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The British Royal Family is either a potent symbol of national pride or a harmful anachronism, depending on which sources you listen to. The House of Windsor enjoys widespread popularity in the UK and many of its commonwealth realms, and yet a majority of young Britons express a desire to leave the monarchy behind.
In this episode of The List Show, Erin (@erinccmarthy) flies through 100 fun facts about the British royal family, from truck-driving queens to scandal-plagued Kings (did someone mention a "love chair"?).
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100 Facts About The British Royal Family | Mental Floss
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0:00
Do you know why Queen Elizabeth II's descendants use the surname Mountbatten-Windsor, even
0:04
though her father was born neither a Mountbatten nor a Windsor? For most of us, surnames are a simple matter
0:09
But for the British royal family, the answer takes us through over a century of European
0:13
history and reflects both sweeping geopolitical trends and more personal domestic matters
0:18
Hi, I'm Erin McCarthy, editor-in-chief of MentalFloss.com. We'll get into the story behind that surname, along with many more facts about the British
0:25
royal family, from scandal-plagued kings to truck-driving queens, in this episode of The
0:31
List Show. When Queen Victoria from the House of Hanover died in 1901, Britain's royal house took
0:44
the German name of her husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg, Gotha. Royal intermarriage
0:49
was quite normal at that time. Albert was actually Victoria's first cousin, and the
0:53
Campbell's descendants would go on to occupy palaces in Greece, Norway, Denmark, Russia
0:58
Sweden, Romania, Yugoslavia, and Spain, as well as Germany. Most importantly for our purposes
1:03
they had a son who would go on to become King Edward VII. Edward, or Bertie, as he was sometimes
1:08
known, is a pretty fascinating character. We'll get back to him in a bit. But there's still
1:12
the matter of how the Mountbatten-Windsors came to be. Edward's son, who became King
1:16
George V with his father's passing, began his reign less than a decade before the onset
1:21
of World War I. In 1917, with the war raging and a rising tide of anti-German sentiment
1:26
in Britain, George abandoned the Germanic House of Saxe-Coburg Gotha and christened his royal
1:31
house the House of Windsor, also announcing that his family would adopt Windsor as its
1:35
surname when necessary. Until then, royals merely referred to their house rather than
1:39
a last name. And while that is still the case for members of the family who are entitled to a royal
1:44
style, such as His Royal Highness, even Prince William has used a last name on occasion
1:49
including when he and his wife took a tabloid to court for invading their privacy back in 2012
1:54
I should also point out, it wasn't just a vague anti-German feeling that led to the name change
1:58
A few specific factors may have played a role. Just a month before the announcement, a German bombing on London's East End had killed 18
2:05
British schoolchildren. The planes that carried out the attack, coincidentally, were known as the German Gotha Bombers
2:10
echoing the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha House of the Royal Family. And the King's ties to Germany were very real
2:15
Kaiser Wilhelm II was actually King George's first cousin. As was Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, incidentally
2:21
George took the name Windsor from Windsor Castle, which has been an on-and-off home for
2:25
the British royalty since William the Conqueror founded it nearly a millennium ago
2:29
Queen Elizabeth II, by the way, can trace her lineage all the way back through William
2:33
the Conqueror, the Norman Duke whose conquest of England was an important turning point in
2:37
European history. That explains the Windsor part of Little Archie's last name, but where does Mountbatten come from
2:43
His great-grandfather, also via Germany. Elizabeth's husband, Prince Philip, was born into the house of, and I apologize for this
2:49
pronunciation in advance, Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderberg-Glucksburg. In 1947, he renounced his rights to the Greek
2:56
and Danish thrones, and adopted the surname of his mother's side of the family, Mount
3:00
Batten. That name is an anglicized version of German Battenberg. And yes, the somewhat
3:04
