She became an empress in the most
difficult of circumstances and her short reign ended in exile and a
lifetime of supporting her royal heritage from afar. Zita, Empress
of Austria found herself with an imperial crown as a result of an
assassination which sent the world to war. When conflict consumed
the globe again, she once more had to flee. In the latest of our
‘Last Consorts’ series, we…
We’re all facing a very different way of
life for the next while as measures are put in place to control and
hopefully eradicate the spread of coronavirus. It means we’re all
staying in more but that doesn’t mean we can’t travel from our
sofas. Over the coming weeks…
Early Life Giovanna Elisabetta Antonia
Romana Maria was born on 13th November 1907; her parents were King
Victor Emmanuel III of Italy and Queen Elena. Giovanna was born in
Rome into the house of Savoy, as the fourth child of the couple;
she had two older sisters Yolanda…
In my article on numbering the Kings and
Queens of Britain, I mentioned that this practice was not always
accurate and, I’d like to add, not without its controversy. On
February 6 1952, came the death of King George VI of the United
Kingdom. It occurred during the night and the new sovereign didn’t
know she was now Queen for she and her husband, the Duke of
Edinburgh, were thousands of…
While the coronavirus continues to
spread, we can rewind a little over a hundred years in time. In
1918 and 1919, another virus as ravaged countries across the globe.
It caused widespread devastation but, despite its origins, it
became known as Spanish flu because of a much…
Queen Geraldine occupies a unique
position in Albanian history: she’s the only queen consort in
modern times, and she reigned alongside her husband for less than a
year before they had to flee an Italian invasion. Though she spent
the rest of her life zigzagging the…
The remains of Princess Eanswith, also
written as Eanswythe or Eanswide, have been discovered hidden
inside the wall of a church in Kent. Historians say that the bones
and teeth that were found are almost certainly those of the 7th
century Princess and saint. Dr Andrew Richardson, from the
Canterbury Archaeological Trust, told the BBC: “It now looks highly
probable that we have the only…
Every royal life is peppered with
milestones, the moments that mark beginnings and ends, filled with
joy and sometimes sadness. On Royal Central, we’re charting
the famous dates throughout the year in our Calendars of Kings and
Queens. And as March gets well and truly…
Carolina - The blue-eyed Princess who became the grandmother of Europe
28th February 2020
It has been nearly two years since I
first saw the portrait of a young Princess with blue eyes in a
beautiful blue dress. Since then I’ve visited archives, held her
letters to her brother in my hand and visited the places where she
lived and died. Carolina of…
When Princess Patricia of Connaught,
granddaughter of Queen Victoria, wed Alexander Ramsay in London in
1919, she more than made her mark. For not only had Patricia wed a
man with no royal title. She had given up her own HRH to
become his wife. Victoria Patricia Helena Elizabeth, second
daughter of Victoria’s third son, the Duke of Connaught, walked
into Westminster Abbey on February 27th 1919…
