House of Windsor

also House of Windsor, Saxe-Coburg and Gotha

Royal house of Britain, 1917 to today (and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 1901).

Origin: London, England
Motto: Dieu et mon droit
Famous bearer: George V (1865-1936), the king who adopted the Windsor name in 1917
Register: Princely house

Ranked of all time

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Territory of Windsor

The seat of House of Windsor

Seat vacant

Chief

No one leads the House of Windsor community yet. When the movement opens, you can stand for its leadership, or help elect whoever does.

Current mission

No shared goal set yet. Once House of Windsor has leadership, it sets the public focus: a restoration, a gathering, a real-world project that helps its own.

The Windsor clan is being rebuilt. Join the waiting list for the movement today, and you help decide who leads it and what it does.

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Motto

Dieu et mon droit

“God and my right”

What does the Windsor name mean?

From Windsor Castle in Berkshire, the principal royal residence outside London since the 11th century, originally built by William the Conqueror. The dynasty's adopted name was conferred by royal proclamation of George V on 17 July 1917, replacing the German house style of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha that the family had carried since Edward VII's accession in 1901.

The history of House of Windsor

The House of Windsor is the current royal house of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms. The dynasty began on 22 January 1901 when Edward VII succeeded his mother Victoria and inherited the house style of his father, Prince Albert, as Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. On 17 July 1917, amid the anti-German sentiment of the First World War, George V issued a royal proclamation renaming the house Windsor after the principal royal residence at Windsor Castle in Berkshire. The line has produced five monarchs: George V (1910-1936), Edward VIII (1936), George VI (1936-1952), Elizabeth II (1952-2022), and Charles III (from 2022).

The Windsor monarchs have been the constitutional figureheads of Britain through the central transformations of the 20th and 21st centuries: two World Wars, the dissolution of the British Empire, the establishment of the Commonwealth of Nations, and the post-war reconstruction of British society. George V's broadcasts established the modern radio tradition of the royal Christmas message in 1932; George VI's reign carried the country through the Second World War and the immediate post-war recovery.

Elizabeth II reigned for seventy years and 214 days, the longest reign of any British monarch and the longest reign of any female head of state in recorded history. Her accession in 1952 and her death in September 2022 bracketed the entire post-war era. Through fifteen Prime Ministers from Winston Churchill to Liz Truss, Elizabeth II provided the constitutional continuity that anchored the modern British state through the largest social, economic and political transformations since the 17th century. Her state funeral in September 2022 was the most-watched single event in British history.

Charles III succeeded his mother on 8 September 2022 and was crowned at Westminster Abbey on 6 May 2023, the first coronation in Britain in seventy years. The dynasty continues through William, Prince of Wales, and the young Prince George of Wales, who will succeed in due course. The Royal Family today functions as constitutional head of state, with the political power of the crown wholly delegated to Parliament and the Cabinet; the monarchy's continuing role is ceremonial, diplomatic and symbolic across the Commonwealth.

Champions of the Windsor name

The bearers whose lives are inseparable from this surname. Each has their own page, biography, achievements, geography, connection to the family.

Queen Elizabeth II
The queen whose seventy years and two hundred and fourteen days on the throne, the longest reign of any British monarch, bracketed the entire post-war era and anchored the constitutional continuity of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth through the largest social, economic and political transformations since the seventeenth century.

Historic Places, Rebuilt

Explore the streets and seats the Windsor name knew, rebuilt with AI as they stood in history.

Or recreate your own castle →

Historic Places, Rebuilt · New

Explore London in 1818Enter →

St Paul's, Covent Garden and the gaslit West End, Regency London, soot-hazed and horse-drawn.

Landmarks the Windsor held

Palaces, houses and great buildings tied to this name, look one up, or rebuild it to explore.

Clarence House
Home of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother for nearly fifty years from 1953, and later the London residence of King Charles III.
Royal Burial Ground
Consecrated in 1928 as the private burial ground of the House of Windsor; Edward VIII and Wallis, Duchess of Windsor, are among those buried there.

Castles that share the Windsor name

The same name on the map, look one up, see what it looked like in its prime, and recreate it to explore.

Windsor CastleRestored · prime 1820

All castles in England → · Strongest castles in England → · Castles of Europe

Play As Your Clan

Explore history as a WindsorStart your story →

Hold a real castle against whatever you choose to send at it, take a ship out in her own service years, or stand at the shoulder of someone the record remembers. The chronicler sets the scene; the deeds are yours.

Notable bearers of the Windsor name

George V (1865-1936), the king who adopted the Windsor name in 1917
George VI (1895-1952), wartime king
Elizabeth II (1926-2022), longest-reigning British monarch
Charles III (b.1948), reigning king of the United Kingdom

Stories of House of Windsor

The Coronation of Elizabeth II
1953
At eleven-fifteen on the morning of Tuesday the second of June 1953, in Westminster Abbey on the Thames-side site that had been the English coronation-venue continuously since the Norman Conquest of 1066, the twenty-seven-year-old Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, the reigning Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms since the accession of the sixth of February 1952 at the death of her father George VI, was crowned Queen Elizabeth the Second of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms by the Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher in the thousand-year-old Coronation ceremonial of the English-monarchy. The Coronation ceremony ran approximately three hours from the Queen's procession-entry through the West Door at eleven-fifteen to the Queen's processional-exit at two-fifteen, was conducted under the traditional Coronation ceremonial that had been substantially-unchanged since the Coronation of Edgar at Bath in 973 (the Recognition-Oath-Anointing-Investiture-Crowning-Enthronement-and-Homage sequence of the English-coronation ritual), included the five-part Coronation Oath under which Elizabeth committed to govern according to the constitutional protocols of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, the Anointing under the Coronation Canopy with the consecrated chrism by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the final Imperial Crown of St Edward placed on her head at the twelve-thirty-four moment of the Crowning. The Coronation was the first-ever-televised Coronation in British history; the BBC live-television-broadcast across the 11-AM-to-5-PM ceremony-and-procession period was watched by an estimated 277 million viewers across the British and the international BBC-relayed-broadcast networks (the largest single-event-television-audience to that date in the history of the medium), and is universally remembered as the foundational-moment of the modern-televised-state-occasion in British public life.
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Frequently asked

What does the surname Windsor mean?

