How did it come to pass that the Kings, Queens, and Czars of so many different countries of the 18’th and 19’th century were related to each other?
(Sorry about the bad grammar of the op title; I didn’t think I had enough room to be grammatical)
Ruling families of the different countries would intermarry to strengthen alliances.
The monarchies of Europe are still closely related to each other.
Well, members of Europe’s royal families couldn’t lower themselves to marrying commoners, could they? They had an obligation (sometimes real, sometimes just perceived) to marry people of equal social stations. A European prince or princess was expected to marry another person of nobility.
And nobility alone wasn’t enough. You had to marry someone of the right religion. If you were an English prince or princess, you had to marry a Protestant. That alone limited your choices a bit- most likely to someone of the German, Dutch, or Scandinavian royal families. If you were Catholic, you had to marry another Catholic- again, limiting you to royals of a few countries (Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, some German states).
Given their limited options, royals were almost bound to marry into families to which they already had some ties.
By way of supporting my comment a little, read up onKing Juan Carlos of Spain.
Not to mention that Queen Victoria had a lot of children to marry off, as did all of the Hapsburgs. Well, the Austrian ones. The Spanish ones kinda died out with Charles II, who was mentally-deficient and gay to boot.
Bravo to astorian for mentioning religion. In Europe during the Middle Ages, when most everyone was Catholic, the royal families had some (not much) variety in marriage partners. After Europe was divided between Protestantism and Catholicism, the options became even more limited. The Bourbons of France tended to marry mostly Spanish Infantas (who, after 1700, were Borbóns too) and Austrian Archduchesses. The Hannoverians of England preferred properly Protestant German princesses from places like Ansbach and Mecklenburg. When Prince Eddie, the somewhat degenerate eldest son of Edward VII, wanted to marry Princess Hélène of Orléans, her father refused to allow Hélène to convert, and Eddie would’ve lost his place in the line of succession had he married a Catholic. The point quickly became moot in 1892 when Eddie died.
The Romanov Czars of Russia and the Habsburg Emperors of Austria were two of the most prominent dynasties, but the first was Orthodox and the second Catholic, and I know of only one Romanov-Habsburg marriage: that of Archduke Joseph (son of Emperor Leopold II) to Grand Duchess Alexandra (daughter of Czar Paul). For a Romanov to marry a Habsburg, one spouse would have to convert, and neither family wanted to appear subordinant to the other. So they simply didn’t intermarry.
To take a smaller example, there’s the famous Rothschild banking dynasty, who were ennobled by the Holy Roman Emperor. Rothschild scions had a devil of a time finding appropriate marriage partners. Being Jewish, they didn’t intermarry with the (Catholic) nobility, but other Jewish families weren’t prestigious enough. So Rothschilds tended to marry other Rothschilds.
There’s also the aspect of politically motivated marriages there. In the Middle Ages and for some centuries afterwards, marriages of members of royal families were frequently used as an instrument of politics - a monarch might, for example, try to wed one of his sons to the female member of a royal family in a region where he was eager to extend his influence. The marriage would create desirable dynastical bonds between the two states; remember that our concept of “state” as an anonymous being is a rather recent one; in former centuries (especially during 18th century absolutism, probably not the 19th, but the custom remained), the state was largely seen as identical to the person of the ruler. A marriage between the members of two dynasties might also accompany a treaty between the two realms, underscoring the cooperation between them.
It helps if you think of European royalty as a distinct ethnic group, like the Romani. They mainly marry within the community, they have their own unique customs and they tend to isolate temselves from outsiders.
Erm, it would help even more if you read Alessan’s post in the past tense. Times change.
Religion wasn’t always a hindrance. In some royal marriages, the bride converted. For that matter, not all royal marriages were strictly arranged. The royal families socialized with one another, meeting for weddings, funerals, coronations, and other important events, and they wrote letters between times to their favorites. The young people got to know one another - because of the isolation many of the royal houses lived in, they might not get to know anyone else their own age as well as they knew the other royals - and sometimes they fell in love. Obviously sometimes such a love match was politically impossible and no wedding resulted, but when it was politically advantageous or at least neutral then so much the better if the couple liked one another.
