BY ROYAL APPOINTMENT
In collaboration with the Royal Warrant Holders Association
Our Michelin-Starred Dining Room has relaunched with the unveiling of opulent new interiors, alongside inspired seasonal menus and an im maculate dining experience.
The United Kingdom is steeped in a rich and fascinating past, much of it bound closely with the story of its monarchy. Travel the length and breadth of this country, and you’ll find ancient castles, medieval cathedrals, stately homes, battle sites, statues and monuments, many with a royal connection. Whether you are a royal fan, have a passion for history, or your interests span both, Britain’s royal heritage can be found in every corner of the UK, from the seaside towns of the south coast to the Highlands of Scotland.
For this special publication we have dived into the inspirational Illustrated London News archive of eight historic magazines. When it launched in 1842, the ILN was the world’s first illustrated paper and, from its debut issue, placed great importance on royal coverage. Today, the ILN and its sister titles form an unrivalled record of royal events over the past two centuries. It’s a tradition that is still going strong and we continue to create publications marking royal red letter days. In 2023, we produced two special numbers to mark the Coronation and commissioned one of the first portraits of The new King by former QEST scholar Alastair Barford.
The Illustrated Royalty in Britain invites you to explore this country’s royal connections, past and present. There’s an
opportunity to discover the places across the UK that have played a role in King Charles’s life, while a guide to The King’s year reminds us of those important dates in the royal diary. We also celebrate British produce with a survey of the Royal Warrant tradition; explore birthplaces and wedding venues; track down royal statues; remember great battles; peek at royal residences; and meet some of the talented artists who had a front row seat when reporting on royal occasions. We also take you on a historical tour of Britain, spotlighting places with a royal tale to tell. Finally, no survey of Royal Britain would be complete without a celebration of the capital’s attractions.
We hope you find The Illustrated Royalty in Britain an enjoyable, illuminating read – and perhaps it might also inspire you to take your own royal tour of Britain? If so, don’t forget to pack a copy in your suitcase.
Lucinda Gosling Editor
The Royal Family at Windsor Castle in wartime Britain: Princess Elizabeth knitting, supervised by her mother Queen Elizabeth, King George VI reading and rincess argaret ga ing at the fire An exclusive photoshoot for The Illustrated London News in ay 1 42, to mark the centenary of the publication
The Illustrated Royalty in Britain is published by Illustrated London News Limited, Soho Works, The Tea Building 4th Floor, 56 Shoreditch High Street, London E1 6JJ, UK. hello@iln.co.uk
Editor
Lucinda Gosling
Art Director
Dominic Bell
Production Consultant
David Gyseman
Design and Colour Retouching
Dominic Bell
Lorna Wilson
Contributors
Simon Brooke
Jane Dismore
Caroline Frost
Lucinda Gosling
Joe Little
Chris McNab
Sub-Editor
Rachel Roberts
Chief Executive
Lisa Barnard
tel: +44 (0)7887 823116
email: lisa.barnard@iln.co.uk
Group Advertising Director
Jane Washbourn
tel: +44 (0)7920 821577
email: jane.washbourn@iln.co.uk
Pictures
www.maryevans.com
tel: +44 (0)208 318 0034
All images are from
The Illustrated London News archive (and other sources) at Mary Evans Picture Library, or from Getty, Alamy, Shutterstock and BBC, unless otherwise stated.
6 THE KING’S BRITAIN
From Buckingham Palace to Trinity College, Highgrove House and Birkhall, the places that have played important roles in the life of King Charles III
14 HISTORIC TOUR OF BRITAIN
egal stories abound around the K – Lucinda Gosling embarks on a fascinating journey to find out more
28 THE FAMILY FIRM
A Who’s Who guide to the royals that put service and duty to the nation first
30 ROYAL LONDON
The capital’s iconic landmarks bear witness to centuries of the monarchy, as Joe Little discovers
38 BY APPOINTMENT ONLY
Simon Brook delves into the world of Royal Warrants and the intricate processes involved to achieve the prestigious regal stamp of approval
44 THE PATTERN OF HISTORY
Royalty in Britain partner Cole & Son, the British wallpaper design house, has held a Royal Warrant for 149 years. Fiona McCarthy traces its fascinating history
48 DRAWN BY OUR SPECIAL ARTIST
Celebrating the talented sketchers who captured royal life for the ILN before the advent of press photography
58 PRINCELY PASSIONS
Fly fishing, showjumping and photography are just some of the royal family’s ways to relax away from public life
66 BIRTHS, DEATHS & MARRIAGES
Jane Dismore charts the significant royal life events that have taken place in surprising locations across the UK
74 A REGAL CAST
Where to look for the statues that forever immortalise our monarchs and their descendants
80 SHOPPING ROYAL BRITAIN
A guide to outstanding Royal Warrant Holder brands and why they are the best of British
84 FIT FOR A KING (OR QUEEN)
Royal residences through the centuries bear witness to the lives of the regal dwellers – take a peek through the gilded keyhole
94 WARRIOR KINGS
The fearless British monarchs who led their armies onto the battle field
From boy to man, and from Prince to King, Caroline Frost pinpoints the places that have been stepping stones in the life of Charles III
Within a week of becoming monarch on the death of his mother, King Charles had already visited every corner of the British Isles – embarking on a tour of public mourning that took in Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales, of which he had been Prince for more than half a century, and finally back to the south of England. The e tensive trip was a metaphor for his whole life – one in which, more than any sovereign in our history, he has forged deep connections with both a huge number of places within the Isles over which he now reigns, and the many people he has encountered along the way.
For a King whose seat of power rests firmly at the centre of the K capital, it is revealing that, when one has a vision of Charles, it would be unlikely to house him in any particular London abode. He has never made any bones about his preference for quiet country life over the hustle and bustle of the urban court.
However, it was here where his life began, with his birth at Buckingham Palace in 194 and a move before his first birthday just a few hundred yards down The Mall to Clarence House, an elegant 19th century four storey house, originally designed by John Nash, that that has become his main London residence once again in recent years.
His first school days took him to Hill House in London’s Knightsbridge where, in December of 1956, he even joined other pupils on stage performing in the end of year concert. One spectator remembers watching the young Prince whip on a pair of ski goggles and a green woolly knitted cap before skating o into the wings, his hands clutched professionally behind his back . If none of this sounds particularly adventurous by modern standards, we must remember that Charles was the first ever heir to the throne not to be educated by a private tutor within palace walls.
Less pleasant were his days as a boarder at Cheam School in Hampshire, where he enrolled in 1957, and found he was teased for his protruding ears and also, somewhat irreverently, called Fatty by some. On the brighter side, in his final year at the school, Charles was given the lead role of ichard III in the annual school play, and discovered a passion for acting and e pression that has seen him celebrated as the oyal Family’s finest orator.
If Charles considered Cheam to be a prison sentence , it was a walk in the park compared with what came ne t. In 1962, his father packed him o to Gordonstoun, his own alma mater in the Scottish Highlands, a campus school that focused on the physical rather than academic and was very much of the chin up method of teaching. Charles would later term it Coldit in kilts and he never disguised his unhappiness in a place so unsuited to his own sensitive temperament.
It was during his second year here that tales of teenage Charles’s under age drinking made the newspapers. With his schoolmates, the young prince visited a pub on the Isle of Lewis and, as he recalled it, asked for the first drink that came into my head – which happened to be a cherry brandy.
Once again, the stage proved a sanctuary, particularly after a new English teacher, Eric Anderson, arrived at the school and introduced the Prince to an enduring passion – Shakespeare. In 1965, Charles donned a fake beard to take the title role in a production of Macbeth
However, his greatest relief at this age came with trips home, particularly to see Queen Eli abeth the Queen Mother, at her home, the oyal Lodge in Windsor. There, he could curl up and be indulged by his adoring grandmother, who also encouraged his great love of
the first British
to have attended primary - or preparatory - school and be educated at this age outside of the home; Queen Elizabeth, The Queen Mother
Prince Charles and Princess Anne in the Gardens of Royal Lodge, Windsor in April
art and history. When she died in 2002, Charles remembered her fondly, saying, “She was quite simply the most magical grandmother you could possibly have, and I was utterly devoted to her.”
In 1967, unlike his mother, or his grandfather before that, Charles embarked on a university education, when he arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge and began his studies on history, anthropology and archaeology. The British press took enormous glee in reporting that, while he tidied his own room, Charles had a “bedder” to make his bed. But he led the life of a conventional student, moving around the town on a bicycle, and eventually graduated with a respectable 2:2 honours degree.
From the moment in 1958 when the Queen announced her son Charles would become Prince of Wales, he acquainted himself with the principality whose name he would bear. The most intense period of this came with a semester at Aberystwyth University in 1969, in the run up to his investiture –a move suggested by the British Prime Minister at the time, Harold Wilson, hoping to promote unity between England and Wales.
Nationalist sentiment was strong in Wales at the time, and Charles later recalled, “Every day I had to go down to the town where I went to these lectures, and most days there seemed to be a demonstration going on against me”. Nevertheless, he persevered and even developed a strong friendship with his Welsh teacher, a fervent Republican
King Charles III and Queen Camilla share a moment as they visit Poundbury in Dorset on 27 June 2023, during a visit to view new bronze portrait reliefs by Ian Rank-Broadley in Queen Mother Square and to open The Duke of Edinburgh Garden
Birkhall on the Balmoral estate where Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip spent part of their honeymoon in 1947. It is now a favourite retreat of King Charles and Queen Camilla
called Dr. Edward Tedi Millward. When Charles finally gave a speech to the people of Wales in their native tongue, he received huge cheers. The Prince’s a ection for the country wasn’t a shortlived thing. He owns a small cottage near the beautiful Brecon Beacons National Park in the centre of the country, and it was here he retreated to mourn the death of his father in April 2021.
Nature has always been one of his great consolations. After he first bought Highgrove House in Gloucestershire in 19 0, he was often photographed hard at work alongside his army of gardeners. At the time, he was mocked in the press for his revelation that he talked to his plants , but four decades later, the established grounds are beautiful and play host to hundreds of visitors every year. It was here that Charles put all his agricultural principles into practice, not just becoming the country’s most influential organic farmer, but launching in 1990 The Highgrove – a brown loaf that inspired his Duchy Originals business, selling organic produce and raising millions for his charitable causes.
Eighty miles south, in the county of Dorset, is more evidence of the monarch’s ability to translate his ideas into action. In 19 4, Charles famously described a proposed
National Gallery e tension as a monstrous carbuncle and has e pressed his wish that modern architecture e ist in harmony with traditional settings on numerous other occasions. In 1993, building began on Poundbury – a new town that the monarch helped to plan in accordance with these long held principles. With its old fashioned atmosphere, and design built around people rather than cars, the area initially brought mockery but, once again, the success of the project has confounded critics and, by the time it is finished in 2025, it will be home to 6,000 people.
The monarch is a man tireless in action, but equally content in repose, and it is often to the Highlands that he retreats for the latter. While Balmoral has now become his biggest Scottish residence, he is more likely to be found at Birkhall, the former home of his grandmother, which she left to him. The house sits on the iver Muick, and the sound of the water fills the air. The river is the magic, is how the King describes the beauty of the place, and it is here that he and Queen Camilla can rela completely, whether that be through fishing, painting, reading or just enjoying the timeless nature and taking a break from the never ending duties and demands of monarchy.
North, south, east or west, there are royal tales to be told in almost every corner of the United Kingdom. Lucinda Gosling is your tour guide with a regal pick of the past
On 13 June 1842, Queen Victoria, together with her husband Albert, made her inaugural train journey – a short 25 minute ride from Slough to London Paddington on the Great Western Railway. This novel and surprisingly pleasant e perience received a five star review in her journal that evening:
“The saloon we travelled in, on the train was very large & beautifully filled up. It took us e actly 30 minutes going to Paddington, & the motion was very slight, & much easier than a carriage, also no dust or great heat, in fact, it was delightful, so quick.
It was the first of many train journeys the Queen would make throughout her long reign, and as train travel boomed and Britain’s rail network spread throughout the nited Kingdom, it enabled Victoria to traverse the country, allowing the people to see her, and her to see them. Although Queen Eli abeth I had been famous for her ‘progresses’ around Britain in the 16th century, Victoria’s more recent predecessors, the Hanoverians, had seen less benefit in this proactive courtship of their subjects. George III, despite proclaiming himself a proud Briton in his accession speech, never left the southern counties during the si decades he was on the throne. Perhaps he can be forgiven. Prior to the advent of rail travel, a journey to Scotland would take several uncomfortable days by carriage. For Victoria, her well documented love a air with Scotland was facilitated by the ease with which she could reach the most northerly regions of her realm.
It seems serendipitous that one month prior to Victoria’s first train ride, on 14 May 1 42, a new and pioneering
newspaper had launched. The Illustrated London News was the brainchild of a Lincolnshire born printer and bookseller, Herbert Ingram, who saw a gap in the market for a publication that combined up to the minute news stories with authentic, high quality illustrations, provided by e pert artists direct from the scene or, when that proved impossible, from drawings based on eyewitness accounts. Artists’ sketches were then translated by engravers onto boxwood, the resilience of which allowed for thousands of copies to be printed. The first issue had a print run of 26,000, cost si pence, and was a sensation. The ILN was to revolutionise the way news was gathered and reported, and provided a blueprint for a thriving illustrated press throughout the 19th and into the 20th century. And where royalty went, the ILN followed, ever present to record the visits, tours and activities of reigning monarchs around the country, while occasionally reconstructing royal events from a time before this media revolution. Our historical atlas takes you on a time travelling tour of Britain, with a selection of hand picked royal stories as told in the ILN and its sister publications.
Opposite page: Bradshaw’s railway map of Great Britain and Ireland from 1852, showing a rail network that had expanded and connected major urban areas within less than 20 years
Above: Queen Victoria travelling by train in the 1850s, along the royal route to Scotland on the Great Northern Railway. The Queen’s progress on these journeys was slow as she objected to anything in excess of 40 miles an hour. In one of the royal coaches a small signal was installed on the at roof of the carriage by hich admonitions on the speed of the train could be transmitted to the enginemen
DEVON — THE DUKE OF KENT DIES, 1820
The future Queen Victoria spent her very first Christmas in the quiet and genteel seaside town of Sidmouth in east Devon. Considered more beneficial for the health of the royal baby than a London winter, it also served as a more economical retreat for her debt ridden father. The family leased Woolbrook Cottage (now the oyal Glen Hotel), a modest villa overlooking the sea, and where one day a young boy, out shooting birds, accidentally aimed a bullet at the infant Victoria’s nursery window, which thankfully missed her. Not so lucky was her father, the Duke of Kent, who caught a chill and died of pneumonia on 23 January 1 20, aged just 52. In 1 67, Queen Victoria presented a large stained glass window designed by Henry Hughes to Sidmouth church in memory of the father she had barely known. royalglenhotel.co.uk
TORBAY, DEVON — WILLIAM OF ORANGE (WILLIAM III) LANDS IN ENGLAND, 5 NOVEMBER 1688
William, Prince of Orange, nephew and son in law of James II via his marriage to James’s elder daughter Mary, was invited by a coalition of clergy, military leaders and nobles to protect English liberties and the Protestant faith, which were believed to be under threat, and likely to be in further danger with the birth in June of a male heir to the Catholic King. William spent the summer of 16 assembling a fleet and thousands of troops, and although his first attempt to sail to England was foiled by severe gales, on 5 November (an auspicious day for Protestants), he landed at Torbay and over the ne t few weeks made his way to London, largely unopposed, usurping James in what became known as the Glorious evolution. James and his wife, with their baby son, fled to France, thus abdicating the throne by his actions. He returned to Ireland in 1690 where the Catholic population remained loyal, but was defeated by William on 1 July at the Battle of the Boyne. William, together with his wife Mary, ruled jointly until Mary’s untimely death from smallpo in 1694.
On 22 July 1939, King George VI and Queen Eli abeth, together with Princess Eli abeth and Princess Margaret, arrived at the Devon town of Dartmouth on board the 40 year old yacht Victoria and Albert, which was about to be decommissioned. The King inspected the cadets of the oyal Naval College, where he had served himself from 1911 to 1913, and the family each planted a tree in the college grounds. Present that day was 1 year old Prince Philip of Greece, who had just finished his o cer training and was invited to join the royal party on board the Victoria and Albert. With cases of mumps among the Dartmouth cadets, it was thought prudent to keep the Princesses away from any large gathering of students and so Philip was tasked with entertaining them. He took them to the college tennis court, where their governess, Marion Crawford, thought he showed o a great deal. Nevertheless, 13 year old Princess Eli abeth was impressed. The meeting was to plant the seed of a friendship that would eventually blossom into romance by the end of the war.
In the autumn of 1907, the German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II, nephew of King Edward VII, was the guest of Colonel Edward Montagu Stuart Wortley at the picturesque Highcli e Castle near Bournemouth for a much publicised three week ‘rest cure’. While there, he motored around the New Forest shot a bag of over a thousand birds at Lord Alington’s seat, Crichel House hosted a tea party for local children in which he presented them with a si foot high cake attended church and planted an oak tree. Sailors from his yacht, the Hohenzollern, were reported to have watched a football match at Southampton. The Tatler commented that the Kaiser’s actions and character during his visit had endeared himself to all hearts. Seven years later, in October 1914, after war had been declared and public opinion of him was less than cordial, The Bystander ran an article asking, Was espionage the motive of his memorable visit of 1907 cl ecas le.co.
