Download or read book Born to Rule written by Julia P. Gelardi and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2007-04-01 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Julia Gelardi's Born to Rule is an historical tour de force that weaves together the powerful and moving stories of the five royal granddaughters of Queen Victoria. These five women were all married to reigning European monarchs during the early part of the 20th century, and it was their reaction to the First World War that shaped the fate of a continent and the future of the modern world. Here are the stories of Alexandra, whose enduring love story, controversial faith in Rasputin, and tragic end have become the stuff of legend; Marie, the flamboyant and eccentric queen who battled her way through a life of intrigues and was also the mother of two Balkan queens and of the scandalous Carol II of Romania; Victoria Eugenie, Spain's very English queen who, like Alexandra, introduced hemophilia into her husband's family-with devastating consequences for her marriage; Maud, King Edward VII's daughter, who was independent Norway's reluctant queen; and Sophie, Kaiser Wilhelm II's much maligned sister, daughter of an Emperor and herself the mother of no less than three kings and a queen, who ended her days in bitter exile. Born to Rule evokes a world of luxury, wealth, and power in a bygone era, while also recounting the ordeals suffered by a unique group of royal women who at times faced poverty, exile, and death. Praised in their lifetimes for their legendary beauty, many of these women were also lauded-and reviled-for their political influence. Using never before published letters, memoirs, diplomatic documents, secondary sources, and interviews with descendents of the subjects, Julia Gelardi's Born to Rule is an astonishing and memorable work of popular history.
Download or read book Twilight of Splendor written by Greg King and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2007-06-04 with total page 378 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Features the court of Britain's longest-reigning monarch Royalty and the Victorian era, with coverage of the people, pageantry, and power of Queen Victoria's court. Beginning with the Queen's 1897 Diamond Jubilee, this book describes her long reign. It paints a portrait of a unique ruler at the height of empire.
Download or read book Royal Bastards written by Peter Beauclerk-Dewar and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-10-24 with total page 367 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1066 when William the Conqueror (alias William the Bastard) took the throne, English and Scottish kings have sired at least 150 children out of wedlock. Many were acknowedged at court and founded dynasties of their own - several of today's dukedoms are descended from them. Others were only acknowledged grudgingly or not at all. In the twentieth century this trend for royals to father illegitimate children continued, but the parentage, while highly probably, has not been officially recognised. This book - split into four sections: Tudor, Stuart, Henoverian and, perhaps most fascinating, Royal Loose Ends - is a genuinely fresh approach to British kings and queens, examining their lives and times through the unfamiliar perspective of their illegitimate children.
Download or read book Victoria and Albert written by Richard Hough and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 1996-10-15 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The life of Queen Victoria and the passionate love she shared with the German Prince Albert."--Jacket.
Download or read book Princess Victoria Melita written by John Van der Kiste and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-10-21 with total page 245 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Princess Victoria Melita played a colourful role from her birth in 1876. The second daughter of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, she made a brief and unhappy marriage at the age of 17 to her cousin, Ernest, Grand Duke of Hesse. In the face of strong opposition from her family she divorced him seven years later and married another cousin, Grand Duke Cyril of Russia, resulting in three years of exile. When revolution toppled the empire in 1917, the Grand Duke and Duchess and their children escaped to Finland, living in danger for three long years. Following the atrocities of the Bolsheviks at the time, including the murder of most of the Romanov family, the Grand Duke believed he was the senior surviving member of the imperial house, and proclaimed himself Tsar. However, they were never able to return to their homeland, and the Grand Duchess died in exile in 1936. Using previously unpublished correspondence from the Royal Archives and Astor papers, this is a portrait of the Princess, set against the imperial courst of the turn of the 20th century and inter-war Europe.
Download or read book Alix and Nicky written by Virginia Rounding and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2012-01-17 with total page 401 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A study of the marriage of the last Russian tsar and tsarina offers psychological insights into their relationship and covers the Empress's ill health, their relationship with confidante Ania Vyrubova, and their reliance on the infamous Rasputin.
Download or read book The Monarchy and the British Nation 1780 to the Present written by Andrzej Olechnowicz and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-11-29 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What has been the function of monarchy in the political and social life of Britain?
Download or read book Albert and Victoria written by E. J. Feuchtwanger and published by A&C Black. This book was released on 2006-01-01 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A joint biography of Britain's most remarkable and influential royal couple. >
Download or read book Queen Victoria s Children written by John Van der Kiste and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-10-24 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Queen Victoria and Albert, Prince Consort had nine children who despite their very different characters, remained a close-knit family. Inevitably, as they married into European royal families their loyalties were divided and their lives dominated by political controversy. This is not only the story of their lives in terms of world impact, but also of their own personal achievements, their individual contributions to public life in Britain and overseas and in their roles as the children of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort.
