British Royal Family
The British monarchy and royal family history has its origins in the Kings of the Angles, Saxons and Scots. It was Wessex that rapidly emerged under Alfred the Great as the dominant regional kingdom in England. His grandson Athelstan could be described as the first monarch to rule over a unitary state.
The royal family consists of those familial relatives closest to the reigning monarch. It has an intrinsic historical, political, social and cultural function. This significance stems from the hereditary principle, the fact that its members beginning with the first born male are in line to inherit the throne. There is created here a stability and certainty in government due to the existence of a pool of possible successors and a clear order succession.
The Norman conquest of 1066 increased the significance of the royal family since it hastened the process of centralisation. It also established clear graduations within English society, a hierarchical feudal system, made manifest in an Anglo-Saxon peasantry, a Norman aristocracy with the royal family and royal court at its pinnacle. The process of centralisation continued apace under the Tudors and then subsequently in tandem with that of democratization.
Hence the importance of the royal family tree in constitutional and national terms. A preliminary examination of this genealogical representation soon focuses on the nature of the transfer of power from one branch of the family to another. For example, from Lancastrian to Yorkist or from Tudor to Stuart punctuated by civil conflict and strife as well as much political intrigue.
The present royal family tree has its roots in the Hanoverian succession. We tend to think of the “inner circle” the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and her immediate children. But in truth “the firm” is a much more complex and loosely defined phenomenon. It includes many minor royals such as the Duke and Duchess of Kent. In terms of royal family history its function remains unchanged but must be viewed in the context of a modern progressive constitutional monarchy.
