Nothing that is unique in history can, by definition, be unremarkable. It can be unimportant, perhaps, uninteresting, possibly, but never unremarkable. In this new millennium, another unique event in the annals of history has almost been brought about. Currently, three, and possibly four, queens reign at the time in Europe. It is a circumstance that is, indeed, unique.

The three current queens are Elizabeth of the House of Windsor, Queen of the United Kingdom; Margaret of the House of Holstein-Glucksburg, Queen of Denmark; and Beatrix of the House of Orange-Nassau, Queen of the Netherlands. With a change of law in Sweden (first brought into operation on 1 January 1980), the eldest child of the reigning sovereign—irrespective of gender—can now succeed to the throne. Therefore, on her father's death, the Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden will inherit the throne rather than her younger brother, Prince Charles Philip. She would then become the fourth reigning queen (assuming none of the other died or were stripped of the monarchy).

But there is another unique circumstance connected with this: all four are related.

Connections With and Between Four Renaissance Queens
In the mid-sixteenth century, a fiery Scotsman of the reform faith issued an article that is known to history as, "The First Blast of the Trumpet Against a Monstrous Regiment of Women." The fiery Scotsman, John Knox, revealed that he thought a woman's place was in the home, not on a throne. His "first blast on the trumpet" was against four queens: Elizabeth Tudor of England (1558-1603), who never forgave him; Mary of Guise, Dowager Queen Consort of Scotland and widow of King James V, who held with difficulty the throne for her infant daughter; Mary, Queen of Scots; and Catharine de Medici (1519-89), Dowager Queen of France, widow of King Henry II, but queen de facto in the name of her sickly children.

Of these four blasted queens, three are direct ancestors of the millennium queens. The exception is Catharine de Medici. If her son, King Francis II, had had a son with Mary, Queen of Scots—his wife of eighteen months—then Catharine would have been an ancestress. As it was, Francis II died childless.

Elizabeth I
In England, Elizabeth Tudor, daughter of King Henry VIII by his second of six wives (Anne Boleyn), had survived a very uncertain childhood. The uncertainty stemmed from being branded a bastard, banished to Hatfield House, and force to live in virtual penury to being petted by her father, declared legitimate and in line of succession to the throne, and thus in favor. Surrounded by many self-seeking enemies during the reign of her half-brother King Edward VI (1537-53), she circumvented them. After her brother's death, Elizabeth survived the attempt to place the Lady Jane Grey on the throne in 1553 in preference to Mary Tudor. She also kept her head during "Bloody" Mary's perilous reign, but she spent part of the time in the Tower of London as a prisoner. Upon Mary's death, Elizabeth became Queen of England, just eleven years after the death of her father.

To continue with this web of royal connection, one should know that Elizabeth Tudor was also the niece of Margaret, sister of Henry VIII, who had married King James IV of Scotland in 1503. Thus, Queen Margaret (1489-1541) was both Elizabeth's aunt and the grandmother of Mary, Queen of Scots.

In making the connection between past and present, it is worth noting that both queens regnant of England to bear the name Elizabeth succeeded to the throne at the comparatively early age of twenty-five years. Elizabeth I was born in 1533 and succeeded to the throne in 1558, and Elizabeth II was born in 1926 and succeeded in 1952, just before her twenty-sixth birthday.

Catharine de Medici
In France, the uncouth, undereducated, and ultra shy Prince Henri (later King Henri II) had been forced into an arranged marriage with Catharine de Medici. Catharine was the daughter of Lorenzo, Duke of Urbino. Unfortunately, Henri was ruled by his mistress, Diane de Poitiers, to whom he had been deliberately introduced by his father, and Catharine suffered twenty-six years of humiliation, knowing that Henri only came to her bed on sufferance, at the behest of his mistress, and for dynastic reasons. Unhappy though this marriage undoubtedly was, Catharine produced ten children.

