Today, Queen Elisabeth Christine of
Prussia (1715-1797) enjoys a kind of historical exile, banished to
footnotes and paragraphs amidst the mountainous body of
biographical material which exists about her exalted husband,
Frederick II, King of Prussia, already christened ‘the Great’ by
contemporary Europe and whom she prided herself on having been
married to. It is a sad echo of the type of…
Animals given to royalty could, of
course, become pets – but they could often be presented in the form
of political gifts, adding therefore to the monarch’s personal
sense of majestas. An example of this is the bay horse and three
brood mares, sent to Henry VIII by…
Born on 23 August 1740 to the Duke
Anthony Ulrich of Brunswick-Luneburg and his wife Anna Leopoldovna,
Ivan was the only grandson of the former Tsar of Russia Ivan V, and
consequently in line to the Russian throne. His mother was the
niece of Empress Anna and expected that…
Alongside the well-established royal love
of dogs, cats are far less recorded as preferred pets, unlike their
canine counterparts. They have, however, been no less loved by
those that did own them. So revered were cats (“mau”) as sacred
animals in Ancient Egypt that they were often mummified. Feline
depictions of Egyptian deities date back as far as 3100 BC; the
goddess Bastet often took this…
One of English history’s ‘forgotten’
queens, is actually one who was arguablyamong the most loved. This
was Mary II, the joint monarch – not queen consort of William III.
Forgiven by posterity for deposing her father, contemporary history
seems to have accepted…
“Mary Queen of Scots”. These were the
words I overheard from a visitor, passing their comment on the
magnificent canopy tomb in the south aisle of the Lady Chapel at
Westminster Abbey, erected on the orders of James I to house the
remains of his mother, transferred from…
One of the best parts of the holidays is
reflecting on the past year and looking forward to what is to come.
The Royal Family has had an exciting 2017, with 2018 bringing about
a new baby and a Royal wedding! Before we say goodbye to the past,
let’s look at everything they have been up to these past 12
months. 11 January The Duchess of Cambridge visits the Early Years
Parenting Unit (EYPU)…
Queen Elizabeth has undertaken 94
official State Visits during her reign, plus two State Visits in
her capacity as Queen of Canada (she visited the United States
twice in the ‘50s). A State Visit is when a foreign head of state
is invited to visit a country by that…
“Dear old Sandringham, the place I love
better than anywhere else in the world…” were the words which King
George V used to describe the Norfolk retreat, beloved by four
generations of the British Royal Family since 1862; it was a
sentimentechoed by…
Prince Henry to marry on the same date King Henry VIII executed his wife Anne Boleyn
15th December 2017
Prince Henry of Wales, better known as
Prince Harry, will marry Meghan Markle on the same date as his
namesake, King Henry VIII, executed his wife, Anne Boleyn. The date
is, of course, a purely incidental occurrence,
but nonetheless, an amusing one to followers of history. Queen
Anne Boleyn was the second wife of King Henry and the mother
of Queen Elizabeth I. She met her fate in the Tower of…