GRAVESEND, KENT — PRINCESS ALEXANDRA ARRIVES FOR HER MARRIAGE TO THE PRINCE OF WALES, 1863
On 7 March 1863, Princess Alexandra of Denmark sailed across the North Sea on the royal yacht Victoria and Albert, and arrived at Gravesend, Kent, three days before her wedding to Bertie, Prince of Wales. Henry Nelson O’Neill painted a romantic vision of this moment, which was reproduced in The Illustrated London News in 1925 in its issue marking the death of Queen Alexandra. Stepping ashore on the arm of her fianc , she is accompanied by her family, including her father, King Christian IX, and mother, Queen Louise, as well as her sisters, Dagmar (later Maria Feodorovna, Empress of ussia) and Thyra (later Duchess of Cumberland).
As Alexandra stepped onto British soil for the first time, the reception was rapturous and included, according to the ILN, “a bevy of pretty maids, who ranged on each side of the pier… with dainty little baskets filled with spring flowers to scatter these… at the feet of the royal lady.” The wedding was covered extensively in the ILN and resulted in its highest circulation to date with 300,000 copies sold.
In January 1929, the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII) made a tour of the Durham and Northumberland coalfields at the suggestion of Sir Alexander Leith, businessman and High Sheri of Northumberland, at a time when colliery closures were resulting in unemployment and widespread poverty in the area. A photo opportunity presented itself when he visited the pit village of Middlestone Moor, near Spennymoor in County Durham and one miner’s home in particular. Informally dressed in an overcoat and bowler hat, the apparent ease with which the Prince chatted to his host and their family favourably framed him as a man of the people, adding further to his enormous popularity at the time.
On 1 September 1842, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert paid the first of what would be many visits to Scotland. After a turbulent voyage along the east coast of the country on board the Royal George, they dropped anchor at Leith and took a barouche through Edinburgh where the crush of well wishers was so great, Victoria wrote in her journal that she had been in, constant dread of accidents. But the city made a great impression on the royal couple quite beautiful and totally unlike anything I have seen, noted the Queen that evening. They toured the region, staying at country houses including Dalkeith Palace as the guests of the Duke and Duchess of Buccleuch, before going on to stay with the Marquess of Breadalbane at Taymouth Castle in Perthshire. The couple returned for another tour in 1 44 and by 1 4 , had begun to stay at Balmoral in Deeside, set among majestic Highland scenery that captivated Victoria. They purchased the castle in 1 52, making the Highlands a more permanent refuge for Victoria and her descendants, including her great great great grandson King Charles.
Queen Victoria passing over the Tay Bridge on 20 June 1 79 on her way back to Windsor after a stay in Scotland. She considered the bridge a marvellous piece of engineering and awarded a knighthood to its engineer, Thomas Bouch. Only si months later, the bridge collapsed in high winds just as a train carrying 75 passengers was crossing there were no survivors. Bouch died the following year, his reputation in tatters.
In 1911, Prince Edward, the future Edward VIII, was invested as Prince of Wales at Caernarfon. The ceremony had been allowed to lapse for centuries and was proposed by David Lloyd George as an event that would appeal to the national pride of the Welsh people. The prince was coached in Welsh by Lloyd George but objected to the white satin breeches and purple velvet mantle he was obliged to wear, fearing the judgement of his Navy friends when they saw him in such a “preposterous rig”.
When Edward I conquered Wales at the end of the 13th century, he embarked on building a ‘ring of iron’ of castles and fortified towns around the coast of North Wales to reinforce his power, including at Caernarfon. His son, the future Edward II, who he created Prince of Wales in 1301, was born here. More than six centuries later, Castell Caernafon (as it is known in Wales) was the setting for the investiture of Prince Charles as Prince of Wales on 1 July 1969 in a ceremony that was a modern ri on medieval pageantry, produced with flamboyant flair by Lord Snowdon.
Left: A view of Caernarfon Castle along the quay of the River Seiont before it empties into the Menai Strait. The Eagle To er, here the nion ag and the ed Dragon y side by side, is visible beyond the ueen s To er, hamberlain To er and the Black To er
Below: ueen ictoria approaching t George s Hall on her visit to the iverpool Exhibition, 1 oyal citi ens line the street, despite the rain
A warm welcome awaited Queen Victoria when she arrived in Liverpool to open the International Exhibition of Navigation, Commerce and Industry on 11 May 1886, accompanied by her son, Prince Arthur, and youngest daughter Princess Beatrice and her husband Prince Henry of Battenburg. nfortunately, their two day visit coincided with atrocious weather. The following day, the royal party visited a seamen’s orphanage, and drove around Sefton Park and then through the city centre. The Queen’s diary entry for the 12th starts, “Alas! The weather had not cleared by lunchtime, & it blew & rained hopelessly. But there was nothing for it, but resolutely to brave the elements, put on waterproofs, & hold up umbrellas as the carriages could not be shut.”
The engravings in The Illustrated London News support the Queen’s account and show “the rain coming down worse than ever. But it did not seem in any way to reduce the numbers of people or mar their enthusiasm. I never saw anything like it.”
Enormous crowds of Liverpudlians assembled once more on 18 July 1934, when King George V and Queen Mary opened the Mersey Tunnel, at the time the largest underwater tunnel in the world. The King pressed a golden switch which activated curtains that swept aside to reveal the tunnel’s entrance and, in his speech, reflected on how, many streams of wheeled tra c may run in light and safety below the depth and turbulence of a tidal water bearing the ships of the world.”
In late 1928, King George V became gravely ill due to a pleural abscess behind the diaphragm. His physician, Lord Dawson, successfully operated but the King’s convalescence was slow he su ered one relapse when a visit from the Labour MP Jimmy Thomas caused him to e ert himself e cessively through laughter. He went to Bognor to convalesce, staying at Craigweil House, the seafront home of Sir Arthur du Cros. While there, a visit from his three year old granddaughter Princess Eli abeth was widely reported to have lifted his spirits and aided his recovery. G. delighted to see her,” recorded Queen Mary in her diary. The part the town played in the King’s recovery was also acknowledged when a council petition to add Regis to its name following the King’s stay was granted.
MANCHESTER — PORTRAIT OF THE PRINCE OF WALES PRESENTED TO MANCHESTER ART GALLERY, 1925
In 1923, The Illustrated London News commissioned artist John St. Helier Lander to paint a dashing portrait of the Prince of Wales (later Edward VIII) in polo costume. It was e hibited at the Paris Salon that year to great acclaim and on 3 March 1925 was presented to Manchester City Art Gallery by the paper. W. R. S. Stott’s illustration, published in the ILN in its 2 May issue, shows Manchester schoolchildren using it as the focus for an art lesson. The portrait was among several of royal sitters St. Helier Lander carried out for the ILN. He also painted Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother prior to her marriage and as Duchess of York, and King George VI, as well as another portrait of the future Edward VIII, wearing a Fair Isle jumper and holding his pet Cairn terrier. The latter featured in the 2022 Fashioning Masculinities e hibition at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
In the afternoon of 2 March 1882, Queen Victoria, together with Princess Beatrice, was returning to Windsor in her carriage, having travelled by train from London, when Roderick Edward Maclean stepped from the crowd, aimed a pistol at the carriage and fired. Thankfully, the shot missed and Maclean was quickly apprehended. He was found to be insane and spent the remainder of his life in an asylum. It was the eighth and final attempt by an individual to hurt or assassinate Queen Victoria over a period of more than 40 years.
In 1933, Princesses Eli abeth and Margaret were introduced to a corgi at the home of the Marquess of Bath, and, utterly charmed by these endearing little dogs, pestered their father, the Duke of ork, to have one of their own. Shortly afterwards, the first royal corgi, oseval Golden Eagle, or Dookie, as he was known, was photographed in the care of seven year old Princess Eli abeth when the Duchess and her daughters arrived at Glamis station for a visit to her family in August that year. Dookie would be the first of over 30 corgis owned by the Queen during her lifetime. Instantly recognisable, they have since become synonymous with royalty, although The Sphere’s erroneous description of Dookie as a “labrador puppy” proves the breed was little known beyond Wales in the 1930s. oyal favour soon led to a spike in ownership during the mid 1930s, when Lisa Sheridan photographed the Princess with Dookie and the family’s second corgi, Jane, and again in 1944 when she received Susan as an 1 th birthday gift from her parents.
Crowned by the Scottish at Scone on 1 January 1651, the future Charles II’s attempts to raise a rebel army to defeat Oliver Cromwell in England failed at the Battle of Worcester on 29 August. His first hiding place was Boscobel House, just north of the town, where he evaded capture, as legend has it, by hiding in an oak tree while consuming a supply of beer, cheese and bread. After 43 days of wandering the country in disguise, he eventually found passage to the safety of France by taking a boat from Shoreham. It would be almost nine years before he returned to Britain and the Stuart kings were restored to the throne.
A frequent visitor to Doncaster racecourse, the future Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, sometimes stayed at Tranby Croft near Hull, the home of Arthur Wilson when the ship owner was in that part of orkshire. The Prince was an enthusiastic baccarat player and suggested a game late one evening while a guest at the house. Over the course of that evening and the ne t, one of the players, Sir William Gordon Cumming, was suspected by others to be cheating, and although he declared his innocence, he agreed to sign a written document promising never to play cards again in e change for the silence of the other guests, thus avoiding scandal. But gossip about the a air soon spread through London society and Gordon Cumming filed a writ for slander. The court case took place in June 1 91, with the Prince called as a witness. Gordon Cumming lost his case and was dismissed from the army, but the case revealed a number of inaccuracies and the Prince’s popularity took a temporary nosedive. Tranby Croft, forever associated with the royal baccarat scandal, is now an independent day school.
Opposite page (far left): William Pendrill, who aided the concealment of King Charles II in the oak tree at Boscobel House in Shropshire, after his defeat at the Battle of Worcester in 1651. The poem set below the illustration praises his loyalty to his sovereign
Above : King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, 1940, in the rubble at Buckingham Palace following German air raids during the Blitz
Right: Front cover of The Graphic , 6 June 1891, showing William Gordon-Cumming in the witness box during the Tranby Croft court case. Also depicted is the Prince of Wales, whose involvement damaged his reputation
In the morning of 13 September 1940, a German bomber emerged from low cloud over London, flew straight up the Mall and deliberately dropped a stick of bombs on Buckingham Palace. George VI and Queen Elizabeth were in their rooms and were planning to make their way to the Palace shelter, but the Queen was first helping the King by trying to retrieve an eyelash from his eye.
It all happened so quickly, that we had only time to look foolishly at each other, when the scream hurtled past us, and e ploded with a tremendous crash in the quadrangle, she wrote in a letter to her mother in law, Queen Mary. They escaped injury but three workmen outside were badly injured one, Alfred Davies, later died of his wounds. Later that day, the royal couple drove to the East End to see the damage done during the raid, where the Queen admitted, referring to their own near brush with death, she could now look the East End in the face.
Following defeat and her husband’s capture by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan in 1870, the French emperor Napoleon III’s wife, Empress Eugenie, and their son fled to England, renowned as a safe haven for exiled European royalty, and with the added advantage that the royal couple had fostered a warm friendship with Queen Victoria. They made their home at Camden Place in the leafy town of Chislehurst in Kent, where the e Emperor joined his family after he was released in March 1871. How they came to settle in this incongruous location remains a mystery but the owner of Camden Place, Nathaniel Strode, was thought to have links with an e mistress of the Emperor. The Emperor died at Chislehurst in 1873 following an operation for gallstones, and the Empress su ered further tragedy in 1 79 when her only son, the Prince Imperial, was killed in a skirmish during the Zulu War. His body was brought back to Camden Place, although the remains of both the Emperor and his son were later removed to a specially built mausoleum at Farnborough in Hampshire, when the Empress later moved there in 1 0 (Farnborough Hill is now a school). She remained in England for the rest of her days, outliving her contemporaries and dying at the advanced age of 94 in 1920. Her former home in Kent has been the Chislehurst Golf Club for the past 125 years. Much of the original interior from Napoleon and Eugenie’s time remains, and tours can be arranged.
Queen Elizabeth II made 25 visits to Northern Ireland during her lifetime and, on 4 July 1966, came to Belfast for a two day trip, the highlight of which was the opening of the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge over the River Lagan. The visit hit the headlines for the wrong reasons when a concrete block was thrown onto the bonnet of the Queen’s limousine, a clear sign of the growing tensions and anti monarchist feeling in Northern Ireland during this period.
The Queen returned to Ulster in her Silver Jubilee year but, with security a concern, she travelled to all scheduled appointments by helicopter and her visits did not resume again until 1993. A 2002 trip to mark her Golden Jubilee included an unscheduled visit to the site of the 1998 Omagh bombing, in which 29 people lost their lives, and a decade later, during her Diamond Jubilee, she demonstrated a remarkable gesture of reconciliation when she met and shook hands with deputy First Leader Martin McGuinness, a former I A commander. On his first visit to Northern Ireland following the Queen’s death, King Charles observed, “She never ceased to pray for the best of times for this place and for its people.”
A disastrous war against Philip II of France resulted in defeat for King John at the Battle of Bouvines, and triggered a rebellion in England leading to the capture of London by rebel lords in May 1215. On 15 June, at Runnymede, to appease the rebellious barons, John reluctantly gave his seal to a set of terms guaranteeing justice and fair government. The document became known as the Great Charter or Magna Carta. Visitors to Runnymede, near Egham, Surrey, are surprised to find it is not a town or village, but a meadow, popular today with dog walkers. The peaceful spot includes several memorials: the John F. Kennedy Memorial (unveiled in 1965 on an area given to the American people by Queen Eli abeth II) the Commonwealth Air Forces Memorial (1953) and a large monument presented by the American Bar Association in 1957 to commemorate the site as a cradle of liberty and social justice. In 1934, Runnymede was the setting for a lavish historical pageant, covered in The Illustrated London News with colour photographs. Four copies of Magna Carta survive two at the British Library, one in Lincoln Castle, and the best preserved at Salisbury Cathedral.
Clockwise from top far left: Queen Elizabeth II arriving for lunch at Belfast City Hall escorted by the Mayor, Alderman Major William D. Geddis; King John, pressured by the barons and threatened with insurrection, reluctantly signs the great charter on the Thames island of Runnymede; the 1934 Runnymede Pageant re-enactment of King John on his throne at Runnymede in 1215, with the King played by Lord St John of Bletso;article in The Sphere, 13 August 1921, reporting on the sale of the site of Runnymede by the government (and the resulting outcry); former French Emperor Napoleon III with his wife, the former Empress Eugenie and their son, Louis, the Prince Imperial, at Camden Place, Chislehurst, Kent, where they spent their years of exile
In 1921, there was an outcry by press and public alike at the government’s proposal to sell the site of Runnymede. “You or I may buy it tomorrow if our bank accounts allow,” thundered The Sphere, “and build ourselves bungalows there, or maybe a large hotel so that American tourists may take tea in the garden and eat strawberries and cream on the spot where King John signs Magna Carta.” The sale was abandoned, although in 1929, the site was purchased by Lady Fairhaven in memory of her late husband. Two years later, she presented it to the National Trust to ensure its preservation as one of the country’s most important historic sites.
A Who’s Who guide to the working members of the British Royals, what they do for Britain from public engagements to patronages of charities. Summed up by Luci Gosling
When King George VI coined the term
‘The Firm’ to describe the Windsors and their unique role, the nickname prescribed a royal family that put work and service to the fore. unning the oyal Family e ciently has been the focus ever since, ensuring the royals are seen as benefitting the country and o ering value to the public purse.
KING CHARLES III
During his long tenure as Prince of Wales, The King established 20 di erent charities, including The Prince’s Trust and the Prince of Wales’ Charitable Fund, and as King is now patron of a staggering 669 charities. A pioneering advocate for the environment, the countryside and thoughtful building practices, his son William and other family members have taken an active role in the causes he has spent decades highlighting. As Head of State and Head of the Commonwealth, The King’s schedule is punctuated by private audiences, State visits, investitures, ceremonies such as Trooping the Colour and the State Opening of Parliament and public engagements. The King and Queen maintain links with all regions of the UK, The Commonwealth and key ‘friends’ overseas, including their successful tour of Australia recently. Despite his cancer diagnosis in 2023, The King has been determined to maintain his working schedule and has appeared regularly in public.
Clockwise from above: King Charles III meets The Prince’s Trust Awards winners and celebrity ambassadors at a reception held in Buckingham Palace on 17 May 2023; Princess Anne presents gold medals to the British equestrian team at the 2024 Olympics held in Paris; The Prince and Princess of Wales, with their children, at Trooping of the Colour, 15 June 2024, on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
On becoming The Duchess of Cornwall in 2005, The Queen became Patron of some 100 separate charities. Her high profile backing of causes, notably her support of organisations for women who are survivors of domestic violence and abuse, and drives to promote literacy, are close to her heart, as is her presidency of the Royal Osteoporosis Society, as both her mother and grandmother su ered from the condition. Now she is Queen, she continues to involve herself regularly with charities including those passed on to her by the late Queen Eli abeth, notably Barnardo’s and Battersea Dogs and Cats Home. As Queen, her role in supporting and accompanying The King is vital, and she is by his side on royal tours, state visits and other occasions.
Having served for more than seven years in the armed forces, one of The Prince of Wales’ key concerns is the welfare of e servicemen. Contact, aimed at improving mental welfare for those who have served in the military, is one of several mental health charities which come under the Heads Together initiative founded by The Prince along with his wife and brother back in 2016. Prince William’s commitment to the environment follows in the footsteps of his father and is ambitious on a global scale, with his Earthshot Prize seeking enterprising solutions to challenges facing the planet. He is passionate about ways to prevent homelessness; his first patronage in 2005 was the homeless youth charity, Centrepoint. As heir to the throne, The Prince plays a key role in the royal year, from carrying out royal tours and presenting medals at investiture ceremonies to laying a wreath at the Remembrance Day service.