After the death of her husband in 1559, Catharine was able to cast her malevolence upon people and events. Feared by all and loved by none, she ruled France through her sickly offspring. One set of twins died in infancy. Her oldest son died at the early age of sixteen. History relates that she deliberately delayed sending for the doctors, thus causing his death. Her second son, Louis, died in infancy. Charles, her third son, was mentally unbalanced, if not completely mad. Her fourth son, Henri, was undoubtedly a homosexual, unacceptable in those days except in royalty. Her fifth son, Francis, was deformed, and her youngest child, Margaret, was little short of being a nymphomaniac. Of her other two children, both daughters, she married one, Elizabeth, to Mary Tudor's widower, King Philip II of Spain, and the other, Claudia, to the powerful Duke of Lorraine.

Mary of Guise and Mary, Queen of Scots
In turbulent Scotland, torn apart by religious factions and the constant incursions of the English across the Scottish border, the young king was having domestic problems. King James V (1512-32), son of Margaret, the sister of King Henry VIII of England, had buried his childless wife, Madelaine. Less than nine months later, he married Mary of Guise. Four years later, his wife produced a child—Mary, later known as Mary, Queen of Scots—but the king died, leaving Mary of Guise as regent in the name of their infant daughter queen.

Mary was born on December 7th, and her father died on December 14th. Within the first six months of her life, Mary survived several kidnapping attempts of warring religious factions. These mostly stemmed from hatred toward the co-regent, Cardinal Beaton. During the same period, England ravaged the country, the Cardinal was assassinated, and the gory battle of Pinkie took place, wherein the English narrowly missed capturing the infant queen. Eventually, still at a tender age, Mary, Queen of Scots, was shipped off to France to supposedly less dangerous territory; there she came under the evil influence of Catharine de Medici.

By the time she was eighteen, Mary, Queen of Scots, had been in turn Dauphine of France (Crown Princess) and, on the death of her father-in-law King Francis II, Queen of France and Scotland for a short eighteen months. She had seen her cousin Elizabeth Tudor ascend to the throne of England. She had also lost her own mother, become Queen Dowager of France, and witnessed firsthand the vengeful nature of her mother-in-law, Catharine de Medici. It was Catharine who had ensured that Mary was shipped back to Scotland to rule that turbulent country.

For Mary, the last twenty-seven years of her life were as eventful as her first eighteen. She made an ill-fated marriage with the handsome, but feckless Henry, Lord Darnley, by whom she had a son (subsequently King James VI of Scotland, who succeeded as King James I of England in 1603 on the death of Elizabeth Tudor). She then married Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, who was murdered in 1567—supposedly at the hands of the man Mary subsequently married, James Hepburn, Earl of Bothwell, who was said to have raped the queen. After the murder of Darnley, the people rebelled. In 1567, Mary was captured, imprisoned, and forced to sign her abdication in favor of her infant son. She managed to escape her imprisonment in Lockleven Castle and fight a final battle against her subjects at Langside. Defeated, she fled to England and threw herself on the mercy of her cousin, Elizabeth Tudor. While imprisoned in England, Mary plotted against Elizabeth, who finally signed her death warrant. Mary, Queen of Scots, laid her head on the block at Fotheringay Castle in 1587.

Mary of Guise died in 1560, Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1587, and two years later the evil Catharine de Medici followed suit. Of the queens whom Knox had trumpeted against, only Elizabeth Tudor remained. She would linger on for another sixteen years and die unmarried and childless on 24 March 1603, thus bringing to an end the turbulent Tudor dynasty and uniting the two crowns of England and Scotland. Four months after Elizabeth's death, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots, was crowned at Westminster Abbey as King James I of England along with his wife Anne of Denmark. History always refers to this first Stuart king of England as "The wisest fool in Christendom."

