Worn by a famous bride on the day she
became a queen, visitors to Madrid can get up close and personal
with one of the best known royal wedding gowns of the 20th century.
The Balenciaga creation chosen by a certain Fabiola de Mora y
Aragon for her 1960 marriage to King Baudouin of the Belgians is
part of a retrospective of the designer’s work now on at one of the
best known galleries in the…
Having given several royal performances
before George III and Queen Charlotte, the boy Mozart’s sonatas for
keyboard and violin K10-15 were engraved before the end of 1764,
dedicated to the musical Queen: ‘Six Sonates pour le clavecin que
peuvent se jouer avec…
The Queen has been named as one of the
most admired people in the world in a new poll. The YouGov research
also shows that Elizabeth II makes the top twenty most respected
women in every country where the survey took place. The overall
poll lists the top twenty most admired…
Hair works like a symbolic thread
throughout a person’s life history. For Queen Victoria, this was no
exception. Indeed, for a royal personage, hair plays a massive part
in ceremonial display and formal dressing as well as private
ritual. The role of royal hairdresser is also one that enables
exceptional intimacy, thereby an indication of great privilege.
Today we can visit Queen Victoria’s…
Today we’re looking at the Luxembourgish
line of succession, which has seen some changes to its rules since
current Grand Duke Henri ascended to the throne. Luxembourg now
practices absolute primogeniture, which Grand Duke Henri
established in 2011 to apply to his heirs.
For Queen Victoria, the number fourteen
held a terrible power. This date, the ‘14th’, could seem to haunt
the Queen like the shadow of death. Much as she later tried to
reclaim it as a sacred date, she beheld it with an almost mystical
sense of dark fascination and…
We’ve just had another royal silver
wedding anniversary although the couple involved is so discreet,
it’s perhaps not a surprise that it’s passed pretty much under the
radar. Lady Sarah Chatto, niece of the Queen, celebrated twenty
five years of marriage with husband, Daniel, on July 14th 2019. And
that gives us a great excuse to take another look at her wedding
dress. For this…
In Berlin, there is a missing queen. Her
burial place in the historic Hohenzollerngruft [Hohenzollern vault]
in Berlin Cathedral is disputed and may be lost. Elisabeth
Christine, Frederick II’s (‘the Great’) unloved queen was a victim
of historical banishment, in…
This summer, Royal Central is taking a
look at the lines of succession across Europe and this latest
installment looks at the first twenty with a claim on the British
throne. Elizabeth II has achieved much in her long reign and from a
dynastic point of view she has…
Today we’re looking at the history of the
Palace of Zarzuela, which is the home of King Felipe, his wife,
Queen Letizia, and their two daughters, Princess Leonor and Infanta
Sofía; as well as King Juan Carlos and Queen Sofía. Construction
began on Zarzuela Palace back in the 1600s, though the then-King
Felipe IV meant for it to function as a hunting lodge or country
palace instead of an…
