My latest articles: Princess Esmeralda on her grandparents, Queen Charlotte and Ludwig II's bride

I used to post updates here about articles I write, but in the final months of work on my new book there was no time for that, but now that the book is done I will try to resume that habit, starting with the October issue of Majesty, which went on sale in Britain last Thursday and will soon reach other countries too.
In this issue (Vol. 36, No. 10, October 2015) you will find the first part of an interview I recently did with the author and climate change activist Princess Esmeralda of Belgium, the youngest daughter of King Léopold III. This time she speaks about her grandparents, King Albert I and Queen Elisabeth, who are the topic of a book she and Christophe Vachaudez co-authored last year. In the second part of the interview, which will appear in the November issue, Princess Esmeralda will talk about her father, his downfall and how he built a new life for himself after his abdication, and in the third and final part, in the December issue, she will share her memories of her controversial mother, Princess Lilian. All three parts will include several unusual photos.
In the October issue I have also written an article on Queen Charlotte of Britain, the long-suffering consort of "mad" King George III, who was often severely tested by misfortune, but who, in spite of everything, managed to maintain her sanity.
I have written no less than three articles in this issue, and the last of them deals with Duchess Sophie in Bavaria, the younger sister of Empress Elisabeth of Austria, who was engaged to the legendary, eccentric King Ludwig II of Bavaria, fell in love with a photographer, married a French Prince, was locked away in a mental asylum when she fell in love with her doctor and died a horrible death. Hers was surely one of the most dramatic and tragic of royal life stories.

On this date: 300 years of the Hanoverians/Windsors

300 years ago today, at around 7.30 a.m. on 1 August 1714, Queen Anne of Great Britain and Ireland died at the age. As the Queen had lost eighteen children and Catholics had been disinherited by the Act of Settlement of 1701, Queen Anne was succeeded by her second cousin, Elector Georg Ludwig of Hanover, who became King George I.
Thus today also marks the tercentenary of the current British royal house. Although the Hanoverians are frequently viewed as separate from the Windsors it is the same dynasty despite the name having been changed and the crown having passed to junior lines within the dynasty in 1830, 1837 and 1936.

