He refuses to wear kilts, but the Royal family tree proves that William is still more SCOTTISH than King Charles!
The Royal Family is proud of its Scottish roots and likes to make the very most of them, not least at this time of the year when senior members decamp to Balmoral in Aberdeenshire.
Yet if King Charles can boast a direct descent from James VI of Scotland and I of England, his sons William and Harry have notably more Scottish blood in their veins than their father – even thought they refuse to wear kilts!
No fewer than seven Stuart monarchs ruled the combined throne of Scotland and England from 1603-1714.
Suitably kilted, King Charles opens a distillery in John O’Groats last month
James VI of Scotland and I of England was the first Stuart monarch on the British throne. Charles can trace descent back to James through George I. But William and Harry have three more lines of Stuart ancestry
Like other senior royals before him, Charles has always made a point of wearing kilts when north of the border. Aside from in their youngest years, Harry and William have always refused
Thanks to the Spencer side of their family, William and Harry can count numerous different links back to the Stuart monarchs. Their father, Charles, has only one line of descent
Charles III is descended from just one of them, through James I’s daughter, Elizabeth Stuart, whose grandson, Elector George of Hanover, succeeded as George I.
Also, through his grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, Charles is descended from Robert II of Scotland.
Lady Diana Spencer, meanwhile, was descended from James VI’s son Charles I as well as his grandson King Charles II, but illegitimately through two of Charles II’s many mistresses.
Diana’s grandmother, Lady Cynthia Spencer was descended from Charles Lennox, Ist Duke of Richmond, the child of Charles II and his mistress Louise de Kérouaille.
Another of Diana’s ancestors was Henry Fitzroy, 1st Duke of Grafton whose mother, Barbara Villiers, was another of Charles II’s many squeezes. Barbra was one of the finest looking women of her age and the diarist Samuel Pepys admitted he thought about her in his dreams.
Prince William’s Stuart blood is also boosted by his descent from another Stuart king, James II, who ruled from 1685-88.
Even Catherine, Princess of Wales, seems to wear more tartan than William. But William boasts several lines of Scottish ancestry
The Spencer family are descended from, among others, the 1st Duke of Grafton (pictured), who was the illegitimate son of Charles II and his mistress, Barbara Villiers
Diana Princess of Wales, pictured at the Braemar Games in 1981, was descended from both Charles II and James II
Sarah Ferguson, pictured, Queen Camilla and the Spencer family can all trace their ancestry back to Charles II through his mistress Louise de Kérouaille and their son, the 1st Duke of Richmond
James had an affair with Arabella Churchill, a sister of the 1st Duke of Marlborough and distant ancestor of Sir Winston Churchill. Diana is descended from James and Arabella’s first child Henrietta FitzJames who was born in 1667.
William’s mother wasn’t the only royal wife descended from the Stuarts.
In a coincidence Diana, Queen Camilla and Sarah Ferguson, Duchess of York are all descended from Charles II and Louise de Kérouaille’s son, the afore mentioned Charles Lennox.
What it means is that had Charles II – ‘the Merry Monarch’ – not been quite so ‘merry’, and remained faithful to his wife Catherine of Braganza, there would have been no Diana Spencer, no Camilla Parker-Bowles and no ‘Fergie’. It’s a safe bet to say that recent royal history would have been far less eventful.
It also means that, when he eventually becomes king, the future William V, will be the first descendant of Charles I to reign over Britain since 1714.
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