Wettin (dynasty)

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The Wettin dynasty of German counts, dukes, Prince Electors (Kurfürsten) and kings ruled the area of today's German state of Saxony for more than 800 years as well as holding for a time the kingship of Poland. Descendants of the Wettins (retaining the surname, if not the House name) have, at various times, ascended to the thrones of Great Britain, Portugal, Bulgaria, Poland, Saxony, and Belgium; of these, only the British and Belgian lines retain their thrones today.

1 Origins: Wettins of Saxony
2 Ernestine and Albertine Wettins
3 The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha
4 See also
5 External links

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Origins: Wettins of Saxony

The Wettin family first came to prominence with their creation as margraves of Meissen in 1089. The family advanced over the course of the Middle Ages, being created landgraves of Thuringia in 1263, and dukes of Saxony in 1423 with the dignity of electors of the Holy Roman Empire.

The family divided into two ruling branches in 1485 when the sons of Frederick II, Elector of Saxony concluded that 20 years of joint rule had not been satisfactory. The elder son Ernest, Elector of Saxony received the power of the Electorship and established his seat at Wittenberg, and his younger brother Albert, Duke of Saxony ruled his lands from Dresden. Saxony was thus divided into Electoral Saxony (mainly coextensive with Thuringia), ruled by the Ernestine Wettins, and Ducal Saxony (mainly coextensive with modern Sachsen province), ruled by the Albertine Wettins.

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Ernestine and Albertine Wettins

The inheritance patterns of the two branches differed markedly. Albertine Wettins maintained most of the territorial integrity of Saxony, preserving it as a significant power in the region. The Ernestine Wettins, on the other hand, repeatedly subdivided their territory, creating an intricate patchwork of small duchies and counties in Thuringia.

The junior Albertine branch ruled as kings of Poland (1697 - 1763) and Saxony (1806 - 1918), and headed the French-backed Duchy of Warsaw (1807 - 1814) after Russian invasion had thwarted its assumption of a hereditary Polish kingship under the Polish Constitution of 1791.

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The House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha

Main article: Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

The senior Ernestine branch lost the electorship to the Albertine in 1547, but retained its holdings in Thuringia, dividing the area into a number of smaller states. One of the resulting Ernestine houses, that of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, went on to contribute kings of Belgium (from 1831) and Bulgaria (1908 - 1946), as well as furnishing consorts to queens of Portugal and the United Kingdom (Prince Albert, husband of Queen Victoria). As such, the British throne became a possession of the Wettin family. The actual name Wettin, a German medievalism, was never used in Britain.Template:Fact

Although the British Royal Family's Royal House name was Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, the descendants of Victoria and Albert had their personal surname changed to Windsor by an Order-in-Council of King George V in 1917.

As a result of Queen Elizabeth II's marriage to Prince Philip of Greece, the throne will pass to his House, although they will probably continue using the name Windsor as a house name and Mountbatten-Windsor as a personal surname, as prescribed by Queen Elizabeth's 1960 Order-in-Council.

Mountbatten is an Anglicisation of Battenberg, the title of Prince Philip's mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg.

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