The House of Windsor: How George V rebranded the monarchy
After Queen Victoria’s reign, the British royal house was called Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. So, why did the George V family name change to Windsor in 1917?
Image: George V | Public Domain
The British monarchy has many deep-rooted German links. The first two Hanoverian monarchs — George I and George II — grew up in German lands. George III and Queen Victoria had German-born spouses. The prevalence of the Protestant faith across German territories only strengthened their ties with staunchly Protestant Britain.
However, the British royal family’s German heritage actually started to become problematic during World War I. After all, Britain and Germany were now militarily at each other’s throats. It all underlined the urgent need for the reigning British king George V and family to give themselves sweeping PR makeovers. Allow us at Sky HISTORY to tell the story of how the House of Windsor began…
What is the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha?
When Queen Anne died in 1714, Britain had to look abroad for its next monarch. Otherwise, the throne would be inherited by a Catholic, an unthinkable prospect as far as Parliament was concerned. The immediate Protestant heir was the Elector of Hanover, who took the British throne as George I.
George and the next five British monarchs — George II, George III, George IV, William IV and Victoria — belonged to the House of Hanover. However, Victoria’s son and successor Edward VII reigned under his German-born father Prince Albert’s royal house, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
The House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha originally came from the 19th-century German duchy of that name. The first sovereign duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (and Prince Albert’s father), Ernest I, had previously held the similar duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. However, territorial changes led to the formation of the new duchy in 1826.
The British royals are rocked by a PR crisis
For George V, family was everything. Compared to his playboy father Edward VII, he had a rather staid, modest demeanour. So, you can easily imagine how distraught George must have felt when he realised how his family’s German connections were harming their image.
It’s not like they could easily hide those connections, either. Many British princes’ titles came with distinctly German names. The worst offender was the name of the royal house itself. It wasn’t the done thing at a time when even owning a dachshund (a German dog breed), could get you cancelled by your fellow Brits.
For the royals, things took a further reputational turn for the worse in March 1917. That’s when Germany started bombing London with a new type of bomber aircraft, the ‘Gotha G.IV’. The name ‘Gotha’
was now toxic in the UK, especially after one incident where a Gotha bomber attacked a London school, leaving 18 children dead.
Changing the George V family name
George knew he had to change his royal house’s name from ‘Saxe-Coburg and Gotha’, but to what? Perhaps a name of a former British royal house, like ‘Plantagenet’, ‘Tudor’ or ‘Stuart’? All were considered, but the 20th-century royals needed more of a clean slate.
It was George’s private secretary Lord Stamfordham who eventually suggested the name ‘Windsor’. It was a name with regal undertones going back centuries — right back to when William the Conqueror built Windsor Castle, today an esteemed royal residence.
The new George V family name ticked all the right boxes. It sounded distinctly British, and didn’t carry the negative baggage associated with the names of previous royal dynasties. Especially importantly, George himself approved of it. On 17th July 1917, he issued a royal proclamation declaring: ‘Our House and Family shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor’.
In the same proclamation, George also unveiled new rules for Queen Victoria’s descendants ‘who are subjects of these Realms’. These living royals would abandon the use of any German styles, dignities, titles, honours and appellations they happened to still be holding.
How the House of Windsor has endured
The royal house’s name change to ‘Windsor’ proved immediately popular with the British public. Such was its popularity, it even remained in place after Queen Elizabeth II’s accession in 1952. Her husband Prince Philip had originally expected ‘Windsor’ to be supplanted by his own family name, ‘Mountbatten’. However, a new royal proclamation on 9th April 1952 put paid to that idea.
The House of Windsor has survived numerous scandals engulfing the monarchy in the decades since. Examples include Edward VIII’s abdication in 1936 and the humiliating divorce of Charles and Diana, Princess of Wales in the 1990s.
How has the George V family name change shaped the British monarchy in the longer term? One great way to find out is to subscribe to the Sky HISTORY Newsletter.
