King Charles' Royal Family Tree: The Line Of Succession From Queen Victoria's Reign You Need To Know
King Charles ascended the throne upon the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, on September 8, 2022.
The following evening, the monarch gave his first televised address as King, during which he spoke of the 'deep sense of gratitude' he had for his mother, along with her 'abiding love of tradition' and 'fearless embrace'.
He later said: ‘As the Queen herself did with such unswerving devotion, I too now solemnly pledge myself throughout the remaining time God grants me, to uphold the constitutional principles at the heart of our nation.
'My life will of course change as I take up my new responsibilities. It will no longer be possible for me to give so much of my time and energies to the charities and issues to which I care so deeply, but I know this important work will go on in the trusted hands of others.'
On Saturday, May 6 2023 King Charles will officially be crowned during his coronation ceremony, with a procession set to take place from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey. His wife, who is currently referred to as Camilla Queen Consort, will be crowned Queen Camilla as it was revealed that ‘consort’ had been dropped from her name when the coronation invite was published on April 4, 2023.
Ahead of the poignant royal event, preceding a Bank Holiday for the nation, we're taking a moment to take a deeper look into King Charles' royal family tree.
As many royal fans know all too well, the King is a father to sons Prince William, 40 and Prince Harry, 38 – whose mother is the late Princess of Wales, or Princess Diana as she is popularly known. The monarch’s eldest child, by tradition, is next in line to the throne. William himself has three children (Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis), while his younger brother Prince Harry has two (Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet), making Charles a proud grandfather-of-five.
Outside of King Charles' immediate family, the royal family tree is expansive. Here is a closer look at his ancestors and successors:
Queen Victoria
Queen Victoria, born May 24, 1819, was the longest reigning monarch in British history until her great-great granddaughter, Queen Elizabeth II. The daughter of Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent—fourth son of King George III—and German widow Princess Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, came after a succession crisis which meant that she was the only legitimate heir to the throne. A month after her 18th birthday she became Queen following the death of her uncle, King William IV.
Queen Victoria married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Known as ‘the grandmother of Europe’, she had nine children, 42 grandchildren, and 87 great-grandchildren.
After Prince Albert’s death in 1861 she remained in mourning for the remainder of her 40 years of life.
King Edward VII
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s second child and firstborn son, known to his family as 'Bertie', was the longest serving heir to the throne before King Charles III. He ascended the throne on January 22, 1901, after the death of Victoria, and reined for nine years until his death in 1910.
Princess Alice
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert's third child experienced a lot of tragedy in her life. She nursed her father before his death, was believed to have been in an unhappy marriage to Grand Duke Louis IV of Hesse, and tragically lost several of her children.
Princess Marie died from diphtheria aged four and Prince Friedrich passed away due to haemophilia. Alice’s youngest surviving daughter, Alexandra, was the last Empress of Russia, but like Alice’s other daughter Elisabeth, who married into Russian nobility, was executed by the Bolsheviks in 1918.
King George V
King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra’s second son, George, was first in line to the throne after his older brother, Prince Albert Victor, died in 1892. He later became the Prince of Wales when his father ascended the throne in 1901. King George V reigned from 1910 to 1936 and officially changed the royal family’s name during WWI from the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to House of Windsor, and so became the first Windsor monarch.
Victoria Mountbatten
Victoria was the eldest daughter of Princess Alice and was named after her grandmother Queen Victoria, who attended her birth at Windsor Castle. Alice married her first cousin on her father’s side, Prince Louis of Battenburg, but the family changed their surname during WWI to Mountbatten. Her daughter Louis became Queen of Sweden, and her other daughter Alice, who would later give birth to Prince Philip, married into the Greek royal family before they were overturned. The royal’s son Louis would become integral to the British Navy and later became a confidante to Prince Philip.
King George VI
George VI was second born, like his father, and so wasn't expected to ascend the throne. But after his brother King Edward VIII abdicated the throne – less than a year after his succession, to marry American divorcee Wallis Simpson – the former prince was crowned King.
Following his coronation in 1937, George led England through WWII and post-war life. He married Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon (otherwise known as 'the Queen Mother') and had two daughters, Princess Margaret and the future Queen Elizabeth II.