German royal couple are cousins, through multiple familial ties, in fact. Depending on how you
3:09
look at it, the husband and wife are either third cousins or second cousins once removed
3:14
the choice of surname caused some tension between the newlyweds. While Philip wanted
3:18
his descendants to be known as Mountbatons, Elizabeth II initially sided with her mother
3:22
and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who wanted continuity in the royal family name
3:27
Philip is said to have complained that he was the only man in the country not allowed
3:31
to give his name to his own children. While we're not privy to the details, a compromise was apparently struck, as the Queen and Duke
3:37
announced that their descendants would have the last name Mountbaton Windsor. Elizabeth II is now the world's longest reigning monarch, having reigned over the
3:44
UK and some of its Commonwealth realms for over 69 years. She's got more than 15 years
3:49
of experience on the current runner-up for longest reigning monarch, Hass Bolkiah
3:53
the Sultan of Brunei. That also makes Prince Charles the longest-waiting heir apparent, first in line for the throne
3:58
in British history. He's been one spot behind his mom for decades, and at 72 years old
4:03
he'll be the oldest British monarch to be crowned, if and when that day should ever come
4:08
Elizabeth's nearly seven decades as queen are especially notable since she wasn't born
4:12
an heir apparent to the throne. And she would have never become queen if her parents had
4:16
had sons. It was only with the succession to the Crown Act of 2013 that female heirs
4:20
to the throne are no longer passed up in the line of succession by their younger brothers
4:24
It took the death of Elizabeth's grandfather, King George V, the abdication of the throne
4:28
by her uncle, Edward VIII, and the eventual death of her father, King George VI, to install
4:33
Elizabeth on the throne. Edward VIII famously abdicated to Mary Wallace Simpson, a twice-divorced American who many powerful Brits and the Church of England considered
4:41
an unfit wife to the king. And while the story has an undeniably romantic aspect, Edward
4:47
is probably not the dashing hero that that one biographical detail might suggest. Before
4:51
World War II, he visited Nazi Germany, met with Adolf Hitler, gave him the Nazi salute
4:57
and was generally viewed as sympathetic to the Germans, if not engaged in downright treasonous
5:01
dealings with the Nazis, with an eye towards being reinstated on the throne, at the hands
5:05
of the hypothetically victorious Germans. Edward later denied ever having been involved
5:09
in anti-British plots, but the former king was still effectively removed from the picture
5:14
when he was appointed governor of the Bahamas in 1940 When Edward abdicated his brother George VI ascended the throne His stuttering problem was dramatized in the film The King Speech And while the King himself thanked the speech therapist Lionel Logue for his expert supervision
5:28
and unfailing patience in preparing the new king for his coronation speech, the reluctant
5:33
king found another important ally closer to home, his wife, Queen Elizabeth, whom the
5:37
New York Times called the strength behind the throne in its 2002 obituary of the Queen Mother
5:43
If you're wondering why this Queen Elizabeth wasn't known as Queen Elizabeth II, making her daughter Queen Elizabeth III, it's because the Queen Mother was never a queen regnant
5:50
or ruling monarch. She married into the royal family, and so was considered a queen consort
5:56
while only queens and kings regnant are given Roman numerals. During World War II, some suggested the Queen Mother and her daughters Elizabeth and Margaret
6:03
should leave Buckingham Palace for a safer country, such as Canada. She famously responded
6:08
The children won't go without me. I won't leave the king. And the king will never leave
6:13
And even the royal family wasn't entirely shielded from the tumult of war. Buckingham
6:17
Palace was bombed in September 1940. A few years later Elizabeth's daughter, the future
6:21
Queen Elizabeth II, became the first female royal family member to enter the armed forces
6:26
as a full-time active member, serving as a truck driver and mechanic in the auxiliary
6:30
territorial service. But now that she's the queen, what does Elizabeth II actually do
6:34
The Crown's power has been chipped away since King John issued the Magna Carta in 1215
6:39
and England's Bill of Rights of 1689 created a constitutional monarchy, in which the King
