FeaturesRoyal Weddings

Remembering the Duke of Edinburgh: the royal wedding that set him on an historic path

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14th April 2021
On the morning of Thursday, 20 November 1947, thousands lined the streets of London along the processional route between Buckingham Palace and Westminster Abbey; crowds thronged down the Mall, pressing against the Palace gates. Millions listened to the radio broadcast that was made. Post-war Britain took an enormous interest in the royal wedding and many thousands watched the film of the event…
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History

"This was the happiest day of my life!” - On This Day 180 years ago, Queen Victoria married Prince Albert

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10th February 2021
“Oh! This was the happiest day of my life!” With these words, Queen Victoria described her wedding day in her diary – 10 February 1840, writing up the event for the day’s entry from Windsor Castle. It marked the beginning of her marriage to her cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The opposite date of this ecstatic exhortation of joy on behalf of the Queen was unquestionably…
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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 would go on to become what was probably the most brilliant horsewoman of nineteenth-century Europe, was often stitched into…
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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…
FeaturesHistory

Queen Victoria's Saloon

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26th July 2020
Queen Victoria’s relationship with the railway began on 13 June 1842, when she drove from Windsor to Slough with Prince Albert, to make the historic first royal journey by train to Paddington. This relationship would continue throughout her life and endure, even beyond her death, as the Great Western Railway conveyed the Queen’s body in the Royal Train from Paddington to Windsor for her…
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