Archaeology · London · Monarchies · Heritage
In this vault rest the remains of Queen Jane Seymour, King Henry VIII, King Charles I and an infant of Queen Anne. A little crowded for a single burial. The tomb beneath St George's Chapel at Windsor Castle was discovered by chance, during excavations for a secret underground
Art · Monarchies · Museums · New York · Society
Americans pulling the gilded equestrian statue of King George III from its marble pedestal after the reading of the Declaration of Independence on 6 July 1776 in Bowling Green Park, Manhattan. The lead statue was toppled at the second attempt, broke into pieces, and was melted down for bullets. The
London · Monarchies · Observations · Mores · Society · People
Recalling Titus Oates, the English conspirator and scoundrel of the seventeenth century, one cannot help thinking of our own contemporaries, who have inscribed their loathsome deeds in the book of the scum of all ages. Oates is known for having invented a certain Popish Plot to murder King Charles II.
Aristocracy · Art · Monarchies
Van Dyck, Portrait of Henrietta Maria, Daughter of Henry IV of France and Sister of Louis XIII, with Sir Jeffrey Hudson. The 24-year-old queen is depicted in fashionable European dress, which the court ladies of England had begun to wear after her example. The orange tree in the
Aristocracy · Archive · Monarchies
The christening of Prince Pavlos of Greece, 1967. How beautiful the Queen Dowager Frederica is; one sees at once whom her daughters take after! Queen Anne-Marie of the Hellenes holds her month-old son Pavlos in her arms. Princess Sophia, who left Athens after her wedding to the Spanish
Art · Monarchies · Mores · Paris
Marie de' Medici and her young son, King Louis XIII of France. She arrived in Paris immediately after the murder of Henry IV and took power, which is to say that she, of course, gained more from his death than anyone else. Louis in this engraving may be 8
Art · Monarchies · Paris · People
The regicide François Ravaillac is shown in an engraving with the very dagger with which he took the life of King Henri IV in two blows, having leapt onto the step of his carriage, which had halted on the rue de la Ferronnerie in Paris on 14 May 1610. Ravaillac
Monarchies · People
Today the most handsome prince in Europe, Carl Philip of Sweden, turns 41. On the day of his birth, 13 May 1979, a salute of 101 guns was fired in Stockholm. The second child of King Carl XVI Gustaf, he studied in the USA, served in the navy and took
Monarchies · Education · People
On coming to power, Napoleon renamed the town of Brienne Brienne-Napoléon, in memory of his schooling. The town kept that name until 1881. In 1814 the Emperor returned to Brienne, the scene of his first childhood battle, and it was here that the first major engagement with the Allies
Monarchies · Education · People
Napoleonic literature contains a very touching memory of his childhood, which tells us a good deal about the personality of the Emperor. At the age of ten he entered the Royal Military School of Brienne-le-Château. Given the family's financial difficulties, a scholarship to this establishment, prestigious
Monarchies · Mores · People · Humour
There is an amusing sketch of Napoleon's mother. A woman of peculiar temperament, she had in her day flatly refused to live at the Trianon; the life of the court held no interest for her and she passed her time in rather secluded fashion, even declining to attend
Monarchies · Museums · Heritage · Paris
The cultural institutions of France have held sales of valuables before: recall the sale of the crown jewels in 1887. At the same time the state disposed of a great deal of truly valuable palace furniture on the pretext that it held no historical interest. Historians look with horror on