Is King Charles related to Count Dracula? Inside the Royal Transylvanian castle

The forests of Transylvania hold a secret.

We already know the British Royal Family is related to all the other monarchs of Europe.

But did you know King Charles III is descended from Count Dracula?

Not the blood-sucking vampire, just the 15th-century Romanian prince who displayed 20,000 of his enemies impaled on sticks.

Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia just south of Transylvania, was so vicious a ruler he inspired Bram Stoker’s Dracula and earned himself the nickname, ‘the Impaler’.

Some 16 generations later, his descendant now sits on the British throne and owns a home just north of Bran Castle.

A fortress on the border of Transylvania and Wallachia, it’s often known outside Romania as ‘Dracula’s Castle’.

Charles picked the land of his ancestors as the site of escape – and his first foreign visit as King – after the excitement of his coronation in May 2023, The Times reported.

He spends a few days each year walking the forests and rolling foothills of the Carpathian Mountains as he visits his former farmhouse in Transylvania.

During last summer’s trip, Charles said: ‘I have come to love Romania – your culture and art, your heritage and history, your sweeping landscapes and priceless biodiversity.

‘Romania has retained, in its ancient forests, pristine countryside, and through some remarkable examples of sustainable farming, an incomparable richness of nature.’

But Charles didn’t realise his own family connection to Romania when he first visited the country in 1988, before the fall of communism.

How is King Charles III related to Vlad the Impaler?

Europe’s royal families are renowned for marrying each other, one generation after another.

Charles’ great-great-great grandmother – through his mother and father – was Queen Victoria, often dubbed the ‘grandmother of Europe’ for marrying her children into the continent’s reigning houses.

So it’s no surprise to learn of yet another royal family the Windsors are related to.

The link between Charles and Vlad the Impaler, son of Vlad II Dracul, is through Queen Mary, wife of Victoria’s grandson King George V.

Mary of Teck was born into a German noble family as the daughter of Francis, Duke of Teck and his wife Princess Adelaide of Cambridge, a first cousin of Victoria.

Francis’ father, Duke Alexander of Württemberg, may have cost his son a duchy by marrying non-royal Claudine Rhédey de Kis-Rhéde.

This is despite her being born to a count in a castle in a land that shifted between Hungarian, Ottoman and Romanian for centuries.

But this pairing with a minor Hungarian noble did cement a link that one day made the British Royal Family and one of the most notorious butchers in history inseparable.

This is because Countess Claudine’s lineage goes back five generations to when two of Vlad the Impaler’s great-great-great-great-great grandchildren married each other.

They were descended from Vlad the Impaler’s sons – Vlad Ţepelus and Mihnea cel Rău, also called Mihnea the Evil.

It seems marrying your cousin isn’t a tradition invented by Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip if the family tree published by the Romanian newspaper Adevărul is to be believed.

King Charles’ Transylvanian farmhouse

The newly crowned king spent his post-coronation getaway in a blue-painted farmhouse creatively called the Blue House.

Located in Viscri, a 12th-century village famous for horse-drawn carts and a church fortified against Ottoman invasion, Charles bought the house in 2006.

He has popped over every year since then, mingling with locals as he hikes through the countryside of Zalán Valley.

One of several properties Charles owns in Romania, he opens it up to visitors when he isn’t staying there.

Rooms, clad in Transylvanian-style wooden furniture and patterned fabrics, rent for an average of £100 per night.

This helps fund The King’s Foundation Romania, based in Viscri, which works with local communities, farmers and artisan food producers to develop practical skills.

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