King Charles has sent a special message to Prince Albert II of Monaco as the tiny principality marks its National Day. This year’s celebrations have an added poignancy as Albert is actually marking 20 years since he became Sovereign Prince of Monaco on the death of his father, Prince Rainier III.
The start of his reign was officially marked on Monaco’s National Day in 2005 even though he had taken the throne seven months earlier. As Monaco celebrated with Albert, King Charles sent a message marking the moment. In it, The King said he was ”so pleased that our countries share such strong ties”. He hinted at those ties in the same message, noting the shared passion that he and Albert II have for tackling climate change.
But there are dynastic ties between the Windsors and the Grimaldi. It means that King Charles is very loosely related to Prince Albert II, only son of Princess Grace and Prince Rainier. And those links go back to an unhappy princess whose name is all but lost to history.
The connection between the House of Windsor and the House of Grimaldi begins in the 19th century when Albert I, Prince of Monaco, married a beautiful and willful British aristocrat called Lady Mary Victoria Hamilton. Her father was the 11th Duke of Hamilton and her mother was a German princess, Marie of Baden. Marie provides the first link between the Grimaldis and the Windsors.
Marie Amelie Elisabeth Caroline of Baden, born in 1817, was the daughter of Charles, Grand Duke of Baden and, through him, was the great, great, great granddaughter of Jan Willem, Prince of Orange. One of Jan Willem’s great, great, great, great granddaughters was Queen Mary – the great-grandmother of our present King. It’s this 17th century ruler of Holland who connects the current Royal Families of Great Britain and Monaco.
But there is another, even older link between the two houses and again it comes from Lady Mary Victoria. Her father William was an important Scottish peer, and descended from Mary, eldest daughter of James II of Scotland (1437 – 1460). James II’s son, James III, was the direct ancestor of all later Scottish monarchs including Mary, Queen of Scots whose son, James VI, in 1603 united his country’s crown with that of England where he was known as James I. His direct descendant is Charles III.
The woman who provides these links, Lady Mary Victoria, actually spent very little time in Monaco. Her marriage to a prince called Albert was an arranged one and the couple met for the first time around a month before their wedding, which took place at the fabulously romantic Chateau de Marchais in France. Their only child, Louis, was born a year later, but Mary Victoria began to dislike her life in Monaco, and she eventually left her husband. Their marriage was annulled in 1880, nine years before Albert became Monaco’s Sovereign Prince.
But while Mary Victoria may never have been consort of Monaco, she does ensure that the current royal house has links to the British Crown.
Which means that the ties that King Charles III spoke about have dynastic echoes too and link the House of Windsor to the royal family made so famous by Albert II’s mother, Princess Grace.