THE PRINCESS OF WALES
Sport and the outdoors, the visual arts, mental health and early years have been the primary focus of The Princess of Wales in her charitable work, areas in which her star quality and genuine commitment have brought valuable publicity and laid the foundations for positive change. She is Patron of both the National Portrait Gallery, the Royal Photographic Society and the V&A Museum. Her involvement with the Royal Foundation has enabled her to extend her own philanthropic interests. Kate has gradually returned to the public eye and o cial duties, after undergoing chemotherapy, while focusing on her ongoing recovery. Kate’s enormous popularity, immaculate personal style and sense of humanity make her a key asset in ‘the family firm’.
THE PRINCESS ROYAL
Universally admired for her tireless work ethic, Princess Anne famously had a long running rivalry with her father, The late Duke of Edinburgh, to see who could carry out the most public engagements each year. The down to earth Princess is involved in over 300 charities, organisations and military regiments. She has been President of the Save the Children Fund since 1970 and has travelled globally to support the Fund’s work firsthand. A highly accomplished rider, indeed a former Olympian, The Princess Royal is a member of the International Olympic Committee and supported the Paris Olympics, presenting medals to some of the GB competitors on the podium.
THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH
The youngest son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex was created The Duke of Edinburgh by The King on 10 March 2023. He is President of the hugely successful Duke of Edinburgh Award, created by his father in 1956, in which half a million young people participate globally at any one time. His interest in providing opportunities for youth extends beyond the award and he is a patron of London Youth and served as the Commonwealth Secretariat’s Quality Youth Ambassador in 2023. The Duke retains an enthusiasm for the performing arts and television, manifested through several patronages such as the National Youth Theatre of Britain and the Production Guild of Great Britain. He is also a patron of the British Paralympic Association.
THE DUCHESS OF EDINBURGH
Sophie hys Jones became The Countess of Wesse upon her marriage to Prince Edward and became The Duchess of Edinburgh in 2023. The Duchess is a stalwart and admired member of the royal family, supporting The King and Queen at functions, alongside her involvement in more than 70 di erent charities. Like The Queen, she is interested in charities that advocate equality for women, and she also supports organisations that seek to prevent blindness, help people with disabilities or developmental challenges, and, as Patron of the NSPCC and Childline, o er protection and support to vulnerable children.
THE DUKE OF KENT
The late Queen Elizabeth’s cousin, The Duke of Kent, has been a staunch working member of the royal family since he retired from the Army in 1976. He has a long association with the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, of which he is President, while fostering continuing Anglo German relations through his work with the British German Association and the Dresden Trust.
PRINCESS ALEXANDRA
Younger sister of The Duke of Kent, Princess Alexandra, The Honourable Lady Ogilvy, now 87, trained as a nurse and retains an interest in organisations focused on health and wellbeing. She is a patron of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust, Alzheimer’s Society, St. Christopher’s Hospice and Florence Nightingale Foundation, and is Deputy President of Red Cross, and of course The Royal Alexandra Children’s Hospital in Brighton. She has been closely involved with several blind charities including Sightsavers and Guide Dogs, as well as arts charities, notably English National Opera, and several museums.
THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER
The Duke and Duchess of Gloucester hold numerous patronages and combine work for their charities with supporting the monarch. Second son of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester and Lady Alice Douglas Scott, Prince ichard of Gloucester had studied architecture at Cambridge where he met his future wife, Birgitte van Deurs from Denmark. The Duke is patron of a wide range of organisations, some mirroring his interests in architecture and heritage,including The Society of Antiquaries. The Duchess’s portfolio of patronages is also diverse, from the Scottish Opera to the Friends of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
Steeped in more than a thousand years of royal history, London’s most iconic landmarks are intrinsically entwined with the story of Britain’s monarchy. Joe Little rounds up the essential stop-off points for any visitor to the UK capital
Think of ‘royal London’ and immediately Buckingham Palace comes to mind, yet the now vastly reconstructed building, purchased by King George III in 1761, is a relatively recent addition to the landscape of the capital in royal history terms.
By the 11th century, London was the largest town in England and soon to replace Winchester as the epicentre of royal life.
In the 1040s, King Edward, later St Edward the Confessor, established a palace on the north bank of the River Thames, close to a Benedictine monastery founded almost a century earlier. The monarch took a great interest in it and chose to rebuild – and significantly enlarge – the church dedicated to St Peter the Apostle. It became known as the ‘west minster’, to avoid confusion with St Paul’s Cathedral (the ‘east minster’), and that is how the district of Westminster came to be named.
The crowning of William the Conqueror took place at Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day 1066 and, since then, it has been the setting for every coronation.
Traces of Edward’s monastery can still be seen in the ndercroft and the Py Chamber, o the cloisters, but in the middle of the 13th century, Henry III decreed that the abbey should be rebuilt in the new Gothic style of architecture, and that the mortal remains of Edward the Confessor be moved to a grand tomb behind the high altar. The shrine survives. Henry III, who died before the completion of the nave, is buried nearby, as are other medieval monarchs.
The first of the Tudor kings, Henry VII, is responsible for the Lady Chapel that bears his name, with its staggeringly beautiful fan vaulted roof and banners of the living Knights Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order
of the Bath, a military order of chivalry set up by George I in 1725. The sovereign attends a service of installation here every four years.
The partially built Western Towers were not finished until the mid 18th century, shortly after the installation of the great west window and the rose window. More recently, in 2018, the striking Queen’s Window, designed by David Hockney to celebrate the reign of Elizabeth II, was unveiled.
The Collegiate Church of Saint Peter at Westminster, to use its correct title, became a oyal Peculiar in 1534 – a Church of England parish or church under the direct jurisdiction of the monarch rather than a bishop and diocese. The Queen’s Chapel and the Chapel Royal at St James’s Palace, along with the two chapels in the Tower of London, are among the small group of churches in the capital to share this distinction.
When Prince William married Catherine Middleton on 29 April 2011, theirs was the latest in a long line of royal weddings at Westminster Abbey. His paternal great grandparents, the future King George VI and Queen Elizabeth, became husband and wife there in 1923, and their daughters were also married there – Eli abeth to the Duke of Edinburgh in 1947, and Margaret to Antony Armstrong Jones in 1960. In all, 16 royal weddings have taken place at the abbey, with Henry I and Princess Matilda of Scotland starting the trend in 1100.
And, of course, the abbey has been the venue for royal funerals too, with Diana, Princess of Wales, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother and Queen Elizabeth II being the most recent. The nearby Palace of Whitehall, at one time the largest palace in Europe, was the monarch’s principal residence for most of the 16th and 17th centuries. A fire started inadvertently by a servant in 169 raged through the palace complex and destroyed most of the residential and
Left: Artist David Hockney poses in front of the Queen’s Window in Westminster Abbey when it was unveiled on 26 September 2018. His first ork in stained glass, the design re ects the ueen s love for and connection with the countryside Opposite page, top left: Tomb of Augustus rederick, Duke of ussex, in Kensal Green emetery The large, plain monument was completed in 1845
Top left: An unusual view of the royal balcony at Buckingham alace from the centre room – a spot where royals have stood on many historic occasions during loyal demonstrations by crowds in the Mall. The interior was redecorated by Queen Mary in an Oriental style to harmonise with the original English hinoiserie features
Bottom left: ainting by ir John Lavery in The Sphere sho ing a scene of da ling splendour in the Ballroom at Buckingham alace during a court presentation in 1931. The combined scale and detail in the picture – which is now lost – drew much comment hen it as exhibited at the oyal Academy in 1932
government buildings. However, the Banqueting House –site of the e ecution of King Charles I – and its epic ubens ceiling, were saved. Four centuries later, it’s still a crowdpuller.
Royal London can be experienced in a pictorial way at the newly refurbished National Portrait Gallery, which has the Princess of Wales as its patron. Five royal dynasties, Tudors to Windsors, spanning five regal centuries can be seen in paintings and photographs, staring, scowling or smiling at you, depending on the custom for portraiture at the time.
In need of refreshment? Head for Fortnum & Mason on Piccadilly, founded in 1707, which was referred to as the ‘Queen’s grocer’ for many years. The fourth floor Diamond Jubilee Tea Salon was o cially opened by Her Late Majesty, no less, in 2012 and is the perfect place to take afternoon tea.
As the ‘senior’ palace, St James’s, which gives its name to the Court of St James’s, has been the setting for important events for more than 300 years. The Accession Council met there on 10 September 2022, but it is rarely open to the public. Most first time visitors to London flock to Buckingham Palace.
This working royal palace is currently open to the public for 10 weeks each summer, with a series of ‘exclusive’ tours in the winter and spring. There is always high demand to visit the state rooms of the monarch’s o cial London residence, particularly around the time of a major royal event.
The Throne Room, designed by John Nash, will be familiar to many as the setting for royal wedding photographs, and likewise the enormous Ballroom, completed for Queen Victoria in 1855, where state banquets are held. The east wing of the palace, with its balcony facing The Mall, is not yet on the visitor route. Changing the Guard takes place on the palace’s forecourt.
When Kensal Green Cemetery opened in 1833, in what were then open fields to the northwest of London, it was a prestigious and fashionable location to choose as a final resting place. The cemetery earned further cachet when, in 1 43, Augustus Frederick, Duke of Susse , son of George III, refused a state funeral and was buried there (rather than in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor), followed by his sister, Princess Sophia, in 1 4 . Queen Victoria’s cousin, George, Duke of Cambridge, was also interred at Kensal Green in 1904, as were two long serving royal servants. Mary Jane Adams had worked for both Queen Victoria and Queen Ale andra over a 46 year period, and Mary Ann Thurston, had been nurse to Queen Victoria’s children.
kensalgreencemetery.com
Established in 179 , ules on Maiden Lane is London’s oldest restaurant. It was a favourite haunt of King Edward VII when he was the Prince of Wales, and little wonder the restaurant built a side door leading to a private room – the ideal, discreet location for him to entertain his mistresses, including Lillie Langtry, away from prying eyes.
rules.co.uk
In the 1870s, the future King Edward VII took a great interest in the work of the Metropolitan Fire Brigade and befriended its chief o cer, Captain Eyre Massey Shaw, who kept a spare uniform waiting at Charing Cross station in case the prince wished to take part in some amateur firefighting. There were also reports that he would visit stations at Chandos Street, Watling Street and upert Street to wait for ‘the call’. One of the men on duty during the great fire at the King and Queen Granaries at London’s docks in 1871 commented on how the prince shared in the work against the flames.
Clockwise from top: olour photograph of the o er garden at Kensington alace in full bloom in 1 11; a atercolour illustration of the main entrance at Kensington alace, ondon, in 1 3 during this period The Illustrated ondon e s featured a series of paintings of ondon s architecture by ir Hugh asson, ho had close connections ith the royal family and designed the oyal acht Britannia s interiors as ell as suites at Buckingham alace and indsor astle; King Ed ard II then rince of ales as an amateur firefighter
Around the corner on Buckingham Palace Road, the Royal Mews – home to the Gold State Coach and other historic carriages – and the King’s Gallery are not to be missed. Turn another corner to find The Goring Hotel, sometimes described as the ‘overflow’ for Buckingham Palace, where Catherine Middleton and her family stayed the night before her wedding. The late Queen gave a pre Christmas lunch for her personal sta there for a number of years and attended other events, which led to The Goring becoming the only hotel to hold a royal warrant.
Kensington Palace – originally Nottingham House – was chosen by joint monarchs William III and Mary II in 16 9 as their country retreat. After transformations by the Georgian kings, it has been a royal residence ever since.
The future Queen Victoria was born there Princess Margaret and Diana, Princess of Wales were neighbours for more than a decade. KP, as it is known, is today the London home of the Prince and Princess of Wales and their family, the Dukes and Duchesses of Kent and Gloucester, and Prince and Princess Michael of Kent.
Not surprisingly, the royal compound is o limits, but the state apartments are accessible, usually all year round, for tours as well as permanent and temporary e hibitions about the palace and its colourful – and, at times, controversial – occupants.
The Tower of London was a royal residence of a very di erent kind, and not always a welcome destination for some of those obliged to live there. A lavish palace once stood ne t to William the Conqueror’s famous White Tower and, for hundreds of years, it was from here that monarchs processed to their coronation at Westminster Abbey. Anne Boleyn, second of Henry VIII’s si wives, did so in 1533, yet only three years later, she was imprisoned there, accused of adultery and
treason. She was executed on Tower Green. Her daughter, the future Queen Elizabeth I, also spent time at the Tower during the reign of her half sister, Mary I.
The Crown Jewels have been protected at the most secure fortress in the land since the 1660s following the restoration of the monarchy. The centrepiece in the newly transformed Jewel House is the Coronation Regalia, used recently when King Charles III was crowned. St Edward’s Crown, now set with semi precious stones, was made for the coronation of Charles II in 1661 and is worn only once in each reign. The sovereign’s sceptre and orb also date from this time.
The Imperial State Crown, on the other hand, made for King George VI’s coronation in 1937, is also worn by the monarch at the annual State Opening of Parliament.
One of the oldest items in the Crown Jewels is the 12th century Coronation Spoon, which is used for anointing the sovereign with holy oil during the most sacred part of the coronation ceremony. It survived Parliament’s destruction of the Crown Jewels in 1649, when the monarchy was abolished, having been purchased by a courtier of the late King Charles I.
In the City of London, St Paul’s Cathedral has its own royal history, with the jubilees of George V and Queen Elizabeth II celebrated beneath its imposing dome and, in the infirm Queen Victoria’s case, in an open carriage at the foot of the west steps.
The Prince of Wales and Lady Diana Spencer were married at St Paul’s in 19 1, because the cathedral was able to seat more people than Westminster Abbey.
There are many layers of royal life in London, both ancient and modern. ou don’t need to look too hard to find them.
from top: Lady Diana Spencer arrives at the steps of St Paul’s Cathedral for her marriage to Prince Charles on 29 July 1981, with thousands lining London’s streets to be part of the occasion; St Paul’s Cathedral, Wren’s masterpiece, was chosen as the setting for the Silver Jubilee Service of Prayer and Thanksgiving on the 25th anniversary of the accession of King George V to the throne –cover design for The Illustrated London News by Henry C. Brewer; the remains of Queen Caroline’s Bath in Greenwich Park today
All that remains of Montague House in Blackheath, the home of Caroline of Brunswick, estranged wife of George IV from 179 to 1 14, is a sunken bath, which can be found in the south west corner of Greenwich Park. The house was demolished in 1 15 after Caroline departed for Europe, but while resident she was known for throwing numerous raucous parties and her behaviour led to what was coyly termed ‘The Delicate Investigation’, in which the House of Lords looked into rumours of adultery and even an illegitimate child, although nothing could be proved. The bath, which was rather like a plunge pool, formed part of a glass and latticework bath house, a fashionable addition to houses in the Georgian period as a place to entertain, relax and restore health.
royalparks.org.uk
A change in reign involves far-reaching changes, not least to the businesses hich supply the monarch and oyal Households As the first tranche of new Royal Warrants granted by King Charles and Queen Camilla were announced earlier this year, Simon Brooke explores the world of Royal Warrants and the intricate process of reviewing and granting them
The accession of a new monarch to the throne brings with it monumental historical change –along with a plethora of minor alterations. Signs, signatures, titles and references all undergo simple but significant amendments.
One of those is the granting of Royal Warrants. With the passing of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and the accession of His Majesty King Charles III, hundreds of companies have found themselves having to change their branding, letterheads and packaging, among other aspects of their businesses.
A Royal Warrant of Appointment is the appointment of a company or an individual trader to the Royal Household. It entitles the Warrant Holder to use the Royal Arms and the phrase By Appointment to... . A two year period of grace follows the death of a Grantor, the specific member of the Royal Family granting the Royal Warrant. During this time, a Grantee – that is, a company that has received a oyal Warrant – may continue to use the oyal Arms while it plans to phase out stock and branding bearing those crests.
So, as part of a change in reign, a new monarch initiates a review of the previous Warrants. Past Warrant Holders may submit new applications if they wish to. The first stage of the process was the announcement in May 2024 of Royal Warrants of Appointment to The King being granted to companies and individual traders who had held his Warrant as The Prince of Wales and had been successfully reviewed. Some new Royal Warrants of Appointment to The Queen were also announced at the same time.
The next major stage of the process is the review of Warrants held by companies By Appointment to Queen
Elizabeth II. Finally, applications will be considered from non Warrant holding companies for new oyal Warrants which may be granted by HM The King or HM The Queen as Grantors. Currently there are no other Grantors, but this of course could change in the future.
This present review is notable because the last time that a monarch came to the throne having already been a Grantor and therefore, with the transition of Royal Warrants to manage, was more than 100 years ago. In 1910, when George V succeeded his father, Edward VII, he, like the current King, had made grants of Royal Warrants as The Prince of Wales.
His successor, Edward VIII, had been granting Royal Warrants as The Prince of Wales. However, probably because his reign was so brief, he made no grants as King. More recently, the late Queen had been Princess Elizabeth immediately before she was crowned, and her father had acceded from the position of The Duke of York. Neither of these titles involved the ability to grant Royal Warrants.
One new development this year is that the new Queen is now a Grantor, the first time she has enjoyed such a role.
Another point of di erence is that the King – known for his energy and dynamism – began granting oyal Warrants just 1 months after his accession. This contrasts with his mother, who only began the process in 1955, three years after her accession to the throne, with his father following suit in 1956.
