FeaturesHistory

'My darling Auntie': Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna and Princess Louise

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21st February 2019
Amongst the extensive collection of letters left by Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, the sixth daughter of Queen Victoria, are at least two from her niece, Tsarina Alexandra Feodorovna (1872-1918). Two of Alexandra’s letters to her aunt were reproduced in the admirable book Darling Loosy, Letters to Princess Louise 1856-1939, ed. Elizabeth Longford (1991). I want to explore these letters and…
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FeaturesHistoryRoyal Weddings

Queen Victoria's Wedding Dress

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10th February 2019
Queen Victoria’s wedding dress is a powerful symbol of what she would refer to in her journal as the ‘happiest day of my life’. Most probably, it represents more than any other item of clothing or object, the Queen’s identity as a royal bride. Certainly, she chose to…
FeaturesHistoryRoyal Weddings

Royal Wedding Flowers: Queen Victoria

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10th February 2019
The marriage of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert is perhaps one of the most celebrated in royal history. Not only were the couple young, rather good looking and desperately in love, their union would become the bedrock of a new royal dynasty that, in time, managed to weave itself into ruling houses across Europe. Their wedding, on February 10th 1840, was a matter of state as well as a ceremonial…
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FeaturesHistory

Returning to England with Victoria

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28th January 2019
The Duke of Kent was determined that his unborn child – history’s Queen Victoria – should not be born outside of Britain, to assure its right to succeed to the throne in the British mind. As a true Hanoverian, he was the fourth son of George III, the King who famously…
FeaturesInsight

The queen most likely to grab a Golden Globe

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5th January 2019
This weekend, Olivia Colman is up for Best Actress at the Golden Globes for her portrayal of Queen Anne in ‘The Favourite’, the first time anyone has been nominated for playing the last Stuart monarch. Anne, who ruled between 1702 and 1714, hasn’t found favour with filmmakers in the past but that doesn’t mean that rulers don’t, well, rule at the Globes, the first major movie prizes of…
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FeaturesHistory

Queen Victoria's Winter Sledge

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24th December 2018
Queen Victoria’s winter sledge became synonymous with the Windsor Christmas, at least during the lifetime of Prince Albert, who is rightly credited with popularising Christmas traditions in England, including that of the Christmas tree. The royal trees were decorated with…
FeaturesHistoryInsight

The death of Prince Albert - Part Two

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15th December 2018
In a continuation of our two-part series, our Historian, Elizabeth Jane Timms, looks back at the death of Prince Albert: The passing of the Prince Consort is, of course, synonymous with the Blue Room at Windsor Castle, where it took place, a room which I have researched for some six years. The room had been that in which Queen Victoria’s ‘Uncle King’ George IV had died on 26 June 1830. It…
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