6:44
or Queen's power is strictly limited by the law. Over the years, that power has been
6:48
further circumscribed until reaching its essentially ceremonial role today. Roughly once a year
6:53
the Queen presents a speech at the state opening of Parliament, though she doesn't write the speech herself. While this is happening, a member of Parliament is taken hostage in
7:00
Buckingham Palace. A now ceremonial holdover from Charles I tense relationship with his
7:05
country's governing body. So tense, in fact, that it ended up with him beheaded
7:09
Today no one expects to actually hold onto the hostage in an emergency situation. Though
7:13
I would watch the movie where the Queen has to fight her way out of the House of Lords
7:17
and then falls in love with an imprisoned MP. Okay, that story is ridiculous, but it was actually less than 50 years ago when someone
7:23
did try to kidnap Princess Anne, Elizabeth's daughter. The would-be kidnapper shot several
7:28
men in his failed attempt and was eventually arrested. Less than a decade later, another royal security breach happened when a man successfully climbed
7:35
through a window at Buckingham Palace and entered the Queen's bedroom. The Queen was
7:39
unharmed and the man was eventually apprehended. When the Queen isn't nervously chatting
7:43
with drunken interlopers, her duties include sending out birthday notes to centenarians
7:47
in the United Kingdom and Commonwealth countries. She has sent almost 200,000 such messages
7:52
over the years. Eat your heart out, Willard Scott. The queen is known to spend most of her private weekends at Windsor Castle, maybe because
7:59
she likes playing with the dollhouse that's kept there, which the Royal Collection Trust
8:03
calls the largest, most beautiful, and most famous dollhouse in the world. It features
8:08
electricity, running water, and working elevators. Windsor Castle reportedly requires a team of dozens of employees to maintain, including
8:15
a Fendersmith. Bonus points to anyone who can tell me what a Fendersmith does in the
8:19
comments without looking it up. Buckingham Palace, the queen's primary residence, has its own unique features, including an
8:26
in-house ATM accessible to the royal family—convenient for when you want to take out money to look
8:30
at pictures of yourself. The palace was also the location of the queen's famous corgi breeding program, which started
8:36
with Elizabeth's 18th birthday present, Susan, and led to 14 generations of pups at the palace
8:41
When Willow the Corgi died in 2018, it marked the end of the royal line of corgis
8:46
Monty Roberts, a horse trainer and advisor to the queen, told Vanity Fair in 2012 that
8:49
Elizabeth had once remarked that she didn't want to leave any young dog behind after her passing
8:55
Not everyone is a fan of the monarchy, of course. One criticism centers around the amount royals pay, or don't pay, in taxes
9:02
Prince Charles, for example, was criticized back in 2013 when it became known that he was paying less than 24% in taxes on earnings from his estate
9:10
Separate reports suggested that the prince pays less tax, as a percentage, on his multi-million
9:14
dollar income than his servants pay on their presumably much smaller earnings
9:18
And those servants are earning their money. In addition to ironing the prince's pajamas and getting his bath temperature just right
9:25
Princess Diana's former butler, Paul Burl, said that the prince's valets squeeze one
9:28
inch of toothpaste onto his toothbrush every morning. The queen has someone break in her new shoes
9:34
As her dresser and unofficial shoe-breaker inner, Angela Kelly put it, the queen has
9:38
very little time to herself and not time to wear in her own shoes
9:42
And as we share the same shoe size, it makes the most sense this way. The Windsors are quite opinionated when it comes to fashion, actually. Young boys, for
9:50
example, never appear in public with long pants on. They wear shorts, perhaps because
9:55
in the words of British etiquette expert William Hanson, a pair of trousers on a young boy
9:59
is considered quite middle class. That strikes me as pretty snobby, but here's a fashion
10:04
choice I can get behind. For his wedding day, Prince William's tailors added custom sweat
10:08
pads under his arms to absorb excess perspiration. Most unmarried royal women aren't supposed to wear tiaras. Unless you were born a princess
10:16
tiaras are basically the headwear equivalent of a wedding ring, signifying a royal woman's