Princess Alice of Greece and Denmark
She was born at Windsor Castle in 1855 and named after her grandmother, Princess Alice. The princess was born deaf and learned to speak by lip reading. Aged 18, she married Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark – the father of five children, including Prince Philip, the future husband of Queen Elizabeth II. Her family fled Greece in 1922 and later that decade she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Upon her return to Greece she took on charitable work, and in the late 1940s she established an order of nuns. While her health deteriorated, she spent the later part of her life with her son Prince Philip and his wife Queen Elizabeth at Buckingham Palace before her passing in 1969.
Queen Elizabeth II
Queen Elizabeth II was the longest reigning and living monarch in British history. She ascended the throne aged 25. At the time she was already a mother to the future King Charles III and Princess Anne. She and Prince Philip, who she married at Westminster Abbey in 1947, would later have two more children, eight grandchildren and 12 great-grandchildren. Her Majesty passed away at Balmoral Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland, aged 96, on September 8, 2022.
Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh
While widely known as Queen Elizabeth’s Prince Consort, Prince Philip was a descendant of Queen Victoria on his mother’s side, making him a royal in his own right. He and his family were exiled from Greece during his childhood, but he became a citizen of England and worked in the British Navy prior to marrying then-Princess Elizabeth. He was the longest living male British royal upon his death in 2021, aged 99.
King Charles III
King Charles III, the current reigning monarch, took the throne following the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth in September 2022. He had been the longest-serving Prince of Wales in history, as heir to the throne for 70 years. The then-Prince Charles was born at Buckingham Palace in 1948. Upon graduating from the University of Cambridge, he was the first British monarch to have a university degree. Charles served in the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy, too.
In 1981 he married Lady Diana Spencer, who would become Princess Diana, with whom he became a parent to sons Prince William and Prince Harry. After Charles' and Diana's divorced in 1996, he later married Camilla Parker Bowles, who is now known as Camilla, Queen Consort.
Prince William
The then-Prince Charles and Princess Diana (also formerly known as the Prince and Princess of Wales) welcomed their first son William the year after their 1981 wedding at St. Paul's Cathedral on July 29.
After graduating from University of St. Andrews in Scotland (where he attended from 2001-2005) with an MA in Geography, he went on to train at Royal Military Academy Sandhurst.
He was later commissioned as a British Army officer in December 2006, after undertaking a 44-week course as an Officer Cadet. The committed royal took up a post within the Household Cavalry (Blues and Royals) as a second lieutenant, and after completing his time there served in the Royal Air Force and the Royal Navy.
The prince learned to pilot helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft during his four months at the RAF, and he trained and navigated with sailors and the Royal Marines during his two months with the Royal Navy.
Following his training as a search and rescue pilot in 2009 he retrained as an air ambulance pilot and worked with the East Anglian Air Ambulance for more than two years from March 2015. ‘When I put my air ambulance hat on and I come here and I fly, I'm one of the team,’ he said of working as an air ambulance pilot.
The prince is patron of the Royal Air Force Battle of Britain Memorial Flight and Honorary Air Commandant of Royal Air Force Coningsby.
His charitable efforts also include working as a patron of Centrepoint, the UK’s largest youth charity for the homeless, and a patron of the Tusk Trust, a UK-based African conservation charity, in 2005.
Prince William proposed to Kate Middleton, who he met at University of St. Andrews, in 2010 and the pair married at Westminster Abbey in April 2011. The couple share three children together – Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis.
Together with Middleton, on May 16, 2016 he launched the Heads Together campaign with an aim to end the stigma around mental health. Then, in December 2019, he launched the Earthshot Prize to try and banish cynicism regarding the climate crisis, aiming to instead act on repairing the planet.
On September 10, 2022 King Charles announced Prince William would be appointed the Prince of Wales. William is first in line to the throne.
Prince Harry
Prince Harry, the Duke of Sussex, was born on September 15, 1984 at the same Paddington hospital as his brother and was christened two months later at St George's Chapel, Windsor.
Although he is commonly known as Harry, his full name is Henry Charles Albert David and has the official surname Mountbatten-Windsor, like his brother.
