Queen Victoria’s exquisitely woven wedding dress of
Spitalfields silk satin survives. Her wedding veil was placed over her face as her
body was dressed and prepared for burial at Windsor. Fascinatingly as I found
out during research, the wedding veil and one of the Queen’s famous white caps
were both placed on her head after death, a fitting analogy of Queen Victoria’s
personal identities…
All royal wedding dresses are keenly anticipated but there is always slightly more interest and slightly more pressure when the gown on show belongs to a queen in waiting. On December 4th 1999, Mathilde d’Udekem d’Acoz walked into the Town Hall of Brussels for…
Royal Wedding Rewind: King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of the Belgians
4th December 2019
It was the last major royal wedding of the 20th century and it began a new chapter in a royal story that would lead to a throne. On December 4th 1999, the then heir to the Belgian throne, Philippe, married Mathilde d’Udekem d’Acoz before a host of regal guests.
This month marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of Queen Maud of Norway. There British royal became a queen in 1905 but her path to a throne began nine years earlier when she married her cousin in a very Victorian wedding. However, the seemingly run of the mill royal union that began that day would transform the lives of two royals and one monarchy. Here, Royal Central looks back at the…
A Royal Wedding Anniversary: the marriage 85 years ago of the Duke of Kent to Princess Marina of Greece was memorable in many ways, writes Jane Dismore
29th November 2019
‘Marina is pretty & charming & I think Georgie is very lucky to have found such a delightful bride.’
These happy words in September 1934 from Queen Mary, mother of Prince George, to Lady Desborough barely disguised the relief she and George V felt as they…
This year, it is 150 years since Norway’s Queen Maud was born. This is marked by Royal Central with several articles where we look at the life of the British princess who married a Danish prince and ended up as a Norwegian queen. In Oslo today, the city that Maud once…
This year, it is 150 years since the Norwegian Queen Maud was born in London. Much has been written about the queen who was elected to be monarch together with her husband as a new Norwegian royal couple in an independent Norway in 1905. When Queen Maud came to Norway, she brought a lot of jewellery with her. One item from this precious collection has simply disappeared. It has been stolen and it…
Christmas at Windsor to include gifts exchanged by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert
23rd November 2019
The bicentenary of the births of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert will be celebrated by a small display at Windsor, once the setting for the many Christmases which the royal couple spent together with their growing family of nine children. Displayed in the Octagon Dining…
Historic Royal Palaces to mark 200th anniversary of King George III's death
20th November 2019
Following a year of commemorations marking the bicentennial
of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s births, next year Historic Royal Palaces
will commemorate the bicentennial of King George III’s death.
Kew Palace, a residence most closely associated with King George…
The ‘meeting’ between Marie Antoinette and the young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has a fabled quality, not least because of the oft-repeated folklore that has grown around it. From the point of view of posterity, it is a fascinating moment to contemplate, when two legendary (Austrian) figures were in the same room, their biographical futures lying still before them. I want to explore the facts…