10:20
relationship status. And while the royals don't often don black clothing, since it's reserved for Remembrance
10:25
Day, members of the family are required to pack a black outfit for any trip, just in
10:30
case they should need to appear after a moment of public tragedy This norm came to the fore after Queen Elizabeth then just a princess and was in Kenya when her father died back in 1952 When Elizabeth arrived back in England she had to stay on the plane until an appropriately somber ensemble could be brought to her
10:45
And a black outfit isn't the strangest thing royals have been known to travel with
10:49
The Telegraph's Gordon Rayner reported that Queen Elizabeth will sometimes travel with her own blood supply, in case of emergency, when traveling to a country with a questionable supply
10:59
Ominous outfits, packing blood… maybe this royal thing isn't all it's cracked up
11:03
to be. It does have its perks, though. For example, the queen owns all the unmarked mute
11:08
swans in England's open waters, though according to the official website of the British royal
11:12
family, she mainly exercises this rite on certain stretches of the River Thames. Apparently
11:17
this tradition dates back to the 12th century, a time when swans were prized as a source
11:21
of food for special meals. She also owns the sturgeon and whales taken in the waters around
11:26
England and Wales, though whales from Wales are pretty rare. Rare. The monarch also technically
11:31
owns the British seabed and the rights to all of Scotland's gold mining activity
11:35
The royals are pretty big on tradition, obviously. One custom that's simultaneously very sweet
11:40
and pretty gross involves fruitcake, as we alluded to in an episode of Food History
11:45
The British royal family has often used fruitcake for their wedding cakes, dating back to Queen
11:49
Victoria. Tradition dictates that they then save some of that cake to be eaten in celebration
11:54
of their future children's christenings. Not many cakes could survive this kind of multi-year
11:58
waiting game. Some traditions, of course, have fallen by the wayside over the years
12:03
When Princess Diana wed Prince Charles back in 1981, she chose to not vow to obey her
12:08
husband, as the Book of Common Prayer and tradition would have it. In doing so, Diana
12:12
may have started a new tradition. Neither Kate Middleton nor Meghan Markle mentioned
12:16
obeying in their vows. Diana was an unorthodox royal in many ways. She's said to be the
12:22
first royal bride to have a paying job before her engagement, and was actually the first
12:26
Englishwoman to marry the heir to the British throne in roughly 300 years, dating back to
12:30
Anne Hyde, who married the man who would eventually become King James II
12:34
Prince Charles famously dated his future second wife Camilla Shand, now Camilla Duchess of
12:39
Cornwall, years before meeting Diana. He also briefly dated Diana's sister, Lady Sarah
12:44
Spencer, before Sarah, in her own words, played Cupid and brought the two together. If you
12:48
think this is getting complicated, just wait. Lady Di and Charles had a very brief courtship
12:54
It's estimated they might have only spent time together in person around a dozen times
12:58
before their wedding. During their marriage, Prince Charles had an affair with Camilla, who was also married
13:02
at the time, and the royal couple eventually split. Charles, of course, would go on to marry Camilla nearly eight years after Diana's death
13:09
I mentioned Edward VII, Queen Elizabeth II's great-grandfather, earlier. He was sometimes known as Edward the Caresser, a nickname he apparently earned
13:18
Edward's purported lovers include the famous French actress Sarah Bernhardt and Jenny Churchill
13:23
mother of Winston. Dirty Birdie, another nickname Edward was given, even had a siege de mors
13:29
or love chair, made for him, although calling it a love chair might be a bit euphemistic
13:34
Mrs. Alice Keppel was a relatively well-respected mistress to Edward. She supposedly described
13:39
the duties of a royal mistress thusly, curtsy first and then jump in the bed. Keppel, by
13:44
the way, was the great-grandmother of Duchess Camilla of Cornwall, the eventual mistress
13:48
and eventual second wife of Edward's great-great-grandson, Prince Charles. Edward's scandals weren't limited to the bedroom, though. Before his secession, he was part of
13:57
the Royal Baccarat scandal, an international disgrace that centered around accusations of