King Charles had been granting Royal Warrants as The Prince of Wales since 1980, and so he has considerable e perience of the system – more than many monarchs in history. It is interesting to note how sustainability has always been important to His Majesty as a Grantor – well before it
entered the mainstream for businesses.
Exactly when Royal Warrants were first granted is not known, but in 1300, eginald de Thunderley was rewarded for supplying what are described in historical records as 14 striped clothes for the servants of Queen Margaret.
Perhaps a better example of what we would regard as a oyal Warrant Holder today was William Ca ton, who was appointed The King’s Printer in 1476. It was during the 1 th century that Warrant Holders first began to display the Royal Arms in relation to their businesses, a practice that continues today and is the principal commercial benefit of Warrant Holding.
Today, oyal Warrants are managed by the Lord Chamberlain’s o ce, the department that also manages matters relating to the royal prerogative, ceremonies and patronage. The Lord Chamberlain chairs the Royal Household Warrants Committee – the body that makes recommendations to the monarch about the granting of Warrants, as well as manages all
policies relating to Royal Warrants.
However, the gatekeeper of the granting process is the Royal Warrant Holders Association. Founded in 1840, and separate from the Royal Household, it manages applications for new Royal Warrants and amendments to the more than 700 currently in existence.
The sheer variety of Royal Warrant Holders is remarkable, ranging from upmarket manufacturers with their proud heritage and traditions of craftsmanship through to the makers of products that you might find in any home or o ce. Some are global firms while others are small companies with no more than a dozen employees.
The broad geographical spread is also crucial. As well as the inevitable clutch of London based brands, A E Fire and Security Equipment is based in Cheltenham, for instance, while Barcham Trees is in Cambridgeshire. Bentley Motors has its factory in Cheshire, and you’ll find Braemar Mountain Sports in Aberdeenshire.
For English wine producer Camel Valley, which is based in Cornwall, the reappointment of a Royal Warrant has been a “very positive morale boost, especially to receive two Royal Warrants,” according to its founder Bob Lindo. “The Queen has visited the vineyard twice. I have met The King too.” The Royal Arms are proudly displayed. “Visitors to the vineyard are really interested, with most taking a photo of it, and they’re inquisitive about the Royal Warrant process.”
Florist Shane Connolly was a Warrant Holder to the late Queen and The former Prince of Wales, and has now been granted Warrants by both The King and Queen. “You can’t ever presume that you’ll receive a Royal Warrant when the new ones are granted, even if you’ve held one before, and so it’s incredibly special and a great honour when it happens,” he explains. “Their Majesties are wonderful, loyal clients.”
Connolly is particularly pleased to be granted a Royal Warrant by Her Majesty The Queen because she has only granted seven so far, although he’s been working for her for many years and provided flowers for her marriage to The Prince of Wales in 2005. “I’m very lucky; the King and Queen now trust me, which makes it so much easier to create something wonderful for them,” he says.
Being able to display a Royal Arms is, of course, a huge plus for any company but Connolly believes that discretion is also important here. “We only display it
The Coronation of King Charles III. Clockwise from top left: William Caxton as the first printer in Britain and as appointed The King s rinter in 14 ; the King meeting amel alley founder Bob indo; the oyal Arms at loris in Jermyn treet ho no hold The King s arrant; a formal HA dinner
on our website and correspondence –we don’t put it on our vans or studio,” he says.
Sustainability is a passion for both The King and for Connolly. “I’ve always been a strong advocate of the sustainable flower movement, he e plains. This means using seasonal, locally grown flowers and supporting artisanal flower growers around the country. I feel that having a Royal Warrant from the King, given his well known and long standing belief in sustainability, is the best possible endorsement for what we do to promote sustainable flowers.
According to Adam Brett Smith, Chairman of Corney Barrow, one of the oldest independent wine merchants in the K, the company was thrilled and deeply honoured,” to continue its oyal Warrant Holding status. There was a profound personal satisfaction and joy, being one of only seven companies, and the only wine merchant, to be awarded the Warrant of Appointment to HM The Queen was simply out of this world,” he says.
A royal seal of approval says so much about a company’s ethos, and it celebrates its positive attributes in a way that regular advertising and branding simply can’t. It means that our own values – relationship, e cellence, spirit, independence, integrity – have been endorsed at the highest level,” explains Brett Smith. I rather hope and believe that it is the same for our customers who gain even greater reassurance as a result of seeing the oyal Arms.
The granting of a Royal Warrant was originally an expression of respect for a tradesperson’s skills and gratitude for their service at a time when knighthoods and peerages weren’t thought to be appropriate for those working in trade. Today, part of its significance is the fact that it remains a personal gift of the monarch.
“Both of Their Majesties have an uncanny ability to make the relationship very personal – which it is, says Brett Smith. In addition, their decision to appoint me Clerk of The oyal Cellars to HM The King and HM The Queen, which is a Royal Household appointment and distinct from Corney Barrow, was an e traordinary honour and privilege.”
In a world of social media influencers with celebrity endorsements being common currency, a oyal Warrant represents a unique seal of approval. The Warrants are really important to
our business as a sign of a certain standard of doing things,” says Julian Moore, Managing Director of D R Harris Co, a chemist and perfumer which was founded in 1790. “There is a level of trust and discretion implicit in holding a Royal Warrant, particularly considering what ours are for.”
He adds We’re lucky to be able to use the oyal Arms on our own brand products, of which we have around 400, and it’s a selling point, particularly for customers from abroad. Again, it’s a sign of a certain level of quality, and increasingly, customers are becoming aware of the fact that Warrant Holders are also required to have sustainability at the core of their business.”
Moore describes the appointment of a Royal Warrant as “a real honour”. He says, “We hadn’t realised when applying that there would be such a small number of companies who would be granted Warrants to The Queen, so it’s a particular thrill. Holding Warrants is something every sta member is proud of, and that pride is evident when conveying the news to our customers.
The British monarchy endures because, while ancient traditions and eternal values lie at its heart, it subtly evolves to keep itself relevant to the modern world. As this latest collection of grants is unveiled, Royal Warrants continue to be a very visible e ample of this phenomenon.
For further information, including a list of current Warrant Holders, please visit royalwarrant.org
oyal connections run deep at leading British allpaper firm, ole on iona c arthy traces the company s fascinating past and celebrates the modern day designs inspired by our great royal houses
If only walls could talk. Especially those hung with the exquisite patterns of British wallpaper design house Cole Son. At the 149 year old oyal Warrant holder’s company’s archive, centuries old printing blocks and row upon row of commission logs are testament to the role Cole & Son has played in some of the most important decorating schemes of the past two centuries. From stately homes such as Chatsworth House, Blickling Hall and Audley End to the royal residences of Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle and Kensington Palace, these e quisite spaces have been witness to history, and more often than not, a Cole Son wallpaper has provided the decorative backdrop.
Cole Son’s origins date back to 1 75, when John Perry, the son of a Cambridgeshire merchant, opened a hand block printing business in a wallpaper mill in Islington. Perry revived the art of hand flocking (the late 1 th century Dutch process of imitating cut velvet) and developed a process for using ground mica to create a lustre like silk e ect on paper.
Following his death in 1940, Perry’s family sold the company to A. Cole, a successful wallpaper merchant, who then formed an alliance with Albert and Lionel Hill to become Cole Hill. As one of the K’s first screen printing studios, they produced papers for the 1951 Festival of Britain before rebranding the company as the Cole & Son we know today.
The company’s new, light filled, three storey HQ is located in a handsome, late 19th century building in Jubilee Place, just o the King’s oad. It’s a design lover’s wonderland with colour, pattern, fantasy and drama at every turn. In the welcoming ground floor gallery and VIP library, the company’s oyal Warrant, carved large and painted in wood, is proudly displayed, while up and down the many stairwells, and across each of the brand’s upper floor o ces, the Cole Son interior design pedigree is unmistakable. Nowhere is this more evident than in the o ce of Creative and Managing Director Marie Karlsson, which is swathed in vibrant magenta and blush pink lilacs, counterbalanced by a moody shade of charcoal.
118/8017. Available at cole-and-son.com
The building has been the perfect setting for Karlsson and her team to hang pictures of some of its most successful designs, showchasing the iconic ‘heroes’ of the collection. For a company with such a proud heritage, you can imagine Karlsson’s great delight when she recently discovered the building had not only once been home to a wallpaper comp any, Knowles & Co., but it was in fact the very place Cole had learned his trade as a wallpaper printer. His grandson (now in his 90s) sent me an email to tell me. He was very emotional, says Karlsson. Now it is her aim to make Jubilee Place “a des tination in the world for wallpaper, she enthuses. I want it to be a space where not only architects and interior designers are welcome, but anyone who wants to play with wallpaper. To give them somewhere to simply sit and enjoy what they see, she says of the walls lined with fleeting clouds and climbing monkeys, delicate chinoiseries and vibrant jungle scenes. She is clearly passionate about this new phase. “Wallpaper is such an important part of English history and as custodians of that, Cole Son needs to bring it to the future, she stresses. We really need to show new generations how much fun it can be to use it in their homes.
Since taking the helm of Cole & Son, Karlsson has em braced its historical connections to some of the country’s grandest buildings. At the company’s warehouse in North Lon don, there is a vast space dedicated to preserving the archive of thousands of carved wooden blocks and engraved cylinders. Many blocks are stained in faded shades of rose, tomato red, pistachio and sky blue after centuries of use. One notable set, belonging to the Tudor Rose pattern, was printed for the em inent walls of the Houses of Parliament, the finishing flourish to Augustus Pugin’s Gothic scheme. Collectively, it is a fasci nating insight into the history of our country’s decorative arts. “Great Britain has always played such a key role in leading interior design trends and wallpaper is deeply embedded in that culture, in our genes, Karlsson asserts.
Another block shows the markings of an 1 th century dam ask which inspired the modern day ‘Balabina’ (named after the Kirov Ballet ballerina Feya Balabina), reworked by the design team to incorporate a beautifully drawn bird within the pat tern. ‘Hummingbirds’, based on an 1 th century design Perry acquired from Cowtan & Sons, can be seen in a set of blocks where tiny details of wing and beak have been hand carved into one pearwood block (a wood chosen for its malleability and longevity), while the shapes of leaves and twigs have been carved into another. “It shows you how a design made up of between 23 to 27 colours, created through a combination of wood blocks and handpainted elements, is built up, layer by layer, Karlsson e plains. For this season, the team has reimagined it with a trail of nectar flowers and flitting butter flies, injected with contemporary shades such as racing green, fuchsia, buttercup yellow and cornflower blue.
Today, the design team stays true to the tradition of how Cole Son has always produced its sought after designs. We handpaint everything first, sometimes spending months perfecting a design because it is instrumental in lending a pat tern movement and depth, before transferring it into digital format, she e plains. Everything we create is original.
Cole Son produces almost 0 of its wallpapers in the K. Sustainability is an increasing priority, especially in its recent collaboration with Stella McCartney, which uses new eco friendly substrates derived from 79 renewable fibres and produced using 30 less greenhouse gases than traditional non woven wallcoverings. It’s a real strength for us, says Karlsson. We will always continue to be an ambassador for ‘Made in Britain’.
In homage to Cole Son’s oyal Warrant, granted by Her Majesty Queen Eli abeth II in 1961, the brand has a long standing collaboration with Historic oyal Palaces. We try to look at the rooms in places like Hampton Court, Kew and Kensington Palace, the Tower of London and Banqueting House in a di erent way. We respect their history but want to infuse our designs with some quirk that makes it interesting for the modern house, she says.
Among the designs in the Great Masters Collection is the finely detailed tapestry of florals in ‘Court Embroidery’, emulating the needlework of an early 19th century courtier’s waistcoat found in the oyal Ceremonial Dress Collection while the dancing figures, delicate foliage and ripened fruits in ‘Chamber Angels’ draw from the carousel style structure found on the ceiling of The Presence Chamber, part of the King’s State Apartments at Kensington Palace. Originally designed by William Kent (one of the most influential names in early 1 th century design), it vividly captures the essence of an ebullient room where the king entertained and received ministers and foreign ambassadors.
‘Hampton oses’ is a celebration of the flower now syn onymous with the Tudor era of Hampton Court Palace and ‘Gibbons Carving’ draws from the high relief wooden carvings of the 17th century master carver Grinling Gibbons, whose talents and originality led to royal patronage under Charles II, first at Windsor Castle and later as the King’s Master Carver from 1693. ‘ oyal Jardini re’ depicts one of King William lll and Queen Mary ll’s blossoming orange trees, while ‘Palace Tales’ is an e uberant graphic repeat, incorporating the Tower of London’s ravens, the fallow deer roaming free in Hampton Court Palace’s gardens, and a polar bear swimming along the iver Thames (one of the e otic beasts kept by Henry III in his oyal Menagerie).
We will continue to work with Historic oyal Palaces because it’s important for us to bring the beauty of all those incredible tapestries, architectural details and breathtaking gardens found in each of the palaces into people’s everyday lives, Karlsson enthuses. Meanwhile, the connections to modern monarchs continued in 2022 when Cole Son produced a special edition of ‘Idyll’ – a lavish English land scape panoramic, complete with rolling hills, abundant rose bushes, proud peacocks, and ancient oaks and yews. The shim mering platinum background was chosen in celebration of Her Majesty Queen Eli abeth II’s Jubilee year.
We are so proud of our warrant because it is special, says Karlsson. While we were appointed by the late Queen Eli abeth II, Cole Son served the oyal Palaces long be fore. In fact, it took Cole Son almost 75 years to get their warrant, she muses. For Karlsson, the oyal Warrant implies a level of world class quality. Around the world, it is a massive stamp of approval for how we produce our wallpapers. It clearly says we are the best of the best, she beams proudly. cole-and-son.com
Celebrated both before and after the arrival of the press photographer, the artists of The Illustrated London News magazines gave the scoop on royalty through the decades, as Lucinda Gosling explains
Sir John Gilbert’s sumptuous scene of the Plantagenet Ball held by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at Buckingham Palace, published in the very first issue of The Illustrated London News on 14 May 1842. Gilbert’s speed and the elegance of his line greatly enhanced the paper during its early years
Photography was in its infancy when The Illustrated London News first hit the newsstands in the early 1 40s, and the means to reproduce photographs in the printing process was still half a century away. Instead, the ILN pictured events for its readers by employing special artists – roving reporters with artistic talent (or established artists with journalistic savvy), able to sni out stories and turn around sketches in quickfire time before sending them to the ILN’s o ce in London. Here they were transformed into completed scenes by a team of engravers known as ‘peckers’ and, within a matter of days, were printed in the paper and perused at Victorian breakfast tables around the country. In today’s age of instantaneous images, it is hard to convey quite how revolutionary this system was, but these ‘specials’ should be considered the early progenitor of the press photographer.
By the end of the 19th century, although photography had begun to encroach on illustration’s monopoly and the engraving process was fading from use, there was still a place for maga ine artists. The quality of an illustration was generally superior to a photograph on the printed page, with illustrators often painting en grisaille – in a monochrome palette that helped further clarify printed reproduction. An artist could incorporate more detail, and often judiciously shu e figures around to give a more satisfying composition while still abiding by the paper’s original principles of authenticity and accuracy. The First World War illustrations of Fortunino Matania, for instance, who was a special artist for The Sphere, still resonate more deeply than photographs of the same period. Furthermore, for royal coverage, a discreet artist with a sketchbook was far less intrusive than one with a snapping camera shutter.
Even by the mid 20th century, art and illustration continued to work in harmony with news photography, introducing aesthetic variety, ensuring splashes of colour (especially for commemorative issues) and o ering a way to illustrate the past as well as the present. oyal reporting remained a mainstay of the ILN stable of maga ines and was a perennial subject for its artists. Here we choose a selection of notable names whose royal assignments produced some memorable pictures.
Born in a Glasgow tenement, William Simpson, often referred to as ‘Crimea Simpson’, had minimal formal education before being apprenticed to one of the city’s lithography firms. Attending the Glasgow School of Design, he became a talented watercolourist and moved to London in 1 51 to work for
the lithographic company Day Son. On the company’s recommendation, he was commissioned by Colnaghi Son to travel to the Crimean War to record events, the results of which brought him to the attention of Queen Victoria, who requested a meeting with Simpson and became a regular patron. He travelled widely around the Indian sub continent and beyond, taking a great interest in the sights and cultures he encountered, learning new languages, and often blending in by wearing native dress. Day Son went into liquidation, and in 1 66 he was employed by William Ingram as a ‘special’ for the ILN, a position for which his skills and e perience made him ideal. He instinctively understood the responsibility of his role, writing in the ILN in 1 92
“I have at all times felt that I was not seeing for myself alone, but that others would see through my eyes, and that eyes yet unborn would, in the pages of The Illustrated London News, do the same. This feeling has at all times urged on my mind the necessity for accuracy.”
He would be associated with the paper for over 30 years, regularly accompanying royal tours such as the visit of the Prince and Princess of Wales to Egypt in 1 6 and the Prince of Wales’s tour of India, 1 75 1 76. He became a trusted friend of the Prince (the future Edward VII) and was often personally requested, notably when he was invited to draw the late Duke of Clarence at Sandringham after the Duke had une pectedly succumbed to pneumonia in 1 92. Simpson travelled around the world, often at great risk to his personal safety (he was once arrested as a spy during the Franco Prussian War and used his sketches as cigarette papers, smoking them in front of his captors ), but it was a royal assignment for the ILN that would eventually lead to his demise. He attended the opening of the Forth Bridge by the Prince of Wales on 4 March 1 90 in the bitter cold and caught bronchitis, which precipitated a period of poor health before his death at home in Willesden in 1 99. He is buried in Highgate Cemetery. Fifty of his works are in the oyal Collection.