Ancient and Modern Relationships
With this background on four Renaissance queens, it is now possible to understand the common ancestry of the millennium queens. The present Queen of Denmark, Margaret, descends directly from the marriage of Frederick V of Denmark and the Princess Louisa of England. The present Queen of England, Elizabeth, is directly descended from Princess Louisa's father, King George II. George II descends from the marriage of King James I of England and through James VI of Scotland, the son of Mary, Queen of Scots. Mary, Queen of Scots, of course, was in turn was the granddaughter of the Princess Margaret, sister of King Henry VIII (father of Elizabeth Tudor).

The present Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands is also linked to Princess Louisa. Louisa's sister, Princess Anne, married Prince William of Holland. William, like his predecessors, held the title of Stadtholder of Holland (which, at the time, translated to governor or viceroy of Holland). It was not until the reign of this couple’s grandson that Holland was recognized as a kingdom. That grandson became King William I of the Netherlands. The present Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands descends directly from the marriage of Princess Anne, and like Queen Elizabeth and Queen Margaret, she traces her ancestry back through King George II of England to Mary, Queen of Scots.

The common ancestry of the three then continues further back in history. King Malcolm III of Scotland (1031-93), known as Canmore, married as his second wife the Princess Margaret (1045-93), known to history as Saint Margaret, who was the daughter of Edward Atheling, the last Saxon prince. Their son, King Alexander I (1077-1124) married Sybilla (unknown-1122), the natural daughter of King Henry I of England (who was the son of William the Conqueror, the first Norman king of England). So the intermarriage between countries continued. And as if that wasn’t enough, King Henry I (1068-1135) married Matilda (1079-1118), the sister of King Alexander (the son of the Princess Margaret and King Malcolm mentioned above). This king was the grandson of the first indisputable king of the Scots, Duncan I, who reigned from 1034 until his murder six years later. Thus, the line stretches back on the English (Norman) side through the Saxon line, during the course of which, although unrelated, three Danish Kings reigned in England (for more information, see the sidebar entitled "Danish Royalty in England").

The Swedish Connection
Should this millennium see a fourth queen regnant, it would be Victoria (1977–), Hereditary Princess of Sweden. In the past, the throne of Sweden has always passed to the oldest son, and only if a son is lacking has a woman succeeded. Having said that, keep in mind also that Sweden has been ruled by a woman only once. Queen Christina was born in 1626 and reigned as queen from 1632-54, when she abdicated and died in Rome in 1689.

Understanding Victoria’s connection in the ancestry means learning a little Swedish history as well, and Sweden’s history is a checkered one. Over the centuries, its kings have ruled over Norway and Denmark as well as Sweden. When Sweden finally gave Norway its independence in 1905, the people of Norway decided to retain a monarchy, and instead of choosing a Swedish prince as king, they went to Denmark. The choice fell on Charles, brother of King Christian X, who in taking a Norwegian name became King Haakon VII of Norway. This is significant because Haakon was married to an English princess: Maud (1869-1938), the daughter of King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra of Denmark. This marriage is the connecting point for Victoria and the other millennium queens (see the "Danish Royalty in England" sidebar for more information on these connections).

The Princess Victoria of Sweden also has a closer and more recent kinship to the Queen of England. Her great-grandfather, King Gustavas VI Adolphus (1882-1973), was married in 1905 to the Princess Margaret, daughter of the Duke of Connaught, son of Queen Victoria of England, who was a great-granddaughter of King George II. The Duke of Connaught was the brother of King Edward VII, who was the great-grandfather of Elizabeth II—thus the connecting point.

A Final Bond
There is one other common marriage bond between the four millennium queens. Philippa, daughter of King Henry IV of England, married King Eric VII of Denmark (see the "Danish Royalty" sidebar for this ancestral line). At the time, Eric was king of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. And although he was childless, his sister would continue the line. Her son became King Christopher III of Denmark and Sweden, and Christopher III married Dorothea of Brandenburg. Upon his death in 1448, Dorothea then married the next king, Christian I of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden, from whom all four are also descended.

A Truly Remarkable Event
Thus, at least three and possibly four queens regnant—all of common ancestry—could be reigning sometime in the millennium. It is surely a unique event in history that shouldn’t go unremarked.