The ... artist formerly known as Prince

Andrew Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

The artificial new name

When the former Prince Andrew was stripped of his title as a prince of the British realm, we were informed that he would henceforth bear the name Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor. Mountbatten is the adapted surname of the family of his father, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and how it came to be Andrew’s is itself an interesting story.

Prince Philip was born in 1921 as a prince of the Greek and Danish royal families. That’s why he was called Prince Philip: he was not initially a prince of the British realm, although the word at court when he got betrothed to Princess Elizabeth was that she was marrying below the salt, so, whilst he had to renounce his Greek and Danish titles, he was nonetheless given British ones to make it seem as if he’d been British all along. In 1939, when he was 18 years of age, he started a correspondence with the then Princess Elizabeth, who was aged 13. That was the age at which Juliet was wooed by Romeo in the Shakespeare drama, so there can be no suspicion of impropriety there. Can there?

Now, out of this correspondence blossomed a romance, which culminated in marriage in 1947, when Elizabeth was 20. Five years later, she would take up her father’s crown. When Philip renounced his foreign titles, he took the surname Mountbatten, which was adopted, not, as you might expect, from his paternal but from his maternal grandparents.

Prince Philip: the spear side

Philip’s father was Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, who led a life as a career soldier. He never ruled (his brother, Philip’s uncle, was King Constantine of Greece, who abdicated over Greece’s neutrality policy in World War I), but, aside from Philip, his only son, Andrew had four daughters,¹ all of whom married Germans and three of whom had Nazi connections. Andrew himself was exiled when Constantine was obliged to abdicate in 1917, though the monarchy was restored in 1920 and survived until 1922, after which there followed the September Revolution, the execution of The Six generals found to be culpable of having lost the post-WWI war against Turkey, a monarchist uprising, and the population exchange of 1923, which eventually led to the founding of the Hellenic Republic in 1924. It endured more or less until a military coup in 1973.

In 1941, however, it changed its formal name to the Hellenic State and it allied, firstly, with Italy (1941-1943) and then, when Italy surrendered to the Allies in World War II, with Germany (1943-1945). That means that Philip’s family on his father’s side were essentially the enemy during the Second World War. The regal family name of his father was Glücksburg, or, in full, the House of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, which were the ultimate descendents of the oldest dynasty in all of Europe: the House of Oldenburg, which is just to the west of Bremen.

Prince Philip: the distaff side

Philip’s mother was Princess Alice of Battenberg (Battenberg being situated about 125 km/75 mi due north of Frankfurt am Main). She married Prince Andrew (of Greece) in 1903, whereupon she adopted the title Princess Andrew of Greece and Denmark. She was born at Windsor Castle in 1885, being a great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria. She died at Buckingham Palace in 1969.

The Battenberg dynasty was a sub-dynasty (cadet branch) of the German House of Hesse-Darmstadt, and most of its members were living in the United Kingdom by the second decade of the 20th century. Because of the declining fortunes of the German Empire in World War I, however, the family changed its surname in 1917,² from Battenberg to the more English-sounding Mountbatten (Berg in German means mountain). What is perhaps notable in this is the fact that the change did not occur in 1914, when Germany was winning the war (invading France and Belgium and enjoying the good life back home, with the war hardly impacting on daily life), but in 1917, when Germany was on the back foot and getting a thorough thrashing from the newly arrived Americans.

As a result, the name Mountbatten, as now assumed by the former Prince Andrew of the United Kingdom, although stemming in his case from his father (as the first portion of a double-barrelled name would suggest), does not in fact stem from his father’s father, but from his father’s mother. By rights, Prince Philip should have assumed the surname Glücksburg, or even Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, and not Battenberg. The conversion of Battenberg into Mountbatten was a blatant act of public relations deceit.