Download or read book A Compendium of World Sovereigns Volume III Early Modern written by Timothy Venning and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-06-30 with total page 920 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Compendium of World Sovereigns series contains three volumes: Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern. These volumes provide students with easy-to-access ‘who’s who’ with details on the identities and dates, ages and wives, where known, of heads of government in any given state at any time within the framework of reference. The relevant original and secondary sources are also listed in a comprehensive bibliography. Providing a clear reference guide for students, to who was who and when they ruled in the dynasties and other ruler-lists for the Ancient, Medieval, and Early Modern worlds – primarily European and Middle Eastern but including available information on Africa and Asia and the pre-Columbian Americas. The trilogy accesses and interprets the original data plus any modern controversies and disputes over names and dating, reflecting on the shifts and widening of focus in student and academic studies. Each volume contains league tables of rulers’ ‘records’, and an extensive bibliographical guide to the relevant personnel and dynasties, plus any controversies, so readers can consult these for extra details and know exactly where to go for which information. All relevant information is collected and provided as a one-stop-shop for students wishing to check the known information about a world Sovereign. The Early Modern volume begins with Eastern and Western Europe and moves through the Ottoman Empire, South and East Asia, Africa, and ends in Central and South America. Compendium of World Sovereigns: Volume III Early Modern provides students and scholars with the perfect reference guide to support their studies and to fact check dates, people, and places.
Download or read book Queen Victoria s Daughters in Law written by John Van Der Kiste and published by Pen and Sword History. This book was released on 2023-03-23 with total page 284 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Of Queen Victoria’s four sons, the eldest married a Danish princess, one a Russian Grand Duchess, and the other two princesses of German royal houses. The first to join the family of the ‘Grandmama of Europe’ was Alexandra, eldest daughter of the prince about to become King Christian IX of Denmark. Charming, ever sympathetic and widely considered one of the most attractive royal women of her time, she was prematurely deaf and suffered from a limp which was made fashionable by court ladies due to her popularity. Alexandra proved an ideal wife for the Prince of Wales, later King Edward VII. Grand Duchess Marie, daughter of Tsar Alexander II of Russia and wife of Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and later Saxe-Coburg Gotha, was cultured and intelligent, but dowdy, haughty and, convinced of the Romanovs’ superiority, resented having to give precedence at court to her in-laws. Louise of Prussia, a niece of William I, German Emperor, had the good fortune to escape from a miserable family life in Berlin and marry Arthur, Duke of Connaught, a dedicated army officer who was always the Queen’s favorite among her children. Finally, Helen of Waldeck-Pyrmont, sister of Emma, Queen Consort of the Netherlands, became the wife of the cultured Leopold, Duke of Albany, but he was hemophiliac and their marriage was destined to be the briefest of all, cut short by his sudden death less than three years later. All four were very different personalities, proved themselves to be supportive wives, mothers and daughters-in-law in their own way, and dedicated workers for charity at home and abroad. Based partly on previously unpublished material from the Royal Archives at Windsor and Madrid, and the Leonie Leslie Papers, University of Chicago, this is the first book to study all four as a family group.
Download or read book The Resurrection of the Romanovs written by Greg King and published by Turner Publishing Company. This book was released on 2010-12-10 with total page 494 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The truth of the enduring mystery of Anastasia's fate-and the life of her most convincing impostor The passage of more than ninety years and the publication of hundreds of books in dozens of languages has not extinguished an enduring interest in the mysteries surrounding the 1918 execution of the last Russian Tsar Nicholas II and his family. The Resurrection of the Romanovs draws on a wealth of new information from previously unpublished materials and unexplored sources to probe the most enduring Romanov mystery of all: the fate of the Tsar's youngest daughter, Anastasia, whose remains were not buried with those of her family, and her identification with Anna Anderson, the woman who claimed to be the missing Grand Duchess. Penetrates the intriguing mysteries surrounding the execution of Tsar Nicholas II and the true fate of his daughter, Anastasia Reveals previously unknown details of Anderson's life as Franziska Schanzkowska Explains how Anderson acquired her knowledge, why people believed her claim, and how it transformed Anastasia into a cultural phenomenon Draws on unpublished materials including Schanzkowska family memoirs, legal papers, and exclusive access to private documents of the British and Hessian Royal Families Includes 75 photographs, dozens published here for the first time Written by the authors of The Fate of the Romanovs Refuting long-accepted evidence in the Anderson case, The Resurrection of the Romanovs finally explodes the greatest royal mystery of the twentieth-century.
