Ferdinand Saxe-Coburg (full family name Saxe-Coburg and Gotha) is the second Bulgarian ruler after the liberation of the country from Ottoman domination. He is a German prince and his family line connects Bulgaria to almost all European royalties. Ferdinand is a second cousin to Edward VII of England. The period of rule of Ferdinand is very controversial. He had to fight the unwillingness of the Great Powers of Europe to acknowledge him as a king. He managed to proclaim the independence of Bulgaria in 1908. Within six years his strategy won in one war - the First Balkan - and lost in two wars - the Second Balkan and World War 1. He abdicated the throne in 1918, leaving two national catastrophies behind. His last words to his heir Boris were: "You are from the Coburg-Gotha kin. They have always been knights and have always coped with problems on their own."

Boris had great opponents in the face of the communists - in 1925 they made two attempts on his life. Between the two world wars the king tried to find a way to stabilise the country which was torn apart by political conflicts. Sometimes he was considered cruel for trying to solve problems by using violence. However, he is remembered best with his actions during World War 2 when Bulgaria sided with Germany. Boris managed to the very last moment to keep his armies out of battle and he had part of the credit for saving 50 000 Bulgarian Jews from the death camps. Notable were his words from August 1943 after he had returned to Sofia from strenuous negotiations with Hitler: "What terrible days… They tormented me a lot… But I resisted; I didn't give them a single soldier, a single gun… I saved Bulgaria but I didn't save myself." Shortly afterwards Boris died. The official version was heart attack. Nevertheless, many people believed Hitler had poisoned the king because he didn't want to co-operate.

The family of Boris, together with the successor to the throne Simeon, spent almost all its life in foreign countries - Egypt and Spain. Simeon studied at Victoria College in Alexandria, at the French lyceum in Madrid and at Valley Forge Military Academy, US. He married in Spain and started his own business there. He came back to Bulgaria for the first time 50 years after he was banished, in 1996, and visited one of the best-loved places of his father, Rila Monastery in the south-west of the country. In 2001, Simeon went into politics with his own political movement. He won the parliamentary elections and became the prime minister. Nowadays his party is again part of the Government and Simeon spends most of the time in Bulgaria, although all of his five children are in foreign countries.