A charming photograph taken by Mary Steen
in the Queen’s Sitting Room at Windsor on 21 May 1895 shows an
elderly Queen Victoria knitting or crocheting, sat with her
youngest daughter, Beatrice, Princess Henry of Battenberg, who
dutifully reads the newspaper aloud to her mother whilst the Queen
listens, needles in her hand and a ball of wool at her feet. It is
a wonderfully domestic snapshot…
Five decades earlier, the groom’s
grandparents had seen their dreams of marrying in the Eternal City
dashed. But as Prince Amadeo of Belgium and Elisabetta Rosboch wed
on July 5th 2014, there were no such problems. The eldest
grandchild of King Albert II and Queen Paola of…
Queen Victoria had twelve bridesmaids.
What do we know about them? What did they wear? Certainly the Queen
– as might be expected – had a greater number of bridesmaids than
her daughters would at their weddings, eight being a recurring
choice. We can see them clustered…
In the Queen’s bedroom at Osborne House,
may be found a quite extraordinary chintz pattern. Used for the bed
hangings of the Queen’s bed, as well as the sofa and curtains, the
material has been adopted in a modern context for the room, having
originally been for the Royal Yacht Victoria and Albert. The Queen
and the Royal Family would often cross the Solent to Osborne in
either the yacht…
Of Queen Victoria’s nine children, one
alone was born at Windsor Castle. This royal child was also
christened there. This was the second son of the Queen and Prince
Albert, baptised in the Private Chapel at Windsor Castle on 6
September 1844. This child would be Prince…
On the eve of her wedding to Prince
Albert, Queen Victoria received a sapphire diamond-bordered brooch.
It was an item of personal jewellery to which she would attach
intense sentimental importance. It became in a way, a symbol of her
marriage to Prince Albert and she valued…
In the summer of 1894, the Tsarevich
Nicholas came to England as a guest of Queen Victoria, first
staying for a brief few days with his fiancée, Princess Alix of
Hesse, at Walton-on-Thames before continuing to Windsor Castle.
This was a blissful period for a young couple who were deeply in
love, having become engaged at Coburg on 8 April 1894. During his
stay at Windsor, the Tsarevich paid a…
Starting off July on a busy note,
Princess Anne had two engagements in West Cumbria earlier this
week. The Princess Royal opened The Whitehaven Campus, which
combines Mayfield School with St Benedict’s Catholic High School. A
£30 million campus, the site had opened its…
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. “Britannia is the one place where
I can truly relax,”…
They were an unexpected king and queen
and their royal romance has weathered several storms but today King
Albert II and Queen Paola of Belgium will mark their sixtieth
wedding anniversary. The couple, who married on July 2nd 1959
in Brussels, will celebrate surrounded by family and friends. As
they become the first Belgian monarchs to reach a Diamond wedding
anniversary, Royal Central looks…
