royal wedding celebration

Banners fly outside the Goring Hotel, in Belgravia, London, Thursday Jan. 20, 2011, where it is reported that Kate Middleton will stay for the night before her wedding ceremony to Britain's Prince William on April 29. The five-star Edwardian establishment is a short walk from Buckingham Palace where the wedding reception and evening dinner celebrating the marriage will be held, and was a firm favourite with Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother, and former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. AP Photo

One of Princess Mathilde's most beautiful pieces of jewellery was the tudor rose brooch. This large, glimmering brooch, created by the famous Parisian jeweler, Theodore Foster, in 1855, was in the shape of an open rose with two rose buds and eleven leaves. It had thousands of Brazilian green rose-cut diamonds mounted in silver-topped gold.

The gorgeous brooch was sold in 1904 after the Princess's death. Janesich, the Art Deco jeweler, acquired it. It was eventually sold by Cartier to Mrs Cornelius Vanderbilt, a society queen of New York. It came into the hands of the jeweler, Fred Leighton.

Model, Chandra North, looked extremely glamorous when she wore the lovely brooch as a hair ornament to an event in 1998. The brooch was sold by Christie's in 2004 for $701,900. You can see a picture of the brooch here: Tudor Rose Brooch

To submit your answers, you may use the comment box OR e-mail to cherylandersonbrown@gmail.com

Princes William and Harry have often been referred to as "The Heir and the Spare." Throughout history, the British line of succession has been somewhat precarious.

1. How many English monarchs since the Norman Conquest have been directly succeeded by their firstborn son?

2. How many English monarchs since the Norman Conquest have been directly succeeded by their firstborn daughter?

3. Which English king had the most children become an English monarch?

4. Which kings were immediately succeeded by their grandchild?

5. Which 20th century British monarchs were not firstborn children?

View Answers

No one could believe what was happening. Just days before, the handsome, young prince had gone out shooting, jauntily waving his hat at his beloved mother as he made his way into the January weather. Now, he lay at death’s door surrounded by his parents, his siblings and his new fiancée.

Prince Albert Victor of Wales had been both a joy and a source of despair for his parents since the moment of his premature birth in 1864. At barely three pounds, he would have surprised no one by dying as an infant. Instead, for the first but only time in his life, he showed a remarkable tenacity and determination. Named in honor of his grandmother Queen Victoria and her late husband Prince Albert, the newborn was nicknamed Eddy by his parents, Bertie and Alix, the Prince and Princess of Wales. Eddy was destined to become King of England, but the only qualifications he had were royal blood, insouciant charm and a handsome face.

In all other ways, Eddy was a disappointment. He lacked any intellectual capacity which was only enhanced by an inherent laziness. Victoria and Albert had fretted over Bertie’s seeming lack of intelligence, but next to his son, Bertie was a paragon of learning. Eddy was joined in the classroom by his little brother Georgie and in the playroom by three adoring little sisters, Louise, Maud and Toria.

Full of fun themselves, the Prince and Princess of Wales indulged their children’s playfulness, even joining them in their games. For the Wales children, childhood was a time for sunny romps, giggles and joy. So what if the tutors were frustrated beyond belief? There was more to life than learning.

Once it was clear that Eddy would never accomplish anything in the schoolroom, it was decided to send him into the navy. He was 12 years old. Concerned that he couldn’t hack it on his own, the family sent 10-year-old Georgie with him. Together, the young princes traveled around the world. While Georgie thrived, Eddy floundered. So, he joined the army to even less success. Then, he was sent to Cambridge University where he “earned” a degree.

Eddy excelled at only one thing: dissipation. He could not resist a pretty face (of either sex, it is alleged). Even his partying papa recognized that something had to be done. Afraid to send him abroad where he might encounter more sexual escapades and contract more sexually transmitted diseases, Bertie decided that Eddy needed “A good sensible wife – with some considerable character is what he needs most – but where is she to be found?”

Eddy fell in love easily and would gladly have married any number of lovely young ladies had they been deemed suitable. Resigning himself to a royal bride, he cheerfully fell for his cousin, the lovely Princess Alix of Hesse. Queen Victoria found Alix cheerful and sensible, in short, a perfect bride for a prince who needed both beauty and guidance from his wife. Alix, however, already had a bridegroom in mind. She turned down a future as Queen of England to become Empress of Russia. Victoria applauded the fortitude it took to turn down “the greatest position there is.”

When another first cousin, Princess Margaret of Prussia proved even more reluctant, Eddy found his own royal candidate, Princess Helene of Orleans, daughter of the pretender to the French throne. They defied a disapproving Queen Victoria and became engaged without her knowledge. With a surprise visit to the romantic old queen, the gorgeous young couple soon changed her mind, but Helene’s father was not so easy to gainsay when he learned that the Roman Catholic princess would be required to convert.

