FeaturesHistory

Anne Neville: Richard III's 'Lost' Queen and Westminster Abbey

Amidst the chronicle of lost tombs at Westminster Abbey is that of Queen Anne Neville, wife of King Richard III. Queen Anne’s invisibility in these terms underlines the purported neglect on behalf of Richard III; this lack of a memorial was rectified however when a bronze plaque was placed to Queen Anne’s memory at Westminster Abbey, in an attempt to redress this act of historical forgetting.
Read more
Features

All the Queen's lockets

Lockets form an important part in Queen Victoria’s personal jewellery. The first of these lockets was given to the baby Princess Victoria and the last mentions of them occur at the end of her life. Like any object, therefore, they tell a life story in a new way. In briefly…
Features

All the Queen's rings

We know that rings were important to Queen Victoria because of the numerous references to them which she made in her journal and the fact that they feature so strongly in her photographic legacy. Her hands are literally covered with them. We must assume then, that they…
Features

Queen Victoria and Claridge's

Sometimes known as ‘the annexe to Buckingham Palace’, the classic hotel in London’s Mayfair has time-honoured connections with royalty that exist into the present day. From the earlier single building run by William and Marianne Claridge at 51 Brook Street, Claridge’s opened in its own right in 1856 and received its first visit from Queen Victoria in 1860. Historically, it continued to…
Read more
Features

Prince Albert, the Royal Skater

This year marks the bicentenary of not only the birth of Queen Victoria but also of her husband, Prince Albert. Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s beloved consort, was an eager skater who loved winter sports as part of enduring royal pleasure. Not only did he drive the…
Features

Queen Victoria's last Christmas

Queen Victoria spent her last Christmas at Osborne in 1900. It was forty years exactly since Prince Albert had celebrated his final Christmas in 1860 at Windsor, the setting for so many happy family festivities in the past. Prince Albert did not live to see Christmas 1861, dying on 14 December in the same room in which with strange historical prescience, George IV and William IV had also died, in…
Read more
FeaturesHistoryQueen Elizabeth IIRoyal Weddings

The wedding dress of Her Majesty The Queen

After the wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten at 11:30 am in Westminster Abbey on 20 November 1947, the bridal gifts given to Princess Elizabeth were exhibited at St James’s Palace, numbering over 2,500. Like the gifts, Princess Elizabeth’s wedding dress, designed by the leading British couturier, Sir Norman Hartnell, was also put on display. It had been made up…
Read more