In the magnificent twelfth-century Gothic cathedral church of Roskilde on the island of Zealand, thirty-nine Kings and Queens of Denmark are buried. One Danish queen, however, is missing – and by no mere accident or fluke of history. Members of the Royal House of Denmark that she knew, such as her formidable stepmother-in-law, Queen Juliana Marie, are at Roskilde, as is, of course, her one-time…
Cheers in Parliament as Black Rod takes her place in the House of Lords for the first time
21st February 2018
The new Lady Usher of the Black Rod, Sarah Clarke, has taken her place in the House of Lords for the first time.
Miss Clarke, who is the first woman to hold the position of Black Rod, began her first day on the job this Tuesday following the end of Parliament’s…
On Wednesday, King Harald of Norway turns 81-years-old. There will be no big celebration like last year, but a private celebration with friends and the closest family. On the occasion of the King of Norway’s birthday, we will look at the not so well known history of…
Sarah Clarke is officially invested as the first female Black Rod by The Queen at Buckingham Palace
13th February 2018
The Queen held a private audience with Sarah Clarke at Buckingham Palace on Tuesday where she was officially invested as the first female Usher of the Black Rod.
At the meeting, Her Majesty presented Ms Clarke with her ebony Black Rod and the chain of office.
She is the first woman to hold the post of Black Rod in the House of Lords in the 650-year history of the role.
Ms Clark is now tasked with…
When most of us are three-years-old, we are in our front yard playing with our toys and neighbourhood kids and running around without a care in the world besides who’s going to win hide and seek. On 26 August 1995, Crown Prince Oyo Nyimba succeeded his father as the…
On 1 August 1832, the thirteen-year-old Princess Victoria of Kent made her first entry into her diary; it was a diary, as she described it on its title page, which had been given to her by her mother, the Duchess of Kent, at Kensington Palace the day before. Bound in…
On 16 March 1861, the Duchess of Kent, born Princess Marie Louise Victoire of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld and by her first marriage, Princess of Leinigen, died at her residence of Frogmore House, in Windsor Great Park. Though she had been mother to Queen Victoria, the Duchess of Kent had never herself been Princess of Wales, because her second husband, Edward, Duke of Kent had been George III’s fourth…
The Queen is privately commemorating the death of her father, King George VI, whose untimely death occurred 66-years-ago to the day.
There are no grand festivities or celebrations to mark the start of Her Majesty’s 66th year on the throne.
Neither The Queen or the…
The spectacular pyramids which cover the tombs of the pharaohs are well-known, but the long-running excavation of the Western Cemetery at Giza has recently discovered the tomb of a female official from around 4500 years ago. Egypt’s Ministry of Antiquities announced the…
Looking for a lost Queen in Berlin: Queen Elisabeth Christine of Prussia
31st January 2018
Today, Queen Elisabeth Christine of Prussia (1715-1797) enjoys a kind of historical exile, banished to footnotes and paragraphs amidst the mountainous body of biographical material which exists about her exalted husband, Frederick II, King of Prussia, already christened ‘the Great’ by contemporary Europe and whom she prided herself on having been married to.
It is a sad echo of the type of…