Sir John Gilbert earns his place in the annals of pictorial journalism for having the distinction of being the artist who drew the first royal story in the very first issue of the ILN, providing eight sketches of a Plantagenet fancy dress ball at Buckingham Palace hosted by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. oyal events, high society and ceremonial occasions were very much within Gilbert’s oeuvre his fluid and florid style elegantly translating the scenes he witnessed for readers. It is estimated he produced around 30,000 separate images in the 30 years he was a contributor to the paper. The speed of his sketching was legendary, and he often drew directly onto a woodblock while a messenger waited to take it back to the ILN o ce. In 1 93, he donated a collection of his pictures to the nation they can be seen at galleries in London, Birmingham, Liverpool and Manchester. He is best known as an illustrator of great style and virtuosity.
Queen Victoria as an artist: sketching the falls of Garrawalt, Braemar (also called the falls of Garbh Allt) in Scotland. From a sketch by William Simpson, reproduced in The Illustrated London News Record of the Reign of Queen
Born in London and brought up in New Zealand, Samuel Begg began to contribute drawings to the ILN while studying at the prestigious Académie Julian in Paris during the late 1880s. He was eventually brought onto sta in 1 95. As one of the ILN’s chief artists, he was often assigned to accompany royal tours, including that of the Prince and Princess of Wales (the future George V and Queen Mary) to India in 1905 1906, and was frequently present to record royal engagements at home.
Although not a household name, Begg’s illustrations in the ILN help define our perception of the Edwardian era, his tenure at the paper beginning before and continuing after the reign of Edward VII. It was Begg who was sent to draw the King’s Coronation and his funeral in 1910, including a touching front cover illustration of the late King’s dog, Caesar, barking his farewell as his master made his final journey by train to Windsor.
G. H. DAVIS (1881-1963)
In an age before the internet, George Horace Davis’s enormous body of work for the ILN provided explanations about the modern world for enquiring minds. He studied at Ealing School of Art and began contributing to The Sphere during the First World War, when he was simultaneously head of aerial diagrams for the Royal Flying Corps. He moved to the ILN in 1923 as one of its leading special artists, where his formative technical drawing experience led to him specialising in diagrams, cross sections and infographics, unravelling the mysteries of how things worked, from cinema organs to V2 rockets.
Davis stands apart from other artist reporters in the genre, and some examples of his work give a fascinating sideways view of royal subjects, including the interior of the Royal Yacht Britannia, the construction of beacons for George V’s Silver Jubilee and a magnificent cutaway of Westminster Abbey
for the 1937 Coronation.
Born in Naples, into a family of magazine artists, Fortunino Matania showed a remarkably precocious talent and began illustrating for the Italian title L’Illustrazione while still a teenager. After moving to London in 1900, he was engaged by Clement Shorter, editor of The Sphere, four years later and remained its special artist for over three decades, producing a constant stream of sharply e ecuted, finely detailed depictions of life around Britain and Europe. Matania’s illustrations were renowned for their almost photographic realism and meticulous research, and for the speed with which he was able to work. He was a maestro among specials, taking in scenes and committing them to memory, and making the minimum number of sketches, a skill that put him ahead of other journalists. He was present for almost every major royal ceremonial event, covering four British coronations from Edward VII to Queen Elizabeth II, and recorded royal weddings, christenings and funerals at home and abroad, as well as more informal moments. He was particularly favoured by the German Emperor Wilhelm II, who allowed Matania access to his inner circle, until the outbreak of war fractured relations between the royal families of Europe.
Matania worked all his life and, with the market for news illustration dwindling, he chose to spend the final three decades of his career concentrating on historical reconstruction; the past, after all, was a place no photographer could go. Through occasional colour pictures in The Sphere but most regularly in his Old Stories Retold series in the monthly magazine Britannia and Eve (which he wrote as well as illustrated), he time travelled from the omans to the Saxons, from the Wars of the Roses to the Jacobite Rebellion, and from the Tudors to the Georgians, always paying close attention to the correct décor, furniture and costume. The
occasional scantily clad female character sometimes appears incongruous among such prescriptive detail, but Matania argued it was what his circulation hungry editors demanded. A scene of Christmas revels at Hampton Court during the reign of Henry VIII, published in The Sphere in 1928, is typical of his richly populated compositions and is lent further credibility by a note stating that the artist visited the palace himself in order to create the most faithful reconstruction of the setting.
Bryan de Grineau was born Charles Grineau in Hornsey, north London. His father, also Charles, worked as a caricaturist under the name of Alfred Bryan. Young Charles was taught by Thomas R. Downey, who, along with Grineau’s father, worked for a variety of periodicals but was a regular contributor of theatrical caricatures to The Illustrated Sporting and Dramatic News. Rather confusingly, Charles Grineau signed his work with various aliases when starting out his first pictures appeared in The Motor around 1908 and were credited to John Bryan. By 1920, he had settled on Bryan de Grineau and first contributed pictures to the ILN in 1915 while serving as an o cer in the oyal Field Artillery. He was published with increasing frequency as its special artist and is especially known for his reporting during the Second World War when he followed the allied invasion of Europe in 1944 1945. De Grineau’s sketchy, vigorous style gives a palpable sense of immediacy and pictures resulting from his royal assignments – from the South American tour of the Prince of Wales in 1925 to the death of Queen Alexandra that same year, not forgetting the 1953 Coronation – place the viewer at the very heart of the action.
Above: The wedding of Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester, to Lady Alice Montagu Douglas Scott on 6 November 1935, in the Private Chapel at Buckingham Palace by Steven Spurrier, and published in The Illustrated London News on 9 November 1935, just three days later. Working at speed was an essential quality for any magazine artist
Right: The Coronation of King George VI and his consort, Queen Elizabeth, showing the historic ceremony filmed for the first time. Stephen Spurrier was the ILN’s special artist at Westminster Abbey for the occasion. This picture was published in The Sketch, the ILN’s sister magazine, on 19 May 1937
Steven Spurrier was born in London and lived in the city all his life. The son of a silversmith, he was a versatile artist and designer with a wide range of interests. He initially followed in his father’s footsteps and trained as a silversmith, but gave up silverwork in 1900 and began to contribute to magazines including Madame, Black & White and The Graphic.
His pictures in the ILN covered a variety of subjects, including many royal red letter days such as the weddings of Princess Mary, the Duke of Kent, and the Duke of Gloucester, and the Coronation of George VI.
His distinctive pictures, full of charm and humour, ripple with movement and life. Alongside his magazine work, Spurrier designed posters, illustrated books and exhibited his paintings, many of which drew on his love of theatre and circus. He exhibited at the Royal Academy from 1906 with great success and was elected as a Royal Academician in 1952.
Off duty and away from public engagements and the media spotlight, the royal family have found relaxation in a variety of forms. Lucinda Gosling explores their passions and hobbies through the generations, from stamp collecting to sea-bathing
The documentary Charles R: The Making of a Monarch aired on BBC1 a week before the Coronation and revealed, in case anyone was unaware, that Britain’s new sovereign is a man of many talents. “I’m one of those hopeless characters that likes trying things,” we heard the King say in typical self deprecating fashion. I like to see if I can challenge myself.” And he has done, many times. He can ski (on water as well as snow), he is a qualified jet and helicopter pilot, he plays the cello and has mastered fly fishing, a skill passed on by his grandmother, the Queen Mother. He played polo until 2005, a sport in which he e celled and which, like fly fishing, has appealed to several generations of the royal family – with his father, his uncle Earl Mountbatten, and his sons, Princes William and Harry, all renowned enthusiasts. The King bears two noticeable scars, one on his face and a longer one on his arm, both of them due to polo injuries, and proof that being royal is no guarantee you’ll be given an easy ride on the playing field. Now in his 70s, he finds pleasure in gentler pursuits in watercolour
painting, walking and music, a subject on which he talks with real passion. “We do not think music,” he muses. “We resonate with it and feel it.”
For a family whose lives are constantly in the spotlight, downtime and o duty pursuits give some essential recalibration and a chance to break up a schedule dominated by handshakes and small talk. Musical talent and appreciation go beyond the King. The recent surprise appearance of the Princess of Wales, filmed playing the grand piano in the Crimson Drawing Room at Windsor Castle for the Eurovision Song Contest, was a reminder that besides her sporting ability, she also has an artistic side. The Duke of Kent, younger brother of Edward VIII and George VI (and father of the current Duke), was also a keen piano player, often called upon to entertain at parties. Princess Margaret, in a similar vein, would sing or do impressions at social events, sometimes deciding to perform her party piece just as other guests were feeling sleepy and on the verge of departure. Protocol obliged them to stay. Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, brother to
Clockwise from far left: King Charles, then the Prince of Wales, playing polo in 1993; Edward VIII, when he was the Prince of Wales, riding with the Pytchley Hunt – illustration by Cecil Aldin in The Tatler, 1 December 1926; King George VI with Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret in Windsor Great Park, 1938; Queen Elizabeth II visiting a blacksmith’s shop at Cloughton, Scarborough, North Yorkshire, in 2010; Edward VII leading his racehorse, Persimmon, after winning the Derby in 1896; the Queen riding with Prince Charles in 1961; Princess Anne on her horse, Doublet, at the Eridge Horse Trials in Kent, 1971
Edward VII, was renowned for his violin playing, though not necessarily his virtuosity. At one dinner party where he performed, Queen Victoria’s private secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, wrote afterwards, “Fiddle out of tune and noise abominable”.
For true relaxation, the royal family retreats to the countryside, to the rugged beauty of the Balmoral Estate or to Sandringham in Norfolk. The Queen once admitted that, had she not been monarch, she would have liked to live in the country with plenty of horses and dogs. Of course, whenever her schedule allowed that’s exactly what she did. George VI in turn was happiest when at Sandringham, where he, like his father and grandfather before him, indulged their love of shooting; pheasant and grouse had little chance when the royal guns were out in force in North Norfolk. George V in particular was considered one of the finest shots in the country. After a day depleting the game stocks on his estate, his ideal form of relaxation would be to spend time with his stamp albums.
The definition of country pursuits was elastic in the case of King Edward VII, who presided over the golden age of the country house weekend, or the ‘Saturday to Monday’ as it was known in elite circles. His migratory timetable led him to the sprawling estates of wealthy friends, such as Chatsworth in Derbyshire, West Dean Park in Sussex, Nottinghamshire’s u ord Abbey, or Taplow Park not far from Windsor. Here, days were spent shooting and evenings were filled with fine food, sparkling conversation, cigars, brandy, billiards and occasional sexual intrigue. Such a social life was facilitated immensely by having reliably discreet friends with deep pockets. In the many group photographs taken to commemorate these regal visits, more often than not, somewhere near the King, was Alice Keppel, his mistress in his twilight years. Queen Alexandra, also often present in the same group, showed a saintly level of tolerance where Mrs Keppel and the King’s other female friends were concerned, but she had her own interests her dogs (Bor ois and Japanese chins were particular favourites), and photography. Ale andra owned a number of cameras, attended photography classes, and enthusiastically snapped family and friends, arranging the results in albums. Not only is it an intimate record of royal lives o duty, but her hobby also helped popularise photography among women. Today’s Princess of Wales has also shown herself to be a keen photographer, of course, through the photographs of her children, released on their birthdays.
One favourite place for Edward VII to stop o on his tour of grand mansions was Goodwood House, as the guest of the Duke of Richmond, due to its proximity to the racecourse. The King’s enthusiasm for racing was no secret. He enjoyed the company of racing people and “the glorious uncertainty of the turf”. He established a stud at Sandringham, which produced three Derby winners for him – an achievement that was the one racing pri e to elude his equally racing mad great granddaughter, Queen Eli abeth II, who shared a love of the sport with her mother. A passion for horses, in some form or other, is in the royal DNA. When he became too old for polo, Prince Philip took to carriage driving, a hobby now enjoyed by his granddaughter, Lady Louise Mountbatten Windsor, who has recently been seen competing at the Royal Windsor Horse Show. And we know that Princess Anne and her daughter Zara Tindall have taken a love of riding to the highest level as successful Olympians.
Hunting had been a popular princely pursuit since the Middle Ages, when taking part was an opportunity to
Clockwise from top far left: Queen Alexandra photographed at Sandringham with her Chow Chow, Plumpy, and two Japanese chins; Queen Elizabeth I enjoying falconry –illustration for The Sphere by Pauline Baynes, 1959; Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, when Duchess of York, carrying a salmon,. caught while on tour in New Zealand in 1927; Catherine, Princess of Wales, shows off her forehand on No.3 Court at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, Wimbledon, 8 June 2024; 1892 advert for the London Stereoscopic and Photographic Company’s twin-lens artist hand-camera as used by H.R.H. the Princess of Wales; The Prince of Wales with his younger brother, Prince George, at a passengers’ dance on the promenade deck of RMS Arlanza on the return from the Prince’s South American tour in 1931
display wealth and status. Elizabeth I’s devotion to the hunt continued into old age. In 1601, just two years before her death, she halted a royal progress in order to hunt at Castle Ashby in Northamptonshire. The sons of George V were as keen on hunting as their father was on shooting. The Duke of Windsor recalled in his memoir how he began hunting in 1920, and explained the exhilarating sense of freedom it gave him from his responsibilities as Prince of Wales: “In the hunting field I could forget my round of duties. I was too busy riding my horse and scanning the next fence for a place to jump to worry over my next engagement or my next speech.”
The duke leased houses in Leicestershire or Northampton shire, prime hunting country, where he rode with the Pytchley, the Cottesmore or the Quorn. A bad fall in 1924, resulting in concussion, led to a flurry of concerned letters between his parents and government ministers,, and later, when his father’s health worsened, he reluctantly gave up hunting at the request of his mother, who considered it too dangerous a pursuit for the heir to the throne. Instead, he spent more time on the golf course, at clubs such as Porthcawl or Walton Heath, where his flamboyant fashions inspired as many column inches as his swing. His brother, the future George VI, was as sporty as his elder brother and even played tennis at the Wimbledon Lawn Tennis Championship in 1926, partnering with his friend and equerry, Louis Greig in the men’s doubles. With the match placed on No.2 Court, the large crowd and its expectations were too much for the shy prince and the pair su ered a defeat in straight sets.
George V’s sons were often to be seen out in London during the 1920s and 30s, visiting the theatre in an uno cial capacity and sampling the best of the capital’s sophisticated nightclub scene. The prince enjoyed jazz, cocktails and dancing, and was frequently seen at prestigious clubs like the Monseigneur, Ciro’s, the Café de Paris and the Embassy in Bond Street, where a corner table was reserved for him and his entourage. The Embassy was exclusive and expensive, yes, but attracted a membership beyond the inner sanctum of royalty. Anyone could dance with the Prince of Wales – and they often did. At the Ascot Cabaret Ball in 1927, the Prince partnered ballroom champion Edna Deane nine times, inspiring the Herbert Farjeon song, I’ve Danced with a Man, who’s danced with
a girl, who’s danced with the Prince of Wales. And in 1925, at an Embassy Club outpost in Melton Mowbray, which catered to the hunting crowd, it was observed that the band was obliged to carry on playing without pause for 20 minutes because the Prince was too immersed in the fo trot to leave the floor.
In the 2000s, a new generation of royal clubbers were in the news, as press photographers loitered outside London nightspots like Boujis in South Kensington or Mayfair’s Mahiki in the hope of snapping Prince William, Prince Harry, Kate Middleton et al as they arrived or departed. But nothing quite conjures up the glamour of a royal night out than those of the Roaring Twenties.
King Charles was known to occasionally visit the legendary
private members’ club, Annabel’s in Berkeley Square, in his younger days, but he is definitely most at home in the country, the natural habitat for the majority of the royal family. But we mustn’t overlook the coast, which has also provided a welcome refuge for royalty in the past. In the 18th century, new thinking suggested there were significant health benefits to be had by sea bathing, and when the Duke of Gloucester visited Weymouth (specifically Melcombe egis) he recommended it to his brother, George III, who was so charmed he visited regularly between 1789 and 1811. Prince Albert was also a great believer in sea bathing and arranged for a bathing machine to be built specially for the private beach at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. On 14 July 1847, the Queen went into the sea for the first time, writing in her journal I thought it quite delightful until I put my head under the water when I thought I should be stifled . Today, visitors to Osborne can see the Queen’s bathing machine tucked away at the island bolthole where she found peace and solitude, a historical reminder that, once in a while, even royalty needs to get away from it all.
Previous page from top: King Edward VII and Queen Alexandra as part of a shooting party at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, 1904 – seated second from right is the King’s mistress, Alice Keppel; King Edward VIII, then the Prince of Wales, at Porthcawl Golf Club in 1931. This page from top: Prince Albert, Duke of York – the future King George VI – on the cover of The Bystander in 1922 – he partnered Sir Louis Greig in the men’s doubles competition at imbledon in 1 2 but the pair ere knocked out in the first round by Arthur Gore and Herbert Roper Barrett; King George III takes the waters at Weymouth in July 1 , his shaved head indicating his recent mental illness John ixon s cartoon re ects the newfound affection of the public for their King with its depiction of a band beginning to play the national anthem as he entered the water
rom bouncing babies to marriage matches, not all significant royal events happen in ondon hen it comes to royal connections, Jane Dismore finds there are many fascinating and often unexpected sites to discover around the UK
Clockwise from left: Front cover of The Sphere magazine, a special celebrating the marriage of Prince Albert, Duke of York, to Lady Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon, who married on 26 April 2023; a 19th-century depiction of Edinburgh Castle, published in Souvenir of Scotland ; The birth certificate of rincess argaret ose of ork, who was born at Glamis Castle. It featured in a November 1930 article in The Illustrated London News
The brooding and magnificent Glamis Castle, in the heart of Angus, is said to be the oldest inhabited house in the British Isles. The inspiration for Shakespeare’s Macbeth, Glamis is the home of King Charles III’s Scottish ancestors, of which his great grandmother Cecilia, Countess of Strathmore wrote, Its venerable walls enshroud a mysterious something . While tales of its bloody past still fascinate, today’s visitors can also learn about its place in the King’s heritage.
