royal wedding celebration

Are you interested in buying this
beautiful doll dressed by Princess Vicky? I wonder what price it will fetch?

One of Empress Catherine of Russia's brooches has just been sold for an enormous price. Read about it here: Empress Catherine's Brooch. There's certainly something about emeralds!

I hope to write about Princess Beatrice tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Princess Alice, Grand Duchess of Hesse! One of the most spiritual and fascinating daughters of Queen Victoria, Alice, like her daughters, was a deeply sensitive person who combined her joie de vivre with a sense of imminent tragedy; a great spiritual seeker whose experiences seemed to turn her back to the 'safe' beliefs of her childhood and then to yield altogether and escape, at such an early age, from this life. Maybe she thought too much...Maybe, like her father, she felt too deeply. Alice was a great soul and a beautiful human being!

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert were very concerned when they noticed that their eighth child, Leopold, was thin and weak and bruised very easily. They were horrified when the diagnosis was haemopilia - a hereditary bleeding disease.

Their 'child of anxiety' was born on April 8, 1853. Queen Victoria was inclined to be over-protective of this sickly child who wanted to play normally with his brothers and sisters. He was easily injured and often prevented from playing games because of the danger. Prince Albert was more understanding and a mentor to his son without being too protective. He would ride and walk with his young son.

Leopold was clever, amusing, and curious. He showed some talent in art and enjoyed playing the piano which he was also good at. He learned to read quickly and liked reading. He impressed his mother with his lack of shyness and intelligent conversation and he helped her entertain guests.


Queen Victoria was so pleased with him that she gave him the Order of the Garter a year earlier than her other sons. She liked his persistence and dedication to learning in spite of his illness.

Leopold studied art, science, and modern languages at Christ College, Oxford. He started to acquire an extensive library and collected ceramics and art. He was a cultured man who became friends with Arthur Sullivan and Charles Dodson. He enjoyed the theatre, concerts and the opera.

The delicate young man tried constantly to stand up to his concerned and dominating mother. She didn't want him to travel overseas because of the danger but she gave him permission to visit Italy in 1878. Leopold loved the Continent and wrote to Queen Victoria that he didn't want to return to visit Balmoral. This shocked the Queen who suggested that he stay upstairs at Buckingham Palace instead! Leopold was not to be swayed and stayed longer than he originally intended in Paris.

Queen Victoria respected him more after this and let him travel abroad more often. Leopold toured Canada and visited the US with his sister, Louise, and her husband, the Governor-General of Canada.

Leopold tried not to let his illness stop him from being involved in royal duties and charities. He was very interested in furthering education and supported many educational institutions, such as The Royal Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. He also supported the establishment of a Royal College of Music. The Queen chose him to help her with her private correspondence and despatches. Bertie, the eldest son and heir to the throne, was not pleased about this.

When Leopold was 28 he was created Duke of Albany. He decided to look for a wife. He may have been interested in Alice Liddell's sister. She became engaged to one of his closest friends but tragically died. Leopold was a pall-bearer at her funeral.

He married Helen of Waldeck-Pyrmont, Queen Emma of the Netherland's sister. She was not afraid of Queen Victoria and stood up to her, even though her children usually didn't. In 1883 their first daughter, Princess Alice, was born.

Leopold wanted to be Governor-General of Canada or Australia but the Queen vetoed these ideas. He carried on with his charities and royal duties in England instead but he couldn't sustain the fight against his tragic illness. Harsh winds blew in the February and March of 1884 and Leopold was advised to go to Cannes for his health. He slipped on a tiled floor in Cannes and hit his knee. Two days later he died. The Duchess was pregnant with their second child. Charles Edward never knew his father.

Princess Alice lived to 98 - she had the longest life of the Queen's grandchildren.

I would love to be given these luxurious boxes. The Duke of Westminster gave them to the gamine and ambitious Chanel.

