The Kents

Who is Prince Michael of Kent?

By
4th July 2019
Prince Michael (b. 4 July 1942) is the younger brother of the Duke of Kent and paternal first cousin of Queen Elizabeth II. As a five-year-old, he was a pageboy at the wedding of the then Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip. He was educated at Sunningdale School and Eton, before entering the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, during his life he has always been active in learning languages and…
Read more
History

Music for a Queen: Mozart and Queen Charlotte

By
23rd June 2019
The first and only time that the boy Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visited London occurred between 1764-5, at about the half-way point of the Mozart family’s monumental European Grand Tour, which was to prove pivotal in Wolfgang’s developmental process as a composer, the…
Other

The History of The Royals at Ascot

By
18th June 2019
As Royal Ascot approaches, horse racing fans begin to anticipate the winners and losers of the event. But one of the main features of Royal Ascot is, of course, the attendance of the Queen and members of the Royal family. As the name suggests, this competition has a rich royal history, but it’s only actually called Royal Ascot when the Queen attends – here’s how Ascot’s heritage ties in…
Read more
History

'For my darling Nicky': A gift for the Tsarevich

By
12th June 2019
On 29 May 1894, Tsarevich Nicholas of Russia wrote to his mother, Empress Marie Feodorovna, that he could see the sea from the room in which he was writing, in the imperial palace of Peterhof and that he had ‘such a longing for the yacht and want to fly there to join my…
HistoryInsight

Gifts from an imperial godmother: The Allen twins of Harrogate

By
10th June 2019
In May 1894, Princess Alix of Hesse undertook a cure in the fashionable Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate for sciatica. She had become engaged to Tsarevich Nicholas of Russia at Coburg the previous month. Whilst she stayed at Harrogate, she regularly corresponded with her fiancé, who would later join her at the house her eldest sister, Victoria, Princess Louis of Battenberg had rented at…
Read more
History

Finding a 'lost' gift on the birth of a royal baby

By
24th May 2019
Charlotte Heidenreich von Siebold (1788-1859), referred to in most biographies of Queen Victoria simply as Madame Siebold, is a name often treated as a historical footnote, but is in fact, one of quite astonishing importance. It was Madame Siebold, the skilled German obstetrician who successfully helped to deliver the future Queen Victoria, born on 24 May 1819, at Kensington Palace. I recently…
Read more