MANY a peer of England is more anciently British than the royal family. The first of the present ruling house was George I (1714), a Hanoverian. After Victoria's death and her son's accession to the throne, the line became known as Saxe-Coburg; in World War I King George V changed the family name from Saxe-Coburg to Windsor. Queen Elizabeth II is the fourth and probably the last Windsor to sit on the throne: three-year-old Prince Charles, the heir-apparent, is a member of the House of Mountbatten, his father's family, which Anglicized its name from Battenberg.
This chart shows the line of succession...