A number of famous people are related to the Royal family, including former Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
In a 2008 episode of Who Do You Think You Are?, he discovered that he was a descendant of King George II, making him a distant relative of King Charles III – but some are more surprising than others.
Johnny Cash, who died 20 years ago, was also related to The King on his father’s side.
According to the Genealogy website Geni, the line goes as follows, Johnny Cash, his father Raymond Cash, his father Rev William Henry Cash, his mother Pheletia White Cash (Taylor), her father John Taylor, his sister Mary Ann Micklebuary, her husband Henry Mickleborough, his father Henry Mickleborough, his sister Jane Daniel – and then the line descends to The Queen as follows.
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Jane Daniel’s daughter Jane Montague, her son John Montague, his son Henry Brown Montague, his son William Latane Montague, his daughter Alice Warfield, her daughter Bessie Wallis Warfield. Now the latter married Earl Winfield Spencer Jr in 1916, before divorcing in 1927. She then married Ernest Aldrich Simpson in 1928 making her new name, one Wallis Simpson.
The American socialite was famously the lover of David aka Edward, Prince of Wales, who succeeded his father King George V as British monarch in 1936. However, King Edward VIII caused a constitutional crisis as he proposed to Mrs Simpson, a twice-divorced American. In order to marry Mrs Simpson, King Edward VIII abdicated the throne and the couple became the Duke and Duchess of Windsor.
Now continuing Cash’s distant relation to King Charles III, the line now crosses from the American Wallis Simpson by marriage to the British Edward VIII. The monarch’s short reign was succeeded by his brother Bertie aka King George VI in the year of three kings and his daughter, Queen Elizabeth II, followed him upon his death in 1952. And then her son King Charles III ascended to the throne last year after her record 70 years upon it.
This means The King is the Country singer’s third great uncle’s first cousin five times removed’s husband’s great nephew via Wallis Simpson. But did you know that the late Queen inspired the writing of the country singer’s The Man Comes Around?
The song Cash wrote and recorded not long before his death in 2003 is about the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and part of the lyrics were inspired by a dream he had of The Queen. In it, he remembers meeting her in Buckingham Palace and she said, “Johnny Cash, you’re like a thorn tree in a whirlwind”, which he found references to in The Bible and helped become the basis for The Man Comes Around.
The late singer even travelled to London in 1953 for his distant relative’s Coronation when he was in the Air Force, although they never met in this life.