Where does the Windsor family come from?

The Windsor family is rooted in London and South East, in England. Within that, the name was particularly concentrated in London and Berkshire & Oxfordshire. The atlas page for the name records the historical territory it has held over the centuries.

Is Windsor English or Irish?

Windsor is a English surname; its home on this atlas is England, where the historical territory and family record of the name are concentrated. The same or similar spellings can surface in Irish records, but the lineage documented on this page is the English one.

How old is the Windsor surname?

The House of Windsor is the current royal house of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms. European hereditary surnames crystallised broadly between the 12th and 14th centuries, and the Windsor name took its modern form within that long settlement.

What is the Windsor family known for?

Royal house of Britain, 1917 to today (and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha from 1901). The House of Windsor is the current royal house of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms.

What is the Windsor motto?

The motto of the Windsor family is "Dieu et mon droit", which translates as "God and my right". Family mottoes were registered with the chief of the name and carried on the heraldic arms and battle-banners.

What does "Dieu et mon droit" mean in English?

"Dieu et mon droit" is the motto of the Windsor family. In English it means "God and my right". The phrase is typically rendered in Latin, though some Highland families carry their motto in Gaelic and some Norman lines in Old French.

Is there a Windsor family crest or coat of arms?

There is no single coat of arms that belongs to everyone named Windsor. Heraldic arms were granted to individuals and descend through specific documented lines, so a "family crest" matched to a surname alone is decorative rather than genealogical. The motto associated with the principal line is "Dieu et mon droit".

Who is the most famous Windsor?

The best-known bearer of the Windsor name is George V (1865-1936), the king who adopted the Windsor name in 1917. Other prominent figures of the family include George VI (1895-1952), wartime king, Elizabeth II (1926-2022), longest-reigning British monarch and Charles III (b.1948), reigning king of the United Kingdom.

Who are some famous Windsors?

Notable bearers of the Windsor name include George V (1865-1936), the king who adopted the Windsor name in 1917, George VI (1895-1952), wartime king, Elizabeth II (1926-2022), longest-reigning British monarch and Charles III (b.1948), reigning king of the United Kingdom. Each is profiled on the family page, with cross-links to the geography, stories, and historical events tied to their life.

What stories are told about the Windsor family?

The Windsor family is associated with The Coronation of Elizabeth II. Each story has its own page on this site with the full account, the date, the location, and the other families involved.

What is the story of the Coronation of Elizabeth II?

At eleven-fifteen on the morning of Tuesday the second of June 1953, in Westminster Abbey on the Thames-side site that had been the English coronation-venue continuously since the Norman Conquest of 1066, the twenty-seven-year-old Princess Elizabeth Alexandra Mary Windsor, the reigning Queen of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms since the accession of the sixth of February 1952 at the death of her father George VI, was crowned Queen Elizabeth the Second of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth realms by the Archbishop of Canterbury Geoffrey Fisher in the thousand-year-old Coronation ceremonial of the English-monarchy. The Coronation ceremony ran approximately three hours from the Queen's procession-entry through the West Door at eleven-fifteen to the Queen's processional-exit at two-fifteen, was conducted under the traditional Coronation ceremonial that had been substantially-unchanged since the Coronation of Edgar at Bath in 973 (the Recognition-Oath-Anointing-Investiture-Crowning-Enthronement-and-Homage sequence of the English-coronation ritual), included the five-part Coronation Oath under which Elizabeth committed to govern according to the constitutional protocols of the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth, the Anointing under the Coronation Canopy with the consecrated chrism by the Archbishop of Canterbury, and the final Imperial Crown of St Edward placed on her head at the twelve-thirty-four moment of the Crowning. The event is dated to 1953.

Is House of Windsor the same family as Windsor?

Yes. House of Windsor is a historical spelling variant of the Windsor name. The two share the same lineage and family affiliation; different parishes, clerks and migration registrars recorded the same name in slightly different forms, and the variant spellings sit on the same family tree.

Is Saxe-Coburg and Gotha the same family as Windsor?

Yes. Saxe-Coburg and Gotha is a historical spelling variant of the Windsor name. The two share the same lineage and family affiliation; different parishes, clerks and migration registrars recorded the same name in slightly different forms, and the variant spellings sit on the same family tree.

Where is the Windsor surname found today?

England is the primary historical home of the Windsor surname. In the modern era, the name is also borne across the wider diaspora, particularly in the United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, where families carry the line of descent from the same England origin recorded on this page.

What does the Clan Rising page for the Windsor family cover?

The Clan Rising page for the Windsor family covers the meaning of the surname, the historical geography of the name, the family motto, famous bearers of the name, traditional stories and the seat of the head of the family. Each section is linked to the underlying atlas of England so the name can be read in the geography that shaped it.

Who is the head of the Windsor family today?

The seat for the head of the Windsor family is currently vacant on this register. Clan Rising is rebuilding the chief and family structure for the modern era, and the family page allows readers to claim the seat or pledge to the name.