As Prince Albert reprimanded his second daughter, Princess Alice, for telling her eldest sister the Crown Princess, that their father’s illness had worsened, he said sadly (but correctly): ‘You did wrong. You should have told her I am dying’. The Prince’s fatalism was such that he acknowledged what the Queen did not dare herself to admit. Indeed, Queen Victoria’s letters to her uncle…
Henry I of England was the son of William the Conqueror and reigned from 1100 to 1135. Henry had two legitimate children with his first wife Matilda of Scotland: Matilda and William. Sadly Henry’s heir William died at sea leaving Matilda as Henry’s chosen heir. This…
Illegitimate children are not uncommon in royal families, especially in past centuries. Marriages were used for dynastic and political reasons and not for love. However, the children of George III were rather well-known for their illegitimate children. William IV and Mrs…
In August 1856, Christiania received an exceptionally grand visit. Seven royals from three royal houses, one Imperial house and a princely house were gathered in Norway’s capital that summer. One of them was Napoleon, although it wasn’t the Napoleon most of us think of.
Christiania had, since the spring of 1856, had been a permanent royal home. It was Crown Prince Karl of…
By October 1764 the Mozarts had once more been at court, having been received at the Queen’s House in May as Leopold Mozart wrote ‘within 5 days of arriving’. The young Wolfgang played before George III and even accompanied Queen Charlotte, who sang an aria.
In…
The Illegitimate Royals: Eleanor Butler, the woman who almost brought down the Tudors
22nd July 2019
She was the long dead widow who was used by a king to overthrow his own nephew and yet her name is all but forgotten today. Eleanor Butler was the woman who helped change the royal history of England forever and almost brought one of its most famous dynasties to disaster…
Having given several royal performances before George III and Queen Charlotte, the boy Mozart’s sonatas for keyboard and violin K10-15 were engraved before the end of 1764, dedicated to the musical Queen: ‘Six Sonates pour le clavecin que peuvent se jouer avec l’accompagnement de violin our flaute/traversiere/Tres humblement dediees/a sa Majeste Charlotte/Reine de la Grande Bretagne/composes…
They’ve claimed crowns, founded dynasties and shaped royal history but much of it has been done against the odds. For those born outside of royal marriage were often seen as also rans until they stormed the castles their parents called home.
For centuries, royal…
As summer approaches, Queen Victoria is the royal everyone is talking about. Even the descendant who supplanted her as longest reigning monarch in British history has been following in her famous footsteps in the past few days as the woman who changed our concept of royalty…
King Henry VIII certainly took enough mistresses in his day, but only one of the resulting children was acknowledged: his beloved son, Henry FitzRoy, Duke of Richmond and Somerset.
He was born in June 1519, the son of Elizabeth “Bessie” Blount and Henry VIII. Bessie Blount was a 17-year-old lady in waiting to Catherine of Aragon, and she caught the eye of the king whilst his wife was…