14:01
cheating in a card game. Edward wasn't accused of cheating, but it wasn't a good look to
14:05
be associated with such improper conduct. He was even called as a witness at the eventual
14:10
trial, the first time the heir to the throne had been put in that position since 1411
14:15
We talked about Edward's grandson, King George VI, earlier in the video, and about George's
14:19
daughter Elizabeth. But Elizabeth's sister, Princess Margaret, has her own tumultuous story. Pablo Picasso wanted to marry her, according to his friend and biographer John
14:28
Richardson, despite the fact that the two had never met. And while she had many suitors
14:32
one man was apparently unimpressed. The actor Richard Burton wrote in a 1969 diary entry
14:38
that she is infinitely, boringly uncomfortable to be around. Harsh. Perhaps Margaret's most notable love affair was with group captain Peter Townsend. Townsend
14:47
was a divorcee and therefore considered an unfit pairing for the princess in some corners
14:52
of Britain. When Margaret was 23, Townsend was stationed to the British Embassy in Brussels
14:56
to buy time for Margaret to turn 25, at which point she would have more power to be able
15:01
to choose her groom without the approval of her sister, the Queen. After that, she chose
15:05
not to wed Townsend when she did turn 25, and instead ended up marrying a photographer
15:10
named Anthony Armstrong Jones. Their wedding became the first televised royal wedding
15:15
reaching around 300 million viewers worldwide, a number that would be dwarfed a couple decades
15:19
later by the wedding of Charles and Diana, which drew an estimated 750 million viewers
15:24
When Margaret and Armstrong Jones divorced, amidst rumors of infidelity on both sides
15:28
of the marriage, she had the first dissolution of a royal marriage since Henry VIII. A fictionalized
15:33
version of their story was brought to life in the third season of the addictive historical drama The Crown, and in the fourth season, series creator Peter Morgan turned to a much
15:41
sadder chapter of royal history. In 1941, two of Queen Elizabeth's first cousins were secretly committed to Royal Eriswood
15:48
Mental Hospital. Around 20 years later, their mother, Fenella Boes-Lyon, let the publisher
15:52
Berks Peerage believe that the girls were dead It wasn until a 1987 expos by The Sun that the truth came to light One of the women Catherine Bowes Lyon was still alive and her sister Nerissa had died just a year ago Three of their cousins Idene Etheldria and Rosemary
16:07
Fane, had also been placed in Royal Arrowswood on the same day, back in 1941. All five of
16:12
the girls suffered from a genetic disorder that affected their cognitive development
16:16
leading to public speculation that the royal family was covering up an unwanted part of
16:20
their family tree. 1999 saw a far less grim royal rumor take root. Prince Edward, the queen's youngest
16:26
son, got married and chose the formal title the Earl of Wessex, which is a bit unusual
16:30
since the region of Wessex no longer officially exists. It's been said that Edward chose
16:34
the name because he's a fan of the movie Shakespeare in Love, and the character Colin Firth plays in the film, Lord Wessex
16:39
Then there's Anne, Princess Royal. Like many royals, she's an equestrian enthusiast
16:44
Her father once said, if it doesn't fart or eat hay, she's not interested. I feel like
16:48
Duke is unintentionally leaving a lot of non-equestrian wiggle room in that assessment
16:52
but it does have a certain flair. Anne had a bit less luck with dogs. When her English
16:58
Bull Terrier Dottie bit two young boys, the princess was ordered to pay a 500-pound fine
17:03
and an additional 500 pounds in restitution to the boys' families. In doing so, she became the
17:08
first senior member of the royal family to be convicted of a criminal offense
17:11
Anne also had a brief stint as the prime warden of the worshipful company of fishmongers. I have
17:17
I have no idea what that means, and I refuse to look it up. You probably know that Prince William is second in line for the throne
17:23
But who's last in line? Because there are strict rules on who can be crowned, there are a finite number of potential
17:29
future monarchs at any given time. And while it seems it's been a while since anyone cared to dig this deep, back in 2001
17:35
two separate genealogists determined that Karen Vogel, a German hospital therapist and
17:39
distant descendant of Sophia of Hanover, held the title of last in line