Have you ever seen scientists dissecting 'finds' from archaeological digs? They probe and cut and dip things into test tubes and DNA testers and come out with all kinds of discoveries about diet and ways of life in bygone ages. In such circumstances, a scientist must be objective but it isn't always easy to be objective unless we are totally aware of ourselves and our motives. If, for example, a scientist had a toothache, s/he might well concentrate on the dental problems of people in the past.

On a psychological level, it seems much more of a free for all. Anyone can look at famous people of the past and project their own awareness (or lack of) onto that person and I am so anxiously trying not to do that in this post. All the same, don't you think that the more you think about life, the more clearly you see how people are authors of their own destiny? It might be unfortunate to have been famous, since you then become the projection of so many other personalities who wish to dissect you in order to make sense of their own lives, but there are many different ways and objective ways of looking at people and gratefully learning from them.

Archduke Franz Ferdinand remains, in some ways, a complete enigma. Angry with everyone, he saw anger everywhere. Seeing himself as a victim, he became a victim. Marrying 'beneath' (what a silly term!) him, he was murdered by a mere boy. Here was a man who was so unpopular within his own country and yet his voice, had it been heard, was the voice of reason....perhaps the voice which might have prevented WWI. A man who was seen as unfriendly and yet was so loving to his children and wife; a stickler for tradition but at the same time a rebel against that tradition What a bundle of brilliant contradictions...and, like a Shakespearean tragic hero, he had his 'fatal flaw' - he was so angry and, Hamlet-like, saw himself as the victim...and inevitably became that victim. Ah...so much to think about, so much to learn....

Princess Patricia's parents chose the name 'Patricia' for her because she was born on St.Patrick's Day in 1886. Her first name was 'Victoria' after her grandmother, Queen Victoria.

The Princess lived in different countries during her childhood and adolescence. Together with her parents and older siblings, Princess Margaret and Prince Arthur, she lived in India and Canada.

Nicknamed 'Princess Pat', she
was an attractive and charming girl who was matched with many suitors, including the kings of Spain and Portugal, Alfonso and Manuel. She was also matched with the Russian Grand Duke Michael. She apparently refused to even be in the same room as Prince Alfonso. According to the New York Times, this enabled her beautiful cousin, Ena, to seize her chance. She apparently begged her reluctant uncle, King Edward VII, to let her marry the future King.

She'd been associated with so many suitors that she was surrounded by an aura of romance. The press nicknamed her 'the fairy princess.'



Princess Patricia in Canada

Princesss Patricia's father became the Governor-General of Canada in 1912. As her mother was ill, 'Princess Patsy' hosted parties and dinners for her father. The Canadians liked her charm and love of outdoor sports so she became popular in Canada. She also did a lot of charity work.

The family returned to England and the Princess's mother died in 1917. However, the Princess became the Colonel-in-Chief of a Canadian regiment named after her, the Princess Patricia Canadian Light Infantry. The Princess designed their badge and colours. She personally embroidered the first colour of her regiment.

Princess Patricia's Marriage

Princess Patricia eventually married the naval commander, Captain Alexander Ramsay, in Westminster Abbey. She relinquished her royal titles becoming Lady Patricia Ramsay but she remained in the line of succession. They eventually lived in Ribsden Hall in Windlesham which she inherited from her aunt, Princess Louise.

The couple had one child, Alexander. He also became a Captain in the forces and lost a leg in World War Two.

Princess Patricia's Art

Like her aunt, Princess Louise, 'Patsy' was a talented artist. She was taught by A.S. Hartrick, who had known Gaugain and Van Gogh. The Princess travelled to many different countries with her husband and liked to paint tropical landscapes.

She left over 600 paintings behind when she died in 1974.

A 13-year-old girl has a way of falling in love every other week. Introduce her to a dashing young prince and you will certainly set her heart fluttering. Make him tall, blonde, athletic and funny, and you will have created the perfect formula for a serious schoolgirl crush.

