Aug 17, 20232 min read

The Three Monarch Cousins Attend A Wedding in Berlin

Princess Victoria Louise of Prussia's Wedding

On May 24, 1913, Victoria Louise was scheduled to be married to the Duke of Brunswick, Ernest Augustus. The two were third cousins once removed which may seem strange today, but was customary in that day. With this marriage, it was hoped that this would end a lengthy dispute between the Houses of Hohenzollern and Hanover.

In honor of the occasion, Kaiser Wilhelm II invited his extended family from every realm. Interestingly, this meant that the King of Britain, and the Russian Tsar received an invite. This was King George V and Tsar Nicholas II.

How was it possible that the leader of Britain, Germany, and Russia were all related to one another...and not just distantly? This cannot be explained simply, but rather, it is a tangled web of lineage going all the way back to King George II. In fact, each leader was fifth cousins as equal descendants of King George II. But not only were they related going back to King George II, they were all close cousins. Nicholas and George were first cousins and the similarity in their appearance was uncanny. Wilhelm and George were first cousins whose grandmother was Queen Victoria. And Nicholas and Wilhelm were second cousins one way, and also third cousins another way. Wilhelm was also first cousins to Nicholas' wife, Alexandra Feodorovna.1

When World War I had finished, only one of the cousin monarchs remained in power...King George V. Nicholas and his family had been tragically executed during the Bolshevik Revolution. And Kaiser Wilhelm II and his family were forced to flee Germany in exile, finding protection in the Netherlands.

By 1920, the German government had its own revolution in the wake of the war, and the Weimar Constitution was adopted, creating a republic. And in Russia, the Bolsheviks ushered in a communist dictatorship.