New books: A stunning book on the British crown jewels

When Queen Elizabeth II of Britain recently visited Westminster Abbey she was shown the Coronation Chair, which was being restored, and remarked that she had not actually seen it since sitting in it on 2 June 1953. With Elizabeth II in the second half of her eighties, the Coronation Chair being restored is of course a sign of the fact that the next British coronation is approaching. Perhaps this is also the context in which one should see the publication of a two-volume, scholarly work on the British crown jewels in 2008 and now another book on the same topic aiming at a more general public.
The Crown Jewels by historian Anna Keay, who is curatorial director of English Heritage, was published by Thames & Hudson in cooperation with the Royal Collection and Historic Royal Palaces at the end of last year and is a stunningly beautiful book in its design and choice of high-quality illustrations.
They include many paintings showing the splendours of past state occasions, but also other historical illustrations as well as close-up photographs of the items in the crown jewels collection, whole pieces as well as details. A clever touch has been to bring together several items of regalia to be photographed together for comparison, for instance the crowns of Queens Alexandra, Mary and Elizabeth, or the Imperial State Crown from 1937 alongside the now empty frames of the state crowns from 1838 and 1714.
The well-written text takes the reader on a chronological journey through the history of British crown jewels and regalia, starting with the so-called “Mill Hill warrior”, the body of an Iron Age king dating to 200-150 BC who was found by archaeologists in 1988, wearing on his head the earliest known English crown.
Three chapters are dedicated to early English regalia, but it is a sad fact that the 12th century coronation spoon is the only medieval item in the collection. The other older crown jewels were melted down when the country became a republic following the execution of Charles I in 1649.
New regalia thus had to be made when his son Charles II was restored to the throne in 1660 and Keay points out how one was so keen to link these new regalia to their lost medieval predecessors that one recreated even pieces one did not know what were supposed to be used for.
Several pieces have been added also in the centuries following the restoration and they are all covered by this book. Sadly, several grand pieces are no longer in existence or survive simply as empty frames, such as the dazzling all-diamond crown commissioned by George IV for his coronation in 1821, which was set with hired jewels subsequently returned to the jeweller.
Other pieces have fallen into disuse, such as the crown made for James II’s wife, Mary of Modena, which William IV’s Queen Adelaide thought unsuitable for use. Every queen consort since then has had a new crown made for her, although Queen Mary had intended that the exquisite crown she had made in 1911 should be the permanent crown of queens consort. However, when it became clear that she intended to attend the coronation of her son George VI in 1937 and wear that crown (without its arches), a new crown had to be made for her daughter-in-law Elizabeth.
The book also deals with the items which are not strictly speaking regalia, but are kept with them in the Tower and thus counted as crown jewels, such as the splendid tableware used for the coronation banquets, baptismal fonts and other items intended for the royal chapels, processional swords and maces. Thus the book also serves as some sort of splendid catalogue of the items one will see on a visit to the Tower of London.
“While the Crown Jewels are unquestionably impressive in their own right [...] it is their use at great ceremonial occasions that gives them their real power. The objects in the collection were not designed to be viewed in the solitary splendour of a glass case, but to play in the ensemble orchestra of royal ritual”, the author observes on the penultimate page of the book. My only objection to this book is precisely that it does not say much about the actual use of the crown jewels.
For instance, Keay does note that St Edward’s crown, until then used for the actual crowning but replaced with the state crown before the monarch left the Abbey, ceased to be used by the early eighteenth century, a practice which was only revived by George V in 1911. But otherwise we hear little about the regalia’s use for other occasions than coronations.
My first “personal acquaintance” with the British regalia was seeing the crown of Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother resting on top of her coffin at her lying-in-state in Westminster Hall. But although Keay tells us that St Edward’s crown was placed on the coffin of Edward VII, Queen Victoria’s small diamond crown on hers and a replica of the state crown on Charles II’s the reader is left to wonder if crowns being placed on royal coffins have been a common practice and if so for how long.
Similarly one may wonder how old the tradition of wearing the crown at state openings of parliament is. The current practice dates only to George V and 1913, but was this the invention of a tradition or had crowns been worn to Parliament by earlier monarchs?
A more thorough treatment of the use of the regalia than just a word here and there would have served to bring the regalia to life, so to speak, and also give a fuller picture of their symbolical and ceremonial meaning.

New books: British royal portraiture

The British Royal Collection is not only the most masterpiece-studded art collection of any reigning monarch (perhaps only Liechtenstein can rival it), but also at the top of its league when it comes to publishing a wide range of books and catalogues dealing with the collection.
Their latest publication, The Royal Portrait: Image and Impact by Jennifer Scott, assistant curator of paintings, came out in September and is a richly illustrated volume of 200 pages which deals with the traditions of royal portraiture in Britain.
This is naturally a vast topic and after a first chapter on early English royal portraits, going back to the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, the author chooses to focus on some periods of time when the art of royal portraiture was of particular significance or interest – those of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I, Charles I and Charles II, George III, Victoria and Elizabeth II.
This means that all reigns and all epochs are not covered as thoroughly and that the book is thus somewhat incomplete. Yet this selection is understandable considering the book’s format.
It also appears to be a good choice of epochs to focus on – Sir Oliver Millar, a former Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures described the era of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert as “the last moderately heroic chapter in the history of royal patronage and taste in this country”, while another former Surveyor, Christopher Lloyd, has pointed out that the Royal Collection contains “nothing of true significance after 1900”. However, Queen Elizabeth II has probably sat for more portrait than any other monarch of our times (Queen Margrethe II being a possible exception) and thus justifies being included in this book.
What I miss are some more thoughts on how the arts have been used to legitimise the position of monarchs and a more comparative perspective relating to international tendencies. As it is, the book is almost entirely dedicated to English and British developments with very few glances at how this related to other contemporary courts.
The book’s somewhat disengaged, “official” character sometimes shines through, such as when the author includes a “paparazzo portrayal of Prince William and Prince Harry off-duty, sitting together at a rugby match” as an example of “methods [...] more opportunistic than artistic” but makes no mention of Kate Middleton’s presence next to Prince William, which probably had a lot to say for the media interest in this particular photo, or when the 2006 film The Queen is described as “loosely based on factual events and at times sensitively done”, yet “in fact imaginary”.
Despite these weaknesses the book, which seems to be aimed mostly at the general public, does provide a good overall survey of the history and development of British royal portraiture.

