Features

MY OPINION: Slimmed down monarchy has failed - its time for Beatrice and Eugenie to step up

Charlie Proctor offers his thoughts on why The King’s well-intentioned vision for a slimmed down monarchy hasn’t worked, and says it’s perhaps time for young blood, in the form of Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie to step up. Rumours are swirling in the royal world that Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie have effectively been put on ice, with the future monarch, King…
Read more
Features

The princess accused of setting fire to her room in Buckingham Palace

A newly published book by royal biographer Tom Quinn has revealed that a member of The Royal Family received a reputation for being something of a firestarter. In his book, Mr Quinn goes behind palace doors to reveal some of the secrets of the servants and staff who worked in Buckingham Palace over the years. One of the revelations is that Prince Philip’s mother, Princess Alice of…
Read more
Features

The royal bride who changed England forever

For a woman who had such a profound effect on a whole country, she is surprisingly enigmatic. Catherine of Valois changed royal history forever but even now, centuries on, the prevailing image of her is the one created by Shakespeare for whom this French princess was a…
Features

The race against time for the birth of a future queen

Just over 200 years ago, the future Queen Victoria was born at Kensington Palace, Her arrival, on 24 May 1819, marked the start of a very famous story. While the healthy baby girl was happily welcomed by her parents, the family had been forced to race against the clock for Victoria’s birth.  Her father, Prince Edward, Duke of Kent was the fifth child and fourth son of King George III and…
Read more
Features

Who was Jane Austen's favourite monarch?

The royal that Jane Austen is most often connected with is the Prince Regent, or the future King George IV, as he requested a copy of her novel for his library. However, there is a different royal from history that Austen much preferred to “Prinny”. A fifteen-year-old Austen wrote The History of England in 1791; the satirical history textbook covers England’s monarchs from King…
Read more