Glamis was a childhood home of his beloved grandmother, Queen Eli abeth the Queen Mother (born Eli abeth Bowes Lyon) and the birthplace of his aunt, Princess Margaret. Arriving on the dramatically stormy night of 21 August 1930,
she was the first royal baby to be born in Scotland since Charles I in 1600 (at Dunfermline Palace). Margaret and her sister Eli abeth often spent part of their summers at Glamis.
Through his grandfather George VI, the King is directly related to James VI of Scotland (James I of England). The son of Mary, Queen of Scots and Lord Darnley, James was born at Edinburgh Castle, on 19 June 1566. Centuries later, the city would see the wedding of the King’s niece, ara Phillips, at Canongate Kirk on 30 July 2011.
The locations where the King’s ancestors and other royals were born, married and died are not e clusive to the big cities but are scattered around the K, some in une pected places. Near Hitchin in Hertfordshire stands St Paul’s Walden Bury,
the 1 th century English country residence of the Bowes Lyon family, which they considered more of a home than Glamis Castle. The Queen Mother’s birth certificate names it as her birthplace on 4 August 1900, and it was here in January 1923 that she finally accepted the marriage proposal of the Duke of ork. Later, their daughters would enjoy visiting and playing in the glorious gardens. Today, it is the home of Sir Simon Bowes Lyon, a first cousin of Eli abeth II, and tours of part of the house can be arranged, when visitors can also e plore the gardens. Alternatively, it is possible to see the house on one of its Open Days.
Today, most royal children come into the world in hospital. Princess Anne chose to have Peter and ara Phillips in the Lindo Wing of St Mary’s Hospital, London cousins who followed included the Prince of Wales and Prince Harry. In the past, royal births happened at home. The first English Prince of Wales – Edward, son of Edward I and Eleanor of Castile –was born at Caernarvon Castle in 12 4. At Claremont House in Surrey, bought on her marriage to Prince Leopold in 1 16, Princess Charlotte, daughter of George IV, gave birth to her first child. Tragically, it was a stillborn son, and she too died, aged 21, on 6 November 1 17, to a national outpouring of grief. Now the remaining gardens she loved belong to the National Trust.
The King and his brothers were born at Buckingham Palace, Princess Anne at Clarence House. Their great grandfather, George V, came into the world at Marlborough House, now the international headquarters of the Commonwealth Secretariat and Commonwealth Foundation George’s eldest son, later Edward VIII, was born in 1 94 at White Lodge, ichmond Park, now the oyal Ballet School.
Edward’s younger brother, the future George VI, was delivered at ork Cottage on the Sandringham estate in December 1 95. His daughter Eli abeth was born on 21 April 1926 at 17 Bruton Street, the London house of her maternal grandparents, the Earl and Countess of Strathmore. On its site today stands the Intercontinental Hotel, which remembers its royal connections.
The Duke of Kent was born at his parents’ elegant London house, 3 Belgrave Square, on 9 October 1935, followed by his sister Princess Ale andra on Christmas Day 1936, a bright moment amid the turmoil caused by their uncle’s abdication two weeks earlier. By contrast, the birthplace of their brother Prince Michael of Kent was their country home, Coppins in Iver, Buckinghamshire he arrived on 4 July 1942, si weeks before the death of their father, Prince George, Duke of Kent, in an air crash. A cross marks the place on Eagle’s ock in Scotland his body lies near the oyal Mausoleum at Frogmore.
In the past, royal marriages were not entered into for love (although that might come later) but for political purposes. On 25 July 1554, the glorious Winchester Cathedral in Hampshire was the setting for the wedding of Henry VIII’s daughter, Mary I, aged 3 , and 27 year old Philip of Spain, which was attended by the entire Spanish nobility.
Hampshire was also favoured by the newly restored Charles II. At Portsmouth on 21 May 1662, he married the Infanta of Portugal, Catherine Duchess of Bragan a, in a Catholic ceremony at the ‘Domus Dei’, known today as the oyal Garrison Church. Later they had another, grander ceremony in London.
Most brides assume they will be the centre of attention on their wedding day. Queen Victoria’s mother, Princess Victoria of Sa e Coburg Saalfeld initially married Edward, Duke of
on 25 July 1554,
by George Morrow; Christening of the future Edward VIII at White Lodge, illustrated by A. Forestier in The Illustrated London News , 21 July 1 4; first portrait of baby Duke of Kent, sketched by his grandfather, Prince Nicholas of Greece and published in The Illustrated News on 19 October 1935
Kent and Strathearn on 29 May 1818 in Germany. However, their English wedding on 11 July was shared with his brother William, Duke of Clarence (later William IV) and his bride Adelaide in a double ceremony at Kew Palace.
Across the Solent, the Isle of Wight saw the wedding of Queen Victoria’s youngest child, Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry of Battenberg. On 23 July 1885, they were married at St Mildred’s Church, Whippingham, near the Queen’s favourite residence, Osborne House. Much fanfare accompanied the occasion, unlike the wedding of Princess Alice, the Queen’s third child, and Prince Louis of Hesse, on 1 July 1862. That took place ‘in the strictest privacy’ barely si months after the death of Prince Albert, in the dining room at Osborne.
After all the public interest a royal wedding e cites, the honeymoon is an escape. When Princess Eli abeth married Philip Mountbatten on 20 November 1947, the first part of their honeymoon was spent at his uncle’s estate, Broadlands in Hampshire. They also stayed with their friends the Wernhers, at their Bedfordshire mansion, Luton Hoo. Today it is a lu urious hotel, where guests can stay in the royal suite.
Other hotels also boast royal connections.In Kent, Eastwell Park is now a country hotel, but it was once home to Victoria’s son Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, and where the Duke’s eldest daughter, the future Queen Marie of Romania, was born in 1 75. Goldsborough Hall in North orkshire was the first family home of Princess Mary, only daughter of George V, following her 1922 marriage to Henry Lascelles, later 6th Earl of Harewood. Her younger son Gerald was born there on 21 August 1924. It too is now a lu ury hotel having languished for two decades as a care home.
oyal deaths might happen in une pected places, but the
Clockwise from above: The Royal wedding in 1885 of Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry at Whippengham, near Osborne House; cover of The Ilustrated London News, 12 July 1862, with a view of St. Clare on the Isle of Wight, setting for the honeymoon of Princess Alice and Prince Louis of Hesse following their wedding at Osborne House
location of the burial place is usually known and marked by an appropriately grand tomb. Not so with ichard III, the king with the unfortunate reputation, whose remains were discovered in 2012 in Leicester, under a car park. The last English king to die in battle, at Bosworth on 22 August 14 5, he was buried with little ceremony in Grey Friars Church, which was later dissolved. Today his tomb can be seen at Leicester Cathedral, where he was reburied in 2015.
King Charles III’s medieval ancestors seldom died peace fully. His 22nd great grandfather, King John, who gave his seal to the Magna Carta, died at Newark in 1216, possibly from poisoning by a monk. He lies at Worcester Cathedral.
Although the life of King James VI and I began in Scotland, it would end at Theobalds Park in Hertfordshire. From a country house where Eli abeth I often stayed, James developed it into a grand palace. He died there on 27 March 1625, one of his physicians blamed for hastening his death with a poultice, and his body taken to Westminster Abbey. At the gates of Theobalds, his son Charles I was proclaimed king. A Georgian mansion stands there now, for hire as a wedding venue.
Fittingly, Queen Victoria’s favourite house, Osborne, would also be her death place, on 22 January 1901. There she laid in state for 10 days, until her body was taken on the royal yacht Alberta for her funeral at Windsor.
The King’s Norfolk residence, Sandringham, which opens to the public, has seen many royal deaths. Prince Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, the eldest son of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra, was 28 when he died from pneumonia in January 1 92, leaving his fianc e, Princess Mary of Teck, to marry his brother George. In January 1919, his nephew, Prince John, died at Wood Farm on the estate, aged just 13. Queen Alexandra died in 1925, to be followed by George V, on 20 January 1936, and George VI, on 6 February 1952.
Queen Elizabeth II was at Balmoral when she died on 8 September 2022, the first monarch to die in Scotland since James V in 1542. In accordance with Operation Unicorn, the plans for the Queen’s death in the event of her dying in Scotland, her body was brought to Edinburgh to lie, first at Holyrood Palace on 11 September and travelled by procession along the oyal Mile to St. Giles’s Cathedral the ne t day, where, after a moving ceremony, her co n lay for 24 hours before the journey to London. As the everend Calum Macleod said in his address to the congregation, the setting felt appropriate given that, “the Queen’s love for Scotland was legendary”.
A rich and varied seam of royal history runs through the country, with many notable sites to visit. In 2008, the then Prince of Wales opened the Queen Mother Memorial Gates at Glamis Castle, accompanied by Camilla. Perhaps he will return one day soon, as King with his Queen.
Jane Dismore’s books include Princess: The Early Life of Queen Elizabeth II. © Jane Dismore, 9 May 2023.
There are royal figures immortalised in stone to be discovered in every corner of the country Joe ittle takes us on a tour of some notable statues
For centuries, English and British monarchs and their descendants have been honoured in di erent ways for di erent reasons, but perhaps the most tangible memorial to many of them comes in the form of a statue.
Alfred the Great, King of the Anglo Sa ons, stands tall and proud, sword held high, in the centre of Winchester, capital of England at the time of his reign in the ninth century. ichard III – the ‘King in the Car Park’ – strikes a pose outside Leicester Cathedral, his final resting place following the reburial of his mortal remains in 2015. Sir Thomas Brock’s equestrian statue of the Black Prince (Edward, Prince of Wales) has been a landmark in Leeds’s City Square since 1902. In Brighton, by Pavilion Gardens, stands Sir Francis Chantrey’s bron e figure of King George IV, erected in 1 2 in tribute to the monarch who, as Prince egent, made the town fashionable.
Journey to Windsor and wherever you wander you will find a royal statue. Queen Victoria stands in her imperial pomp in front of the castle to which she retreated as a widow. The statue, by Sir Edgar Boehm, tutor in sculpture to Victoria’s daughter, Princess Louise, was created in 1 7 to mark the Queen’s golden jubilee and paid for by the people of the town. At the end of the three mile Long Walk is the Copper Horse, with George III sitting on his trusty steed, surveying the Great Park’s e panse.
Queen Eli abeth II on horseback also appears in the park, commissioned by the Crown Estate to mark her golden jubilee, while back in the town centre, on Bachelors Acre, Her Late Majesty is depicted seated, wearing a headscarf and surrounded by corgis. This more informal figure is known simply as The Windsor Lady.
On Thames Street, directly below Windsor Castle, Prince Christian Victor of Schleswig Holstein is immortalised, the statue “erected by his friends in admiration of his qualities as a man and a soldier . The eldest son of Princess Helena and thus a grandson of Queen Victoria, Christian Victor died of enteric fever in South Africa in 1900 during the Second Boer War and was buried in Pretoria.
In London, King George VI and his beloved wife, Queen Eli abeth – The Queen Mother after his death – look down on The Mall, the processional route they knew so well. The statues were unveiled by their daughter, Queen Eli abeth II, in 1955 and 2009, respectively. Also on The Mall and impossible to miss is Brock’s hulking Queen Victoria Memorial, unveiled with much ceremony in 1911 in the presence of many of her descendants, including Kaiser Wilhelm II.
Fortunino Matania’s impression of the unveiling of the immense Queen Victoria Memorial outside Buckingham Palace in 1911. The ceremony was attended by many of the late Queen’s descendants, including Kaiser Wilhelm II.
When the statue to Queen Anne by Sir Francis Bird was unveiled in 1713, it did not enjoy universal praise. One quip, often used by wits of the day and originally attributed to the Queen’s own doctor, John Arbuthnot, went, “Brandy Nan, you’re left in the lurch, with your face to the gin shop, your back to the church. But the figure that stands outside the cathedral today is not the original by Bird (who also sculpted the gilded figure of Anne on the Old Town Hall at Kingston upon Thames).
After 150 years, the statue had su ered much damage and deterioration, and ichard Claude Belt was commissioned to sculpt a copy. Belt was a controversial character after his involvement in a libel case against fellow sculptor Charles Lawes, who had accused Belt of using a ghost sculptor (an assistant) for his statue of Byron on Park Lane. Belt had won the case, but it had left both men bankrupt and Belt’s reputation tainted. In 1886, shortly after beginning the replica Queen Anne group, he was convicted of swindling Sir William Abdy by selling him jewellery under false pretences and was sentenced to 12 months’ hard labour. The statue was taken over by Louis Auguste Malempr and unveiled on 15 December 1 6. umours that Belt was working on the sculpture from his prison cell only added to the scandal and were quickly denied in the press.
Bird’s original languished in a stonemason’s yard until discovered by the travel writer Augustus Hare, who purchased it and arranged for it to be transported, with great ceremony, to his home in Holmhurst, Hastings. It still stands there today, but the property has been bought by developers and the original ‘Brandy Nan’, Grade II* listed by Historic England, is on the Heritage at Risk register, hopefully awaiting restoration.
Clockwise from left: The famous statue of Queen Victoria holding sceptre and orb, which dominates the corner of Castle Hill and the High Street in Windsor; contemporaneous view of the ornate Albert Memorial by George Gilbert Scott, opened in 1872; the cover of The Tatler shows Queen Alexandra sitting for the sculptor George Edward ade the finished statue as erected in 1 at the oyal ondon Hospital, of which Queen Alexandra was President; the statue of Queen Anne outside St Paul’s Cathedral cleaned in readiness for the Thanksgiving ervice to mark the ilver Jubilee of King George in ay 1 3
A lifelong racing enthusiast, Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother was a regular visitor to the National Hunt Festival in Cheltenham each year, and the Queen Mother Champion Chase is hosted there in her honour. In 2003, Queen Elizabeth II travelled to the Cheltenham Festival for the first time since the 1950s to unveil a bron e bust of her mother by Angela Conner. Commissioned by the Duke of Devonshire, the bust can be seen near to the Royal Box at Prestbury Park.
A short walk from Queen Anne’s monument outside St Paul’s is the only statue of Queen Elizabeth I thought to have been carved in her lifetime. It stands in a niche above the school door of the church of St Dunstan in the West on Fleet Street and, dating back to 1586, is the oldest outdoor statue in London. It pre dates by 20 years the e gy of Eli abeth in Westminster Abbey, ordered by James I in her memory. The St Dunstan figure was originally part of Ludgate; the only survivor from the structure that was demolished in 1760. In 192 , Tudor England’s last monarch underwent restoration paid for by the 0 year old su rage campaigner Millicent Fawcett.
The Albert Memorial in Kensington Gardens is arguably the capital’s most ornate monument. Designed by George Gilbert Scott and unveiled in 1 72, the Gothic e travagan a celebrates the prince’s passions and interests. Nearby, a young Queen Victoria in her coronation robes, sculpted in white marble by her talented daughter, Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, as a Golden Jubilee tribute, has been on the Broad Walk at Kensington Palace since 1893.
On the other side of the hedge, in the redesigned Sunken Garden, is a statue of Diana, Princess of Wales, commissioned by Princes William and Harry, and unveiled by the brothers on what would have been their mother’s 60th birthday –1 July 2021. The long awaited bron e by Ian ank Broadley, in which three children also feature, was not met with universal acclaim.
As children, Princess Louise and her siblings were sculpted by Mary Thornycroft, not only as busts and life si e statues but also just their arms and hands. E amples of Thornycroft’s work are on display at Osborne House, near Cowes on the Isle of Wight, and she inspired Princess Louise to become a sculptor.
Turning from two legs to four, the thoroughbred Persimmon, the winner of the Epsom Derby for the future King Edward VII in 1896, is immortalised at the Royal Stud at Sandringham. Estimate, the racehorse who secured the Ascot Gold Cup in 2013 for Queen Eli abeth II, Edward VII’s great granddaughter, stands in front of Sandringham House.
North of the border, a statue of Mary Queen of Scots was unveiled at Linlithgow Palace, her birthplace, in 2015. George IV has been in Edinburgh’s New Town for considerably longer, and Robert the Bruce is well established on the esplanade of Stirling Castle, facing towards the site of the Battle of Bannockburn.
Only two months after his mother’s death, King Charles III unveiled a statue of Queen Eli abeth II – commissioned to mark her Platinum Jubilee – at ork Minster. We will no doubt see further tributes to the much loved monarch in the years to come.
Quality, history, and tradition underscore prestigious brands manufactured in Britain, including many bearing Royal Warrants. Simon Brooke provides a Shopping Guide to some outstanding British brands and craftsmanship
n a world where the value of a brand is an important di erentiator, the words Made in Britain carry a certain cachet. An association with Britain or an image of the union flag can add to the appeal of many products to consumers around the world. The idea of quality, craftsman ship and tradition have helped British brands to develop a following in Europe and the S as well as the Middle and Far East.