New books: Queen Victoria and Prince Albert

One may wonder what might be the purpose of yet another book on Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Britain. One reason for writing one might be that one had found new material; another that one believed oneself capable of telling the story from a new angle and thereby reaching a new understanding. The latter seems to be the American author Gillian Gill’s incentive for writing We Two: Victoria and Albert: Rulers, Partners, Rivals, published by Ballantine Books of New York last spring and soon out in paperback.
Gill’s main focus is the relations between human beings. Queen Victoria’s and Prince Albert’s marriage was not the romanticised thing often portrayed, but “an extraordinary feat achieved against the odds”, Gill writes. She argues that “their marriage was always a work in progress, not a fait accompli, a drama not a pageant. Theirs was a business partnership as well as a marriage, and they engaged in an impassioned, weirdly public contest over who was the senior partner”.
This is an interesting approach, yet Gills somehow downplays how stormy the marriage in fact was and how Queen Victoria, particularly in later years, often tormented her husband. A closer look at this might have added to our understanding of the Queen’s excessive grief and her idolisation of her husband after his death – a grief to which it seems a certain amount of regret and perhaps sense of guilt was added.
The book is very well written, it is clear that the author is very familiar with her theme and the way she describes the interaction between the Queen and the Prince Consort is interesting. Yet it is a paradox that the best part of the book is the first, titled “The Years Alone”, where she explores the respective backgrounds and upbringings of Victoria and Albert.
Gill seems particularly taken with the tale of the young Victoria and how she, after an unhappy and constrained childhood, at the time of her accession at the age of 18 emerged as a monarch who “understood the business of monarchy better than any of her male ancestors”. In contrast, she argues, Prince Albert was “just an overprotected youth fatally confident of his abilities to rule a kingdom”. To me this seems a bit over the top. As Gill also acknowledges, Queen Victoria was during the first years of her reign closely aligned with one political party and at odds with the other and she put her feet wrong on a number of occasions. It cannot be denied that Prince Albert’s understanding of constitutional monarchy was superior to hers and that his influence on her in that respect was very significant.
The book’s focus on the personal relations means that Victoria’s and Albert’s, and particularly the Prince Consort’s, achievements on the public stage get somewhat lost. It is also obvious that Gillian Gill is more at home when it comes to personal relationships than less domestic historical and political events. This shows both through a number of gross factual mistakes, such as when she ascribes the Brumaire coup to Napoléon III, and through her according individuals too much influence on history.
A notable example of the latter is when she writes that if Prince Albert had lived a year longer he might have persuaded Crown Prince Friedrich of Prussia not to talk his father out of abdicating. If so, Friedrich’s wife, the eldest daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, would have become Queen of Prussia in 1862 and Gill tells us: “It is not absurd to argue that, had the prince consort lived even one more year, had his daughter Vicky had a chance to dictate Crown policy and shape society in Prussia, there might not have been a First World War”. This is not only absurd but utter nonsense. Firstly, history shows that Prussian queens consort had very little chance to influence society or dictate policy. Secondly, the reasons for World War I were so complex that no single person would have been able to prevent it no matter the strength of her character.
The author has a slight bias towards Queen Victoria at the expense of Prince Albert and occasionally seems to be a little chauvinistic on behalf of her own sex towards men in general. Nevertheless she is mostly, although not always, quite fair towards both her two subjects. One notable exception is when she persists in arguing that Queen Victoria following her husband’s death rather enjoyed playing what she calls “the tragedy queen”. One might agree with Gill that the way Queen Victoria expressed her grief through four decades might have been a little over the top, yet it seems obvious that her grief was genuine and that she did not view Prince Albert’s death as her own victory in their struggle for power.
It should be added that the book’s design (by Barbara Bachman) is very good.

When it comes to the literature about Queen Victoria and Prince Albert it may be added as a postscript that the upcoming exhibition “Victoria & Albert: Art & Love” at the Queen’s Gallery in London will be accompanied by a catalogue running to 430 pages, edited by Jonathan Marsden.