Download or read book Alice written by Hugo Vickers and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2013-07-09 with total page 516 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hugo Vickers's Alice is the remarkable story of Princess Andrew of Greece, whose life seemed intertwined with every event of historical importance in twentieth century Europe. "In 1953, at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, Princess Alice was dressed from head to foot in a long gray dress and a gray cloak, and a nun's veil. Amidst all the jewels, and velvet and coronets, and the fine uniforms, she exuded an unworldly simplicity. Seated with the royal family, she was a part of them, yet somehow distanced from them. Inasmuch as she is remembered at all today, it is as this shadowy figure in gray nun's clothes..." Princess Alice, mother of Prince Phillip, was something of a mystery figure even within her own family. She was born deaf, at Windsor Castle, in the presence of her grandmother, Queen Victoria, and brought up in England, Darmstadt, and Malta. In 1903 she married Prince Andrew of Greece and Denmark, and from then on her life was overshadowed by wars, revolutions, and enforced periods of exile. By the time she was thirty-five, virtually every point of stability was overthrown. Though the British royal family remained in the ascendant, her German family ceased to be ruling princes, her two aunts who had married Russian royalty had come to savage ends, and soon afterwards Alice's own husband was nearly executed as a political scapegoat. The middle years of her life, which should have followed a conventional and fulfilling path, did the opposite. She suffered from a serious religious crisis and at the age of forty-five was removed from her family and placed in a sanitarium in Switzerland, where she was pronounced a paranoid schizophrenic. As her stay in the clinic became prolonged, there was a time where it seemed she might never walk free again. How she achieved her recovery is just one of the remarkable aspects of her story.
Download or read book The Romanov Sisters written by Helen Rappaport and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2014-06-03 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historian Helen Rappaport brings the four daughters of the last Tsar to life in their own words, illuminating the opulence of their doomed world and their courage as they faced a terrible end.
Download or read book Royalty and Diplomacy in Europe 1890 1914 written by Roderick R. McLean and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2007-07-26 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This 2001 book examines the diplomatic role of royal families in the era before the outbreak of the First World War. It argues that previous historians have neglected for political reasons the important political and diplomatic role of monarchs during the period. Particular attention is given to the Prusso-German, Russian and British monarchies. The Prusso-German and Russian monarchies were central in their countries' diplomacy and foreign policy, principally as a result of their control over diplomatic and political appointments. However, the book also argues that the British monarchy played a much more influential role in British diplomacy than has been accepted hitherto by historians. Individual themes examined include relations between Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II, the political significance of the ill-feeling between Wilhelm II and his uncle King Edward VII, the role of Edward VII in British diplomacy, and the impact of royal visits on pre-1914 Anglo-German relations.
Download or read book A Magnificent Obsession written by Helen Rappaport and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2012-03-13 with total page 635 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As she did in her critically acclaimed The Last Days of the Romanovs, Helen Rappaport brings a compelling documentary feel to the story of this royal marriage and of the queen's obsessive love for her husband – a story that began as fairy tale and ended in tragedy. After the untimely death of Prince Albert, the queen and her nation were plunged into a state of grief so profound that this one event would dramatically alter the shape of the British monarchy. For Britain had not just lost a prince: during his twenty year marriage to Queen Victoria, Prince Albert had increasingly performed the function of King in all but name. The outpouring of grief after Albert's death was so extreme, that its like would not be seen again until the death of Princess Diana 136 years later. Drawing on many letters, diaries and memoirs from the Royal Archives and other neglected sources, as well as the newspapers of the day, Rappaport offers a new perspective on this compelling historical psychodrama--the crucial final months of the prince's life and the first long, dark ten years of the Queen's retreat from public view. She draws a portrait of a queen obsessed with her living husband and – after his death – with his enduring place in history. Magnificent Obsession will also throw new light on the true nature of the prince's chronic physical condition, overturning for good the 150-year old myth that he died of typhoid fever.
Download or read book Sons Servants and Statesmen written by John Van der Kiste and published by The History Press. This book was released on 2011-10-21 with total page 219 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How was Queen Victoria influenced by her closest male ministers, relatives, advisers and servants? John Van der Kiste is the first to explore this aspect of Victoria's life; focusing on four roles - mentors, family, ministers and servants. A soldier's daughter, Victoria lost her father at the age of eight months. Although her uncle Leopold did his best to be a substitute father, the absence of her real father probably influenced her throughout her life, not least in choosing her husband. Her close and faithful relationship with Albert is one of the great royal love stories but her relationships with her sons were much more stormy. However, with most of her heads of government she enjoyed relatively cordial relations - in widowhood she shoed a decided partiality for Disraeli, who acquired for her the title Empress of India, but disliked Gladstone, complaining that he "speaks to me as if I were a public meeting". Queen Victoria's relationships with her servants are also explored, from the liberal influence exerted over the increasingly conservative queen by her private secretary, Ponsonby, to the outspoken John Brown and the Indian Munshi, who both antagonised those around her.
