i just want to point out that one of the more important things i learned from studying aristocracies is that the official genealogies are largely suggested by hierarchical realities. that is to say that the offspring of queens and other aristocratic females were not always also the offspring of their forced partners. it's hard to blame aristocratic women for this, given that marriage in this period was a sort of process of being sold into slavery.

the flip side of this is that male aristocrats weren't always willing to force themselves onto their assigned partners, either.

what the dna demonstrates is that there isn't a patrilineal relationship. that doesn't necessarily mean that these heads aren't the kings that they're thought to be. conversely, it could be that the living bourbons are not actually bourbons, genetically.

http://www.nature.com/ejhg/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ejhg2013211a.html?WT.mc_id=FBK_NPG_EJHG_1310_KING

it was kind of a devastating moment when i realized that, actually. i spent a lot of time with that only to realize at the end that human beings are inherently promiscuous.

the flip side of this is easier to document: most powerful aristocrats had many children with women that were not their official partners.

they've done studies on this in the general population and the numbers are astounding. something like 30% of people are raised with fathers that they are not genetically related to.

all those kids that don't look like their fathers? the truth is....