The use of nicknames or epithets to describe a royal or a local ruler was quite common until recent times. Before pictures were easily accessed, or in places where the first name was repeatedly used for consecutive rulers, a nickname was a useful way to distinguish one person from another. Sometimes these names were chosen by the bearer themselves, sometimes they were gained through a courageous…
The Queen turns Windsor Castle blue in tribute to the UK's healthcare staff and key workers
2nd April 2020
Windsor Castle was illuminated in blue on Thursday evening as the United Kingdom came to a standstill at 8pm in a mass applause for those working to defeat ongoing epidemic.
In what has turned in to a weekly occurrence, at 8pm each Thursday, people gather on their…
Norway’s present collection of royal regalia consists of nine pieces. They include three crowns – the king’s crown, the queen’s crown and the crown prince’s crown. However, this was made in 1818 for the coronation of King Karl XVI Johan. Norway had at…
Transition plans for Brighton’s famed Royal Pavilion, the seaside pleasure palace built by King George IV, are now in limbo due to the coronavirus crisis.
Last month it was announced the Royal Pavilion & Museums, which are currently run by Brighton and Hove City Council, would be taken over by a charitable trust April 1, but those plans have been delayed because of the current…
On this
day, March 27, in 1785, His Majesty King Louis XVII was borne in France. He was
born prince of France and Duke of Normandy and was the son of King Louis XVI and
Marie Antoinette. When his older brother, Louis Joseph, died in June 1789, he became
the heir to the…
The fact that Europe’s queens and princesses have good relationships with each other is well known. But it’s more perhaps more unusual to hear about friendships between Europe’s royals and Russian politicians. et this was exactly what happened when Queen…
On this day 64 years ago: The Queen Mother's devastating bellyflop at the Grand National
24th March 2020
March 24 marks exactly 64 years since The Queen Mother suffered one of the cruelest defeats in the history of sport when her horse bellyflopped at the finishing line of the Grand National.
Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, was a huge horse racing lover, with it being estimated that she had owned more than 500 winners in her lifetime.
In 1956, Her Majesty was about to achieve what no…
As the last Emperor of Russia, Tsar Nicholas II’s twenty-three-year reign came to an abrupt end when he abdicated on 15 March 1917. Those tumultuous years of his reign were defined by the Russo-Japanese War that saw the annihilation of the Russian Baltic Fleet, Bloody…
It was a royal wedding for the history books, the marriage of a future king and a regal love match to boot. On this day in 1929, Olav of Norway married Martha of Sweden in Oslo. The couple’s romance had captured the public imagination while their rather glamourous…
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 maligned king.
The Spanish flu came not from Spain, but from France at the very end of the First World War. The…