He attended Mrs Mynors School, followed by Wetherby School, and later joined Ludgrove School in Berkshire before attending Eton College. Thereafter, he took a gap year in Australia, Argentina and Africa, where he worked with numerous charities.
Upon turning 18 in 2002, the late Queen gave him his own Coat of Arms, and he designed the crest, integrating an emblem from his mother’s family arms.
Prince Harry served in the Army for 10 years, and become captain, partaking in two tours of Afghanistan. He was the first member of the royal family to be in combat during his tour.
In 2004, he passed Regular Commissions Board (RCB), the qualification needed to train at Sandhurst, which assesses mental, physical and emotional aptitude to find those suitable. He joined The Royal Military Academy Sandhurst in May 2005 to train as an Officer Cadet. Then in April 2008, he gained the rank of Lieutenant with The Household Cavalry (Blues and Royals).
In 2011, the Duke took to the North Pole to raise awareness for the wounded servicemen and women as part of the Walking with the Wounded charity.
The prince went on his first overseas trip to Italy with his parents in May 1985 when he was just eight months old. In 1997, on a trip to South Africa with his father, he met Nelson Mandela and watched the Spice Girls perform. He went on his first solo royal tour ahead of the 2012 Diamond Jubilee and visited Belize, the Bahamas and Jamaica.
Drawing on his time in the armed forces, Prince Harry founded the Invictus Games in March 2014. The international sporting event that, uses ‘the power of sport to inspire recovery, support rehabilitation and generate a wider understanding and respect for wounded, injured and sick Servicemen and women’, as per the website.
Prince Harry married former Suits actor Meghan Markle on May 19, 2018 in St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle. The pair welcomed their first child, Archie, a year later on May 6, 2019, who was delivered at Portland Hospital in London.
The couple later made the decision to step back from their duties as senior members of the royal family in 2020 and relocated to Montecito, California in the same year. They then welcomed a baby girl, Lilibet ‘Lili’ Diana, on June 4, 2021.
Prince Harry and Markle are the founders of impact-driven global nonprofit The Archewell Foundation that empowers and unites local and global communities.
Following an interview with his wife and Oprah Winfrey in March 2021, he had another ITV interview with Tom Bradby and starred in Netflix’s Harry & Meghan documentary. In the latter the couple made a series of claims about their struggles as members of the royal family, and the Duchess’ alleged mistreatment.
The Duke’s highly anticipated Spare memoir was released in January 10.
Prince George
Prince William and Kate Middleton welcomed Prince George on July 22, 2013. He was christened in St James' Palace chapel on October 23, 2013 – the private service was conducted by the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. As the eldest child of William and Kate, he is second in line to the throne.
Princess Charlotte
The first and only daughter of Prince William and Kate Middleton was born at St Mary’s Hospital on May 2, 2015 and later christened at the Church of St Mary Magdalene, Sandringham on July 5 of that year. She is sweetly known as 'Lottie' to her mother Kate, and her father was reportedly overheard calling her 'Mignonette' (a French-inspired nickname meaning 'cute') during a visit to Middleton's Back to Nature’ garden.
During Prince William and Middleton's Canada tour in September 2016, a 16-month-old Charlotte delighted royal fans when she was heard uttering her first words at a children's party. Excitedly running over to balloons she spotted, Charlotte said 'pop' and 'dada' to her father.
Prince Louis
The youngest child of the Prince and Princess of Wales was born on April 23, 2018. In September 2022 he started attending co-educational prep school Lambrook in Berkshire, along with his siblings, George and Charlotte, who previously attended Thomas's Battersea in London. Having started the new school, following the family’s move from London to countryside, it marked the first time Louis had attended school with his older siblings.
Archie Harrison Mountbatten-Windsor
Meghan Markle and Prince Harry welcomed their first child the year after tying the knot. He was christened in the private chapel at Windsor Castle in the same christening gown that his cousins, Prince George, Princess Charlotte and Prince Louis, wore.
Lilibet Diana Mountbatten-Windsor
Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s second child and first daughter takes her forename from the Queen’s nickname and middle name from her late grandmother Princess Diana.
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