Monarchies · Observations · People
How many times must it be repeated: Camilla will be queen consort and nothing else. I am tired of the cheap headlines that speculate on the subject. Yes, at the coronation she will be called queen. And she will be crowned as queen. Do understand that it is not necessary
Monarchies · Observations · Heritage
Amid the protected Scottish forests and heather moors of the Cairngorms rises a veritable stone pyramid, 10.6 metres high. The pyramid stands a few miles from the royal castle of Balmoral. No, the English did not steal it from Egypt. The structure was raised at the wish of Queen
Aristocracy · Monarchies · Mores · People
The reigning Queen of Spain (1833-1868), Isabella II, great-great-great-grandmother of the present King of Spain, Felipe VI, was known for her fiery temper and her easy way with men. She changed lovers as other women change gloves, while her openly despised husband was made to acknowledge
NB! · London · Monarchies · Mores · Humour
NB! · Art · Monarchies · Humour
Take a porcelain cup, fit it with a silver stem, and you have a goblet. So thought some craftsman of the Elizabethan age. Four hundred and some years on, this hybrid goblet of the Ming Dynasty and Elizabeth I has fetched a tidy sum
Art · Monarchies · Museums · People
Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, hunting with hounds. Louis-Auguste Brun, 1783. The painting is on display on the ground floor of Versailles. It is currently being shown at the exhibition of the Rothschild collection; last year it featured in the exhibition The King's Animals.
Art · Monarchies · Museums · Rome
The Prada Foundation in Milan has put on show a re-created copy of the 13-metre marble statue of the Emperor Constantine, dating from the 4th century, of which 20 fragments survive to this day, kept in the Capitoline Museums in Rome. The head, right arm, right knee, right
Aristocracy · London · Monarchies
The crowns of queens consort worn at the coronations of their husbands. Left: the crown of Alexandra of Denmark at the coronation of Edward VII in 1902. Right: the crown of Mary of Teck at the coronation of George V in 1911. Centre: the crown of Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon at
NB! · London · Monarchies · People
On 15 February 2002, fifty years after the funeral of King George VI, Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, the Queen Mother, made her last public appearance. It was the day of the funeral of her younger daughter, Princess Margaret, who had died of a stroke at the age of 71. The Queen
The East · Books · Monarchies · Mores · People
How a Russian noblewoman might have become Queen of Siam. "At the skating rink I often met a friend of my sister Galya, Katyusha Vesnitskaya, a senior schoolgirl at the Fundukleyev Girls' Gymnasium. My elder brother Borya was courting Katyusha. He used to waltz with her on skates.
Archive · Monarchies · Mores
Empress Alexandra Feodorovna in the uniform of Her Majesty's Life-Guards Uhlan Regiment, of which she was Colonel-in-Chief from 1903. On their fourteenth birthdays, the emperor's daughters became colonels of one of the formations of the Russian Imperial Army. The eldest daughter of Nicholas
Aristocracy · London · Monarchies
Among the guests at Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897 were Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich and his wife, Grand Duchess Elizabeth Feodorovna, a granddaughter of Queen Victoria. It was the first celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of a monarch's reign in English history. The second Diamond