English and British Royal Marriages


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Lady Ann

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Might sound like a dumb question but I always read how Lady Diana Spencer was the first English Woman to Wed and Hier to the throne in 300 years was not the Queen Mother and English Woman. Does any one know what is ment by this? Thanks in advance ....:bang:
 
The Queen Mother (Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, daughter of the 14th Earl of Strathmore) was Scottish, not English.
 
Oh that makes more sense then, I did not think that she actually did not marry the hier to the throne in the frist place either, but 300 years seems like a long time....
 
The Queen Mum did not marry the heir to the throne. She married his brother.

Prior to that, almost all Royal marriages--and especially those to heirs--were contracted with other Royals, which basically meant importing Princesses from the Continent.
 
Even the late Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (nee Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott) was Scottish. Princess Marina, being born Greek royalty, commented that her sisters-in-law were "common Scotch girls."
 
Marrying royal to royal always seemed like genetic suicide to me...you can't have a restricted gene pool like that because eventually if you marry royalty to royalty you never add new blood and EVERYONE is related to everyone else which leads to more genetically related problems...you get the idea. Granted they didn't know as much about science and genetics as we do today but still.
 
Was Diana's suitability partly because she was finally England's rose? Subtly Royal in her distant past, tall, fair, beautiful and young enough to breed a few successfully? And then there was Camilla ..
 
Even the late Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (nee Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott) was Scottish. Princess Marina, being born Greek royalty, commented that her sisters-in-law were "common Scotch girls."

Which is grossly unfair for if historically Scotland and England had had the same development as Germany, then the daughters of Dukes and Earls would be considered the daughter sof souverains just like the daughters of the rulers of the little principalities, counties, dukedoms of Germany were.

For example the princess of Oettingen who was the maternal grandmother of empress Maria-Theresia and of Sophie Charlotte, Friedrich II.'s queen of Prussia came from a small principality in Bavaria which consisted of a "capital" with 2000 people and the surrounding area of maybe 15 square kilometers, where a lot of other nobles had their estates, too. I bet the estates of English and Scottish Lords were about as large but because politics took their independence from them, they were not considered to be souverains but peers.

So it is a bit unfair to make statements like that.
 
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Even the late Princess Alice, Duchess of Gloucester (nee Lady Alice Montagu-Douglas-Scott) was Scottish. Princess Marina, being born Greek royalty, commented that her sisters-in-law were "common Scotch girls."
How ignorant, it would be 'common Scots girls', Scotch as we all know was and is a drink!:whistling:
 
How ignorant, it would be 'common Scots girls', Scotch as we all know was and is a drink!:whistling:
I'm not sure exactly how the quote went, but it was something to that effect. It was in an older version of the Wikipedia article about Princess Marina.
 
And actually it's perfectly reasonable to refer to them as Scotch. When we refer to the drink, 'Scotch' is a shortened form; 'Scotch Whisky' is what it's called. Scotch is an adjective, meaning the same as 'Scottish'.
 
And actually it's perfectly reasonable to refer to them as Scotch. When we refer to the drink, 'Scotch' is a shortened form; 'Scotch Whisky' is what it's called. Scotch is an adjective, meaning the same as 'Scottish'.

You sure about that? All Scots that I ever knew (quite some) would agree with Sky - who is at least part-Scot herself.
 
I wonder how "Scottish" the Queen Mum really was.

There are some sources that say she was really born in England (Hertfordshire?) and there was a considerable amount of intermarriage between the Scottish and English aristocracy.

Have I created a firestorm?
 
Quite sure, but with a caveat: most Scottish people would bristle if a non-Scots person referred to them as Scotch. This comes from my grandmother, who is from Edinburgh.
 
Quite sure, but with a caveat: most Scottish people would bristle if a non-Scots person referred to them as Scotch. This comes from my grandmother, who is from Edinburgh.

In any case it was a terribly unpolite thing to say when the "fount of all honours" agreed to the matches, thus declaring them "equal" and foreign titles are notoriously un-recognized in the UK. Which one can understand on hearing such an arrogant comment. As if Marina herself was responsible for her ancestors' marriages, so could claim their glory!
 
Well yes of course it was impolite. I don't think that is being argued here.
 
if she was the 1st woman to marry into the royal family in 300 years.

who was the last one??????
 
I believe you could say it was Anne Hyde, who married James II. She was his first wife. Of course, you could also say Anne Boelyn, albeit a second wife, then Jane Seymour, Kathrine Howard or Katherine Paar. All English and married to a king.
 
Anne Hyde, wife of James II? Charles II was king when they married, and Anne was an English commoner.
 
I believe you could say it was Anne Hyde, who married James II. She was his first wife. Of course, you could also say Anne Boelyn, albeit a second wife, then Jane Seymour, Kathrine Howard or Katherine Paar. All English and married to a king.

