How German is the Queen?

She was born in London, served as a mechanic in the war and prefers dogs to humans. How much more British could HM be?

The Queen and Prince Phillip will pay a visit to Germany in June Photo: GETTY IMAGES

By Dominic Selwood

6:00AM BST 24 Jun 2015

"Elizabeth the Second, by the Grace of God, of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and of Her other Realms and Territories Queen, Head of the Commonwealth, Defender of the Faith".

You can’t get more British than that, really.

Yet as the Queen prepares for another state visit to Germany, idle minds again turn to questions about the connections between our two countries, and not least the Teutonic heritage of the Royal Family.

So, to put it in a nutshell, how German is the Queen?

^{Workers unfurl a large banner of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II above the entrance to the Technical University of Berlin (Reuters)}

The obvious place to start is the family tree, although unfolding it is enough to make even the most seasoned genealogist reach for a stiff drink. Yet what comes across very clearly — and very quickly — is that there is a lot of German in it.
There is no real starting point, but we may as well begin with 1714. Queen Anne died, and her direct Stuart line came juddering to a halt. This caused a thorny problem because her 50 (or thereabouts) closest suitable relatives were all Catholic, so distinctly non grata. They were passed over, and in the end Georg Ludwig, the Protestant Prince Elector of Hanover, got the job, and our royal house changed from Stuart to Brunswick-Lūneburg-Hanover, bringing with it a wealth of connections to the ancient royal houses of Welf and Este.
It is worth pausing to note that, until recently, members of the Royal Family had no surname. They customarily used first names and the name of their house, which was inherited from the father (Richard the Lionheart was a Plantagenet, Henry VIII was a Tudor, George I was a Hanover).
Accordingly, the House of Hanover ended with Queen Victoria, and her descendants took the dynastic name of her husband, Prince Albert, which was also German: Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, a branch of the eminent House of Wettin.
Simple. But it does not end there.
^{The Queen and Prince Philip meet the cast of the Richard Strauss opera 'Der Rosenkavalier' after a gala performance at the National Theatre in Munich in 1965}
When World War One bred increasing anti-German sentiment in Britain, astute observers noted that Kaiser Bill was Queen Victoria’s grandson and our King George V’s first cousin. In recognition of the delicacy of the position, George V changed the name of his royal house from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Windsor, after the castle. At the same time, he also took the modern step of adopting Windsor as a surname for his family.
On her accession, Queen Elizabeth II chose to keep the name Windsor, and in 1960 the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh announced that they wanted their descendants who do not have an HRH title to be Mountbatten-Windsor. (Mountbatten is the Duke of Edinburgh’s adopted name. His German-Danish-Greek royal lines are Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glūcksburg on his father’s side, and Battenberg on his mother’s.)
Well, so much for the German genealogy – not to mention customs. The Royal Family still opens its presents on Christmas Eve, following the German tradition, which Prince Albert was particularly keen on following.
On the other hand, there’s no point overstating it. The Queen is also directly descended from over a thousand years worth of Britain’s royal houses, including the Stuarts, Tudors, Plantagenets, Angevins, Normans, and Wessex.
^{The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh meet dignitaries at a banquet in Mainz during their state visit to West Germany in May 1978}
It is, in fact, worth remembering that the word “English” is derived from the Angles, of Anglo-Saxon fame. When the Romans cleared out of Britain in AD 410, a range of German, Danish, and Dutch tribes that we sloppily call the Anglo-Saxons moved in from across the Whale Road. That’s not forgetting the Vikings either, who brought Danish, Norwegian, and Swedish blood to swathes of Britain. So, to be honest, if we scrutinise the Royal Family’s connections with the Fatherland, we should take a long look at our own, too, and acknowledge that this country has had the most profound and close genetic and cultural ties with the people of Germany and Scandinavia for over 1,500 years.
To put it in perspective, the Queen’s family have lived in Britain for many centuries. She speaks English as her first language and French fluently. Not German. She was born in Bruton Street, Mayfair. She grew up largely at 145 Piccadilly, Richmond Park, and Windsor Great Park. She served in the war as a mechanic and driver with the Women’s Auxiliary Territorial Service. She is unostentatious, supremely diplomatic, and often seen laughing. She rides without a hat, enjoys playing the Nintendo WII, and is fond of racing pigeons. Most especially of all, she is known throughout the world for her keen love of dogs and horses.
How much more British could HM be? Seriously?