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'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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A Brief History of Frogmore Cottage

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4th December 2018
With the announcement that Frogmore Cottage will become the residence of The Duke and Duchess of Sussex at Windsor, it is perhaps interesting to briefly review Frogmore Cottage’s history. Contrary to popular imagination, it is not the first time that the building has…
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A Pearl Earring and Imperial Russia

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20th November 2018
Displayed as part of the London Science Museum’s exhibition on the Russian Imperial Family, The Last Tsar: Blood and Revolution is a pearl earring. This extraordinarily poignant object has its own silent story to tell, concerning the fate of the Romanovs. Believed to have…
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A chandelier and the fate of the Romanovs

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5th November 2018
Currently displayed in the special exhibition at London’s Science Museum, The Last Tsar: Blood and Revolution – exploring the role of medicine in the lives of the Russian Imperial Family as well as the use of modern science involved in the investigation concerning their murder – is a chandelier, but no ordinary one. I first encountered this chandelier nearly twenty years ago, as a black…
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An Imperial Russian summer at Windsor

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8th August 2018
The visit of the future Tsar Nicholas II to Queen Victoria in the summer of 1894 has a fabled quality; it took place a mere two months after his engagement to Princess Alix of Hesse in Coburg. This visit has a special poignancy when viewed through later eyes; we know of course, that far from enjoying a period as Tsarevich and Tsarevna of Russia, Nicholas and Alix would, in fact, marry in November…
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Princess Alix of Hesse's visit to Malta

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30th July 2018
Princess Alix of Hesse visited Malta in 1890. Little would appear to have been recorded about it, although it is possible to piece together some details of the trip from surviving accounts, biographies by those that personally knew her and from extracts of letters she wrote herself. The following is the result of what I have managed to discover so far about this visit that she made, as part of a…
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