FeaturesHistory

How Queen Charlotte and Queen Victoria & Albert introduced the Christmas Tree to Britain

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9th December 2021
Prince Albert is generally credited with introducing the Christmas tree to Britain, but in fact, it was the work of his wife’s grandmother, Queen Charlotte. Like Prince Albert, Charlotte was born and raised in Germany, where the tradition of bringing a tree inside at Christmas time, decorated with lights and sweets, is believed to date back to the 16th century. As a child, Charlotte’s family…
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History

Queen Victoria’s wedding ring - a symbol of the passionate marriage she enjoyed with Prince Albert

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10th February 2021
The wedding ring of Queen Victoria has its special poignancy, a symbol of the passionate marriage she enjoyed with Prince Albert. Placed on her finger on the morning of 10 February 1840, her private instructions ensured that she would wear it in perpetuity. What do we know of it? If we study the paintings and engravings made that show the hands of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert joined, we…
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New surprising discoveries on Queen Victoria and the midwife who delivered her

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27th January 2021
I first encountered Marian Theodore Charlotte Heidenreich von Siebold back in 2018 when I was researching the birth of the future Queen Victoria, ahead of this year’s bicentenary. Madame Siebold was the skilled German obstetrician who by an extraordinary circumstance, assisted at the births in 1819 of both Princess Victoria and that of her future husband, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha…
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FeaturesHistory

The christening of Queen Victoria

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17th September 2020
Unlike the christenings of Queen Victoria’s children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, the christening of the future Queen is an event about which far less is known. It was not the subject of a painting, nor was much written about it as the ceremony itself was a…
Features

The Fitness-Empress

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30th July 2020
The spectacular beauty of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria (1837-1898) was a reputation which, once created, had to be determinedly maintained. This was only achieved through rigorous beauty and exercise regimes, which she adopted as her personal discipline. The Empress, who…
Features

The beauty regime of a beautiful Empress

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28th July 2020
Empress Elisabeth of Austria was one of the most beautiful women of nineteenth-century Europe, yet this beauty was the determined result of intensive labour, at considerable cost. The cult of that beauty which astonished her contemporaries became Elisabeth’s personal myth when, past the age of thirty, she refused to be photographed – thereby establishing her own enigma. Her reputation…
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