royal wedding celebration

When Queen Victoria died in January 1901, the whole of Europe seemed to reel in shock at the end of a magnificent era. Her granddaughter, the then Crown Princess Marie of Roumania, wrote: "To see it all again if only for a day or two…to have a last peep at the old house…with out dear old Granny the last link is cut off!...I tell you it is inconceivable sorrow for me..."
Another granddaughter, Alice Albany (later of Athlone) wrote: "I had come to regard her as permanent and indestructible - like England and Windsor Castle.”

And a granddaughter-in-law, the future Queen Mary of England wrote: "The thought of England without the Queen is dreadful even to think of. God help us all.”

However, her heir, Bertie, King Edward VII, while dutifully paying his respects to his mother, seemed to breathe a huge sigh of relief and took very little time to throw out many vestiges of her reign. Statues of her favourite servant, John Brown, were disposed of in no time; Buckingham Palace was redecorated and Osborne House was given to the nation (with the exception of the Queen's rooms, which were for many decades gated off).

It might seem quite cold that Bertie should change everything so quickly and, at the same time, the Queen's passing was the passing of a person whose name had become synonymous with all that was best and worst of almost a century. Even to this day, the epithet of 'the Victorians' evokes so many images and it is interesting to look at the small woman who created such a mystique, with which her eldest son was so eager to dispense. "The Albertian era" would probably be more accurate a description of that time, since virtually all of the Queen's positive influence came from the influence of beloved Albert.

For Bertie, though, life in such a household was not an age of enlightenment, but an age of incarceration and asphyxiation. He was unfortunate in being the eldest son of a mother who had such fear of anyone in her family turning out like her 'wicked' Hanoverian uncles, and a father whose horror of infidelity sprang from the effects of his earliest childhood. These parents wanted to do the very best for their son - to keep him 'pure' and turn him into the ideal prince, and eventual king. Instead, unwittingly, they attempted unsuccessfully to curb everything which they saw as 'wrong' and to mould him into their image of what was perfect. Small wonder the poor boy sought outlets in excess; small wonder, too, that while he loved his parents, he strained at the bit and, eventually finding freedom, threw out so many relics of their era, which seemed to him the age of oppression.

Equally interesting is the speed with which Grand Duchess Elizabeth altered everything following the murder of her husband, Serge. Within a few months her life changed in such a way that it appears she must have been dreaming of something quite different for years. It's almost like a simmering, overheated engine that suddenly blows a gasket and it is shocking....but suddeny settles down into a quite different place. The influence of one person over another is tremendous but ultimately, everyone finds his/her own level and nothing lasts forever...

It's interesting that when someone passes on, there are those who choose to mourn for a length of time, and those who choose to move on. There's a weird obligation to feel sad about them, and about someone's passing and not to feel sad is seen as heartless but that isn't always the case. Bertie, without sentimentality, was surely correct. It was immensely sad that the era had gone...but to him a tyrant had let go of the reins and he was free.

It's a bit of a pity that Bertie didn't live long enough to really come into his stride and enjoy the power of his own benign influence for longer. King for only 9 years...had he lived as long as his mother did, I think the First World War might have been avoided.

Marie was horrified and frightened. Her dying mother had threatened to put her in a convent because she lacked classical good lucks. Marie was religious, but she didn't want to go to a convent!

Luckily, the dark and slender teenager captured the attention of the nineteen year old King. This surprised everyone at the glittering French court because Marie was not pretty. Many people at the court thought that the younger girl had cast a spell on the King, including his pious mother, Queen Anne.

Louis, well-educated and interested in intelligent conversation and the arts, found a soul-mate in Marie. She was unusually well-educated and cultured for an upper-class French woman of the sixteenth century. She liked painting, music, and literature. She admired the plays of Corneille, especially Le Cid. Louis was happy to find a young woman who shared his love for the arts.

She also shared a love of riding with Louis. According to Antonia Fraser, Marie looked irresistible in 'black velvet edged with fur, including a matching hat above the huge dark eyes that were her best feature." Marie and Louis could finally be alone when they went riding together.

Marie's only claim to fame was that she was Cardinal Mazarin's niece. The imposing Cardinal was still one of the main 'powers behind the throne' at this time, and a good friend of Queen Anne. She and the Cardinal wanted a much better marriage for Louis. They had their eyes on the Spanish Infanta, a much more suitable prospect.

When Louis thought of marrying his 'Galatea', Queen Anne decided to put a stop to the romance once and for all. She spent an hour alone with the young man in her Appartment des Baines. Louis knew what was best for him and submitted fairly easily.
Queen Anne told Madame de Motteville: "One day Louis will thank me for the harm I have done him." 1.

Louis gave Marie two lovely farewell gifts: Henrietta Maria's pearls and a cute spaniel puppy. She made a grand marriage, but it was destined to be unhappy. Marie married the Italian Prince Colonna. He was surprised that she was still a virgin, because of the wild reputation of the French court. He said that he didn't expect to find 'innocence among the loves of kings.'2.

