"I MAY BE UNINSPIRING, BUT I'LL BE DAMNED IF I'M ALIEN."
~ King George V, in response to H. G. Wells's criticism of his "alien”
[i.e. German-descended] and uninspiring court
Contributed by Assistant Editor Kimball Worcester
Today in 1917 the British royal family changed its surname to Windsor from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
The intertwining of the European royal families at the outbreak of war linked just about every one of them to Queen Victoria through her numerous progeny. Her grandchildren were consorts or rulers in five of the combatant countries — Russia, Germany, Rumania, Greece, and Great Britain — and numerous other princes and aristocrats throughout Europe were closely related. This proved especially difficult for the Empress of Russia (née a princess of Hesse-Darmstadt), who, in spite of her neuroses, was always a devout Russian patriot and had a true loathing for the Kaiser, her cousin. She became a natural target for discontent with the regime for this reason of her national origin alone.
Anti-German virulence in Great Britain had its own sad story, with long-naturalized German (or perceived as German) shopkeepers and tradesmen hounded from business and even dachshunds being attacked and vilified. Not a shining moment for a country defending liberty on the Continent. The British royal family itself bore a German name — Saxe [Sachsen]-Coburg-Gotha — the legacy of the marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in 1840. Of course, the royal family was “German” well before the surname became a triple threat; the Hanoverians became British sovereigns in the early 18th century when the last Protestant descendant of the Stuart dynasty died childless (Queen Anne) and the succession jumped sideways to the Protestant Hanoverian descendants of Elizabeth of Bohemia, daughter of King James I of Great Britain.
George V and his queen, Mary of Teck, ruled Great Britain during the Great War and were faced personally with the increasing anti-German atmosphere. By 1917 it was clear that a strong message had to be proclaimed as to the patriotism of his court and family, and after some internal debate, the king’s private secretary Lord Stamfordham came up with “Windsor”, after the ancient English royal residence used since the 12th century — a stroke of marketing brilliance. In addition, Queen Mary’s family name was changed to Cambridge (and Athlone) and the Battenbergs (who joined the family through Queen Victoria’s daughter Princess Beatrice’s marriage) became the illustrious Mountbattens.
[Note that upon the birth in June 1894 of the future Edward VIII/Duke of Windsor, Queen Victoria wrote to the baby's father, the future George V, that "this will be the Coburg line, like formerly the Plantegenet, the Tudor,...Stewart (sic), & the Brunswicks," always promoting the legacy of Prince Albert. Not to be.]*
One Battenberg suffered this xenophobia particularly strongly. Prince Louis of Battenberg was a German-born prince but also a naturalized British subject and career British naval officer who rose to the rank of First Sea Lord in 1912. His wife was a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. But anti-German pressure early in the war pushed him to resign his post — a blow to the dedicated officer — and in 1917 he became the 1st Marquess of Milford Haven, relinquishing all German titles as well. His son, Lord Louis Mountbatten, became Viscount Mountbatten of Burma, and, among other things, the last viceroy of India as well as the granduncle and mentor of the present Prince of Wales. He vindicated his father's resignation as First Sea Lord by acquiring the post himself from 1954 to 1959.
[Note that upon the birth in June 1894 of the future Edward VIII/Duke of Windsor, Queen Victoria wrote to the baby's father, the future George V, that "this will be the Coburg line, like formerly the Plantegenet, the Tudor,...Stewart (sic), & the Brunswicks," always promoting the legacy of Prince Albert. Not to be.]*
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| Prince Louis of Battenberg, Soon to Become Mountbatten |
In spite of all this maneuvering to substantiate public Englishness for the royals, George V himself could not have lived or acted more English, as he himself alludes to in his response to Mr. Wells’s assessment. He was the epitome of the stolid English family man; he loved his career in the Royal Navy and would have been content to remain there in relative obscurity had his older brother Prince Arthur not died and catapulted George into the direct succession. He had no problem with being uninspiring. Alien, however, was deeply unjust.
*James Pope-Hennessey, Queen Mary, 1867–1953, George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1959. p. 301
*James Pope-Hennessey, Queen Mary, 1867–1953, George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1959. p. 301
lement to later be ashamed and embarrassed by; the war's stalemate and monstrous casualty lists did their nasty work. I think it significant that it took the British Royal House 3 years into the war to initiate the name change. Would they have changed their name if the German capitulation had occurred say in early 1917? If not, then perhaps we would call neck tie knots the full and half Saxe-Coburg-Gotha instead of the full and half Windsor.
ReplyDeleteSee Wikipedia's below yarn:
"The knot is often thought to be named after the Duke of Windsor (King Edward VIII before his abdication). It is, however, likely that it was invented by his father, George V. The Duke preferred a wide knot and had his ties specially made with thicker cloth in order to produce a wider knot when tied with the conventional four-in-hand knot. The Windsor knot was invented to emulate the Duke's wide knot with ties made from normal thickness cloth.
It is even sadder that they could not talk among the relatives and stop the war before it was started... I doubt that they even tried, as nationalism took the reigns of the four horsemen.
ReplyDeleteMore interesting is that I have read that the Germans were told Britain would take no action, just before the events that were to take place. If it is not clear what I'm suggesting let me be less transparent. It was a set up. Ironically, Saddam Hussein was set up much the same way regarding his incursion into Kuwait by the American ambassador April Glaspie. I may be less than popular, but it is a sorry fact that Germans have caused so much harm to Britain, from within and from without. While the Royals live like that the British people must toil.
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