Most people when you mention Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, remember that from a difficult first meeting between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy, true love eventually blossoms when young Elizabeth realises first impressions may be deceptive. However, a recent discovery by a student at Windsor Castle has revealed that a man despised of by Jane, was perhaps a fan of her writing and may…
Biography is also made up of people in the background; so it is with William Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury.
The appearances he made in the life of the future Queen Victoria were of extreme significance, in a way that was unique, and whilst these functions formed a natural…
Princess Alix of Hesse – as the Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna was known before her marriage to the young Tsar Nicholas II in 1894 – visited Cumberland Lodge in Windsor Great Park on several occasions, as the residence of her maternal aunt, Princess Helena of…
A royal wedding just wouldn’t be a royal wedding without a tiara or three. But when the then Princess Elizabeth married the Duke of Edinburgh on November 20th 1947, she almost missed out on wearing the diadem on which she’d set her heart. For just before the bride was set to leave for Westminster Abbey, her tiara snapped in two.
The diamond disaster happened as the future Queen was…
Of the memorials in Kensington Gardens, many share a close connection with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, the most important to the latter being the ornate Gothic masterpiece designed by Sir George Gilbert Scott, known as the Albert Memorial, which was unveiled in 1872…
The most important monument built to the memory of Prince Albert in London was the magnificent Gothic Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens, designed by George Gilbert Scott, unveiled in 1872.
Officially termed the Prince Consort National Memorial, its location is…
This year it is 200 years since Carl XIV Johan became king of both Norway and Sweden. But who was he?
King Carl Johan (1763-1818-1844), originally Jean Baptiste Bernadotte, was born in the south of France and became a soldier at 17-years-old. During the French Revolution, he had a sparkling military career and was appointed in 1804 to Marshal of France in connection with the coronation of Napoleon…
‘You are entering a consecrated building, the burial place of a Queen and her Consort. Please be as quiet as possible’. These respectful words are what greeted any visitor before they entered the Royal Mausoleum of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, at Frogmore in Windsor…
The royal order of the Norwegian Lion was a Norwegian and Swedish royal order that was instituted by King Oscar II on 21 January 1904. It had the King as the Grandmaster, and the order consisted of only one degree, similar to the Order of the Garter.
The intention was that…
On a summer’s day in 1818, a young German princess walked into one of the most famous hotels in London to meet a man twice her age. Just a year earlier, Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen and her suitor, William, Duke of Clarence, would never have considered chatting let alone taking the step that would inevitably follow this brief exchange. But after a short time together, with chaperones, of…