Queen Elizabeth and the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas

What, then, of the second portion of the former prince’s new name—Windsor? It is also a product of manufacture. At the same time as the Battenbergs were changing their name to the more English-sounding Mountbatten, King George V (reigned 1910-1936) was likewise feeling the pinch of his German roots. So, he changed his family name to the name of the place where he lived: Windsor Castle. Prior to that, it had been Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (or Saxe-Coburg and Gotha). Much irony is to be drawn from the fact that the three cousin Emperors of Germany, Britain and Russia, whose centuries of inter-marriage and aristocratic contrivances had ever been justified by the aim of preserving peace among the European peoples, were precisely the three prime movers that plunged Europe into the most terrible war that till then had imposed its scourge on the continent: the First World War. Karma and schadenfreude aside, the fact remains that that conflict ultimately saw the snuffing out of the imperial reigns of precisely Germany and Russia, along with Austria. Yet the imperial crown of Britain endured, and whether that can entirely be ascribed to an astute change of the headed notepaper at Buckingham Palace is a discussion for another time.

Concealment of Britain’s Germanness cannot conceal the scurrilousness of Britain’s ex-prince

The former prince Andrew has been cast out of the royal circle by having his appointments, positions, privileges, accommodations and titles stripped from him. He has been left but a name. A legal name, a fig leaf of a name, and one that wilts before our eyes.

It comprises, to the extent of its patronymic half, the perfidious manipulation of the surname of his grandmother on his father’s side and, to the extent of its matronymic half, the shrewdly propitiously altered surname of his grandfather on his mother’s side. If none of these PR manipulations had ever taken place, not only would the seeker of inappropriate friends formerly known as Prince Andrew now be known as Andrew Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg-Saxe-Coburg-Gotha but there are even serious grounds to posit that he wouldn’t even have ever been a prince of the United Kingdom in the first place; after all, there is no knowing where the anti-German sentiment prompting no fewer than two royal houses to cloak their true identities might have ultimately ended up.

The artificial church leader

All of which, naturellement, brings me to Henry VIII. He it was who broke with the Church of Rome and denied the apostolic succession of popes, by equating the divine right of kings to a divine right of spiritual oversight. Now, whether you believe in God or not, what Henry did in 1531 was to split the church in England off from the Petrine See in Rome, thus breaking with the Christian tradition and documented reasoning of the apostolic succession, traceable back to Saint Peter. Henry established the principle that whoever is monarch of England (having been chosen by God) is accordingly Supreme Head of the Church of England.

Whereas the papacy passes by way of a conclave of cardinals inspired by prayer and divine insight, the head of the Church of England is chosen by accident of birth. Much can happen in 12 years of time, but that is the period that separates King Charles and the former prince’s births: 1948 against 1960. And, had any accident befallen Prince Charles, as was, in the time before his marriage and the conception of Prince William, then the throne would have passed to none other than the aforesaid Andrew, seeker of inappropriate friends. Well, you might say, it didn’t and perhaps that is itself because the will of God prevailed, and I can’t deny that. Except that it’s hard even to argue that Charles III is the divinely appointed head of the Church of England, and here’s why.

The Tudors and the Stuarts

The House of Tudor, under which that leadership position was established, fizzled out upon the death of Elizabeth I of England in 1603. She was succeeded by James I of England, who was already James VI of Scotland. James was Elizabeth’s first cousin twice removed, which is an odd way for God to determine succession to the title of Supreme Head of the Church (although the inclusion of women, such as Lady Jane Grey, Mary I and Elizabeth I, was certainly ahead of how things were done back when the English did as the Romans do).

Anyhow, James ushered in the dynasty of the House of Stuart, and the House of Tudor was thereby consigned to the land of television miniseries. James would be succeeded by his son Charles I, who came to a sticky end in his confrontation with the Parliamentarians under Oliver Cromwell.

The republic = No Kings.

For full 12 years, England was a republic (as, perforce, were Scotland and Ireland after 1653), and had no Supreme Head of its Church. Upon the death of Oliver Cromwell in 1658, the title of Lord Protector passed, in the most ironic of ironies, by family succession (not bad for a new republic), to his son Richard.

The fact Richard Cromwell was a hopeless leader ought not to have detracted from his divine appointment as … whatever he was appointed to do. But, no, he was swept away and the actual king, who had meanwhile been swanning around France, utterly bored and taking the piss out of the French royal family, was suddenly deemed to be a perfect candidate for reviving the English monarchy, and so a somewhat bemused Charles II set forth across the English Channel to reclaim his … er ... divinely bestowed crown.

