In March 2017, a major exhibition will be launched in Vienna to mark the 300th birthday of one of the most important figures in Austrian history, Empress Maria Theresia. Commemorated in the form of a huge statue on the Maria-Theresien-Platz in Vienna near where the so-called Ring borders the Museum district, the Empress is depicted unmistakably as both a woman and a ruler in equal measure, both…
#OnThisDay in 1833 Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge, mother of Queen Mary, was born
27th November 2016
Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge was born on 27 November 1833 in Hanover, Germany. She was a granddaughter of King George III and great-grandmother of Queen Elizabeth II.
Her parents were Prince Adolphus, Duke of Cambridge, the youngest surviving son of George III, and…
#OnThisDay in 1515 Mary of Guise, mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, was born
22nd November 2016
#OnThisDay in 1515 Mary of Guise, Mother of Mary, Queen of Scots, was born.
Mary of Guise was born the eldest daughter of Claude of Lorraine, Duke of Guise, and his wife Antoinette de Bourbon at Bar-le-Duc in Lorraine on 22 November 1515.
A member of the prominent Guise…
At 11:30am on 20 November 1947 Princess Elizabeth wed Philip Mountbatten at Westminster Abbey.
Her Majesty The Queen and Prince Philip first met in 1939 when she was the thirteen-year-old Princess Elizabeth and he was eighteen-year-old naval Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten. Their connection was strong from the start and so it wasn’t long before whispers of a possible royal match were…
Back in the mists of time, where fact, fantasy and fiction blur Cornwall may even have been a Kingdom in its own right. However, by the time of the Norman Conquest in 1066, Cornwall was an Earldom and remained that way until 1336. The Duchy was created by Edward III in 1336…
The west facade of the Basilica (Photo credit: Wikimedia Commons).
The Basilica of St Denis, the burial site of the Kings of France, is located in northern Paris, in the suburb of Saint-Denis. Saint Denis is a Christian martyr and patron saint of France and served as the…
You may think that all the Kings and Queens of Great Britain are buried somewhere in our sceptre isle, even if in the case of some efforts are still going on to work out exactly where. In fact, two of our Kings and one of their wives at buried at the Royal Abbey of Our Lady of Fontevraud, in Anjou, France. They are Henry II, his wife Eleanor of Aquitaine and their son Richard I. For this was in…
The title Duke of Edinburgh is linked to the capital of Scotland, and was first appointed in 1726, and but it is not a Scottish peerage as such, but a Peerage of Great Britain, and it is an appointment given to members of the British Royal Family. The title does not carry…
Westminster Abbey has been entwined with royalty since its foundation. All but two coronations have taken place there, as have 16 royal weddings (beginning with that of King Henry I of England to Matilda of Scotland, and most recently that of the Duke and Duchess of…
Though many of the details of life are unknown or disputed by historians, Adela of Normandy is a saint of the Roman Catholic Church and was the daughter of William the Conqueror, the first Norman King of England and his wife, Matilda of Flanders.
Adela was born in the years following her father’s accession to the English throne in 1066 and was one of up to five daughters. (The birth order and…
