It was a quiet country house, described by several who knew it as ‘’little’’ and a ‘’pied a terre’, given as a wedding present to a royal couple who were expected to linger on the fringes of regal life. Yet on July 2nd 1903, it became the birthplace of one of the most popular and celebrated monarchs of the 20th century. For it was at Appleton House, on the Sandringham Estate, that…
The official announcement that King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands will make a state visit to the UK this autumn is confirmation of a long-awaited and hotly anticipated trip. The visit will run between October 23rd and 24th and will see the Dutch royals…
The life of Diana, Princess of Wales was never far removed from royalty even before she married into the House of Windsor. A member of the influential Spencer family, she counted King Edward III, King Henry VII and King Charles II among her ancestors while she’d been named…
The imperial palace of Schönbrunn in the western suburb of Hietzing on the outskirts of Vienna, was the summer residence of the former Habsburg dynasty. It stuns with its magnificence, but then this, of course, was part of its purpose and is the power of its architecture. It has the glory of the monarch’s glare. The palace, like the great country house in an imperial form, was intended to…
History’s royal Kates have taken part in some of the best-known stories in Britain’s regal history but while royal Katherines can be found in England as far back as the 13th century, it’s a name that has gone in and out of favour as a regal choice. A…
Born a princess, daughter of a feted king and a much-admired queen, this royal Kate seemed destined for a crown of her own. But when civil war once more erupted in England, she found herself on the wrong side of royal favour and ended up a countess instead. This is the…
One of the earliest names that occurs in the life of the future Queen Victoria is that of ‘Siebold’; although the name vanishes almost on the first mention. But no single name should be rendered insignificant just because it only occurs once.
This is undoubtedly the case with Madame Siebold or more precisely, Charlotte Heidenreich von Siebold (1788-1859). Madame Siebold was an accoucheuse who…
The Swiss Cottage at Osborne is a capsule of successive royal childhood, which continued to hold a place in the affections of the first children that used it – the nine children of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert – long after they had grown up, just as it would for…
On 20 June 1837, Princess Victoria of Kent was awoken in her bedroom at Kensington Palace, writing later in her journal entry for that day, in which significantly the proud new word ‘alone’ features intermittently (also underlined), we read: “I was awoke at 6…
Catherine of Braganza has gone down in history as a rather nice lady who liked drinking tea. The Portuguese princess who arrived in Portsmouth in 1662 to marry Charles II has been portrayed as a gentle soul whose heart was broken by her inability to have children and who instead contented herself by making a nice cuppa the fashion of the day while trying to be friends with her husband’s many…