1. Fraser, Antonia, Love and Louis XIV, The Women in the Life of the Sun King, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, 2006, p.52.

2. Ibid.

Weddings and funerals and memorials. These past two weeks have been filled with joyous and somber gatherings, but some princesses still managed to snatch some vacation time.


AUGUST 14


Empress Michiko and Emperoro Akihito of Japan attended a memorial ceremony honoring those who died in World War II on the 65th anniversary of World War II. The emperor's father, Hirohito, was a young emperor during the war and was still considered to be a living god. The imperial family is still highly honored but not "revered" in the same way.


AUGUST 18


Do you like my hat? Oh yes, Your Majesty! King Abdullah and Queen Rania of Jordan were all giggles during a visit to Scotland for the 50th anniversary of the Royal Military Tattoo. Living in the Middle East, the king and queen are used to seeing men in longer "skirts" and probably were amused by all the knobby knees under those kilts.


AUGUST 21


Having returned from their honeymoon and dodged bribery accusations for getting it paid for by a rich businessman, Crown Princess Victoria and Prince Daniel (in the center) joined King Carl Gustaf, Queen Silvia, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Madeleine for the bicentennial celebration of Sweden's parliament. Carl Philip has been taking heat for dating a reality star who is apparently allergic to wearing clothes and Princess Madeleine has been spending more and more time in the U.S. since her ex-fiancee allegedly cheated on her.


On a "solo" holiday Down Under, Australian-born Crown Princess Mary of Denmark is still showing no sign that she is actually a "trio" at the moment since she is due to deliver twins in about five months. She keeps tricking the watching photographers by wearing loose blouses but this ensemble and the skinny jeans she's been wearing around Australia show no sign of baby bumps.


AUGUST 23


Pauline Ducruet flipped out in Singapore where she was competing in the 2010 Youth Olympics. The 16-year-old daughter of Princess Stephanie of Monaco is a hopeful for the 2012 London Olympics.


AUGUST 24


Princess Beatrice of York got a bit windswept on the English coast where she was watching billionaire Richard Branson unsuccessfully attempt to kite-surf across the English Channel for his 60th birthday. Bea is dating Branson protege Dave Clark.

The entire Spanish royal family invaded Greece for the wedding celebrations of Prince Nikolaos, whose father King Constantine II is the brother of Queen Sofia of Greece. Apparently, however, Infanta Cristina did not get the notice that they were all supposed to wear white pants to the party! She looks lovely nevertheless standing next to her handsome husband Inaki, sister Elena, sister-in-law Letizia and brother Felipe.


AUGUST 25


A flower-draped carriage was just one fantasy moment for Europe's new fairytale princess and her Prince Charming, as the 29-year-old Tatiana Blatnik married 40-year-old Prince Nikolaos of Greece and Denmark on a lovely Greek island surrounded by friends and family who just happen to include most of the crowned heads of Europe.


AUGUST 26


Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden was a vision in strawberry pink as she and Crown Prince Haakon of Norway led the 65th anniversary commemoration of their common cousin Folke Bernadotte's "White Buses" mission, which rescued more than 30,000 people from German concentration camps.


AUGUST 27


You'll never get this soldier to blink! King Carl Gustav and Queen Silvia of Sweden came face-to-face with some Chinese warriors who have been on sentry duty since the death of the first Chinese emperor. No two of the 8000 terracotta soldiers are the same. They were all part of a huge mausoleum still being excavated in China.


Meanwhile, Camilla Duchess of Cornwall was looking very "queenly" in this smart cream ensemble: Giant feathery hat? Check. Large brooch? Check. Gloves? Check. Handbag with no money in it? Check. Sensible shoes? Check.


AUGUST 28


A day out with dad. Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway slipped out to the movies with dad, Crown Prince Haakon, and her brothers Marius and Sverre Magnus on Saturday.


Things were not as cheerful in sunny Parma, as Crown Prince Willem Alexander and Crown Princess Maxima joined the mourners for the funeral of Prince Carlos Hugo of Bourbon-Parma, who died at the age of 80. One of many pretenders to the French throne, Carlos Hugo was married to Willem Alexander's aunt, Princes Irene of the Netherlands for 17 years before they divorced. Irene had to elope with the prince and give up her claim to the Dutch throne because of her groom's Catholicism and his controversial claim to the French throne. Despite that controversy and the divorce, his body laid in state at The Hague in the Netherlands before being transported to Italy for internment.

Amber Petty, Princess Mary's pretty, blonde best friend, recently held a huge party to celebrate her fortieth birthday. Princess Mary was the special guest and one of Petty's 'life' maids.

The radio announcer and journalist decided to make her special friends, 'life' maids because she's never been married and she wants them to share her journey through life. This was a lovely idea.

