The Great Seal of the Realm is a piece of
history to savour. We don’t get to see it all that often and when
it does make an appearance, it more than packs a punch.For this
seal is part of a tradition that goes back to before the Norman
Conquest and which, for centuries, has symbolised the very power of
the Monarch. This is the main seal of the Crown and signifies the
Monarch’s…
The use of nicknames or epithets to
describe a royal or a local ruler was quite common until recent
times. Before pictures were easily accessed, or in places where the
first name was repeatedly used for consecutive rulers, a nickname
was a useful way to distinguish one…
The Queen turns Windsor Castle blue in tribute to the UK's healthcare staff and key workers
2nd April 2020
Windsor Castle was illuminated in blue on
Thursday evening as the United Kingdom came to a standstill at 8pm
in a mass applause for those working to defeat ongoing epidemic. In
what has turned in to a weekly occurrence, at 8pm each Thursday,
people gather on their…
Norway’s present collection of royal
regalia consists of nine pieces. They include three crowns – the
king’s crown, the queen’s crown and the crown prince’s crown.
However, this was made in 1818 for the coronation of King Karl XVI
Johan. Norway had at least one monarchical royal crown before this,
but that one is lost. What happened to it? We know that the first
Norwegian…
Transition plans for Brighton’s famed
Royal Pavilion, the seaside pleasure palace built by King George
IV, are now in limbo due to the coronavirus crisis. Last month it
was announced the Royal Pavilion & Museums, which are currently run
by Brighton and Hove…
On this day, March 27, in 1785, His
Majesty King Louis XVII was borne in France. He was born prince of
France and Duke of Normandy and was the son of King Louis XVI and
Marie Antoinette. When his older brother, Louis Joseph, died in
June 1789, he became the heir to the…
The fact that Europe’s queens and
princesses have good relationships with each other is well known.
But it’s more perhaps more unusual to hear about friendships
between Europe’s royals and Russian politicians. et this was
exactly what happened when Queen Sonja first met the first
democratically elected leader of Russia, Boris Yeltsin. The
free-spirited former Communist managed to…
On this day 64 years ago: The Queen Mother's devastating bellyflop at the Grand National
24th March 2020
March 24 marks exactly 64 years since The
Queen Mother suffered one of the cruelest defeats in the history of
sport when her horse bellyflopped at the finishing line of the
Grand National. Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, was a huge horse
racing lover, with it being…
As the last Emperor of Russia, Tsar
Nicholas II’s twenty-three-year reign came to an abrupt end when he
abdicated on 15 March 1917. Those tumultuous years of his reign
were defined by the Russo-Japanese War that saw the annihilation of
the Russian Baltic Fleet, Bloody…
Princess Beatrice’s upcoming wedding to
Edoardo Mapelli Mozzi will not be permitted to have any guests
present should it go ahead in May as planned. New guidance from the
Church of England states that the number of people attending church
weddings during the coronavirus crisis should be limited to the
legal minimum of five. These five people consist of the priest, the
bride, the groom…
