Features

This is why your brand new £1 coin was actually made three years ago and has Queen Elizabeth II on it

Millions of brand new £1 coins are about to enter tills across the UK but the will say 2022 and you won’t find King Charles on them. If that left you scratching your head or wondering if there’d been some kind of time slip, then I can provide the answer. Your brand new coin is actually three years old.On August 20 2025, the Royal Mint released 29 million shiny £1 coins into…
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Features

This is why I am obsessed with one of the least famous Queens of England - and you should be too

On July 12th 1543, a rather low key royal wedding took place.  The groom was Henry VIII and his sixth wife was Katherine Parr, a relatively unknown minor noblewoman who had risen from daughter of a knight to Queen of England in thirty years.  The woman who became a royal bride on that July day at Hampton Court was also one of her country’s most interesting consorts. I’m obsessed and…
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Features

The unknown man who was briefly trusted with a very important royal secret

He was among the only people outside a royal inner circle who knew the answer to a question everyone was asking and on a chilly winter’s day he, briefly, became rather famous for that very reason. And given that the person who shared that secret with him was the always formidable Prince Philip, it’s perhaps little wonder that he kept it. That’s a very good reason to stay quiet.John…
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Royal News

The family secret that gave Anne her name

Anne is one of the most popular names for queens in English history but after the 18th century, it all but disappeared from royal use. Until 1950, when the then heir to the throne chose it for her second child. Why did the only daughter of Queen Elizabeth II end up with a…
Royal News

King Charles salutes the fallen in moving ceremony marking 80 years since the end of World War Two

The King has laid a wreath to remember those lost as he led the nation in marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War Two.King Charles, along with Queen Camilla, attended a National Service of Remembrance at the National Memorial Arboretum on August 15th 2025, exactly 80 years on from VJ Day which saw the surrender of Japanese forces to the Allies and an end to the global conflict…
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