Although Petty is probably best known as Princess Mary's best friend, she has had an impressive career. Recently made the Communications Director for the agency, Fnuky, she has interviewed many famous people and appeared on the TV programme, Sunrise. She also wrote columns for the magazine, New Idea.

She wrote about kissing a 'toyboy' at a New Year's party and stripped off for a campaign about 'women's body issues'. As many women were photographed for the radio campaign, she thought that it was only fair that she joined them!

Petty has had a few boyfriends but I don't think that she has one at the moment. Perhaps Prince Frederick has a handsome, wealthy, aristocratic friend? He has to be nice too, of course!

Party Outfits

Petty wore a long, fairy tale gown with a scalloped hem to her party in Adelaide. It was a gorgeous dress, but I haven't found out who the designer was.

I preferred her outfit to Princess Mary's. The Princess wore a dark, strapless jumpsuit. It was quite stylish but I just like pretty dresses.

Amber Petty has an interesting blog at

Amber Petty and she also has a cool Facebook page. You can see photos there.

I hope to write a historical post soon.

Moretta of Prussia (pictured here with her sisters, Mossy and Sophie), sister of Kaiser Wilhelm, daughter of the Empress Frederick, and granddaughter of Queen Victoria lived such a sad life that I have often wondered about. It always seemed that she 'came in' at such a difficult time for her mother. It was the middle of the Austro-Prussian War, and her elder brother, Sigismund, had just died of meningitis while his father was away in battle. Her mother, Vicky (Queen Victoria's eldest - and probably most intellectually brilliant - child) was deeply mourning Sigismund's death and worrying about her husband, and the strained relationship with her sister, Alice, whose husband, as heir to the Grand Duchy of Hesse, was fighting with the opposing army - what a mess to be born into!!

In Moretta's earliest years, she was noted as having a horror of old ladies in black - unsurprising when you consider the extent of Victorian mourning.
Her life didn't improve much. After several failed romantic attachments, she despaired of ever finding happiness and eventually settled for someone whom she might or might not have loved, only to find further heartache in that she could not have children and the estate they expected to inherit became subject of a law suit. When World War 1 broke out, she was thrown into further disarray because she, though German, had great affection for her mother's native England, and, following the death of her husband, she eventually re-married a much younger man who ran off with her money and abandoned her.

This week, an elderly relative passed on. She was born in 1917, in the middle of the horror of WW1, only 6 months after her mother's favourite brother and several other members of that family had been killed on the Somme. I guess, at that time, most people were going around in mourning and wearing black a lot. My relative's life was, like Moretta's, filled with misery, darkness and gloom - one illness after another for 93 years.

Herein lies the question! In everyday life, first impressions count for a lot with most people. They say we make up our minds about someone within the first 4 or 5 seconds of meeting them. Imagine coming into this world and following that trend. Perhaps, within the first few minutes of being here, we decide how life will be and look for evidence of it all around us: "this is a dark, nasty world....", "this is a sad world where things don't work out....", or, "this is a beautifully happy place...." "Wow! I'm here!"

The good thing is that, whatever we decide then, if we are aware of it, we can change it. I think we all make choices. Some people seem to settle into patterns of gloom and remain there. Others walk through the darkness, maybe look for meanings and work their way out of it. Others live in the moment, smile and shake off the ideas of previous generations. It's our choice, I think. Had Moretta known her own power, her life might have been very different and the same is true of all of us....perhaps....

Haarstyling für Männer kann sehr vielseitig sein. Um heraus zu finden was dir am besten gefällt solltest du einfach auch einmal offen sein für neues. Ein wenig Inspiration schadet da also ganz bestimmt nicht. Heute habe ich euch ein paar Bilder zum Thema "Männer Frisuren für Mittellange Haare" zusammen gesucht. Wer braucht da noch professionelle Styling Tips ;-)

Growing up in the more or less leafy suburbs of a northern city, founded and once flourishing on the wool trade, and much preferring the more original Yorkshire landscape of moors and rivers and crags and gardens, it often seemed to me as a child that the nearer I went to the city centre, the uglier the city became. The main problem was bricks! Thousands upon thousands of them - millions even! Travel, in those days (the 1970s) by car, and there were endless rows of terraces. My school itself, which I loved and which was beautiful, was built of countless red bricks. Travel by train, and there were numerous red brick bridges, tunnels and sidings. Bricks, bricks, bricks; walls, walls, walls....and they all seemed so very ugly, so uniform and confining, so colourless and dull. They were solid. They didn't flow like rivers flow. They were static. They didn't change like the trees change. They lacked the creativity and beauty of the original stone walls that divide fields and which blend so beautifully into the landscape. They were just there - millions and millions of red bricks. Occasionally I wondered who could have spent so long putting them there and wasn't it utterly soul destroying to have to start placing one brick on another to create even a small wall, let alone miles upon miles of tunnels and terraces. To some extent they stood for all that was the worst about the Victorian era and the industrial revolution - that terrible (to my mind) change from living with Nature, to living with so-called progress. The era when people were no longer people but merely cogs in the wheel of industry. (Incidentally, I also think that was one of the most beautiful eras in the whole of history - the age of civility, house parties, Queen Victoria, monarchs and pageants and loveliness!).

