Boris brings government back into the (royal) family

When Boris Johnson kissed hands at Buckingham Palace on becoming Prime Minister, this moment also had family significance. For Boris is not only the Queen’s 14^th prime minister but also her seventh cousin twice removed.

This means that, after a three-year interregnum under Theresa May, government has returned to the ambit of the royal family, since David Cameron was the Queen’s fifth cousin twice removed. The genealogical intricacies of people in public life can be complex to unravel but cast an interesting sidelight on history, both past and contemporary.

Boris Johnson’s kinship with the Queen derives from George II, who was his eight-greats-grandfather. George II was also the six-greats-grandfather of the Queen – a descent more publicly familiar. Boris descends from a liaison between Prince Paul of Wurttemberg and an actress; the discovery of these antecedents featured in the television series on genealogy “Who Do You Think You Are?” whose highlight was the visible discombobulation of our latest prime minister as he was confronted with the archive sources in Germany.

Of course, once such royal ancestry is established, the further ramifications are endless and, now that Boris occupies the highest non-royal office in the land, it is inevitable that genealogists will amuse themselves by tracing ever more recondite or ironic connections.

David Cameron’s royal descent, like Boris’s, was on the wrong side of the blanket, via William IV and Mrs Jordan (also an actress). One of the consequences of this was that Cameron, through their common descent from James I, was eleventh cousin twice removed of his wife Samantha, an eight-greats-granddaughter of Charles II and Nell Gwynn (yes – you’ve got it – an actress).

The most ironic feature of the Cameron ancestry, however, is the fact that David Cameron is the twenty-five-greats-grandson of Simon de Montfort – the mediaeval John Bercow of his day. Samantha Cameron is the famous rebel’s twenty-one-greats granddaughter.

Astute readers will already have spotted possibly the most interesting aspect of this labyrinthine network of bloodlines: must this not imply that David Cameron and Boris Johnson are also related to each other? Yes, indeed they are, through George II, who was the eight-greats-grandfather of both men. Cameron’s might be thought marginally the senior line (though both are illegitimate) since it has a more recent derivation from a reigning monarch.

So, two of our last three prime ministers are united by more than having attended Eton. It is likely this connection will intensify the prejudices of those who claim the establishment is a clannish conspiracy (as well as those who claim all politicians are bastards). But surely there is an inbuilt stability in a system where the Queen’s first ministers are related not only to one another, but also to her. You don’t get that sort of shared distinction in regimes such as that run by Emmanuel Macron. It is a very British instinct to keep it in the family.