This month, King Harald and Queen Sonja of Norway celebrate their golden wedding anniversary. The then Crown Prince of Norway married Sonja Haraldsen on 29 August1968 at Oslo Cathedral. Their wedding, attended by royalty from around Europe, came five months after the announcement of their engagement which was marked by Harald presenting his bride with a diamond and ruby ring with a very…
In the last days of August 1968, the Royal Family made a sad and surprising announcement. Princess Marina, Duchess of Kent’s health was ”giving rise to anxiety” following the diagnosis of an inoperable brain tumour. There was sympathy for the duchess, a…
Caught forever in a moment of time, they are the tragic family whose terrible end in World War One still appals and fascinates today. The children of the last Tsar of Russia died alongside their parents in Yekaterinburg one hundred years ago this summer. And yet Olga…
Royal weddings bring all kinds of expectations and among them is one filled with sparkle and glitter. For we all assume a royal bride will arrive for her marriage wearing a tiara and when the wedding will result in them becoming a consort or consort in waiting, the expectation is even higher. However, some of the most high profile royal brides of recent times have decided to ditch the diadem…
The Duchess of Sussex pulled a style surprise on her wedding day when she chose an all but forgotten royal tiara as the finishing touch to her bridal outfit. Meghan’s pick has put Queen Mary’s Bandeau Tiara back in the regal spotlight and reignited interest in the set of…
The Eleanor’s Cross at Hardingstone in Northampton is a monument to medieval love. It’s one of a dozen crosses built on the orders of King Edward I in memory of his first wife, Eleanor of Castile. Constructed between 1291 and 1294 at the places her coffin had…
They are monuments to love that have told a royal romance for seven centuries. The Eleanor Crosses are a famous part of England’s regal history and, for hundreds of years, they have told the story of the king who built them for the queen he had lost and could never forget. Now, in 2018, just a handful survive to pay witness to the devotion of Edward I to his consort, Eleanor of Castile. But…
A royal wedding just wouldn’t be a royal wedding without a tiara or three. But when the then Princess Elizabeth married the Duke of Edinburgh on November 20th 1947, she almost missed out on wearing the diadem on which she’d set her heart. For just before the…
On a summer’s day in 1818, a young German princess walked into one of the most famous hotels in London to meet a man twice her age. Just a year earlier, Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen and her suitor, William, Duke of Clarence, would never have considered chatting let alone…
On July 6th 1893, London woke to a blazing hot morning after two days of rain. The streets were decked with flowers and large crowds were already settled on the pavements and lampposts as dawn broke. They had come for the royal wedding of George, Duke of York, second in line to the throne but what many really wanted to see was the bride. And Princess Mary of Teck was ready to step into the…