The other day, though, I saw part of the BBC programme about 'Great Railway Journeys' in which the presenter spoke so enthusiastically about Isambard Kingdom Brunel's brilliance in standing up to the all the cynical voices which say something can't be done. Rather than arguing, Brunel just went ahead and did whatever he had planned and he succeeded in all of it. His railways, his ships, his bridges - everything flourished because he believed in them and didn't give the cynics a second thought. What a brilliant man! What a brilliant mind! One bridge, according to the programme (possibly this one??*) involved him measuring the angle of every single brick - wow!! Who could be so single-minded as to do such a thing? Better still, Brunel created beauty. He combined his engineering skill with an aesthetic sense (and this was a man whose father, like Dickens' father, was stuck in debtors' prison) A long time ago, I saw a couple of other programmes about the building of the sewers in London (how many bricks are there??) and the building of the London Tube (again - all those bricks!!). Those feats of engineering are so awe-inspiring. More awe-inspiring are the aspirations of those Victorians who had a vision of something and brought it into being.

I still find the brick walls ugly but that is probably a fault in my vision. Some people love and find beauty in power stations and cooling towers. Personally, I prefer rivers and trees and the changing scenery of Nature but I do stand in awe of that vision and the almost Zen-like attention to detail of those who day after day place one brick upon another and enabled me to travel by rail to town. I guess that without all that Victorian engineering, there would never have been room for people to move on to develop such fabulous things as computers, the internet, the ability to write on blogs and to be in contact with people from all over the world.

Next time I see the brick tunnels, I shall say, "Thank you!"

*http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brunel's_Railway_Bridge_at_Maidenhead_-_geograph.org.uk_-_94793.jpg

Recently I heard a brief news report about the necessity of making battlefields heritage sites and therefore protected land . Apparently, as the law stands at the moment, anyone can build anything on the sites where people fought and died - and there are so many of them around England. Initially, I thought, "Yes, of course, they must protect these sites...." and then began to wonder...

This rainy summer's evening, driving home as often happens across the site of Towton - the 'bloodiest battle ever fought on English soil' (with 'losses' - euphemism for slaughter - which, by the size of the population at the time are equivalent or perhaps exceed the slaughter on the first day of the Somme) - I looked across the fields and wondered whether there is an inch of land anywhere on which people didn't die and kill for someone else's beliefs. There are many people who keep alive the memory of what happened at Towton that Palm Sunday, nearly 600 years ago. They enact the battle sometimes, I think, and the same is true of all of the English Civil War battles and perhaps many others from the Wars of the Roses. Perhaps old wounds and old causes are somehow rooted in our psyche, but it's interesting that no one yet dares to re-enact or play at the First or Second World War battles. Perhaps they need that buffer of history to soften the blow of what really went on.

So, at Towton, the Lancastrians were basically massacred and it was a great Yorkist victory. But, as far as I can make out, the bizarre thing is that the Lanscastrians were were more 'northern' and the Yorkists were based more or less in the south - so, like all wars, it was nothing like it first appeared, nor was it fought for the reasons that history presents. I guess most of the thousands of young men (boys) who died that day were either just looking for a better way of life or looking for excitement. How many of them really knew what they were fighting for? Even now, centuries later, it's so hard to know what they were really fighting for.

Another odd thing about wars is that when they are over and monuments rise, we always speak of people dying for this or that just cause. It's never really mentioned that they actually killed other human beings for the same cause. There is something heroic about dying for a cause and nothing heroic about killing for one....basically, the causes are never just, and there has never been any truth in 'the old lie' (quote Wilfred Owen) 'dulce et decorum est pro patria (or anything else!) mori"

I would not like to see a car park or tower block or anything else built over Towton or any other battlefield but I sometimes think it would be beautiful if, instead of honouring 'heroes' of old wars with monuments, we simply put a wreath of flowers that said, "ooh...we made a mistake there..." and perhaps, rather than honouring where we went wrong so often in the past, we raised many more monuments in places where we got it right. Perhaps the odd daisy chain in a happy park one summer's afternoon or a bluebell filled wood one May day might say,

"Here,thousands of people came over centuries.
They spent their afternoon watching birds soar through the wisps of clouds in the brilliant blue sky,
Watching swans glide over the water,
Listening for the hum of earthworms in the soil,
The sound of grass growing,
And the love song of the bee to the buttercup.
Here, people laid aside causes and lived one happy summer's day,
and they were free."

