Queen Victoria had nine children, and she was obsessed with marrying them into every royal house she could reach. It was a geopolitical strategy: keep the family close and the power closer. Little did she know, her great-great-grandkids would end up kissing cousins at Windsor Castle.
Elizabeth was a direct descendant of Victoria’s eldest son, King Edward VII. Philip, on the other hand, descended from Victoria’s second daughter, Princess Alice. So they shared Victoria as a great-great-grandmother—textbook third cousin territory.
But here’s the kicker: Philip’s mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was also a great-granddaughter of Victoria. That makes Elizabeth and Philip second cousins once removed through a different line. Yes, they were double-dipping in the gene pool.
How Are Queen Elizabeth And Philip Cousins at Samantha Buck blog
Was this considered normal for royalty? Oh, absolutely.
Marrying cousins wasn’t just accepted—it was expected. European royals were basically one big incestuous club. Think of it like a medieval mafia: keep the money, keep the titles, and for heaven’s sake, don’t marry a commoner. Philip’s own parents were first cousins, so he was practically born for this.
But does that make their love story creepy? Not necessarily. They met as teenagers (Elizabeth was 13, Philip 18) at the Royal Naval College, and the attraction was instant. She wrote him letters; he visited during the war. By the time they married in 1947, they’d known each other for eight years—cousin status or not.
Let’s be real: royal cousin marriages were common enough to be boring. Queen Victoria herself married her first cousin, Prince Albert. So Elizabeth was just following family tradition—literally. The British monarchy’s history is a game of musical chairs where everyone ends up related.