At least that was what Lord Louis Mountbatten was hoping when he helped make arrangements for King George VI and his family to visit Dartmouth Naval College in 1939. Mountbatten had a deep plan in mind when he chose which cadet would escort the 13-year-old heiress to the throne, Princess Elizabeth, and her younger sister, Margaret. So, it was Mountbatten’s nephew, 18-year-old Prince Philip of Greece, who spent the morning entertaining the princesses by playing with trains and jumping over tennis nets. Later that day, as the royal yacht departed, many of the cadets rowed out after it. Although most turned back, the boisterous Philip kept recklessly chasing until the irritated king made an officer order “the young fool” back to land. All the while, Elizabeth was watching her new hero through a pair of binoculars.

Philip, by his own admission, enjoyed the novelty of the day—he also dined with the royal family on the yacht—but he wasn’t moonstruck over his new admirer. At 13, Elizabeth was just too young to strike his fancy, but he may have been aware of his family’s dynastic ambitions for him.

Philip may have been born a prince, but he had hardly been raised in the kind of opulence one might expect for the grandson of the King of Greece. At that time—and frequently throughout its history—the Greek royal family was in political disgrace and financial ruin. It was also huge: Philip was the fifth child of the King’s seventh child. Greece had plenty of princes, maybe too many considering the political instability of the nation. Philip’s grandfather had been assassinated in 1913 and his uncle King Constantine I had been forced to abdicate because of his neutrality policy during World War I. The entire family was exiled but restored a few years later. Philip’s father, Prince Andrew, then saw service in the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922, during which he refused to lead his troops in an attack he thought was too reckless. When Greece suffered another coup d’etat in 1922, Andrew was arrested and found guilty of treason but was spared execution. He and his family fled aboard a British cruiser with few possessions. During the voyage, by some accounts, the infant Prince Philip was cradled in an orange crate.

Things were slightly less controversial on his mother’s side of the family. His mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg, was the eldest daughter of minor German-born princeling whose parents had been married morganatically because of his mother’s status as a mere countess. Once his mother was finally promoted to Princess, Prince Louis of Battenberg became a serene highness (not a royal highness). He grew up in Germany but, encouraged by English cousins, he joined the British Royal Navy and became a naturalized British subject at age 14. For more than 40 years, he rose through navy ranks and, based on his own merits, eventually became First Sea Lord in 1912. Then, World War I broke out and the British government became embarrassed about the number of German royal relatives living in England, many of whom had been resident there all of their lives. The German-born First Seat Lord was forced to resign. Adding insult to injury, his family was forced to change its name to something more English sounding. Even King George himself had to change his family name, opting for Windsor. In the Battenbergs’ case, the change also signaled a demotion in status. No longer a prince or a serene highness, Louis became the Marquess of Milford Haven and his sons became the Earl of Medina and Lord Louis Mountbatten. (His daughters were not affected as they were each married to foreign princes and living abroad.)

After Prince Andrew’s banishment, his family moved about Europe, mostly living on the hospitality of their extended relations, but they were rarely together. By the time Philip was 10, his parents were permanently (though not legally) separated and all four of his older sisters were married to German princes. Philip bounced from sister to cousin to uncle and back, with jaunts at severe boarding schools and sun-filled holidays with numerous young cousins.

His mother’s younger brother, Lord Louis Mountbatten, took a particular interest in Philip and guided him toward Gordonstoun School in Scotland and then the British Royal Navy with an eye toward making him as English as possible and marrying him to Princess Elizabeth.

At first, Louis and his sister were at odds with this plan. Alice hoped that Philip might eventually gain the Greek throne. The continuing turbulence there inspired her to think her son might supersede the half dozen uncles and male cousins in front of him. Although she finally subscribed to Louis’ ambitions, there were more obstacles standing in Philip’s way.

Shortly after that fateful day at Dartmouth, World War II started and Greece became of puppet state of the Axis Powers. Plus, all of Philip’s German brothers-in-law were serving Hitler.

But, there was one power even more ominous than Hitler opposing the match: Elizabeth’s daddy.