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Prince Charles, the great-great-grandson of Count Dracula
By Guest Writer Christian deBlanc (bio | articles | forum)
In a sort of ho-hum, nothing-to-see-here moment, Prince Charles casually alluded to the fact that he is a blood relative of Vlad the Impaler, i.e. Count Dracula, stating, “Transylvania is in my blood. The genealogy shows I am descended from Vlad the Impaler, so I do have a bit of a stake in the country.”
The double-entendre can be humorous or chilling, depending on your own impression of the House of Windsor, I suppose. To be sure, they are portrayed as loyal royals; and, thus, Prince Charles decided to use his pedigree in order to boost the tourism of Romania; specifically, struggling Transylvanian tourism.
Of course, every student of history can find out that Prince Vlad the Impaler took the appellation, Dracula, as his moniker. Additionally, his posthumous Romanian surname, Tepes, means “impaler,” and Vlad Dracula is synonymous with impaling victims to death.
Politically, Vlad aligned himself with his father’s Order of the Dragon, which was founded by Roman emperor Sigismund in 1408, in the fight to reclaim Christendom (aka Rome) from the Ottoman Turks. More specifically, Vlad fought to keep his kingdom of Wallachia from becoming part of the Ottoman Empire.
