The Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II took place 66 years ago today. The young monarch, who had succeeded to the throne on the death of her father, King George VI, on February 6th 1952 was carried to this ancient ceremony in a golden coach while the world watched. Millions of people around the world celebrated with Elizabeth, then just 27 years old, at the start of what would become a record…
The Cartier Halo Tiara earned its way into the royal history books when it was worn by Miss Catherine Middleton when she married Prince William in 2011.
Commissioned by the Duke of York, Queen Elizabeth II’s father in 1936, from the House of Cartier, the tiara is made…
Was Queen Victoria a Victorian? The question is a complex and fascinating one to answer.
In the immediate response, Victoria would seem to typify what it meant to be ‘Victorian’ because her long reign straddled the nineteenth century, and the age was accordingly…
The name of Miss M. Hope Robson belongs to that both visible and invisible host of British royal nannies and governesses which appeared at the royal courts of Europe in the nineteenth century, known to their charges but in some cases, almost forgotten to biography. Correspondence sent to them in burgeoning childish scrawl and later in a mature script, chart the chronology in pen or pencil of the…
Aged 10 ¾ years old, Princess Victoria composed a story. This delightful children’s tale, written by the future Queen, survives in its own little red ‘Composition’ notebook in the Royal Archives. To understand how it was made and the full significance of it, we need…
Princess Alix of Hesse, later Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna, visited the Yorkshire spa town of Harrogate in 1894 to take a cure for sciatica, during which time she became godmother to the Allen twins, born in the house where she was staying, to her landlady, Mrs Allen. These…
Charlotte Heidenreich von Siebold (1788-1859), referred to in most biographies of Queen Victoria simply as Madame Siebold, is a name often treated as a historical footnote, but is in fact, one of quite astonishing importance. It was Madame Siebold, the skilled German obstetrician who successfully helped to deliver the future Queen Victoria, born on 24 May 1819, at Kensington Palace. I recently…
On 24 May 1819, a baby girl was born whose birth would be of overwhelming importance but on whose delivery it was by no means certain that she would succeed. This, despite the proud boast of her father, the Duke of Kent, who was determined in the royal marriage race that…
Mrs Brock was the future Queen Victoria’s nurse. Called by her ‘dear Boppy’ (op. cit., Christopher Hibbert, Queen Victoria, A Personal History, 21), she remained Princess Victoria’s nurse until the age of five, after which she passed into the better-known hands of…
Soft, striking and above all, symbolic. The wedding bouquet carried by the future Queen of Spain, Letizia Ortiz, at her royal wedding on May 22nd 2004 was filled with significance. From personal touches to nods to one of the oldest ruling dynasties in Europe, Letizia filled her posy with meaning.
At the heart of her cascading bouquet were the iris and the lily, closely associated with the House…
