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The last British royal wedding -- between Prince William and Kate Middleton,
英国王室上次举办的婚礼 - 也即威廉王子和凯特·米德尔顿的婚礼，
brought together 1,900 guests, many of whom were pretty high profile people.
聚集了1,900名宾客，其中很多人都是大人物。
Footballer David Beckham was there with his wife and fashion designer Victoria Beckham.
足球运动员贝克汉姆和他的妻子兼时尚设计师维多利亚·贝克汉姆也在现场。
Elton John was there too.
埃尔顿·约翰（才华横溢的英国歌手）也在那里。
But this photo might be the most impressive of all,
但这张照片可能才是最令人印象深刻的，
because this is the Queen of Spain and the Prince of Spain next to the Princess of Sweden,
因为照片中有西班牙女王及王子，旁边则是瑞典公主，
the former King of Greece is behind them, and way back there is the former King of Romania.
后排则是希腊前国王，再往后是罗马尼亚的前国王。
They were invited because they’re all related to Prince William’s great-great-great Grandmother, Queen Victoria.
他们接到了邀请是因为他们都与威廉王子的曾曾曾祖母维多利亚女王有关。
Over the course of her 63-year reign, she strategically planned marriages to place her descendants in royal families all over Europe.
在她统治英国的六十三年间，她通过对婚姻进行战略性的规划将她的后裔安插到了整个欧洲王室。
And in doing so, created one of the most remarkable royal families in history.
从而创下了历史上最显著的王室之一。
By the early 19th century, Europe had been at war for decades.
到19世纪初，欧洲已经连年征战了数十年。
After the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars killed millions,
法国革命爆发，拿破仑战争导致数百万人丧生，在此之后，
European leaders came together to restore peace by reshaping major states for a new balance of power.
欧洲领导人聚集在一起，重塑大国势力，争取新的平衡来恢复和平。
Great Britain went on to become one of the strongest states.
英国还是欧洲最强大的国家之一。
And years later, Queen Victoria and her husband Albert came up with a plan to maintain that political power:
多年以后，为了维持这一政治地位，维多利亚女王和丈夫阿尔伯特提出了一项新计划：
They married their children to monarchs across Europe.
把它们的子嗣嫁给欧洲各国的君主。
And at that time, you know, all royal marriages were fundamentally about dynastic unions,
那个时候，大家知道的，所有的王室婚姻基本上都是王权的联姻，
about cementing political allegiances, about building new political alliances.
都是为了巩固已有的政治忠诚或者建立新的政治联盟。
It started with their daughter Vicky, the eldest of nine children.
首先嫁出去的是他们的女儿维琪，他是九个孩子中最年长的。
She married the heir to the Prussian throne, the largest and most powerful of the German states.
她嫁给了普鲁士的王位继承人，而普鲁士是德国面积最大、势力也最强的邦国。
Albert’s vision had always been, and Victoria shared it,
艾伯特憧憬的是，维多利亚何尝不也是如此，
that Prussia of all the German states was the one that would end up leading the way towards a great unified Germany.
在所有的德意志邦国之中，普鲁士将会是那个最终领导德意志走向统一的邦国。
They wanted to build strong connections with Germany and see them as being a force for good and constitutional benign monarchy across Europe.
他们希望与德国建立牢固的联系，还将其视为能够促进整个欧洲实现良好的君主立宪制的力量。
Their children Alice, Beatrice, Helena, Leopold, and Arthur also married German royalty.
他们的孩子爱丽丝、比阿特丽斯、海伦娜、利奥波德和亚瑟也都嫁给了德国王室。
Their eldest son Prince Albert Edward married a Danish princess whose brother was King of Greece; two more important European states.
他们的长子艾伯特·爱德华王子娶了一位丹麦公主，这位公主的兄弟则是当时的希腊国王，而丹麦和希腊都比德国还要重要。
But when their son Alfred wanted to marry the daughter of the Russian Tsar, things became a bit more complicated:
但当他们的儿子阿尔弗雷德想娶俄国沙皇的女儿时，事情就变得更加复杂了：
There was a long history about Queen Victoria's deep, deep apprehensions about Russia for any of her children marrying into Russia.
长期以来，维多利亚女王一直对把子女嫁入俄国有着深深的忧虑。
Well, the Russian monarchy was an autocracy, whereas the British monarchy as such was a constitutional monarchy.
原因是这样，俄国的君主制是君主专制制度，而英国的君主制则是君主立宪制。
There was a whole long period of Russophobia in Britain.
英国的恐俄症由来已久。
The two states were also extremely competitive over territory in Central Asia and Eastern Europe, where they fought a bloody war in the 1850s.
英俄两国在中亚和东欧领土争夺上可谓势均力敌，十九世纪五十年代两国为此还爆发了一场血腥的战争。
But the marriage was allowed and by the 1880s Queen Victoria's children were in several important branches of Europe's monarchies.
不过这场婚姻还是得到了女王的认可，到十九世纪八十年代，女王的孩子已经打入欧洲君主制的几个重要王室。
But did that bring peace to Europe? Not quite.
问题是，联姻真的给欧洲带来了和平吗？不尽然。
See, Germany did unify in 1871, but it wasn't peaceful.
要知道，1871年，德国的确统一了，但手段并不和平。
Prussia fought a series of bloody wars and consolidated the other German states.
普鲁士是靠着一系列血腥战争才统一的其他德意志邦国。
In Russia, the royal Romanov family was losing its grip on power.
在俄罗斯，罗曼诺夫王室家族正在逐渐失去对王权的控制。
Members of the monarchy were being hunted and the Tsar was assassinated in 1881.
王室成员到处被追杀，沙皇也被人于1881年暗杀了。
