History

Fussy eaters: George V and Mary's notes to staff to go up for auction

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18th March 2014
<![CDATA[Recently, notes sent from King George V and Queen Mary to their staff were uncovered in an archive. The archive compiled of around sixty notes and scraps of paper, detailing service life in the Royal Household at the turn of the 20th century. A servant was sent the notes from the Royal couple, which complained about the food they received, and their dietary preferences. George V was…
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History

Prince Albert – A truly remarkable man

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15th March 2014
<![CDATA[In recent years, there seems to have been a surfeit of books and documentaries presenting a very unjust image of Prince Albert as a dour and humourless man, driven by a desire for power, and with little understanding of his children’s needs. Although this…
History

The Queen, Eighty Years a Subject

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20th February 2014
<![CDATA[ When a new portrait of the Queen is unveiled it joins a catalogue of work that began in 1933 when the seven year old Princess Elizabeth sat for Philip Alexius de László, who had been commissioned by her mother, the then Duchess of York to paint the first portrait of Princess Elizabeth. Since then, the Queen has sat for a total of 139 official portraits, only two of them with the…
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History

Anne of Cleves, A Flanders Mare: Part 3

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18th February 2014
<![CDATA[In July 1540 Anne of Cleves – the fourth wife of Henry VIII – went from being queen of England back to Anne, the Daughter of Cleves, with alarming speed. Life as an ex-queen of England was very nearly uncharted territory, but, for Anne, who was only…
History

Richard III DNA to be ‘mapped’

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12th February 2014
<![CDATA[ It has been revealed that the DNA of the skeleton belonging to Richard III is to sequenced. This could potentially uncover details about the last Plantagenet King, such as his eye and hair colour. This is the next project in a long line of plans to discover more…
History

Anne of Cleves, A Flanders Mare: Part 2

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28th January 2014
<![CDATA[Anne of Cleves, the fourth wife of Henry VIII, endured the shortest marriage of any of the six wives. In fact, her marriage was over before it had even begun. In late June 1540 Anne was informed that, due to plague in London, she was to move to Richmond Palace immediately. This was the first time that she had left the court since their marriage and she realised at once that something…
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History

Alfred the Great's remains said to have been found

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21st January 2014
<![CDATA[It appears that the remains of King Alfred The Great, or those of his son Edward the Elder, have been found in a forgotten storage box in a museum. King Alfred, who was born in 849, succeeded to the throne after the deaths of his three elder brothers, and ruled…
History

Mary - Queen Of Hearts?

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12th January 2014
<![CDATA[Whenever Queen Mary, Consort of King George V, is mentioned, what do you think? A stern, old fashioned matriarch who did not care about her family or do you think a traditional, caring queen who not only loved her family but also loved her country. Here I would like to look at the life and times of Queen Mary, from her upbringing as Mary of Teck to Queen of the United Kingdom and…
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