The Monarchs of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha
In 1840 Queen Victoria married her maternal cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The eldest children of Victoria and Albert married into the ruling houses of Europe, and the many international marriages of their grandchildren resulted in granddaughters becoming queens consort of Norway, Greece, Romania, and Spain, and Tsarina of Russia.
Inevitably, when war split Europe in 1914, there were personal tragedies, as cousins took up arms against each other.
Before the First World War ended, the Russian Tsar had been deposed; in its aftermath the emperors of Austria and Germany and the minor German rulers also lost their thrones. Since then, through revolution or coup d'etat or as the result of the Second World War, all but seven of Europe's kingdoms have become republics. Yet, through the network of intermarriage between members of royal families, in six of those seven kingdoms descendants of Victoria and Albert reign: in Britain, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, and Spain.
The duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was inherited by Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and at his death it passed to his nephew Charles Edward, Duke of Albany, in whose family the title remains.