Jinx, Countess! :) I think that Anne must be it, though, if we're looking for an English woman who married an heir to the throne. Anne, Jane, and the two Katherines married a reigning king.
 
You sure about that? All Scots that I ever knew (quite some) would agree with Sky - who is at least part-Scot herself.
Perfectly right Jo, no self respecting Scot would take kindly to being called Scotch, that is only correct for the drink!
Quite sure, but with a caveat: most Scottish people would bristle if a non-Scots person referred to them as Scotch. This comes from my grandmother, who is from Edinburgh.
The majority of Scots would bristle if it came from anyone! :eek:
 
I'm not sure exactly how the quote went, but it was something to that effect. It was in an older version of the Wikipedia article about Princess Marina.
I'm sorry EmpressRouge, it was not a rebuke aimed at you, I realised it was a quote from a source. :flowers:
 
I understand that the word "Scottish" is a bit of an insult as well...something about it being an English term.:)


Perfectly right Jo, no self respecting Scot would take kindly to being called Scotch, that is only correct for the drink!The majority of Scots would bristle if it came from anyone! :eek:
 
I understand that the word "Scottish" is a bit of an insult as well...something about it being an English term.:)
No, not at all. Scottish for Scots is the same as English for the English or Welsh for the Welsh. The only word that is unacceptable is to be called Scotch.:flowers:
 
Interesting. I was told otherwise by a professor from Scotland in the early 80s. I stand corrected, though.:flowers:

No, not at all. Scottish for Scots is the same as English for the English or Welsh for the Welsh. The only word that is unacceptable is to be called Scotch.:flowers:
 
So far as royal mistresses who marry a king is a topic of discussion, check out the career of the beauteous and influential, and much despised Elizabeth Woodville 1437 - 1492. She was the lover, then Consort, of Edward IV.
 
So far as royal mistresses who marry a king is a topic of discussion, check out the career of the beauteous and influential, and much despised Elizabeth Woodville 1437 - 1492. She was the lover, then Consort, of Edward IV.

Just goes to show how much more power a king back then had... Or how much more liberal the morals were then. A lot of what we consider today of the very strict codex of the past was only introduced by queen Victoria - lots of her ancestors surely led a more than morally lax life.

As for marrying equally: I doubt this was so important a point in England and Scotland in general in the past. It was more a thing of political neccessity for the English and Scottish kings to form alliances - the English tried to preserve their French inheritance from Eleonor of Aquitaine and their influence in the French and Flemish provinces bordering the North Sea and the Channel while the Scottish kings searched France's back-up against England. So marrying into the European Royal families was important - as it was later to marry into the German Houses of the North to protect Hannover from Prussia.

Only after WWI Royal alliances were not longer important as political means and immediately the Royals started to marry commoners - first ladies from noble families and lately middle class girls.

BTW - Elizabeth Woodville at least was the daughter of a Luxembourg-princess, who was not only cousin to the Luxembourgian emperors of the Holy Roman Empire but whose sisters had married important dukes from the reigning dynasty in France, who owned lands close to the Channel and the North Sea (Bretagne and Maine). Elizabeth's uncle from her mother's side was the enormously influential Connetable de St. Pol, who through his marriage to Joan of Bar controlled the Channel-harbour of Dunkerque. The Connetable's son from his marriage to a Savoy-princess became Great-Chancellor of France during the time Elizabeth Woodville was queen of England - quite an important relative!

Elizabeth thus brought enormously important connections to the French and Germany dynasties to her husband and her son-in-law, the first Tudor-king.

In a way this marriage was as dynastic as the others - Jaqcueline of Luxembourg, her mother, had married into the English Royal family first, so was a dynastic bride herself. Her first husband was the third son of Henry IV., John of Lancaster, duke of Bedford, the infamous duek of Bedford who had Jeanne d'Arc tried and executed. When he died, Jacqueline married Elizabeth's father Richard Woodville.
 
Marrying royal to royal always seemed like genetic suicide to me...you can't have a restricted gene pool like that because eventually if you marry royalty to royalty you never add new blood and EVERYONE is related to everyone else which leads to more genetically related problems...you get the idea. Granted they didn't know as much about science and genetics as we do today but still.

I agree! And you're certainly right about the genetic problems. One word: Hapsburg! They were the perfect example of a bad result of intermarrying.
 
So far as royal mistresses who marry a king is a topic of discussion, check out the career of the beauteous and influential, and much despised Elizabeth Woodville 1437 - 1492. She was the lover, then Consort, of Edward IV.


This Queen Consort was the grandmother of Henry VIII right! Apple did not fall far from the tree.....:whistling:All in mind her daughter, Elizabeth of York and Henry VII were said to be very in love.
 
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