... 90 years ago, perhaps Europe's most famous family decided to change its name, backed into a corner by a public increasingly hysterical about the enemy within.

On 18 July 1917 the Times newspaper carried a royal proclamation introducing the name Windsor and dropping "all German titles and dignities".

Since the marriage of Victoria - the last of the Hanovers - to Prince Albert, Britain's royal family had been "of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha", or Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. In a time of brutal war with Germany, a more German family name would be hard to find.

After three long years of World War I, anti-German feeling had approached fever pitch, fuelled by wild tales of alleged German atrocities....

So in 1917 the royal family saw their name change overnight, princes lost their titles and became lords, the Battenbergs opted for literal translation and became Mountbatten, and the quintessentially royal and English "Windsor" was introduced - the brainchild of the king's private secretary Lord Stamfordham.

"Prince Louis of Battenberg went to stay with his son at a naval base in Scotland and wrote in the visitors book 'arrived Prince Hyde, left Lord Jekyll'," says Mr Little.