Denied a bride once again, Eddy was rapidly running out of potential mates. The family would have to dig deeper into their cousins to find the right girl: beautiful enough to attract the prince, level-headed enough to keep him on the right track, dutiful enough to make a good queen, and willing enough to say yes.

Princess Victoria Mary of Teck fit the order perfectly. Despite the fact that her high-spirited mother Princess Mary Adelaide of Cambridge was not a favorite first cousin of Queen Victoria and her father the Duke of Teck was a serene rather than a royal highness, the young princess was stable and calm. May, as she was known, was re-introduced to Eddy and his charms soon had an effect on the princess. On one magical evening, following a royal ball, Eddy asked for her hand and May agreed.

Just weeks later, a solemn and heart-broken princess sat hand-in-hand with the distraught and overwrought Princess of Wales as the family watched the prince slipping away. Lost in delirium, a case of flu having developed into pneumonia, Eddy shouted and cried out for old friends and old flames. May certainly heard him calling, “Helene! Helene!” At one point, he even became convinced that Georgie, who had recently recovered from typhoid fever, was dead

The entire Wales family—even the worried parents—had truly adored Eddy. His brother Georgie, his best friend in the world, was now required to take his place as future King of England.

“Gladly would I have given my life for his, as I put no value on mine,” Georgie wrote to Alix. The effusive Queen Victoria added her own grief to the tragedy, “a great calamity has befallen us as well as the Country.”

As Bertie returned again and again to the death chamber, unable to fully realize the loss of his son and the Princess of Wales ordered that his room be kept just as if Eddy were about to return at any moment, his quiet fiancée faced an uncertain future.

Already in her mid-twenties, she was a bit older than the average princess bride and she did not have the most stellar royal bloodlines. Grief-stricken as she was by the loss of the dashing prince and the loss of her brilliant future, May also may have felt a niggling, guilt-ridden sense of relief. During the brief engagement, she had started to realize that Eddy had less than sterling qualities, but her concerns were rebuffed by her family. Better, perhaps, a glorious future as Queen of England with an unreliable husband than a future as a penniless spinster princess.

Now, there were even more enormous pressures on May. Quite literally everyone from the Queen to the chimney sweeps thought it would be a grand idea if bereft princess would marry the grieving new heir to the throne. It would not be the first time a royal bride had been asked to transfer her affections in this way. There were only two problems; one was named Georgie and one was named May.

The couple was less than enthusiastic about the idea. Not that they didn’t like each other; they did. In fact, they developed a solid friendship through their shared grieving. But, Georgie and May were each the very epitome of English-ness when it came to what was “proper” and to expressing emotion. They each were not convinced that it was entirely seemly for a man to marry his dead brother’s girl.

With time, however, the growing affection between them and the external pressure finally convinced Georgie to propose and May to accept. Eighteen months after Eddy’s death, the couple was married and less than a year later, they named their first son Edward in memory of the joyful wastrel whose death had brought them together.

[You can read my profile of Prince Albert Victor on the Unofficial Royalty site.]

Marlene Eilers Koenig had a life-changing experience at the tender age of 12. While exploring a biography of Queen Victoria, she encountered the queen’s family tree and became immediately and permanently fascinated. From that moment, she began her own investigation into the queen’s vast progeny, trawling books and articles, eventually writing to and even phoning descendants. Over many years, she earned the trust and respect of the people she was researching, many of whom actively assisted her in her quest.

Eventually the research project morphed into a book project and Koenig found herself knee-deep in the kind of struggles faced by many first-time writers. “At first, it was very hard,” she recalls. When her first publisher went out of business, she was left was with unpublished manuscript. That’s when she met George Tantzos who connected her with Atlantic International Publications. Koenig’s first book, Queen Victoria’s Descendants, was published in 1987 as a comprehensive guide that sought not only to include all of the descendants in a genealogical volume but also to tell their real stories.

In the mean time, Koenig had launched another major project also borne from her consuming interest in royal history: Royal Book News, a subscription newsletter in which she reviews as many royal books as she can get her eyes on. In the last two and half decades, she has read and reviewed nearly every royal tome produced in English. In January 2011, she transitioned the labor-intensive and budget-busting printed publication to a more cost-effective blog, having first tested the effectiveness of the blogosphere for a couple of years with Royal Musings, a daily compendium of royal news stories from that date in history mixed with other commentary and observations.

In all of her writings and interviews, Koenig is ruthlessly honest in expressing her opinions about poorly researched books and articles about royalty. She is still ticked off that Kitty Kelley cited her in the ‘tell-all’ book, The Royals. Kelly attended a lecture Koenig had presented at the Smithsonian, but Koenig insists, “she learned nothing.” Koenig has also been loudly critical of the deluge of publications following the death of Diana Princess of Wales and the more recent announcement of Prince William’s engagement by authors she calls “hack writers” who rely on unsubstantiated claims, rumors, and speculation. She includes people like Lady Colin Campbell in this group, but asserts that others, like Andrew Morton, clearly use meticulous research.