The Ragamuffin Sun is a collection of 32 of my poems together with an appendix of brief selections of lyrics from the musicals 'Branwell' - based on the life of Branwell Bronte - and 'Tsaritsa' based on the life of Alexandra Feodorovna, the last Tsarina of Russia. A few of the poems in the collection are taken from my earlier volume 'Child of the Moon' (Downlander 1986) but most are previously unpublished or have been availble only in magazines.

Since the poems were written over two decades, I do not see the world in the same way as I did when I wrote all of them though, of course, some things remain the same.

The collection will be available on Amazon Kindle within the next 24 hours.

Your hair looks so fluffy. Brittany

"I already told you. I don't know," Princess Elizabeth exclaimed.

She laid her head in her hands, then she quickly lifted it again and straightened her shoulders. She must not let these interrogators get the better of her!

The harassed Princess knew that her governess, Kat Ashley, and her servant, Mr.Parry, had told what they knew about her relationship with the handsome, ebullient Admiral, Thomas Seymour. They had told Tyrwhit about the Admiral's visiting her in her bedroom in the mornings and annoying her while his wife was asleep. She hadn't wanted the much older man's attentions and ran away. However, she was only a young teenager attracted to a very handsome man and she had let him hug her in the garden at one stage. His wife, Katherine Parr, sent her away after that.

Did her interrogators also know that? She prayed not. She had been suspicious that Seymour wanted her because he had his eye on her throne, but she'd been very careful not to let herself get too involved with him. She was also very fond of Katherine Parr, her late father's wife, and she felt very guilty about upsetting her.

The interrogators told the Lord Protector that there wasn't enough evidence to convict the young Princess of treason. He was angry but understood that they 'could not get anything out of her'. She had convinced the Council that she would never have considered marriage without their approval.

When Thomas Seymour was beheaded Princess Elizabeth is supposed to have remarked: "There dies a man of much wit and very little judgement." The young Princess was not to have a peaceful existence after this, however. It was one of the first of her many struggles before she attained her throne.

Amidst the pageantry of a royal wedding, a small group of children almost always takes center stage after the bride and groom. This troupe of tiny attendants takes the place of adult bridesmaids and groomsmen. For more about this tradition, view my guest blog at Viva Las Vegas Wedding Chapel Blog.

Here's a look at children at royal weddings from the past.

2010


Crown Princess Victoria of Sweden included several of her royal godchildren and young relatives in her Stockholm wedding. The boys were dressed in sailor suits while the girls's dresses reflected the simple, clean lines of Victoria's gown. The youngsters included(from left to right) were Prince Christian of Denmark, Princess Ingrid Alexandra of Norway, her cousins Leopold Sommerlath and Ian de Geer, the groom's nieces Vera and Hedwig Blom, and Princess Catharina Amalia of the Netherlands, along with three other girls.

2005


When the Dutch Queen's nephew Prince Pieter Christiann married Anita van Eijk, the little ones in their party were dressed in pale yellow with light green trim. The girls were the classic smocked dress of generations of little girls, but the ruffles on the boys' shirts echoed a more distant past.

2003


Claire Coombs decided to have only three girls and no boys at her marriage to Prince Laurent, youngest son of the King of Belgium. The lovely lasses were simple white dresses with pale sashes and wreathes of flowers on their heads. They were (from left) family friend Clothilde de Meulenaere, Claire's niece Emma Grant and Prince Laurent's niece Princess Luisa Maria.

1981


Most people still think of the wedding of Charles Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer when they think of royal weddings, even thought it was nearly 30 years ago. Charles' brothers, Prince Andrew in his naval uniform and Prince Edward in a gray morning suit acted as his 'supporters.' The younger boys, in suits inspired by military uniforms, were blonde-haired royal cousin Lord Nicholas Windsor and friend of the family Edward van Cutsem. The girls ranged from four-year-old Clementine Hambro, a great-granddaughter of Winston Churchill to 16-year-old royal cousin Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones, daughter of Princess Margaret. The other girls were family friends Catherine Cameron and Sarah Jane Gaselee as well as the now famous designer India Hicks, a cousin of the prince on his father's side. The girls' puffy dresses in ivory satin were designed by David and Elizabeth Emmanuel to match Diana's iconic fairytale princess gown.

1975


Here's Lady Sarah Armstong-Jones (now Chatto) several years earlier in a society wedding where her big brother, David Viscount Linley (center), wore a red kilt.

1960


At Sarah and David's mother's wedding, Princess Margaret choose her niece Princess Anne (who celebrates her sixtieth birthday this week) as her chief bridesmaid. Anne, then 10 years old, is standing on the bride's right. All eight young bridesmaids wore long white dresses with elaborate floral headbands.

