The core of European royalty were the Salian Franks, originally refugees who had settled the poor soil southwest of Nijmegen in the Third Century CE, from the southeast of the Ijsselmeer, and had then conquered the rump Roman state around Paris. In conjunction with the Norse, the Franks were to be the apex of European monarchy for the next 1700 years, with strategic marriages extending to the periphery of Christendom, including Byzantium, Armenia, Spain, Ireland, Sweden, and Russia. The two pedigrees below show the attempt by Charlemagne to reduce conflict among his heirs by removing his daughters into convents, and the cousin links between Napoleon and the Churchills.
