Inside King Charles' dark family tree and how he's related to real-life 'Dracula' Vlad the Impaler
He is the heir to Vlad the Impaler's bloodline...When it comes to the royal family’s bloodline, you may be able to list Queen Elizabeth II and Henry VIII – but King Charles is also related to the real-life ‘Dracula’ from the dark chapters of history, known as Vlad the Impaler.
Vlad the Impaler, also called Vlad III Dracula and Vlad Tepes, was known for his ruthless behaviour towards his enemies, and said to have inspired Bram Stoker’s famous novel, so how is King Charles related to the Count?
Is King Charles related to Vlad the Impaler (Dracula)?
The monarch is Vlad’s great-grandson 16 times removed through Queen Mary, his great-grandmother, the wife of King George V.
King Charles discovered his links to Vlad the Impaler back in 1998, more than 500 years after the prince’s epic battles.
The Romanian’s bloodlust and cruelty earned him his fearsome moniker, after he would burn the old and sick alive as well as impaling enemy soldiers. In 1462, he left a field filled with 23,000 victims following a battle with the Turkish army.
Historians believe he could have killed up to 100,000 people in six years.
Vlad the Impaler was born in 1431, the second son of nobleman Vlad II Dracul, and was raised in world of violence he would continue during the three times he reigned. He ruled Wallachia in the autumn of 1448, six years from 1456 and again in 1476 until he died that same year.
King Charles’ relative got his Dracula name thanks to Vlad the Impaler’s father. Dracul in Romanian is believed to mean ‘son of the dragon’, and in other translations it means ‘devil’.
He even had his own castle, just like the Count in the book, called Castle Poenari, located north of the city of Curtea de Arges in Transylvania.
A dark tale which helped inspire Bram Stoker’s novel, is an account where he reportedly dipped bread in the blood of his victims and ate it. His cruelty came to an end in 1476, when he was killed in a by a Turkish enemy in disguise as one of his servants.
Read more: Real reason King Charles’ and the royal family changed their surname 65 years ago
King Charles’ ‘eyes lit up’ when he spoke about being related to Vlad the Impaler
Actor Luke Evans recalled speaking to His Majesty about his lineage during a Prince’s Trust gala dinner in 2014.
In his 2025 memoir, Boy from the Valleys: My Unexpected Journey, the star said it was the first time he was meeting the future king. As Charles greeted the guests, he asked the 46-year-old what he was working on, which Luke replied was a horror film where he played Vlad, called Dracula Untold.
He says King Charles’ “eyes lit up” after hearing this and he said: “I’ll tell you an interesting story. I’m actually related to Vlad Tepes.”
“To my astonishment, he then proceeded to talk me through his entire lineage, all the way back to the 1400s,” the actor wrote. “He told me he now owns a number of properties in Romania, where Vlad was ruler.”
When he told Charles it was “the most incredible story” the monarch replied that “not a lot of people know it”.
But the cat is now out of the bag.
Prince of Wales’ revealed his ancestry on TV
King Charles made the claim he is related to Vlad the Impaler in 2011, during a TV show where he was discussing preserving forests in the Transylvania region.
He said on the programme: “The genealogy shows that I am descended from Vlad the Impaler.
“So I have a bit of a stake in the country.”
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