They first met when her father was Belgian ambassador in Greece and Albert visited because he had trouble with his yacht. From then on...the rest c'est l'histoire!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bO9iQ2z8ac
Saturday, September 7, 2013
Belgium: An interview with the mother of Delphine Boel
It is in French...so for those of you who understand the language...it is a fascinating interview with the former mistress of King Albert II of the Belgians, by whom she had a daughter, Delphine Boel.
They first met when her father was Belgian ambassador in Greece and Albert visited because he had trouble with his yacht. From then on...the rest c'est l'histoire!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bO9iQ2z8ac
They first met when her father was Belgian ambassador in Greece and Albert visited because he had trouble with his yacht. From then on...the rest c'est l'histoire!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bO9iQ2z8ac
Thursday, September 5, 2013
UK: The Mountbatten Sisters in Vanity Fair
I love subscribing to Vanity Fair and have been an avid reader for more than 20 years. As a subscriber, one gets access to their website as well.
The Countess Mountbatten of Burma is an extraordinary lady. She was immensely helpful to Ilana Miller during the writing of THE FOUR GRACES, published by us at EUROHISTORY (and currently being readied for a Second Edition).
Look at this little jewel...
Vanity Fair – September 2013
The Countess Mountbatten of Burma is an extraordinary lady. She was immensely helpful to Ilana Miller during the writing of THE FOUR GRACES, published by us at EUROHISTORY (and currently being readied for a Second Edition).
Look at this little jewel...
Vanity Fair – September 2013
Mountbatten Sisters
Not many people remain who can tell stories like Lady Pamela Hicks and her big sister, Patricia, Countess Mountbatten of Burma. But, then, few people ever witnessed the history they did. The only children of Louis, Earl Mountbatten of Burma—and great-great-granddaughters of Queen Victoria—the sisters can recall going to tea with Queen Mary, having Mr. and Mrs. Simpson come to one of their parents’ weekend house parties at Adsdean, the family’s estate in Sussex, along with King Edward VIII, and being evacuated from London on the eve of the Blitz to New York, where they were billeted by Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt III at her colossal residence at 640 Fifth Avenue, a vestige of the Gilded Age.
Their third cousins Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret served as bridesmaids for Patricia, while Pamela was a member of Elizabeth’s wedding party in 1947. Pamela had to rush back to England for the occasion from India, where her parents were Britain’s last Viceroy and Vicereine, and where she herself would become fast chums with Gandhi and Nehru. In 1952, she set off as a lady-in-waiting on what was to be a six-month tour of the Commonwealth with Elizabeth and Philip, a first cousin. One week out, Pamela was one of the few people with the couple in Africa when word arrived that George VI had died and Elizabeth was now Queen. So while Pamela is 84 (and Patricia is 89), it’s no wonder that her new memoir, Daughter of Empire: Life as a Mountbatten, stops at age 24. There was so much to get in.
Yet the ensuing decades continued to be eventful for both sisters. Pamela married celebrated interior designer David Hicks, and Patricia enjoyed a long and fascinating marriage to John Knatchbull, the seventh Baron Brabourne, a movie producer whose credits included A Passage to India and numerous Agatha Christie adaptations. In 1979, their world was upended when a bomb planted by the IRA on a fishing boat off Ireland killed their father, along with one of Patricia’s seven children, her mother-in-law, and a local boy. Patricia and her husband were gravely wounded.
Continue reading..
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
UK: Queen Victoria
An article from the EXPRESS written by Matthew Dennison regarding his latest book!
She applied rules to other people, her own family included, which she cheerfully broke herself.
And if this behaviour frequently made her infuriating to her loved ones, her ministers and her servants she herself never understood the cause of their irritation.
She was consistently inconsistent.
Early in her marriage she complained to her favourite uncle Leopold I of Belgium that she had no desire to have a big family. She went on to have nine children.
She deplored the immorality of the aristocracy but turned a blind eye to her own cousin marrying his mistress despite the mistress being an actress who had already given birth to four illegitimate children by three fathers.
When her eldest son, the funloving Bertie, Prince of Wales (who later became Edward VII), embarked on a series of affairs, she criticised him roundly for his bad behaviour which she blamed on his laziness. Yet she was determined to exclude him from royal work: she refused to allow him to see state papers and denied him a key to the red boxes. It was Victoria, therefore, who forced upon him a life of aimlessness.
She was consistently inconsistent.
Early in her marriage she complained to her favourite uncle Leopold I of Belgium that she had no desire to have a big family. She went on to have nine children.
She deplored the immorality of the aristocracy but turned a blind eye to her own cousin marrying his mistress despite the mistress being an actress who had already given birth to four illegitimate children by three fathers.
When her eldest son, the funloving Bertie, Prince of Wales (who later became Edward VII), embarked on a series of affairs, she criticised him roundly for his bad behaviour which she blamed on his laziness. Yet she was determined to exclude him from royal work: she refused to allow him to see state papers and denied him a key to the red boxes. It was Victoria, therefore, who forced upon him a life of aimlessness.
Continue reading...
Aristocracy: The Duchess of Medinaceli
The Telegraph has now published an Obituary for the Duchess of Medinaceli!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10262447/The-Duchess-of-Medinaceli.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10262447/The-Duchess-of-Medinaceli.html
Monday, August 26, 2013
UK: Baby Prince George of Cambridge
In his first interview since his son’s birth on July 22, Prince William said he and his wife were enjoying being parents but were looking forward to being able to sleep through the night again.
He added that Prince George was “doing very well” and reminded him of himself and his brother, Prince Harry, when they were children.
UK: Love is in the Marriage Redux?
Friends claim that the couple are so close that they will eventually formalise their reunion.
“Mark my words, they will remarry,” said one friend. “It is only a matter of time.”
Another said: “It wouldn’t surprise me at all. They are a wonderful couple together and, better still, pretty amazing parents.”
The couple have remained close since they divorced in 1996 and both live at Royal Lodge, the former country home of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, in Berkshire.
They joined Beatrice, 25, and her sister, Princess Eugenie, 23, for the weekend at Balmoral, the Queen’s Scottish retreat, earlier this month.
Continue reading...
©Tim Graham/Getty Images
Monday, August 19, 2013
Aristocracy: The Duchess of Medinaceli (1917-2013)
Doña Victoria Eugenia Fernández de Córdoba y Fernández de Henestrosa, 18th Duchess of Medinaceli, passed away at home, Seville's historic Casa de Pilatos, yesterday, August 18.
Her funeral took place in the Medinaceli ducal crypt, Toledo, this afternoon.
She is survived by only one of her four children, don Ignacio Medina y Fernández de Córdoba, Duke of Segorbe, second husband of Princess Maria da Gloria d'Orléans-Braganza.
Her eldest daughter, the Countess of Ofalia, was once married to Prince Max of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, predeceased her mother. The new Duke of Medinaceli, 19th holder of Spain's most renowned duchy, will be Prince Marco of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, the late countess' eldest son.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_Eugenia_Fern%C3%A1ndez_de_C%C3%B3rdoba,_18th_Duchess_of_Medinaceli
http://www.vanitatis.com/noticias/2013-08-19/fallece-a-los-96-anos-la-duquesa-de-medinaceli-once-veces-grande-de-espana_18935/
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