There’s a (probably apocryphal) story told about King Christian IX of Denmark, who had six children who all married well. He liked for his grown children to come back to the family’s summer palace in Denmark every year, and during one such gathering he and his children, so the story goes, were walking through the nearby wood. They came across another man who said he was lost, and Christian told him he was on the right path, just come with them and they’d show him the way back to the village. When they were about to part, the man asked whose company he’d had the pleasure of sharing that day. “Well,” said Christian, “I’m the King of Denmark. This is my oldest son, the Crown Prince. My oldest daughter, the Princess of Wales. My second son, the King of Greece. My second daughter, the Crown Princess of Russia; and my third, the Duchess of Cumberland. And the young lad there, that’s my youngest boy, Prince Valdemar.”
The man lifted his hat, smiled warily, and said, “And my name is Jesus Christ”… and went on his way.
Well, the OP did specify the 19th century.
Just look at late 19th-century Bulgaria. After achieving independance from the Ottoman Empire, they immediately went about appointing themselves first a prince, and then a king. However, Bulgaria at the time had no royalty - or even noblility - of its own, instead of raising some notable Bulgarian to the throne they actually started importing foreign princes (first Russian, and them Austrian) with no local connection whatsoever for the job. They evidently believed that for their monarchy to be taken seriously it needed someone from the transnational “royal clan” in the tital role, even a complete foreigner.
It’s all Queen Victoria’s fault. 
She had nine children during the nineteenth century.
Vicky was the oldest. She married a Prussian Prince, Frederick, and become Crown Princess of Prussia. They only reigned for three months because he had throat cancer. Vicky’s daughter married a Greek prince and became Queen of Greece.
Albert Edward was her heir. He married Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Alexandra’s relatives included the Romanovs of Russia. His daughter married and became Queen of Norway.
The next in line was Alice. Alice married a German Princeling. Her daughter married Nicholas, heir to the Romanovs. They took the throne of Russia as the last Czar and Czarina of Russia.
After Alice came Alfred. His daughter became Queen of Romania.
Of the remaining children all married. The youngest daughter was Beatrice. Her daughter Ena married the Crown Prince of Spain.
So Victoria’s granddaughters sat on the thrones of Greece, Norway, Russia, Romania and Spain.
Spreading hemophilia wherever their genes touched down…
Yeah, but they were related even before Victoria-it just got even more out of control with her numerous offspring.
And Ena didn’t marry the Crown Prince, but the King. Alfonso XIII was King at his birth, because his father died before he was born, and a regency was appointed. If he had been a girl, the throne would have gone to his older sister.
flodnak, it’s very possible that story was true-the Danish royals were well known for being informal and walking around the streets of Copenhagen just like everyone else.
They don’t change all that fast, though. In 1968, the marriage of crown prince Harald (now king) to Sonja (now queen) was quite controversial because of her non-royal (although respectable upper class) background. The crown prince actually had to threaten to give up his rights to the throne in order to get permission from the king to marry her.
The marriage of our current crown prince to non-royal Mette-Marit in 2001 was controversial as well, and although most of the objections were related to her personal history, there were some “he ought to marry someone of royal blood” noises as well. There’s a surprising amount of old fashioned feelings around this royalty-stuff.
Regarding Religion: Going back a bit further than the 19th century, Catherine the Great began life as Sophia Augusta Frederika of Anhalt-Zerbst in Germany (now Poland). She converted to Orthodox to marry Grand Duke Peter of Russia, later Peter III.
Thank you, all! I can’t adequately express my simple joy at having so many bright people from all over the world answer my meager question.
Thanks again!
Where do you get it from that he was gay? No such reference. http://www.nndb.com/people/901/000097610/
Also the mention of boots connected with his sexuality is puzzling. Were you thinking of Earl Long in the movie Blaze? “I get more traction with my boots on.”
Slight hijack: Victoria’s son Leopold fell in love with Alice Liddell, inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s books. Both his and her mother agreed he could not marry a commoner.
He eventually married a princess and named their only child Alice. Alice named her second son Leopold.