1947


Princess (now Queen) Elizabeth selected more mature bridesmaids when she married the Duke of Edinburgh. Among them was her beautiful 16-year-old sister Princess Margaret (on the groom's right) and the youngest bridesmaid was 10-year-old Princess Alexandra of Kent. The two kilt-clad pageboys were royal cousins Prince William of Gloucester and Prince Michael of Kent, both about five years old.

1893


Jumping back a couple of generations to the wedding of the Elizabeth and Margaret's grandparents, the future King George V and Queen Mary, the 10 young bridesmaids were all princesses--sisters and cousins of the groom. They included the future Queen Maud of Norway (standing on the far right) and the Duke of Edinburgh's mother, Princess Alice of Battenberg (seated on the far left).

Much is written of the incredible wealth of the Romanovs and other monarchs and most of it is written in a way which implies that the greed of the few contributed to, or was responsible for, the poverty of the many. Here's a question (which is not original, but is so true!) : If I become as sick as I can be, will I make the sick people well? No...obviously not. If I become depressed, will I make sad people happy? No...obviously not. If I am penniless, will I make the poor people rich?....

Occasionally, articles appear in newspapers about how much 'it costs the tax payer' to keep our Royal Family. It turns out it is a heck of a lot less than keeping a president, and if the money were to be distributed among all the people who paid that tax, they would gain a couple of pennies and nothing more. On a personal level, our Queen lives very frugally. Nicholas II also lived a frugal life - he once corrected his son, Alexei, for not taking care of the furniture in one of the palaces because, Nicholas pointed out, 'it doesn't belong to us, but to the country and we are custodians.'

A great pleasure for me is visiting beautiful places - stately homes, once owned by the very rich - and seeing beautiful belongings there - hand- carved furniture, beautiful paintings, beautiful buildings, landscaped gardens (I go almost every day to one such place and stand in awe of the beauty of it, filled with gratitude for the vision of the person who once owned it and the countless people he employed to create it and there are signs all over the place of people who took such pride in their creation of it) . I do not imagine that I will ever own such a place, but seeing it brings me joy and a sense of beauty. Supposing the owner of that house had said, "I am rich and there are poor people so I will share all this out...." There would be nothing there for me to enjoy today.

Nowadays, as in the past, the very wealthy (like Bill Gates and Richard Branson) employ vast numbers of people. The people don't have to work for them; people can do as they please but some people love their work. Many people employed by the Romanovs and Louis XVI were probably in the same position of wanting to be employed and enjoying their position. Many others, of course, didn't enjoy that and so set up on their own - there are countless rags to riches stories of people who stopped being victims and rose out of their poverty. Others were simply jealous and wanted power for themselves. Others surrendered to their victimhood.

Yes, the aristocrats squandered their wealth while others starved. Yes, the Romanovs owned jewels that were beyond price and in their own country others died in their poverty but had the Imperial Families given away all they possessed, would people have still starved? Yes, they would. Look at what came afterwards. Tsarina Alexandra of Russia tried to engage the aristocracy in meaningful work but they mocked her. The Terror in France did not heal the poverty of those who were poor. The Revolution in Russia led to huge queues for something as small as a bath plug. Nicholas personally (along with other members of the family - notably, of course, Grand Duchess Elizabeth) gave massive amounts of money to help those in need during the famine of of the early 1890s. His father, Alexander III, stopped the exports of grain (as is happening again today due to the fires) at a massive loss to the economy of the country so his own people could be fed. After the Khodinka Meadow tragedy, Nicholas paid for the funerals of each of the victims.

The Tsarina's sister, Grand Duchess Elizabeth, - someone to be greatly admired, I think, and an extremely wealthy woman - gave away all she possessed to make life better for the poor. She trained as a nurse, lived as a nun in the worst part of Moscow and cared for people, tending those who were so ill that the hospitals wouldn't treat them. Come the revolution, Lenin shut down her hospitals, orphanages, murdered her and scattered her companions, sending them into exile.

The Romanovs, like the Bourbons, were extremely rich. Did their wealth deprive the poor of wealth? Does my health deprive the sick of health? Does my joy deprive the sad of joy? Wealth, joy, health....they're all freely available when we stop projecting our problems onto others, don't you think? Bless the wealthy people who have left such a legacy of beauty. It's a whole load better than the squalor of slums and the legacy of the poor.

Many princesses were still scarce as their summer vacations continued, but a few did manage to make appearances both public and private in view of the cameras.

AUGUST 7, 2010


Queen Sofia of Spain, who spent all of last week at the Copa del Rey sailing competition, wrapped up the event by helping the Rey, King Juan Carlos, present the prizes on Saturday.


Alright, Prince Charles is not a princes, but you must admit he wore a daring hemline at the Mey Highland Games in Scotland.


