Descending the hill at Windsor Castle
down towards St George’s Chapel, today’s visitor passes the Deanery
at St George’s. The upper level of this building, however, has a
hidden secret within its sacred architecture. Over the leads of the
Deanery was a constructed covered walkway, used by Queen Victoria
to enable her to have private access to the Queen’s Closet or Royal
Closet, sometimes…
One room at Windsor Castle is perhaps
more associated with Queen Victoria’s marriage to Prince Albert
than any other. This is what was called the Blue Closet, part of
the private apartments. By a curious coincidence, Prince Albert
would later die in another room of the…
On 25 October 1897, Queen Victoria
drafted her last will, the manuscript of which is preserved at
Windsor. Typically for the Queen, such a document existed outside
of her journal and in her entry for that day – written up at
Balmoral – there is no mention of her making…
In honour of The Queen’s Holyrood Week,
we’re taking a look at royal history in and around Edinburgh. Our
senior reporter Kristin Contino headed to Scotland to find out more
about some favourite royal spots. The first thing that strikes you
about the Palace of Holyroodhouse is how peaceful it is compared to
Buckingham Palace. If you’ve ever been to London, you know how
busy…
The wedding ring of Queen Victoria has
its special poignancy, a symbol of the passionate marriage she
enjoyed with Prince Albert. Placed on her finger on the morning of
10 February 1840, her private instructions ensured that she would
wear it in perpetuity. What do we know…
When the newly-married Queen Victoria
returned with Prince Albert to Buckingham Palace, she was with the
Prince ‘from 10m. to 2 till 20 m.p.2’, after which the couple went
down for the wedding breakfast. During these thirty minutes, Queen
Victoria gave Prince Albert his…
Queen Victoria’s wedding veil was an
object of singular poignancy because of the enormous sentimental
value that it represented to her in personal terms and the context
in which she last wore it. She wore in on the monumental day – 10
February 1840 – the day she decided was in fact, had been the
‘happiest’ of her life. On the morning of her wedding, a day which
began with rain pouring…
In the summer of 1894, Tsarevich Nicholas
of Russia came to stay at Walton-on-Thames, in the house which his
fiancée, Princess Alix of Hesse’s eldest sister, Victoria, Princess
Louis of Battenberg and her husband, Prince Louis of Battenberg had
rented. They would stay in…
The first and only time that the boy
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart visited London occurred between 1764-5, at
about the half-way point of the Mozart family’s monumental European
Grand Tour, which was to prove pivotal in Wolfgang’s developmental
process as a composer, the…
His birth secured the succession in a way
the British royal family had never known before. When Mary, Duchess
of York delivered a healthy boy on June 23rd 1894 she ensured that
her royal dynasty had three heirs in direct line to the throne. But
the baby who arrived that day would take the crown from ultimate
security to compete crisis. Today is the 125th anniversary of the
birth of Edward VIII…
