Today, Queen Elisabeth Christine of
Prussia (1715-1797) enjoys a kind of historical exile, banished to
footnotes and paragraphs amidst the mountainous body of
biographical material which exists about her exalted husband,
Frederick II, King of Prussia, already christened ‘the Great’ by
contemporary Europe and whom she prided herself on having been
married to. It is a sad echo of the type of…
Animals given to royalty could, of
course, become pets – but they could often be presented in the form
of political gifts, adding therefore to the monarch’s personal
sense of majestas. An example of this is the bay horse and three
brood mares, sent to Henry VIII by…
Born on 23 August 1740 to the Duke
Anthony Ulrich of Brunswick-Luneburg and his wife Anna Leopoldovna,
Ivan was the only grandson of the former Tsar of Russia Ivan V, and
consequently in line to the Russian throne. His mother was the
niece of Empress Anna and expected that…
Alongside the well-established royal love
of dogs, cats are far less recorded as preferred pets, unlike their
canine counterparts. They have, however, been no less loved by
those that did own them. So revered were cats (“mau”) as sacred
animals in Ancient Egypt that they were often mummified. Feline
depictions of Egyptian deities date back as far as 3100 BC; the
goddess Bastet often took this…
One of English history’s ‘forgotten’
queens, is actually one who was arguablyamong the most loved. This
was Mary II, the joint monarch – not queen consort of William III.
Forgiven by posterity for deposing her father, contemporary history
seems to have accepted…
Today we’ll explore the life of Princess
Michael of Kent. She is the wife of Prince Michael and was born
Baroness Marie Christine von Reibnitz in Sudetenland (now in the
Czech Republic) on 15 January 1945. Baroness Marie Christine’s
parents were Baron Günther…
“Mary Queen of Scots”. These were the
words I overheard from a visitor, passing their comment on the
magnificent canopy tomb in the south aisle of the Lady Chapel at
Westminster Abbey, erected on the orders of James I to house the
remains of his mother, transferred from their first burial place of
Peterborough Cathedral to the Abbey in 1612. However, tombs can
tell only part of the truth…
The Crown returned for a second season on
Netflix earlier last month, and dramatised The Queen’s reign from
1955 to roughly 1964, shortly after the birth of Prince Edward.
Today we’re going to separate the fact from fiction in The Crown’s
second season. Please do not…
There have been many royal related films
released over the years. I have listed below my top five royal
associated films. The King’s Speech: The 2010 film starred Colin
Firth as King George VI who struggles with his speech impediment
and receives help from an Australian speech therapist who
provides vital assistance in preparing the nervous King before his
first wartime radio broadcast…
