The Nazi relative that the Royals disowned

[trof]

Behind the Queen's diamond wedding is the extraordinary untold story of how her marriage was almost scuppered by Philip's links to one of Hitler's closest henchmen...

The scene was one of devastation and squalor.

At a prisoner-of-war camp in Germany, in the weeks following the death of Hitler and the fall of the Third Reich, a 60-year-old man, crippled by arthritis, stumbled painfully round a rubbish dump.

He scrabbled in the rotting refuse until he discovered an old tin can. Starving, he pulled up grass to add to the thin soup his American captors allowed him for sustenance.

No one looking at him would have believed that this forlorn figure had once been one of the richest and highest-ranking men in Britain, a royal duke, the grandson of Queen Victoria, a Knight of the Garter, and the first cousin of kings and emperors.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=498894&in_page_id=1770

Damned fascinating story.

[skygazer]

1. Interesting article

Though the overuse of the word "tragic" and all its derivatives is a little distracting.

[trof]

2. I really don't get the whole 'royalty' thing.

We have some close friends who are ex-pat Brits.
U.S. citizens for many years now.

I've asked them to explain why Great Britain still 'suffers' this and about the only thing I get from them is 'centuries of tradition...we'll NEVER do away with the Royal Family'.
Whatever flotes your bote, I guess.
:shrug:

[Kutjara]

4. There's a bit more to it than that.

First off, the British Royal Family is big business, bringing in billions of dollars of tourism revenue every year. All the Royal residences are huge tourist draws, as are things like the Changing of the Guard and other "historic" pageants. The Queen and her family more than pay their way in terms of sheer income to the Treasury.

Secondly, the UK equivalent of the US Executive Branch is "The Crown." Many foreigners take this to be the same thing as "the monarch," but it's not. The Crown is the monarch and his/her ministers in Parliament (meaning the Prime Minister and his/her cabinet). It also (unofficially) encompasses the Civil Service. Constitutional changes over the years have reduced power of the monarch to essentially nothing so, today, The Crown, really just means The PM, his Cabinet and the Cabinet's various departments (Health, Defense, Agriculture, etc.) But the legal language in which political power is held and transferred is still phrased very much in terms of the monarch.

So, while it may seem a small thing to simply get rid of the Royal Family, it would actually be a huge deal, necessitating a total rethink of the British Parliamentary system. There's also the matter of the Constitution. Britain doesn't have one. Or rather, it does, but it isn't written down anywhere. The British Constitution is taken to be the body of law and practice that forms the British political and legal system. If you think this sounds circular, you aren't the first. Nevertheless, it's worked fairly well in practice over the centuries, so nobody's in too much of a hurry to change it.

Getting rid of the monarchy would necessitate the creation of a new Constitution, a written one. That's a pretty huge job that doesn't come with any guarantees of success, so most people just forget all about the monarchy and pretend Britain is a regular old democracy, one that just happens to have a slightly loony family of inbred fuckwits as ceremonial head.

Like many things British, stuff that generally works doesn't get messed with. The Royal Family know their place, toe the line, and bring in the cash, so they're allowed to keep on doing whatever it is they do. Open supermarkets, mostly.

[trof]

6. That is, ABSOLUTELY, one of the best explanations I've heard.

And anyone who 'toes' the line instead of 'tows' the line is Aces in my book.
:hi:

[fudge stripe cookays]

3. Wow. Interesting.

I can't believe I'd never heard of him before.

Man...that Victoria. What a battle-axe. What an awful legacy she created.

If only she had had fewer daughters, and had not carried the hemophilia gene. Her daughters married the heads of so many countries, and the hemophilia that they carried affected the political spectrum all through them.

[cmkramer]

5. Charles Edward actually has much closer ties with Sweden and the Netherlands

His mother was the sister of Queen Emma who was the great grandmother of the present Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands.

His daughter Sybilla was the mother of the present king of Sweden although she was never queen herself. She, like her father, was a member of the Nazi party. Interestingly enough, her granddaughter Madeleine looks very much like her.

He had about 5 or 6 children all but one of whom had at least 5 children of their own so he has quite a few descendants alive today.

[Rabrrrrrr]

7. You're just trying to deflect the spotlight of ancestral inquiry off your family, Trofhitler.

:eyes:

[trof]

9. Dey vahz only vollowing ohrdurz.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. The article doesn't explain any connection between Philip and Charles Edward

It describes how Charles Edward was a first cousin of George V, Elizabeth's grandfather, but it gives no connection at all between him and Philip. Looking at the ancestors of Philip on Wikipedia, I can't see any connection there closer than Queen Victoria - through whom Elizabeth was equally closely connected (Philip's grandmother was also a 1st cousin of Charles Edward - Elizabeth and Philip are 3rd cousins, because both had Victoria as a great great grandmother; they're also 2nd cousins once removed, because Christian IX of Denmark was Elizabeth's great great grandfather, and Philip's great grandfather. If you're going to keep it in the family, why not do it twice?).

So I think the Mail is talking bollocks when it says the "marriage was almost scuppered by Philip's links to one of Hitler's closest henchmen" - those links were already in the royal family.