[HPforGrownups] Re: Royal Family only for muggles?

[heidit at netbox.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 40849

Tamara wrote:
> Do magical folk follow the royal family, or have anything like that
> of their own?

And Darrin replied:
Someone with more knowledge of the history of the Royal Family than I
could probably imagine some of the weirder members of the line as
being shipped off to Hogwarts
***

Sorry to be so late in replying but I was off celebrating Independence Day) but I wanted to posit some theories about this, especially in light of the discussion of Merlin.

In order to expound on muggle-wizard interaction, it's important to read Quidditch Through the Ages, which traces some of the stages of the split between Muggles and magical folk in the UK (I say UK, because the book doesn't provide much differentiation among the various countries).

The book more-than-implies that until the 1600's wizards and muggles interacted with some regularity. The split certainly post-dates the time of Merlin and King Arthur's reign, which actually also predate the founding of Hogwarts, and iirc, comes not long after the ascent of the Stewarts and the end of the Tudors.

The relevance of this? How many women in the House of Tudor were accused of witchcraft? King Henry VIII even purportedly married a witch - Nan Bullen - modernly known as Anne Boylen - and her red-haired daughter was also accused of knowing witchcraft. And Elizabeth I herself was even "out of court" for a number of her teenage years and her early 20s, during Mary's reign (and portions of Edward's and Jane Grey Dudley as well). Well, why not suppose that she was at Hogwarts and her keepers in semiexile just p
rovided good cover stories.
Of course, I could move even farther from Things That Actually Fit With Canon Timelines and factor in the rumors that Elizabeth bore a child to Robert Dudley - a red haired one of course - who took on one of his/her father's court nicknames as a surname and became a Weasley but that might go too far to fanfic.
It's clear, though, that the split between muggle and wizard culture does not go back more than 500 years
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