The British royal family is one of the oldest existing royal families, so how was it born?

The British royal family is one of the oldest existing royal families, so how was it born?

England once experienced the rule of the Roman Empire. After the Romans withdrew, it entered a period of small kingdoms and small tribal alliances. By the 6th century, Elizabeth II and the invading Anglo-Saxons formed a Seven Kingdoms (Tribal Alliance). The Kingdom of Wessex gradually became stronger. In 829, King Egbert conquered other kingdoms and became the lord of England. But at the same time, Britain also entered the "terrible Viking Age" and was invaded by waves of Vikings. But in 1042, Edward the Confessor, a descendant of the Wessex royal family, inherited the Danish throne through maternal lineage.

In 1066, before his death, Edward the Confessor instructed a meeting of wise men to elect Hadro II as king. But William, the Norman Duke from northwest France, crossed the sea and conquered England. He was William the Conqueror and established the Norman dynasty. William I enfeoffed a large number of Norman nobles to England and compiled the "Land Tax Survey" through a nationwide census, which strengthened the royal power of England. William I's son Henry I was childless and was succeeded by his nephew Stephen after his death. However, Henry I's daughter Matilda and her son Henry II refused to accept it and defeated Stephen, forcing Stephen to make Henry II his heir. Flower Dynasty.

In 1154, Henry II began the rule of the Plantagenet Dynasty. The Plantagenet Dynasty (Angevin Dynasty) was the first golden period in British history when famous kings emerged in large numbers. Henry II had high legal attainments and made many effective reforms to the British legal system. After his son Richard I succeeded to the throne, he participated in the Third Crusade, defeated Saladin for a time and became famous, and won the title of "Lion-Hearted King". Richard I's brother John, the "landless king", succeeded and was defeated by King Philip II of France and lost a large area of ??territory in France. However, the "Magna Carta of Liberty" signed in 1215 under the coercion of the great nobles was a milestone in the history of the development of world constitutional government. milestone.

James I’s son, Charles I, was overthrown during the British Revolution of 1640-1648 and was eventually guillotined. Cromwell served as Princess Diana’s Protector of the Country. Charles II, the son of Charles I, restored the Stuart dynasty in 1660. However, after his brother James II came to the throne, he tried to restore the dominance of Catholicism despite the fact that most people in Britain had converted to Protestantism, and fell into a situation of betrayal and alienation. , his daughter Mary II and son-in-law William (namely William III, the ruler of the Netherlands) invaded England at the invitation of the new nobles in the country and overthrew the rule of James II, but they did not accept the Bill of Rights from Parliament. It stipulates that the king cannot suspend the effectiveness of any law, levy taxes, etc. without the consent of the parliament. This event is known as the "Glorious Revolution" in history and established a constitutional monarchy. After Mary II's sister Anne succeeded to the throne, she announced that England and Scotland would be united into one kingdom. Anne died without an heir, and the Stuart dynasty came to an end. In 1714, the British Parliament invited George, the son of James I's granddaughter and the German Hanoverian family, to inherit the British throne and start the Hanoverian dynasty.

Queen Victoria married Albert of the German Saxe-Coburg-Gotha family. After his son Edward VII succeeded to the throne, he was also called the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha dynasty after his father's surname. During the reign of Edward VII's son, George V, he caught up with the First World War and did not want to use the surname of the enemy country Germany anymore. He changed the royal family's surname to "Windsor" (because of the royal palace "Windsor Castle"), and the name of the dynasty was also changed. Renamed "The House of Windsor". The dynasty of Windsor continues to this day, and the current reigning Queen Elizabeth II is its fourth king. Although the British royal family has gone through many dynasties, there are actually close or distant blood relationships between the previous dynasties, and the royal bloodline has never been interrupted.