To understand how the Royal Family seem to have relatives all over Europe, we have to go back to Queen Victoria, who reigned from 1837-1901.
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had nine children: Victoria, Edward, Alice, Helena, Louise, Leopold, Alfred, Arthur and Beatrice – and managed to marry most of them off to Europe's royal families. Their descendants then proceeded to keep marrying each other's relatives, which makes them cousins many times over – and family lineage difficult to unravel.
However, to make life simple, we'll keep to the ones who played a major role in uniting Europe's royal families.
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Let's start with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's eldest daughter, Victoria, who married Prince Frederick of Prussia. They went on to not only become King and Queen of Prussia but also Emperor and Empress of Germany after Germany united in 1871. Their eldest son Wilhelm became the Kaiser Wilhelm II, while their daughter Sophia married Constantine, Crown Prince of Greece.
Now, this is where it can start to get complicated as families start to intertwine so pay attention.
Albert and Victoria's eldest son Edward VII married Princess Alexandra of Denmark. Her father was King Christian IX of Denmark, while one of her brothers became King George I of Greece (father of Constantine, above) and from whom the late Prince Philip (consort of Queen Elizabeth II) is descended. Alexandra's sister Princess Dagmar married Emperor Alexander II of Russia.
We then come onto Albert and Victoria's daughter Alice. She married a fairly minor European royal, Prince Louis of Hesse. However, their daughter Alexandra would go on to marry Dagmar and Alexander's son Nicholas II of Russia. Incidentally, Alice's granddaughter was Princess Alice - the mother of Prince Philip...
Now we come onto the Norwegian Royal Family. The British Royal family is related to them through the marriage of King George V's daughter Princess Maud to her first cousin Prince Carl of Denmark (Christian IX's grandson), who then became King Haakon VII of Norway in 1905, when Norway split with Sweden.
For links to the Spanish Royal Family, we go back to Princess Beatrice, Queen Victoria's youngest child. She married Count Henry of Battenberg and their daughter Victoria Eugenie married King Alfonso XIII. Today's King Filipe VI is their great grandson.
Prince Philip's name also comes up again in the Spanish Royal Family as he was first cousin once removed to Queen Sofia of Spain. This is because his father was a brother to Queen Sofia's grandfather, King George I of Greece (Alexandra of Denmark's brother). We hope you're keeping up.
The Swedish King is also a descendant of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert through two of their sons, Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught and Strathearn and Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany. Prince Arthur married Princess Louise Margaret of Prussia (first cousin to Fredrick – the husband of Victoria) and their daughter Princess Margaret of Connaught married King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden, and they are the grandparents of today's Carl XVI Gustaf.
Now onto Leopold. He married Princess Helena of Waldeck and Pyrmont and their grandson Princess Sibylla of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha married Prince Gustaf Adolf (King Gustaf VI Adolf's son) and is the mother of Carl XVI Gustaf.
We hope that's clear? There were also lots of other marriages between the families – but these were the main players as it were...
Now one European royal family we haven't mentioned is the Belgian Royal Family. In 1831 Queen Victoria's uncle Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was offered the title King of the Belgians and his descendants still reign today.
There are also links to many other of Royal Families. King Leopold of Belgium's wife was Princess Louise of Orléans, the daughter of the King of the French, Louis Philippe I.
The British Royal family also have links to the Dutch Royal Family, in particular through the marriage of George II's daughter, Princess Anne (also known as the Princess Royal) to William IV, Prince of Orange. Their grandson Willem would become the first king of the Netherlands in 1815. Today's King Willem-Alexander is a direct descendant of Anne and William IV, Prince of Orange.
You can't help but think family get togethers would have been entertaining, complicated – and potentially political dynamite, especially during the volatile first half of the 20th century...
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Top image: Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain and Queen Margrethe of Denmark. Getty
