British Royal Family Tidbit!

May 6th 2023. Coronation Day for King Charles III. NBD.

So many of us around the world are familiar with the British royal family. The tabloids have splashed them in front of us time and time again. Some of us are all for the tradition and pomp and glamour of knowing that royalty exists. Others see the family as tainted by generational wealth built upon the backs of slaves and oppressed colonies. Regardless of how you feel about them, they're a mainstay of the world's culture. It's pretty hard to forget about them, since the news will cover almost anything they do.

My personal fascination with the royal family is about their lineage. I mean... how exactly has there been an unbroken line of succession dating all the way back to the Viking era of the 9th century?! That's just the tiniest bit bonkers.

But genealogy is something we can all relate to! (Pun intended.) We desire to know where our people come from. Because ultimately, we all stem from the same ancestors. It's just a question of degrees.

I recently discovered a tidbit about the Prince and Princess of Wales, William and Kate. And it has to do with degrees of separation!

Let's start with a fact that seems more well-known: the late Queen Elizabeth II and her husband, Prince Phillip, Duke of Edinburgh, were third cousins. They both shared a great-great-grandmother, Queen Victoria. But this doesn't surprise us much, because Phillip was royal before they married. He was Prince of Greece and Denmark by birth. Queen Victoria is known as the grandmother of Europe, since her multiple children married off into other royal families.

The media around the current Princess of Wales, Kate (formerly Middleton), was always that she was a 'commoner'. Not royal. Just like the rest of us. ...who also happened to grow up privileged and go to fancy schools and easily fit into William's friend group at St. Andrews University. Which is where they met.

But today's tidbit is that she's not a complete commoner. GASP!

Kate's lineage of interest goes right the way back to the time of the Tudors. Yep, we're talking King Henry VIII!

Sort of.

One of the best-known facts about Henry VIII is that he married many times over. And his most famous wife is Anne Boleyn. Mother of Queen Elizabeth I. Who then never bore any children. And yet, Kate (formerly Middleton) is related to Anne Boleyn.

Through her sister, Mary Boleyn!

Mary Boleyn was King Henry VIII's mistress before he married Anne. The Boleyn family is a whole other topic, I know... But Mary was treated separately from her "villainous" family because she had been a fallen woman and of no political consequence. Nobody was worried about her! So, after her sister's demise, she married a man named William Carey. Mary and William had two children together.

It's Mary's daughter, Catherine Carey, who had two daughters we are especially interested in for this tidbit. Catherine's daughter Elizabeth Knollys married Sir Thomas Leighton.

Kate is 13 generations removed from Elizabeth Knollys AKA Lady Leighton through her daughter Elizabeth Leighton.

Ready for a plot twist?

Catherine's older daughter Lettice Knollys married Walter Devereaux, 1st Earl of Essex. William (yes, Kate's husband, the current Prince of Wales) is 14 generations removed from Lettice Knollys through her son Robert Devereaux, 2nd Earl of Essex.

Can you manage yet another plot twist?

Mary Boleyn also had a son, named Henry Carey, 1st Baron Hunsdon. William, Prince of Wales, is 12 generations removed from Henry Carey.

How is that possible??

Henry Carey's descendants married into the Spencer family. Yep, the family that Diana, Princess of Wales came from.

But wait!! There's even more!!

Elizabeth Knollys AKA Lady Leighton had another daughter named Anne. And Anne's descendants also married into the Spencer family.

William and Kate both descend from Mary Boleyn. William descends from her through both of her children. They are fourteenth cousins once removed through William's mother, Diana, and fifteenth cousins through his father, the King of England.

I love this kind of tidbit - because it shows us the intricacies of genealogy. Even two seemingly unrelated British people (even if they're very well-known) could be related. There are millions of other people around the world with ties to the British royal family.

I also think this tidbit is a fascinating look at how homogenous a people and culture can be. Kate didn't come from the middle of nowhere. She also came from generational wealth, the nobility of England. Is it that surprising then, that she was able to "marry into royalty"?

Perhaps not.

It certainly puts "Meg-xit" into a different context, doesn't it? But we'll save that tidbit for another day...