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In the Europe of the 1800s Britain, Russia and Denmark each had a monarch without issue and each lacked an heir to the throne.

Quickly arranged marriages, births and devious strategies check-mated the energetic would-be successors. The three next sovereigns, Queen Victoria, Tsar Alexander II (pictured), and King Christian IX were all offshoots of their own royal families but their paths to the throne were successful and it is their descendants who rule Europe today.

[b]England[/b]

In 1818 the royal race was on. The only child of King George IV, a daughter, died in childbirth, and so George ordered his three brothers to drop their mistresses and illegitimate children. They were to find suitable princesses forthwith!

The task was to supply a healthy child, an heir to the throne.
In 1819 the new Duchess of Kent gave birth to a daughter, the future Queen Victoria. Her father died the following year and it was her German-born mother who had to fight to ensure that Victoria was not knocked off the gilded perch by throne-lusting uncles.

At the age of eighteen, Victoria was crowned queen and three years later she married the German Prince Albert of Sachsen-Coburg-Gotha, by whom she went on to have nine children.

[b]Russia[/b]

In Russia a little boy - the future Tsar Alexander II - marched up and down the shiny floors in heavy boots, his father - Tsar Nicholas I - counting time.

In 1825, when Alexander was seven, his father succeeded to the throne after his childless elder brother. So Alexander grew up in the vast, cold apartments of the Winter Palace, and his military childhood was to mark him for the rest of his life.

Well-educated and adult, Alexander toured Europe, where much to his parents' displeasure he fell in love with the German Princess Marie of Hessen-Darmstadt.

He insisted on marrying her, and once she had given him seven surviving children and her health had failed, it was his Russian mistress who ensured that the flock of children increased by a further four.

[b]Denmark[/b]

Christian (IX) was born in 1818 at Gottorp Castle in North Germany, but grew up at the neighbouring Glücksburg Castle, which King Frederik VI of Denmark had given to his parents.

When he was 13 his father died and he was "adopted" by the King of Denmark and his wife - his uncle and aunt - who had no sons of their own.

The contest for the throne of Denmark was under way.
The king's cousin, Christian (VIII) was meant to inherit the throne, but his eldest son Frederik (VII) was unable to sire any children.

The great powers favoured the poor Prince Christian of Glücksburg, who had learned his soldiering in the Danish army and had married Christian VIII's beautiful Danish-German niece, Princess Louise of Hessen. She gave him six highly promising children.
A Royal Family - The Father-in-Law of Europe biography




A Royal Family - The Father-in-Law of Europe biography




A Royal Family - The Father-in-Law of Europe biography

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