Lydia Starbuck

Her story is amongst the most controversial of all the Queens of England and centuries after her death, a new twist appeared in the tale of Elizabeth Woodville. An expert at the National Archives in London found a document suggesting that the consort who revolutionised royalty may have died of the plague. Euan Roger is a records specialist at the National Archives and while looking through 16th…

For a woman who founded one of the most famous royal dynasties in British history, she is surprisingly enigmatic. Katherine of Valois was the first Kate to be Queen of England and yet much of the modern imagining of her comes from her fleeting appearance in the works of Shakespeare. But what little we do know seems to indicate that the ‘fair Kate’ of Henry V was every bit as ambitious…

His birth secured the succession in a way the British royal family had never known before. When Mary, Duchess of York delivered a healthy boy on June 23rd 1894 she ensured that her royal dynasty had three heirs in direct line to the throne. But the baby who arrived that day would take the crown from ultimate security to compete crisis. The baby grew up to be Edward VIII, the king who abdicated for…