If you do any sort of genealogy on royal families in Europe today – the odds are fairly high that four names will show up over and over. In their time, and in history, they’ve received the title of “the grandmother of Europe2, “grandfather of Europe”, “Mother-in-law of Europe”… well, you get the gist.
The four names are:
The King of Denmark: Christian IX of Denmark, and his wife Louise
The Queen of the United Kingdom: Victoria, and her husband Albert.
Although Victoria and Christian IX were married to Albert and Louise, respectively, in speech, it usually tends to revert to the monarchs as the most important, so that’s what I’ve used in the section I discuss below.