The Oldenburgs had too. The Hohenzollerns, kings of Prussia and German emperors, took their high-sounding family name from their ancestral castle – Burg Hohenzollern – which was not in Prussia but in Swabia (the name literally meant ‘high toll’, and referred to the levies they imposed on those passing through their lands). Windsor was not only a name already familiar to every citizen of British territories, it also conjured up images of a building that itself symbolized both monarchy and empire. Depicted endlessly on postcards and biscuit tins, the Castle, invariably seen from the water meadows across the Thames from which it rises on its bluff, presented an image of unshakable solidity, majesty and power. The surrounding landscaped parks, crafted over centuries into a royal Arcadia, embellished with houses, cottages, monuments and follies, had loomed large in the life of all British monarchs for a millennium. In the imagination of the public its Round Tower was an instantly recognizable emblem of their sovereigns and their heritage.

  The adoption of the new family name was immediately, immensely popular with the public, both in Britain itself and in her overseas territories. It was perceived as representing a massive sea-change in the attitude of the royal family. The monarchy was seen to have redefined its loyalties, and for the first time sided with its people rather than its own class. This decision proved its worth not only in the climate of wartime but in the inter-war period of austerity which followed.

  Though their name had been Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, it is important to remember that neither they nor anyone else had actually used it. Royalty did not actually need a surname. Kings, queens and princes signed their first name only; dukes used only their title (‘Gloucester’). With the adoption of Windsor, the royal family had, for the first time, a surname like other families. It also sounded straightforward and simple and much like anyone else’s – indeed, it is a not especially uncommon name among the British. This added to the perception that the royal family had joined the ranks of its people.

  The war had changed more than the name of Britain’s ruling family. It had altered the perception of them by society as a whole. Nothing like the experience of 1914–18 had happened before – a conflict that affected every family and every individual in the land, in some capacity or other. The fact that all classes were active participants was a great social leveller, and the royal family almost at once became less aloof. There was a vast increase in the amount of charity work to be done – the war hospitals and comforts funds to be visited or encouraged – and there was a far greater need for public appearances. Queen Mary, for instance, extensively visited the street shrines erected to local people killed overseas or in air raids. Royalty, both in uniform and out, became much more conspicuous at a time of heightened patriotism. The king’s visits to the Western Front were well documented.

  It was believed that the royals, who for obvious reasons could not undertake active duty at the Front, were irritated by this restriction and wished to ‘do their bit’ like other families. The Prince of Wales did his utmost to be posted to places of danger, while his brother Bertie actually took part in the war’s most important naval battle. Relatively speaking – but in a way that had not previously happened – royalty was sharing the day-to-day hardships and anxieties of its subjects. Members of the royal family were seen to be concerned about the plight of ordinary citizens, as they had been in peacetime when some occasional disaster had befallen a community. Members of the public, in turn, could worry about the safety of young royals in theatres of conflict just as they would about their own sons.

  Once the Armistice had been signed, the former sense of distance between monarchy and public would not return. The age of ‘mass media’ had by that time begun, with the advent of the cinema and the popular press at the turn of the century. Now there would also be wireless. The magazines and pictorial newspapers enjoying a heyday were always looking for ways to engage public attention, and would focus on the activities of the royal family in a way they had not previously done. The new generation of the family would, in any case, give rise to widespread fascination, either through the sheer charisma of the glamorous young Prince of Wales or the heartwarming domestic contentment of his brother Bertie’s family.

  The end of the conflict brought an international economic and social climate that was different from anything the king or his ministers had lived through before. With so few monarchies left, and the example of Bolshevik Russia encouraging revolution elsewhere, with a sense of entitlement among those who had fought and with an economic climate that was to prove the worst within living memory, the royal house was sailing through uncharted waters just as much as it had been during the war years. It was necessary to find out what sort of monarchy fitted these times and then swiftly adapt to provide it.

  When the war had ended, there was speculation about who the older princes would marry. There would now be no further dynastic alliances – no more brides would be shipped across the North Sea, and no British prince could have courted publ
ic hostility by looking in that direction for a wife. (The Prince of Wales, having served in the war, was violently anti-German at that time in any case.) Lloyd George told the king privately that public opinion would no longer accept foreign spouses – a daring concept, since up to that time there had scarcely been any other kind. King George agreed, and he made another announcement, to the Privy Council, in 1917 that was to have enormous, and beneficial, consequences for his family. He stated that in future members of the royal house could wed British citizens. This, more than anything else, was to change the character of the British monarchy and make it into the middle-class-writ-large that it has been ever since.

  In the decades that followed, through depression and war, economic boom and bust, industrial unrest, European integration and global terrorism, the House of Windsor has continued seeking to give its subjects the monarchy they want, treading a fine line between ancient and modern, grandeur and thrift, influence and neutrality. There have been mistakes, even disasters, but to an overwhelming extent Britain’s royal family has been successful. Its popularity has never been in doubt and, though individual members may lose favour for a time, the institution itself remains remarkably sound.

  The marriage of Prince William of Wales and Catherine Middleton in April 2011 appears to have secured the future of the British throne for, at the least, half a century to come. So much about this young man and woman – their casual meeting, their on-again, off-again courtship, the relative ordinariness of their tastes, their friends, and above all their desire to live as unassuming a life as possible – is perfectly in tune with modern attitudes and expectations. They are seen as finding their own way in life, and as having the ability to relate to their future subjects without formality or unease. All evidence suggests that their popularity will continue to grow and that they will be highly successful sovereigns thirty years from now.