What is the origin of the House of Windsor and why did it change its name during the First World War?

The accession to the throne of King Charles III has made the new king the fifth monarch in the line of the House of Windsor, the reigning royal house of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth countries.

The lineage was established in 1901 when Edward VII, Charles III great-great-grandfather, was crowned. Edward was the eldest son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert and inherited when the crown when his mother died after 63 years on the throne. She had been the last Hanover queen to rule, the line passing over to the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha on Edward VII’s accession. Founded in 1826, the royal house supplied monarchs to an eclectic list of countries including Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Mexico and Portugal.

At the time, little was made of the transition. Queen Victoria had been a Hanoverian monarch, a royal house founded in Germany in 1625 as an offshoot of the House of Brunswick-Lüneburg. Prior to the reshaping of the European political and monarchical map in the 20th century, the extensive branches of the continent’s royal houses reached into practically every palace. Victoria herself was half-German on the side of her mother, Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and married another German, her lifelong consort Albert. By the time George V succeeded his father Edward VII as the head of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1910, however, storm clouds were brewing on the European horizon with the great powers divided into the Triple Entente of France, Britain and Russia and the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy.

Royal relations at war

Such was the intertwined nature of the European royal houses that when World War One broke out in 1914, the monarchs of Britain, Russia and Germany, George V, Tsar Nicholas and Emperor Wilhelm II, were all related. George and Wilhelm were first cousins, the German Kaiser being a grandchild of Queen Victoria and nephew to Edward VII, with whom he developed a fractious relationship. George and Nicholas were also first cousins and great friends, while Wilhelm and the Tsar were also distant cousins. Despite this family connection, the three could not prevent war in Europe, despite the urging of Tsar Nicholas in particular for conflict to be avoided.

Hopefully, but hopelessly, described even at the time as the “war to end all wars,” the First World War cost the lives of 10 million military personnel among all combatants and between 6 million and 10 million civilian deaths.

George V establishes House of Windsor

The progress of the war and simmering anti-German sentiment on the home front forced George V to act.

On the recommendation of his trusted advisor Arthur John Bigge, who had served as private secretary to Queen Victoria, the king chose the name Windsor to be taken on by the royal house on July 17, 1917, issuing a proclamation changing the name of the British royal family:

“Whereas we, having taken into consideration the Name and Title of Our Royal House and Family, have determined that henceforth Our House and Family shall be styled and known as the House and Family of Windsor. And whereas We have further determined for Ourselves and for and on behalf of Our descendants and all other the descendants of Our Grandmother Queen Victoria of blessed and glorious memory to relinquish and discontinue the use of all German Titles and Dignities.”