Sophie Helen Rhys-Jones was born on 20
January 1965 as the youngest child and only daughter
of Christopher Bournes Rhys-Jones and the late Mary O’Sullivan
at the Radcliffe Infirmary, Oxford. She has an elder brother,
David. One of her godparents was the late actor Thane Bettany,
who was her father’s stepbrother. Sophie grew up in Kent, to where
her family moved while she was still…
She’s the future queen consort, a mother
of three – including a future king – and one of the most famous
women in the world. But back in 1982, the future Duchess of
Cambridge was just another baby in the nursery at Royal Berkshire
Hospital. Catherine…
It was a quiet country affair, far
removed from the pomp and ceremony we’ve come to expect from royal
weddings. The setting was an English parish church, the regal guest
list only filled a couple of pews, and the bride walked in several
minutes late carrying her own train…
It’s coming home, it’s coming home, it’s
coming…the tapestry is coming home. The Bayeux Tapestry is heading
back to British shores, for the first time in almost 1000 years,
and you need to put 2022 in your diary right now if you want to see
this famous piece of history up close and personal. OK, the opening
line might not have the ring or the emotion of the football song
we…
‘The Royal Family in 1846’ by the
fashionable German painter, Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-73) is
an extraordinarily important image. Queen Victoria regarded it as
the painter’s supreme achievement, although he painted the Queen on
other occasions, most notably in…
Royal menageries became homes for the
many animals that were given in previous centuries as political
presents from their respective countries and thereby entered a life
of exalted captivity, the nature of any zoo now being a
controversial one. The oldest baroque zoo was…
Queen Victoria, who ruled from 1837 to
1901, laid out some very specific instructions for her funeral. Her
personal physician was with her in her final hours when she died on
the Isle of Wight. She was surrounded by her family, including
her son and successor King Edward VII and her oldest grandson,
Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany. She requested that her favourite
pet, a Pomeranian called Turi to…
Continuing our series, we are taking a
look at the life of Sofia Hellqvist before becoming Princess Sofia
of Sweden. The pristine lakes, forests, and mountains of Älvdalen,
Sweden look straight out of a Disney fairytale. It’s no wonder that
a future princess spent her…
It was a quiet country house, described
by several who knew it as ‘’little’’ and a ‘’pied a terre’, given
as a wedding present to a royal couple who were expected to linger
on the fringes of regal life. Yet on July 2nd 1903, it became the
birthplace of one of…
The official announcement that King
Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands will make a
state visit to the UK this autumn is confirmation of a long-awaited
and hotly anticipated trip. The visit will run between October 23rd
and 24th and will see the Dutch royals hosted at Buckingham Palace.
Ahead of the visit, Royal Central looks back at past trips between
the two nations. One of the…
