Monarchy

She was the ill-educated younger child of the Duke of York; a mere female, she was sickly and not expected to survive, let alone become Queen. But, as this monumental and long overdue reappraisal shows, it was a mistake to underestimate Anne Stuart. She had always been ambitious and had great tenacity. She had no qualms about putting her beloved Church of England above loyalty to her father and King, the Catholic James II. Indeed, she was a key player in the Revolution of 1688. Legislation declaring that the monarch could not be Catholic or married to a Catholic meant that the question of her Catholic half brother’s legitimacy and

Jessica Douglas-Home’s aptly titled book is based on the diaries of her grandmother Lilah Wingfield, who attended the Delhi Durbar in 1911 and then spent some weeks touring India. It is a glimpse of Empire from a privileged position since Lilah was the daughter of a viscount and the grand-daughter of an earl, brought up at Powerscourt Castle in Ireland and spending her summers at Holkham Hall in Norfolk. She sat in the grandstand for ‘Distinguished Spectators’ at the Durbar and was the guest of several Indian rulers during her tour. She did not, however, ‘share the assumption of superiority that afflicted many of the officials of the Raj’, her

The history of the royal family is punctuated by dramatic, premature deaths which plunge the monarchy into crisis. The most disastrous of these — historically more significant by far than the death of Princess Diana — was the death of Prince Albert in 1861. By the time he died, aged 42, this minor German prince, the second son of the obscure and dissipated Duke of Coburg, had taken over the entire public work of the monarchy. After 21 years of marriage, his wife Victoria had become deskilled and emotionally dependent upon him. His death left the monarchy in tatters and condemned Queen Victoria to a lifetime of black dresses. Helen

The Catholic Monarchs — Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile — had five children together. The Catholic Monarchs — Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile — had five children together. Each child was married off to a promising European neighbour, thereby acting as a diplomatic tool in the Monarchs’ reassertion of royal authority over Spain. Two of those children remain famous today, chiefly for their reputation as the 16th century’s most wretched doormats. Katherine of Aragon was the youngest child. As we know, her first marriage was to Henry VII of England’s eldest son, Prince Arthur. When he died, her second marriage was to