British RoyalsHistoryInsight

The personal papers of Queen Victoria's father now available online

Through The Royal Collection Trust, the papers of Queen Victoria’s father, Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn are now available online. More than 1,000 documents make up the collection ranging from account records and lesson books to personal and official correspondence. Prince Edward Augustus was born 2 November 1767 at Buckingham House. The fourth son and fifth child of George III and…
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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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English chintz and imperial Russia

A chance glance upon an entry in an exhibition catalogue from 2004 immediately attracted my interest because it related to samples of wallpaper for the Alexander Palace, the private residence of Tsar Nicholas II and his family, in Tsarskoe Selo. I knew the last Tsarina had chosen ‘English’ chintzes for some of the furnishings of the palatial home they came to love, but I had never found the…
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Eastwell Park and royalty

The country estate of Eastwell Park, in the parish of Eastwell, near Boughton Lees, Ashford in Kent, is not perhaps a name which immediately comes to mind when thinking of a one-time royal residence. It was, however, the Kent home of Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and his…
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The Duke of Kent: Queen Victoria's missing father

We know of course, that Queen Victoria’s relationship with her mother, the Duchess of Kent, whilst difficult in the early years of her childhood and adolescence, gradually improved with her marriage to Prince Albert, becoming one of genuine closeness and affection. The death of the Duchess of Kent in 1861 – nine months as history would show, prior to the death of Prince Albert – provoked an…
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Two little known royal weddings at St George's Chapel, Windsor

In addition to the four weddings of Queen Victoria’s children which took place at St. George’s Chapel, two other marriages were performed at St. George’s within the Queen’s family during her lifetime, which are far less known – that of Princess Frederica of Hanover, Baroness von Pawel-Rammingen (1848-1926) in 1880 and Princess Marie Louise of Schleswig-Holstein (1872-1956) in 1891. The…
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