According to a recent report on the value of e port opp portunities, Made in Britain, published by Barclays bank based on a survey of over 10,000 consumers across 10 international markets, 36 per cent of respondents said they were buying more British made products than was the case five years ago. On top of this, 39 per cent said that they would pay more for British products as they are seen to be of higher quality. Among consumers in India and China, 66 per cent would buy a product if it displayed a British flag, the survey revealed. While British brands occupy a unique position in the minds
of so many international markets, the K also has another highly successful e port – the oyal Family and our ancient royal traditions, welcomed by many at home and abroad to embody the best of British. This is perhaps why the royal seal of approval on a product in the form of a oyal Warrant can provide a major boost to any brand and can add to its appeal. The granting of a oyal Warrant has long been an acknowl edgement that a product or service is among the very best of its kind, especially if it’s something quintessentially British, the type of thing that hints at national pride and enhances our standing abroad. As well as the product range, the granting of oyal Warrants carefully considers geography too. Plot them across a map of the British Isles and almost every corner of the realm can boast a holder.
There’s no doubt that being awarded the Warrant in 1996 was a major turning point for Ettinger and its development here in the K and overseas, says obert Ettinger, Chairman and CEO of the British lu ury leather goods brand, known for
its sleek, elegant briefcases, wallets and purses. “It’s a seal of approval and trust, an approval of the quality of our products when only the very best will do. It publicly recognises that we’re doing something very right and this matters enormously to us. We’re constantly asked by other companies how we got the Warrant – and there fore how they can go about trying to get one – which is testament to how other UK companies view its significance as well.
Tailored to perfection;
According to recent research by Brand Finance, the world’s leading brand valuation consultancy, the granting of a Royal Warrant has major advantages when it comes to brand image. Almost two thirds (62 per cent) of British consumers are aware of them, while 54 per cent of us associate them with ‘British heritage’ and 42 per cent of us consider brands with a Warrant to be Trustworthy and of Superior Quality . Appro imately one third (34 per cent) of British consumers regard them as a ‘symbol of suc cess’ and associate them with a ‘premium brand’ (36 per cent).
The granting of Royal Warrants isn’t instantaneous. It can take time for goods to be sampled and approved. In 19 3, Savile Row tailors Anderson & Sheppard were asked to make a suit for the then Prince of Wales. Over the ne t four and a half years, Anderson & Sheppard made various suits, blazers and sports jackets for the man who was to be King. They received a Royal Warrant as tailor in 1988.
Although many oyal Warrant holders are world renowned lu ury brands such as the it , Bentley and Fortnum Mason, others are smaller, niche businesses that represent a product or service that is particularly British. Not only that, but many are connected with causes that The King has supported during his time as Prince of Wales, such as the pres ervation of rural traditions and skills and the reintroduction of historic breeds of animals or heritage varieties of fruit and vegetables. Charles Martell began his cheese business – home of the celebrated Stinking Bishop – over 50 years ago. I had only three cows, which I milked by hand, he says. But these weren’t just any cows, they were Old Gloucester, a breed that is great for cheesemaking but at the time numbered just 6 . As well as restoring the fortunes of the cow breed, Mr Martell has spent many years identifying and preserving indigenous varieties of Gloucestershire apples, pears, plums, nuts and vegetables. He and his team still milk his herd by hand.
The company’s royal connections came about thanks to an introduction by Pa ton Whitfield, one of the oldest cheese mongers in Britain, which has a celebrated shop in Jermyn Street in London. “The King has a passion for reviving and preserving traditional varieties, and he’s very supportive, says Mr Martell. His Majesty’s blessing on the work of the company and others plays an important role in raising its
profile but it goes further than that. He takes a personal interest in what we’re doing, and that’s very encouraging for all of us working in this field.
Another great e ample of a grant based on the passion and vision of an individual, especially one concerned with traditional skills, is Jen Jones Welsh Quilts and Blankets. An American who has lived in the K for more than 50 years, Ms Jones has dedicated much of her life to preserving and promoting the traditional business of Welsh quilt making.
Kinloch Anderson has held oyal Warrants since 1934 but the Balmoral Tartan was designed in 1 57 by H H Prince Albert. Composed of di erent rations of black and white threads which represent the subtle greys of the Deeside
Clockwise from top left: Bentley Motors, based in Crewe, has held a Royal Warrant for several decades; the Kinloch Anderson kilt in Castle Grey tartan and Charcoal Grey tweed jacket and waistcoat; chalking a kilt; bolts of cloth in the Kinloch Anderson factory in Leith, Edinburgh; the interior of a Bentley 2020 Mulsanne Extended Wheelbase, commissioned by Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and now part of the Bentley Heritage Collection
granite, it can only be worn with permission from the reigning monarch. The only person other than the monarch permitted to wear the Balmoral Tartan is His Majesty The King’s Piper. Kinloch Anderson is custodian of the Balmoral Tartan along with other designs specially woven for the oyal family.
We uphold the values of King Charles III, to encourage the historical skills of kiltmaking and training the ne t generation of hand sewers to keep this art alive, says CEO John Kinloch Anderson. There are now only a handful of companies who make kilts completely by hand, but the King has championed kiltmaking, among several other traditional craft skills, and in 2021 Kinloch Anderson began a programme to provide train ing for the ne t generation of skilled kilt makers.
Our business takes us to all corners of the globe and my grandfather, father and I, have travelled the world selling our clothing and holding a oyal Warrant is widely recognised, says Mr Kinloch Anderson. In 1979, the Company was award ed The Queen’s Award for E port after selling over 100,000 skirts a year around the world.
Another classic Scottish sector which has received an undoubted boost because of its o cial recognition as a oyal favourite is the whisky industry. E ports of Scotch whisky rose 37 per cent last year to 6.2 billion, according to the Scotch Whisky Association. John Walker Sons, maker of the famous Johnnie Walker label, was awarded a oyal Warrant by King George V in 1934. Today the company pays tribute to its royal grantor with the specially created Johnnie Walker King George V, which o ers whisky fans a kaleidoscope of flavours and aromas. Hints of roasted nuts, dark chocolate, and an imposing sweet smokiness which combine elegantly with suggestions of honey, citrus orange and rose petals.
Many of the qualities and values that are associated with,
and expected from, companies that display the Royal War rant are still relevant today,” says James Ramsden, Executive Creative Director of global brand design agency Coley Porter Bell. “Tradition, excellence, and expertise are still important and highly relevant values for some customers when they are choosing the brands in their lives.”
He adds: “The arrival of King Charles III will trigger a review of the Royal Warrant holders. His Majesty might want to look for brands with principles that align with both the traditional values of the Warrant, and what he would like his reign to be associated with. This might mean awarding brands who are more committed to sustainable practices or support ing businesses with younger, more entrepreneurial leaders from new and innovative industries.”
As King Charles continues the work of his mother, and their long line of illustrious predecessors, while bringing to bear his own approach and interests to the ancient o ce, the
monarchy is entering an interesting and exciting new phase. It will be looking to uphold its traditions and heritage, while remaining relevant in the modern age, all the while showcas ing the very best of Britain. As a manifestation of this deli cately balanced formula, the granting of oyal Warrants o ers the King an opportunity to recognise those craftspeople, man ufacturers and providers of services who represent a magical blend of tradition, forward thinking and British e cellence.
The distinguished collection of Royal Warrant Holders does not stand still. New companies are added and others are re assessed. The range of products and brands as well as the geographical spread is quite remarkable. The list is also updated as society changes, new technologies emerge, and the monarchy itself evolves in its preferences and priorities.
However, what the Members of this select group have in common is the quality of their products and the passion of their people. Therein lies the secret of success.
Beyond London, there a numerous royal residences, past and present, with intriguing tales to tell. From ancient castles to beach bungalows, Lucinda Gosling views a selected portfolio of prestigious properties
Dominating the town that bears its name, Windsor Castle is the oldest royal residence still in use. Originally a Norman fortress built by William the Conqueror with an elongated motte and two baileys, or wards, over the centuries, it has undergone various additions and extensions by successive monarchs. Edward IV built the exquisite St. George’s Chapel in the Perpendicular style, George IV raised the round tower by one storey to make it more impressive and, like Edward III and Charles II before, made extensive modernisations to public and private spaces. Windsor has a rich, storied past. It was where Albert, the Prince Consort, breathed his last, and where the young Princess Elizabeth spent the majority of the war, safe from the bombs falling over London. The Queen made Windsor her main home in her later years, and it was where her husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, died in April 2021, at the great age of 99. It has also been the setting for more joyous occasions, including the weddings of King Charles and Queen Camilla, the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh and the Duke and Duchess of Susse . On 7 May 2023, a spectacular, star studded concert was held on the East Terrace as part of the King’s coronation celebrations. Beyond the castle itself, Windsor’s e tensive 15, 00 acre estate, comprising Windsor Great Park and Home Park, contains several properties which have been home to generations of royal residents.
Sunningdale. The King agreed but asked, What could you possibly want that queer old place for? Those damn weekends I suppose. ‘The Fort’ had been built in the 1 th century by William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, son of George II, and was e tended in the 1 20s by the architect Je ry Wyatville at the request of George IV. Wyatville’s Neo Gothic styling and the addition of a tall, castellated tower gave the property its distinctive appearance reminiscent of a toy fortress. The Prince discovered a new found passion for home renovation. He installed modern comforts such as en suite bathrooms, central heating and a swimming pool, while personally supervising the landscaping of the grounds, often rigging in weekend guests to prune and plant. Fort Belvedere’s dubious place in royal history is as the setting for his abdication in December 1936. Today, the property is leased to private tenants
Described as ‘picturesque’ in its Historic England listing, Adelaide Cottage, originally known as Adelaide Lodge, was built in 1831 for Queen Adelaide, consort of William IV. In 2022, it became the o cial home of William and Kate, now Prince and Princess of Wales. Located in Home Park, a short walk from Windsor Castle, the proximity to the late Queen, and to Lambrook School which the couple’s three children attend, made Adelaide Cottage a practical choice. It is also an easy drive to the Middleton family home in Bucklebury. By royal standards, the four bedroom residence is modest, but the master bedroom’s coved ceiling, embellished with gilded dolphins and moulded ropes from the former Royal Yacht, the Royal George, is just one indicator this is no ordinary residence. In the 1950s, Adelaide Cottage was the grace and favour home of Group Captain Peter Townsend, equerry to King George VI, who found himself in the media spotlight during his ill fated romance with Princess Margaret.
The largest property in Windsor Great Park, Cumberland Lodge (originally The Great Lodge) dates back to the 17th century, and since the Restoration, has been the home of the anger of Windsor Great Park. Post holders have included Sarah Churchill, Duchess of Marlborough (whose husband the 1st Duke of Marlborough died there) and William Augustus, Duke of Cumberland, brother of George III. In July 1845, a school was founded at Cumberland Lodge by Queen Victoria, in order to provide an education for the children of servants and employees on the Windsor estate; the Royal School continues to this day, though the pupil intake is no longer restricted to staff families. The Illustrated London News reported on a major fire at Cumberland Lodge on the cover of its 27 November 1869 issue, showing the smouldering remains of the front part of the house, where the state apartments as well as numerous works of art had been destroyed. It was rebuilt under the supervision of Princess Helena and her husband, Prince Christian of Schleswig Holstein, who was made Ranger by Queen Victoria. Cumberland Lodge was the scene of negotiations during the Abdication crisis of 1936 and, since 1947, has been the home of an educational charity dedicated to open discussion about issues facing society.
From 1932, Royal Lodge was the home of the Duke and Duchess of York and their two daughters, Princesses Elizabeth and Margaret Rose, and is where many of the well known family photographs featuring ‘ s Four’ and their dogs were taken.
A notable nearby structure is Bwythn Bach (The Little House), a miniature thatched Welsh cottage, a gift from the people of Wales to Princess Elizabeth on her sixth birthday. There had been a house on the site since the 17th century, but the most significant was the ‘cottage orné’ built for George IV in the 1820s as his private country retreat. Largely pulled down by his brother, William IV, elements of the original Royal Lodge were used in the construction of Adelaide Cottage. The present oyal Lodge contains the original grand, Gothic dining hall (now a drawing room) designed by Geffrey Wyatville, with 1930s additions. It was the Windsor residence of Queen Eli abeth, the Queen Mother, from 1952 until 2002, when she died there at the age of 101.
Built in the 1680s, Frogmore’s first royal resident was Queen Charlotte, consort of George III, who used the house as a retreat where she and her unmarried daughters could enjoy artistic pursuits and study botany. Later, it became home to Queen Victoria’s mother, the Duchess of Kent, who carried out refurbishments more to her taste. As its name suggests, Frogmore was a magnet for amphibians. In June 1 75, Victoria recorded in her journal that during a visit to her mother, the grounds had been teaming with hundreds of “quite disgusting” tiny frogs. The house has been largely uninhabited in the 20th and 21st centuries, and acts as a museum for various family souvenirs, including objects from the decommissioned Royal Yacht Britannia. In recent years, it has been a wedding reception venue notably for the marriage of Prince Harry to Meghan Markle in 2018. The Sussexes later moved into nearby Frogmore Cottage, built by Queen Charlotte as an extension of her Frogmore refuge. Another notable former resident was Abdul Karim (‘the Munshi’), Queen Victoria’s favourite Indian secretary.
Several farm complexes have been built at Windsor, including Norfolk Farm and Flemish Farm, both established by George III whose interest in agriculture led to the affectionate nickname, ‘Farmer George’. Prince Albert developed Flemish Farm further, experimenting with methods from Flanders. Just east of Frogmore House is the Royal Dairy. Built in 1848 at the command of Albert, the dairy was state of the art and elaborately decorated with stained glass, coloured encaustic tiles and majolica bas reliefs representing the four seasons and various agricultural scenes. There is still a herd of 165 Jersey dairy cows at Windsor today, although they are milked by robots and sleep on hi tech water beds. No doubt Prince Albert would have been fascinated by these technological advances.
Purchased in 1861 by the Prince Consort for his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, Sandringham in Norfolk was described by The Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic News in 1878 as, “the very ideal of what a quiet retreat should be for those who have to endure the cares of royal life and State”. While lacking the imposing grandeur of other royal residences, it still boasts 27 different properties including the main house its gable fronted, red brick appearance perhaps reminiscent of a country house hotel. Beloved by successive generations of the royal family, the late Queen would spend Christmas at Sandringham and usually stay until February, when she would quietly mark the anniversary of the death of her father. Having gathered the family together there in December 2022 and again in 2023, it appears that a Sandringham Christmas is a tradition King Charles will continue to uphold.
Acquired by the Prince of Wales (Edward VII) in 1 9 , Anmer Hall, a 10 bedroom late Georgian manor house is now the country home of the Prince and Princess of Wales, given to them as a wedding gift by the late Queen in 2011. The Wales family can be found there at weekends and school holidays and, it’s where, in 2020, they spent lockdown. It was originally purchased from Ernest Truer Hooley, a financier and serial fraudster. Hooley’s business associate and friend was Alexander Meyrick Broadley, aka Broadley Pasha, who had been implicated in the Cleveland Street Scandal, in which various well known figures, including, it was whispered, the Prince of Wales’s eldest son, Prince Albert Victor, were accused of being patrons of a male brothel. The Prince ensured Broadley’s social ostracism and, having originally tried to purchase the house in 1 96, re doubled his efforts in 1 9 , partly to avoid the unsavoury possibility of bumping into him!
Tucked away on the Sandringham estate, about two miles from ‘the big house’ close to the village of Wolferton, is Wood Farm, a five bedroom farmhouse with views of the sea, favoured for its cosiness, informality and seclusion. The late Queen was known to don a pair of Marigolds and do the washing up while staying there. Wood Farm has provided guest accommodation over the years; King Charles used it for shooting parties in his youth and in 19 1, it was where he and Lady Diana Spencer were able to spend time alone together away from the press frenzy precipitated by their engagement. After his retirement in 2017 at the age of 96, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, moved into Wood Farm until March 2020 when he was brought into the Windsor ‘bubble’ during the Covid pandemic. Another resident was Prince John, the youngest child of George V and Queen Mary. Su ering from increasing epileptic fits, from 1916 John lived apart from the rest of the family at Wood Farm with his nurse, Charlotte ‘Lala’ Bill. He died there on 1 th January 1919, aged just thirteen.
In July 1 93, the newly married Duke and Duchess of York spent their honeymoon at York Cottage at Sandringham. It was an unimaginative choice on the part of the future George V, who failed to realise that his new wife, cultured and well educated, might perhaps have preferred a holiday taking in the art galleries of Europe instead. York Cottage’s proximity to Sandringham House also meant the early days of their marriage were constantly interrupted by visits from ‘Mother Dear’, as May’s husband called his mother, Queen Alexandra. Formerly known as the Bachelor’s Cottage, it was a plain house with a warren of small rooms, filled, to Princess May’s dismay, with a prosaic selection of furniture from Maple’s. Harold Nicholson thought the property “indistinguishable from any Surbiton or Upper Norwood terrace house”. It had served as overspill accommodation for guests and was gifted to the Duke by his father, but even after Edward VII’s death, Queen Ale andra remained alone at ‘the big house’ while the new King, Queen, their six children and servants continued to squeeze into York Cottage. Today it is used as an estate o ce with accommodation for Sandringham sta .
Park House, just west of Sandringham House itself, was built for the future Edward VII but is better known as the birthplace and childhood home of Diana, Princess of Wales. It deteriorated following the family’s move to Althorp in Northamptonshire when Diana’s father, Johnny Spencer, inherited the earldom, leading the Queen to gift the property to the Leonard Cheshire charity that transformed it into a luxury hotel specialising in accommodation for the disabled. Since the Covid 19 pandemic, the hotel’s future is uncertain. For the 2020 film, Spencer, starring Kirstin Stewart as Diana, locations in Germany stood in for Park House.
