Within the walls of one of England’s most
picturesque castles, a queen gave birth to her only child and set
in motion a chain of events that would become one of Tudor
England’s most intriguing mysteries. The birth had been much
anticipated and much talked about. The baby, a little girl,
was immediately taken off to a nursery decked in scarlet and gold
where a string of attendants awaited…
The fate of one of medieval England’s
most famous royal mistresses has fascinated historians for
centuries. What really happened to The Fair Rosamund? Much of
Rosamund Clifford’s life is now the stuff of legend and folklore
but, in her time, she was England’s…
He was the monarch who had to fight for a
throne but then relied on a mistress for advice with a queen who
arrived at court to find another holding power. And in the middle
of their marriage was a woman with ambition, brains and no sense of
self control. Our special read…
Eleanor of Aquitaine died on 1 April 1204
but after 800 years, she still holds our interest. She was Queen
twice and held titles in her own name, and she remains one of the
most interesting royal women in the mediaeval period. Eleanor was
born on 8 April 1124 to William, Duke of Aquitaine and Count of
Poitiers and Aénor of Châtellerault. Her father’s lands exceeded
those of the French…
Caroline of Ansbach was Princess of Wales
from 1714 to 1727; her father-in-law, King George I, inherited the
throne upon Queen Anne’s death and began the Hanoverian dynasty.
She remains one of the most interesting women to hold the title of
Princess of Wales and left her…
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…
For almost a thousand years, coronation
services have taken place at Westminster Abbey, in times of peace
and strife. The sovereign sometimes arrives at the Abbey a popular
figure; sometimes, they’re deeply unpopular. More often than not,
they’re crowned by birthright and succession. On a few occasions,
they’re crowned after a battle, like the first king to reign after
the Norman…
Every Christmas, we expect the Royal
Family to go to Sandringham for their annual Christmas Day church
service and later, hear a speech from the Monarch. While that is
the tradition in the 21st century, the days of the Royal Family
celebrating Christmas in a big way date…
The Cenotaph in Whitehall is one of the
most recognisable war memorials in the world and King George V
played a significant role in its unveiling in 1920. In 1919, Sir
Edwin Lutyens designed a temporary wood and plaster monument to
mark those who had died in the Great…
In the ancient world, many cultures
invoked different forms of magic to protect their dead from those
still in the physical world. In ancient Egypt, this included
placing a curse on the mummy. One of the most famous instances of
this was the curse placed on King Tutankhamun’s mummy and the
events that followed the opening of his tomb. In ancient Egypt,
families would have curses…
