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Postcards from Russia: Earl Mountbatten of Burma and his Romanov cousins

On 25 June 1900, Victoria, Princess Louis of Battenberg – born Princess Victoria of Hesse – gave birth to a son at Frogmore House in Windsor Great Park, the erstwhile residence of Queen Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, until her death in 1861. Princess Louis of Battenberg had been the firstborn child of Queen Victoria’s second daughter, Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of…
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Princess Alix of Hesse's visit to Malta

Princess Alix of Hesse visited Malta in 1890. Little would appear to have been recorded about it, although it is possible to piece together some details of the trip from surviving accounts, biographies by those that personally knew her and from extracts of letters she wrote…
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Queen Victoria and the Archbishop

Biography is also made up of people in the background; so it is with William Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury. The appearances he made in the life of the future Queen Victoria were of extreme significance, in a way that was unique, and whilst these functions formed a natural part of his official duties as dictated by the Church of England, he was part of her world almost literally from the first…
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Royal Cousins and Imperial Russia

Princess Alix of Hesse – as the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna was known before her marriage to the young Tsar Nicholas II in 1894 – visited Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park on several occasions, as the residence of her maternal aunt, Princess Helena of…
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Queen Victoria: The story of a royal statue

Of the memorials in Kensington Gardens, many share a close connection with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the most important to the latter being the ornate Gothic masterpiece designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, known as the Albert Memorial, which was unveiled in 1872 and restored in recent memory. The statue to the great doctor Edward Jenner (1749-1823) was revealed by Prince Albert and has…
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Who was King Carl XIV Johan?

This year it is 200 years since Carl XIV Johan became king of both Norway and Sweden. But who was he? King Carl Johan (1763-1818-1844), originally Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, was born in the south of France and became a soldier at 17-years-old. During the French Revolution, he…
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The Royal Mausoleum of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert

‘You are entering a consecrated building, the burial place of a Queen and her Consort. Please be as quiet as possible’. These respectful words are what greeted any visitor before they entered the Royal Mausoleum of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, at Frogmore in Windsor Great Park, when it used to be open to the public. It was of course, not the only royal memorial to the dead Prince; England…
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