Appleton House had been part of a 900 acre farm whose tenant, Louise Cresswell, known as ‘The Lady Farmer’, often locked horns with the Prince of Wales (Edward VII) over his refusal to allow tenants to keep the crop damaging rabbit population under control, preferring to preserve wildlife for the convenience of his shooting guests. Eventually, Cresswell was given notice, and the Prince acquired it in 1 96 for his youngest daughter Maud on her marriage to Prince Charles of Denmark (later King Haakon VII of Norway), with the stipulation that she must return to England at least once a year. Maud adored Appleton, calling it her ‘perfect paradise’. She visited frequently and her only son, Ale ander (later renamed Olav) was born there in 1903. The house was used by George VI, Queen Elizabeth and their daughters during the Second World War, but it was demolished in 19 4. Appleton Farm continues on the site as part of Sandringham’s extensive agricultural activity.
Queen Ale andra had a deep love of the sea, and in 190 , had a tiny bungalow built on the beach at Snettisham, four miles from Sandringham. Comprising just two rooms, one for the Queen and her daughter Princess Victoria and another for servants, it was used on sunny days when Alexandra came to the beach with an entourage of friends. Built from carstone and with an upended boat set into the wall as a nautical style seat, this charming building was demolished down to its foundations in 1925 and the materials used to build Shernborne village hall.
After three successful visits to Scotland early in their marriage, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert at first rent ed the Balmoral estate in 1848, before purchasing it in order to build their dream Scottish home. Balmoral was completed in 1855, an unashamed homage to the Scottish baronial style and furnished inside with a specially de signed tartan. Less popular with Edward VII and George V, Balmoral was enjoyed by George VI whose wife was, of course, Scottish. Their daughter, the late Elizabeth II, was equally fond of it.
For the King, while he has a deep love for the glorious landscape around Balmoral, it is Birkhall, the Scottish home he inherited from his grandmother, the Queen Mother, that is closest to his heart. Situated seven miles from Balmoral, Birkhall was purchased for the future Edward VII, who was so disinterested he visited just once. But to the King and Queen Camilla, the 1715 lodge o ers, a haven of cosiness and charm . The couple spent their honeymoon there in 2005 and Birkhall was where they chose to stay during the pandemic lockdown of 2020.
Historic royal homes are scattered throughout Scotland, but visitors to Edinburgh are spoilt with three in close proximity. Edinburgh Castle, looming dramatically over the city from its rocky outcrop, was a potent symbol of the Scottish monarchy and perhaps as a consequence, a target for the English; Edward I in his campaign to subjugate the Scots occupied the castle from 1296 to 1313. The castle later became a barracks, armoury, administrative centre and since 1950, has been the venue for the spectacular Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo. At the other end of the Royal Mile is the Palace of Holyroodhouse, now the o cial residence in Scotland of the British monarch. Converted from an abbey by James IV, it was rebuilt by James V, who is buried here alongside David II and James II. Mary Queen of Scots lived here from 1561 to 1567, and it is where the Queen’s private secretary and favourite, David Rizzio, was mur dered in front of her by a group of powerful lords led by her husband Lord Darnley on the night of 9 March 1566. It is said that the bloodstains from that brutal night can still be seen on the floorboards in the Outer Chamber.
The third ‘royal residence’ is the Royal Yacht Bri tannia, which was launched from the John Brown & Comp any shipyard in Clydebank on 16 April 1953 and is now berthed at Leith, where it is a major visitor attrac tion, welcoming 300,000 people a year. During its 44 years of service, it travelled more than a million nautical miles, visited 135 countries, welcomed heads of state on board, took royal newlyweds on holiday and provided a home from home while away for the Queen and Prince Philip, who had personally supervised the décor of the ship’s interior. Aboard Britannia, wrote Jeremy Pa man, royalty could visit other countries without ever really leaving their own. A polished haven of order and calm with a crew of 300, as a diplomatic tool and symbol of royal distinctiveness, Britannia could hardly fail to im press. It became a political hot potato during the 1990s and when Labour came to power in 1997, a 60 million scheme to build a new yacht was cancelled. The Queen’s attachment to her beloved yacht was evident when she was seen to wipe away a tear during the decommission ing ceremony at Portsmouth.
Many of the homes of today’s royal family were the gift of the late Queen. In 1976, she purchased the nine bedroom, Grade II listed Gatcombe Park in Gloucestershire for her daugh ter, Anne, the Princess oyal. It’s in the Gloucestershire Wiltshire ‘royal triangle’ (a short hop from the King’s home, Highgrove, in Tetbury and Queen Camilla’s personal home, ay Mill House near Lacock) and the Princess often hosts equestrian events on its 700 acre estate. Bagshot Park, 11 miles south of Windsor, was built in 1 76 and was originally the home of the Duke of Connaught, seventh child of Queen Victoria. Despite the architectural historian Nicholas Pevsner describing it as, bad, purposeless, ugly , the sprawling 120 room mansion boasts some interesting features, including a billiard room decorated in ornate Indian style, designed by am Singh (also the designer behind the Durbar oom at Osborne House) and prefabricated by craftsmen in India. Today it’s the home of the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh and their two children, Louise and James. Coppins in Buckinghamshire was inherited by George VI’s brother, the Duke of Kent in 1935, after the death of their un married aunt, Princess Victoria and remained the home of his widow, Marina, and their son, the present Duke of Kent, until its sale in 1976. The Duke of Kent’s brother, Henry, Duke of Gloucester lived at the picturesque, 16th century Barnwell Manor in Northamptonshire, a rambling house of honeyed stone with the romantic ruins of 13th century Barnwell Castle just beyond the front lawn. Barnwell had been in the Duch ess’s family since the time of Henry VIII but had been sold in 1912 the Duke purchased it in 193 . The current Duke, a cousin of the late Queen, who grew up at Barnwell, lives at Kensington Palace and has rented out the property since 1995. It has recently been sold through the upmarket estate agent, Savills, with a price tag in e cess of 4.25million.
In 1845, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert bought Osborne House at Ryde on the north coast of the Isle of Wight. On the advice of their architect, Thomas Cubitt, the original 1 th century house was pulled down and a new structure in the style of an Italianate villa was dreamt up by Albert and e ecuted by Cubitt, with the work completed by 1 51. Osborne became the Queen’s sanctuary, particularly after the death of Albert in 1 61, but building work continued, including the significant addition of the Durbar Wing (and Durbar oom) in 1 92, an impressive space allowing for the entertainment of foreign dignitaries with the requisite grandeur. After Victoria’s death – at Osborne – her son, Edward VII, had no need for the house and in 1902, against his late mother’s e press wishes, gave it to the nation. It has been looked after by English Heritage since 19 6 and is open to visitors all year round.
Don’t miss the delightful Swiss Cottage at Osborne, a dwelling built for Victoria and Albert’s children, and where it was intended they would learn skills such as cooking and gardening. After a recent refurbishment, the Swiss Cottage now holds an e hibition about their lives.
Closer to London at East Molesey is Hampton Court, the magnificent creation of Cardinal Wolsey, who gifted it to Henry VIII in an attempt to curry favour as his power dwindled. Henry set about e tending it into a vast comple to rival any palace in Europe. Anne Boleyn and his four subsequent wives all lived at Hampton Court, but George II was the last monarch to take up residence. Grace and favour apartments were occupied at the palace until the 1960s, but the only royal residents now are the ghosts of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard, which reputedly haunt its corridors. The King owns Hampton Court but ‘in ight of Crown’, meaning he can never sell it and it must be held in trust for the next monarch.
The scale of Hampton Court is reflected in some mind boggling statistics. It has 241 chimneys, 1390 rooms, five internal courtyards and its enormous kitchens once produced up to 1600 meals a day. Among the artworks housed there are paintings by Caravaggio, Rembrandt and van Dyck and a number of priceless, sixteenth century Flemish tapestries. It has the Great Vine, reputedly the world’s oldest grapevine, planted by Capability Brown in 176 , the oldest surviving hedge ma e (commissioned by William III in 1700) and, older still, a tennis court built for Charles I in 1625.
Osborne and Hampton Court, both well preserved and intact, can be visited today, but other royal palaces did not fare so well. Richmond Palace, dating back to the 14th century, was rebuilt by Henry VII. It became the most important of Tudor palaces, and a favourite of Elizabeth I, yet quickly fell into decay during the Commonwealth. Frederick, Prince of Wales lived at nearby Richmond Lodge and the pagoda in Kew Gardens, designed by William Chambers and erected in the 1760s, is the only survivor. A short distance away, Kew Palace, which was preferred by Frederick’s son, George III, can be visited today. Further east along the Thames was Greenwich Palace, also known as the Palace of Placentia, the birthplace of Elizabeth I. Demolished by Charles II in 1660, another palace intended for the site never materialised, although the Queen’s House nearby is another survivor. Nothing remains of Bridewell Palace, on a site between Fleet Street and Blackfriars, which was the main London residence of Henry VIII between 1515 and 1523. Most of the building was destroyed in the Great Fire of London, by which time it had already ceased to be a royal palace, having been given a charter
to become a prison and hospital by Edward VI.
The one residence Henry built from scratch was Nonsuch at Cheam in Surrey, its name announcing its unrivalled superiority over all other palaces. Despite ambitious origins, Nonsuch had an ignominious end; it was eventually given to Charles II’s mistress, Barbara Palmer, Duchess of Castlemaine, who dismantled and sold off the materials to pay gambling debts. Oatlands, at Weybridge in Surrey was inhabited by Tudor and Stuart monarchs and especially favoured by James I’s queen, Anne of Denmark and her successor, Queen Henrietta Maria, wife of Charles I. Another victim of the interregnum, Oatlands was sold, demolished and its bricks used to construct Sutton Place near Guildford. Fotheringhay Castle in Northamptonshire was the birthplace of Richard III and the home of Mary Queen of Scots during her captivity in England. Mary was also tried and eventually executed at Fotheringhay on 8 February 1587. The building was dismantled in 1630 and all that remains are the earthworks. Eltham Palace in south east London had a happier fate. A popular royal residence during the 14th and 15th centuries, the great hall built by Edward IV survives and is incorporated into the stylish Art Deco home built by its eccentric millionaire owners, Stephen and Virginia Courthauld, who lived there with their pet lemur, Mah jongg (‘Jongy’). Mah Jongg’s likeness can still be seen today, carved into the wooden bosses in the ceiling of the restored Great Hall.
www.hrp.org.uk www.englishheritage.co.uk
For centuries, it was common for British monarchs to take to the battlefield at the head of their armies As hris c ab explains, dynasties could rise and fall ith the s eep of a blade
Today, the idea of a monarch in combat is virtually unthinkable. But for much of British history, kings, and occasionally queens, were warriors in word and deed, fighting alongside their subjects. Having a king or a prince, or even a pretender to the throne, on the battlefield brought national risks – the fate of royal dynasties and of Britain itself could hang upon the flight of an arrow or the thrust of a sword. Here we explore 10 regal battles that have scripted Britain’s narrative. Many of the sites can be visited today.
EDINGTON (878)
In 871, Guthrum’s Danish ‘Great Heathen Army’ advanced into the kingdom of Wessex in southern England. Wessex’s ruler, King Alfred, gathered his Anglo Sa on forces and retaliated at E andun (Edington) on 12 May 7 , driving the Danes back to Chippenham, where they surrendered. A peace agreement saw Alfred controlling southern and western Britain; the Vikings controlled the ‘Danelaw’ in the north and east. The battlefield site is disputed, but there is a memorial on western Salisbury Plain, near Edington.
HASTINGS (1066)
Hastings is the defining battle in British history. William of Normandy, claiming the English throne from Harold II, invaded England at the head of a powerful army. Bloody engagement took place on 14 October 1066 northwest of Hastings, the Normans steadily grinding down the Saxon defence. History was made the moment Harold was killed with an arrow through his eye – victorious William was crowned William I of England at Westminster Abbey on 25 December, ushering in the House of Normandy. Today, the battlefield has a visitor centre, the remains of Battle Abbey and other historical attractions.
The Barons’ War (1264–1267) pitted King Henry III against rebel barons seeking reforms to the monarchy. At Evesham on 4 August 1265, baronial forces under Simon de Montfort, Earl of Leicester, fought royalists led by Henry’s son, Prince Edward, the future King Edward I. De Montfort’s forces were destroyed, with 4,000 dead and de Montfort slain. A memorial stone in Evesham Abbey marks his grave.
On 22 February 1797, 1,400 revolutionary French forces landed at Fishguard, Wales, in an expeditionary adventure crushed within two days. Given that Britain has been untouched by invasion since then, it is easy to forget how the country has been shaped by outside attacks. Some of these assaults have been relatively minor. Between 1495 and 1497, for example, the pretender to the English throne, Perkin Warbeck, launched three attempted invasions of England, all quashed and terminating in Warbeck’s capture and eventual e ecution. A more impactful attack was the aid on the Medway on 19–24 June 1667, when a large Dutch navy fleet attacked British shipping along the Kent coastline, inflicting a stinging defeat on the oyal Navy and the government of Charles II. But other attacks have reset the destiny and fabric of the nation. Emperor Claudius’s full scale invasion in 43 CE began nearly four centuries of oman occupation – many British A roads still follow the path of Roman roads. The Viking invasion of 865 established the Danelaw – if a place name ends with a su such as by, holme, thorpe, toft, kirk or thwaite, it was under Viking rule. William the Conqueror’s successful invasion of 1066 not only established the Norman royal line, but also brought transformations in architecture (especially castles and cathedrals), religion, language, government and society (the age of feudalism began). Britain may have subsequently avoided German invasion during the Second World War, but our island’s cultural contours are indebted to its invaders.
In the spring of 1298, Edward I invaded Scotland with an army of 15,000 troops, intent on subjugating Scottish independence forces led by William Wallace. The key battle was fought around Wallace’s military camp southeast of Falkirk in the Central Lowlands. The Scots resisted tenaciously, but were worn down by English archers and defeated. Wallace escaped the battle, but was captured in 1305 and executed.
BANNOCKBURN (1314)
Fought on 23–24 June 1314, Bannockburn embodies Scotland’s historical resistance to English rule. Edward II fought obert I (the Bruce), King of the Scots, just south of Stirling. obert was ferocious in battle – he beheaded an English knight in single combat – and on the second day of fighting, Edward’s demoralised forces were put to flight. Although the exact battle site is disputed, today there is a visitor centre, battle experience and memorial park run by the National Trust for Scotland.
TEWKESBURY (1471)
For more than 30 years, England was consumed by the Wars of the oses (1455– 5), a series of dynastic civil conflicts between the noble houses of Lancaster and York. At Tewkesbury on 4 May 1471, the forces of orkist king contender Edward IV fought those representing Margaret of Anjou, the mother of Lancastrian King Henry VI. The Lancastrians were broken and Henry was deposed, later dying in the Tower of London (likely murdered on Edward’s orders). The battlefield today is obscured by urban developments and agriculture, although certain features can be identified with a battlefield guide.
The Wars of the Roses came to their brutal climax on 22 August 14 5, just south of Market Bosworth, Leicestershire, in a showdown between the orkist King ichard III and the Lancastrian Henry Tudor. Richard’s Yorkist alliances collapsed around him. In desperation, he threw himself forward in an attack upon Henry himself, but was unhorsed and butchered. The victorious Henry Tudor was crowned Henry VII, inaugurating the Tudor age. The remains of Richard were discovered beneath a Leicester car park in September 2021; he now lies in a tomb in Leicester Cathedral.
George VI was known as the ‘reluctant king’, a shy figure rushed to the throne after the abdication of his brother, Edward VIII, in 1936. He was no coward, though. As Prince Albert, he fought with distinction in the great naval battle of Jutland in 1916. During the Second World War, he resolutely stayed at Buckingham Palace, despite the German bombing of London (the palace was hit nine times). He and his wife toured devastated cities to boost morale and in 1940 he instituted the George Cross and George Medal, civilian awards for bravery. For a reserved man, hesitant in the limelight, he diligently performed his duty in war.
Described as the last great medieval battle in Britain, the battle of Flodden, Northumberland, was a clash between the armies of King James IV of Scotland and King Henry VIII of England. Led by Thomas Howard, Earl of Surrey, the English force outmanoeuvred the Scots and inflicted a major defeat – James IV was among the dead. Today the battlefield site has open access and is dominated by a monument to the dead, erected in 1910.
Clockwise from top left: Reconstruction drawing of the Battle of Flodden, 1513; Battle of Culloden, 16 April 1746 – the English army under William, Duke of Cumberland, who was known as Butcher Cumberland due to his brutality, crushed the Scots in just 40 minutes; Cromwell routs the Royalist army led by Charles II at the Battle of Worcester, 1651
A landmark clash in the English Civil War (1642–1651), the battle of Worcester was fought on 3 September 1651 between royalist Scottish forces of Charles II and the Parliamentary army of Oliver Cromwell. Charles’s outnumbered force was pushed back into Worcester, which fell to the Parliamentarians. Charles escaped to France but was restored to the throne in 1660. Vestiges of the battle are dotted around modern Worcester, including a Civil War visitor centre in the Commandery, the royalist HQ during the battle.
On 16 April 1746, the last Stuart claimant to the throne –Charles Edward Stuart, aka ‘Bonnie Prince Charlie’ – fought an English army of King George II on Drumossie Moor bordering the village of Culloden in the Scottish Highlands. Lasting only an hour, the clash was the last major battle fought on British soil. Charles’s small army was brutally vanquished, and its leader fled to France. The modern battlesite has a Culloden Visitor Centre and nearby are headstones of clansmen who died for the Jacobite cause.
