Why Have The Brits Got A German As Their Head Of State?

Question

Why do the British people need a German as their monarch. Can't they find anyone to grovel too who is actually British?

Answer 1

she was born in england and both her parents were englsih that automatically makes here english  not german how did you work that one out?

she may have german decent but it goes back a few generations

Answer 2

By this logic (the Queen is not British, because her ancestors did not come from Britain), there are no Americans (besides the bufffalo-hunting lot) at all.

What a pleasant thought :)

Answer 3

Considering that the original inhabitants of Britain were a bunch of people called The Beaker People (and that was 2500 years ago) and THEY were invaded by Celts,  who in turn were invaded by Romans and they by Jutes, Angles, Saxons, Frisians, Vikings, Vandals--- and then the Normans came I'd say we are hard pressed to find anyone who could be considered to have true 'British' Blood.

Of course the latest invasion comes from Poland.  Perhaps we need to swap Queen Liz for a Pole?

Answer 4

yeah, makes a lot of sense doesn't it??  Its about time we deported them back to Germany and had an elected head of state

Answer 5

As long as they are not CATHOLIC! they would put a MONKEY on the throne first..There,s certainly a lot more questions to be asked!!

Answer 6

since when has the british monarch   been English or British  .   Harold  at   Hastings?? Who else is there ,     OK I know the house of Windsor   was created about the time of the first world war ...  Instead of Hanover,,,    But current royalty have few  German or continental connections  apart from Philip who is a Greek prince..

Answer 7

Under English law a Catholic may not become monarch. This resulted in the Hanovarians continuing the bloodline. Furthermore, the Hannovarians WERE NOT GERMAN. They certainly spoke a dialect of high german and they were ethnically germanic, but the state of Germany didn't exist at this time. (I would rather have a german as my head of state than a mad texan.)

Answer 8

The royal family has intermarried with many other royal families during the course of history.  That is what royalty do.  There is no member of any royal family who is of pure descent.  Nor do I see any reason why they should be.  How many British people are of pure descent anyway?  many different races have come to our shores and adapted to life in this country.  The same, as far as I am aware, is true of most countries, including America.  How many 'racially pure' americans are there?

The last British monarch to be born in Germany was King George II, about three hundred years ago. do you not think by now you could have forgiven the royal family for the terrible crime of intermarrying with German royalty?

Answer 9

We don't and we don't grovel either.We are not like you.

Answer 10

And what is precisely British. Every person in the Uk is a heinz 57 variety. Americans believe Britain is Europe, so how fitting that most British people are a mixture of most of the European countries.

Answer 11

Even the British aren't actually British, the amount of times we have been invaded by others who have settled here means that in fact the monarchy is as British as we are.

Answer 12

Fact is the last british monarch to have been a German (at least culturally) was Victoria, who died more than a century ago. Her successor have been as english as any of their subjects.

As to why a German dynasty (the Hanoverians in the person of william III, and then the georges etc) was called to the british throne, it happened that, having married James II/VII's daughter, william of orange was the closest protestant man with sufficient rank and family relations to the king to be regarded as having some eligibility to the throne, and being acceptable to the English nobility who wanted to get rid of the Catholic leaning king. So when they rose against James, he was offered the throne instead of it going to its legitimate holders.

Same thing when anne died, the closest related protestant was Sophie of Hanover, who died weeks before Anne did, so her son george inherited.

Answer 13

Yawn. This is a stupid question. It's 10 generations since we imported a German to be king (George I). The present queen's mother's family is Scottish, and what with the Normans, Welsh, Scots, and Dutch as well as the Germans, it's 940 years since the throne of England was occupied by an ethnic Englishman. What with all the immigration in the last 3000 years you'll be hard put to find anyone who's ethnically homogeneous, and if you go back 10,000 years you'll find that everyone in Britain is descended from immigrants anyway.

Answer 14

The Queen was born in England,  and both her parents were British. That would make her British by birth and law.

What IS your problem?

Answer 15

I believe our Queen was born in Britain and  is therefore as British as you.

The last German link in the Monarchy died with the death of Queen Victoria, and that was only because she married a Prince from Saxo Coburg which was a seperate principality to Germany, But prince Alberts Mother was a German.

Answer 16

Why do you care?

Answer 17

500,000 chance of Victoria being legitimate

quote

The inescapable conclusion is that, since no other member of European Royalty prior to Queen Victoria had hemophilia, this must mean that some unknown man who was not royalty popped her mother. In other words, stated differently, Queen Victoria was a b*****d! More than that, since virtually the entire European royalty is descended from Queen Victoria, this means that all of the Royal Families of Europe are b******s! (Of course, we already knew that!)

The royals today are worse, hypocrites

Answer 18

The truth is...for over a thousand years most of our monarchs have either been French, Dutch or German.