And, Koenig is one who knows about meticulous research. She has amassed an extensive list of contacts among royal insiders and royals themselves as well as a personal library that includes more than a thousand royal books. She also maintains news clippings about European royals that date back to the turn of the last century. In fact, when European History Journal recently contacted her to write about the 2011 engagement of Prince Georg Friedrich of Prussia, she was able to begin her research by thumbing through her files at home, where she found original articles about the prince’s birth and the weddings of both his parents and grandparents, among other useful items.

She believes a personal library is critical for a royal expert. “I can pull from personal resources,” she says. “I can easily discover what Queen Victoria had to say about a particular event. You need to have access to material.”

Koenig is frustrated about the lack of English translations of excellent biographies and histories written in other languages, but she says the most difficult thing about her royal avocation is finding time for it outside of her full-time job as a librarian and her other obligations. Nevertheless, she has had a prolific career as a royal expert. In addition to writing, editing or contributing to several books—including last year’s The Grand Dukes, Sons and Grandsons of Russia’s Tsars—she has composed numerous articles for Atlantis, European History Journal, Majesty, Royalty Digest and Royalty. She’s been interviewed as a royal expert by ABC, BBC, CBC, CNN, and NBC as well as the Washington Post, New York Times, and London Daily Telegraph. All of this while still maintaining Royal Book News and adding daily postings on Royal Musings.

Her outspokenness has earned her some vociferous criticism, especially on the message boards. She was one of the first people to point out some of Diana’s less charming characteristics and to criticize Sarah Duchess of York. Since both formerly royal women have a broad base of extremely loyal supporters, Koenig has taken many hits for not being in love with them, too. Nevertheless, she says this has never hindered her ability to find publishers.

Koenig has also had run-ins with people asserting spurious descent from Queen Victoria. Decades of in-depth research on the topic has provided her with more than sufficient credentials to support or denounce such claimants.

In fact, she has continued to maintain such excellent relationships with undoubted descendants of the late queen that she is often invited to royal events and she is on several royal Christmas card lists. Just this week, she posted a copy of the Christmas card she received from the Prince and Princess of Venice on Royal Musings.

As for the changing atmosphere surrounding royalty over the course of her observations, Koenig doesn’t really see a difference in tone from today’s royal coverage. “If you look at the sons of King George III, there was certainly a lot of gossip and speculation about them, although they obviously didn’t have photographers following them around.” She is more concerned about the media outlets that are no longer covering royal news. For instance, “The New York Times doesn’t cover royalty the way it used to; royalty used to be front-page news, but it isn’t any more.”

One reason for her concern is that Koenig believes there is more than just romantic mystique behind royal traditions. “In Europe, among the most stable and wealthiest nations are the ones with monarchies. There seems to be something positive about having a head of state who is tied to history and tradition over one who is elected.”

So, Koenig will continue to share her royal fascination through meticulous research and forthright commentary. In addition to the Arts Journal assignment, she is currently working with publisher Ted Rosvall on a book about the descendants of Danish King Christian IX, who happens to share many descendants with the woman who launched Koenig’s royal career, Queen Victoria. Having published a new edition of Queen Victoria’s Descendants in 1997 and a companion book of updates in 2004, Koenig has continued to maintain her interest in the topic, periodically updating her information although she admits that some of the younger descendants are less interested in her project than their forebears.

Now well beyond her girlhood, Marlene Eilers Koenig has built a solid career as a royal expert by surrounding herself quite literally with Queen Victoria’s descendants. Few people have changed their own lives so completely by turning a page in a book.

Harper's Bazaar in the February issue has an article on Kate Middleton and her emerging iconic fashion style. Click link at bottom of post for the full article.

Last October, Prince William took a sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring out of his rucksack in Kenya and slipped it onto girlfriend Kate Middleton's finger. In doing so, he linked her to not just the pomp and circumstance of royal history but one figure in particular: his late mother. Diana was the ring's previous keeper.

A month later, Middleton finally faced the world at her prince's side for the first official photo call. After seven years of dating and will-they, won't-they speculation, it was a headlong step into the glare of the spotlight. But that will be nothing compared with the scrutiny she'll undergo in the run-up to the wedding and the comparisons to the photogenic legend who would have been her mother-in-law--especially when it comes to style.
 
Kate Middleton, at a wedding in 2009. Photo courtesy Indigo/Getty Images

Click link below for full post from Harper's Bazaar.

Kate Middleton: Fashion Fit for a Princess

Friedrich Wilhelm Elector (Der große Kurfürst) of Brandenburg

Friedrich I., King in Prussia

Friedrich II. (Der Große) King of Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm II. King of Prussia

Friedrich Wilhelm III., King of Prussia

Friedrich Wilhelm IV., King of Prussia

Bust of Wilhelm II., German Emperor and King of Prussia