While King Henry VIII lived, his greatest fear was dying without a male heir to the throne. As it turns out, he needn’t have worried, for when he died in 1547, King Henry was succeeded by his son Edward VI. But the new King Edward was very frail and sickly boy of nine, and in just six short years he succumbed to his illness, bringing his reign to an end and leaving the throne unoccupied once…
Monarchy Monday: The love story of Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip
24th August 2015
No questions asked Queen Victoria, and Prince Albert have one of the most famous love stories of the royal family of all time. Although Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip do have one that comes a close second.
Princess Elizabeth, Prince Philip and Prime Minister Louis St.
Sophie's surprise: why The Countess of Wessex is now the world's most stylish royal
20th August 2015
As summer draws to an end, there is a new royal fashion queen in town and it’s not who you might expect. In the quiet days of August, several polls have appeared telling us who the most stylish royals are and one woman keeps floating to the top of them. The Duchess of…
In our present series on Royal Central, we are looking back at the women who were granddaughters of Queen Victoria. In some ways, their diverse and often surprising lives are the legacies of the great queen. A queen whose reign as longest reigning monarch in British history is about to end as her record is broken by another of her female descendants, our own Queen. But Victoria had some very…
Sam Launer came to England from Czechoslovakia as a Jewish immigrant and founded the company of Launer around 1941. He brought with him an idea that is as important to the company today as it was then: leather goods should be elegant, be formed out of the best materials…
Being Queen of Spain isn’t the easiest royal role around. Ask the two women who currently hold that title – neither Sofia of Greece nor Letizia Ortiz have enjoyed totally smooth sailing. And a century ago, the woman who reigned as Spanish consort had more than her fair…
On Monday 10th August, Queen Elizabeth II arrived for her annual summer holiday at the Scottish retreat of Balmoral Castle. For the next two months, she will reside at this 50,000-acre estate in Aberdeenshire. Originally purchased in 1852 by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the castle has been a treasured getaway for multiple generations of The Royal Family. Queen Victoria remarked in her diary…
On this day in 1786 a baby girl was born to a German noble and his wife. They weren’t the wealthiest of families and already had a large family to look after. But they were ambitious and determined and their daughter inherited those traits. For that baby would grow up to…
Palaces to pixels: how the royal web presence has developed over the years
16th August 2015
137 years ago, on 14 January 1878, Queen Victoria became one of the first people to see Professor Alexander Graham Bell’s brand new invention in action. Bell’s demonstration of the telephone, which took place at Osborne House, was a roaring success, and it went…
‘No one has ever had a sister like her’. The words of King George V, written about a younger sibling known to her family as Toria, perhaps best sum up the life of one of the quietest of Queen Victoria’s granddaughters. When she died many had almost forgotten about this rather lonely princess. Toria had been at the very heart of her her family but her devotion to her parents and siblings…