The Stuart Restoration

Now, Charles II was a Stuart, of that there can be little doubt. As was his brother, James, who would succeed him as James II of England and VII of Scotland. But, even if it could be successfully argued that the Tudors and Stuarts were ultimately the same thing (given that divinely ordained first cousin twice removed relationship), all blood links came to an abrupt halt with the new King Jimmy. It was the Glorious Revolution of 1688 that saw James leg it out of England, throwing the Great Seal into the Thames as he went (thinking, somewhat obtusely, that that would prevent the new regime from sealing any new acts of parliament—I often wonder if it’s still there) and taking the legitimate throne of England back to whence it had come, across that-thar Channel, from which it had actually originally come in 1066. As they say, what goes across comes across.

Oranges and lemons

Ushered in from the wings was James’s daughter Mary II, but she came to be succeeded by her husband, who had co-ruled along with her, William of Orange. Don’t forget, we’re not actually tracing monarchs here. We’re tracing Supreme Heads of the Church of England, and, to be honest, it’s starting to get a little messy.

William III, as he was known, reigned on until 1702, but he was no Stuart, he was of the House of Orange-Nassau. He was succeeded by a Stuart, however: the lemon Anne, who was Mary II’s sister, and very fat. She was buried at St Paul’s Cathedral in London in a square coffin, so huge she was, and she spent no fewer than 17 of the 49 years of her life in a state of pregnancy, all to no avail, as she ended up with no surviving issue to show for it. Without a blood successor, the House of Stuart ended. Punkt, one might say.

The Stuarts strike back

Now, in amongst all that is also the controversy surrounding the Old and Young Pretenders, who were somewhat miffed when, as James II was dispatched to France sans Great Seal, the throne did not fall to James’s only son, James Francis Stuart. Now, the reason may ultimately make eminent sense: Mary II, who did succeed James II, was Protestant, and James Francis Stuart, who didn’t, wasn’t. No, he was Roman Catholic. It would have been odd to have a Roman Catholic Supreme Head of the Church of England, because I reckon the first thing he would have done would be to abolish the Church of England. And nobody wanted that, least of all the Church of England.

So it was that James Francis Stuart and his son, Bonnie Prince Charlie (Charles Edward Stuart), never got to sit upon the throne of England, let alone the throne of their native Scotland, and the dynasty of Stuart came to an unjust end, for at the time male primogeniture was actually the rule of royal succession in England. Well, rules are made to be broken, except … not by God, really. So, I must posit: God had wanted the Church of England abolished, and English manipulators thwarted His divine will! So they did. Well, it can be argued, and still is, up north of the border.

The Hanoverians yield to Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

It doesn’t end there, however. If there are not by now enough breaks in the line of succession between Henry VIII and Charles III, we need only consider the Hanoverians. George I was the great-grandson of James II, and thereby squared a kind of circle that had been described by the exclusion of a rightful heir and inclusion of a Dutch royal house in the meantime. William IV (reigned 1830-1837) was a sideways succession, from his brother George IV. However, that device was not enough to save the Hanoverian dynasty and, upon William’s death, the throne passed to the aforementioned House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, and Queen Victoria.

Therefore, to adore Charles III as the Supreme Head of the Church of England is to adore a cardboard cut-out, if the divine linkage to God in Heaven above is even to be romantically embraced. In literal terms, it is as much of a fake machination as the whole sorry divorce from Rome was five hundred years ago. Woe betide there is a commemoration of that shameful event in five years’ time. And to think that we were perhaps twelve years off having the yearner of inappropriate friends as the Supreme Head of the Church.

If that doesn’t send a chill down your spine, maybe this will:

The artificial soldier

I still can’t believe Charles pitches up in church wearing his military medals.

1. Margarita, Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg; Theodora, Margravine of Baden; Cecilie, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Hesse and by Rhine; Sophie, Princess George of Hanover.

2. With the exception of certain family members in Spain, Bulgaria and Montenegro.