Hey, they’re not a clan.
Good pilot, too. 
This generally applied to the Hapsburgs, and even then most specifically to Spain. Charles II, for example.
The British royals have never really had that problem. Even the plethora of Victoria’s descendants that married across Europe’s royal houses were usually second or third cousins, which is not really a problem, genetically.
My favorite royal love story is Princess Lilian and Prince Bertil.
Most of the modern royalty seems to like each other pretty well. Diana and Charles are the modern exception - not the rule. But there is something about the senior citizen dorkiness of Charles and Camilla behavior that is endearing.
Agreed, though I could see William deciding to abdicate in his son’s favor at a certain age rather than reigning until death.
On a board dedicated to fighting ignorance, can we please stop using inaccurate pseudo-science, and ethnicity as a slur (an incorrect one at that)?
On the “inbred” comment, as Dr Drake points out, Queen Elizabeth’s parents do not have any common ancestors, going back to their great-great-grandparents. Check out the “Ancestry” charts for George VI and Elizabeth the Queen Mother on wiki. No common ancestors, going back four generations.
You have to go back to George V and Queen Mary for any cousin relationship in the direct royal line: they were second cousins, once removed. That is, they shared common ancestors in George III/Queen Charlotte. George III was George V’s great-great-grandfather, and Queen Mary’s great-grandfather. That is not a very close relationship.
As far as I can tell, Edward VII and Alexandra were not related.
You have to go back to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert to find a marriage of first cousins in the direct royal line. In other words, the last first-cousin marriage in the direct royal line were two of Elizabeth’s great-great-grandparents, who married close to two centuries ago. That distant a relationship means the Royal Family is inbred? Come on.
And the German thing, which seems to be used as an ethnic slur?
Well, Elizabeth was born in the UK; hard to see how that makes her German.
So were her parents, George VI and Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
So were all four of her grand-parents (George V and Queen Mary; Claude Bowes-Lyon (14th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne) and Cecilia Cavendish-Bentinck).
You have to go back to her great-grandparents to find any foreign-born ancestors, but even then, they were a minority.
Of her eight great-grandparents, five were born in the UK (Edward VII; Claude Bowes-Lyon (13th Earl of Strathmore and Kinghorne) and Frances Smith; Rev. Charles Cavendish-Bentinck and Louisa Burnaby).
The three great-grandparents who were born outside of the UK were Queen Alexandra (wife of Edward VII, mother of George V) who was born in Demark; Francis, Duke of Teck (father of Queen Mary), who was born in Esseg, Slavonia (now Osijek, Croatia); and Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge (daughter of the Duke of Cambridge, mother of Queen Mary) who was born in Hanover, Germany.
At last - someone born in Germany! Of course, her father the Duke was a member of the British Royal family, son of George III (both of whom were born in the UK), but that doesn’t matter - that one German birth makes the whole royal family German!
Sure, if go back to the Hanoverians, there is much more German ancestry, but the two basic points are:
(1) even if there is German ancestry back in the past, surely at some point a family becomes British? After all, the last king to be born in Germany was George II (born 1683, died 1760). or is it a “drop of blood” test that can never be overcome? that seems to verge on something rather ugly…
(2) even if there is German ancestry, so what? Using it as a critique of the monarchy sounds rather … ugly again.
Look, if people want to critique the monarchy, there’s plenty of principled grounds to use. But making stereotypical, pseudo-science and ethnic slurs shouldn’t be acceptable.
I’m a store cashier. On September 9th, a customer gave me a 1942 Canadian penny with George V on it. I’m keeping it.
Cool!
You’ve got a problem with people of German ethnicity?
Incorrect. Third cousins. Their closest relationship was Queen Victoria/Prince Albert. You’re saying that one pair of shared great-great-grandparents, in the 19th century, is a sign of inbreeding in the 21st century?
Incorrect again. Second cousins, once removed. Common ancestors were George III/Queen Charlotte in the 18th century. What relevance does that have for a family in the 21st century?
Sure there are family relationships - but they are pretty distant, and are not the dominant feature of the Royal Family.
There’s also no doubt that Prince Philip has closer German ancestry than the Queen does; but he’s a real mutt, with British, Russian, Danish and Greek ancestry as well.
My oldest coin received in change was a George V nickel: I was so excited I started a thread about it.
Not really. Parliament is in control and they gave the last idiot - Edward VIII - a discreet boot.
Funnily enough, the last one was in favour of another William, and glorious it was too.
I am rooting for Queen Elizabeth to last as long as possible, so her dolt of a son cannot assume the throne and expand his doltish influence as a promoter of homeopathy and other woo.
I’d forgotten that they share a common ancestral pair in Christian IX of Denmark and his wife. Christian is one of Philip’s great-grandfathers, and one of Elizabeth’s great-great-grandfathers. I think that makes them third cousins, once removed, on the Danish side.
Good Lord!
Just FYI, if it was 1942, then it would have been George VI, not V.
George VI, the former Prince Albert, and Queen Elizabeth the Queen consort reigned between 1936 and his death in 1952. George V reigned between 1910 and 1936. Between George V and George VI was the short-lived fiasco of Edward VIII and the American hussy.
Second cousns, once removed, ¿no? (Edit: George VI and Philip would have had a common set of great-grandparents, so were second cousins.)
I imagine we’d find similarly close relationships in every small village on earth if only we had the records.
In any case, “inbred” is a strange slur. Surely inbreeding is only a problem if it comes with mental or physical health problems. Prince Philip is a bit of an ass, but it’s pretty clearly that neither Elizabeth, Philip, nor Charles have any of the problems associated with inbreeding, so it doesn’t really matter if they are “inbred.”
As for Germans, as I said, that same accusation can be levelled against the English, whose ancestors came from Anglia and Saxony. Germans, the lot of them!
I also have one great-grandparent born in Germany, and about 20% of my ancestors were German when you add up the bits and take it back a few hundred years. I guess that makes me German: good to know. Can I have an EU passport now?
Well, you can get a tuition-free degree from any University in Germany: see here. Does that help?
On the topic of family intermarriage, what’s the straight dope on Camelia being the descendant of an illegitimate child of her husband’s grandfather’s grandfather?
It’s possible since Sonia Cubitt was born in 1900 and the affair began in 1898, but it’s not something that’s ever been proven (nor is it likely to be).
According to this handy-dandy wiki chart, it could be either, depending which way you start, with Philip or Elizabeth.