AUGUST 8, 2010


Three queens (and one King) of style were pictured together when U.S. First Lady Michelle Obama spent some time with KKIng Juan Carlos, Queen Sofia and Princess Letizia during her girls-only Spanish vacation with daughter Sasha and an old friend. The visit sparked some controversy for being too expensive and glitzy for the president's wife until it was revealed that she had agreed to accompany her friend because she couldn't be there when her friend's father died early this year. Who can resist the adorable Sasha?


AUGUST 10, 2010

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The always colorful Queen Margrethe II took a little boat ride with her pregnant daughter-in-law, Crown Princess Mary. The expected twins will be grandchild number six and seven for the queen and her husband, Prince Henrik.


AUGUST 12, 2010


If you were out shopping in Palma de Mallorca, you might have noticed a large family group visiting the shops and snacking on ice cream. Queen Sofia of Spain took her daughters, Infantas Elena (seen here) and Cristina and their kids out for the day. Sofia's two older granddaughters were with them: Elena's dark-haired Victoria Federica and Cristina's blonde-haired Irene.


Photographers desperately seeking pictures of Crown Princess Mary of Denmark's baby bump found some satisfaction from the low-belted blouse she wore to the Copenhagen International Fashion Fair.


In chilly ole England, the Princess Royal looked sunny as she reviewed the graduation parade at the Army Foundation College. She will be 60 on August 15.

Here's another odd thing about the portrayal of Tsar Nicholas II: if ever there were an example in history of a multi-dimensional man on whom so many historical projections have been based, Nicholas must be a prime example. The Soviets certainly were successful and brilliant at destroying a character and presenting an image that suited their aims.

When the myth of his 'weakness' and foolishness is blown away, he is accused of being an autocratic tyrant, clinging to personal power. The two accusations are quite contrary. On the one hand he is weak, on the other a tyrant. Yes, there were weak tyrants (aren't all tyrants weak - hiding their insecurities behind shows of power over others) but Nicholas was obviously not a tyrant, primarily because tyrants seek power and Nicholas didn't - in fact, he would have shunned it if he could.

This is what is seen as his greatest mistake: his inability to share power. If you were raised in a religious family, or raised in a politically active family, or a family which believed in any kind of system (as most do) you will surely know the extent to which that influences your views and behaviour. Imagine if, from your earliest childhood, you had been told you were to become the Tsar of All the Russias. You were raised by parents who didn't want you to be arrogant about this and so they ensured you lived a relatively simple life - sleeping on camp beds, not seeing yourself as superior to others, not having too much food, but being restricted in your view of the world outside your own home - and at the same time, you had tutors and mentors who told you from the start you had a special role to play and, what was more for a spiritually aware child in a religious background, were told that that role was given to you by God and how you must do your duty at all costs: to protect the autocracy; to be solely responsible like a father to your people...and then at the age of 13 you saw your grandfather, who had tried to soften the autocracy, blown to bits by a terrorist's bomb...Imagine being in those shoes.

So, unexpectedly at 26, you find yourself having to step into the role of autocrat. By nature, you are a gentle, simple person - a man who enjoys the outdoors, loves his family (and suffers enormous pain, seeing his sick son) but, at the same time, you have this 'duty'. What would you do? You would work every hour you had - as Nicholas did - to try to do the best for your people. You would be so occupied with affairs of state that you hadn't even a moment to reconsider where you were at, what other options were open to you, but you would do your very best. Nicholas did that. He did it from the moment he came to the throne and he genuinely wanted to do the best for his country.

Compare that to tyrants - his predecessors, Ivan the Terrible or Peter the so-called Great had massive power-complexes. Nicholas didn't. Even in our own time, in a smaller way, we see those Prime Ministers and Presidents who claim to come forth with a dream of how life can be better for everyone else if we listen to their way of thinking, but in fact they have struggled tooth and nail to get into those positions of power and wish to impose their views. Nicholas didn't struggle for it. He didn't want it. He was a man doing the best he could with a great love of his country and its people.

I think that Nicholas is accused of both tyranny and weakness because he was such a genuine man the like of which we seldom see. It's usually simple to spot the flaws in a tyrant but Nicholas was quite different and, though history has scraped the barrel to find his flaws, it has never come up with a complete and honest portrait of man who loved his people and, like France's Louis XVI, wanted to do his very best for them...and might have succeeded had it not been for those who were the really autocratic tyrants, wishing to impose their views on others.

Had Queen Victoria been born a decade or so later and lived until 1914, I wonder would the First World War ever have happened.

Franz Josef of Austria was only 11 years younger than Queen Victoria and, like her, he was only 18 when he came to the throne and lived through some of the most momentous changes the world had ever seen (perhaps, in its way, similar to the reign of our present great Queen Elizabeth). During their reigns, their countries moved through so many scientific advances that the people hardly had time to keep pace with transformation from one way of life to another. The result was not merely a terrible mess of people suddenly finding themselves horrifically poor (after all, the 'poor' had always been present since the beginning of time) but also going through a whole rearrangement of the way society had been running for hundreds of years. Change almost invariably leads to discontent and tension. There are those who long for the dawn of a new era and those who fear the collapse of all they hold dear. The Age of Victoria and Franz Josef was probably a time of the those most profound change since the discovery of fire or the invention of the wheel! (And we are still racing, even more rapidly, through that era).