I can't help thinking it is linked to our liking of animals!

Answer 19

She's British,not German.Remember her mother,Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon,a proud Scotswoman?

The House of Hanover became the ruling house when there were only Catholics available in the line of succession;the Catholics had to be passed over in favor of other faily members who could uphold the Protestant Line of succession.

http://www.royal.gov/uk/output/Page105.a...

"The Hanoverians came to power in difficult circumstances that looked set to undermine the stability of British society.

The first of their Kings, George I, was only 52nd in line to the throne, but the nearest Protestant according to the Act of Settlement. Two descendants of James II, the deposed Stuart king, threatened to take the throne, and were supported by a number of 'Jacobites' throughout the realm.

For all that, the Hanoverian period was remarkably stable, not least because of the longevity of its kings. From 1714 through to 1837, there were only five monarchs, one of whom, George III, remains the longest reigning king in British History.

The period was also one of political stability, and the development of constitutional monarchy. For vast tracts of the eighteenth century, great Whig families dominated politics, while the early nineteenth century saw Tory domination.

Britain's first 'Prime' Minister, Robert Walpole, dates from this period, and income tax was introduced. Towards the end of the Hanoverian period, the Great Reform Act was passed, which amongst other things widened the electorate.

It was also in this period that Britain came to acquire much of her overseas empire, despite the loss of the American colonies, largely through foreign conquest in the various wars of the century. By the end of the Hanoverian period, the British Empire covered a third of the globe.

The theme of longevity was set to continue, as the longest reigning monarch in British history, Queen Victoria, prepared to take the throne."

Victoria's husband was German,but her son married a Danish woman,Queen Alexandra.Edward VII and Alexandra's heir married the English-born but from a German Royal House Mary. George V and Mary's son,George VI married the Scottish Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon.And one of their daughters,Elizabeth II married her third cousin,the Danish descendant of Queen Alexandra,Philip. All of Europe's royals are related to each other in some way!

The family continues to marry British brides with Diana, Sarah and Sophie and husbands Anthony Armstrong-Jones,Daniel Chato,and Mark Phillips.Each generation is becoming more British,but why the xenophobia?

Answer 20

We used to have an Englishman, but parliament sacked him and got the Germans in.

Our present monarch had a Scottish mother (well mostly, one of the Queen Mum's female ancestors was part of the Aga Khan's family, so the queen is descended from Mohammed).

Her father had a German mother.

His father had a Norwegian mother

His father's parents were both German but both were descended from Henry VI who was a Welshman who stole the crown after claiming to be someone he wasn't.

The heir to the earlier English royal family is a bloke called Bruce Plantagenet who lives in Australia.

Of course, the English claim to be descended from Anglo-Saxons, who were Germans.  The royals claim to be descended from William the Conqueror, who was a Norwegian living in France.

But if you wish, you can grovel to me. I'm 3/8 English, 1/8 Scottish, 1/4 Welsh and 1/4 Italian.  I must be the ideal candidate.

Answer 21

There are two reasons for this.

1. Royalty tend to marry only other royalty. While this was never technically a requirement in Britain it was generally the practice. What we consider to be Germany today at one time was made up of at least 39 independent states. Therefore there was simply more German royalty than from anywhere else. This is why nearly all of European royalty is partially German.

2. There was a law created that required that no Catholic could take the thrown. This resulted in the Hanovarians taking the thrown.

All this said Queen Elizabeth was born in England as were her parents. This seems to make her British.

Answer 22

Genetically most of us ARE German in part.

The many invasions we`ve gone through during our history make us a VERY Mongrel People.

The original "British" were driven out by Celts (from Europe) ,the Celts were intermingled with the Romans ,then we had an infusion of Germanic Blood from the Angles and Saxons ,then a Nordic infusion via the Vikings and finally the Bloody French came !

By the time we had our first German Monarch (George) there was no-one left of the "British" Royal Family to rule us - we`d been diluted by having a couple of Scots Kings after the last "real English Monarch" Elizabeth.

Answer 23

We haven't.

The present Queen is the senior member of a bloodline that have been monarchs in Scotland for over 600 years and in England for a millennium and a half. How long have your family been in the country you're a citizen of? Not that long, I bet!

Answer 24

actually i am english / welsh, my family line goes back hundreds of years, i am curious about an answer given, it says the queen was born in england, under that premise if a cat is born in a stable does that make the cat a horse?...i do not think so, so why the fact that the current queen being born in england makes her english?....her family is german...battenburgs...i used to think that was a cake lol...or saxe thingies.........

Answer 25

If people would open their minds (and brains) they would do a search and then they would find that indeed most of the occidental leaders, be they king or president, are of Teutonic ethnicity. Washington is a Teutonic name yet has been associated for so long with an English speaking country that most have forgotten the fact.

My mother was french and my father German (I am French) so I have no complaints.