17:44
She was 4,973rd in line, for the record, meaning we probably won't see a Queen Karen any time soon
17:50
There are some interesting characters a few thousand places up on the line of succession, too
17:55
James LaSelles is the second son of the 7th Earl of Harewood, and sits somewhere around
17:59
60th in line for the throne. LaSelles is a musician, and at one point toured with Frank Zappa
18:04
A little further down the line is a man named Harold, from Norway. While this second cousin of Elizabeth will almost certainly never become the king of
18:10
the UK, he can take solace in the fact that he's been the king of Norway for nearly three decades
18:15
Then there's Prince Harry, or should I say David Stevens. A source told the Daily Star
18:20
that the prince was sometimes referred to by this nondescript name, while his wife, Meghan
18:24
Markle, had been given the codename Davina Scott. Those choices weren't entirely arbitrary
18:30
The DS initials echo their titles, the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Similarly, it's been reported that Kate and William had sometimes traveled under the names
18:37
Daphne Clark and Danny Collins. Checking into hotels as Duke and Duchess of Cambridge would
18:42
presumably invite unwanted attention. The Queen's codename is designed to be even less intriguing
18:47
She's reportedly referred to as Sharon, or just S. It's not too late to get QE2 involved in the
18:53
Gossip Girl reboot. Just saying. The lives of William, Harry, Kate, and Meghan have been
18:57
documented at a level that would make Dan Humphrey jealous. But did you know that Meghan hand-wrote
19:02
the wedding invitations for Robin Thicke and Paula Patton? It was part of her pre-fame side
19:06
hustle as a freelance calligraphy artist. The future Duchess of Sussex could fly under the
19:10
radar a bit in her youth, but nothing could be further from the truth for her nephew, Prince
19:14
George. The likely future king was named one of Barbara Walters' most fascinating people of the
19:19
year in 2013, when he was less than a year old. Sadly, Ms. Walters did not get an interview with
19:24
the prelingual prince. Here's the dirt on Prince Harry you've been waiting for. According to a
19:29
pair of royal experts who yzed Prince Harry's early texts with Meghan Markle
19:33
The Duke of Sussex's favorite emoji is the ghost emoji. According to the authors
19:38
nobody knows why. Slightly less inscrutable is the gift Harry once reportedly chose for his regal
19:42
grandmother—a shower cap emblazoned with the phrase, Ain't life a b****? Intentionally tacky
19:48
gifts are apparently something of a Windsor tradition, and the Queen was said to love her gift
19:53
For an American like myself, the monarchy can be a bit difficult to understand
19:57
They cost British taxpayers at least 67 million pounds in 2019, and what they offer in return is
20:02
is hard to define. While a consultancy called Brand Finance estimated in 2017 that the monarchy
20:07
contributed at least £2 billion to the UK economy through enhanced tourism and other revenue-earning
20:13
activities, those numbers are hard to pin down. Critics contend that tourists would still flock
20:17
to Buckingham Palace and other royal points of interest even if the royals themselves were
20:21
consigned to history. According to a 2018 YouGov poll, though, some 70% of Britons consider
20:26
themselves monarchists and would like to see the royal family continue. And according to YouGov
20:31
as of filming this video, 73% of Britons have a positive opinion of the Queen
20:36
making her the second most popular royal after Prince William's 75%. Given the current line of
20:41
succession, with Prince Charles, William, and George possibly representing decades of future
20:45
monarchs, could Queen Elizabeth be the very last queen of the United Kingdom? A 2016 Ipsos Mari
20:51
poll found that a plurality of 18-24 year olds would prefer the country to become a republic
20:56
and leave the monarchy behind. I guess you'll just have to subscribe to our channel and watch
20:59
our follow-up video in the year 2100 to find out. Our next video is all about the true stories
21:05
behind artistic masterpieces. If you know of an interesting story for a great painting or
21:09
sculpture, drop it in the comments for a chance to be featured in the video. And honestly, if you made it this far, you already deserve a shout out
21:16
Thanks for watching
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