Johnson discovers royal lineage

Mr Johnson won the London mayoral race in May

London Mayor Boris Johnson can claim some - distant - links to the British Royal Family.

The Tory former MP is distantly related to King George II through his paternal grandmother, BBC One's Who Do You Think You Are? reveals.

She was a descendant of Prince Paul Von Wurttemberg, also linked to the Swedish and Dutch royals and the Romanoffs.

Mr Johnson, who made much of his Turkish origins in the mayoral race, said the news was "totally bizarre".

The genealogy programme, which also looks into the ancestry of Patsy Kensit, Jerry Springer and Esther Rantzen, examined Mr Johnson's lineage through his father's mother, Yvonne Eileen Williams - known to the family as "Granny Butter".

European royals

During his travels on the show, Mr Johnson learns that Mrs Williams' great grandmother, Karoline von Rothenburg, was the illegitimate daughter of actress Friederike Margaret Port and Prince Paul von Rothenburg.

Prince Paul, in turn was the great, great grandson of George II, who ruled from 1727 until 1760.

If you had told me that I was related to George II, I would have thought you were absolutely crackers Boris Johnson

The link connects Mr Johnson not only to the British royal family, but to all the royal houses of Europe, according to the programme.

Before the programme Mr Johnson knew that his paternal grandfather "Johnny" was the son of Ali Kemal - a Turkish journalist and politician, who was briefly interior minister in the government of Ahmed Tevfik Pasha, Grand Vizier of the Ottoman Empire.

He was later kidnapped and lynched in the early 1920s but his son Osman Ali settled in the UK and changed his name to Wilfred Johnson.

Meanwhile, Mr Johnson said one of the mysteries of his childhood had been "just how posh was Granny Butter?" She was half-French and always claimed to be of "posh stock".

The Old Etonian, whose critics have attacked him as a "toff", said the news that he was related to the British royals was "surreal".

He told the programme: "If you had told me that I was related to George II, I would have thought you were absolutely crackers. Not even Granny Butter could have come up with that one.

"I would have been terribly proud just to have been related to the German king but I can't hide it from you that even in our common European home, I am particularly thrilled to have some British Royal ancestry as well."

However, Mr Johnson pointed out there were probably "several thousand other people out there in the same position".

The Boris Johnson episode of Who Do You Think You Are? will be screened on BBC One on 20 August.