Apart from the obvious difference that Franz Josef was an autocrat and Victoria a constitutional monarch (though one who was not backward in coming forward in making her views known to politicians!), I think there are similarities but a difference that made all the difference in the long run. Franz Josef, in my view, was an honest and well-meaning man but he was deeply entrenched in old conformist ways. As a young man, dominated by his mother and her intransigent views, he was also a staunch Catholic, bound by the memory of the long-gone Holy Roman Empire. Basically, he was enslaved by tradition. He also came to the throne at a time of revolutions and must have felt the need then to take a firm stand. Victoria, on the other hand, threw off the shackles of her mother the minute she came to the throne and, thanks mainly to the influence of the incredibly wonderful Prince Albert, became slightly more tolerant and open to different views and different opinions. Life taught her to yield and adapt, whereas life seemed to teach Franz Josef to cling even more firmly to tradition.

More significantly to history, Queen Victoria had a finger in every pie all over Europe, due to the marriages of her children and grandchildren, but Franz Josef, having fewer children and being confined to Catholic marriages for them, lacked that ability to influence the rulers of other nations.

Franz Josef, though, like so many others, is one of those unfortunate monarchs whose whole life seemed to be one tragedy after another. I think, the more I read of him, that he was a 'good' man, who meant well and was greatly loved by his people and wanted to do his best for them but he never quite managed to assimilate his role as a husband and father with his role as Emperor, in the way the Queen Victoria managed to assimilate her role as mother and wife....and Queen of Great Britain and Empress of India.

Golly, what responsibility and what a time to have been living!

Count Christian Bernadotte af Wisborg and his wife Christine, née Stoltmann have become parents of a son. Little Count Benedikt Maximilianw as born on 10.08.2010.
Count Christian is the younger son of the late Count Lennart Bernadotte af Wisborg and his second wife Sonja, née Haunz. Last year his engagment to Christine Stoltmann was announced. The couple married in a civil ceremony on 22.05.. The relgious cermeony who was planned for August was postponed to a later date.
http://www.focus.de/panorama/boulevard/leute-nachwuchs-auf-der-blumeninsel-mainau_aid_540299.html

Hereditary Princess Marissa zu Bentheim-Tekclenburg gave birth to her second son yesterday at the Evangelic Hospital Lippstadt. The little Prince whose full name is Carl-Emil Maximilian Moritz-Casimir Arnold weighted 3395 gramms and is 53 cm tall. He is the fourth child of the couple after Moritz (* 2003) Louise (* 2005) and Amalia (* 2007). http://www.die-glocke.de/gl/cgi/news/shownews.php?id=22294

While there has certainly been no announcement of a third pregnancy for the future King and Queen of Spain, purely coincidental evidence leads me to believe that Letizia Princess of the Asturias may be adding to her family. This is based entirely on the fact that Crown Princess Mary of Denmark latest pregnancy was announced last week. The royal lives of Mary and Letizia have run on parallel courses since the very beginning, with Mary trotting ahead of Letizia in all family milestones by only a week or so each time.

ENGAGEMENT: 24 days difference

The much-anticipated engagement of Mary Donaldson and Crown Prince Fredrik of Denmark was announced on 8 October 2003 while the engagement of Letizia Ortiz Rocasolano took the world by surprise on 1 November.


WEDDING: 8 days difference

The Danish crown couple marched to the altar on 14 May 2004, but still made it to the church on time to see their Spanish counterparts get married on 22 May.


FIRST CHILD: 16 days difference

Mary and Fredrik welcomed the first addition to their family, the future King Christian, on 15 October 2005, while Letizia and Felipe's firstborn, Infanta Leonor, was born on 31 October, amidst speculation about whether Spain would change the laws regarding succession so that she, as a female, might be able to become queen. (The laws, incidentally, have still not changed.)


SECOND CHILD: 8 days difference

The Danes were thrilled by the arrival of the first Danish princess of her generation with the birth of Princess Isabella to Mary and Fredrik on 21 April 2007 while Spain celebrated another little infanta on 29 April to Letizia and Felipe, who named her in honor of her grandmother Queen Sofia.


NEW BABIES?

The Danish court announced last week that Crown Princess Mary is not only pregnant, but expecting twins in January 2011. This certainly ups the ante for Princess Letizia. Judging by her latest photos, it doesn't look like she's entered the baby stakes again yet. But, in order to stay competitive, she must not only conceive quickly but doubly! (Incidentally, Mary is also just seven months older than Letizia and Fredrik is four months younger than Felipe.)