Contents
About the Author
Also by Alison Weir
Dedication
Foreword
1 The Saxon and Danish Kings of England
2 The Norman Kings of England
3 The Angevin or Plantagenet Kings of England
4 The Later Plantagenets: The Houses of Lancaster and York
5 The Tudors
6 The Kings and Queens of Scotland from the 9th Century to 1603
Part One: The House of MacAlpine
Part Two: The House of Dunkeld
Part Three: The House of Balliol
Part Four: The House of Bruce
Part Five: The House of Stewart
7 The House of Stuart
8 The House of Hanover
9 The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha becomes the House of Windsor
Author's Note
Select Bibliography
Copyright
About the Author
Alison Weir was born in London and now resides in Surrey. Before becoming a published author in 1989, she was a civil servant, then a housewife and mother. From 1991 to 1997, whilst researching and writing books, she ran a school for children with learning difficulties before taking up writing full-time. Her non-fiction books include The Six Wives of Henry VIII, Lancaster and York, Children of England, Elizabeth the Queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Mary Queen of Scots, Henry VIII: King and Court, Isabellaand, most recently, The Lady in the Tower. She is also the author of three best-selling novels, Innocent Traitor, The Lady Elizabethand The Captive Queen.
Alison Weir
BRITAIN’S ROYAL
FAMILIES
The Complete Genealogy
To Rankin, John and Kate
Also by Alison Weir
Non-fiction
Britain’s Royal Families: The Complete Genealogy
The Six Wives of Henry VIII
The Princes in the Tower
Lancaster and York: The Wars of the Roses
Children of England: The Heirs of King Henry VIII 1547 – 1558
Elizabeth the Queen
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Henry VIII: King and Court
Mary Queen of Scots and the Murder of Lord Darnley
Isabella: She Wolf of France, Queen of England
Katherine Swynford: The Story of John of Gaunt and His Scandalous Duchess
The Lady in the Tower: The Fall of Anne Boleyn
Fiction
Innocent Traitor
The Lady Elizabeth
The Captive Queen
Foreword
In 1965, when I was fourteen, I read for the first time an adult historical novel. It was about Katherine of Aragon, and was entirely forgettable, except for the fact that it left me with a thirst to find out more about its subject. Subsequently, I read many more novels, and then many history books, and my interest expanded from the Tudor period to encompass the whole sweep of British, indeed, European, history. But from the first, my chief fascination was with the British monarchy, and it became my ambition to produce a book that would provide the reader with a complete genealogical record of all the royal families of England, Scotland and Great Britain.
It has taken me more than 22 years to research this book. Throughout this time I have consulted countless books and articles in various libraries, visited sites of interest, and revised the manuscript at least eight times. It may seem strange, but despite the fact that there are numerous and detailed books on the British monarchy, and even on royal genealogy, there is not one that gives a complete record of all the members of the various royal houses and families. To obtain such a record, I have had to research each person individually, cross-checking the facts where possible from alternative sources, and re-checking against new works as they were published. I have used original, contemporary sources for verification wherever possible.
The result is Britain’s Royal Families, which I am convinced will prove an invaluable aid to the student of royal history, and will provide much of interest for even the most casual of royalty watchers.
Alison Weir
London, 1989
CHAPTER ONE
The Saxon and Danish Kings of England
There have been kings in England for more than 2,000 years, and yet this realm has been a monarchy for little more than half that time. Up until the Dark Ages, kingship was basically tribal, invested in chieftains of Celtic or Romano-British stock. Then, in the middle of the 5th century, England began to feel the impact of the Barbarian invasions that were changing the face of Europe. Angles, Saxons and Jutes came to these shores, settled, and then colonised the land. There then evolved 7 kingdoms, known to historians as the Heptarchy. The earliest kingdom was established in Kent by Hengist, son of a Germanic chieftain, in around A.D. 455. The other kingdoms were Essex (the East Saxons), Sussex (the South Saxons), East Anglia (the East Angles), Lindsey, Bernicia, Deira, Mercia and Wessex (the West Saxons). Lindsey was centred around Lincoln; the names of its kings are not known to us, and it was very soon swallowed up by neighbouring kingdoms. Bernicia and Deira combined later on to form the kingdom of Northumbria, the first of the biggest three kingdoms to establish supremacy over the rest.
Christianity came to Kent in the late 6th century, and soon spread to the rest of the Heptarchy, although there were pagan influences still prevalent until the late middle ages. Not so welcome were the raids of the Vikings from Scandinavia, which were the scourge of England (and other countries also) from the 8th to the 11th centuries, and which attained their ultimate achievement in the Norman Conquest of 1066.
Northumbria was the first kingdom to achieve supremacy, and during the 7th century it was a centre for the arts and religion. Unfortunately, the light of learning was extinguished during the following century because of the Viking raids. At that time, Mercia was in the ascendant. This kingdom comprised the Midlands and some of the southern counties. At its peak of supremacy, Mercia was governed by King Offa ( d.796), who established firm government and overseas alliances. However, after his death, the kingdom declined because of ineffective leadership, leaving Wessex in the ascendant.
The kingdom of Wessex had been founded in A.D. 519 by a chieftain called Cerdic, who came to Britain from Germany in 494/5. His descendants, proud to bear his name, called themselves ‘Cerdingas’. H.M. Queen Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of Cerdic. Later Saxon chroniclers would boastfully trace Cerdic’s descent from Adam and Eve, via a mythical son born to Noah in the Ark, but of course this is pure fiction, for Cerdic’s ancestors were in fact obscure tribal chieftains and elders.